The Descent

She is standing exactly where Hazel last saw her. Though the blue moonlight cascading over her makes her look more spectral than Hazel can ever recall.

Hazel does not greet her, but she smiles in appreciation and something like relief, as though she did not expect Hazel to come at all.

Concurrently and wordlessly they begin to walk, taking identical paths around trees and through foliage, though Hazel’s dress undergoes a great deal more abuse than her’s, which slides through each obstacle like water.

They walk at the same pace, Hazel notices.

The woods are filled with thick mist. It caresses everything like smoke, and Hazel must suppress a shiver. It will be colder where she is going. Hazel wonders if it will get warmer the longer she is there.

They reach their destination soon; the mound rises from the forest floor like the humped back of some great green beast.

“You didn’t say goodbye to Peter,” she points out as they near the mound concealing the tunnel.

“I don’t like long goodbyes,” Hazel says, and thinks how long her father was given to say goodbye to her mother. Not long, she decides, not long enough.

“You didn’t say goodbye to your father, either.”

“Neither did you,” Hazel counters, and she turns to smile at her.

Circling the mound, they stop before the tunnel, vines hanging over it like tendrils and disappearing into darkness.

“Where is the wolf?” Hazel asks, nervously, scanning the woods around them, though in the mist she cannot see more than a few paces ahead. A breeze blows past them and howls into the tunnel, bringing with it the first chill of approaching autumn.

“I don’t know. Close. Perhaps with us right now. You can never be sure,” she says.

Hazel takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the woods, of moss and damp earth and the musk of woodland creatures. Her heart aches with nothing more than nostalgia, as though she has already left it behind.

The tunnel is redolent of moonless nights and orchids and the steam wafting over a cup of tea. With a breath of sugary snow.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hazel confesses. She is certain it cannot be as simple as walking through. No story is ever so straightforward; Peter has told her numerous times, to warn her and to teach her.

“You know the story of the wolf?” she asks.

Hazel nods.

She smiles. “Then you know what you must do.”

“It is as simple as walking in the forest?” Hazel asks, her skepticism obvious in her face.

“It is as simple as succumbing to the wolf.”

“This will restore the balance, yes?” Hazel asks, gazing into the darkness.

“It will draw the wolf back. Don’t worry. It won’t be for nothing,” she says, and her voice echoes in the tunnel.

“I never thought it would,” Hazel says.

The trees creak in an invisible wind. There is the sound of crunching moss, as though a giant hand has pressed it down. The snap of twigs accompanied by the rustle of bushes behind them.

Hazel refuses to turn, her heart pounding a bruise against her ribs.

“You never told me,” Hazel says, partly to distract herself, partly out of curiousity.

“I thought it would be best for you to realize it on your own,” she replies. Then, sounding almost teary, she asks, “Are you angry?”

Hazel cannot find it in herself to be angry. “I have a sister, whom I know better than anyone else, who knows me better than anyone else. How could I be angry with you?” She smiles to reassure her sister, who takes her hand with a caress like a whisper.

Hazel feels breath on the back of her neck, but she does not turn. It is followed by the insistent push of a muzzle.

Her hand slips from Hazel’s, and she steps away, a movement Hazel watches from her peripheral vision, too frightened to move.

“I’ll be waiting,” she says. She flickers and vanishes in the moonlight.

Hazel forces a step forward, and slowly her other foot follows, until she reaches the darkness of the tunnel.

The wolf’s breath is no longer on her neck, but she cannot look around.

A dragonfly, gold and turquoise and whirring like summertime, passes her, and Hazel follows it into the darkness.

Text by Lucie MacAulay