The forest was Sarah’s entire world. Nothing existed beyond the furthest reaches of the woods’ edges because everyone in the forest told the same story, that their world owed it’s existence to a creator who blanketed the entire habitable world in a lush forest, even through the bodies of water that sometimes stretched as far as oceans but were filled with massive trees that were ancient with long roots big enough for people to build towns on top. Sarah mostly stayed in her section of the forest where her parents had staked their claim and she had only seen the spectacle that is the expansive ocean filled with mammoth trees once, when her family was still alive and her father discovered the proximity of their home to the body of water when he was out hunting. It was a hike, but Sarah and her family enjoyed the adventure and they were fit for the journey that involved a considerable amount of swinging from the system of ropes various people had created for their own convenience that evolved into an invisible transportation department staffed by men and women who had never met one another, but all resolved to make the forest easy for humans to navigate. This unspoken duty spread far and it was possible to swing your way from the coast of the biggest body of water to the mountain range thousands of miles away to the west, that was like a wall to the trees because of its immensity. There were also extensive tramway systems operated by people who organized to barter for food and other goods in exchange for passage on the tram. Some created fully realized trading posts at either end of the tramlines, others hotels or restaurants. When Sarah and her family went to the water, they had the added burden of animal hides and preserved fruits and vegetables that they carried in packs on their backs to barter for the tram ride that was about 30 ropes from their house. The tram post was like a mansion-sized tree house hundreds of feet off the ground with elaborate pulley systems that hauled riders up to the tram that would zip them safely through the trees at speeds high enough to cut the trip to the large body of water in half. When her family was inside the post, Sarah marveled at a huge portrait that hung on a wall of the old woman who owned and operated the post that her family established many years prior. She was old in the portrait, gray hair pinned into a bun on top of her head, wrinkled brown skin on her face and hands, and beady pupils behind thick-rimmed glasses that gave her real authority and dignity. Her smile made her warm and Sarah had stared at the portrait entranced until her father leaned low and said,
“Ahh, I see you found your godmother.” Sarah looked at him puzzled. Her sister’s godmother was the mole woman who traded sweet potatoes that her sister loved more than anything. When her sister was born, Sarah was just five years old, but she remembers her sister’s loud crying into the night that kept everyone in the house on edge that she might stir the Golem or his minions to their home. Sarah was calmed by the huge bonfire her parents built in the front yard and she would watch embers float up from the huge pillar, up to join the other spots of light she could see in the hole of the canopy created by the clearing where their house sat. But Sarah’s sister would always calm her fussing if she had the mole woman’s sweet potato and even though most people in the wood thought the mole woman strange for choosing to live underground with the moles and insects and worms that burrowed through the thick bed of dead leaves and down into the dirt, Sarah’s family loved her dearly and she had a special bond with Sarah’s sister. Her heart broke when she heard the news that Sarah’s sister had been lost to the darkness.
Sarah wasn’t even aware that she had a godmother, she assumed that the mole lady was her de facto godmother because Sarah loved her so much.
At the tram post, Sarah’s father told her about the old woman in the portrait.
“I found this post before you and your sister were born, on the way back from the water. Crone,” he pointed to the old woman in the picture, “was recruiting workers back then and we got to know each other. It’s funny, the older she gets the less her appearance changes. I did work for her for a while, she said I reminded her of one of her husbands. He kept the peace in this part of the woods, died protecting the post during an eclipse so dark it smothered the fires they built all around. It was just too much. You know what she did? She went looking for him, or the Golem that took him. She ran right into the darkness. She’s as old as she is because she’s not afraid of the dark, Sarah.” Apparently she had visited their home on the day of Sarah’s birth and even though Sarah never remembered it, her godmother was waiting for the day the two would meet. The day her family was at the post, Crone was away but still very much alive and well. “She only gets stronger every year,” one of the tram operators told Sarah’s father. “We’ll catcher her next time,” her father said and they continued to the water that was the most amazing thing that Sarah had ever seen in her life.
Sarah’s family was never able to make a return trip, but she would find Crone and the old woman would help her find the Golem that had taken so much from the both of them.
PRL Serials 