floor to rest. As he stared up at the stars and the setting moon, Bridget and a few others cuddled around him, and he soon found himself drifting off to sleep.
When Derry awoke, he felt very strange. As he opened his eyes, he realized why.
Something had changed.
Derry rose to his feet, examining his body in the starlight. For a moment, he thought that someone had clothed him in a body suit decorated with leaves. However, when he ran his hands along his body, he soon realized that he was still naked, and hundreds of bright green leaves had sprouted all over his body while he slept.
For a moment, his pulse quickened and his stomach churned with fear. Then, he remembered the pleasures of last night. He ran his hands through the dense foliage of his chest and belly. Each leaf was a bit more fleshy than an ordinary leaf, and he could feel his fingers tracing along their surfaces as though the leaves were a part of his skin. A light wind touched him for a moment, and he felt each of his leaves tremble in delight as the cool wind caressed them.
Derry looked around the circle. Most of the people were gone, but a few of them were sleeping in small heaps around the clearing. One of the tiniest people was curled up in a bowl on the table, using a fig as a pillow and smiling contentedly in her sleep.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
Bridget spoke softly from the edge of the circle. She was still nude, her long red hair flowing down across her bare shoulders and breasts. Even with the moon no longer in sight, the starlight still touched her pale skin with a soft silver glow. Derry looked into her eyes, delighting in their green sparkle, responding to her light smile with a broad grin of his own.
“Good morning.”
For a moment, the two looked at each other in comfortable silence. As Derry breathed, he felt the trees and soil breathing all around him. After a few breaths, he also started to feel Bridget's breath as though it were his own. He watched her chest rise and fall, and though he couldn't explain it, he felt her heart beating and her blood flowing through her veins.
Bridget took a few steps forward and took Derry by the hand.
“It's time for the ritual.”
“Ritual?” Derry gave her a quizzical look, his lips still upturned in a smile.
“You're one of us now. It's time to pledge your service to the Lady and Lord of the Wildwood.”
Bridget kissed him lightly on the lips, then led him by the hand to the edge of the circle. It was still fairly dark out, but Derry thought he noticed the first hints of twilight before dawn. In spite of the darkness, he was still able to see where he was going as Bridget led him deeper into the woods.
As they walked, Derry once again felt the trees and soil and other plants breathing in and out all around them. The leaves of his own body brought him the most intense sensations, but as the wind picked up again, he could feel it rustling through the leaves on the trees all around him as well. He felt their roots slowly drawing up water and nutrients, and he felt their leaves tingling slightly in anticipation of the sunrise.
Soon, they reached another, smaller clearing. This clearing also had a circle of eight torches at its perimeter. There was a tall man with long black hair and flowing green robes standing at the far side of the circle.
Derry recognized the man from earlier that night. The two had never spoken, but this man had been the first to make love with Bridget after Derry and Bridget had parted ways. After studying the man for a moment, Derry noticed that the far edge of the circle was lined with the silhouettes of the people he had feasted with earlier.
Bridget let go of Derry's hand and walked over to the man in green. Soon, several child-sized people rushed forward to clothe her in her flowing green dress. Once she was fully clothed, she joined hands with the man in green. They stepped together toward the center of the circle, motioning for Derry to join them.
Derry stepped forward. For a moment, they stood together in silence. Then, it was Bridget who spoke.
“Derry.”
Bridget's expression was very solemn – more calm and serious than Derry had ever seen her.
“You have joined us in the Feast of the Wildwood. You have given your heart to us. You have given your flesh to us. You have become one of us.”
Derry heard the chatter of voices at the far edge of the circle. When he looked at the people at the edge of the clearing, he started feeling the pulse of breath and blood through many bodies, big and small, just as he had felt the pulse in Bridget and the pulse in the trees.
Bridget paused a moment, waiting for Derry to return his focus to her. When he did, she flashed him a soft, sweet smile. Soon, however, her expression became solemn and serious again.
