Words & Understanding

                                                                                                    
   Winthrop was tired. Everyday he had to walk to the woods to fetch pails of water. Granted, the woods were beautiful, and it was very soothing to walk through them, but he lived in the middle of town, far away from the woods.
    He stopped. There was a prohibition against digging a well in the town. It was an old law, and no one understood why it existed. Well,why not? He walked back toward the house. He went to the middle of his house. No one would see it here. He took his shovel and began to dig.
   He didn't notice it when it escaped, and he just kept digging. Finally water began to rush into his hole. He dug deepr and greedily drank the water. As he climbed out of his hole, he looked over at the distant tall trees. “I'll never have to walk in those cursed woods again.”
 

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Generations Later

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   Falia sat on a large stone in the middle of the woods. The wind touched her face, and her dark hair played across her back. She wore a peaceful smile on her face.
   In the wood, the evil cannot penetrate. It is suffused with goodness. Why can't the town be good like the woods? Don't thye see the evil, feel it like a disease overtaking their souls? They are good people, but they let the evil overcome them. How can they be rid of their evil?
   The question tossed around in her mind. It was a question she had often considered.
Perhaps the people could move to the wood? But that idea made her shudder, for she envisioned the people chopping down the trees, and tearing the roots from the ground.
Perhaps the goodness of the wood could be transferred to the town?
   She smiled at the thought, for the sheer impracticality of it. She figured it was time to leave if her thoughts had diminished into impracticalities. She stood up and walked through the woods, toward the town. She eventually came to the path that led into town, and followed it into the middle of town. It was early, so most people were working in the fields or somewhere else, not many people on the streets in town. She saw only three people as she walked home. She passed a little boy working at the livery grooming the horses. He called out to her and she stopped to talk. His master came out and yelled at the boy, “Get back to work!” He hit the boy hard on the back. “And don't you talk to her. You know where she been, in them cursed woods.”
   Falia gestured farwell to the boy and walked on, feeling the overwhelming sense of evil in the man. She felt sorrow for him, that he did not even realize it.
   She passed another woman hitting chickens with her broom and sighed. The evil was strong in the town.
   The farm of Falia's family was on the outskirts of town on the other side from where she went to the woods. Finally she reached their house. In front of the house, there was an unfamiliar horse.
   As Falia opened the front dor, she heard her mother yell from where her bed was, “Falia where have you been? Probably in the woods. Well get out in the garden and pick the vegetables for dinner, then go out and help your father with the farm.”
   Falia closed the door, never having opened it fully, and walked around back to the garden. She began digging in the dirt, her eyes glazed over with tears. When her tears subsided, she began picking some vegetables. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the swish of a skirt, and looked up to see her sister, Muriel, standing above her.
   “Oh Muriel. Did you see the horse? The evil is so strong in mother. Only in the woods does goodness abound. In the town, it is everywhere.”
   “You have no evil now.”
   Falia got frustrated. This was not a time for Muriel to be giving sagely words. I have no evil now. What does that even mean. A memory flashed in Falia's mind of Muriel saying, “Don't think about what I'm not saying.” Falia took a deep breath and calmed down. The memory always calmed her. I have no evil.....evil....ah, I see. The evil is not in me. It is out there in the town, but I am filled with goodness. The woods have blessed me beyond their reach. Oh, the people could too be blessed if they would just walk in them.
   “Muriel, you must tell the people!”
   “Of course, but you will tell me what to say.”
   She really did not understand. Falia was amazed by it again and again. Muriel would always say the most insightful things, and Falia had derived great meaning from them, but Muriel could not understand, and always waited to hear Falia's explanation.
   “The woods. If the people will walk often in the woods, they can be rid of the evil that has taken this town.”
   “What evil?”
   Falia understood. Muriel said it not as herself. She went in the woods herself, and felt the great division of good and evil. Muriel's very personailty was changed by the evil, making her quiet and sorrowful. In the woods, she would run free, talk freely, and feel peace. When she said “What evil?” she was talking as the town would respond. The town only knew evil, and so would see no reason to be rid of it, especially if the plan involved the 'cursed' woods.
   Falia said to Muriel, “They need someone to show them the evil.”
   “Shall it be you or me?”
   Falia resisted understanding. She tried to stop her mind from thinking, but understanding came nevertheless. Only they ventured into the woods, and so only one of them could show the people, do something so the people would react with all the evil in them, which mean that the town would kill that person. “Fine, I will do it,” Falia said with determination.
   “They will need understanding.” Falia crumpled. She knew it was true. They needed to understand, but that was a fleeting thought. Her thoughts were centered on her sister. Falia's frame was wracked with sobs. Muriel held her close, her own silent tears wetting Falia' dark hair.
   “Oh Muriel,” Falia took her head from her sister's lap, and threw her arms around Muriel, their bodies wracked with the same sorrow, tears that could not be separated.
   That day, the sisters would not be separated. Falia knew once they knew what to do, Murield would act, so she cherished these moments they still had together. That night they escaped into Muriel's woods. She preferred the ones right behind their farm, as it had a nice stream. Falia and Muriel ran through the stream, skipped rocks along it, laughed and danced. They sat and talked in the woods, Muriel bursting with conversation.
   “I think I have figured out what to do.” She had bright excitement in her eyes. In the woods, the sorrow could not touch them. The woods were mericful.
   The sisters slept in the woods that night. In the morning, they walked out of the woods. They first went home. Their mother was furious when she found out where they had been. “Don't you girls know those woods are cursed. A man built a house of wood. They day it was finished, it fell in on top of him and kille dhim. That same winter it was cold and a man cut down a tree for warmth. He lit a fire and it took over and burned his whole house down. The woods don't like this people. The woods curse us.”
   Everyone in town knew the stories. It was why people feared the woods, and thought of them as cursed.
   Falia and Muriel offered no explanation, but before she lef the house, Muriel hugged her mother and told her she loved her. Falia and Muriel then went out to the field, so Muriel could say goodbye to father.
   “You girlsbe careful. I don't like people knowing you go int the woods They'll think you're cursed. That's not why I showed them to you.”
   “Don't worry, father,” Muriel said. “Father I'm going into town today.” She hugged him. “I love you.”
   “Well if you're just going into town, I'll see you later.”
   The two sisters walked back toward the house. They had decied Falia would have to stay home. Their goodbye was long and emotional. It was midday before Muriel finally was ready to leave. As she walked away Falia called out, “Muriel! Thank you for your words.”
   “My work in death shall need you as my words ahd needed you in life. Farewell my other half,” and Muriel walked away.
   Falia kept her eyes on Muriel until she was out of sight. She wanted to have every moment that she could of Muriel being alive. They had planned that Falia would work on the farm and emerge in the middle of the night to go and look for Muriel. She could not stand the farm, though, and retreated into the protection and have of the woods. She did not want to feel the evil that would take place that night.

