The Stranger in the Forest
Part 3
The creature that stood before me was, I was certain, the most beautiful thing that had ever existed. There was a certain tone to her voice that continued to disarm me. I knew that the being that stood before me was not human. I knew that it was pure evil. Yet, I still wanted to be with it.
“These bottles you see contain the souls of the men who entered this valley before you. There are rules. You must enter the valley voluntarily, and you did. You must voluntarily surrender your soul. I cannot take it, but you will surrender your soul and give it to me. You may be able to resist me for a day or a week or maybe a month, but you will give yourself and your soul to me. You will do some willingly and happily.”
She reached down into a crate I had not seen before and withdrew an empty bottle. She showed it to me. Printed on the label was my name and a year, 2018.
“Your soul will join my collection. When I have enough souls, perhaps I will be able to trade them for my freedom. I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter to you anyhow. Your experience with me will be the experience of a lifetime. You will experience great pleasure, but it will only last a sort time. After that, your soul will be mine, and it will live in this bottle.”
“Is there nothing I can do to escape this fate?” I asked.
“Since you ask,” she responded, “I am obligated to tell you that you are free to leave. If you can make it to the highest ridge surrounding this hollow before the sun fully clears the ridge in the morning, you may go free. No one in three hundred years has succeeded, and you won’t either.”
I hesitated for a minute, but then I turned and fled from her cabin. My watched showed 5:30. I had a little over an hour to climb out of the hollow, but the skies were pitch black, hidden by dense fog. I couldn’t even see the ridge I was supposed to climb. The most I could hope to do was to wander aimlessly. There was no moon, no stars, no path. Only tangled forest lay before me.
Dogs have an excellent sense of direction and the ability to follow their own trails out of the forest. I called for my two hounds, but when I turned to look for them, I saw them on the cabin’s porch with their new master — soon to be my master. They no longer had any interest in me. I was utterly alone.
By sheer luck, I found the base of the mountain, or at least a mountain, and I began to climb. It was impossibly far, but I kept moving. At least I tried to move. My legs grew heavier with each step. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it.
There comes a point in every struggle when the one struggling realizes it’s over. There is the drowning victim who goes down for the third time and realizes he will never resurface. There is the avalanche victim buried under feet of snow and unable to move who realizes he will never be saved. In these moments, a peace descends on the victim because the struggle is over and the result inevitable.
On that night in November, that peace descended upon me as I collapsed at the foot of an old oak tree, resigned to my fate. The sky had just started to lighten as the earth turned inevitably on its axis toward the sun. I could see the crest of the mountain now, and I knew it was too far away. Rather than worry, I simply wondered what it would be like to have my soul confined to a wine bottle. In my exhaustion, I supposed that it would be better than a beer can but not as good as a champagne bottle. I chuckled to myself at my own clever joke.
And then my two hounds arrived, wagging their tails, licking my face and pulling at my clothing. I told them that it was too late, that I would never make it. I told them to go without me, but they wouldn’t. They seemed to realize my peril, and they persisted in their efforts to move me up the mountain. Somehow, they convinced me to get up and start moving.
My muscles ached from exertion, but I continued up the mountain one step at a time. I remembered an old saying a mountain climbing guide once told me: “Inch by inch is a cinch, but yard by yard is really hard”. I could make it out of the hollow, step by step. But I didn’t have time. With each step, the sky got brighter. After about 20 minute, the sun peeked over the highest peak. I was still too far away. The sun moved rapidly over the horizon; I moved slowly up the slop. I could see that I was going to miss my goal by about three hundred yards, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t force myself to move any faster.
As the sun cleared the mountain and I could see its full orb, I knew I had failed. I had done everything thing that I could, but I came up short. In a matter of days or weeks, my soul would be confined to a bottle, my body broken and rotting in the forest. I would never see my wife again; no one would ever know what happened to me.
I was about to return to my new master and accept my fate when a man, or something like a man, appeared at the top of the mountain. He was dressed in white robes, and his countenance glowed bright. He was much taller than a man, maybe nine feet tall. It was clear that he had immense power. In one hand he held a sword; with the other he beaconed me to keep coming up the mountain. I followed his command, and I kept moving.
In the background, I heard the voice of the woman saying, “It’s not fair. He’s mine. By the law and the rules, his soul is mine.”
Finally, maybe twenty minutes after my deadline, I walked past the tall man at the top of the mountain. He said nothing to me. He only watched as I stumbled past him. I walked a little further before my rubbery legs finally collapsed and I passed out, falling to the ground.
I awoke at 10 am with a blinding headache. My hounds were by my side as I tried to stand. I was dizzy, and my legs were unsteady. When I reached up and felt my head, it was caked with dried blood. When I looked down, I saw a rock that appeared to have my blood on it. As I tried to remember what had happened the night before, I remembered falling. As I looked around, I saw my broken lantern and found my beaten and scarred .22 rifle. It looked like I must have become entangled in a fox grape vine and tripped, striking my head on a rock.
But the fall I remembered occurred while descending a steep hollow, not tripping over a fox grape vine. I remembered the cabin and a woman. Eventually, I remembered everything, but was it a memory of what really happened or a dream?
By the time I arrived home, half of the day had passed. My wife was waiting by the door when I entered. I could tell at first glance that she was annoyed. Actually, her emotions were much more complicated than that. She was angry and worried. When she saw that I was OK, or at least alive, her worry subsided. Unfortunately, her anger did not.
“Where were you?” She demanded.
It should have been obvious that I had fallen. There was caked blood in my hair and a nasty lump on my head.
I decided to skip the dream. I explained that I had fallen down a hill and hit my head. I told her that I must have been unconscious for a couple of hours but that I was now OK. After scolding me for hunting alone and not being more careful, she directed me to the shower. The hot water felt good on my scalp and on my body. The wound to me head was superficial. Although my head felt tender to the touch, no medical treatment was required. At least I didn’t feel like going to the doctor’s office.
As I was drying off, my wife walked into the bathroom. As she stood there looking me over, she reached over and grabbed my arm.
“How did that happen?” She asked.
There on my forearm was a fresh burn. It was the burn from where my arm had come in contact with the iron arm at the fireplace.
You can read Part 1 and Part 2 below:
