Nightmaires in the Foliage

The floating embers of the bonfire reflected neon orbs in Maire’s eyes as they whirled in front of her. She sat in front of the heat, on the dry terrain of her peculiar town — waiting. Maire was fixated on the fire, and anyone who stared at her long enough would assume she was waiting for a reply from the flames. Finally, her gaze drew away from the bonfire, just slightly, but instead fixed itself on the forest around them. Maire kept waiting. She abruptly got up from her slumped position on the ground. Clumps of dirt and other remnants of the barren land fell from her skirt as she began to march towards the forest that surrounded her town. There were children out during this late hour, the stars and the bonfire being the only source of light for Medivia’s residents. Maire gained power with every step as she headed towards the green wasteland with an imperative she had waited too long to settle on. 

“Maire! Where are you going-” A small freckled boy called out to her, his tone emanating juvenile curiosity. Maire simply walked past him. The inquisitive one was her neighbor, of whom she usually had good relations with, but she hadn’t truly been in good spirits with anyone since Nimue’s absence. Her neighbor simply watched as she strided past him and towards the forest as he was gathering water from the well between both their homes. Maire’s steps seemed to move faster than her own mind as she contemplated turning around and answering him. But she knew he couldn’t fathom her dire mission: the retrieval of her sister. 

“Are you leaving Medivia?” The boy’s voice echoed from a yard behind. 

“Yes! For Nimue,” Maire reluctantly replied, saying the last part more to herself than to the others. She didn’t need the added attention, for her sister’s absence was noted by the entire town let alone her despaired aunt and uncle at home. 

It had been four days. Ninety-six hours of longing for Nimue’s return, until longing had relapsed into what felt like empty wishing. But even wishing grows tiresome, it often feels more laborious than actually doing something about it. Maire reassured her prompt decision by simply asking how many others must feel the regression of longing to wishing for the return of missing kin? Nimue wouldn’t be the last visitor, the last failed attempt at diplomacy. Not when the destination, the foliage that encapsulates Medivia, had always housed something sinister. Maire continued marching as she was now halfway through her town with the forest twice as close. She reminisced on the eerie fables of the vine weavers. They came to life in her mind: the leaves ingrained on their limbs, wild locks which contrasted their calculated nature. The vine weavers were creatures who were agile and generous to outsiders, that is until their giving became taking. They would give riches and ask for people in return. 

Maire snickered at herself — the vine weavers never asked. 

Such horrid visions dissipated from her mind as she returned to the present reality, finding herself face to face with the entrance of the forest — simultaneously, the exit of safety. Fortunately, Maire wasn’t here for peacemaking attempts, she wasn’t so naive, she wasn’t Nimue.

She crept into the moist jungle through two tall trees, their branches bending as some sort of taunting archway. The mugginess of the air was suffocating, and giant leaves as well as trailing branches were at constant eye level. The weeping trees masked the midnight sky that had once existed as a blanket over the village. Shoving branches away as she continued her increasingly angered strides, Maire could still see her village behind. She began to miss the clearer air and a sky that was actually being visible. 

I must go further. 

And so she did. 

A thought that ran laps in her mind, Maire preempted a vine weaver popping in her face, or her popping in theirs. She intended to meet them one way or another, to demand for Nimue and offer the riches they had previously lavished onto her family. Still, the possibility of one of them finding her and not vice versa pierced a little too hard at her already wary state. The goods in her satchel, jewels and unopened bottles of elixirs that hummed, clanked obnoxiously, but she wasn’t planning for a discreet entrance anyway. Then again, much of the clanking could have been the iron dagger. Maire was surprised her aunt and uncle didn’t notice her stealing the gifts just before leaving home to perch herself across the bonfire a mere hour ago. It mattered not, for they regretted their acceptance of the gifts in exchange for Nimue long before today.

Just a few feet ahead, the branches began to ease out of her vision as Maire saw a dark clump of rocks. They seemed to have hay on the other side of it, brunette hay. Maire’s eyes widened in shock as her vision adjusted to what lay ahead of her. She climbed through the remaining branches and leaves in her way, inching closer to the fallen being. The locks were brittle, but not the texture of a vine weaver’s. Leaves and other rocks smothered the body’s limbs and chest. Peering over it, she moved strands of tangled hair from its face. 

That horrifying face. 

Maire shrieked in a series, each scream louder and more distorted than the last. Fear had overridden her jolted nerves as she stumbled backwards on the forest’s rough terrain. The body’s open eyes were lifeless, skin as pale as the moon. As swiftly as she erupted from the bonfire, Maire began to toss aside the rocks and dirt that hid the rest of the corpse’s body. Beneath it all was blood that hadn’t completely dried yet, as its torn clothes were still wet with mud and crimson. 

It was difficult to make out the identity of this corpse with all of the damage the jungle had done to it. It was as if the jungle, no, the vine weavers, simply claimed it, hiding the poor soul’s demise for themselves in this treacherous scape. There lay an arrow pierced through the side of its torso, dried blood had seeped out mixing with the mud underneath. Maire’ quickly stood up, a volcanic feeling of anxiety for Nimue erupting within her. She didn’t have time for an already dead corpse. But before Maire could swiftly switch objectives once more, she locked eyes with the corpse once more. She cautiously removed the remaining hair that shielded the fallen’s identity. 

Maire’s terror-stricken mission had concluded then and there at the unveiling of its lifeless face, the face she had longed and wished for. Lifeless eyes that rang a much more heinous truth. Eyes that mirrored her own — until they didn’t and never would again. 

The moments to come were a nightmarish blur, and Maire would continue to endure the nightmare as she made her way back to her village — back to square one.  

That wasn’t her last visit to the foliage, for the Maire that would eventually return, muddled with a rage so renewing, would give the forest what it lay unto her.