The Lost Girl and the Witch Weather Wood

Dont get lost in the woods.

Have you ever listened to the voice of a storm? Not just with your ears, but truly listened- listened with the entirety of your being and felt it pull upon your soul with the promise of being untamed, undone?
Of course you have, for the wind is like that lover past who still twists up all your heart strings: devastating and utterly undeniable.
Yet despite this truth, the people of the village, tucked into their cosy foothills at the edge of the forest, had done exactly that. They locked their doors against its euphoric call and ignored the way that in its wake the world felt fresh and new. To them the wind was a thing too wild by half and like a wolf it was made to be feared.
For centuries this had been the way of things, everyone laced tight by small talk and nervous of the unknown, they followed the words of their Elders and never dared to put a foot outside what was expected. The only blemishes upon this law were a lost and lonely few who had chafed against the way of things and found friends in the wild creatures of the forest, making their beds amidst its ancient trees.
One such being was picking her way through the howling trees, hair whipping in the witch weather which was blowing strong that day. The trees had been turned black as pitch from the rain which had fallen during the night, but still they stood tall, reaching out their skeletal limbs in worship of the grey and loveless sky.
Shifting the bundle of wood on her back the girl listened, stretching past sound until she felt the primordial wisdom burrow deep within her bones. There was no other feeling quite like it, nothing that could compare to the sense of oneness that flowed through her when she set her spirit loose among the trees. It was immeasurable.
With a sigh she came to a stop along the cliff edge where the dense trunks spaced out enough to reveal another swirling sea of woodland below. At its border, far to the north, the clustered rooftops of the village could just about be seen, small wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys.
She looked out across the distance with moss between her toes, her hair a wild halo around her and it seemed such a queer thing that she had ever belonged there. She'd never forget the day she left- it had been a storm day, much like this one, and it had been the day before she was supposed to be married. There had been a white dress, all frills and lace, hanging in the house as she'd packed her bags, and it had glared at her as she'd walked straight past it and out the front door. Her mother had heard her leave, rushing out into the streets after her. "You're a fool girl!" she'd shouted, "You'll lose yourself to the woods, there will be no return for you, once you're taken, you'll never be found!".
She'd gone anyway, thinking it was they who were truly the fools, but the words had lingered with her. Perhaps it was because from the moment she'd stepped beneath those endless branches, she'd known her mother was right: she would never go back. The witch wood had claimed her, and she had yielded herself entirely to its depth.
She smiled now, thinking of how they called the people like her 'Lost ones', because she had never felt Particularly so... how could one be lost when their journey had no destination to stray from? Despite once being from that place, she knew she would never understand their ways.
Feeling the steady presence of the trees at her back, the girl turned towards them and found emotion tightening her chest. So subtle was the forests acceptance of her and yet she felt it like an embrace, wrapping her in the knowledge that she was as much a part of that wild nature as any leaf or plant.
It was an honour that she would never exchange, and it was for this that she bowed her head low in thanks as she continued on her way.

