The Lady of Waterleaf and Wire

Lies

He left to hunt, as promised, and Rose stayed behind. She sat beneath the willow's tall and ancient bows. Plants sprung from the ground, faster this time and Rose found her wrists wrapped in clematis vines. Trailing blackberries caught her ankles. Vines bound her body and held her to the forest floor. "Get off!" she shouted at the plants and for a moment, they receded. She leapt to her feet and stumbled away from the tree. "I'm losing my mind, aren't I?" She yelled at the tree. It didn't answer.

She slumped into a chair back in the cabin. She stared out the door which she hadn't closed. She stared at the strange tree. It called to her, even now. Rose closed her eyes. She'd shouted at John, she recalled, let him starve for days while she ate like royalty. Perhaps, she thought, the question she ought to be asking was what had gotten into her. John was just a man, feeling the loneliness of the woods. Rose, on the other hand... She'd eaten sorrels, in the middle of the winter. Magic sorrels that had sprung up from a tree. She'd seen blackberries on their vines, which tried to strangle her. A tree had tried to trap her and then it had listened when she told it to stop. It had snowed and she hadn't felt the cold.

She began to wonder if John was right about that strange woman he'd seen. A hallucination. Just like the willow's charm. She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze upon the tree. She couldn't draw her eyes away. The cabin grew cold as the fire burned out, and finally she stood. She pulled the door shut. She stoked the fire and blew its embers until it glowed again. She sat by the flames until the snow melted from her clothes and evaporated into the air.

John's hunt hadn't proven very productive. The snow had begun to fall soon after he'd left. It had only worsened as the day went on and now he could hardly see the path in front of him through the flakes. He'd stayed out longer than he should've, still regretting his herb-stealing. His sacrifices over the last few days felt like a small punishment for betraying his wife's trust. Even so, he was beginning to wish he'd just gone back to the cabin at the first sight of snow. His hands were freezing and his clothes were wet. He stood under a tree for a second, contemplating simply waiting out the blizzard. However, the flurries showed no signs of stopping, only accumulating more and more. Every step John took seemed to fill his boots with more ice. He looked forward to thawing his toes by the fire he knew Rose would've stoked in this cold.
Here, the path wound down a hill and John followed it as best he could. The snow had buried the trail completely though, and the snowfall was just about enough to blind him by this point. He kept up a steady pace, but the accumulation of ice was only getting deeper and it was becoming increasingly hard to walk. Finally, John came upon a tall maple he believed he recognized. With luck, the cabin would be a quarter mile south of the tree, as would his wife and a warm fire to dry his clothes beside.

He half-walked half-slid down to the tree and made his way towards its trunk. He'd nearly reached it, when he suddenly slipped on a sheet of ice. He drew himself onto his knees, breathless, but unhurt. He reached for his rifle, which had slid ahead of him. The ground gave out under him.

John gasped as he was plunged into freezing water. He grabbed at the ice, trying to keep his head out of the water. His heavy pack was pulling him under. He kicked his legs to push him higher out of the depths of the pond and slipped one arm out of the straps of his bag. He did the same for the other and watched his supplies sink. Without the weight pulling him down, he attempted to climb out of the icy water, but to no avail. He pulled himself to the other edge of the hole and tried to escape once more. This time, to Johnathan's horror, the ice shattered and he lost his hold on the edge. His head went under. The shock of the cold disoriented him and he inhaled the freezing water. The hole wasn't above him somehow. Or below him. He wasn't sure which way was up. Bubbles, he noticed, were rising. Up was with the bubbles. He swam with them. He reached the surface and pounded on the ice. It didn't budge. He pushed himself along, trying to relocate the hole he'd fallen through.