Author: K. Samways

I met a stranger in the woods. The sun had set and twilight’s shadows were quickly vanishing in the dying dusk.

I wasn’t accustomed to being out after dark, when the fireflies started to dance, enveloping the path with their staccato luminosity. I nervously enjoyed their magic when she materialized suddenly, seemingly stepping through a patch of cedar (I couldn’t conceive out of thin air).

AH! I startled, not expecting someone in the woods so late alongside me – a girl, no less.

Are you afraid of the dark? Or are you afraid of girls? She asked, laughing at me.

The dark, I guess. I mumbled back.

Virgo, are you?

I should my head, no.

Capricorn, then.

I stayed quiet.

That’s what I thought. She laughed again.

You going back to the parking lot? She queried.

I nodded.

Want company?

I nodded again.

Maybe a body guard? She laughed.

What is there to need protection from, aside from the dark?  I asked seriously, instantly my mind conjuring grisly scenes of coyotes devouring the both of us.

She gave me a look, glanced away, and grinned to herself.

You’re the oldest of three brothers?

It was more of a statement than a question. Our eyes met. She was right, but I stayed silent.

That’s what I thought. She laughed again.

The feeling I began to enjoy, sharing the company of another instead of being alone in the woods after dark, quickly decayed.

Oh don’t be scared. She said, gently placing her hand on my arm.

It was warm, and I naturally relaxed.

I’m a wood nymph. She said casually, but the words came out strange, echoey, falling syllable at a time to the ground after hanging in the air a moment.

Swiftly, gooseflesh spread across my skin as my neck hairs raised.

Suddenly, a memory played in my head.

I am at the butterfly conservatory on a field trip, maybe grade seven, and the guide is pointing at some butterflies feeding on fruit. He calls them common wood nymphs. The common wood-nymph feeds on nectar, tree sap, and decaying matters, he says in his flat voice. They are brown with large eyes on the outside of their wings, I observe. They are casually beautiful in muted colour, matching last autumn’s dead foliage still carpeting the faux summer forest floor.

You don’t look like a wood nymph. I said, stupidly. What did a wood nymph look like?

She didn’t look ghostly or ethereal. She looked solid. Like the girls I went to school with or my co-workers.

Did you want to touch me? She smiled as though reading my mind. Again.

She stopped. The deep periwinkle of the full moon sky brightened the clearing where we paused. The soft moonlight illuminated her smooth, white neck and a low neckline of the gauzy, lilac-blue fabric that had settled gently over her breasts – maybe she was a bit ethereal after all. I hadn’t noticed any of that when she first appeared.

She laughed. Most men want to touch. She winked at me, joking.

I wanted to laugh, but she caught me off guard, and I started to think the joint I smoked a few hours earlier hadn’t worn off after all.

It’s okay. She said as she reached for my hand.

I pulled it back, caught up by the fact she had called me a man.

It shouldn’t surprise me still. I am one, after all, being an adult in my late twenties. But it does still surprise me to be lumped in with the rest.

Who are you, then? She queried. If not one of them?

I stayed silent.

I was trying to position myself. In the world. In this moment.

I am alone. I am alone in the woods with a nymph. I am not alone. I am with a nymph. I am Will and I am with a nymph in the woods after dark. I am Will and I am scared. I wish I wasn’t scared. I am Will and I am alone with a nymph in the woods after dark and I am scared, but I wish I wasn’t.

But that’s not who I always am. So I stayed silent.

Who are you then? The nymph continued questioning.

I can’t answer you. I quietly countered.

Will you not ask me my name? she jousted.

Who are you? I stuttered meekly.

Her laughter, like bells, sounded around me.

Who are you? She asked again.

I remained silent. I did not know what to say.

Do you not know?

How can I know what I cannot find? I finally replied.

Can you find the way out? She laughed.

And suddenly, she dissolved into the dark.

I looked around. I hadn’t noticed exactly where we’d been walking. I’d been following her. She said we were going back to the parking lot. Had she not?

