A breath went through the pines. Uncount­ed mil­lions of gold-green nee­dles qua­vered and heaved, pressed by a mild and resinous wind. The air thick­ened, yel­lowed with cloy­ing dust from boughs’ young cones. Great beards of hoary moss wavered, lick­ing their trail­ing ends on the for­est floor, then stilled.

In the ensu­ing hush, crick­ets put up a rar­efied, hes­i­tant saw­ing. Crows croaked only briefly, dis­tant. The chew­ing of green cater­pil­lars, long and fat as fore­arms, grum­bled above. And below, two sets of boots padded over the nee­dled soil. 

Black sol­diers’ boots. Two sol­diers, women in red wool uni­form and cuirass­es. One hob­bled, sup­port­ed by the oth­er. Her head lolled. Dark specks drib­bled from one ruined eye down her col­lar and dent­ed plas­tron.

“Lydie?” she mum­bled, feet drag­ging. “How long’ have we been walk­ing?”

Lyd gri­maced, adjust­ed her bur­den. “Been a time. Can’t real­ly see the sun to tell.”

“S’all yel­low. Where are we?”

“In the woods, Suse.”

“Can’t hear the fight­ing.”

“Haven’t heard it for a while. You’ve been a spot out of it.” Lyd looked to her friend. “How’s your head?”

Suse took a moment to respond, slack-jawed. “Hot,” she said, final­ly. “Shou… should­nt’a pulled it out.”

Lyd pressed a palm to her friend’s fore­head. Sweat and fever neath her palm. She frowned. “Shite.”

They stum­bled on aways. Now and again, a rush would go through the pines. All bent and swayed. Nee­dles shook free and spi­raled down. Gouts of yel­low pollen choked the air, cling­ing to the sol­diers’ sweat­ed skin and stick­ing musty-sweet in their lungs. They coughed up wads of the stuff.

Suse halt­ed, stum­bled, slid to her knees, hack­ing weak­ly. Lyd guid­ed her down, prof­fered a warm can­teen. “Drink up.”

“Thanks,” gasped Suse, drib­bling

“Lemme look at that eye.” Lyd pulled sticky hair from her brow, revealed the wound. She grit­ted her teeth.

“Aye, s’bad” com­ment­ed Suse. She slumped back on the car­pet of nee­dles. Her good right eye flut­tered. She sighed. “Go scout ahead, yeah? Not much left in me.”

“Don’t wan­na leave you.”

“Do it.”

Dis­may wrin­kled Lyd’s lip. She sur­veyed Suse where she lay, cush­ioned by amber-nee­dled earth and tired breath.

“Alright,” Lyd snif­fled. She backed up sev­er­al steps. “I’ll be back soon, aye? Don’t ye be dying. Ja?”

“Get, y’sil­ly tit.

Lyd smiled at her com­rade mis­er­ably, rubbed away pollen and tears. She depart­ed. Her black boots reced­ed into the amber wood.

Suse was alone. She breathed deep ten­drils of yel­low air, sighed, blink­ing slow and heav­i­ly. Her good eye stilled and fad­ed.

Before she suc­cumbed, she spied a flut­ter of wings midst the amber pines.

Suse awoke in a dark­ened wood. Murky, scarce­ly lit by a yel­low moon through mat­ted boughs. Striped cream-and-gold moths flashed midst the pines, wings wide as bushel-lids. Thick, gelid mist flowed over the dry nee­dles, round Suse’s fin­gers and limbs. She shiv­ered and stag­gered aright from the wash of fog.

She stretched, groaned. Her lips were dried togeth­er. An inch-deep lay­er of twigs and nee­dles fell from her damp woolens, and her red coat split about the elbows, ful­ly rot­ted. It car­ried the damp, cold smell of earth.

Suse brushed away the accret­ed nee­dles and moss, bemused. She squint­ed and rubbed her eyes, abrupt­ly stopped with a jolt of recog­ni­tion. Ten­ta­tive­ly, she probed the left sock­et with shak­ing fin­gers. Naught but fused and man­gled skin.

“Lydie?” she called, hoarse. Not a voice answered.

Suse turned about slow, peered through the grey spaces between black trunks. Thou­sands of pil­lars in a canopied hall of sticks and nee­dles. Pil­lars, spot­ted with hol­lows and holes, where­in uncer­tain illu­sions of eyes crouched.

Suse star­tled: Round one bole, she spied some­thing pale in the moon­light. She squint­ed, focused, cried out.

It was a face. Like a white heart pulled round the trunk by long, white fin­gers. Eyes like pots of ink. It fixed her with a look of pursed intent.

“Hal­lo?” rasped Suse.

“Hal­lo,” said the face, qui­et. Accent­ed, draw­ing out the uncer­tain word. It stepped round the tree, revealed a lis­some frame clad in gos­samer. It stood bare­foot, near-insep­a­ra­ble from the crawl­ing mist. “You slept for a long time.”

Suse stam­mered and took a step back. “Y–yeah?” She pawed for her dag­ger, found it and her muni­tions cuirass were miss­ing. * Her clothes, sod­den with rot, were slough­ing from her frame. “What did you bloody do to me, älf?”

