to walk the woods this night
GREETINGS, HONORED FRIEND. If you’re reading this, it means that you’ve been chosen for a great honor. The elders, taking your measure, have found nothing in you lacking. Be proud, therefore, but not prideful. Do not spoil your spirit.
Tomorrow night, on the Eve of Spring, you will be outfitted for a journey unlike any you have braved before. While a few, great among us, make it more than once, most do not. More often, it’s a single undertaking; most often, it is none. A pure and humble heart is needed, virtues that, in these late days, are getting difficult to find.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS PILGRIMAGE is to carry an offering, prepared by our priests, to the temple beyond the trees. By way of the Old South Road and starlight, which I pray will burn brightly for you, you will journey there and back in a single night.
Do not worry; this is possible. The way isn’t as long as the darkness and dense foliage make it seem. Once, when the woods were kinder, our people made this trip often.
Now, it is wiser to send only those we have properly prepared.
What You Must Bring
A pair of boots, comfortably broken in
A traveling cloak, hooded and waterwicked
A length of clean gauze
A paring knife
Gloves
An oil lamp
One tallow candle
The temple floor plan
A basket for the offering, covered
This gift is not meant for you. Do not look inside.
BEFORE DEPARTING, the elders will gather with you at the trailhead to pray for favorable weather and make blessings. While they do, take out your paring knife and cut your palm, following the life line. Coat the blade with blood, then add a notch to the Carrier’s Tree, which you will know by sight. It is riddled with gouges. Any unmarred stretch of bark you can reach will do for your own. Placement does not matter, only the transfer of blood.
Tear a portion from your length of clean gauze and wrap your wound, storing the rest in a pocket of your traveling cloak. If luck is on your side, you shan't be needing more. Still, it would be unwise to leave it behind.
When their prayers are concluded, the elders will leave you at the trailhead. Do not begin until they’re out of sight. You must walk this path, beginning to end, alone. To pass the time, light your oil lamp and offer prayers of your own.
When the time has come to depart, take stock of your supplies and follow the road. Though the way will be unfamiliar, don’t worry overly much about losing it. Our ancestors were thoughtful in its laying. It does not fork, turn, or deviate. If you keep your wits about you, you will be safe.
Set a pace you can maintain, neither dallying or rushing, and keep quiet. Do not hum, whistle, or sing. This, the first of the night’s temptations, will only distract you. Resist the urge, my friend, and keep track of your basket.
MISCHIEF IS ONLY AFOOT if the woods go quiet.
This doesn’t always happen. Some carriers make the journey unbothered, while others do not. I cannot tell you why, and if the priests can, they’ve chosen not to. While I wish you an untroubled sojourn, not to warn you would be negligent.
Until such a troublesome turn, you will be swaddled by noise—the crunch of leaves beneath the feet of nocturnal beasts, the swooping of owls and squeals of their prey, insects, wind, perhaps a light rain. If they cease, you will feel the absence like an amputation.
The ringing in your ears as they strain to catch anything will be like the needling of a phantom limb. Should this happen, remember your courage and keep pace. Do not slow down; do not speed up. Both are a form of acknowledgement, and will draw further, uncomfortable attention from the trees. As best as you can, clear your mind. Pray if you like, but do so silently. Following this stillness, other signs it will behoove you to listen for will creep in.
Rules To Be Followed, Should The Woods Start Whispering
Do not attempt to find the source. You won’t be able to, nor are you meant to. This is a trap devised to lure you from the path.
Do not respond to anything that calls, no matter how insistent, even if it names you especially if it names you. This, too, is a trap.
Do not stop to rest. Stumps and moss-furred boulders will be tempting—your second test of the night, if you are unlucky—but if you close your eyes, you won't open them again. If the need to sleep becomes overwhelming, prick yourself with your paring knife.
Keep close watch over your basket. Things of value tend to go missing when the wood’s more playful inhabitants awaken. Should you find that you’ve lost it, do not go looking. With luck, it will reappear a little further along the path. If it doesn’t, return to the village and consult the priests.
WHEN YOU REACH THE END OF THE WOOD, needled by spirits or otherwise, you’ll find yourself at the edge of a moon-washed glen. The Old South Road terminates in a patio, laid long ago with smooth river stones, cobbled neatly to begin with, now a nest of buckled teeth.
Weeds, grass, and wildflowers push between them in summer, but on this night, they will be as bare as bones. Walk carefully if it’s been raining or in recent weeks has snowed. The way is treacherous in winter, and may still be tricky.
Cross the patio, pausing at the old votive fountain to pray. Light your tallow candle, first melting the bottom to stick it to stone, and add it to the remaindered globs of candles past. Wait for the sweet smell of fat to smoke all about before leaving.
Continue to the temple and try entering first through the main gate. You should already find it open, for it’s been many decades since the hinges and locks rusted away.
