CONTENT WARNING: LANGUAGE; VIOLENCE; FASCISM
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More ‘rona dreams last night. Some were incredibly painful. Some were wondrous.
In one, my little dog, Bozo, was still alive. Little Mister Sunshine, Mister Never Met A Stranger, Mister I Love My Momma, my little anchor, my best little guy ever, was still alive. And yet, in the dream, he died in my arms. I woke up in tears around 4:00 a.m. this morning.
Distrusting my subconscious, I burrowed into my pillows and covers and tried to get back to sleep. When I did, I dreamed of moving far away from New Mexico, to some place green — and in a red state. What?! Ugh, I thought. What the hell are we doing here?!
We had moved to this green and alien place in what felt like a hostile land. Still, I was grateful that we’d found a lovely little home toward the end of a cul de sac that backed up to protected forest lands. I hoped that it meant less traffic and more wildlife. Jaime and I were waiting for the moving truck to come. We didn’t exactly have movers, but the truck would arrive and they’d offload our pods (huge crates, really) which we could unpack at our leisure. But, whatever, we had with us only what boxes and items that fit in her car and my truck.
A call came in. The truck was delayed by weather. It would be two days before we had our things. Lovely. Just lovely.
We proceeded to unload things from the vehicles. The cats and chihuahuas went (still in their crates) into the bathroom and we closed the door to keep anyone from being further traumatized. Jaime had headed inside with a box, saying that she was going to stop, get some tea going and put her feet up for a few. I told her that she might as well, it wasn’t like we had anything much to do for a couple of days. Some tea would be good.
I headed out to grab one last box, and lock up the vehicles, and our neighbor from across the street came out onto her porch and waved. She was as old as me, maybe a little older, but her hair was still deep gold. She came carefully down her steps and waddled a bit into the street with her hands on her hips. I went out to meet her. She was all smiles, “You girls aren’t all moved in yet, are ya?” I think her name might have been Phyllis. She wore a bright, flowery dress, white sneakers, and a big blue sweater.
I shook my head, “Afraid not. Our big stuff won’t be here for another two days.”
“Two days?! Where do they expect you to sleep?”
“Well, we have sleeping pads and bags and our pillows. So, we’ll just house camp for a couple days, I guess.”
“That’s just dreadful. Do you have anything to eat?”
“No, we’ll have to go to the store.”
“Do you now where it is?” I had to admit that I didn’t. She nodded, her face a portrait of concern, “I’ll go with you, or Harold can. Or both of us for that matter. I know he’d be happy to show you around the neighborhood. He’s very happy you girls got the house. As am I.”
We stood in the middle of the street, staring down to the end of the road as if our glaring eyes could make the truck come any faster. As we watched, a battered yellow van turned onto the road. The driver’s door was black. The hood was primer red. It sounded like there was a hole in the muffler. Phyllis cocked her head to the side, “Well, this is odd. We’ll have to see about this then.” Her tone was odd, like she’d just seen a species of bug she’d never seen before.
The van picked up speed and seemed to be barreling right at us. I started to move out of the road and Phyllis reached out and grabbed my arm, “Nah, dear. Stand fast.” The van rocketed toward us, and at the last possible moment the driver slammed on the brakes and the vehicle screeched to a halt. Two men got out. They were filthy, unkempt, wearing fascist t-shirts. The driver was muttering something about “witches” and “cunts” and “‘merica.” The man who bailed out of the passenger door was moving left to flank us on Phyllis’ side. He was carrying a police baton. The drive had a large knife in his hand.
The driver stopped about 20 feet from us and sneered, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” His partner chuckled and circled closer to Phyllis. Phyllis still held my arm firmly with her right hand, with her left she reached into her sweater and came out with a gun in her hand. The partner made a move toward her and nearly without looking at him she put a bullet in his head and he went down like a felled tree. The driver lunged at us then, roaring with rage. She shot him. Three times. He went to his knees, then collapsed in a twist.
I didn’t know what to do. I was shocked. My ears were ringing and I was shaking. Phyllis reholstered her gun under her sweater and turned to me, gingerly straightening my collar, “Are you alright, deary?”
“What the fuck just happened?” I thought I might throw up.
Phyllis glanced over at the two corpses in the street, “Nazis, I’m afraid. I just can’t abide them.” I wanted to say something, but my mouth just flopped like a breathing fish. I finally stammered, “What… what do we do? Do… should… uh… should we call 9-1-1?”
