Julius walked on the soft earthen path through the forest. It was freckled with small stones and stray strands of grass, which waved gently in the air. Lush green carpets of ferns and undergrowth burst on both sides, only interrupted by hundreds of dark oak and hickory trees. The dense canopy above allowed a few rays of orange light through from the setting sun.
He hardly noticed any of it, his mind spinning in worry. Atticus, his son, his baby, his everything, was sick. The child had blue-black veiny tendrils radiating out from a point on his chest, right above his heart. They’d taken Atticus to the doctor, of course, and after many tests and many more doctors, none could find a thing wrong. But the veins were getting worse, spreading further across Atticus’s pale chest.
So like he always did when life became overwhelming, Julius took a walk. It was always the same walk, through the woods by their house, on the little path that snaked through the greenery. The light was starting to fade more now, and the green ground cover started to turn black under the growing shadow of dusk. The wind picked up, and the trees creaked, their leaves rustling and whistling. A movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned his head, seeing nothing. Perhaps it had been a firefly — it had looked like a flicker of yellow.
Another flicker of yellow, to the left this time. He turned his head again, and saw nothing. Must be fireflies. It was getting too dark, the color of the light gradually turning into a deep blue. He turned around and hastened his pace back home. Yellow again, two spots of yellow, side by side, before they vanished.
Then… music, like nothing he had heard before. It was a haunting, lilting melody. He felt goosebumps spread across his arms, and fear spiked through his heart. But… there was something intoxicating about the melody. His fear was replaced with a burning curiosity, an undeniable yearning to know the source of the melody. He found his feet moving off the path, scuffling through the underbrush, and up a small hill. He crested the hill and stopped at the top.
Dozens of pairs of yellow, squarish eyes stared at him from between the trees. His eyes adjusted and he saw square wooden faces around the eyes, faintly illuminated in yellow. Each face had a slit for a mouth. He saw dark humanlike bodies under the faces but couldn’t make out much detail. The melody was at a fever pitch now, and the bodies swayed to it, and Julius found that his own body swayed too.
Then the music abruptly stopped. A creature stepped forward, coming within a few feet of Julius. Its whole body looked like it was made of wood, just like its face, but it had two arms and two legs like a human. It was shorter than Julius, coming up only to his stomach, and it held an ornate wooden staff with intricate designs painted on with colorful pigment.
“Terrible need. Terrible choice. You choose,” a voice came from the creature, high-pitched and strange.
The music was gone, and its hold on Julius had gone also. He panicked, and stumbled backwards, falling over. He scrambled to his feet and dashed through the brush, away from the creatures. Yellow eyes regarded him from his left and right as he madly ran back to the trail, not daring to look back. He made it to the trail and began to sprint down it, back towards home. More eyes regarded him from the sides of the trail, steady and haunting.
“Leave me alone!” He yelled and ran harder.
Finally, he burst through the tree line and into the meadow where his home was. He ran towards the back door and slammed against it, scrabbling for his key. He glanced up towards the forest and saw that it was … dark. There were no eyes, no signs of movement. Just trees creaking slowly in the deep aquamarine dusk.
He opened the door, hurried inside, and slammed it, locking the knob and turning the deadbolt.
It wasn’t real, right? It couldn’t have been real. He stood there for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, sweat beading on his forehead. His wife peeked around the kitchen doorway into the mudroom, where he was standing.
“Hon? Are you okay? You scared me, slamming the door like that.”
Julius looked up, his eyes still wild.
“Jule? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” She came through the doorway and placed her hand on his face, looking into his eyes. “You all right?”
He pulled her into a hug, then breathed “I think I saw something in the woods. There were … creatures.”
“Creatures?” She frowned, holding him.
“Or people… maybe. They had yellow eyes. I think I’m going crazy. Maybe we should call the police,” he said.
She abruptly disengaged from the hug and held his shoulders, looking at him. “Hold on, yellow eyes?”
“Yes?” He said questioningly, looking at her with surprise.
She tightened her grip. “Were these creatures short? Did they have square faces?”
“Yes! What? Have you seen them before?”
She let him go and her eyes glazed over. “Why are they here now…” she muttered to herself.
Julius placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to catch her gaze. She still stared blankly into the distance. “Sarah? Sweetheart? What do you know about the creatures?”
She shook herself, and looked up at him, her face white. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? But you just…”
“I thought it sounded like something — something from TV, okay?” She said sharply and shook herself free from him. Her expression softened, and she said, “I don’t know anything about what you saw. I’m sorry for snapping. Are you sure it wasn’t just some animals?”
“It wasn’t animals, Sare! They were like weird little human wood things!”
“It’s pretty dark out there, Julius, I wouldn’t blame you if—” she was interrupted by the wail of a baby. Atticus was awake and crying. “I got it,” she said, squeezing his hand before turning around and walking back out of the small mudroom.