“Noth­ing,” said the crea­ture, amus­ed­ly. “They did.” He indi­cat­ed the moths over­head

“M-moths?” said Suse, frown­ing, dart­ed her gaze up and about. “Wait, what do you mean ‘we?’ ”

“Yes.”

Suse’s eyes went wide. A dozen or more black-eyed crea­tures sprout­ed from the cold mist, lift­ed from hid­den repose. Pale as vapor, save for black pits of eyes.

“Lis­ten,” said Suse, shiv­er­ing. “I just want to find my friend, ja? She’s a sol­dier like me. We were lost.”

A tit­ter­ing cho­rus of cru­el, musi­cal laugh­ter moment­ly sound­ed. “We’re all lost, here.”

“Where is she?” insist­ed Suse.

“I told you, you slept for a long time.” The lead älf was abrupt­ly seri­ous. “She’s far away.”

“How bloody far away?”

One by one, the älves began to van­ish, slip behind pines. Suse frowned, tried to keep them in her sight. They slipped away like so much dis­solv­ing mist. Only the first remained.

“How far?” said Suse, whis­per­ing.

“Twen­ty years far,” said the heart-shaped face, soft, and van­ished.

Suse was alone.

Forbidden woods

From their very ear­li­est age, chil­dren are taught an imper­a­tive set of lessons: Do not go into the woods at night; do not go alone; and do not go too deep. Else­wise, you’ll nev­er be seen again. Though such lessons are in part super­sti­tion, they are not with­out mer­it, for there is no place both so trepid and so close to home as the dark­ness neath for­bid­den woods. **

Fear of the for­est is no out­dat­ed super­sti­tion. No bygone ter­ror. Some years back, Lord Ardyce of Flué, Chief Coro­ner to the Crown, com­piled a study of deaths in out­ly­ing Firl­ish vil­lages. His find­ings showed “dis­ap­peared in for­est” to be among the lead­ing caus­es of pre­sumed death in most wilder­land coun­ties.

Pre­cise­ly how folk come to meet their wood­land van­ish­ment is a mat­ter of myth and awful real­i­ty com­bined. In every old-growth reach of green, where sun and air fil­ter ten­u­ous­ly through oak and pine, there are sure­ly car­niv­o­rous rag­wretch­es and wolves, ready to snatch a way­ward trav­el­er from their path. † Deep­er, the mon­sters are worse. Stryge, troll-things, and wick­er-witch­es. Sor­cer­ous mon­sters, crept from Tombs long ago over­took by the wood. 

To dis­ap­pear with­in the depths of trees by no means assures a car­niv­o­rous and vio­lent end, though. Even con­front­ed with the lurk­ing pres­ence of very real beasts, folk still con­fi­dent­ly ply forests’ edges in the day; trav­el­ling, col­lect wood, and gath­er­ing the fruit of the woods. They have worse to wor­ry about. Mon­sters are mere­ly the most tan­gi­ble of their fears.

Every for­est of leg­end, be it Basa­tine Wood, which divides the Alagóran Penin­su­la from its wilder moun­tains; Oldaren, East of Fir­lund; or the end­less pines of Anghen­feldt, is defined by a remark­able trait, more ter­ri­ble than even the mon­sters with­in: End­less­ness.

It may seem a sim­ple thing. A fluke of direc­tion caused by mas­sive scale, for indeed the shores of such forests are immense. It is no fluke. If one enters a for­est, they will nev­er find its end. Nev­er, at least, an end in the world they start­ed from.

To be lost in the woods is to risk stum­bling from one world into anoth­er. They are lim­i­nal zones. Spaces between the world and the Oth­er. This is what folk fear the most, for once lost in the Oth­er­world, there is rarely a chance at return.

Though leg­end tells of braves, magi­cians, and knight-errants who ven­tured beyond the fold of the Oth­er and returned, such a return is nigh-myth to real folk. If in the event they do return, they will doubt­ful come back unchanged.

How one comes to slip beyond the world, or avoid doing so, is woe­ful­ly unclear. Most reli­ably, folk­lore advis­es nev­er to tread the deep woods at night, for the Oth­er is clos­er in noc­tur­nal hours. Mist and storm, they say, will also thin the bound­aries. Some forests exhib­it observ­able and reli­able gate­ways, beyond which none can turn back. For instance, some five miles into the yel­low pines of Tia­ga, few can return after night­fall.

Where the Oth­er comes clos­est, its denizens slip with­out. Älves dwell there, for­ay from their alien fast­ness into the Lit­toral realm They are said to pos­sess an uncan­ny abil­i­ty to slip from the Oth­er and back again, to fade into unsight where it sat­u­rates the world.

Many älves prey the line between world and Oth­er, hop­ing to find some amuse­ment in the lost and the way­ward. They are cru­el observers or dead­ly, preda­to­ry tempters, apt to lure Lit­torans to a sad end. Their depre­da­tions are more ter­ri­ble, more dis­may­ing than any mon­ster.

For fear of the Oth­er and its chil­dren, folk shun its thresh­old, the deep forests: The spaces between.