The Ragwitch

The shadows at last became one and the forest was in true twilight, if only for a short time. Paul paused to look at the darkening sky and began to hear the noises of the forest night. Still he kept on, stumbling over the roots and vines he could no longer see. Panic was beginning to fill his mind and he could not think of stopping.

Suddenly, without notice, it was fully dark–a blackness so complete that Paul couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Exhausted, he slipped to the ground, shivering between the two cradling arms of a giant root.

Everywhere there were subtle sounds: leaves crunching, twigs snapping–each tiny noise magnified by the total blackness. Paul’s heartbeat filled his ears, vibrating up through his cheekbones, a bass rhythm in counterpoint to the tenor sounds of something creeping through the night.

The noises became louder and Paul stopped breathing, holding a hand over his mouth and nose. Whatever was making the noise was large, purposeful–and it was sniffing…searching…following his trail. Fear, sweat and blackberries, the scent of a hiding Paul.

The noise became footsteps, gentle, stalking footsteps, coming towards Paul. It knows I’m here, thought Paul desperately. It’s coming quietly, hoping to catch me asleep, or unawares, it’s…

Here! A sudden rush of footsteps, an abortive leap by Paul, and something cold and leathery wrapped round his legs. Ankles trapped, he crashed forward, face down on to the brown mulch of the forest floor.

More leathery tentacles wrapped round his wrists, and Paul’s mind gave way to fear and exhaustion, screaming back into the impenetrable fortress of unconsciousness.

Paul awoke in sunlight, with the vague feeling that he was lucky to be awake at all. He felt strange, cramped, and in an unfamiliar bed. Then, fully awake, he remembered the events of the night before. In the daylight he saw that the leathery tentacles were just some sort of rope, and they were the reason for his cramped awakening.

He was lying on a wooden bed that was a little like a shallow baby’s cot, with his hands and feet tied to the siderails. Surrounding the bed were earth walls–he was obviously in some sort of hole. High above, the sun beamed down, harsh and bright without any leafy interference. On the far side of the hole, a rope ladder hung down from the surface, which was three metres or so above, at least by Paul’s reckoning.

A prison hole, thought Paul gloomily, just like in the film on TV the week before last. Only in the film the bad guys ended up in the hole. But then, in the movies, heroes didn’t go running around weird forests in shorts, trainers and dirty white T-shirts. They also didn’t worry about things like food and drink, Paul thought, acutely aware of his dry and cracking lips, and the dull, rumbling complaint of his stomach.

He tried licking his lips, but there was no moisture in his mouth. Even tears were beyond his dried-out body and he found himself unable to cry. Closing his eyes, Paul thought he might as well die then and there, and save himself the trouble later on–when a few lumps of earth fell on to his chest.

“What were you doing in the forest?” a voice suddenly asked from somewhere above–behind Paul’s head, so he couldn’t see who it was. “And how did you get where you were?”

Paul’s mind snapped back from his despairing thoughts and he craned his neck back to see who was talking. But he couldn’t raise his body from the bed, and so couldn’t arch back far enough. He tried to answer, but only a dull croak came out.

“You wish for some water?” asked the voice, though not in a particularly compassionate tone. “Open your mouth.”

Paul did so immediately, and a cascade of water splashed over his face and up his nose. A little found his mouth. Despite being nearly drowned, it was a very welcome drink, revitalising Paul’s tiny store of determination, and lessening his feelings of despair.

“Now,” said the stern, deep voice. “What were you doing in our forest?”

“I didn’t mean anything,” croaked Paul. “I was just looking for my sister, and then…I was just looking for people.”

“People?” said the voice. “What sort of people were you looking for?”

Frightened by the voice, Paul didn’t answer for a moment. It sounded odd, murky and overlaid with rustling sounds, as if the speaker had to think before talking, and move his lips through a layer of leaves.

“I wanted to find someone. Anyone who could help me find Julia. A town, or a house, where I could find out where I was…where the forest is, I mean.”

“Julia, towns, houses,” muttered the voice, as if cataloguing items of interest. “You won’t find any of them here. And you say you don’t know where the forest is?”

“No, I don’t…is it…is it very far away from Australia?”

“Australia?” repeated the voice, with an odd pronunciation of the name–all drawn and twisted. “Perhaps you are even farther away than you can reckon. If it is of any use to you, this is the Forest of the May Dancers…I am a May Dancer,” added the voice, suddenly closer. “At least, that is what your kind call us.”

Paul felt a slight shudder go through his heart–a tremor of fear that passed through like a metal sliver. Footsteps crunched on the dirt above and Paul looked up.

He had expected to see some sort of man. But the May Dancer who looked down on him had only the shape of a human. He was covered in shifting patterns of leaves, that rustled and moved about his body, revealing skin the texture and colour of ancient bark. His head was also covered in leaves, which streamed behind him in a russet mane. And his eyes were those of an animal: the eyes of a cat carefully watching its prey.

Paul felt just like a mouse caught in the petrifying gaze of a hunter. Even the smallest movement might cause this strange creature to spring, to suddenly snap the tension.

“So,” said the May Dancer, half closing his fearsome eyes, “you have not seen our kind before.”

