EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 12 - The Finale

XII

It was not hard for Honeysuckle Sycamore to find Peat Moss. The valley itself exposed the monster’s agitated rassling in the shallow water of the river as the sound of it echoed and bounced off the hills. The vengeful spirits had once again descended upon Peat Moss after having scattered in fear of Grit’s howl. They pecked and hammered mercilessly at him. Now there was no crossing back over to sanity for the giant, and this made his ferocity an even more dangerous thing.

            He rolled about in the river, struggling with an unseen adversary. He did not at first see Honeysuckle standing on the river bank with a determined rage in his eyes. The glaze of spirits had hampered his sight. Without waiting for the monster to pounce first, the Passion leaped into the stirred waters, bounding onto Peat Moss in a lightning flash. He had not moved as fast since the night Dogwood had been killed. This moment held the same intensity, but now he was not retreating.

            The action caught the monster off-guard, for he had never been confronted so. Honeysuckle knocked Peat Moss beneath the still churning current. It took all of the smaller sprite’s strength to do so. Yet, Peat Moss rose almost immediately with a deranged roar, the water pouring from him as if he were a mountain rising from the sea. Honeysuckle could now see the spirits which soared over and around Peat Moss like a towering cyclone. Peat Moss charged at him, throwing Honeysuckle across the river like a feather being tossed about by the wind. He landed on the banks, dazed, but would not give up until Peat Moss was gone from the valley for good. He rose just in time to see the monster’s red fire eyes glaring at him in lust and hate. But Honeysuckle was past fear. Something else took hold of him; that of the memory and hope of everything he had ever loved. Dogwood, Jess, Grit, the Valley, the River.

            Near him, he found a shard of rock; an arrowhead used by the valley folk for hunting, left behind years ago. He challenged the monster again, and the monster accepted.

            The immensity of Peat Moss would have decimated Honeysuckle on impact, and the smaller sprite knew this. So, just as they were about to collide, Honeysuckle leaped into the air, grabbing one of the long lichen tendrils of Peat Moss’ mane, and swung himself over and up until he was squat on the monster’s backside. He slashed at Peat Moss, cutting him deep, drawing thick, black streams of blood. Peat Moss howled in discomfort and anger, struggling to reach for Honeysuckle. But Honeysuckle dodged and gashed at the massive hands.

            The sprite reached around for Peat Moss’ throat, trying to find its vulnerability. He grabbed the monster’s mane, pulling out strands of lichen. Peat Moss’ head tilted back in a hateful growl, leaving his throat an easy target. Honeysuckle drew the arrowhead across it, and though blood was drawn, the skin was too thick, too rough. And it was too late.

            Peat Moss’ large hand found the sprite’s leg at last and pulled Honeysuckle over his head and into the river. There he held him, Honeysuckle struggling for air beneath the giant’s hands. An enormous sense of gratification and arousal overcame Peat Moss. He no longer noticed the banshees and spirits that still tried to thwart him. He drove into Honeysuckle with his thick penis even as he continued to drown him, holding the sprite’s head below water but his bottom up and open.

            Honeysuckle flailed beneath the monster’s hold, but it was of no use. His strength could never hope to match that of Peat Moss. He could no longer bare it, the pressure, the torturous need for air, the relentless pounding, and so let go. Let the euphoria come in. The lovely, terrifying euphoria. And as he did so he saw Dogwood in the water beside him. Lying on the river bed shaking his head, as if saying not to give up. But how could he win?

            Then something happened. The monster released Honeysuckle, and Dogwood faded like a wisp with a twinkle in his eye. Honeysuckle rose with a gasp, choking up water and struggling to stand aright. He was prepared to be knocked about again by the monster, to be played with. Perhaps, tortured for hours before being eventually killed. But Peat Moss was no longer interested in Honeysuckle. He stood silent and still in the water, staring to the shore as if mesmerized. Even the spirits had quieted around him.              

            Honeysuckle had drifted a ways down stream. He spotted Grit on the shore. She walked unsteadily toward the river’s edge, falling and thrashing as she came deeper into the current.

            “Grit, no!” Honeysuckle cried. “Go home, Grit!”

            But she did not listen. She didn’t even move her head as if she had heard him. Her attention was on Peat Moss alone. She waded to him and he waited for her. Honeysuckle tried to get to them, but hadn’t the strength now to cross the distance. The current was too strong.

            Soon Grit stood face to face with Peat Moss. He grunted in strange recognition of her, raising his hand for her face.

            “Grit!” Honeysuckle screamed, struggling through the water toward them.

            As Peat Moss touched Grit’s face, her expression changed from one of aching sorrow to harrowing contempt. A moan, plaintive at first, then cresting to a high-pitched rage, filled the air. Honeysuckle covered his ears and stared in awe. The spirits fled, scattering like leaves. Peat Moss also tried to hide from her deafening cry, but she caught his arm and he could not wrest it. Grit’s slit of a mouth suddenly curled and grew until it was a large hollow hole in her face. And then, to both the horror of Peat Moss and Honeysuckle, it stretched further until its size was surreal, mismatched with her form. Her face disappeared until only a gaping chasm of mouth could be seen, inside of which was nothing but blackness.

            Peat Moss struggled against her, but his strength was nothing now. He raged and hit at her, but it did no harm. Then, with one sudden movement, like a wave overtaking a village, Grit came down upon the mighty monster, swallowing him whole. The waters stirred in the spot where he had stood.

            “Grit?” Honeysuckle whispered.

            She stood silent for a moment, her arms out from her sides as if she were a scarecrow hung. Suddenly, she began to heave and convulse. With a sickening gag she vomited forth the remains of Peat Moss into the river. Black liquid mess. Down the hiding spirits descended around her, picking at what remained of the monster. Feasting on him as he had done on them. They crowded around Grit, shrouding her to the point that Honeysuckle could no longer see her. He knew she was there, though, for he could still here the sickening continuous regurgitation.

            And then it all stopped.

            The spirits scattered once more, content with their vengeance. Grit stood alone and wore out in the water. But as Honeysuckle came for her, something else happened. Everything about the Passion Grit began to soften and color. Parts of her seemed to melt away revealing a newer, fresher being. To Honeysuckle’s astonishment, before him in the river now stood Grit, though devoid of sorrow. She had eyes, real eyes, and a beautiful, bright smile.

            “Father,” she said loud and sure to Honeysuckle Sycamore. Her first word began the change in the valley. Better things to come.

            Honeysuckle Sycamore and Grit nursed Jess Bethel back to health. Jess was dazzled and delighted by Grit’s new self, and she delighted in doting on him the way he had on her. Jess giggled too at the tiny arguments Grit and Honeysuckle would get caught up in, like a father and child at times, other times like two adversarial playmates (“The sunflower is the prettiest flower!” “No! It’s the honeysuckle!”). When Jess was able, the three of them took walks through the lonely forest, admiring it in a way they hadn’t been able to before. With new eyes and free of fear.

