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The Music In The Woods. Part 1
Estimated reading time — 2 minutes
Saturday, 3rd of April
There is an old monastery not far from my home in a quiet part of the country. It sits among a ten acre forest where it looms ominously over the local flora. I am writing this because of what I saw there tonight. The pale mannequin roaming in the forest. I should be excused in my panicked state, but I find this the best definition of what I saw. It was around 8 o’clock when I began my usual walk out in the forest of the monastery. There is a nature walk there which I have walked routinely for the last 3 years. It is November now, and it has grown colder and darker in the last few weeks. It had never occurred to me to change the time of my run, but that is besides the point. The walk follows a track around in a circle, passes the Stations of the Cross in the first part, passes through the thickest of the forestation in the middle, then the path winds around to the higher ground which runs parallel to the initial walk and leads back out to face the rear of the monastery. I passed through the Stations solemnly, being respectful of the etched stones but feeling all the while frightened of their countenance. The face of Christ being etched so inhumanly, looking as though it were frozen in a tremendous terror. Having finally passed through the Crucifixion, I braced myself for the darkness of the thick woods ahead. The smell of damp foliage was thick in my nostrils as soon as I entered the pitch black woods. A few minutes into this, I distinctly heard what could be described as a high-pitched moan.
I stood for a moment, allowing my heart time to still. Upon closer inspection, the moaning turned to a low sob. It sounded like a woman’s sobs, but with an eerie, false intonation, like a man imitating a woman’s sobs. The sobbing grew louder until, all of a sudden, a quick patter of footsteps started up. It had the beat of footsteps, but with the high-pitch clacking of heels … or hooves. It was coming further down the path, towards me. It took every morsel of courage in me to duck into a dip to my left, off the path. I knelt there, huddled in the undergrowth for what felt like hours, when finally, the running ceased, and a figure stood on the path mere feet from me. What little I could make out from the pale moonlight caused my stomach to clench and freeze, and my eyes to stare unblinkingly. It was a long narrow figure of a person. A mask of the most feminine qualities, milk-pale, bone china skin, gaudy blue eyeliner over pitch black eye hollows and a petite set of pursed lips, painted as on some paramore in a fresco. What terrified me most was the figure’s ridiculous height, standing at what was easily seven feet tall, with limbs of such inordinate length as to make even the branches of the woods seem comparatively small. The figure wore a cloak which masked every inch of its limbs and hung loose about these tiny feminine hands. It danced about the path unpredictably with jerked, painful looking motions. When it spoke, its childlike voice spooked me so I couldn’t breathe. “He doesn’t mean it, He never did. Of course it hurt him, it’s much too big”. The creepy guttural voice destroyed me, I was frozen in terror. Then it looked me straight in the eyes and said; “Don’t you hear the wonderful sounds?”
© Helen Wright 1008
Saturday, 3rd of April
There is an old monastery not far from my home in a quiet part of the country. It sits among a ten acre forest where it looms ominously over the local flora. I am writing this because of what I saw there tonight. The pale mannequin roaming in the forest. I should be excused in my panicked state, but I find this the best definition of what I saw. It was around 8 o’clock when I began my usual walk out in the forest of the monastery. There is a nature walk there which I have walked routinely for the last 3 years. It is November now, and it has grown colder and darker in the last few weeks. It had never occurred to me to change the time of my run, but that is besides the point. The walk follows a track around in a circle, passes the Stations of the Cross in the first part, passes through the thickest of the forestation in the middle, then the path winds around to the higher ground which runs parallel to the initial walk and leads back out to face the rear of the monastery. I passed through the Stations solemnly, being respectful of the etched stones but feeling all the while frightened of their countenance. The face of Christ being etched so inhumanly, looking as though it were frozen in a tremendous terror. Having finally passed through the Crucifixion, I braced myself for the darkness of the thick woods ahead. The smell of damp foliage was thick in my nostrils as soon as I entered the pitch black woods. A few minutes into this, I distinctly heard what could be described as a high-pitched moan.
I stood for a moment, allowing my heart time to still. Upon closer inspection, the moaning turned to a low sob. It sounded like a woman’s sobs, but with an eerie, false intonation, like a man imitating a woman’s sobs. The sobbing grew louder until, all of a sudden, a quick patter of footsteps started up. It had the beat of footsteps, but with the high-pitch clacking of heels … or hooves. It was coming further down the path, towards me. It took every morsel of courage in me to duck into a dip to my left, off the path. I knelt there, huddled in the undergrowth for what felt like hours, when finally, the running ceased, and a figure stood on the path mere feet from me. What little I could make out from the pale moonlight caused my stomach to clench and freeze, and my eyes to stare unblinkingly. It was a long narrow figure of a person. A mask of the most feminine qualities, milk-pale, bone china skin, gaudy blue eyeliner over pitch black eye hollows and a petite set of pursed lips, painted as on some paramore in a fresco. What terrified me most was the figure’s ridiculous height, standing at what was easily seven feet tall, with limbs of such inordinate length as to make even the branches of the woods seem comparatively small. The figure wore a cloak which masked every inch of its limbs and hung loose about these tiny feminine hands. It danced about the path unpredictably with jerked, painful looking motions. When it spoke, its childlike voice spooked me so I couldn’t breathe. “He doesn’t mean it, He never did. Of course it hurt him, it’s much too big”. The creepy guttural voice destroyed me, I was frozen in terror. Then it looked me straight in the eyes and said; “Don’t you hear the wonderful sounds?”
© Helen Wright 1008
