Willow the Angsty Wanderer

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

Every night at midnight, the violet stars came out singing, bright and beaming and saturated with that silvery joy that only ever makes sense when the sun is gone.

Every night at midnight, Willow came out swinging, green and brown and very much wishing these nonsensical hobgoblins would stop chasing her.

Willow was a mostly ordinary girl, of course, except for the parts of her that weren’t, and the hobgoblins were mostly ordinary bullies, except, well, you know. Willow couldn’t remember when they had chosen to start tormenting her. Their choice had come so long ago she could only recall the fuzzy contours of the memory. She couldn’t even remember if she had forgotten it on purpose, by this point. She didn’t really care. The only thing Willow bothered to remember was that she had to run, every night under the purple clouds, and occasionally fight. Which was a major bummer. She was pretty sure she had once been a pacifist.

Willow McBark was probably twenty-four years old. She was tall and brown and had hair so blond it looked green, which she assured people made perfect sense. She had been traveling around for as long as she could remember—which wasn’t very long, but certainly since the clouds had gone funny—and her backpack was as close to a home as she thought she’d ever get. In it were two acorn necklaces, a water bottle with a trail filter, a big tub of aquaphor—her elbows could get very scaly—and a Costco-sized bag of chocolate-filled trail mix. She had once carried books, too, but had long since buried them all, one by one. She sighed, thinking of the Coates novel she’d left beneath an oak tree in Austin. It had been her favorite. But ah, well. The stories weren’t going to plant themselves.

The sigh cost her, though. It was too breathy. It left her body, whispery and sad, and folded itself into the wind, wanting somebody, anybody, to hear it, know it, hold it. Usually not a bad thing—sighs are meant to be caught and cradled, after all—but, alas, it was midnight, and, well. The hobgoblins were out.

She had paused in a quiet city center, the sidewalks velvet with night, the summer air sweaty and thick. The lamp posts flickered off and on, uncommitted to seeing what was about to happen. Willow couldn’t blame them. She could blame herself for being silly enough to sigh, but she wasn’t going to do that, either. She’d grown tired of self-deprecation. No, she was going to wrap herself in the shadows of the nearest crunchy coffee shop, wait, and prepare her tired, aching body for yet another night of devilry.

“We hear you, weeping girl.” The voice cut through the soft night, sharp and rasping.

“See you, too,” came a second, duller and flatter than the first. Willow didn’t move. She knew they couldn’t see her. Not yet, anyway.

“Why do you run, child of sorrow?” Willow recognized the third voice. She always did. It sounded like the first new moon in October. It sounded like darkness and the whispering of footsteps as they crackled through a wood’s worth of fallen, rusting leaves. It smelled like the wind as it blew across a dead and dying world.

“Why do you run?” They all asked, sharp and flat and keening. Willow didn’t breathe, didn’t think, and she most certainly didn’t move.

“Why do you run from the goblins three? We only want the melody.”

Welp, she’d heard that one before. She clutched the shadows closer to her, silently apologizing to the coffee shop for what she was about to do. Which she began to do, the moment she finished apologizing.

“Sister,” the flat voice croaked, “sister, she is calling to the wild, again. Sister, we must move, now.”

Willow grasped at the shadows, at the worlds they held within, and sang. She didn’t bother singing out loud. She didn’t have to, she’d discovered a few years ago, which had really upped her stealth mode.

“Brother, we are losing her again—“

Willow sang to the shadows and the places beyond, to the places hidden and forgotten. She sang to the darkness between the violet stars and to the spaces between purple clouds and the blushing sky.

“SISTER, USE THE STONE—“

The shadows listened to her song—they always did—and beckoned to her, showing her the way to the closest forgotten place.

“SISTER—“ the hobgoblins wailed, but that was all Willow heard of them before the shadows enveloped her, pulling her through the world. A soft, silent moment passed, then another. And then stars winked overhead, once again. She stopped singing, thanked the world’s phantoms for their kindness. They contracted a little, telling her she was very welcome indeed. She looked around, wondering where she’d gone off too, this time. A field, somewhere, filled with tall, golden stalks. Wheat, she guessed, in every direction for as far as her green-and-brown eyes could see.

“Nebraska?” She asked no one in particular. She slung her backpack off her shoulders and dug around until she found the bag of trail mix. She popped it open and planted two pieces of chocolate and a pecan in the ground beneath her feet before allowing herself to snack on the stuff. It wasn’t as good as loam, of course. But it was a close second.

Twilight brightened the sky, chasing away the night’s dark dance. Willow walked and chewed and wondered how long she would last in Nebraska. It didn’t seem like a very hobgoblin-friendly place, she thought. But then, it didn’t seem particularly unfriendly, either. She shook her head and carried on, safe for the moment.

"Where are you?" she whispered to the wind. "Where are you, my love?" Because, of course, the hobgoblins weren't the only people looking for the song. She had had it, once, but not anymore. No, somebody had taken it from her. Or, perhaps, she had given it. She couldn't quite remember, anymore. All she knew was the night her memory had gone sideways--the night the clouds went purple--was the last time she had held the song.

"Where are you?"