Something Wicked in the Woods

"If walls could talk..." the tall hare with the purple top hat whispered to me, tapping my bricks with its matted paw. I internally recoiled.

A sallow orb crowned the treetops, its light lending an eerie glow to the surrounding mist. The hare looked around to make sure The Others were ready. I could not see them, but I could sense them out there, just beyond my field of vision. Watching. Waiting.

The child was coming. A girl. It was always a girl.

Clusters of Angel’s trumpet huddled nearby, while deadly nightshade reached across the path leading to the trail head. White oleander oozed with anxious anticipation. Tangled vines slithered to their posts, ready to pounce. By now, I knew the routine. The hare would compel a sleeping child to the woods, where she would be bound and paralyzed and ultimately consumed.

In the distance, a faint howl. It was almost time.

The long-eared rodent knew it too, his mouth spreading into an impossibly large pointy-toothed grin and he hopped behind me. He stank of sweat and sulfur.

Then she appeared, small and wispy white with long blonde hair and a child's nightgown. She held a lantern in front of her, casting weak white into the darkness. The light trembled as she drew closer. She must have known - even in her twilight state - that something sinister was waiting to gobble her up.

The hare began to giggle. "If walls could talk..." giggle... "if walls could talk…" giggle. If walls could talk, I would cry out to the girl, tell her to turn back. To run. But he knew better.

He continued to giggle and sing the phrase over and over, faster and higher. He could barely contain himself... his nasty plans... it was just too easy. His cackles came faster and more high-pitched and he danced from leg to leg with delight. Then he sopped, clamped his matted arms over his mouth, and looked from side to side. Had she heard him?

He whispered in a falsetto singsong voice “If walls could…”

"Shhh don't let her hear you," he hissed to himself in a low voice, then put a long-nailed finger over his lips.

"Shut up!" He whined in that other voice, hopping around in a circle.

Soft footsteps drew near, and I heard her breath catch when her leg brushed against the nightshade. Once she realized it was only a plant, she continued to make her way towards the trap.

The cool, dank mist was pierced by her lantern, now close by. She stopped to admire the Angel’s trumpet, inhaling its sweet scent, and smiled dreamily, eyes half closed.

“Don’t touch it!” I silently implored. She paused as if she heard me, then shook her head.

Putting one foot in front of the other soon became difficult, and she swayed a little. Seconds later, she slumped to one side and fell into the oleander. The beautiful, awful flowering bush wrapped itself greedily around her, lathering her with its poison. The hare clapped his hands with glee, then hopped over to her. It signaled the vines to string her up between two trees and stood there, pondering where to start devouring her.

Head hanging to one side and barely breathing, she said weakly, “Please. Stop.”

This just seemed to excite him even more. He grabbed her, opened his impossibly large pointy-toothed mouth over her head, and then something unexpected happened.

She opened her eyes, looked right at him, and said, “I forgive you.”

An explosion of white light blew the hare backwards, right on his backside against an oak tree. The vines fell from her arms and legs and she stood straight up, sentient and strong. She knelt next to the bewildered hare, placed her hand over its matted temple, pointed right at me and projected a picture reel on my surface.

Grainy black and white film showed a litter of bunnies in a chewed-up cardboard box and a blonde girl of about eight picking one up and handing it to a man with a top hat, cape, and black stick. Fast forward to the man pulling the little bunny out of a hat while an audience applauded. Most of the time, though, the bunny sat in a cage, alone, in an empty room. He tried to escape once and the man was very angry and yelled at him, so he did not try to escape again.

When the bunny got older, the man in the hat got another bunny that was smaller and looked a lot like him. The man drove him into the woods and left him by the side of the road. He was all alone and hungry. A snake slithered up to him and offered him a deal. In exchange for giving the bunny the power to control the forest and everything in it, a child would be sacrificed on every full moon. The bunny agreed. Suddenly his body became contorted from the inside out, and he was transformed into the man-sized hare slumped against the tree, horror on his face.

He had seen it too.

The girl switched off the film and said softly, “Do you want to go home?”

Epilogue

It has been many years since that night, and the forest has seen many changes. Men came soon after the evening with the little girl with shovels and replaced the Angel’s trumpet, oleander, and nightshade with carnations, olive trees, and cypress trees. They filled me in and patched me up, and I will stand for many more years to come.

You may be wondering whether the hare was finally able to go home. Indeed, he was. He ascended to that great briar in the sky. And the girl… well, she is no longer a girl, but a young woman. You may also be asking yourself how you happen to be sitting right here, reading my story. After all, walls can’t talk, right?

That is a story for another day.