“You have been given a gift, Derry. And now, we ask a gift in return.”
She took a step forward.
“The Lady and Lord of the Wildwood need you. Your people have forgotten our ways and lain waste to our ancient groves out of ignorance and greed. The Wildwood will only survive if people among you give yourselves fully and freely to us. Do you pledge your heart, your flesh, and your life, to the service of the Lady and Lord of the Wildwood?”
Derry paused a moment, considering her words carefully. He had long appreciated his time spent in the woods, but never done anything to protect them, aside from occasionally cleaning up litter during his camping and afternoon hikes. Now, he had the opportunity to do so much more – and would more nights of pleasure await him along the way?
As Derry felt the life pulse in the trees and soil and people all around him, any lingering doubts evaporated.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Bridget and the man in green looked to each other and nodded. Then, Bridget stepped forward.
“Then kneel before me, Derry of the Wildwood.”
Derry nodded and fell to one knee in the center of the circle. As he lowered his eyes to the ground, Bridget stepped to his side, and someone scurried forward to hand her something long and slender wrapped in a tanned leather hide. At the same time, a naked little person no bigger than a squirrel also scurried forward and set something on the ground in front of Derry at the center of the circle.
A broad grin spread across Derry's lips. It was a scrap of green parchment, wrapped in a dandelion stem just like the others.
Derry untied the dandelion and set it on the ground. As he unrolled the scroll, he heard a soft sliding sound from Bridget's direction. He also caught a glimpse of something metallic out of the corner of his eye. His attention, however, was fully focused on the scroll in his hands.
The writing on the frayed green parchment contained the same exquisite penmanship as the previous messages. This scroll, however, contained two lines rather than one.
for the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
The smile faded from Derry's lips, and a puzzled expression spread across his face. He lowered the scroll a bit and sighed, brow furrowed as he contemplated the meaning of the final passage.
Suddenly, Derry heard the whiff of something swinging through the air and felt the sting of a blade at the back of his neck. The swordstrike was well-placed, severing Derry's head entirely in a single blow. His head tumbled forward onto the forest floor, and he felt hot red-green blood spurting out from his collapsing body, pooling in the soil all around him. As his consciousness started to fade, he heard everyone at the far end of the circle hooting and hollering and clapping and giggling. Their singing and dancing shook the earth all around him, and his vision soon faded to black.
Bridget and the man in green stood hand in hand near the center of the circle, looking down at the Derry's head and prone body lying at their feet. As the ruckus around them continued, the soil beneath the leafy severed head slowly opened like a huge earthen maw, devouring the head and sucking the red-green blood deep into the soil with an audible slurp.
Bridget's already pale complexion had turned ashen in the faint light of dawn. She shook her head with a sigh and looked up to th
e man in green.
“Such a pity. He made such a splendid Green Man. I would have loved to keep him around much longer.”
“Yes, my Lady.” The Lord of the Wildwood squeezed her palm lightly and ran his free hand across her cheek, wiping away the single tear he found there. “But time is short, and many more seeds must be sown if we are to save this world.”
A team of a dozen of the littlest people gathered around Derry's leafy body, hefting it onto their shoulders. They sang and whistled merry tunes as they carried it off into the woods. The Lady and Lord of the Wildwood exchanged a long, deep kiss, their arms wrapping around each other in a close embrace. Then, the Lord of the Wildwood followed his people back into the woods, while Bridget turned away and started the long walk back to the parking lot.
Time was short, and there were many more seeds to gather and sow.
Anomalous
Cliff stared at the rusty behemoth in silent awe. He had no idea what exactly this structure was, but his contact had called it a coal loader crane. It was a several story tall metal frame composed of a latticework of metal girders, crossbars, and several metal walkways that connected to a larger ramp on the edge of the river. The coal loader crane rose above the river on a handful of massive rusty pylons surrounded by patches of grass, bits of broken machinery, and bare dirt that trailed off into the river.
The rest of the abandoned industrial park had been littered with numerous brick buildings in various states of