3:5
“Gwen? Did you hear that?” Prairie’s voice broke the quiet that was otherwise only punctuated by the sounds of breathing and the scuff of boots as Siobhan, Dan, and Kim got up and started checking pulses and breath on each of the fallen women.
“We all heard *that*.” Ben answered instead.
“Not the song.” In Prairie’s soft voice the admonition felt like a tease. Maybe it was. “Well,” she corrected, “Yes, the song. But I was more asking if she heard a Song capital S?”
Ivan rolled up from where he’d laid down momentarily, rising to a sit and bracing his arm behind him. “What do you mean by capital S?”
“Well, I heard a capital S when Dan refers to Story and when he clarifies that there’s a difference between story, which sounds like it has a lower case letter, and Story, which definitely has a capital.”
Dan paused in putting his jacket under the head of one of the women lying on the cement floor. “You heard that?”
“I hear a lot of things.” Prairie gave a fifth grader’s grin, full of innocence and confidence, that employed a lofted chin and a curled upper lip to coyly hide the top teeth. “I was wondering though, Gwen?”
“Huh?” Gwen, who had been making a slow survey of the space with her hands braced on her hips and her eyes focused somewhere near the ceiling, slowed her steps and turned to Prairie.
“Did you hear the Song?” Prairie repeated with sweet patience.
“My head hurts,” Gwen said, sort of in response.
Siobhan stepped away from her ‘doll’, until they had a better term that was going to work although it felt to somehow play into the depersonalization caused by their manipulator but until the women gained consciousness – hopefully real soon as the entire group had quietly agreed it felt bad to leave them lying on the concrete but felt worse to put them back in the beds that had been their virtual coffins – they didn’t have names to call them. Pulling a vial with a single dot from her bandolier she popped the cap and handed it to Gwen.
“For the head.”
Gwen knocked it back with a grimace. “How can something made from plants and flowers taste like ass?”
“What does ass taste like?” Kim asked, then followed with a quick, “Never mind. Something I do not need to know.” A second later she called out, “Hey, this one is coming around!”
As one, not creepy like how the dolls had moved just the normal ‘as one’ that a group that worked together formed, the crew rose and started to administer to the nightgowned women who came to consciousness one by one. What followed was a long bout of similar conversations to the one that they’d had with Nieve, full of “I’m not sure,” and “are you real?” and variations on the theme.
“Who is Mother?” A brief lull in the various conversations, one of those magic moments when no one is speaking in a social situation, left a pocket of silence in which Gwen’s question rang clear.
“Mother is our protector,” the woman Gwen was speaking with, who had told Gwen her name was Susan replied.
“Protector from what?”
Silence. Downcast eyes. Then, “Are you real?”
“Is Mother real?” Gwen pressed.
Another silence then in a tearful voice Susan said, “I don’t know.”
Continued probing got no clearer answers from any of the other women. In the end Ivan made promises to have the board of selectmen help all of the displaced women, some from as far away towns across several counties and even a few from farther. Until they could all be returned to their homes, he assured, there would be housing found for them. Perhaps in host homes?
This seemed to alarm the women, who across the board voiced that they wanted to stay together. Everyone looked to Gwen for guidance on this, somehow understanding that she had the best grasp on the whole “singing as one thing” which could have been at the root of the women wanting to remain as a group until they could go to their familiar homes. Gwen scrubbed her hands on her thighs, as if scraping something thick and nasty from them, and nodded. “I think that is a good idea. Ivan, is there any place that can accommodate the group?”
“I think we can arrange a stay at one of the local hotels. Its about the only kind of establishment that will be able to accommodate a group this size. The board of selectman keeps a block of suites for visiting dignitaries at a few of them. I’ll check to see which ones are open right now.”
He rose to his feet and very gently approached the women who had randomly clustered into groups. Some were holding hands. Others were leaning on each other’s shoulders. He wondered if, given time and distance, their bond would fade or the nineteen of them would live the rest of their lives with the sense of a void where the others should be.
That sad thought heavy on his mind he said in his kindest and most solicitous manner, “Ladies. We are going to get you outside and then I’ll make sure you are taken care of.”
The women as a whole looked at him with admiration, baby ducks imprinting on a strong mama.
“Well,” Kim murmured to Prairie, “his charisma is definitely good for something.”
“Isn’t it?” Prairie gave a very small sigh, her gaze lingering on Ivan as he carefully stooped to pick up a woman whose legs would not support her.
Together they got the women outside. Where they could the women seemed determined to aid each other. Firm jaws and intent expressions straining features made thin from exhaustion abounded. The raw courage had Kim gulping and looking away, catching a glimpse of Ben doing the same when she did. Dan’s gaze was steady, seeming to say ‘I will bear witness for you.’ The more ambulatory of the group helped the less but some of the women were too affected by their long confinement to move easily. Those the members of the group helped.
Gwen bit her lip and swallowed her tears as she carefully lifted a woman who weighed less than a small child should. The deprivation these women had faced was unimaginable. She’d felt it, but only on the peripheral and that had been enough to overwhelm her senses. Tears pricked Siobhan’s eyes as the woman she was helping to stumbled along starting crying and tracing the air, mouthing “the sun”.
Once all the women were outside, sitting in the grass and staring around with a mix of expressions ranging from scared to bewildered to awed, Ivan crouched to bring himself down to their level and started to gently explain that he would stay there with them to protect them until his friends could send carriages to collect them all.
“Maybe I should stay.” Siobhan bit her lip. “I can help with these ladies and if you-know-who comes back it would be better to have two of us to defend.”
Ivan smiled at the genuine kindness of the offer but shook his head. “One or two of us won’t make that much of a difference. Actually,” reaching into his pocket he pulled out four small metal spikes that had two antennae protruding at the top, “this gives me a chance to use these.”
Siobhan eyed the contraptions curiously. “What are they.”
“A defense system. I stab these,” he pointed at the spiked ends, “into the ground at various points then I channel my Magick through these,” he indicated the antennas. “It creates the equivalent of an electric fence. I’ve gotten the zap up to explode a potato. Probably would do the same to a bad guy.”
Ben gave the devices a speculative look. “Or a friend.”
“Probably. I think I can redirect the Magick through intent. Probably. But anyway that’s why I haven’t used these yet. This seems a good chance for a field test. You guys should go.”
Roles clearly defined in this way the crew made their goodbyes and started the walk to town. The sound of Ivan’s voice carried behind them as he instructed the women they’d rescued to stay away from the perimeter. Just to be safe.
To start they were all quiet in their own thoughts but halfway back Kim turned to Gwen, “What happened in there? Besides lots of grabby hands. I mean, what happened in there with you?”
Gwen pinched the space between her brows. “I’m not sure. I need time to process.”
“Okay.” Kim turned to Prairie. “What happened in there? Besides lots of grabby hands. To you.”
Prairie smiled. “I too need time to process.”
“I have nothing to process. Nothing! I mean, I have questions but I have no means to answer. This kind of thing makes my brain sad.” Kim grumbled under her breath but she smiled as she did so.
“Hey, Dan?” She started only for him to call out, “I need time to process!”
“I didn’t even ask the question!”
“Hey, Kim?” Ben called out. She turned to walk backwards so she could focus on him.
“Yes, Ben?”
Ben flashed ‘that grin’ “I need time to process too.”
“Will kill you all!” Kim declared. “In my sleep. When I dream. Then I will feel bad about it. You have so much angst coming your way!”
Gwen smiled. “Live for it.”
And she really did. Because… Gwen.
Enter The Woods 