The Butcher of the Forest

by Premee Mohamed

Never, never, never. It had been drilled into them their entire lives; they had taken in the fear of the place with their mothers’ milk. One more step and you risked falling into the Elmever. Where the other people of the woods lived. And they would not give you up.

Things for a journey that might be brief and might last forever.

Really, the problem was that people believed that there was some kind of . . . door, or gate, or at any rate some visible thing that let you enter the Elmever, and it was thought that this lured children in some way, tempted them with sparkle or song to step through it.

At some point, you took a step, and you were simply there, and you would not see the difference between it and the true woods, and you would never take another step that led you back home.

The rules were vague but should not be broken: don’t cut living wood; don’t shed any animal’s blood; trade if you must, but do not negotiate. And certainly never accept any “gifts.”

And as for people: she had told the Tyrant that no one lived here. That was not strictly true. What did not live here was people, and even that was not strictly true, because nothing was. They were people-ish, and they had no name, and sometimes they did not look like people, even though they could speak. This place was their home, though, and whatever it took to keep it that way, they would not shirk to do it.

A name did not mean everything, Veris knew, but it didn’t mean nothing either; and in here it meant more than it did in the world outside.

“I’m the only person in all of history, as far as is known, to have gone into the north woods and survived. Myself, and the child I rescued. Everyone else, everyone, was never seen again.”

And the beast cast it, and it was great and terrible, and its head rose to nearly the canopy of the forest, and the single horn scythed from its forehead curved and gleaming as a sword.

They would not come. And what held them there was not love; and at this point, after so long, it was barely fear. Something was dead inside of them, something had been killed, and buried deep, under their gleaming ribs.

Now they had an existence rather than a life.

And again she thought: Monsters, the children of monsters. But innocent. You do not inherit what you are born to; and you do not inherit your own theft. Their innocence will not save them from harm. And it has not. Still it must be remembered.