I was not in a parking lot. I was no longer in a clearing. I was still very much in the woods. Very much in the dark. And looking around, I couldn’t see a blaze to mark the trail in any pool of fractal moonlight.

I tried to recall the route we had taken. I couldn’t. I tried to remember the gauze of her outfit, the vaporous shape of her body. I couldn’t. I recollected her diaphanous face, and in place of a girl, my mind called back only the eyes of the common wood nymphs in the conservatory. I tried to remember her voice, questioning me, and I heard only the warble of the tour guide: The female common wood-nymph is the active flight partner. The female lays her eggs on or near the host plant.

I knew better than to panic, but not understanding my situation – or what had just happened – and feeling very much deceived – either by a magical creature or, even worse, my own mind – I sunk to the ground in momentary defeat.

I wondered why I noticed she said men. I wondered why I didn’t feel like a man. I wondered why we didn’t have those rituals in our society, any more, where you had to perform some coming of age stunt.

Then I remembered learning, in one of my elective history courses, about some pretty gruesome rites of passage. Right. Coming of age isn’t pretty.

But neither is being tricked into the middle of your local conservation area after sunset by a mythical creature (or an insane hallucination) and feeling like crying even though you’re a supposed grown man.

Maybe this is the moment I prove myself. Maybe this is the moment I truly become a man. This could be my coming of age ritual (ignoring the fact it’s thirteen years late).

I stood up, having renewed my resolve with a temporary inflation of an extremely fragile ego.

I was reaching for my phone with the intention of taking a quick look on Google Maps to get my bearings. Maybe I could pinpoint my location on this God-forsaken trail and use my phone’s flashlight to find my way out of here.

As I pulled the device from my pocket, something slapped it out of my hand and into the nearby brush. I knew from my familiarity with the trail that the ground foliage was made of mostly raspberry, rose, Virginia creeper and poison ivy, and I wasn’t eager to thrust out my hand in search of my cell.

Even more concerning, of course, was the fact that something was out to get me.

Laughter. Like bells in all directions. Rising and falling with the flashes of fireflies around me. The magic of the lightning bugs now tainted by the horror of my situation.

Nala. A voice in my ear.

FUCK! I screamed.

She appeared beside me.  She laughed.

I screamed again as I fell over a root, backing away from her. I scrambled to get up, but the ground was rocks and mud, and I tumbled.

She stood above me, dressed as normally as any girl in the forest at night could be (hoody, hiking pants, muddy sneakers), and offered me her hand as if to help me up.

As a man, I made the decision to trust her. I took her hand.

She didn’t dissolve. She was solid. Material. She pulled me up.

She was pale, but not blue or white. She was aglow as if in moonlight, but the canopy of branches was thick overhead blocking out almost all luminance. It was spooky. My discomfort was as clear as day when she smiled at me.

Talk to girls much? She snickered.

You’re no girl. I managed to spit out.

That doesn’t sound nice. She said. But what I suppose you mean is, I’m not ordinary. And you’d be correct.

My name’s Nala. She continued. My parents were great travelers. I’m actually descended from the nymphs of the ancient Baobab groves of the African plains.

Perhaps she could see I was not impressed by her lineage. I couldn’t help it. I was still a little shaken and scratched up, not only by the deceit of the previous moments, but by landing on my arse in the middle of poison ivy and raspberry brambles. I was bruised in more ways than one.

Well I’m sure your lineage couldn’t be more impressive. She tossed at me. You don’t even know who you are.  You don’t even believe you are a man.

She continued to wound me with her clairvoyance.

I didn’t expect to be trapped in the woods after dark without even the light of the moon only to be pierced by the intuitively mean words of a stranger as if her superpower was to expose each and every excruciating insecurity I’ve been secretly sustaining.

I didn’t know what to say. I settled for begging.

Can you please bring me to my car? Can you lead me out of here?