Julius stood, confused, his hands on his hips. Finally, he shook his head and kicked off his shoes, going to help the baby.
Choose no selfish Pain will come. Choose no greed Pain will come. Choose only right Pain will come. Peace may come too.
Atticus was screaming and wriggling around on his back in his hand-painted powder blue crib. Sarah unbuttoned his soft white shirt and looked at his chest. The dark veins had grown again; now they were covering his whole left pectoral. She exhaled in frustration and smeared some antibiotic cream one of the doctors had provided onto the baby’s soft skin. She felt the bluish-black veins under her fingers, lifting from the skin like tree roots. As she was finishing, Julius came into the room. She said, “it’s getting worse, Julius.”
Julius had opened his mouth to say something as he had entered the room but closed it as he looked down at Atticus. His brow furrowed in a look of concern. “Dammit,” he whispered, then “sorry, little guy. Daddy shouldn’t cuss, huh?” He gently held Atticus’s hand between his forefinger and thumb. Sarah buttoned the shirt back up and picked the baby up, shushing him and soothing him, rocking him back and forth in her arms.
“Sh sh sh, it’s all right, I know, I know, but it’s all right. We’re gonna take care of you, sweetie,” she whispered, her eyes moist.
Julius touched her shoulder gently and stroked Atticus’s soft cheek. “She’s right, you know, Atti. We love you so much. We’re going to take care of you, no matter what.”
He and Sarah looked at each other and nodded firmly in determination. “Families overcome,” they both whispered in unison, then went back to fawning over Atticus.
The next morning, Julius was making breakfast while Sarah held Atticus in her arms, whispering to him soothingly. Eggs simmered in the frying pan and oil popped, jumping out from the hot surface.
“Jule,” Sarah said as he stood over the pan, stirring the eggs with a rubber spatula.
“Hmm?”
“You need to go back out and find them. You need to find the wood creatures.”
“What?” Julius turned in surprise, flicking some egg off the rubber spatula in his hand as he did.
“They can help you,” she said quietly, looking down at Atticus. “I think they can help us.”
“Okay, seriously, Sare … what do you know about these things? Last night you said they were animals.”
“I lied. I’ve… seen them before. And they helped me. They helped you.”
“They helped me? What do you mean?”
“Your cancer, Julius. It wasn’t a miracle. It was them. The Wood Ones,” she said, and briefly looked up at him before looking back down at Atticus, rocking him back and forth.
“What?” Memories flooded back into his head. Lying on the bed in the hospital, smelling the antiseptics in the air, feeling the course pillowcase behind his hairless head, the sickening pain in his abdomen…
“They fixed you. If you see them, it means they can help with something else now too. You have to see them, Julius, you have to. Maybe you can help Atticus,” she said, looking up at him intensely.
“Hold on, you just gave me a whole lot of information and very little explanation. What did you call them, the ‘Wood Ones’? What are they? What did they do for you? You mean to say they healed my cancer?”
“Go see them, Julius. That’s all I can say. You have to go at dusk tonight, they only show up at dusk. Go see them,” she said.
“Come on, Sarah! This is nuts!”
“I need you to trust me, Jule, and I need you to not ask me any more questions on this,” She said softly. “Okay? Trust me, babe, please. Also, the eggs are burning.” She turned her back to him and resumed rocking Atticus and cooing at him.
Man no tame life Life tame man. Man no want strife Life break plan.
The sun was setting again, bright pink rays streaking across the sky like someone had pulled carnival cotton candy off the cone and dragged it across blue velvet. Julius stepped out into the warm summer air and steeled himself. Sarah had asked him to trust her, and he would. He always would. There was a reason he had married her. He strode off through the grass of the backyard until he found the entry to the snaking forest path again. He stepped onto the soft earth and disappeared into the trees.
The sun fell below the horizon, and the same deep blue light fell upon the forest. Once again, the yellow, squarish eyes appeared, and once again, he heard that lilting, haunting melody. Once again, he found himself drawn up the hill. Once again, the strange, wooden creature with the square face, glowing eyes, and ornate staff in its green-brown fingers appeared in front of him. The music stopped abruptly, and he felt his heart rate shoot up again, but he stood firm.
“Terrible need. Terrible choice. You choose,” The humanoid creature said to him once again in that strange, high-pitched voice. It stood for a moment, waiting to see if he ran again, and when he did not, it nodded and turned, motioning for him to follow. He stepped forward into the undergrowth.
After a few minutes of stepping through the undergrowth, they came to a small circular clearing of plain earth under the canopy. Words in a strange language had been carefully inscribed into the bark of the trees surrounding the circle, and in the center of the circle, a pedestal of thick, twisting roots clutched a large wooden bowl full of water. The bowl and the roots were also inscribed with the same strange, curling language.