            Soon after, the mood in the valley changed once more. The days became the stuff of yesteryear; sweetness and happiness and warm days. Forest creatures returned or came out of hiding and played openly on the banks of the river. Bumble-birds twitter-bussed through the air and deer paraded through the shallow streams. Word soon reached the ears of the outside world that the valley had returned to its true form. The monster Peat Moss had been destroyed. And so, little by little, the valley folk began to return. They reclaimed their places by the River, renewed their love and appreciation for the valley. When they discovered how Peat Moss had been defeated, they brought gifts and food to the Passions in the chapel, and even rebuilt the chapel itself, strengthening the walls and fixing the roof.

            Though nearly extinct, new Passions were being born every day once the valley folk returned. Born from nothing but love and frivolity. Once again, Passions were being chased from pumpkin patches by broom-wielding matriarchs. Once again, a poor scarecrow went naked through the summer and into autumn. Honeysuckle had never been happier. He knew Grit would be leaving soon, that she would want to go out and adventure as any sprite would. But he chose not to think on that. He chose instead to think on what was right in front of him in the valley by the river. Jess Bethel, Grit, and, when the moon was just right and he peered just so into the river’s current, his Dogwood.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch 11

XI

...Into the pitch of the woods Peat Moss carried the unconscious monk, Jess Bethel. Into the pitch of the woods followed every manner of spirit and phantasm, their cries of anger growing louder in the monster’s ears. He tried to block the wretched noise, covering one ear. In doing this, he let drop Jess’ legs so that now the monk was being dragged through the forest. But Peat Moss was not about to let go of his prize. He still held him in a constricting grasp.

            It was the appearance of a very real form, not an apparition, that halted the Passion’s trek. In front of him stood Grit, arms treading the air as if it were reeds she was searching through. Her face was vexed; she knew she was right upon it. That scent, that wisp of treachery she had been following stood directly in front of her now. The sense of danger she had felt that morning by the river, indeed, the sense of dread and grief that made up her very being, had never been stronger than it was at this moment.

            Peat Moss watched, Jess now being held by only one arm, as the blind sprite edged toward him. At the sight of her, he felt a curious kinship. He had known there was something of him in her. He felt her pain as an extension of his own self. He ventured forward, attempting to gain a close enough proximity as to touch her.

            Grit was immediately aware of his hate, his impending icy admiration. Peat Moss’ shadow crawled over her like a glacier imposing itself on an unsuspecting landscape. Grit recognized the scent of Jess, the pressure of his self in the air. He was not well. Her reaction was swift to this knowledge. With a cry that pierced through the spirits in the air, making them flee in fear, she shattered the frigid darkness that Peat Moss’ shadow cast.

            At once, he stepped back. Grit’s shrill aching cry made him double over. He dropped Jess completely to the forest floor, clasping his ears. Grit lurched and stammered over her own fear as she made for where she knew the monster to be. Her cry of anguish continued, and she reached for the Passion with long fingers that could rip a whole in the atmosphere. He had never seen such ferocity, not even his own when mirrored in the river could compare.

            Forgetting the monk where Grit now stood in some grand protective stance, Peat Moss fled into the woods with the spirits. He bellowed as his ears bled from the pain. Grit would have followed but he had fled too quickly. So, she returned her attention to the unconscious monk.

            As soon as he heard Grit’s wails ripped through the valley air Honeysuckle was racing to her. Dust and long grass flew in his wake. He felt a sudden guilt for having let her go alone into the forest. What if she had wandered into a cleft or a hunter’s trap? But then he realized the cry issuing forth from beneath the canopied hillside was not one of pain or fear. No, her wailing was like that of an animal on the hunt; an animal which, upon having caught its prey, was proclaiming victory before descending upon it. It made Honeysuckle shiver and he ran all the faster. He could not even feel the slight breeze, the flood of scattered spirits, as he ran through them on his way to find Grit.

            At last, he found her. She sat on the ground, holding Jess’ head in her hands as she moaned. Once understanding Honeysuckle was near, she reached for him pleadingly and he ran to her side and sunk to the ground. He feared Jess was dead, and quickly felt for his breath.

            “He lives!” Honeysuckle cried in relief. He kissed Jess gently on the forehead where honeysuckle-scented tears had fallen. Grit clung to Honeysuckle’s arm, her grip loosening once he had diagnosed Jess’ condition.

            Honeysuckle knew without asking what had happened. Only one thing, one force of nature, could cause him this kind of grief. He kissed Jess once again, but this time with adamant force on the mouth; a gesture like a promise. The young monk’s dazed eyes opened. Honeysuckle handed the care of Jess back to Grit.

            “You stay here, Grit,” Honeysuckle demanded. “You watch after our Jess.” He stood with as much purpose as he had ever done. “I have something to take care of.”

            Grit jerked as if she understand what Honeysuckle intended to do. She reached for him in an effort to stop him, but he was already gone.

            As he tread downhill, Honeysuckle Sycamore made the forest supplicant. His determination, his anger, his will, made every bow bend. Honeysuckle Sycamore was set to destroy Peat Moss once and for all.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 10

X

Peat Moss could not rid himself of the ghosts. They raged at him from all sides, dragging over him like transparent branches as he ran through the forest. Their screams and hollers of madness grew louder as he leveled tree and brush up the hillside. Ahead of him, sneaking in and out, from behind this tree then that, Peat Moss caught glimpses of the stoic spirit of Buford Longpost. The dead man’s apparition would glance sidelong at him with an unchanging expression of indifference. As if Peat Moss were beyond his care, unimportant. The monster followed him, altering direction to wherever Buford had last appeared.

            Jess Bethel was unaware of the monster’s approach. Of his chase to catch Before Longpost and his own sanity. The young monk was in the yard of the chapel preparing to bring the day’s water from the creek. Rampaging Passions being the furthest thing from his mind, he thought it was but another beautiful day in the valley forest.

            There were hiccups, of course, in the beauty of the day. Every day had unexpected bumps. Grit had wandered off again in another frenzied, enigmatic search, and Honeysuckle had ventured to the river. This surprised Jess the most. The peaceful Passion it seemed had at last conquered his fear of the waters.

            The strange changes in his families’ behavior were not lost on the monk. He could sense something; a change in the winds of the world. But how that change might affect him, he did not know. How could one give a face to gravity if they never knew it existed? Jess had been sheltered for so long a time that the outside world or any danger it wrought was simply not a bother. In fact, he had always felt secure in the forest by the chapel. He had known nothing but goodness, first from Brother Patricio, then from Honeysuckle. The only great change that had come along had been that of Honeysuckle, and that was a welcomed wind. One as sweet as the scent of jasmine.

            But now, this new sense of change—there was something menacing about it. Even more menacing than a sky full of heavy clouds threatening floods. He thought to himself that Grit was perhaps right to be concerned. Still, what can one do against the unknown? Against what’s yet to happen? So, Jess continued about his day in normalcy and routine.

            Behind him, as he reached for the water bucket from where it hung by the chapel door, Jess heard a ruckus such as he had never known. He turned quickly and saw to his amazement birds, squirrels, raccoons, and all manner of forest creature fleeing out of the bush as if being chased by a violent predator or great forest fire. The creatures flew, hopped, and scampered past him, disappearing again into the opposite flora.

