Into the Woods

Named for the holy land, his father has the highest expectations. Malachi is born a child at the foot of a soaring mountain, told to start climbing before he can speak. Reach the summit prior to turning seven, little messenger of God. At the bottom isn’t a pit full of snakes or a hungry lion in wait. No, the consequences of slipping are always far worse: parental disapproval, public shaming before the congregation.

If strict parents inherit children prone to lying, a pastor like Malachi's father is bound to turn out a son brimming with rancor for God.

There’s a catalyst in infancy: his mother leaves.

Spent the better part of a decade yearning for the road, yearning for a deeper connection to the earth than what a church could ever offer. She’d always been a wild spirit; the pastor claims she couldn’t be tamed.

Malachi can’t see a clear reason she should have been.

Goes about some months as though she’s dead. Wonders whether his older siblings’ nurturing is the same sort a mother would bring. Her features fade; there are photographs he can’t age to reason with the present tense. In his head she’s always floating, a shifting cloud in a clear blue sky. She’s a wildflower he’ll never pluck. The scent of baby’s breath and oxeye daisies permeate his dreams.

Her voice comes in the form of flute notes, gentle chords played on the lowest frets of a mandolin.

Tonight she asks if he remembers being baptised. She asks how he felt with his head beneath the water’s surface. She questions if he trusted his father or whether he’d held back tears simply because she’d been near.

In his unconscious state she’s always moving, Forever enticing him to follow through the fields. Malachi never argues. All it takes is the curl of a finger or the suggestive slant of her chin.

He’d follow his mother into the darkest forest. If only for the chance to ask her why she left. Why she left him when he’d been in a state of such vulnerability. A newborn babe, soft skin and clutching fingers.

She could’ve packed him alongside her beloved vinyls.

He wakes on his couch from an unintentional nap, chest heaving in the fading living room light. His mother had been begging him to immerse himself in the woods. She’d been adamant he needs to get lost in the trees. For her. If he ever wants to see her.

The motions come before he’s thought it through. Worn boots sliding onto tired feet in the groggy state, an extra layer pulled over static-ridden flannel.

Malachi drives until the road ends. Has no set direction apart from the one etched into his heart by the woman responsible for his attachment to abandonment. Leaves his car door open, warning dinging behind him as he begins trudging through the foliage. It’s an environment meant to breed fear: greens turning to black and the smell of rotting wood engulfing him.

The path he follows is poorly determined: twisted roots reaching for his ankles and mossy logs inspiring near-slips. He wanders for... how long? Loses track of time. Loses cellphone service. Loses more of the pieces of himself he’s been desperately attempting to cling to.

Journey ends, abrupt, in an opening no bigger than ten by ten.

There’s a woman on the other side, standing with her back to him. dark hair like his mother should have. Malachi clears his throat, blinks back discomfort and asks, “Mom?” And his own voice is foreign, small like the child she left behind.

It isn’t her.