I'm sitting here on a stump in the middle of a clearcut watching the sun come up over the top of the treeline. There are tears running down my face and a rifle's in my hands, though I'd almost forgot it was there. If I look down for a moment, I know I'll see a ratty old gray scarf there on the trampled underbrush. I also know that if I look at it again, I'll have to make a decision.

I woke up yesterday morning pretty excited. Hunting season had officially begun, and I'd been scoping out this new clearcut on top of Mount Wayland for a couple weeks. A clearcut's a good place to bag a deer, and they finished logging this one off last month. So, I figured I could drive up before dawn and just wait it out. That's how my friend Davey got his four-point last year.

As it turned out, I got a call from Elmer over at the garage. Ed called in sick, so he needed me to cover. I was pissed, but jobs are hard as hell to find around here. I didn't get out of there until a quarter to three, so I hauled ass up to the clearcut, figuring I had a least a couple hours of daylight left. Damn Elmer.

When I got there, the place was real quiet. Spooky, even. But, all I can see is that big ol' rack hanging over my fireplace at home. The clearcut's pretty good size. About three or four square miles, I figure. So, I half-run, half-hike in until I find me a good place to get down and do my best to be invisible.

Thing is, I didn't count on there being someone else there.
At least I think it's a someone. It looks like a girl...maybe fourteen, fifteen years old. Wearing a pair of jeans cut off at the knees, a torn brown t-shirt, and a ratty old gray scarf wrapped around her neck. And that's about where the normal stuff ends. Now I've got cable, and I've seen some pretty weird shit on that sci-fi channel, but I never thought I'd be seeing a girl with green skin and cat's eyes sitting beside a stump looking up at me like I'm the one who's out of place. I almost drop my rifle.
“Jesus!” I said “You scared the hell outta me!”

The girl looks up at me with those eyes, and I wonder if they're those freaky contact lenses like those ones that some of the kids in town wear on Halloween. She just sighs and looks back down and brings her knees up to her chest. Even though she's a weird one, I can see that she's pretty down. And tired. She looks real tired.

“Um, are you okay?” I ask, holding my rifle a little tighter than I can feel good about. She talks, and her voice isn't what I was expecting at all. She sounds a lot older than she looks.

“I'll be alright,” she says “I'm almost done, anyway.”

“Almost done with what?”

“I'm dying.”

When she says that, I feel myself go cold all over. It's not so much what she says that does it as it's the tone of her voice that tells me she's serious. I look at her to see if I can find any blood or broken bones. I don't see anything.

“Are you hurt? I can get help - “

“It's too late for that,” she says, not looking at me now but at the clearcut we're in. “My grove is gone and by morning, I'll be gone, too.”

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder, I thought.

“Your grove?” I regret the way I say it the minute it's out of my mouth.

She looks up at me with those eyes and I feel like I've just run over somebody's kid with my truck. I fumble around for something to say for a minute and then go for the obvious.

“So um, what's with your eyes? And your skin?”

She smiles a sad sort of smile and gives a little shrug.

“With my grove gone, I can't maintain a glamour anymore. This is how we normally look when we're not among humans.”

“We?”

“My sisters and I,” she gets this look on her face like she's lost in some kind of memory “They're gone now, too. I'm the last – at least in these woods. There used to be so many of us. We danced under the moonlight and slept under the eaves of the forest during the day. I didn't think it would ever end, but then your kind came and started devouring everything in sight. You take so much and give so little back. Our groves were burned, hacked down, trampled and leveled and I watched my sisters fade one by one. Now there's only me – until morning.”

I'm quiet for a minute. I mean hell, when was the last time you heard a story like that? I want to laugh at first, but just looking at her sitting there all tired and worn out like makes me feel like she just might be telling the truth. I mean, if she wanted to lie, she'd come up with something better than that, wouldn't she?

I look away from her, and it seems like now I just don't see a clearcut around me. I see this big warzone with piles of debris piled all over the place. I know what those piles are. They're all the trees and vegetation that weren't able to be sold to the lumber mills. The stuff that got in the way of the loggers reaching the valuable timber. The stuff that we think is useless because we can't turn it into quick cash. Seems to be an awful lot of it, and I know it's just going to sit there like a bunch of rotting garbage. I gotta say I felt sick. I guess I just didn't think that other living things might depend on those trees besides us. And then I look back at those eyes, that skin, how small and tired and beautiful she is and I wonder what else we might be sacrificing so's we can have our lumber. Yeah, I felt sick.

