Growing Grounds

Chapter 9: Reality Check

Next time she tried to move, her right, from hand to shoulder moved underneath her and she could feel her body’s weight pressing her arm into the wooden floor. With a cooperative arm, she flipped herself over onto her back. She could barely see the crows hitting the window now, but she could still hear them. Her dreams would be filled with that sound for quite some time, she thought.

Raising her right arm straight up, she wiggled the fingers and then flapped her hand. She could feel all the movements and even the blood flowing normally in that arm again. She could raise her shoulder off the floor and did so several times, the panic driving her. If I have to, I’ll drag myself out of here with one arm!

Her mother, possibly crazy as a shithouse rat, possibly perfectly sane, used to tell her and her sister that crows were messengers from the dark side, from the devil himself. Had her mother witnessed the crow-show at her window, she would have had a meltdown. Tammy was glad her mother was not there.

As the feeling crept very, very slowly back into Tammy’s upper body, a crow hit the window hard enough to leave a blood splatter where its face hit. The next crow hit in the same spot and Tammy could see a hairline fracture in the glass.

She pumped her arm harder and harder. Before she realized it, she was moving her body with the aid of her right leg and foot. The tingling sensation had almost gone completely from her whole body. As she worked to turn over to her left side and face the doorway, Tammy grunted. Her voice was back, too. Taking a breath, she yelled.

A noise from the living room or the kitchen made her think Matt had finally made it back home. She yelled again, this time her voice cracking and breaking so that she sounded as if she had a really bad cold. The noise grew louder and she shimmied toward the door as she heard glass breaking behind her.

“Hurry, Matt! Help! I can’t move!” What was taking him so long to get through the kitchen? Could he not hear the commotion from the to-be baby room?

In the kitchen, just feet away from her, Tammy heard a familiar scraping sound. Wood on tile. Suddenly the crows seemed like the lesser of the two evils. She had heard that sound before. Only days ago, she had heard it. It was the chair. She fell silent, not even shrieking when glass shattered on the floor behind her. Not even when a crow hit the back of her head.

Just as she squeezed her eyes closed, Tammy saw the front of the chair as it came into view of the doorway. Unconsciousness claimed her and she was glad. She didn’t fight. She didn’t want to think about the chair. She just wanted to be happy that she was pregnant; she wanted to enjoy that thought and so, when unconsciousness came for her, she went eagerly into its dark, cool embrace.

* * * *

Knowing that she was unconscious, or at least dreaming, Tammy decided that her best option was to just go with it and see where it led. Her body was not tingling now, but it was numb, as if someone had cut her spinal cord at the base of her skull. Successfully paralyzed and speechless again, she allowed herself to be carried through a sepia-toned, slightly foggy landscape. The chair carried her again, of that she was certain even though she did not bother to look down and see the wooden arms and hands holding her. That particular bit of weirdness, she could do without at the moment. She was more interested in where she was and where she was headed.

The light that weaved its way down through the canopy of tree limbs was much dimmer than that of the sun; it had to be the moon throwing silvery beams of light through the sepia. The silence was unbroken except for the footfalls of the chair, which had morphed into the shape of a man by now. She was sure of that, too. Tammy’s eyelids were heavy and she had trouble keeping them open.

Why bother? I could just slip off to sleep and wake when all the madness is over. Can you go to sleep in a dream? She was unsure but thought she might as well try. Movement and speech were beyond her, but maybe sleep was not.

With her eyes closed, Tammy counted her breaths. Unable to feel her inhalations, she counted instead by the sound of her breathing. Apparently the man, who was until recently a chair, did not have the need to breathe. Of course not; he’s made of wood. Why would he need to breathe? Or eat?

Another voice, deep in her mind and not her own or one of her making, said, “He might not eat or breathe, or have a beating heart, but still he lives. He is more alive than you know, and in more ways than you can imagine.”

The voice went quiet. Tammy held her breath. Had that voice been hers, created in her time of stress and unrecognizable for the time? She did not think so. It held an ethereal, ephemeral quality that she could never have mimicked even in her imagination. She opened her eyes and scanned the scenery again.

The forest smelled of the recently fallen leaves. The tangy aroma of dead and dying foliage stung her sinuses. Some of the trees shone as if illuminated from within as she passed them. The overwhelming urge to reach out and caress, or even hug, one of these glowing trees was stifled only by the fact that she was paralyzed.

If this really is a dream, I should be able to move if I wanted to move. It is my dream, after all, and I should be in control of the events in it. She tried the same tactic as she had back in the house when the crows flew into the window. Nothing happened except that she closed her eyes and then opened them again. No movement gave life to any of her limbs. Only her eyes moved.

Things moved in the darkness. Things she knew could not be real. Things that people told stories about while gathered around campfires. The chair-man climbed a steep hill without slowing his pace or needing to stop for a rest. Speaking of things that cannot exist, the chair-man could not very well exist either. However, here he was, walking upright and carrying Tammy through the darkened forest for the second time in a week.

At the top of the hill, Tammy could see that the land dropped away and leveled out into a wide patch of flat, treeless ground. They descended the hill at that same even pace—not too fast, not too slow—and stopped in the center of the flat space. This part of the woods smelled distinctly different than the rest of it had. The odor here was much more pleasant. Rich black dirt and living, green things. Remembering this place, Tammy wanted to remain conscious, aware, so she could recall this later.

