Day 3
Current tally: 9/20 8♢
Jokers: 0/2
Roll: 5
Cards: 4♣ 9♡ 7♢ 9♠ 7♡
4♣
I did not feel well this morning. There was a tickle in my throat, a heaviness in my chest. You begged me to stay home, to forgo my duties. But I know only the woods can alleviate what ails me.
I was only a few steps into the shadow of their canopy when I began to cough – thick, heaving coughs – and expelled several dozen centipedes coated in a viscous bloody mucus.
The pain in my chest lightened, but not fully. Ever since I can remember, there has been an ache between my collarbones, like something is tied too tight. Sharp shocks of pain occasionally accost me as I sleep. The woods are the only thing that helps. I imagine it as the pain of separation, as when a mother is severed from her child. Reunion is the only thing that can truly heal, to be pressed against the forest’s flesh, to be held, that will allow me to breathe fully once more.
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9♡
I came across a band of hunters, wet bodies of slain animals at their waists. They berated me for my presence, that I should be so deep in the woods alone. But their voices were tense, strained, and try as I might, I could not see any hunting implements. No rifles, bows, knives or traps. Only spades. Each hunter carried a rusted shovel, the kind you use in the garden, with the pointed tips. They eyed me, uneasy, and I saw that their clothes were marred with dirt where the butchered beasts knocked against their sides. No blood. Only soil.
7♢
I found a monument I’ve never seen before – it’s rare something this large eludes me for this long, and I couldn’t help tittering with delight at the novelty the woods have offered me. A gift. It was a large, crumbling statue of a goat, poised like a man, with its cloven font legs outstretched, as if cradling something. A wide stump before it acted as an altar.
I approached, and saw that someone had already left an offering: a flower crown, neatly braided from foxglove and willow branches. Would the hunters have left this? I’d seen no one else, and the flowers looked fresh – but there was no dirt on them: the filthy hunters could not have made something so lovely.
I placed it on my head, staring into the time-pocked face of the great effigy – I was taken by a vision: alone on a sailboat, the salty air rushing towards me, the sun on my shoulder, and then I’m surrounded by warships. I recognize each one. I recognize each man with his rifle levelled at me. They are covered in dirt, moss and lichen growing on their features.
All the rifles fire at once and I leap from my ship – and hit the forest floor.
I crushed several petals in the fall. I did my best to smooth them before replacing the crown on its altar, but the filth could not be removed, as though the contaminant ran beneath the surface.
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9♠
At first, I thought it was raining. The canopy is thick, but not so thick that heavy rain cannot get through. But when I brushed the moisture from my brow, my hand came away red.
I stared into the dark branches above – small animals were impaled on their twigs. Squirrels, frogs, sparrows. As I continued clearing the path, I discovered more, larger animals, suspended like flies in a spider's web: foxes, badgers, bobcats, and finally a cougar and a brown bear. The bear’s eyes in particular seemed alert, beady but aware, even as the trees speared it in a dozen places, thick gaping wounds with congealed blood matting its fur.
The blood stung as it hit my skin – it was cold, impossibly cold, the kind of cold a human should not experience and survive. The kind that etches itself on the inside of your bones.
I turned up my collar. I don’t remember donning this thick woolen tunic – perhaps you left it out for me in the morning? Once more, I am grateful to you, Mother.
7♡
There was a pile of dolls, fastened from cornhusks and twine, laid out neatly in a clearing. Many were dressed as soldiers, but many were … wrong. Warped and misshapen in such configurations that they should not read as human effigies, and yet, I knew them to be the depictions of people.
It was one of these strange, broken dolls I kept. Its arms are curved like sickles, its eyes two gaping voids. It reminds me of myself. I have placed it on the mantle, next to father's ashes. I don't believe you've noticed it yet, Mother. I wonder what you will say once you do.
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