            Then, with a crack like thunder, a great tree was struck apart and fell to pieces, the wood splintering in a myriad of directions. The seething mass of quivering muscle which stood in its place could be none other than the Passion Peat Moss. The very one Honeysuckle had mentioned on quiet, desperate occasions when he took to mourning. The forest seemed to shrink around him as he heaved and twitched and growled.

            At first, neither of the two reacted. Jess simply stared with mesmerized fear and awe. Then, the monster’s eyes seemed to transform from blind rage to a kind of glazed familiarity. Jess could not know that at that moment Peat Moss no longer saw him as a peaceful monk, but now perceived him as his lost Buford. He could not know that Peat Moss thought to take him back to the cave and make love to him forever. All Jess saw was a crazed grin creep across the Passion’s troubled face.

            The monk began to retreat slowly backward to the chapel. But Peat Moss was on him at once. With one mighty swing the wall of the chapel tumbled to the ground and Peat Moss threw the struggling monk over his shoulder. Jess kicked and hit, strenuously defending himself. Peat Moss was tired of the struggle now, though. The spirits still pecked at him with their cries and goads. To have this man, the one he saw as Buford Longpost, being contentious as well would not do.

            He threw the monk to the ground and hit him, knocking him out. The blow was not a hard one by the monster’s standards, but it was sufficient. Jess fell limp and the Passion picked the man up again and disappeared into the woods. 

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 9

IX

A lost bumble-bird was perched on the branch of a dogwood tree near the abandoned settlement that once thrived with the valley folk. The tiny creature had been out all day collecting pollen and twigs, but had wandered too far from its hive. Now the squat little fellow thought it best that he settle somewhere and get his bearings.

            He looked around at the dilapidated houses with their falling roofs and overgrown lawns. For a bumble-bird this was a prime twig-collecting area. His surroundings were silent. Only the river made any noise, its flow clearing obstacles from the little creature’s mind. Maybe he would be able to remember his way home.

            The quiet and still was not long lasting, however. From upstream came a gentle sloshing through the shallow edges of the river. It was a Passion, the first the bumble-bird had ever seen in his short life. For the valley had been abandoned of any such spirits for quite some time. Long before this little bumble-bird had been hatched in the hive.

            He looked curiously at the beautiful sprite that was Honeysuckle Sycamore. And, of course, the Passion noticed the bird at once and gleefully spoke to it.

            “Hey, bird,” Honeysuckle said. “I haven’t been here in such a long time. Are you new here? Or is this your tree now? Is that your branch? Though, I don’t suppose it matters. All the people are gone. You have your pick of branches and trees. But I have a feeling, bird. I have a feeling they’re all going to come back, and very soon. What do you say to that, bird? Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep in pumpkin patches again?”

            The bumble-bird cocked its tiny head. Soon the sprite walked on, looking through the homes and gardens with hungry wonder. The bird watched for a bit, then, after remembering a certain tree and its proximity to the hive, he flew in the direction of the hillside.

            He flew into the forest, gliding on a sweet breeze, until he again could not recognize his surroundings. So, again, he alighted upon a limb. Below him, struggling through the dense wood over large roots and hills was the strangest creature the little fella had ever seen. Stranger still then the sprite Honeysuckle Sycamore. This sprite was tortured and sad. She twitched and spasmed as she made a slow progression through the forest. Still, she was clearly on a mission. There was a direction to her chaotic journeying. It was as if she held a scent and was following it with an unalterable intent, tearing down limbs and plowing through mounds of leaves that stood in her way. What purpose, the little bird could not tell. But it headed off in the same direction. Perhaps where she was headed was where he needed to be as well.

            The bumble-bird flew past the sprite Grit until she could no longer be seen. Soon he came upon the most fearsome of all the things he had yet seen that wondrous day. A large, angry Passion was batting at the air wildly, and grumbling and moaning in crazed gestures. The bird had to fly higher to avoid being smashed to a pulp by the massive strength of the monster. He did not stay long in that area of the wood. He flew on away, but now in the direction of the angry Passion’s trek.

            At last, the little bumble-bird recognized some of its own hive mates sitting upon the rotting roof of a little chapel and he flitted off to join them. He buzzed and tweeted happy hellos at the relations, and spoke in birdspeak what he had seen on his journey. The other bumble-birds were amazed. They had all heard of Passions from the bumble-bird elders, but, the hive being so much farther up on the hillside, they had never actually seen one. And they weren’t so certain they wanted to see this angry-looking Passion seen headed toward the chapel.

            Down on the ground, a young monk watched them with apparent appreciation. The bumble-birds told their lost hive mate how wonderful the human was, and how he adored them. He gave them crumbs of bread and sweet water. They all agreed that they should remember the way back to the chapel. Fearing the crazed monster, however, they flew away, the little lost bumble-bird as well, for their hive.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 8

VIII

Jess Bethel naturally cared for the woods and river as well as all the critters of the forest with unswerving felicity. He loved the sprites of the Valley too, especially Honeysuckle Sycamore. He even adored Grit, for he could see past the bitter hurt and distorted pain that made her continuously weep and gnash her teeth. He saw in her a soul bound by ropes of grief. To Jess, all manner of creation was part of the great miracle.

            His gentle nature, though an inherent thing among most creatures, was imprinted on him more so by the kindness that was shown him during his earlier years, a kindness that began when he was a newborn child. His origins were unknown to the individual who eventually found him floating like a bible story hero upriver in a shoddy wicker basket. Brother Patricio Bethel was a very old man. He had outlived anyone that anybody in the valley had ever known. He was thinner than a cattail cane and his long robes hung from him like linens out on the line set to dry. The children of the valley found him particularly strange and could not help but stare on the odd occasion that they saw him. Brother Patricio walked on all fours. This was due to a bone disease he had developed in early life which had never been corrected. The truth is, however, he had never thought about it too much. It never seemed much of a malady to him. His soul had a greater purpose.

            When the old monk found the lost baby floating among the reeds as quiet and calm as if the river itself were its mother, he at once took charge of the child. He cradled and fed it, and as the boy grew, taught him the ways of the valley. Young Jess Bethel was ever the dutiful son and was content in his world of the stone chapel with Brother Patricio. They made their bread and wine, they tended to the forest and its inhabitants, and they comforted the people of the valley when the people needed comforting. They never wandered too far from the chapel’s crumbling walls.

            Even the Passions of the valley found the chapel a wonderful playground, and Brother Patricio always enjoyed watching his adopted son play among them. Jess seemed more inclined to the wonders of the sprites than the growing cynicism of the valley children.

            Things continued blissfully until Jess Bethel was a young man. One day, while mixing dough for a wheat bread, the old monk fell over and died. It was as simple as that. There were no long illnesses or deathbed farewells. Jess buried Patricio beneath the roots of an oak tree near the chapel, and continued to look after the old place even when the valley folk had long since forgotten it was there. And so that is where he remained until that day when a curious sprite in mourning followed him home.

            Peat Moss stared steadily into the dark of the cave. If there remained a brave soul left in the valley and they chanced past the opening, they would have seen the Passion hunched and as stoic as a statue, peering glassy-eyed at the cave wall. But Peat Moss saw something there no passer-by could have seen. His grief had overcome him. The ghost of Buford Longpost, the only being for which Peat Moss had ever felt any affection for, glared back at him. He was an unmoving spirit; as fixed to his spot as Peat Moss.

