The girl stared absentmindedly at the skyline, where wine-red worms touched paper-white sky. She watched as the branchless trunk of an ancient cedar rose from the lake. It rose slowly, like a buoy lifted by an incoming tide.
With time, the tree stood upright, and reattached itself to its stump with an unsplintering, an uncreaking, and an uncracking.
The girl had never heard anything uncrack before, but now that she had, she knew immediately that it wasn’t a sound she’d be able to describe to anyone.
Not that any of this was something she was planning to talk about, once this ordeal was over. She’d witnessed an impossible event, and she knew better than to relay the impossible.
All she would be able to do is forget this ever happened. A task easier said than done, of course, but at the very least, the notion was comforting.
A second tree unsplintered. Uncreaked, and uncracked.
The spirit’s sickness was worsening. Her once drifting, ethereal hair was now knotted and tangled, clinging to her semi-corporeal skin like wet gauze, and her shimmering, concave retinas had become clouded with a sickly bacterial film.
The spirit’s body was not the only thing that had fallen ill. Her mind was sick as well. Sick with doubt. Sick with guilt. Sick with fear. The finality of death, once unfamiliar, was beginning to dawn on her, and she was scared.
In the distance, the trees continued to unsplinter, and uncreak, and uncrack. One by one, like the ticking of a clock.
There was a numbness in the spirit’s fingertips. She could feel her heart fluttering, a tightness in her throat, and an aching in her chest, caused not by the flies that had wandered too deeply into her lungs and passed away, but by a stagnant and suffocating dread.
A tree cracked, and creaked. Splintered and fell. The girl snapped to attention. These were sounds she recognized. But despite their familiarity, she was not happy to hear them. The trees were supposed to be uncracking. Uncreaking. This break in the pattern was, frankly, alarming.
She swiveled to face the spirit.
“What are you doing?”
The spirit didn’t answer. Instead, her breathing became rapid, and shallow. Like a mouse with its pelvis caught in a rat trap.
“Don’t play coy. Tell me what’s going on. Now.”
The spirit began to shake her head. Whisper nonsense into her own ears. Anything to drown out the sharpness in the girl’s voice.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The girl rose impatiently to her feet.
“You promised you’d put me back in my own head! What’s with the backpedaling? Are you toying with me?!”
The girl could hear the spirit’s pitiful whimpering. The way she chattered her jaw, like some sort of idiot toucan.
“You’ve decided to keep me prisoner after all? Is that it? You’ve decided to make me your little pet?!”
The girl cocked a middle finger against a stiffened thumb and struck the spirit between her sickly, half-blind eyes with an audible thwack.
“Hey! Answer me, dipsh—!”
The spirit shrieked at the girl. She’s scared, rabbit!
The girl’s aggression withered in an instant.
“What?”
She’s frightened, rabbit! She’s afraid to die!
The spirit’s words hit like a battering ram to the chest. The girl felt a hot wave of guilt wash over her. A surge of embarrassment and shame so searing that she feared the blood flushing her cheeks might cauterize her veins.
The girl began to tremble. Her fists balled, and her lips pursed tight as a thumbscrew. She felt her eyes welling, and her neck bristling, as her emotions wrestled violently with one another.
She growled in frustration. Swiveled around and stormed off. But of course, there was nowhere to hide. She kicked at the sludge beneath her feet, swore fiercely, and fell to her knees.
She braced an elbow against a knee. Her forehead against a thumb and forefinger. She could smell the coppery stink on her skin, and feel the worms dissolving back into coagulated blood and seeping through her knitted leggings.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her turtleneck sweater. In the distance, she heard another tree creak, and splinter, and fall.
The spirit was panicking inside. Her eyes darted about as she struggled to think, and she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They floundered aimlessly, seeking to grasp at something that simply wasn’t there. Eventually they stumbled upon her mouth, and her breath hissed between her quivering fingers.
Another tree began to creak. The spirit reached out toward it. As if her subconscious mind thought she might be able to tip it back upright, if only she could reach it.
It crashed into the lake.
As the approaching ripples lapped at her shins, the spirit began sobbing. Apologizing tearfully. Profusely. She was so sorry. She was trying, rabbit. She swore she was trying.
The girl buried her face in her knees. Pressed her wrists to her ears. Anything to muffle the spirit’s mournful cries. She was trying, rabbit. She was trying...
“I KNOW you’re trying! I’M SORRY!”
The spirit went quiet, her breath trembling. The girl swiveled to face her, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stared into the spirit’s clouded, sickly eyes.
“I’m sorry...”
The spirit’s jaw began to quiver. She wrapped her spindly fingers around her face, and began to cry.
The girl rose to her feet. She approached the spirit. Took a seat alongside her. And in an act that surprised even herself, she placed her head gently on the spirit’s shoulder.
In time, the coagulated blood began to thin, like oil paint in turpentine. Gradually settling back into a shimmering, mirror-like surface. In the distance, the trunk of an ancient cedar rose from the lake. Stood upright. Unsplintered. Uncreaked. And uncracked.