The creature motioned at the bowl, then stood to the side of it and waved its staff. Julius stepped forward towards the bowl. The water suddenly began to glow an eerie cyan blue and clouded. Then an image resolved on the surface of the liquid: Atticus lying on his back in a diaper, his face contorted in a mask of agony, his skin red, his mouth open in a wail, his arms and legs flailing. His entire chest was covered with the spiderwebbing black veins.
“Terrible need,” The creature with the staff said. It seemed to be the leader. “Wood Ones help you. Give you choice.”
“You can help Atticus? What’s wrong with him? Tell me!” Julius grabbed the creature by its wooden shoulders and shook it. Its body rattled like sticks being struck together, and other creatures suddenly emerged from the shadows, holding spears in their hands.
The leader motioned them to stop and said “Child has the Rot. Result of terrible consequence.”
“The Rot? What is that?”
The leader just stared at him, its wooden face expressionless as always, and said “Terrible consequence.”
Julius stared at it, then released his grip and stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck. “So what can we do?”
It nodded back towards the bowl and raised its staff again. Julius turned back to the bowl and looked inside. The image of Atticus writhing in pain changed. The dark, evil veins on his chest began to recede, collapsing in towards the center point until there was only a single black dot, which lingered for a moment before vanishing as well. Atticus’s skin returned to a healthy light pink, and the baby began to smile and clasp idly at the air. His bright blue eyes opened wide and he looked happy.
“Yes! You can heal him?” He said excitedly, looking back up at the leader.
It nodded back towards the bowl. “You choose. Terrible choice.”
The image in the bowl changed again. It showed Sarah, lying on their bed, her eyes closed, her face beaded with sweat, her skin ghostly white. The covers were halfway down her body, and she was wearing a sweat-stained white tank top. Visible above the yellow-white neckline of the shirt, her breasts heaved up and down, and were streaked with… dark, blue-black veins. Her eyes flared open, she choked and coughed, jerking her head up, then her eyes closed and her head fell back on the pillow. She didn’t move again.
Julius clutched at his heart, staggering back. “Sarah… no. You can’t be saying… no,”
The leader stared at him with its yellow eyes, and their glow seemed to soften momentarily. It nodded. “Terrible consequence. You choose. Terrible choice.”
“I… I… I can’t do this,” Julius uttered, and turned away from the bowl, stumbling through the brush.
“Sky-dark tomorrow. You choose. Rot will not wait,” the creature called at his back. He barely registered it. He shakily stepped out of the circle of earth then hurried back home.
“Sarah!” He called, bursting in through the back door. He stepped out of the mudroom, his dirty shoes tracking into the kitchen. “Sarah! Where are you?”
“I’m in Atti’s room, Jule!” she called back. “Come quick!”
He entered the child’s room, where she was standing over the crib, clutching the powder blue wooden rim, her knuckles white. Julius strode towards her and said “Sarah, the Wood Ones, they said —”
She turned towards him then, tears sparkling in her eyes. “He’s worse, Jule. He’s worse.”
He rushed forward and looked into the crib. The veins had fanned out across most of Atticus’s chest, and he was squirming in visible discomfort, his eyes open and staring wildly in every direction as he silently screamed with his mouth open. “Atticus…” Julius breathed. Sarah suddenly stepped next to him and hugged him tight.
They stood for a long time like that, until Sarah finally sniffed and withdrew. Julius’s own eyes stung. Sarah’s hair, normally so beautiful and shiny now clung to her face wetly, its brown strands limp against her head. She hadn’t been brushing it lately. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“The Wood Ones can help him,” Julius breathed. She stared at him, excitement shining on her face before quickly being replaced with worry.
“… at what cost, Jule?” She touched his hand gently.
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He opened his mouth, but his tongue had gone dry, and the words wouldn’t come out. Finally, he managed one word: “consequences.”
“Whatever it is, you have to do it. You have to save him. Please, sweetheart, I love him so much. And I love you so much too. I want us to have a family. Please.” Her eyes glistened in the lamplight. Even in this state, she was so damn beautiful.
“I … don’t… I can’t… I don’t know if I can do it…”
“You have to! Please, Jule, please —”
“It’s you, Sarah! The consequence is you. You get the same thing. The Rot, they said. You get it, and you die, Sarah, you die, probably slowly! I don’t—”
“It doesn’t matter, you have to—” she started, then stopped, her mouth open. Her face froze in horror. “Wait, the same thing? The Rot? What did they say about it?” She clutched his arm, hard.
“Why does it — Sarah! Let go! All they said is that it was the Rot, and that it was ‘the result of terrible consequence’, whatever that means,” he said, as he tried to free his shirt from her grip. She let him go and put her hands over her mouth. “What is it? Does that mean something to you?”