            The Passion’s defeated eyes almost cried true tears. He almost wept bitterly at the memory of Buford’s demise. But then something transpired that prevented that. One by one, ghost by ghost, the whisper had spun through the afterworld that the angry Passion’s eyes were open and he could see spirits. Those beings that Peat Moss had massacred and murdered began to trickle slowly into the cave out of curiosity and a taste of vengeance. It was only a small stream of lost consciousness at first. But it soon became a deluge. It wasn’t long before the sprite saw around him the glaring, angry faces of everything he had ever killed. And they were not as quiet as the silent woodsman’s ghost. No, they were bitter and resentful, shouting and moaning. They tried their best to reach out from the eternal divider and drag him into their world so that they might each in their turn rip him asunder.

            This cavalcade of anger brought Peat Moss back to himself. He felt the hate and ire that was his life’s purpose return to him. At once, he rose and clamored after the spirits, wanting to kill them all over again. But he could not reach into their world either. Yet, the angry calls of the ghosts still harassed him.

            Exasperated, Peat Moss ran from the cave. He realized he could not defend himself from the calls of ghosts. But still, the victims of his malevolence followed him, torturing him through the woods; an army of the dead searching for bloody closure.

            In his flight from the cave, Peat Moss had unknowingly exposed his whereabouts to an investigatory Grit. Still perturbed by the sense of unease that wrapped around her heart, she had gone wandering through the forest yet again. Her intent was to find the source of her mysterious restiveness and put an end to it. Though, how that was to happen was a mystery to her.

            Grit heard the ruckus, and determinedly made her way in the direction of the cave. It took some doing. She fell more than once. But eventually she found it. And while Peat Moss was long gone, his mind slowly being chipped away by the voices of the dead, she felt his essence of hate. She ran her fingers over the cave walls, picking up his scent. It was then she realized what she had to do. She understood who this abhorrent creature was; what he meant to her. So, she walked from the cave and slowly felt her way back to the chapel. 

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 7

VII

It was with much anxiety that Honeysuckle at last returned to the river. Grit had been so shaken upon her return to the chapel, neither he nor Jess could calm her. He needed to know what she had discovered, what had frightened her so. Some instinct in him wanted to protect her.          

            He approached the river with fear edging on disgust. He sat hidden by the trees for some time and watched the river from the hillside. His eyes were fixed on it as if it were returning his stare and neither of them would forfeit and break the battle of gazes.                                   

            Finally, though, Honeysuckle’s fierce concern for Grit won out, and he broke through the trepidation that had caged him for so long. He stepped quickly from the forest to the beach and it was as if a breakwall had given out. Upon him cascaded and swirled all the goodness the river had given him. He realized how much he had missed the banks and the sound of water. Yes, there was immense pain there. But there was also undeniable joy.                 

            He waded into the shallowness at river’s edge, feeling the water embrace him again. And as he looked into the river his own image changed in much the same manner as Jess had seemingly transformed before his eyes the night before. Now, instead of his own reflection, Dogwood peered back at him once more, now in the clear light of the day. Dogwood raised his powerful arm from his side and placed it palm-up toward Honeysuckle. In tears, Honeysuckle did the same, mirroring the mirror. As his hand lay over Dogwood’s palm, the water rippled and the glassy image became that of Jess. And then it shuddered once more and became Grit. Yet, it wasn’t Grit. For there, in the water she seemed different...Content. Happy even.

            “Loves of my life,” Honeysuckle whispered, his tears adding to the flow of the current. “And you are with me.”

            Though, Grit had scared Peat Moss from instantly attacking Honeysuckle Sycamore at the chapel, it was not her presence alone that took the monster aback. As he hid in the brush watching the two sprites and their human he began to hear whispers. These whispers coincided with a strange tinge of jealousy he felt at observing the tenderness between Honeysuckle and the young monk. From the tops of the trees the intimations seemed to fall. Like mist around him they settled. They were barely audible at first, but then grew in strength. Peat Moss turned this way and that in startled watchfulness. He stumbled away from his hiding place, but the whispers followed him. He swatted at them like gnats, but they would not be silenced. Grunting and flailing, he ran through the forest and down the hillside until he came to a cave he had often taken refuge in during a storm. And at once, the voices hushed.            

            Peat Moss peered into the darkness. Though he could no longer hear the invasive whispers, he sensed something still clung to the air around him. He was not alone. He swung angrily, attempting to grab whatever creature had dared follow him into the cave.

            He began to see tiny balls of light, like fireflies only much smaller and faster. They took up the whispering again, but now louder. They whirled about him, over him. Try as he might, he could catch none of them. He growled in frustration and it echoed off the cave walls.

            Soon, the tiny orbs began to cluster into a single, larger orb. It then became a blinding white light at the center of the cave. Peat Moss shielded his eyes from its brilliance. And, slowly, the giant orb began to take form and the angered whispering suddenly dispersed again. Peat Moss’ eyes widened in pain and regret as the ghostly vision of Buford Longpost formed silent and aglow in front of him.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 6

VI

In the chapel, beneath the rotted thatched roof, Honeysuckle lay in Jess Bethel’s arms. Their lovemaking had once again lasted the whole night through, causing the forest to emit an air of contentment and ease. As Honeysuckle embraced Jess in the night, a remarkable and somewhat frightening thing occurred. Whether it was a trick of the moonlight sneaking past the canopy of trees or a spark of dormant magic he could not say. But as they made love, the monk’s face seemed to transform momentarily. Over the handsome human face appeared the visage of another. That of Dogwood. And he was grinning in absolute love. The kind of grin Dogwood had always given Honeysuckle whilst they lay entwined beneath the blossoming trees in their halcyon days.                          

            At first, Honeysuckle paused in alarm. “Dogwood?” he whispered.

            But as soon as he spoke, the shadowed face of Jess returned, peering at the sprite with loving concern.

            “Was nothing but a trick of light,” Honeysuckle explained to himself, and blessed the monk’s face with fresh kisses.               

            As morning broke, Grit wandered out of the cover of the trees and ambled onto the bank of the river. She had been emerging from the forest more and more of late, hearing the river as it passed her by. She would stand and moan along with its crystal song.

            Her newfound independence did not go unnoticed by Honeysuckle and Jess.

            “Why does Grit leave us now?” Honeysuckle wondered one morning as they ground grain for bread.

            Jess shrugged, and kissed the worry from the sprite’s eyes.

            Grit soon began to greet every sunrise by the river, and would often stay there into the early hours of the afternoon. At least until Jess would come and take her by the hand, leading her back into the safety of the woods. She would follow him without quarrel.

            This particular day, however, Grit had reason to stand vigil at the river bank. Like a sightless sentinel, she did her macabre dance of sway, facing this way and that. She sensed something, some familiar and frightening presence in the air. Something intent on harm. She stumbled over the sand and rocks, here and there, trying to get a better sense of whatever it was that was coming. She was uncertain of its origins, but she knew she didn’t like it one bit.

