Wisp of the Woods

Veric’s breath was hot on her ear, their hand shaking in Serril’s.

“Don’t go in there,” Veric breathed, a plea. “It’s not safe. It’s—it’s dangerous, Serril, please.”

Serril surveyed the tall pines, weighing the way they loomed above against Veric’s warning. Between the branches, lights bobbed. Small things, like the dancing flames of candles, casting a rose-orange glow over the needles and the soft dusting of snow. Eyeless, they regarded her from the treeline. Serril tried—uselessly—to discern the mood of the small balls of light.

“It doesn’t seem evil,” Serril said, finally. She fought to keep the wonder from her voice, even as it cast a line to the forest and tugged at her chest. Surely she’d sense their malice, but all she felt was a mutual curiosity. Straightening, she pulled her hand from Veric’s. “Besides, what’s an adventure without a little danger, yeah?”

Veric whined mournfully, reaching for her hand again, near frantically. Serril batted them away.

“Stop it, will you?” she grumbled, righting the bag strap slung over her shoulder. “It’s the only way to Thence that won’t take half a season. My aging knees can’t handle that much trekking.”

“But—” they protested, continuing in a whisper, “the wisps. They’ll lead you astray. Right into the mouth of a troll. They want your soul, Serril.” Their voice cracked over her name. Veric’s eyes were wide, brimming with panicked tears. “It’s not worth it.”

Serril’s gaze traveled the length of Veric. It took everything in her to keep the frown from her face, the bone deep sorrow she felt looking at their frail body.

Clearing her throat, she said, “You’re worth it.” The words still came out a little strangled. She tried to reassure them with a smile.

Veric softened, their mouth pressing into a thin line.

“And I’ll be back before you know it,” she added, patting the hilt of her sword at her hip. Hopefully with chalice in hand, she didn’t add. Veric would only lose it if they knew Serril was about to chance the wood for some half-baked tale she’d once heard over a fire. They’d think she was insane. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“There’s nothing in Thence that we can’t muddle together here from berries and brush. Forget the medicine.” Veric’s voice was soft, barely audible over the wheeze of their lungs—stirred up again by stress, no doubt. “I’ll go back to the library, we’ll find something, we’ll—” The sentence cut off on a hacking cough, a rattle in their chest that had only seemed to get worse with each ragged inhale.

Serril laid a soft hand on their shoulder, dropping a kiss to their forehead. Their skin was eerily cool under the press of her lips, and the knot in her chest tightened. “Go home,” she said with forced brightness. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Leaving no more room for argument, Serril took her chance and strode toward the trees, fingers clasped around the leather strap of her bag. In the pockets of her jacket, the small silver bells she’d stuffed there tinked together.

“If they offer you a name, don’t take it!” Veric called at her back.

As she stepped onto the soft green moss, it was like being smothered with a blanket. Snow creaked under the press of her boots. The distant sounds of wagons traversing the uneven, cobbled streets fell away, wrapping Serril in the warm, earthy scent of the forest.

Tacked to a tree was a faded wayfinding sign, Thence barely legible behind a layer of ice. The tapered side pointed to the path ahead, and Serril sucked in a steadying breath. From her pocket, she fished out her first bell, tossing it just ahead of her.

“An offering,” she said to the watchful lights above, not daring to lift her eyes to them for fear they’d look back. “No shenanigans on this journey or the return, and I shall leave you silver every day for a season.”

Above, the lights trilled.

Hesitating for only a moment, Serril lifted her gaze.

Hovering just above her was one of the balls of light, rose-hued and copper edged. The light spilling from it shimmered, its haze on a delay so that it trailed a little above or below as it bobbed, midair.

“Wisp,” she whispered on an exhale. She might as well name it for what it was. The light within it deepened to magenta at her naming. “Do we have a bargain?”

Its glow was warm on her face, like the distant press of a hearth—not close enough to warm her bones, but near enough to uplift a weary spirit.

Serril dropped another bell at her feet.

The wisp dropped slowly, shrinking until it was face to face with the bell, the same size. It stayed there, and Serril felt the air shift with the way it weighed her offering. Then, as if it opened its mouth, it lunged forward, enveloping the bell like a bite.

When it again rose to meet Serril’s eyes, the bell was gone from her feet, a soft chime sounding from within the wisp.

It only stayed for a moment before it ascended back among the branches with its kin.

Serril took that as agreement—or at least a resigned willingness to let her continue without immediate harm.

Huffing a relieved breath, she continued forward.