“I didn’t…” she paused. Her brow creased with horror. Finally, she managed “I saw them before, Jule. I saw the Wood Ones, and I made a choice too.”
He stared at her. “What choice?”
“I saved you. From the cancer. You were dying, Julius, you were dying, and I couldn’t watch it happen!”
“What choice, Sarah?!” He shouted, surprising himself at the force of his voice.
“It was … I thought it was … Nathan. They showed me him in his crib, lying still. But… Oh my God, this can’t be happening. The crib…”
“What about the crib? What about Nathan? Is this why he died? The doctors said it was sudden infant death syndrome!”
“The crib was blue, Jule, oh my God, at the time I didn’t even notice because the baby looked the same, but… the crib was blue.” Atticus’s crib had been Nathan’s originally, and it used to be forest green. They had painted over the forest green with powder blue before Atticus was born. They even dressed Atticus in Nathan’s clothes to honor the lost child.
“Sarah… what are you saying?”
“I chose to save you. Nathan was the consequence… except…”
“You did what?! Why would you do that!”
Rage suddenly filled her eyes, and she snapped at him “Why? Because I hated him, Julius! I hated him, and I hated everything, and I hated life, and I wanted to die, and the only thing keeping me here was you! You were so strong, even when you were in the hospital, you were so strong, you told me I had to keep going. Well, I wasn’t going to let you go, not like that! Not with a baby I hated and—”
“You didn’t hate him, Sare” Julius interrupted, softly but firmly. “You had postpartum, bad postpartum. Psychosis, they said. You didn’t hate him. You just weren’t well.”
“I made the right choice! I saved you, so we could have another and be a… family.” Her rage suddenly died, and she gasped the last word out as a wave of realization hit her. She collapsed against the wall behind her. “Oh God. Nathan. What have I done… and it wasn’t even Nathan. It was Atticus. The crib was blue. God no. Nathan… dead, and now… Atticus. No. No no no no. This can’t be happening…” she slid down to the floor, sobbing into her hands.
Julius stood, dumbfounded. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Would you have believed me? Especially then, when I was taking those meds? I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t put that on you, but I needed you, I needed you more than I’ve ever needed anyone, Jule,” she looked up and her eyes reflected wetly in the light. Her face was a mask of grief. She broke down into sobs again “Oh God, what have I done, I’m so sorry, Nathan! I’m so sorry, Atti! What have I done!”
Despite everything, Julius felt his heart soften. He loved her so much, but she… he felt himself fall into the nursing chair behind him, his eyes glassy and distant. He felt a twisting, desolate pain in his heart. Sarah continued her loud choking sobs, her face buried in her knees and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. Her sides shook violently. Atticus began to audibly scream and cry as well.
They sat like that, for who knew how long.
Finally, Sarah’s tears subsided. She looked up and wiped her face. Determination filled her eyes, a stony resolve chiseled on her features. “I made a choice. I had to save you. And now you have to save Atticus. You have to choose him, Julius. I don’t deserve him as a mother, not after what I’ve done. I don’t deserve you either. But he deserves you as a father. You have to choose him. You both have to live. That’s the right choice.”
“Sare… “ he said, looking up, his eyes focusing on her.
“You have to choose him. That’s the right choice.”
Man wish hurt Wish give back. Man wish greedy Wish turn black. Wood One stop help Wish make ground crack. Wood One help needy Wish bring back.
The next day, he found himself among the Wood Ones a third and final time. He stared into the scrying bowl, looking at the scenes play out again. When they stopped, he continued leaning on the edges of the bowl and closed his eyes.
He had met Sarah in college, at a party. He still remembered her smile. That shiny brown hair, those sparkling blue eyes, that carefree smile as she caught him looking at her. He still remembered walking up to her friend group, his heart pounding, and saying hello. He remembered how her friends had tried to shut him down, but she had pushed them away and said hello back with a smile.
He remembered their first date and how they ate strawberry ice cream together in the gondola at the top of the Ferris wheel and looked out over the harbor at night and watched the city lights reflect on the water. She was so magical… and so strong. He remembered when her dad had died, and she had helped her mom get through it. He remembered when he had first been diagnosed with cancer, and she had held him tight, and told him he’d better survive, or she’d kill him. She had been there every step of the way, and never faltered, no matter the pain.
His mind then flashed to Atticus. He remembered holding him in his arms for the first time and seeing those bright blue eyes looking sleepily back up. He remembered taking him home, and swaddling him in a soft blanket, and holding him against his chest on the couch until they both fell asleep together. He remembered Atti giggling and smiling up at him, eyes full of wonder. He remembered those tiny fingers clasped so strongly around his one big finger.
More than anything, he remembered that feeling when Atti was first born, the feeling of being a parent, the feeling of knowing he would love this child no matter what for the rest of his life.
He let out a gut-wrenching scream. Then, he made his choice.