It’s just a dream, though, riiight? She didn’t know anymore.

Moving her eyes as from side to side as far as she could, she saw that the tree line in front of her formed part of a circle. Inside the circle, where there were no trees, weeds, or seemingly any other stray growth, only thick, soft, green moss covered the ground.

The light had changed from the strange sepia-tones of a tintype photo, to that of normalcy in this part of the forest. If, that is, normal colors had a dial that controlled their saturation and vibrancy. Someone had turned the dial all the way up, it seemed to Tammy. The beauty of the colors made her want to cry for the rest of the world, which lacked this splendor.

Great creaking and squealing noises arose close behind her and her breath hitched up in her chest. Fear threatened to take hold on her heart, but the beauty of the place kept fear at bay. The noises ramped up to an earsplitting level before dying down to silence. Upon the return of the quiet, Tammy found that she was in a sitting position. The chair-man was just a chair again, and she was sitting in it, still facing the rim of the mossy circle.

A gentle breeze moved through the circle, tenderly caressing every inch of Tammy like a gentle lover with a million fingers. She was not paralyzed anymore. Her body had returned its loyalty once again. If she moved to get up, she knew the chair would prevent her; if she ran, the chair would only bring her back here again. Dream or not, she must figure out why the chair brought her here again. What did it want from her?

No, no, doctor. I’m fine. Really. Nothing to concern yourself over; no need for the funny coats that button in the back or those tranquilizers. I’m just asking my chair what it wants from me and why it keeps taking me deep into the woods behind my new house. And, for your information, crazy does not run in my family. Apparently, it sticks around a good long while and visits with all of us.

Tammy wanted to laugh, but did not dare. Again, she could feel the crazy waiting for her to let down her guard so it could pounce on her like a big cat on its prey.

It sounded as if the entire forest sighed. It was the distinct sound of a woman sighing. A sound full of wishings and wantings from the heart of a lovelorn woman. Only this sound was much bigger and could never be from one person. It took thousands of separate voices coming together to form this one single voice—the voice of the forest.

Gooseflesh prickled down Tammy’s arms, neck, and back. Not daring to move now, she sat back in the chair. In a quiet, mousy voice that she barely recognized as hers, Tammy asked, “Who’s there?” No one answered. “What do you want from me?” Still no answer, no rustle of leaves, no breeze, nothing. “Where am I and why do you keep bringing me here?” Her voice regained some of its former strength.

Turning to search the tree line for any movement, Tammy saw that it was indeed a circle in which she sat. The ground underfoot was thick and soft with the moss. Tentatively, she stood. Nothing happened. The chair just sat there. The trees only stood in the circle.

A skiff of a cloud covered the moon. Several of the trees in the circle began to emit that odd, otherworldly glow. Again, Tammy was overcome by the urge to touch one of those trees. Like a moth to a flame, she was drawn to a nearby tree that emitted that glow. The light pulsated as she drew closer, outstretched hand eager to touch.

Her hand made contact with the glowing trunk of a birch tree, which should have been relatively smooth, but wood just the same, and the light withdrew from her hand. The wood shifted, shivered, and seemed to breathe. Something very warm traveled from the hand that was situated on the tree all the way to the top of her head.

A great groan arose from the trees, just as the sigh had a moment earlier. Tammy tried to move away from the tree she touched, but her hand was locked on the wood and she could not pull it free. The warmth lingered in her arm a moment and then settled at the base of her skull. Whatever the warmth was, it was alive. Spreading from her neck, downward, it took Tammy’s consciousness again.

Slipping into darkness, Tammy heard the cry of a baby split and become the cry of two babies. She knew one was a boy and one was a girl, although she never saw them. They were her twin babies and the forest wanted them. It needed them for some task that she could not understand.

In the singsong lilt of a children's nursery rhyme, Tammy heard her sister singing the chorus of an unknown song:

Two babes crying in the tall treetops,

searching the forest for growing spots.

Teardrops fall and water the ground,

new gods growing all around.

Cindy was at Daisy Lawn, maybe singing in her room to some of her invisible friends, maybe just sleeping off her daily meds. Tammy could not know for sure. All she knew was that Cindy was not there with her. Moving her arms out from her sides, she could tell she was in her bed. She opened her eyes. It was still daylight outside. There were no sepia-tones and no living chair-man. A thin amber colored crochet blanket lay over her and her soft, thick comforter was under her.

Laughing, she realized she must have taken a nap. The comforter was the moss of her dream, and the amber colored blanket over her had caused the sepia color of the dream. Throwing the cover aside, she moved to the edge of the bed and dangled her feet there.

It had to be well past time for Matt to be home. The clock on her nightstand said the time was only nine in the morning. That was crazy, though. Matt left at nine. Checking her cell phone, she saw that the time was correct—it was only nine in the morning.

Jumping from the bed, she trotted barefoot down the hall to the nursery. The drop plastic lay in the corner where she left it. Downstairs, in the baby room, the glass was unbroken, but the blood splatter remained—a reminder that at least part of her memory was real.

The clock in the kitchen said it was now ten minutes after nine. Confused, Tammy sat at the little table by the window and waited for Matt to be home.