Invasive Species

“Why’d you wake me, Uncle? I was having the most delightful Banquet dream.” She batted her eyes open, the forest gloomy against the remembered brilliance behind her eyelids.

“Do you remember the first time I showed you the stars, Aubrey?” her uncle asked, squatting at her feet; his head was thrown back staring at a patch of sky visible through the branches overhead. “A lifetime ago.”

“Leave the dramatics to me. It ages you,” she said, luxuriating in the bed of wildflowers beneath her.

He grunted.

“Of course I remember the stars, old man.” She stretched, her arms falling wide and her hands savoring the blind feel of damp soil, plush moss, and fallen leaves beyond the flowering bank. A smile curved her lips as she recalled the constellations he had shown her: bears twirling on a seasonal axis, the diamond snake curled across the firmament…

“What patch of sky is this?” She rolled into a low squat and brushed the last crumbs of the Banquet from her eyes. “It’s so barren.”

“Light pollution choking out the stars.” He raised himself with great care and hobbled to a nearby tree.

“Come again, Uncle?”

“There are things here which should not be. Which cannot be stopped.”

Aubrey sauntered towards her uncle, but a flicker of color drew her eye towards the tree’s trunk. The color hopped and danced in the darkness before nestling in among the bark. She knelt, staring at this stranger. Even in the dark of the forest, it captivated her. Its red lower wings, its yellow abdomen, its spotted upper wings - her mouth hung open as she took in its beauty, its daring.

“Oh my!” Her laughter, childlike in its innocence and capacity for cruelty, cut through the woods. “Hello, you. Are you one of those which ‘cannot be stopped?’”

Her laughter continued, her pupils expanding until the entirety of her eyes were the velvet black of forgotten caves. She snapped her fingers. The trunk quivered. From it sprung a dozen wooden quills, piercing the insect straight through its thorax and shredding its wings. As its final writhings were magnified in her eyes, she clapped and danced.

“What a wonderful little performance.” She turned to face her uncle. “What was that most bewitching pest?”

“A spotted lanternfly.” He gazed at its mangled corpse and shook his head. “One of many things here which do not belong.

“The world has changed, Aubrey. I thought you should cherish one last look at your home, nigh unrecognizable as it is, before it is gone.”

For the first time since waking, Aubrey took stock of her uncle. He still had his wide-set eyes, silver hair threaded with ivy, and flared nostrils. But his words came slowly, his steps faltering…

“What has happened to you, our Guardian of the Woods?” She brushed a light hand across his forehead.

“As you have been asleep at the Banquet, plagues have beset the land,” he said. “The lanternflies are the latest which the menfolk have wrought either through malice or foolishness.”

“And you didn’t stop them?”

“I culled them. I thought the menfolk contained until it was apparent we were the ones surrounded.

“And so we retreated deeper into the wilds, thinking they would be satiated. And yet they continue to nibble, bit by bit, at our borders. One day we will wake to nothingness.”

“You’ve stayed awake for too long.” Aubrey shook her head, sending her ringlets of fiery hair bouncing. “This isn’t you, Uncle. You should have returned to the Banquet, asked for aid, and regained your strength.”

“I had failed,” he said, turning to again stare at the blank patch of sky. “I could not dream myself to the Banquet until I had fulfilled my duty. And I could not fulfill my duty until I had rid the land of the invaders.

“It took all I could muster to grow you back to wakefulness.” He gestured to the bed of wildflowers, already withering away.

“Oh, Uncle.” Aubrey reached for his hand, but he pulled away. “If all our problems stem from the menfolk, you should’ve treated them like any other invasive species - eradication on sight.

“Do you remember my favorite constellation?” He shook his head as Aubrey turned and walked towards a towering oak. “It was the huntress.”

Aubrey pressed her head against the oak and began to sing. The oak shook its branches, coaxing the neighboring trees into movement until the whole forest danced in unison. Around Aubrey sprouted three toadstools. They pulsed the rhythms of the song, growing until they stood six feet high.

The song ended; the mushrooms collapsed. From their centers clawed out three beings of rot. Mycelium mats, as pale as fresh snow, fell from their heads. Their faces were but gasping maws lined with concentric rings of gills. They sucked at the air and, in unison, pointed gnarled fingers and bayed.

“Now we have our hounds,” Aubrey said, her eyes dancing with glee. “If we can’t overgrow the menfolk’s cities and reclaim the sky, we can at least reclaim the woods. We can allow you to dream your way back, Uncle. Let’s make them too scared to ever reenter our homes.”

“It is too late, Aubrey. Our season draws to a close.”

Aubrey turned to her uncle, a smirk slashed across her face. Behind her, the hounds circled in anticipation.

“You’ve just woken me, Uncle, from an aeon-length dream to what? Mourn my home? We already have our first quarry asleep in their tents not a mile away.”

Aubrey plunged her hand deep into the earth and pulled out a writhing tangle of roots. In her grasp, the sodden mass contorted and hardened into a living glave.

“No, Uncle. Tonight, we fertilize the wood with blood.”