            Behind her, the rustling of bare feet and dragging robe on ground let her know Jess had come to retrieve her for their lunchtime picnic. Silent as ever, he stood, waiting for her to fumble toward him. She was slow in coming, though. Jess could see she was distracted. Grit continued spasmodically facing up then down river, moaning in unintelligible notes. She lurched her shoulders as if she were a cat among hounds.

            When at last she did make her way to Jess, grabbing hold of his tattered robe, she was still quite tense and shaken. Jess led the way slowly through the forest path with Grit ever his token charge. He had come to view her with great affection, and her angst was extremely troubling for him.

            As they left the riverside, delving farther into the forest, Grit became less agitated. Still, something was wrong. Upon catching sight of her at the chapel, Honeysuckle could tell as much.   

            “Grit,” he soothed. “Why do you moan so? ‘Tis a beautiful day, and see what tasty morsels we have to eat?” He raised a slice of warm bread slathered in thick raspberry jam.

            Grit turned from the treat, tearing herself from the comfort of family, and frantically rambled about the vicinity. She batted at bushes and trees, tore vines, and threw stones. Her cries reached a disturbing crescendo, higher than Honeysuckle had ever heard. The cry curled the color off green leaves.

            “Grit!” Honeysuckle exclaimed. “What’s the matter?” He looked to Jess for a possible explanation, but the monk could only shrug in puzzlement.                       

            Grit reached with both arms into the harmless forest air, as if grabbing at something directly in front of her. She looked like she might rip the world asunder. For the first time, she exhibited something resembling anger.

            Honeysuckle came to her, wrapping his arms about her and pulling her back to the chapel. He and Jess comforted her even as her fit continued. Even as she lifted her face to the sky and screamed in blatant rage and the hillside seemed to shudder in dismay.

            Beyond the view of the Passions and the monk, hidden by the bramble of the woods, two eyes watched intently, contemptuously. Peat Moss only recognized the form of Honeysuckle Sycamore. The human could be easily dealt with. But it was the female sprite that caused the monster to stall his rampage that he had intended to unleash upon them. Something about her, something within her, shook him to the core for only the second time in his entire existence.      

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 5

V

Peat Moss had only known the pang of regret but once. And that particular experience had been an anomaly that startled him to his festering core. He had successfully pushed it back in his mind, shrouding it with more satisfying, grisly images. So, as he leaped and bounded up river following the scent of honeysuckle flowers, his mind was unfettered by remorse.

            Still, the hidden memory hung in the air, just above his head. If it were a rain cloud it might have burst at any moment. Within that burst, the only glimmer of decency Peat Moss had ever known would be released, and there could be no amount of denial that would keep it from pouring down upon him....

            Following his birth in the narrow hollow, Peat Moss had spent a good amount of time terrorizing the valley. He had nearly butchered, mangled and maimed every thing in sight, occasionally letting something flee so that it could be butchered, mangled or maimed on another day. He was intoxicated by his own rage and brute strength. Nothing could control it.

            Then, one day, Peat Moss caught a glimpse of Buford Longpost. Buford was one of the few who refused to leave the valley. He was a woodsman, sawing and selling timber to any who needed it, and had made a name for himself among the valley folk. It was a name he was not going to give up without a fight. He spent most days felling the forest in anticipation of the return of life to the valley. Against his will, Peat Moss was immediately and inexplicably fascinated by the man. Buford was the strongest human Peat Moss had ever seen. His muscles shone bathed in sweat beneath the glare of the sun as he worked. Such strength on a human was dazzling to the Passion. Buford swung his axe so hardily that entire tree stumps were split in two with one mighty blow.

            Peat Moss could not describe the feelings surging through him. He had no vocabulary for it nor any precedence for any such feelings before. It frightened him that he felt such strong emotion toward this man, and that fear frightened him all the more. He had never before known fear either. But he sat hidden by the trees in uncharacteristic awe and watched the lumberman whopping on wood the whole morning through.

            At midday, Buford ate lunch and afterward stripped of his sweat-laden clothing, letting the sun’s rays stroke his naked flesh. Peat Moss felt his very first hint of sexual desire. This was a day, it seemed, profuse with firsts. Buford stretched out upon a fallen tree, his head resting on his arms and his feet crossed at the ankles. His penis towered high in the air, seeking attention. It wasn’t long before Buford’s hand obliged the virile organ. With his eyes closed, he carried a private fantasy to fulfillment. When finished, he turned on his stomach satisfied and quickly fell asleep.

            Peat Moss was flustered by what he had seen and all the more intrigued by the strong man. His lustful Passion eyes ran along the napping form of the man. They took in every muscle and dimple until at last they came to a full stop on the woodsman’s muscular, perfectly rounded ass.

            Buford didn’t stir from his rest as Peat Moss came finally out of hiding. Strangely, there was nothing for the lumberman to fear even if he had awoke. Peat Moss wanted nothing more than to touch him and hold him. These very thoughts disturbed the Passion even as he tried to beat them down. But it was of no use; he was completely awestruck by the woodsman. His large hands caressed and kneaded every curve on Buford’s physique. Seeing that this did not disturb the timber man, Peat Moss did something he had never done before: he kissed the bare skin of Buford’s broad back.

            At the touch of lips to salty skin, Peat Moss felt his own penis stiffening, and something of his more familiar self regained control. He could contain his appetite no longer. He parted the large mounds of the woodsman’s muscular ass and sunk into him. Buford groaned, but it was not the kind of groan to which Peat Moss was accustomed. No, the woodsman sounded as if he didn’t mind. Indeed, as if it were expected. As if his dreams at that very moment were one and the same with the reality of what was happening.

            Buford ground himself back into Peat Moss, taking what he could of the Passion’s ample member and causing the monster to thrust deeper. Peat Moss’ sexual energy could have easily and literally ripped the man apart, but curiously he did not wish for that. Something about this particular human had him under control. He found that he wanted to please him, not harm him, and that thought - the suddenness with which it came to him - was like a shock coursing from the woodsman’s body into his own. The force of it caused him to tumble backward, rending his massive penis from the lumberjack’s hole. This, of course, woke the lumberman quite forcefully from his sexual fantasy and he looked around in surprise. At sight of the behemoth Passion, Buford fell from the tree and staggered aback.

            “Keep away! Stay back!” he shouted, his voice deep and resounding. His face shone with terror.

            Peat Moss was all too familiar with that expression. However, seeing it on the woodsman’s face gave him an incomprehensible pang in his chest.

            Peat Moss came toward the lumberjack. He would calm the man down, hold him. Then the woodsman would understand that they could be together; that he meant him - only him - no harm. They could fell flora and fauna as a mighty twosome. The river would run thick with blood and sawdust.

            But Buford did not understand the approach, and suddenly lifted a large limb that lay near his feet, throwing it at the monster. Peat Moss swatted it away with ease and continued to advance. Buford pitched a stream of items at the Passion, all of them harmless. After a bit of this, Peat Moss began to think that the lumberjack was simply playing. After all, others who had caught sight of him immediately tried to escape. Yes. That was it. The woodsman was playing. They were having fun. Peat Moss grinned with delight and mischief at the realization he had a playmate, and lifted from the earth the large tree Buford had been resting upon.