Phyllis laughed, “Oh, dear me, no. We have other ways of dealing with these things.” She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled, a wild keening sound that was carried away on the wind. Part of me wondered if she was calling a dog. There was a rumbling then. A vibration in the earth I could feel in my legs, even over my shaking. And a sound rose from the forest, like the sound of a falling tree, yet it was constant, like thunder, but like a river. The ground shook. The branches of trees at the end of the cul de sac began to shake and sway violently.
The creature pushed its way through the trees, even as it towered above them. It looked almost like a tree itself: its limbs like limbs covered with thick foliage, a face bearded with showers of leaves. It was vaguely humanoid in form, but… dear god it was like a tree, and a giant, and a giant that was a tree and… dear god… I was shaking even more now. As I stared I thought I could make out the semblance of a face. It looked concerned. It spoke slowly, as if still working out speech, in a voice like thunder, that rattled in my chest, “Are… you… alright? … I… heard… your call…” Then it looked and saw the bodies in the street, “Oh… oh no… Did… they… hurt… you?”
Phyllis shook her head, “No, dear. They did not. I got them before they could.”
The great beast nodded. It was magnificent. Fearsome, but so beautiful at the same time. “I… am … glad… you are… not… hurt…. They… ” and the creature seemed to sniff the air, “Yes… they… were… bad… bad… men… I will… take them…” It stepped forward, its feet seeming to root themselves into the earth and then out again with every step. Its great arms swooped down in a spray of leaves and wind, scooped the bodies up and held them to its breast. It seemed to close its eyes and then hummed softly for a moment, “Yes… yes… we will.. take them.” It held the bodies close with one great hand and reached down and swept the street with the other, in the same manner you might brush crumbs from your shirt. “There…” it rumbled, “all… better… Thank… you… Phyllis. I… am… glad… you… are… well.”
Phyllis waved as the great beast pushed its way back into the trees, “Thank you, dear! Love you!”
I was staring at Phyllis. She turned to me and told me what the thing was. I didn’t understand her words at all, “I’m sorry. That was what?”
“It means Spirit of the Forest, dear. It keeps us safe.”
“What’s it going to do with the bodies? Is it going to bury them?”
Phyllis smiled, “Not exactly.” A picture formed in my mind of the corpses being pushed into the earth by the roots of a giant, ambulatory tree. I opened my mouth to speak. For a second I couldn’t get any words out. And when I did, it was a memory from by last biology class, “Phosphorus… cycle.”
Phyllis chuckled, “Yes. Something quite like that, yes.”
I looked at the van, “I suppose we have a way of taking care of that, too?”
Phyllis nodded, “Quite right.” And she nodded toward her next door neighbor’s house where what I’d thought was their propane tank, unfolded, and shook like a dog, then stood on its hind legs like a man. It seemed like some sort of bent over creature, wearing armor made from a propane tank. It pushed back the valve cover like a knight’s face shield and looked at me with a single, massive eye. It looked at Phyllis and then back to me, and bowed the kind of polite half bow you do when you meet someone and neither of you are certain of social status or exact protocol, so you do that acceptable half bow to each other and it’s all good. It looked at me again, and blinked its single eye and turned toward the van. It, too, sniffed the air and seemed to grimace, as if it smelled something bad. It seemed to transform again as it slid into the drivers seat and started the engine, becoming more compact, almost human in shape. It nodded to us, and drove away.
I said, “I guess the guy left the keys in it.”
Phyllis whispered, “Wouldn’t matter if he did.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
Phyllis chuckled again, “Ha! That’s actually almost right. Let’s get you inside and we can all have some tea.”
We went inside my new house. And I realized that Jaime had missed the entire affair and I hardly knew where to begin… I felt like my whole world had gotten turned on its ass in a matter of about ten minutes… which was just fine because Phyllis knew right where to start when Jaime asked, “What was all that noise out there?”
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It seems that our little cul de sac was completely populated by witches of all sorts, rootworkers, and vodousants. No one could live there who wasn’t magical in some way or another. We’d been accepted into the fold, or else we never would’ve been approved for the house. The woman who’d owned our house was named Elizabeth, or Lizbeth, or something like that. She was an exceptionally powerful witch who’d been Phyllis’ best friend prior to her death.
Phyllis showed us how our house was warded against evil, among other things… and explained why there were no fences in the neighborhood… and why the street wasn’t similarly warded… I guess there’d been some sort of accident in the past, and an ambulance had been unable to find the street because of warding and the neighborhood had agreed to relax the warding on the street in the event of another accident. She explained the forest spirits (of which there were many) and why no one’s dogs or cats wandered out of yards.
It was a lot to take in, but Jaime summed it up best, “This is one helluva neighborhood association, that’s for sure.”
Yeah, that’s for sure.
Lori O'Ferell 