   Muriel's plan was simple. She would find the houses with the greatest evil and burn them.
   She walked through the town, all about town, feeling for evil. There wre many houses with great evil, so she picked on, a house made of hay, and set fire to it. When the couple saw it, they screamed and yelled. A few other people came running. Muriel sat near and watched. The fire was blazing, the whole house looked to be consumed in flames, but soon, the blaze had been put out with water. Muriel walke dcloser, and saw through the wreckage a well, and she felt from it seeping the evil. She ran into the house and began to push the stones into the well, covering it. The couple tried to stop her, but she was too determined to be stopped. She finished, and felt the evil covered up, but still felt it in the town.
   She went around the town, feeling the evil. Inside 15 different houses, there were wells, and she pushed them in, as the number of people trying to stop her grew. She fought them off and continued to push the stones in, working with all her energy. She was running toward the last place of evil when she tripped and fell, so exhausted she could not stand up. The crowd caught up with her, and threw stone upon stone at her. One finally hit her in the head, and she was no longer moving, but the rage still burned in the people. They continued to throw stones at her into the night. Finally exhausted, the people went home to sleep.

   Falia sat in the woods, and felt the moment her sister slipped from the world. She allowed herself a moment to cry, but knew she had work to do. She walked out of the woods, and felt the great evil. She ran, and planned on running until she found her sister. She ran toward the middle of town, but the further she got from her house, the more she sense that evil was dying. She whipped around and ventured to her house. She tore through the house, looking of the evil. Finally in her mother's cupboard, she found a small well, and Falia felt the evil cascading out of it. She pushed the stones around it into it, and covered up the evil.
   It was gone.
   She ran from her house to the center of town, hoping her sister had survived the evil, though in her heart she already knew.
   She slowed as she came to the crumpled body in the middle of the street. Under the ligth of the moon, she saw the dark bruises on her sister's body, the blood covering her face. Falia wept. She held her sister's lifeless body in her arms and felt it grow cold. Through her tears, she began to wipe the blood from her sister's face, wetting it with her tears. For hours she worked, weeping and gently cleaning her sister's body. The mood faded and the sun began to rise. People emerged from their homes to see Falia holding Muriel's lifeless body in her arms.
   The people began to weep. How had they done such evil? What could they do to rid themselves of such evil in their hearts?
   Muriel's mother screamed and ran when she her daughter's lifeless body in the street. Her father held his wife and Falia, tears streaming down his face.
When the loud weeping had resolved down to quiet weeping with shudders, Falia stood up. All of the people watched her.
   “She must be buried in the woods. Follow me.”
   Her father lifted Muriel and carried her, the town followed Falia and her father. They walked through town and out toward Falia's woods. The people hesitated at the edge of the woods.
“The woods have cursed us,” said the people.
   In one moment, Falia understood what must be done, stories of the past finally making sense to her. There were different stories told about how their ancestors used to worship trees, an idea repulsive to the people, for the “evil” of the trees. In a number of stories, there were snippets and phrases, which came together clearly in Falia's mind, as a prayer, a ritual, of sacrifice. The people would preform this ritual at the sacrifice of a tree, and the trees would protect the people from evil. The curse had come to those who did not preform the ritual.
   “Long ago, a man dug a well and released evil into our world. The evil made people forget the sacrifice of the trees. The trees tired to remind us by cursing the wood not given in sacrifice, but the evil was strong, and people thought the woods had forsake the people. Come, enter the woods, they will do you no harm.”
   Falia led, and the people followed. They came to the stone where Falia liked to sit, and in front of it, Falia got down on her knees, and began to dig the earth with her hands. A few people followed. They took turns, that all could help dig the grave. Father placed the poor abused body in the small grave. Falia and her mother pushed the pile of dirt over the lifeless body.
Falia gestured and the people knelt.
   “O great trees. We thank you for the sacrifice of this life. Let this life bring goodness to us, and protect us from evil.”
   The town murmured the words, “Protect us from evil,” after Falia.
   “With this life so willingly given, we start a new life.”
   “A new life,” they echoed.
   Falia took a seed from her pocked, poked a hold in the earth above Muriel's body and dropped the seed in. As she covered the hole with dirt, she began to speak, no longer intoning the words of the ritual.
   “Muriel gave her life that goodness could return to the town. The woods will protect us from evil, if we will give them respect.” An understanding lit in Falia's mind. “No other mortal has been the subject of the ritual, and so they never shall be again, but remember this—it took a true woman of the woods to bring the protection of the woods back to the people. May we never forget it. May our understanding overcome the sacrifice of words.”