            Buford had no time to move before the tree fell on him, crushing him into the ground. At once, Peat Moss’ face fell. The human had not moved. Lifting the tree from the spot and peering down at the bloody mess of a man, the Passion howled. Why had the strong man not moved? The blast from the Passion’s breath cleared the spot of any living thing, and all the fallen trees and cut wood were turned to ash.

            But his mourning period was brief. For as he howled, the bitter winds began to kick up and a Passion began to form of his grief. This distraction irritated the monster so that at once he reached through the swirling mass of creation before the new Passion had chance to fully form, and bit its head off with a single chomp of his powerful jaws.

            He put grief behind him, locking away the memory of Buford Longpost, and remained the Passion born of Darkness who terrorized the valley. 

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch 4

from my anthology Slight Details & Random Events

IV

For the most part, the valley had been abandoned. A perceptible darkness could be felt by those humans who lived there, a presence much darker and dangerous than any they had ever felt before. So, they fled from it. The valley itself grew hushed, its beauty hiding something jagged and sharp just beneath the tranquil surface. There were a few brave souls who remained; those who were simply too stubborn to leave or who chose to fight the bitter air alongside the energies of the earth. But they were scattered the length of the river, their homes tucked and hidden in the bends and curves of the valley.

            Jess Bethel was a young man of nature. He was raised in the woods by an elderly monk and would have been a monk himself if there had been a monastery nearby to take him after the old man died. He wore a simple brown robe which covered a strong body sculpted by years of manual labor. He resided deep in the forest in the remains of the old, stone chapel which had been his aged adopted father’s home.

            Honeysuckle Sycamore stumbled upon Jess as the young monk collected water from one of the creeks that streamed from the hills into the river. As he gathered the water into an old bucket, the long limbs of a dogwood tree stretched over him, and its petals sprinkled around him like a blessing. Something of Honeysuckle’s old awe returned to him upon seeing Jess and he could not help but follow the young man back to the chapel. The monk of course knew he was being observed, and would often stop and wait when Honeysuckle, slowed by Grit’s measured progress, would fall behind. And try as he might, Honeysuckle could never get Grit to remain completely silent. (“Hush, Grit! We do not want to scare him away.”)

            That first evening Honeysuckle and Grit hid outside the ruins of the old chapel with the crickets and hoot owls. The light from a single candle lit the interior. What Honeysuckle was waiting for, or why he had dragged poor Grit along, he couldn’t say. He was enamored by Jess Bethel. He thought him the most magical being he had seen since his dear Dogwood. The sprite’s eyes were once again wide with delight.

           As the dusk light settled on the valley hills, the monk came to the chapel door and placed bread, berries, and fresh tomatoes on the moss-grown, stone walkway. He then turned and walked back into the chapel with nary a look behind.

            “Look there, Grit!” Honeysuckle whispered excitedly. “The young human has left food. Do you think it’s for us, Grit?”

            Grit said nothing. She only moaned softly and cried her sand tears as she wrapped her arms around him.

            “You just sit here, dear Grit,” he said. “I think he does indeed mean it for us. What a kind, kind man!” Honeysuckle then darted out of hiding, quickly collecting the food and bringing it back to his charge faster and more graceful than a leaping stag.

            Jess Bethel watched quietly from within the chapel. His eyes twinkled and he smiled with adoration at the Passion’s innocence.

            Time passed, leaves changed, and though the memory of Dogwood was ever present, merriment at last returned to Honeysuckle Sycamore. At night, staring beyond the tree limbs at the sky he would whisper, “How has Honeysuckle survived without Dogwood?”  He could not answer his own question, but he knew both Jess and Grit had parts to play in its truth. He avoided the river, though. He knew he could never again play along its banks, never enjoy its sway or song. Not until Dogwood returned or until all Passions had died and there was never any use for rivers at all. In his life in the forest, Honeysuckle Sycamore had become a caged Passion.

            Grit remained forlorn as was her nature. She was born of the darker tendencies after all. No matter what Honeysuckle did or what gifts Jess brought her, she gave nothing more than a grunt in reply.

            “Poor Grit,” Honeysuckle sighed, catching a grain of sand as it fell from her eyes. “Won’t you ever smile?”

            As the seasons took turns cradling the valley, a quiet romance flowered beneath the canopy in the old, stone chapel. The silent monk and the Passion became very much captivated with one another. They slept tenderly in each other’s arms, they gathered berries and firewood, they bathed one another in the stream, and they cared for the lost child, Grit. Theirs was a happy, silent, shrouded existence.

            When Honeysuckle and Jess Bethel made love for the first time it was as if the purity of the valley had at last returned. The forest around them took on the quality of Truth, a wind of fresh understanding. Even Grit noticed the change as she slept in her bed of leaves on the forest floor. It was enough to quiet her grief-calls and still her incessant rocking, lulling her to her first peaceful rest.

            The young monk had never known the world to be as beautiful or as shining as it was the moment a caged Passion came into him. Honeysuckle’s love was like a tree sprouting inside Jess. Branches of joy spread out from the spot the seed was planted and grew through the monk’s veins making everything more vibrant and filled with life, indestructible.  From that day on, everything held a much higher quality for Jess Bethel.

           As Honeysuckle came into him and they were joined, the sprite’s laughter and glee filled the air. It eased through the forest, wrapping around the trees and traipsing down the hillside, until it finally came to the river where it swam gracefully along the current.

            Down river something less beautiful had transpired, however. A trail of smashed pulp and smeared blood littered the banks, remnants of a small massacre. Peat Moss stood on the rocks, ripping apart what was left of a gaggle of geese he had come across. As a Passion he could easily overtake any flying creature. With the geese he had only to open his large arms to catch them all in a deadly embrace. Feathers, blood, and guts stained his face, hands and chest. And when there was nothing left alive or twitching, he grimaced in disappointment. His blood lust could never be satiated. He wanted more - more blood, more maiming, more death. He stomped and grunted in agitation.

            Yes, he was quite irritable. That is, until his keen sense of smell perceived the scent of Honeysuckle, and his ears caught the slightest air of gaiety. His eyes lit up with the memory of a familiar (if long thought dead) acquaintance. Across his face crept the very same crippled grin he had worn the night he had been born in that narrow hollow. The scent of Honeysuckle gave him his first twinge of nostalgia. It was spiked with thorns.

            Immediately, he dropped the mangled remains of his feast of fowl and tramped off up river, following the sweet scent of an ivy flower. The earth shook in his wake. He had work to do. There was some fun to be had out of a job only half finished. 

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 3

III

So consumed was Honeysuckle by his grief that he did not notice the swaying figure behind him. Only little by little did he differentiate between his utterances of grief and the long, queasy moans of the newborn female sprite. When at last he did comprehend he was not alone, he rose in surprise with a sudden leap.

            “Who are you?” he demanded, the words barely finding a path through his sadness.

            She did not respond. She rocked slowly, and her arms and neck moved in a delicate, mournful choreography. She was unlike anything he had ever come upon. Her flesh was porous and granular.

