It bears repeating:
it's a vast forest. She has never been in a forest so vast, so deep, so old. At least, no forest of this sort: cold, northerly, all pine and maple and oak. These ancient, breathing trees do not exist anymore -- not like this, thousands strong, centuries old. They have long since fallen prey to axe and saw. But in this time they still tower. Their roots grow deeper than she can imagine. Their boughs whisper and rustle, casting the blackest of shadows, and even were she to climb to the highest branch she would never see an end to them. As far as the horizon they stretch, from here to the low mountain ranges of the eastern seaboard and past -- all the way to the great heartland oceans of grass that white men have yet to discover.
Into this forest she and Hannah have plunged. They have been separated, but neither of them are children. Neither of them are ordinary girls. She has her tricks, her ways of finding the unfound. She follows -- what? A feeling, an instinct, a desire. It leads her deeper, step by step.
--
She has been walking perhaps an hour when, in the distance, the sudden crack of gunfire. It comes not from the direction of the town but from the north. If she strains her ears she can hear shouting, then screaming.
--
Not long after, passing within a hundred yards of her -- a group of men, smaller than that which had ventured into the forest. They are running, or trying to, breathing raspy and ragged. They do not pause to hunt for her.
--
After that, silence again except for occasional birdsong, the skittering of small frightened animals; a backdrop of distant sea. The sun has grown high. It is almost midday. The mist has burned away, but even so the forest is full of green shadows. She has yet to find Hannah, but there is an odd certainty in her mind that she will. She need only keep walking this way.
She crosses a narrow stream. She climbs a low hill. Quite suddenly, she realizes she's looking right at another human being. Another woman, one of the women from the dance, the one with the spear. She holds that spear now, keeps it low and flat to the ground in one lean hand. Her limbs are scandalously bare, her hair unthinkably unhidden. She stares at Devon.
DevonWoods like this don't exist anymore, not in the United States. And when she lived in England she didn't wander like this, stray so far. Not on her own. That's not to say she didn't wake up in the woods sometimes, but that was different: the woods were not so dark and deep. She never went so far into their shadows.
This seems to go on forever. After a while she's less walking and more trudging. She's dragging her feet, breathing heavily, especially as the day heats up. It feels like forever but it isn't -- it's only an hour or so, when she hears the report of a musket. She snaps too, freezes, like a doe hearing a branch break in two. She hears screaming that turns her blood cold, and yet there's something familiar about it.
Not comforting. Nowhere near comfort.
But familiar: yes.
She slowly begins walking again, carefully, but then hits the ground when men pass by. She holds her breath. She waits until she can't hear them before she gets up again, her heart pounding. And then she resumes her walking. Slowly. Conserving her energy, wishing for water.
Eventually, Devon takes off her bonnet. She walks, tearing the laces of the bonnet off with her teeth, gnawing at them til they rip. Uses those to tie her hair up, braided and kept off her neck. Eventually she unlaces her bodice and shrugs out of her overdress. She thinks of carrying it with her, but... well, fuck it. She sheds it, bundles it, hides it among the roots of a tree. Perhaps a fairy can take it. Perhaps a lost woman. She sheds her hose and leaves those, too. Fuck 'em.
Walking along in her shift and chemise, which is still too hot, Devon feels a little better. Less constrained. More like herself. Her real self, not this Mercy-self blend. She feels the sun on her arms. She wipes sweat off her forehead with what is left of her bonnet. When the ground slopes up in front of her she groans, but it's a falsehood: Devon can handle far more rigorous terrain than this. She doesn't think of herself as strong, but there is something unbreakable in her. She doesn't even really know yet, how far she can go. She doesn't really know how distant exhaustion actually is. She's never pushed herself as hard as she could.
So she crosses the stream, barefoot and holding her shoes aloft. She dares to drink a cuppd handful or two of the swiftly-running water. She climbs the hill and she steps over a fallen log and then she finds herself looking at a person. Someone with a spear.
Devon blinks.
She says nothing.
the witchesFor endless seconds they stare at each other: the wild, stripped, devil-touched woman and -- well. The wild, stripped, savage woman. That is how Puritan society would view the two of them if they could see them now. Nearly beasts, insane, predestined to burn.
Then, slow and smooth, the native woman lowers her spear those last few inches to the ground. The tip gleams. Her fingers uncurl. She raises that hand, palm out to show her unmalicious intent. When her hand is a foot from the ground, she begins to stand. Unfolds with that same sinuous strength, born of a lifetime not confined in ridiculous amounts of stiff rough clothing; not confined to offices and task chairs, keyboards, air conditioning.
