When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t because my body had decided it had had enough rest. Far from it. The same soul-deep weariness from before I got to rest in my RV had returned while demanding interest. I didn’t bother going through the mental checklist of all the different body parts that hurt. Everything. The answer was everything. And I didn’t need to be a doctor, because this wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle.
Just one more night. I can finish this tonight. I know it.
Something nudged me again, and I realized it was what had woken me up in the first place.
“Little shaman,” Hidebehind growled. “It has been a quarter hour.”
Right. Fifteen minutes.
I heaved myself to my legs. At least, that’s what I tried to do. I ended up buckling and lay on the ground again.
Something was wrong.
This wasn’t just tiredness. This was beyond physical. A quiet voice told me that this was a side-effect of expending so much of my own inner reservoirs through the magic workings. That although I’d gotten here through tooth and nail, achieved victory, I hadn’t really won. Somehow, winning the Hide-and-seek game hadn’t made things better. It had just put me in a spot that wasn’t worse, but just as bad in a different way.
Same old story.
…but somehow different now.
It was my back and stomach.
When I moved, the wounds seemed to bend and stretch like a rubber band, or like a young sprig. There was a suppleness to my back that hadn’t been there before, and at the same time, a certain sensitivity. I moved carefully on reflexively, testing out my back and moved my hand towards my stomach.
It felt weird.
In the places where Hidebehind had torn the skin, there was a moist, batter-like mixture filled in the games. I touched it, expecting to wince in pain, but no. I felt nothing. Almost like touching a numb spot. I could tell it was part of my body, but there was no feeling there. I pressed a little harder, finding the strange mixture to be akin to rubbery mulch. That was the best I could describe it.
“Tobacco, spruce gum, and fat,” Hidebehind said matter-of-factly. “Old remedies.”
“What?” I swallowed. “You patched me up?”
“Yes,” Hidebehind said.
“Tobacco and what?”
“Spruce gum, fat-wax,” Hidebehind said. “Little shaman is welcome.”
It sounded like a lot like the quack doctor remedies I heard about. Leeches on rotting flesh, bleeding the ‘evil spirits away’, and the like. But maybe it wasn’t about the remedy itself, but what Hidebehind was. A sort of supernatural remedy that didn’t depend on biology, but on the spirit—the story of Hidebehind. I wondered which one came first. The spiritual remedies passed on by practitioners who doubled as witch doctors, or physical remedies that gained power through mass belief.
And if it was indeed some kind of spiritual remedy, what did the fact that it was working say about me?
Would I get an infection? Or, since I was a practitioner, were remedies like this better on me than on a regular person? And if it was working, what did that say about my body? That I was no longer under the confines of human anatomy and biology?
…What was happening to me?
The idea that missing parts of me had been filled by Hidebehind’s folk remedy didn’t sit well with me. A foreignness to the idea that felt alien, like my body was no longer the body that I knew. And I knew that there would be consequences to things like this. Because everything in this world has a price, and closing a wound of that size with tobacco, spruce gum, and wax sounded a lot more expensive on the karmic scale than antibiotics and stitches. No matter how much money American Insurance charged.
I got to my feet, getting used to the strangeness in my back. It carried over to my legs, which were forced to stabilize the lack of control in my abdominal area. Spine and abs—both were just covered, not cured. It made me feel somewhat better.
“Hidebehind, I have another task for you,” I said.
“Hmmm,” he growled from low in his throat, but not with hostility. Affirmation.
“I need to find…” I trailed, thinking. Who did I need to find first? “Wol, and Hwari. My familiars. Then the two people I came here with. Then, I need to find the people who led you here. The Wickermen.”
Hidebehind gave a deep nod, which I didn’t see since he was standing behind, but could feel. “Me knows where they are. All together.”
“Lead the way.”
“Me cannot,” he said abruptly.
I frowned. “What?”
“Me cannot lead. Me Hidebehind.”
It took me a second to understand.
“Right, you can’t walk in front of me. Got that. Uh, can you give me directions?”
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He made a chuffing sound, one that dogs make when they’re uncomfortable, or sneezing. “Yes. But not long. Short. General.”
It was starting to come together. The same reason why I beat him was the same reason why he couldn’t be a good guide. Hidebehind’s identity was rooted in hiding behind a person, not leading them to where they were going. The very fact that he was leading meant he wasn’t hiding, nor was he really behind in the metaphorical sense. Taking charge wasn’t something I could rely on him to do.
“Then give me general directions. You’re not leading me there. But think of it as you sending me off, watching from a distance.”
He growled, a pitch lower than before. Again, affirmation. The description had pleased him. “Walk straight, little Shaman. Then turn right at the twin rocks, walk ten paces. Me will follow behind.”
I nodded and began to walk, still getting a feel for balancing my body with the mulch plugging up my wounds. It was slow going, and difficult. I needed something to take my mind off of it.
“Hidebehind, how many people were here when you got here?”
“Me not sure. More than a crowd. Less than a village. A crew of loggers, smelling of fire.”
The Wickermen. “How many is a crew?”
“A crew is as many as a crew.”
I couldn’t tell if he was screwing with me or not. I decided to let it pass. “What about the others? You know Mina and Abigail? Two girls? One, slightly taller than me, the other around my height? They had a Hatae with them. A guardian dog.”
“Mmm. Hidebehind saw.”
“Saw them?” I asked. “Explain.”
“Each walking alone. Me hid behind one, hunting. But she smelled of dirt, death, and sex. Not human. Something else. Hidebehind hide behind the other. But the dog smelled me. Then Hidebehind find you.”
So they weren’t together. Also, I filed his comments about Abigail later. Somehow, dirt, death, and sex, screamed goth baddie to me, though I couldn’t justify it. Maybe there was a symbolism there that I was missing.