Why should you trust me? She turned again, shimmering, cornflower and gossamer in the shadow of the midnight leaves.

What choice have I?

You could lead yourself out. You could fight me.  You could seek vengeance for being wronged. You could have your way with me.

My “way” is to get out of the forest alive. It was my turn to laugh. Why should I hurt you? What benefit would that bring?

She was mute.

Where were her bells now? Her garments were in shreds. She was fading. She was wounded.

We were walking. She was leading me out. I hoped. Her feet were bare. With each step, she left a bloody footprint that glistened silver in the filtered moonlight before fading into black. The silvery incandescence that appeared to alight her, shone from her. It wavered. Around her, the trees looked sick. Many had been overrun with vines, invasive creepers, were strangled and died. Many animals had been overcrowded into the relatively small woodlot and competed for limited resources. Growls and noises of discontent blossomed occasionally to disturb the otherwise silent night.

Even the crickets and cicadas were uncommonly quiet as we trudged onward. I assumed she was leading me out. I hoped we were traveling toward the exit. I tried to pay attention this time. I tried to be mindful. Most of all I was curious. I was almost positive I was sober. So I was either having the most iconic mental episode or some kind of spiritual experience – for better or worse.

Are you sick? I asked, finally breaking the silence of our journey.

I am dying. She replied softly but firmly.

I didn’t know what to say. I stayed silent.

The earlier evening wind had died out and the night air was still. Not a leaf shuttered. Only my breath was noisy in the night. Nala glided effortlessly forward. Her feet touched the ground as I witnessed or dreamed her morph from pale lavender ethereal specter to ordinary solid young woman. I was transfixed. She could have led me anywhere.

A great sadness had bloomed in my heart. I no longer thought of myself. I could only see the pain and suffering and sickness of the forest, of the living beings, the animals, the spirits.

This pain goes beyond the forest. She said softly, again, as if reading my thoughts.

We are in degenerate times, and it feels as though nothing can be done to reverse the unravelling of such great suffering.

I stayed silent.

Do you think you will change? Do you think you will learn who you are?

She paused in the sudden clearing.

Moonlight poured over us, a beacon of light. She was begging for my truth.

Will you change?

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to believe this event would change me. I wanted to believe I would wake up tomorrow and yearn to come back to the woods, to heal it, to make a difference, to become a man. I wanted to believe I wouldn’t immediately forget, write it off as a dream, a nightmare.

Why won’t you say yes? She had tears in her eyes now. Why won’t you change? Do you love your suffering?

I did not love my suffering. But where was I to find these answers? Who was I to turn to? I did not believe I could come back here.

Will you not change?

I met Nala’s eyes. They remained true. They were bright, bold, and illuminated. The rest of her was shifting. Her skin would become luminous and pale and then soft and translucent. White to blue. Her clothes were infinitely fascinating and indescribable and nothing substantial. At times she was naked and at other times fully clothed in garb, ancient and foreign or subtle and modern.

She reached out to hold my immutable face in her ephemeral fingers. An abrupt wind swept her wild garments so they brushed my skin and at times a cloak appeared that crumpled in the subtle space between us. Her parted lips moved toward my face and I closed my eyes. At first I felt an intense heat as if dipped in oil and set alight. Then, just as fast, I felt an intense cold as if plunged deep into winter’s icy lake. Then, just as suddenly, I was lukewarm water, running, musically and lightly as if in a stream. I was buoyant, airy, a leaf floating through a clear summer sky. I was a spider lowering itself by a thread. I was a bird building its nest with mislaid silk. I was a midflight squirrel soaring to another tree’s branch. I was the hum of every insect and the song of every sparrow. I was the woods and they were me, inseparable.

And when Nala’s lips finally left mine after what felt an instant and an eternity where I knew everything and then nothing once more, I was beside my car outside the woods in the dark of the night with gravel beneath my feet and a full moon overhead, cell phone in my pocket.

I am changed. I said.

And I left.