“Look, um...is there any way for you to maybe move? You know, find another grove to live in? There must be other places you can go.”

She shakes her head.

“We're tied to our groves, and once that bond is severed, we fade.”

I feel this lump in my throat and my eyes start tearin' up. It's that same helpless feeling I got when mama died. I couldn't do nothing when the cancer took over but watch her go. I held her hand until the end, and then she was gone. Yeah, I feel the same way now.

“I...I'm sorry,” I say, wanting to give her something “Is there anything I can do?”

She turns and looks at me, and now I see she's scared. There's tears coming down those cheeks and she's kinda trembling. When she answers, it's in a whisper.

“Please,” she says “Don't leave me? Could you just stay here with me until morning? I don't want to be alone when...when it's time.”

I move over to her and sit down next to her beside the stump. She's so small next to me. I can't shake the feeling that she's like a kid, but I know she's a lot older than that. I put my arm around her and she lays her head against my chest and starts crying a little. I don't really know what to say, so I just kinda sit there and stroke her hair.

We sit like that all night until the sky starts to get a little lighter in the east. She stands up and looks down at me. My heart starts to pound in my chest.

“It's time,” she says, and her voice is all quiet and calm. It reminds me of mama's voice. “Stand away from me a little, please.”

I get to my feet and move away. I'm shaking and I can feel my eyes tearin' up again. She turns around and faces the eastern sky and starts taking off her clothes. I look away for a minute. Hell, I ain't no peepin' tom. But then, there's a flash of light..kinda like moonlight, and I look up. She's standing there with her arms outstretched and she's glowing from head to toe, but the glow doesn't last long before it starts to die down. As I'm looking at her, I can see that she's starting to disappear. She looks at me and I want to die. This is wrong. This shouldn't be happening. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. Her body starts to fade away in the growing light and I'll never forget those tired eyes looking into mine.

“Remember me,” she says, and then there's nothing there.

So that's why I'm here sitting on this stump. All my life I sorta figured that mankind was the master of everything else. Like this whole world exists just for us to use. Only now I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure about a number of things. That old gray scarf lying on the ground beside me's saying that there's a different world out there. A different way of looking at things. If I take what that scarf is saying to heart, it means I can't be the man I was before I came up on Mount Wayland. It means I can't go back to the understanding of the world I had. Or, I can just chalk to whole thing up to some kind of hallucination, and pretend it never really happened. Hell of a decision to make, but it's one I have to make nonetheless.

And I do.





All text herein © 2005-ish Colin Steele unless otherwise noted.

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"Believe. Become. It really is as simple as that."

~ Anonymous

that made me cry....

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my god is not found in any church...my god is found here, on all four corners of the earth, from the seas to the clouds.

Hmm...not sure if that's a compliment or not...but thanks.



Evilbadwrong

_________________
"Believe. Become. It really is as simple as that."

~ Anonymous

that means your story touched me, but i am a sentimental fool. i cry everytime i see one of those christian childrens fund commercials....

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my god is not found in any church...my god is found here, on all four corners of the earth, from the seas to the clouds.

*smiles* Well, I'm glad that you were touched by my story - sentimental fool or not. This piece was published in an online fanzine for the "Deliria: Faerie Tales For A New Millenium" roleplaying game. Even if one is not into such games, the book itself is probably the most beautifully packaged, well-written introduction to pagan spirituality that I've ever seen - even though it hides behind the disguise of a mere 'game'.




Evilbadwrong

_________________
"Believe. Become. It really is as simple as that."

~ Anonymous

I cried too. I could see her sitting there. Very vivid story and very touching. Touched my heart/soul.

thank you

Once again, you take the reader by the hand and walk them through every emotion in your story. How completely true this is! One can only hope those causing such devastation will make the same decision as your hunter...
before the Last One fades away from our own existence.
~ Prrrl

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Every cloud has a silver lining; you just have to find yours!

Again great story crafting, reminds me of something i wrote, I'm going to re-read mine now and consider posting. You do an excellent job of giving your characters voice.

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I have two moods...

*smiles* Thanks again....and please DO post your story! I'd love to read it!



Evilbadwrong

_________________
"Believe. Become. It really is as simple as that."

~ Anonymous