“So they’re ok then,” I said.
“No. They not ok. They are asleep. As is the two spirits.”
“Asleep?”
“Mmmm. Little shaman will see.”
That did not bode well.
Speaking of, I saw a bit better in the darkness than before. The pitch-black forest had blended into hues of black, dark navy, and darker navy. I definitely wouldn’t be taking a photo anytime soon, but it was enough to walk while groping the air in front of me. At first, my hands touched nothing. Then the number of trees I bumped into with my shoulder and fingers gradually increased. Until the last few minutes were spent squeezing past trees by turning sideways.
The road was getting narrower.
I had to be super careful here. The bark was rough, and I did not want to find out what would happen if some of the bumps scraped off the mulch holding my body together. Hidebehind, despite his size, never complained once.
It took another few minutes to reach the twin rocks that Hidebehind had talked about.
“Ten paces to the right,” I told myself, and reached out with my hand.
The trees were packed tight.
“I can’t get past this,” I said.
Hidebehind snorted. “The ones little Shaman seeks lie ten paces more.”
“There’s no further path,” I rephrased.
Hidebehind’s voice didn’t come. His presence was still there. He had no words to give.
A test, maybe? The easy way would be to fell the trees, hurt them somehow. A test to see if I still remembered what Hidebehind clearly indicated was important to him. Fire would be easy, though I didn’t have anything on me that could do that, even if I had the energy. Or the other explanation was that it was another compulsion tied to his identity. By helping me through this roadblock, he was leading me through it, so to speak. Which one was it? Could be either. Maybe both.
Didn’t matter. I still needed to get through. Ten paces, and I could see everyone again.
Instead of filling me with relief, all that the thought gave me was grim determination.
I brought them here. My responsibility to get them out.
Back to the trees. I refocused.
I ran my hand over the trees, trying to feel rather than see. I closed my eyes, hoping that it’d help. It did. It worked. The wall wasn’t just a blockade of trees crowded together, but the trunks had somehow twisted around each other like snakes in mating season. Weaving through, under, and over, creating a flat knot that would’ve put any man-made topological puzzle to shame. The barks were smoother than the ones that were squeezed in around me, like they’d been filed down to the inner bits.
No. I wasn’t going to get through this with brute force. That wasn’t how my practice worked.
I reached out with my Third Eye, seeing what these trees really were.
Just like everything in Lost Places, my Third Eye told me that the trees in front of me were indeed real, just translocated over from a different plane of existence. Like someone carved out a piece of a forest from the astral plane and decided to manifest it here in Greg’s home. Nevertheless, it was as real as the cast on my ankle and the knife in my pocket: it wasn’t an illusion.
Delving deeper, I saw that the trees weren’t just a barrier: they were a door. Just one without knobs, hinges, or locks. Meaning that someone had placed them here on purpose and shut it closed.
“You said my friends are behind this,” I said. “Is someone else with them?”
Hidebehind’s growl was an affirmative.
“Who?” I asked.
“Oldest brother. Underthebed.”
I tasted the name, trying to recall if I had read anything about it. “Underthebed. Damn, I wish I had a book handy.”
In the vein of how I dealt with Hidebehind, I needed information about this new preternatural—and possibly the last guy in here. Whatever it was, its naming convention was the same as Tagalong and Hidebehind, a descriptive compound. Whatever it did, was whatever it’s name was.
A creature that hides under the bed. The first word that came to mind was Fear. Then suspense. Another predator, for sure. One that preys on children?
“You said that my friends are sleeping?” I asked.
“Caught. Trapped.”
“Nightmares,” I said, snapping a finger. “This thing deals with nightmares, doesn’t it? Gets into your head?”
Mind you, I was having this whole conversation while facing the trees. Hidebehind didn’t answer. I didn’t need him to. It fit with the whole theme of the denizens occupying this temporary Lost Place taken over Greg’s home.
I thought about it some more.
“Locked door. Help can’t get from outside,” I muttered to myself. “That’s a kid’s worst nightmare. There’s the monster under your bed, but your parents can’t come in and help you. You’re just stuck there. Scared. This thing’s set this door up so it can do whatever it’s doing in peace. I need to get through this door.”
But how?
Leaving the question unasked, I touched the trees again. My understanding of Underthebed clicked with some of the details, my Third Eye somehow seeing more than before. The trees were made of thoughts, or rather, densely packed memories. It wasn’t any specific memory of one person. It was an amalgam of memories from different people. I pressed it again, both with my hand and mind, finding resistance in the form of emotions. Fear, panic, bravado.
It was made of memories of the victims who tried to push back against Underthebed. Maybe they failed, or these emotions wouldn’t be here.
“He’s some kind of… emotion parasite. Eats feelings. Dreams. Leaves nightmares in place,” I said, thinking.
Hidebehind sniffed. “Underthebed same as loggers. Takes and takes. Leaves ruin behind. Builds new things with what he eats.”
“So this guy eats a bunch of emotions, then takes the proverbial crap in people’s head, which results in nightmares,” I said. “But he’s also able to take those emotions that he ate and regurgitate it to create things like this. A construct whose purpose is derived from whatever dream or emotions he ate up.”
Hidebehind didn’t answer.
“So these aren’t real trees. Not in the biological sense, anyway. They’re something made by Underthebed,” I said, getting an idea in my head. “Right?” I asked again, prompting Hidebehind for an answer.
The preternatural seemed sensitive about trees. This tenuous contract I had with Hidebehind, I wanted to get off to a good start, and burning trees within minutes of meeting him didn’t seem like a good idea.
“…Correct.”
I’m not an evocator. I don’t have command of fire. Neither have I taken the time to form a contract with a being that could.
But trees made of dreams? That, I could deal with.