Crooked and gnarled, her cottage sat between the trees as though it had been there since the dawn of time.
Three years had passed since the girl had made her home there, stumbling upon it with the ease of something scented with the drifting fragrance of fate. It had called to her, and she'd know it to be hers, even with its moss covered stone and shattered windows. Covered from head to foot with ivy and brambles, it had seemed impossible that one girl could wrench it back from the heavy slumber it had fallen into, but she had been determined. For days she'd worked on that house, worked until her fingers had bled and, in the cold, dying light of dusk, thoughts of warm food and the solid stone walls crept in with ugly tendrils of doubt.
That's when the other lost folk had emerged.
Silent, intense, and full of earth they arrived like a breath of wind and sung the house back to life with their work until its patchwork shape was once again flooded with life. Choking back tears she'd nodded in thanks to each of them, then watched as without a sound they'd drifted back into the woods. She remembered looking into the fresh fire burning in the hearth that night, a light against the midnight all around her and such a sense of belonging had echoed in her chest she'd felt it beating in time with her heart.
That feeling warmed her again as she laid her burden of wood by the door and rubbed her hands together to pull the flow of blood back into them. Despite its precarious appearance, the cottage was surprisingly warm inside, and her cheeks flamed with a chill heat as she stripped off her scarf and buried her mud-covered toes in the mat.
The day had passed quickly in the familiarity of her work but there was still a long time ahead of her before she would have to venture out again. Anticipation filled her at the thought of the evening to come. Without a doubt it was one of her favourite nights of the entire year and the whole event had become almost sacred to her. So, despite all that was still left to be done, for that evening she put it all aside and simply curled herself up and watched the sun slip by and the stars blink the sleep dust from their eyes.
She waited while the shadows darkened, the wind collapsing with an exhausted sigh and the world filled with a velvet silence. She waited until that anticipation shifted and became tight, a cord beckoning her forward and she knew that the time for movement had come at last.
With the sky moonless as it was, most others would have lit a lantern or a torch, but for her it was a pointless thing because her feet would have known the way even if her eyes were blind.  They carried her down this route now, her calloused soles moving over roots and leaves with the ease of any forest creature until the trees thinned and fell away into a clearing of enormous size.
Filling the space was a great and beautiful lake, its waters shifting with the breeze in soft, slow ripples which fractured the otherwise flawless mirror of its surface.The girl approached its edge with reverence, feeling in its presence the watching eye of the universe and settled herself in a gap among the rushes and reeds. She watched and as she did, fireflies came to life around her, their tiny bodies glowing with a golden, ethereal light and with them the magic of the place started to come to life.
The first sign of their arrival was a tentative streak of green between the stars, an echo of the true wonder which followed swiftly in its wake. The girl's breath caught in her throat as the sky was transformed by a flood of light, washing over the heavens like a wave upon the shore.
No matter how many times she saw them, the awe she felt never diminished, it was like a rift in the veil between worlds opened and the sense of being ' more' rose up within the self. Blue, green , white, and tinged with purple, the lights swirled in a kaleidoscope of colour as hypnotic as the gaze of the great snake god who was said to dance among them.
The girl was so utterly absorbed that at first she didn't notice the figure which appeared and sat itself by her side. Only when the lights were returning to the ether did she finally chance to look and when she did it was as if her heart had frozen solid in her chest. Sat beside her was a creature she had only ever glimpsed out the corner eye – it was a faery.
The girl gaped unashamedly now, drinking in the miracle with equal measures of fascination and fear.

Totally at ease, the faery had its long legs stretched out in front and was gazing up at the sky with the same serenity she'd had only moments before. Even in the dark the girl could see their strangeness, it radiated from every inch of their being, from the quirk of their lips to the antlered horns poking out from a mass of unruly curls. Stranger still though were their feet – or rather not feet, because in the place of toes were unmistakably, a pair of large, cloven hooves.
Then they turned and suddenly she couldn't hear past the roar of blood in her ears and the rapid thump of her heart in her chest. Golden feline eyes blinked back at her from a face that was far from human and in them she found herself with the same weighted feeling of watchfulness that she felt every day, echoing from the trees. The fae stayed silent, just watching her as she watched them and gradually her shock ebbed away into an odd sense of rightness and slowly, she found herself becoming curious.
Clearly aware of the change, the fae smiled with pointed canines and stood swiftly, reaching down to help her to her feet. For a moment she hesitated, but there was something about this strange being that intrigued her and when she put her hand in his she was surprised to find it warm and calloused to the touch.
" Come?" the question was heavily accented and they tugged gently on her hand in emphasis.
Was it wise to follow? Probably not, all she'd ever learned in the village warned against it, that like the wind, the fair folk were feral and wild and never to be trusted. But she was no longer of the village and their voices held no sway, so she smiled, showing teeth and took the hand extended to her.
The trees rustled around them as he led her towards the lakes edge and without a second thought, stepped out onto the water. Ripples radiated out from around their hoof, but they did not sink and the girl's eyes grew wide as plates when her own feet followed suit.
They walked together across the lake, heading for the opposite bank and she was just starting to wonder what the purpose of this was when the world around her started to shift. The trees came alive, melting and changing in a way that made her feel dizzy with vertigo. She clutched tighter to the faeries hand and scrunched her eyes shut tight, sure that at any moment reality would fall out from beneath her. With a jerk she felt herself yanked forwards and surprisingly strong arms enclose her as the faery pulled her to them. She caught only a glimpse of those strange teeth grinning at her before it tipped them both off balance and they were falling, crashing into the water which rose up and swallowed them whole.