It was a statement rather than a question, Paul understood. Somehow, he had become the mouse that the cat couldn’t be bothered chasing.

“You have never seen a May Dancer before,” said the creature above, in a half-whisper, as if thinking aloud. “Therefore, you have never seen us dance on the borders of the forest. In fact, as you have never even heard of us, you cannot even be of this Kingdom. And you seek a…Julia.”

Without warning, the May Dancer leapt across the hole and was gone. Startled, Paul instinctively flexed his body to leap away–succeeding only in hurting his wrists and back, held by those leathery ropes.

The next few hours passed in a half-dream, marked by the slow drifting of clouds overhead. Faint sounds carried to him, the noises of the forest: strange bird-calls, and occasionally the heavier thumping of something larger passing nearby. From all this, Paul assumed that he was still in the forest, though the clear sky above indicated a large clearing.

My mid-afternoon, the sun was high above the hole. Paul lay beneath a layer of sunshine with only his feet in shadow, unable to look up because of the glare. The sun made him tired, despite his hunger, and he began to slowly drift off into a nightmarish sleep.

When he awoke, the hole was in darkness, though it was not cold. There were slight sounds all about the hole, sounds that might have been footsteps or muffled whispers…sounds that Paul almost heard and then wondered if he’d imagined them.

Then the May Dancer spoke again. “We have talked of you among those of our people here, and you are to say more. Questions will be asked and you will answer them. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Paul. “Yes–anything you like.”

Another Dancer, farther from the hole, asked the first question, in a softer, stranger voice than the original May Dancer. The words seemed to be more of a wind song than speech and Paul couldn’t understand it, being mesmerised by the lilting tone, rather than listening. The first May Dancer repeated the question: “How did you come to be in the forest?”

“I was following my sister,” replied Paul. He wasn’t sure how he’d come to the forest himself “Her and that horrible doll. They’d built a sort of fire–and then they just disappeared. The fire was sort of scattered, but I rebuilt it and jumped through–and I was in the forest. I didn’t mean to be there–I was just trying to find Julia.”

“Enough,” interrupted the May Dancer. Paul listened to him talking to the others, whispers like wind in the reeds, a tune played by the earth rather than by man. It was rather eerie, he thought, listening to the long, sighing notes in the darkness. Only then did Paul notice that there were no stars–none at all in the vast expanse of the black sky.

“Why did your sister build this fire?” asked the May Dancer, his voice loud above the whisperings.

“I don’t know,” replied Paul, trying to make out the May Dancer’s form above him. “It wasn’t really her. I mean it was her building the fire, but she’d been taken over. The doll had her under its control.” Paul thought back to the Midden, and the words Julia had spat at him in another voice. “The doll spoke to me before it…they jumped in the fire. It talked of being imprisoned and it called itself…the Ragwitch.”

“The Ragwitch,” echoed the May Dancer, the words twisting into a screaming wind, to be picked up by the other Dancers and made into a raging shout. A shout of anger and hatred, but also a shout of ancient fear. The Dancers were moving as well, no longer silently gathered around the prison hole. Branches snapped and crackled, the ground thudded with their heavy, stamping footsteps. Paul closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, blocking the sound from at least one ear. The noise above was like a violent storm, filling the darkness with threats and danger–the sounds heard by people found crushed by falling trees or struck by lightning during a thunderstorm.

Slowly, the noises died. The May Dancers crept back to the hole, drained of noise, if not the fear and anger. Paul listened to their whisperings again, tense, waiting for them to decide his fate. They seemed to be arguing in some fashion, for there were many interruptions and changes of tone–but there was no foot-stamping anger, nor the sudden violence of their shouting.

A few stars appeared in the sky. Paul watched them spring into sight and dimly saw the ragged edge of the long black cloud that had cloaked them. The cloud was blowing north and more stars began to sparkle, lightening the sky.

The May Dancer leant over to speak again and Paul saw a dim silhouette, edged with starlight. Past him, Paul could vaguely make out “human” shapes, blacker than the darkness behind them. They moved slightly all the time, shifting positions to no apparent pattern or purpose.

“We have decided to release you,” the May Dancer said flatly. “You will be taken to the edge of the forest and from there you can go where you will–though you must not come here again.”

Paul nodded dumbly, unable to speak. They were going to let him go and the forest was the last place he’d ever go back to! But he was still wary of the May Dancers. They’d captured him and tied him up, and now they were going to let him go–just like that. But none of it made any sense! Why bother to tie him up if they were going to let him go all along?

The May Dancer dropping into the hole made Paul start, then he relaxed as his bonds were untied. It was odd to see the leafy Dancer so close—the smell of him was like trees newly washed in a summer storm.

Blood rushed into Paul’s hands and feet so quickly he yelped and bent to massage his ankles. A second later, a leafy hand covered his eyes, leaving behind two large green leaves which totally blocked his sight.

“Hey,” exclaimed Paul, letting go of his ankles to feel his eyes. “What are you doing to my eyes?”

“It is a law,” replied the May Dancer, picking up Paul and easily hoisting him on to his shoulder. “No one of your kind is allowed to see us or the forest, save at our dances.”