If you find it shut, all function restored, go another way.
Once inside, act quickly. The night will be getting on. Do not linger amongst the artifacts—smoke-darkened frescoes and offering chests; dusty statuary, votive nooks stuffed with icons and pocked with tallow. The prospect will be your third temptation, for there is history here, deep and alluring. Though you will hear its call, ignore it. You have come with a purpose.
Following the temple floor plan, make your way to the inner sanctum. As you near it, the way will darken. The central altar and halls protecting it are windowless, untouched by the moon. You may wish to adjust the wick of your oil lamp and brighten the flame to ease your passing.
You will know you’ve neared the sanctum when your basket begins to hum. It is a sound that you will feel, at first, more than hear. The temple, a slumbering thing for most of the year, knows when it’s been entered and to what end. It will call to the offering with increasing insistence.
What you first dismiss as an anxious itch of the palm will deepen to a buzz with the archway in sight. The basket will shudder, its handle creak and twist in your grip. Hold it tightly, taking care not to drop it, and keep it covered.
Remove your boots before ducking through the sanctum’s archway. Keep low as you approach the altar, eyes humbly on the old flagstones. When you reach the altar, set aside your oil lamp and sink to your knees. Prostrate before it, touching your forehead to the steps thrice, lingering on the last for the time it takes to recite The Offerant’s Entreaty.
As your prayer concludes, a deep chill will pass through you. Do not fear—it is only the Keeper of the sanctum acknowledging you. When you unbend, do not bother to look for them. You won’t find them, for they are not as you are—not of flesh and blood, not solid. There will be nothing to see. Likewise, do not presume to address them. Beyond what you carry, you are insignificant to them, and they will not speak with you.
As swiftly as your cold-stiffened body allows, walk up the steps of the altar on your knees. There are five, three paces deep, and the going will be uncomfortable, but you must endure it to prove your piety.
Hold your basket high, taking great care with it. Its trembling will be violent, the hum nearing a sing. It will call to you like a lover, someone half forgotten or lost, returning to you. Hold fast to your faith, and remember: do not look inside.
Place the basket at the height of the altar and prostrate three more times, again, on the last, reciting the Offerant’s Entry. When you’ve finished, remain hunched and scuttle backward down the steps, taking care not to kick over your oil lamp when you near it.
Once returned to the flagstones, remain on your knees. Turn your back to the altar, keeping your gaze low, in the direction of your oil lamp. Take it up, and when the altar is behind you, get to your feet and vacate the sanctum.
Step back into your boots and retrace your steps through the temple. Leave by the same way you entered, with humility and speed. Do not run, for the ground is sacred, though the flagstones are soiled and shattered. You must not disrespect your hosts by stomping your feet.
As you did in the wood, set a pace you can maintain—even as fear threatens to eclipse you. And threaten you it shall, for as soon as you leave its sight, the Keeper of the sanctum will call the other dwellers to life.
From behind you will come the grind of their stony language, ancient and incomprehensible to your ears. It will grate your nerves, shudder up through your boots, put pain in your head. To your heart it will give frog legs, strong and stringy, so that it leaps to your throat as, lured from long a sleep, the temple quakes.
To walk on, even as it sounds as though the walls are breaking around you, will seem an impossibility before the moon finds you. In the depths of the temple, following only the light of your oil lamp, there will be a moment where you fear that you might never make it out again. When it comes, do not surrender to despair. Recall the priests’ faith in you and the qualities for which you were chosen. Lay the weight of your spirit upon this terror, and it will not overwhelm you.
Once back in the courtyard, free of darkness, your nerves shored up, readjust the wick of your oil lamp to conserve your dwindling fuel supply. Return to the Old South Road, pausing at the votive fountain for a second time.
Check your tallow candle. If it has gone out, make penitence and relight it.
Leave the patio then, leave the glen, the woods, and the night, keeping the temple at your back at all times. Do not turn, at any point, as you make your home, even when you believe it to be well and truly out of sight.
You will want to turn, friend, and badly. I know this. I’ve felt it—that longing, that bottomless fondness that rages against fear; the desire to glance back though you shudder to imagine what waits there. I cannot tell you where it comes from, only that resistance will not be easy.
But resist, you must. Heed this warning at all costs: there are things in this world, beyond and not of it, not intended for mortal eyes. What moves through the temple on nights like these are as such. The honor of being a Carrier does not grant you the right or strength to look upon gods.
Do not fall into the trap, this folly that has before claimed the lives of Carriers who proved, at the last, weak of heart. Train your thoughts on the journey ahead. Think of home, your fire and bed, tomorrow’s breakfast smoking on the stove; the taste of crisp, coming spring air, the smell of coffee in the village square.
Remember Lot’s wife, dear friend. Do not look back.