Women like this don't exist anymore either. Not in the United States, not on the reservations, not in the far northern archipelagos; not anywhere in the world. Everywhere now, even in the remotest of lands, even in goddamn outer space, there is electricity if you want it, radiowaves, internet. This world, old and wild and brutal and pure, doesn't exist anymore.
--
When they are both standing, the native woman points -- sweeps her hand north and across to the west. She raises six fingers. She mimes the pointing of a rifle. Then she raises three fingers. Slashes a hand viciously across her throat. Slaps those three fingers down on an open palm, like bodies hitting the ground.
And three more fingers. She gestures again, this time toward the south and the east, the direction of the village: waggles those fingers in a distinct, scampering gesture.
Then she smiles toothily.
DevonDevon doesn't shrink back from the woman as she rises. It doesn't occur to her to be scared right now of this woman. But she remains still, and watchful, and silent. She listens, as much as you can call it listening. She nods.
Her mouth curves to the side in a smirk as the spear-carrier grins. It fades.
She can't think of a way to ask where Hannah is, or whether the woman saw what happened to the men. How does one mime the question: did you happen to see an enormous white-furred monster tear them to pieces? if he was in the form of a man, was he really, really, really ridiculously good looking?
So Devon thinks simpler. She pats her throat. She pants once, heavily. She pretends to cup water from a stream and drink it. She puts her hand on her empty stomach and looks at the other woman, hopeful. Pleading.
the witchesThey share a somewhat bloodthirsty smile and, through it, gain some semblance of kinship. Then, as the witch mimes food and water, the spearbearer laughs silently. She unslings a waterskin and tosses it. It is heavy, sloshing and almost-full. The water within isn't cold, but it's water, and it's clean, and it's the first Devon's had to drink for hours.
Then the woman beckons. Turns her back, either trustingly or fearlessly, and begins to walk deeper still into the forest.
DevonDevon catches the water gratefully. She wants to gorge herself, but she doesn't. She drinks three measured mouthfuls, settles a moment, breathes, then takes another. She hands it back and puts her hand on her heart for a moment in thanks.
Then they begin to walk again. And as they do:
suddenly, Devon really wants a spear. She's not sure it would be the most effective weapon to fight with unless you were really, really good with it, but maybe she could practice. Or learn archery. She bets there's classes somewhere in Denver.
The thoughts come and disconcert her, just as her vicious will to hurt the butcher disconcerted her. She's always pretended to be tougher than she is. She's never liked seeing people hurt. She's never wanted to hurt people.
Except it isn't 'never', really.
Some part of her wanted to hurt that butcher.
Some part of her wants to defend herself, and all these women, from anyone who would hurt them.
Some part of her is glad that three men died.
Some part of her hopes it was painful.
--
Devon glances up as they walk, trying to keep track of where she's going. At least what direction.
the witchesWest. They're going mostly west -- a little north. If Devon is particularly good with directions, she would know they're going roughly in the direction of that clearing where she first saw the women. And the Ladies.
Not quite to that place, though. Not yet, at least. They overshoot to the north by quite a ways, and eventually, the witch sees why. They are approaching another stream, clear and babbling. They are approaching a small encampment: a cluster of bark-covered, sapling-framed huts that were likely temporary shelter at best; a few cookfires; a handful of men and women and children. Most the men are the leggings and breechcloths; most the women in skirts, hair loose, as barechested as the men. Most of the children are running about naked.
Devon's new companion does not wear a skirt. She too wears leggings, breechcloth. Perhaps even amongst her people she is unusual, even as Devon is. She motions for the witch to stay where she is, half-hidden, waiting, and goes ahead alone.
Some of the others see her. They look at her, curious about her pale skin, her dazzling eyes, her decidedly disheveled hair and clothes. Soon enough they grow bored. They turn back to their lives.
--
The woman is gone for a little while. Devon can watch her if she wants: see that she goes into the tiny settlement, where she converses with others in a language Devon cannot even begin to understand, going in and out of a hut. After a time, she comes back, and now she is carrying a rawhide sack and two additional spears, lighter, balanced to throw.
Another woman, dressed similarly, several knives strapped to her body, follows in her wake. She is a little younger than the first, around Devon's age. She eyes Devon suspiciously, seems to decide to be unthreatened or at least unimpressed, and grunts something unintelligible. Jerks her head toward the forest, southward now, and then leads the way.
