Faery.

photo courtesy Misty woodland BW by alternakive on flickriver

Faery.

Sarah.

     I jerked awake, heart thudding, and looked around in panic. I turned to the other pillow. Matt was asleep, his breathing slow and untroubled, and I flopped back onto my pillow and stared around the bedroom. It was dark and quiet, but not quite empty. The hush felt occupied, expectant, and I mentally shook myself and tried to laugh at my foolish fears as I slipped my hand down to my belly, not showing yet but cradling a surprising firmness, the growing child, 12 weeks safely reached.
     The dreams had started before I’d even known I was pregnant. Strange and disturbing, vivid with colours and fears, and this dream had been the strangest yet.
     It had been Winter, as it was now, and I’d found myself going for a walk in the woods behind the house, passing through the bare garden. We hadn’t had time to plant anything yet, so I picked my way across the disturbed earth, avoiding the tangle of tree roots still clinging to one another in the mud. The hinges of the gate creaked as it closed behind me, and I set off down the narrow path, winding through the winter trees. The woods must have been much bigger before the area was cleared for the new houses, and the trees I walked beneath now were ancient and close-growing. It seemed much darker beneath them, almost as though it were already dusk, a damp mist beginning to form between the winter-blackened trunks.
     I hadn’t realised I’d left the path until I found myself in unfamiliar territory. Instead of coming to the edge of the trees by the old part of the village, I’d somehow walked deeper into the woods, and I turned to make my way back to the path. As I tramped on I found myself still moving through dense trees, no sign of the path, the damp leaves thick on the floor absorbing my footsteps until I felt like a ghost. I was surprised the remaining woodlands were still so big. They’d seemed little more than a copse when we were walking through them to the village on Sunday afternoon strolls, or when driving past on the bypass. I walked more quickly, the light fading now, anxious to be home.
     Then I found myself entering an ancient clearing, thick with mosses and, delightfully, a complete fairy ring in the centre, the clumps of ochre toadstools glowing in an unbroken circle in the dusky light. I danced around inside the ring, laughing as I swirled round and round with my arms stretched out, then I remembered from childhood tales that you weren’t supposed to enter a fairy ring and stopped abruptly. I felt suddenly chilled, and the oaks’ gnarled fingers seemed to reach towards me as I left the circle quickly, afraid to look over my shoulder. I made my way back through the lengthening shadows as fast as I could, and was relieved when I found myself on the path again at last. As I turned towards home, I knew someone was behind me and started to run, but the air was as thick as water, the childhood nightmare of limbs bound in treacle as I fled the unseen monster. I knew I’d be safe if I could get back to my bed, under the covers and pretending to be sleeping, but getting there at anything faster than slow-motion was impossible and I felt it gaining with every step.
     By the time I reached the gate I was screaming for Matt, but at the same time I knew I was asleep and dreaming, and tried to thrash my arms to wake him but was hag-ridden, paralysed in sleep. I pulled myself through the nightmare, through the house, trying to break free of the spell. The air seemed thicker than ever, and I hauled myself up the stairs against the tide and into the bedroom. Matt’s form was silent under the covers as I dragged myself in and pulled the duvet up to my chin, closing my eyes and trying to still my breathing.
     But he was in the room. A tall figure, long weathered coat and muddied boots, his face pale and thin beneath the shade of a hat as he strode over to where I huddled in the bed, and said my name.
     Sarah.
     And then I’d woken up.

     The room was still quite dark, the familiar daytime furniture strange shadows against the walls. I realised I was holding my belly tightly, still chilled by the dream, and my hand crept out from beneath the covers and switched on the bedside light.

     The yellow glow of the lamp threw the room into relief, and after a few minutes I got up to make a cup of tea, even though it was still another two hours before we would have to get up for work. When I saw the mud on the kitchen floor, I mopped the footprints away quickly. Matt must have been out for a cigarette after I’d gone to bed the night before.

     I didn’t have that dream again, but unremembered others, and every night for the next week I would wake suddenly into the shadowy bedroom, the silence still ringing as though a voice, a whisper, had just ceased, and I knew the stranger had erupted into my dreams again, saying my name with urgency to wake me.
     But I could never tell if he spoke in warning or in threat. His image burned like a shadow on the retina of my mind, his pale features barely visible beneath the hat and his upturned collar as he faded from the room, leaving the dank smell of the woods behind him, and I lay there, heart pounding and gooseflesh tracing along my skin.
     On Saturday I stayed in bed, feeling exhausted, not from the commute to and from work every day, but from the disturbing dreams from which I was summoned awake every night, his voice echoing through my sleep. Matt was writing reports at the kitchen table by the time I went downstairs, and he shuffled a pile of paperwork from the chair to the floor so I could sit down. I looked out of the window, the shadow of the woods falling across the garden, and leaned back in my chair and sighed. I needed some fresh air.
     I wrapped myself in my winter coat, then opened the door into the back garden and looked across at the trees. It was a dull day, grey and shadowed. I realised today was midwinter, the shortest and darkest day of the year. I closed the door against the woods and went out the front instead, walking along Woodland Drive to the main road, and from there into the village. There were a few people about but I didn’t know the faces turning towards me as I passed, and the curtained windows of the cottages stared at one another in silence across the main street. The pub windows were dark. It was the only business left open now, the shop and post office having closed within months of us moving here.
     The dream of idyllic village life had brought us, selling the flat in the centre of the city but commuting back in from the new house every day: to work, to shop, to go the cinema, to see friends at our favourite bars. We’d only been to the village pub once and had felt uncomfortable, eyes observing us quietly over pints, the only conversation with the landlord, embarrassingly banal replies to his questions.
    I’d yearned for an old cottage but any for sale were beyond our means. Then came a rare cluster of new houses, “affordable” properties built by a developer on cleared woodland, and I’d quelled the thought that we might be taking a house intended for the local young families, just starting out, as when else might we get another chance? We were just starting out too, and wanted to raise a family away from the city, in the idyllic peace of the countryside where everyone knew everyone else and you never had to lock your door.
     As I reached the centre of the village, I felt cold suddenly, and as my eyes focused on the figure ahead of me I faltered. He walked with measured strides, his long dark coat the colour of winter trees swaying against the mud on his boots, his collar turned up against the chill air. My heart thumped as my own steps followed his, the outline of his tall figure blurring and crackling in the air.
     Time seemed to slow, each heartbeat taking an age and as sluggish as a nightmare, and I closed my eyes for a moment, suddenly dizzy, and when I opened them he was gone. The road was empty ahead of me. Feeling a rush of sickness, I turned quickly and went home, trembling and clammy, and curled up on the sofa in a blanket to doze the afternoon away.
     When his voice woke me into the dark bedroom again the next morning, the sound of my name and his shade had barely died away before I knew something was terribly wrong. Then I felt it, a harsh cramping in my belly, and I cried out, but Matt slept on. I sat up gasping for breath, hunched over, and when the dank blood came I stared at the tiny, perfect form in the palm of my hand and wept.