The dusting of snow over the soft green moss lifted as she stepped further into the thick of the trees until, unless she looked up, winter was indiscernible from spring. Flowers of purple and blue lined the way forward, mushrooms with caps in jeweltones nestled between them. The forest ahead darkened as the pines’ canopies drew tighter together, their trunks thicker and barren at the base, until only the wisps above and the mushrooms ahead offered any light.

Cursing herself for not bringing a torch, she dropped another bell. Its sound was swallowed whole by the moss underfoot.

Serril walked and thought of Veric, of how their nervous chatter in the face of strange had grown so comforting as they’d traveled together over the years. A longtime friend, companion—more. It was so hard to see them wither without cause or cure.

Determination was the fire inside Serril’s chest that kept her going—it had to. She didn’t want to face a life without Veric by her side.

She walked until her knees complained and in her bones she knew it was night. Looking to the path ahead and behind, she wondered what the implications were of stepping over the flowers and mushrooms, making camp nestled between the trees. Would it be rude if another came upon her camp in the middle of the path?

Her fingers drummed idly along the strap of her backpack.

Never stray, lest you lose the way.

The words came to her like half-remembered advice—read somewhere and forgotten or told to her in a tale. Serril ran her tongue over her teeth.

Apologize, she figured, if it came to that. I’d rather face a miffed traveler than lose myself to unfamiliar forest.

Serril shucked the backpack from her back and set up camp. It wasn’t long before she had a small fire set, a bubbling pot of stew gurgling happily over the small flame. Around her, the bells she’d placed in a circle around her camp winked at her in the firelight. Her sword lay in its sheath next to her on the mossy ground, the silver details of the hilt orange in the forest’s light.

She’d thrown together the stew from dehydrated herbs her and Veric had grown in their garden, mushrooms from home, dried and pressed into a powder for broth. Sealed, they were light and easy to carry. The only problem would be the water—this could not be an every night thing, and she knew better than to take water from a stream running through this forest.

It would not be filling, she knew, but it was better than chewing fruit jerky, for all the good that would do her.

The wisps above hovered sentinel, the rise and fall of their lights as steady as a breath.

They eyed her as she ate.

The pot was near empty when Serril stopped eating and dumped the dregs into her bowl. She set it carefully in line between the bells in her protective circle.

She had no experience with wisps—at least none who occupied the air space of a forest to this magnitude, like they were shields and swords instead of inhabitants. All that she knew was passed on from books she’d collected and borrowed from the library.

They said nothing about them liking stew, but it felt rude not to offer them something to eat.

From the side of her bag she pulled out the small flute she kept with her, settling her back against the bulk of her supplies as she brought the wooden instrument to her lips, blowing softly.

There was no one to sing along with her, but still she heard the words.

So long I have traveled with you by my side.

So long I have toasted to the clink of your tin.

To adventure we rode; the stars but a guide.

My side never lacking for the sight of your grin.

Drink to me, sweetly,

drink to you, darling.

Let the torch light our way,

and—

Serril was startled from her song by a voice—like the lyrics were being sung somewhere outside her mind. The flute fell away as her gaze lifted to the trees.

Above the wisps pulsed, closer now than they were before. Their trills sounded like a collective hum that kept very close to her melody. From somewhere in their midst, a single tinkling bell sounded as they swayed.

But almost as soon as she stopped playing, they, too, halted their dance.

When her eyes fell back to the space in front of her, the bowl of stew was empty, the bells surrounding her camp now held inside the vessel, plus more.

Turning, her eyes traveled what she could see of the path she’d come, searching the mossy earth for the dull shine of silver bells. From here she couldn’t tell if they were still where she dropped them. She looked back to the wisps above.

They bobbed once, she thought, in unison before they retreated into the branches, their light now a barely discernible glow illuminating the pine canopy.

Serril didn’t know what it meant that they’d returned her gifts—payment in exchange for a song?

Her tongue poked out to wet her dry lips, and she raised the flute again.

She blinked.

The melody she knew so well was gone, her fingers tapping over the keys, trying to find a place to settle that felt familiar, but found none. It was so strange. From the trees she could hear it, high and lilting, but her fingers couldn’t grasp it. The notes felt slippery, stowed away on a too-high shelf.

Her gut twisted strangely, then.

Why couldn’t she remember?

Then, Veric’s words came back to her. If they offer you a name, don’t take it.

Had she taken one without realizing? She’d given one, their title: wisp.

What name had they given her?