Jigsaw

Helen had come so far into these dark foreboding woods that she wondered if she could ever find her way back to her friends at the picnic on the sunny hill...where long yellow grass grew tall, where birds twittered innocently, and where the sky spread endlessly wide.

Despite her rapidly growing fear and the feeling that this was not the way to spend her sixteenth birthday, she still felt, as she had when she had first entered this ominous slice of nature, an overwhelming compulsion to move ever deeper, as though the dark heart of the woods was summoning her.

Helen fought her way through thick bushes, tangled brambles, and low-hanging tree branches, trying to prevent her new jeans and blouse from becoming dirty or torn. The summer heat was becoming increasingly oppressive, starving the air of oxygen, causing Helen to wish for the fresh breeze she had left behind on the hill.

The tallest trees, having won the fight for sunlight, towered high above her, blocking out nearly all direct sunlight. Occasionally, a sunbeam would pierce the gloom, turning dull grey leaves to bright green, and grey tree bark to a warm, glowing golden brown. At one point, Helen stood for a minute in a solitary sunbeam, turning her head to see her own golden hair ablaze upon her shoulder...a temporary sanctuary in the ever-darkening woods.

While Helen and her friends had been having their picnic on the hill, she had been, for some reason, nervous of the line of trees just a few yards behind her. And once Wendy had dared her to walk into the woods to the count of one hundred called aloud by Wendy and Lucy (Alice got out her book and glasses), Helen found, on entering, that her nervousness immediately turned to an unfathomable fear. She had a vague sense that there was a deeper darkness pervading these woods that had nothing to do with a lack of light. She also felt an overwhelming desire to move ever deeper...heading for the heart...

When her friends had reached one hundred and called for her to come back, she had ignored them, pushing onward through ever thicker trees, bushes, entangling brambles, and stinging nettles, the foliage seeming to deliberately ensnare her, to envelope her, giving Helen the unnerving, stifling feeling that nature was swallowing her.

When she could no longer hear her friends' increasingly alarmed calls for her to reply, she had become very afraid and had almost turned and fled. But something was drawing her, compelling her to move onward into unknown territory.

Sometime later, Helen imagined that her friends would have followed her into the woods, and perhaps one of them had even gone to find a phone box to phone for help.

The deeper she went, the more the knots on the trees seemed like depraved sinister faces grinning down at her with malice, hiding some secret that she should know...for her own safety, she should know...and the trees laughed silently, in spiteful glee, at her ignorance.

Trying to suppress all feelings of being devoured, Helen travelled ever deeper into the darksome unknown, thinking how much older, larger, and denser these woods were than the "Badger-Baiting Woods" (as she had come to think of them) on the way to Lucy's. She was hot and thirsty, her sense of adventure being overwhelmed by a creeping sense of dread.

It was only when, sometime later, the woods seemed so unnaturally dark, and no longer just frightened her but terrified her, that Helen managed to break her somnambulant state, realizing she needed to give up on this strange, solitary journey and get back to her friends as quickly as possible. But how long had she been walking? (Never wearing a watch, she had lost all track of time.) And, with all the twists and turns, could she find her way back?

The unseen, unknown deeper darkness was embedded here.

As she turned to flee, she caught sight of something out the corner of her eye: something black amongst the foliage a little way off...something that loomed toward her...