Somewhere in the woods

Somewhere in the woods generations in the past, there was a person who wanted to build a life for themselves. So they bravely ventured into a land of great cedar and oak, which they thought could bear fruit all year long. However, the woods were not a plentiful orchard, but instead had a stomach itself, and slowly ate away at them until all that remained was a dry layer of tattered leather over a set of bones. This was its first victim - a poor young man believing he could conquer the forest with just an axe, leaving his brain back home with his parents as he made it out as unnecessary baggage. 

The second one was much smarter - a carpenter who knew how to work with both his mind and his hands at once. He felled great cedar trees that once stood tall - laying out each log on one another, side by side or on top, until there was a small cabin. There, he lived, building a small bed, a window, door, fireplace, and carving out a little spot in the wilderness. When other potential victims of the forest came, he would give them a nice meal and a whack on the head, hoping that the young men and women who hoped to harvest some fruit would realize that the branches of the forest were bare of love and kindness. The carpenter wasn’t always successful - he always took the time to bury those the forest claimed - a last bit of respect so they could die with some form of dignity.

Unfortunately, he was unable to bury himself - a traveler discovered his limp body in bed, and had to bury him next to the ones the  fellow buried himself. His passing was on his own terms - one that came after a bad season of flu and the realization that he had passed seventy, and the fact that at least forty-five of those years were spent in the woods as a waystation for lost travelers. His last regrets were that he had never found a woman willing to marry him, the fact that he’d never be able to hear the voices of the children he could’ve had, and that he should’ve made the goddamn bed more comfortable so that he could’ve at least relieved himself of his constant back pain in his last moments.

Months later, a young woman found the cabin, her shawl holding a young, crying child. She had run miles to escape the devil, and found the abandoned cabin, with the carpenter’s gun, books, and bed still inside. The first thing she did was take the gun, march outside, and shoot the devil. The child cried until he heard the gunshot - then he cooed and went to sleep. It was over.

The devil did not leave the young woman even when it was claimed by the forest - it was constantly whispering into her ear, threatening to take over. She instead threw herself into work, learning from the experiences of a man who had already been buried, a wise man who was still guiding pupils from beyond the grave. In a shelf, he kept dozens of handwritten journals, all carefully woven together with a deer’s muscles, a pig’s skin, and rag paper that he would readily buy using whatever the forest tried to claim him with. The young woman avoided possession by learning from a man who spent forty-five years in the forest - and spent her time expanding the cabin to avoid the devil, and raising her son so that he could learn to avoid him too.

The child grew into a fine young man, strong from living in the woods and smart from living with his mother. He learned that he should one day leave the cabin, because in the end, no matter how much his mother worked, the devil was still haunting her - not to mention the fact that the forest had no sympathy for a young woman and her son, and seemed to send whatever it could to kill them both at any cost. Like the carpenter before him, he saw that the forest was not an orchard - the only fruits that grew were holly and mistletoe. So he left at sixteen - and his mother stayed, proud that her son had the sense to find his own peace.

The son came back at twenty-eight, with a family back to the cabin, repeatedly for visits. They would bring her fruits of their labor - soaps and candles and jars of honey, all made from the apiary that the son had married into, and the apiary that the son learned from. His mother tried to hug him with her open arms, but she was no longer young and could barely stand after years of working to escape the devil. The devil claimed her at fifty-four - her son was barely thirty. HIs only comfort was that she added her own collection of journals to the carpenter’s, and that there was already a graveyard to bury her in.

Although this young man turned husband looked like a fine young man outside, within was still the crying child from years before. He had never had to mourn someone he loved before, and soon had to bury three of his own children. Although they did not live in the woods, the husband had a feeling that now that the devil had taken his game and left, the woods that fostered him and his mother were taking what they believed to be theirs. This stark belief continued until a pair of twins finally passed the age of four - at that point, that meant that they were going to live, and the husband had a son and daughter of his own.

The husband and his wife taught these two how to live - their son how to be a strong, young man. The wife taught her son how to be like her grandfather, an astute beekeeper who managed acres of land and dozens of beehives. She taught her son to be like her own father, who maintained the family business, grew it in size, spreading the family name throughout several counties. She wanted her son to grow into a well-mannered young man, one that could keep the business going. She taught her daughter how to be a fine young woman, how to be like countless women before her and provide for children and her future husband. The wife had models to choose from - and poured her experiences into her children. She taught them business and love, the world she grew up in - a world of songbirds and angels.

The husband was different - all he had were the journals of a man he had never met and the teachings of his mother and the wilderness. So he took his children to the cabin for weeks at a time so they could learn, learn from the chirping songs of the sparrows and the towering cedars, and be able to pick up a gun and shoot at a devil if they ever found one chasing them. He taught them to be like the carpenter - resourceful and independent, and to be like his mother - a strong young woman who put everything into her work and family. He taught them how to carve their stakes into the wilderness, how to put their hands and minds to work. As they learned, he saw the woods lay their claim on his children. Well go ahead, he said. Because he had taught them both how to burn down the forest if they had to. He taught them stark realism, the world he grew up in - the world of forests and devils.

The children were very different. The son followed his mother and became a songbird, able to preach to a choir and impress a crowd, put up a good display for fellow businessmen and keep the family business alive. The teachings of the husband fell on deaf ears as the son happily tried to build upon the business of his mother’s forefathers, tending to the apiaries and spreading the good name of his family through the state. He was a songbird because he was in heaven. What good would the skills of a carpenter be if he could sing to one and have him do it instead? What good was the shooting of a gun if there were no devils to shoot? The son took his fathers’ skills, but veered more toward his mother, becoming the pride of the family.

The daughter, on the other hand, threw herself into her father’s teachings because there was no one who wanted to teach her anything useful. She became a hawk, quick and precise, dastardly fast, and an amazing hunter. While her brother learned from the texts of businessmen, she pored over the journals of the carpenter and the teachings of her grandmother because there was no room for her by her brother’s side. In her brother’s idyllic world, she saw the many devils that feigned as songbirds, all trying to grab for a piece of their business, and she would have to step in to prevent her brother from almost signing off the family business. Only her father would praise her for such actions - the only one who was proud of her and her accomplishments. Her mother scolded him for teaching her to be a hawk. He told her that a songbird cannot shoot a devil.

Years later, the husband said goodbye to his children, spat at his wife, and went back to the woods, writing journals of his own. The daughter went with him against his wishes, for she saw no future for her in the world of her brother. And when she left, the brother made a deal with the devil - and there was no one to shoot the devil as he staked his claim on the family business. The wife and brother, helpless songbirds as they were, had to watch as the family business was run into the ground. They could only save a few hives, load them on a truck, and escape into the woods with some equipment in a desperate attempt to escape his clutches.

The sister and brother reconciled. The husband welcomed his wife to the woods. They put their lives back together, put out products for locals only. They left the world of business and went into the world of the woods. The brother had a family, and sent his children to college - and as the husband, then the wife, then the sister all passed and were buried in the forest, the cabin became managed by a lonesome old man who didn’t know where his children were, or who his children were with. He could only look at the cabin - which at this point had turned into a fully running home, unrecognizable to the carpenter who first built it from the ground up. He kept on beekeeping - spare for small visits from his children where he would pass on the family tradition as much as he remembered - as much as he could. The shelf was now filled with journals, all from the carpenter, the mother, the husband, the sister, and the brother, all chronicles of this family.

The house is still in the woods to this day.