The woman with the spear, bringing up the rear, takes something out of her bag and pushes it at her. It's food: a few hunks of dried, gamey meat; some fresh berries, raw and tart-sweet. As she takes it, her new friend says something, but not to her. The woman with the knives snaps something back. The woman with the spear answers. It goes back and forth for a while.
Then the woman with the knives unstraps one of her knives, sighing irritably, and hands it over to Devon. Shakes it impatiently if she won't take it. The handle is bone. The blade is finely honed shale.
DevonDevon isn't that good with directions. Not bad, but... not so good that she remembers the other night as clearly as she wishes. She follows, pacing herself, grateful for the companionship even if it is silent.
When they get to the encampment, she hangs back. She doesn't want to trespass. She has not been invited. She hangs back, sits down on the grass, rests her legs and stretches them, rubs her sore feet. Watches, her dark hair still not as black as their own, her eyes impossibly bright, her skin fragile and pale and, well, getting a bit of a sunburn if we're honest. She tries to sit in the shade.
Devon puts her feet in the stream for a while, gasping at the cold but grateful for it. Leans back, twisting a bit, to watch for her spear-wielding companion. Who brings a friend with her. And food. And her stomach snarls inside of her. She rises up, shakes water off her feet, puts her shoes back on, rises. She looks at the second woman but not with question -- this isn't her time, or her land, and she's the outsider here. So she keeps quiet. Lifts her hand and gives a small wave to the second one, who grunts and heads into the woods.
Then: food. Devon exhales gratefully, heavily, and takes what she's given, tearing into the edible food even if it is hard and chewy and rough. She eats what she can, and licks berry juices off her fingers when she's finished with those, too. She isn't even listening to the exchange of words. Couldn't understand it anyway. Has her right ring finger in her mouth when a knife is shoved her way. She blinks.
She must look so stupid. She looks at the older woman, then at the younger, who is shaking the knife. She takes it by the handle and nods gratefully. Looks at it, and lacking a strap of her own, carries it in her hand as they walk.
the witchesWell; her new companions certainly don't look terribly awed by her. The older woman laughs at the sight of her, finger in mouth. The younger blows out a snort that, in another few hundred years, would probably manifest as some sort of eyeroll.
Still. She is given a knife. She is armed and -- in some way -- accepted into this small group of women who don't-quite-fit.
--
After some time, they emerge again from the forest into a clearing. It is past midday now, and with even that slight afternoon slant to the sun, light once against scarcely touches the forest floor. Massachusetts summers can be swelteringly hot, as Devon knows well, but here in the forest a layer of damp, cool air lingers in the space between the trees. By nightfall, she might even miss those extraneous layers she shed.
Maybe.
Probably not.
At any rate: another clearing. This one she recognizes. It is the very one she happened upon the first night, when six women called to the Ladies for aid, though never succor. And as she follows the Wampanoag women out of the woods, Hannah jumps up with a happy little cry and rushes over to embrace her.
"Mercy! I feared you were taken!"
DevonLater, trodging behind them and not quite as hungry or hot as she was, Devon emerges into the clearing wearing her underclothes and carrying a shale knife, her braid fraying, her nose pink. Hannah comes at her and Devon isn't quite sure what to do with the knife, so she tries to hold it in a way that won't cut either of them as she is hugged.
Devon is pretty awkward about this. She stands there, being hugged, stiff and somewhat dismayed, but longsuffering. She doesn't shove Hannah away or anything, she just sort of waits for the hugging from the weird girl who is neither Mum nor Rafa nor assorted-family to stop.
She grunts, and reminds herself a little of Rafael in doing so. "Three of them are dead," she says bluntly. She glances at the Wampanoag, though she doesn't fully know them as such. Just: indigenous. Rightful. She turns back to Hannah.
"I think we should rest," she says. "Whatever we do will need to happen at night, and I have scarcely slept for days now. Is there a safe place to lie down?"
the witches"Dead?" Hannah glances at the native women warily. "Did they do it?"
"No," says the younger woman, suddenly and forcefully. Even Hannah looks surprised. It's rapidly followed by an equally forceful, "Not be stupid."
It's anyone's guess whether she means she not stupid, herself -- or whether she's telling Hannah not to be stupid. Either way, Hannah stops her inane line of questioning. Instead, she murmurs to Devon, perhaps meaning to excuse their behavior, "They're quite savage. But they are our sisters. That is Oiguina, and the other, with the spears, is Assawetough."