Where her eyes should have been were pits which cried constant, thin streams of sand. And her groans of grief issued forth from a mouth that was tightly, painfully clenched.

            “Who are you?” Honeysuckle said again with a mingling of fear and pity. Instinctively, he reached for her as if he would touch her face.

            As he did this, she quieted instantly and came toward him like a child taking its first, wobbly steps. He recoiled at once and fled into the forest, not looking back. While Honeysuckle was much quicker than Grit (he had left her behind on the beach in no time), the loss of Dogwood had slowed him considerably. Heartbreak weighed him down and he soon found rest upon a hill within a thicket of briars and vines, wondering what other horrors awaited him.

            Honeysuckle was quite content to lay in the thicket, to fade away like so many other Passions had done before him once their strength had waned. He was finding desperate comfort in the darkness of closed eyes. If only he could rid himself of the stubborn consciousness that clung to him so obsessively.

            A shuffling in the forest down the hill woke him from his black contentment long before he heard the accompanying moans. He looked through the leafless, dead thicket he lay beneath and perceived the female sprite as she staggered toward the hill. She stood at the base, her face tilted upward, her hands gesturing an embrace in lyrical dance.  She tried to climb the hill, but was unable to traverse the steep incline. Immediately, she stumbled, falling to her knees. Moaning anew from the ground, she peered up at Honeysuckle.

            “Go away!” Honeysuckle cried. “I do not know you! I do not want you.” Yet, as he said it, he knew there was something in the tortured sprite down below that was all too familiar. “Go away, Grit,” he said, knowing her name as easily as any being would innately recognize its kin.

            But she didn’t go away; she remained. And in her remaining was Honeysuckle’s deliverance from nonexistence. Even as he had wanted to disappear, to vanish completely, the image of Grit waiting for him at the base of the hill kept him preoccupied. Her need for him was driving his need to die further from his mind.

            Days and nights passed and neither of the two moved from their positions. Every morning Honeysuckle would wake to see Grit still at the bottom of the hill, still waiting and moaning plaintively. Every day his cries of resentment toward her became less forced. At last, he thought of coming down the hill. He was hungry and he knew she had to be as well. But reluctance won out and he remained in his fortress of dead vines for another night.

            As he slept that night, Honeysuckle wandered into a dream: He slid down the hillside to where Grit lay slumbering. She grumbled and kicked like a dreaming hound. The imposing trees barely gave the moonlight admittance to the forest. As Honeysuckle watched the sleeping Passion, tendrils of honeysuckle began to climb delicately over her. And behind her a small tree sprouted from the forest floor. Both the honeysuckle vines and the tree grew very quickly, many seasons in only a few seconds. When the sudden growth stopped, Grit lay covered in a blanket of honey ivy and cradled lovingly by a large dogwood tree.

            There was movement in the darkness of the forest beyond which distracted Honeysuckle from his adoration of Grit.

            “Dogwood!” he gasped as he saw the certain form of his beloved walking away. Dogwood turned and grinned with a nod to Grit before fading into the night of Dreamland.

            Honeysuckle woke to the morning, tears dripping from his cheeks like dew. He knew then he was not meant to suffer through his sorrow alone.

            As in the dream, Honeysuckle slid down the hillside, though now in the clear light of morning he could see perfectly. So quick was his descent, he nearly fell on Grit as he approached the bottom of the hill. She was still sleeping. He watched her momentarily, still somewhat scared.

            “Grit,” he whispered, extending his hand and this time not recoiling. “Wake up, Grit. I’m here for you now.”

            Grit rose with a twitch, and turned her head about as if trying to see. The sand dripped from her face in heartbreaking streams.

            “Grit. It’s me. It’s Honeysuckle Sycamore.”

            She moaned quietly with a strain of uncertainty, then made another attempt to embrace him with a lurch, a lunge, and a fall into Honeysuckle’s waiting arms. She whimpered and sobbed there, at least minutely comforted.

            “I’m here, Grit. It’s you and me now.” He held her closely for the rest of the day. The forest had never seen such brokenheartedness. Every willow in the vicinity wept at once and continues weeping to this very day.

            They both retreated like fading shadows swallowed by the deep forest of the valley. The sheen of the world that Honeysuckle had known had dulled. There was no mirth or wonder left. Honeysuckle and Grit became but omens of grief and solitude to whatever soul they came across.

            In the evenings, when light struggled through the trees and a cool breeze crept over the hillsides, they made their beds in tree hollows and sinkholes. Honeysuckle would hold Grit like an older brother or a concerned parent. In holding her, he perceived there was something about her that didn’t quite fit. That is, though she was of Dogwood and Honeysuckle, something in her being was neither of them.

            When Grit moaned and rocked in her sleep it would break Honeysuckle’s heart. And it was during these moments that Honeysuckle would smell the faintest hint of Dogwood in the air and would know his beloved was still near watching over them both.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore, Ch. 2

from my anthology Slight Details & Random Events

II

Passions have the speed of a hummingbird’s beating wings if they need it. No human could ever hope to tame or capture one. But against another Passion, against one of their own, they haven’t that advantage. And not every Passion is as whip-quick as the next. There are certain inequalities, one might say. It all depends on the strength of the moment in which they were created.

            As Peat Moss strode with dangerous intent ever closer to Dogwood and Honeysuckle, the two sprites lit into the forest air, their feet barely touching the smooth rocks of the hollow floor. Though Peat Moss was certainly a larger and more cumbersome-looking Passion than the other two, this in no way impeded him. So bitter, damp, and cold was his essence that Honeysuckle and Dogwood at once felt his shadow over them as they fled like a coming winter storm.

            They burst free of the hollow as mere glimmers of light that any watching human would think but plays of moonlight on the river valley air. Honeysuckle was always the faster of the two sprites and in no time, propelled by fear, had sped on ahead of Dogwood. It was only when he heard Dogwood cry out that he finally realized they were no longer together.

            He turned to see the giant, newly born Passion dragging Dogwood by his lustrous white hair along the sand to the river. Dogwood kicked and hit as hard as he could, flailing about like a fish on a hook, but his blows were mere tickles to Peat Moss. Finally, having tired of Dogwood’s struggle, Peat Moss leveled a shattering blow of his own against the young sprite. At once, Dogwood was dazed.

            “Dogwood, no!” Honeysuckle exclaimed. He stood breathless for a moment, fear rendering him to stone. “Get up! Get up!” he thought. “Fight, Dogwood!” But seeing his companion incapacitated and sensing the true danger, the thought occurred to him, What would Honeysuckle do without Dogwood?

            Quietly, with as much stealth as he could, Honeysuckle crept closer to the river’s edge. From behind a boulder he spied as the giant beat the young sprite with merciless force. The expression on Peat Moss’ face was one of devious delight; a crippled grin dripping with drool lay like a scar across his face. He grunted like a wild boar as he swung again and again. Defenseless, Dogwood took the blows and was soon limp even as Peat Moss continued his relentless barrage.

