one of many crests

Wilstripes, Vol. 3

My father’s fingers rapped the table in a heavy drum, his gray head tilted slightly and his gray eyes unfocused. The fire shadows flickered on the high walls of the dining hall, echoes of the endless hours of cyclical arguments that had worn both of us out. But I could feel him silently stirring in there, swirling and lapping with the suck of a drainpool.  At one point I thought he was asleep until I heard a low and steady weeping escape from the beard curling into his cracked lips.

Finally he stood and so I stood. Our eyes met briefly and I left him there in the half light of dawn peeking through the skylight. I felt his eyes on my back as I turned the corner, felt his will follow me past the servant’s quarters and stop at the top of the drive, watching as I slipped back into the forest.

Once these woods had been mine. They had existed for me, by my hand, as I had had existed for them, by their watch. I told the sun where to dapple my path, I told the stones where to tumble and kick up dust. The rivers ran with me and the whipping winds at the top of the pass screamed with tales of my city. But these paths now seemed strange and the darkness held new shadows. The wisewoman’s cave is empty, caked in dried mud and bone fragments. My meadows were overgrown, slipped to the skies are echoes of moon circles sweeping through the surrounding trees.

This creaking forest had forgotten me.

Specters bob through the night fog, mumbling, laughing, occasionally lashing out. One had pinned doughy sugar candies to a tree and made faces as I passed, unaware that I could see him leap from branch to branch. Another offered me coins for the ferry. I smiled and replied that I would be walking. He smiled back at me and offered me coins for the ferry.