The older woman nods to her name. As for Oiguina -- she's gone back to ignoring the English, or perhaps pretending she does not understand. Yet when Devon speaks of sleep, she drops her traveling pack on the ground and begins to scuff out a resting area with her moccasin'd feet. The older woman, on the other hand, lags a beat behind, setting that rawhide bag of food down only after she sees her friend settling in.
"This place be as safe as any," Hannah says. "Here we meet the Ladies. Here we lie close to their ear, and if danger befell us, they would come to our aid. I think."
DevonDevon scowls at Hannah, too, the same No on her lips.
"They would have been protecting us if they had," she says to Hannah, firmly. "And if you think you're going to survive without getting a little savage, you should run home and never call on the Ladies of the Wood -- or your sisters -- ever again."
She looks at Oiguina and Assawetough then, having heard their names, and nods to them. "De-- Mercy," she says, briefly touching her chest.
Oiguina doesn't appear to give a shit, and Devon is quite suddenly rather fond of the mean-eyed younger woman.
She breathes in and nods to Hannah, softening a bit to her. She's just a kid, too. And she's taken the brunt of something as best she could, more than anyone should be expected to. "I don't think you're wrong. Do you know how to mark time by the sun, Hannah?"
the witchesOiguina, indeed, doesn't appear to give a shit. She finishes kicking twigs and pebbles and bark and dead leaves out of the way and sits unceremoniously in the newly-packed soil. She unwraps her mantle from where she's draped it around her waist, wraps it around her traveling sack a few times to soften it, sets it down as a makeshift pillow, and promptly flops over.
Assawetough is not making the same preparations. She finds a tree trunk to sit on, intelligent dark eyes following the white girls as they talk: understanding not the words but the cadence and the tone.
" 'Tis only that I never thought to kill anyone," Hannah says softly, "only to compel them to stop. I suppose even the Ladies cannot change men's hearts.
"But aye. I can tell time by the sun, Mercy. 'Tis about two hours past the noon. Shall I wake thee later?"
DevonDevon's brows draw together. "Sometimes people will stop. But only for a time. And then they start up again."
She should say something really comforting now, to show Hannah that it's okay to have a soft heart, that not everything requires killing, that this will be okay, that... something. But she doesn't have it in her. She doesn't know what to say that will be convincing. She can barely string two thoughts together right now and keeps seeing flickers of light from the corners of her eyes, like something moving. She's been working and walking since before dawn, and can count on her hands the number of hours she's slept in the last few days.
In the end, she doesn't know what to do to make this easier on Hannah. She suspects it is foolishness to try and think she can make this easy on anyone. She nods.
"I need to sleep," she says, blunt again. "Just a few hours. But --"
She looks over at Assawetough. She cocks her head. Points at Assawetough, then her own eyes, then takes those two fingers and scans them over the clearing. Her gaze is questioning. Does the older woman mean to watch?
the witchesFor what it's worth, older and younger are relative. Assawetough is perhaps in her late thirties; looks ten years older than that, in this world without moisturizers and insulation and readily available glass. Still, in Devon's own time, she wouldn't even qualify as middle-aged. In this time, she's nearly a venerated elder.
Still capable, though. Still strong and lean and sinewy. She gives a single nod, then drives the point of her spear into the ground. It is a sure, deadly motion; momentum purely along the axis of the weapon, nothing wasted.
She taps herself on the chest with two fingers. Brings those to her eyes, and mimics Devon's scanning motion. Then points at Devon, and at Hannah, and brings two fingers against her palm. It is a far gentler motion than the one with which she indicated dead.
DevonDevon nods to her. She points at the sun, clocks her arm in an arc towards the west, holds her finger where the sun will be in a few hours. Turns back to Assawetough to confirm, then makes that gesture of gratitude she used before. Hopes it translates. She turns back to Hannah.
"Assawetough will watch for us. You should sleep, too, if you can. We'll all need the energy."
the witchesHannah -- perhaps the youngest of this odd little group, and certainly the most naive -- looks a little uncertain. Yet ultimately, she is no spoiled and sheltered princess. None of them are; not the Puritans, and certainly not the Wampanoag. Taking her cues from abrasive, bold Oiguina, she starts scuffing out a sleeping-hollow in the dirt.
It is quiet in the little glade. There is enough space here that sunlight dapples the ground -- falls through the forest leaves like bars of gold. The Puritans fear the forest, its depth, its unknowability, its godless expanse. The sudden and unfeeling cruelty of nature. Yet here and now, it is peaceful. It is tranquil.
Sleep comes quickly. This time, there are no dreams.
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