            Honeysuckle did not need to wait long for his courage to mount; (a strange, new sensation to him, for it had never been needed before). He sped at the behemoth as if his feet were lit by flames, tearing across the valley air with haste. Though he hit Peat Moss with unbridled force, it did little to lessen the monster’s attack on Dogwood. With the effort of a shrug from Peat Moss, Honeysuckle was thrown off, slamming forcefully against the boulder. Before Honeysuckle lost total consciousness, he made a final attempt to rise and rescue Dogwood. But it was futile. His body, like Dogwood’s, was as limp as river weed.

            “I’m sorry, Dogwood,” he whispered as his eyes closed on the night.

            When a Passion dies, it disperses into a thousand pieces carried away by the breeze like dandelion seeds. There is no body or shell left behind to bury or weep over. There is no grand funerary procession. Yet like everything of substance and energy the essence of the Passion remains in the world until a time comes that it may be reborn.

            When Honeysuckle awoke, the light of dawn was breaking upon the shore. The patch of beach where Dogwood had fallen was bare, and only a dozen or so dogwood petals fluttered in the breeze. They circled, chasing one another as if ignorant of the death of a Passion. When a stronger breeze came and snatched them quickly away Honeysuckle jumped to his feet as if trying to catch them. But they were carried higher in the sky and far up stream. He lost sight of them in the blinding glare of the new day’s sun.

            Defeated and despairing, Honeysuckle slumped to the ground and wept. His hands dug into the sand in angst. His tears fell, mingling with the sand and the vanishing remnants of Passion blood. “Dogwood! Don’t leave your Honeysuckle!”

            And as he cried, the wind kicked up around him, his moans seeming a call for creation. Wind, sand, blood and tears had taken form in a stationary twister conducted by howls of grief. When the cyclone finally abated and Honeysuckle sat broken and sobbing, behind him stood a figure. A female energy born of sand and bitter anguish. She swayed back and forth in plaintive, half-crazed repetition. Her name was Grit.

EXCERPT: Honeysuckle Sycamore

For the next few weeks I will be running a series, my novella Honeysuckle Sycamore, from my Dreamspinner Press anthology Slight Details & Random Events. This is the original version. I have been thinking lately of expanding on this, working out the kinks and turning it into a novel.

Honeysuckle Sycamore

Eric Arvin

I

In certain places of the world Passions manifest themselves into physical form. These are the whispering places, the in-betweens. They are neither here nor there, neither truly seen nor unseen. The River Valley, as it was simply known, was one of these places. The folk who lived there knew of the valley's power and, for the most part, lived in harmony with it. For the Passions when given form were in the least playful diversions and at most mischievous jokers, using a pumpkin patch for a night’s sleep or stealing the clothes from a scarecrow.

            Once every so often, however, there came a Passion into existence that was so dire, so hateful and belligerent, that it would cause much pain and upheaval. To this point, many of the river folk would leave the valley to its battle. This is the story of one such battle. This is how a fairytale grows up.

            There was a young Passion of immeasurable beauty named Honeysuckle Sycamore. He was named this because he had been manifested under a honeysuckle-adorned sycamore tree while two young lovers consummated their adoration for one another beneath it. Born of their love, he was christened by the dew of the early morning. He stretched, yawned, and hopped to his feet as naked as a newborn. From his head hung a garland of honeysuckles and from his glittering skin came the scent of the sweet flower.

            Honeysuckle was a joyous sprite, finding awe in everything he came upon. Hummingbird or grain of sand, it was all magnificent to him. The river folk gazed upon him with delight and reciprocated his laughter with giggles of their own.

            Of all the sprites in the valley, Honeysuckle’s most favorite - his absolute favoritest in all the wide world (which to him was a long flowing river and the hills above it) - was Dogwood. Dogwood liked nothing more than to sit beneath his trees and let the pretty white buds fall on him. He loved how they tickled his skin like kisses. His hair was a mussed bushel of white flame. Yet his skin was sun kissed and dark.

            Dogwood and Honeysuckle would play all day and all night by the river and among the thick trees of the forest. They would wrestle and kiss and romance the day away. Such was the free and gleeful existence of a Passion and river sprite. Many a human was envious of their frivolity.

           One perfectly pleasant evening Honeysuckle and Dogwood skipped along the shore of the river, keeping awake the denizens of the valley with their laughter and guffaws. When they were shooed away by a rather gruff and particularly surly woman (“Git on witcha!” she squawked), giddily they ducked into a narrow hollow neither night fly nor hoot owl frequented. Their glee was quickly replaced by trepidation, however, as the journeyed farther inward. Their bare feet toppled the small pebbles and wet rocks of the hollow floor.

            “Let’s leave,” Honeysuckle implored, pulling Dogwood’s arm. “I do not like it here! Not one bit.”

            “Hush,” Dogwood said, paying no heed to his friend’s advice. “Do you hear that? Something is crying.”

            And sure enough, Honeysuckle heard the rasping, muffled cry. It was as if something were struggling to hold on to its last breath. It was a whinnying, shrill sound.

            “Let’s not go any farther,” Honeysuckle said again, as quietly as he could.

            “Quiet, Honeysuckle!” Dogwood commanded, adamantly. “It’s just up a bit. Why not see what it is? Maybe we might help it if it be a deer or a lost stallion. We might ride it out of the hollow if it’s not too distressed.”

            The narrow walls of the hollow lead them to a dead end, a high cliff that shot into the night sky like a giant of the kind they had envisioned in one of their varied imaginary adventures.

            “Look there!” Dogwood exclaimed.

            At the base of the cliff, now silent and still, lay the form of a woman. Her white gown was fanned about her like wings about to take flight. Sitting beside her weeping was a young man with a bloodied knife in his hand. The blood dripped from it like molasses to the mossy rocks. He looked at the two sprites, imploring sympathy. “She had found another,” he wailed. “She was going to leave me.”

            He looked despondent. Lost of all life, and completely aware of the hopelessness of his situation.

            “Brother, what should we do?” Honeysuckle gasped. His sweet breath tickled Dogwood’s elfin ears.

            Dogwood hadn’t the time to answer, however. In a flash of confusion, they saw the young man plunge the dagger deep into his own chest. He gasped with a gurgle and a squeak, then fell back on the stony ground.

            Honeysuckle and Dogwood clutched one another tightly. “Let us be gone!” Honeysuckle once more exclaimed. His voice sounded frail throughout the hollow.

            As he said this, a deep, moaning pitch issued forth from the ground surrounding the dead couple. The two Passions stared around in fear. From the earth, from the moist ground rose at first a shadow. But as moonlight flooded the hollow, it became a great quivering hulk of naked flesh bathed in the blue glow of twilight. A Passion had been birthed. And it was one born of such jealousy and vile contempt that the sense of it began to permeate the valley almost immediately. An air of hate woke even those river folk who could sleep comfortably through the strongest summer storm. They sat straight up in their beds as if poked in the ribs with a fork and began to think of ways to leave, places to go.

            The newborn Passion focused its coal-black eyes upon the two much smaller sprites. He was an awesome sight, and his name was Peat Moss. On his head was an emerald crown of lichen. With massive steps, he walked over the dead couple. The hollow groaned as he came for Honeysuckle Sycamore and Dogwood.