The woods were covered in moss throughout the
year. It was a very damp territory; every day rain fell, flooding the small
brooks and the two larger rivers that drained all the water from the forest.
The water then arrived, in a more gentle way, to many towns down the river. The
people were grateful about it, as the only source of drinkable water was the
river. There was no underground wells they could use and the closest mountain
range, which wasn’t very close, was dry as a bone, not enough snow to fill a
spoon.
For centuries, people venerated the river as a
god and concluded that if the water stopped flowing as it always used to, it
meant that the god was angry. But there was another god that might be angry and
that was the forest. They believe that it housed so much life that it had a
life of it’s own. The few real explorers of the towns had come back from the
woodlands with stories about a creature, always a different one, with an
iridescent skin and bright white eyes. Sometimes it was a deer, a reindeer, an
owl, an eagle and even a rabbit. People thought those were representations of
the forest, guarding it from destruction and the hands of men in general. This
explained why every man that attempted to fully explore the forest always ended
up, mysteriously, at the edge of it, never really penetrating the land.
As the towns grew and time passed, people
began discussing the possibility of constructing a couple of barrages midway
between the forest and the towns. But as soon as they began the construction,
people died because of severe floods that happened unexpectedly. Once there was
nothing else to be destroyed, the floods stop and everything went back to
normal. The elders reminded the young about the spirits in the forests and told
them to leave the river alone. No construction made by man would ever be able
to harness anything coming out from the forest and that was where the water
sprung out of the planet, so it was better to leave it alone.
Time passed and people stopped trying to make
them rich with the water. But then they started thinking about logging in the
forest. After all, they had chopped off every other tree in the region, leaving
large areas of land without a single tree standing up. The elders condemned
this but no one really listened to them unless there was proof to be so scared
and this time there wasn’t. They didn’t touch the woods, only the grasslands,
until they had nothing else to burn in their factories and fireplaces. A group
of young men travelled to the forest with axes and chainsaws, ready to bring
the forest down, one tree at a time.
When they arrived, they were excited and begun
their work right then but when trying to chop off the trees, their machines
didn’t work. They didn’t affect at all how the bark or even the leaves. It was
as if the whole forest was made of metal or something much stronger. They tried
every tree they could see but after a whole day they were exhausted. They
decided to camp there that night and keep trying the next day. But there was no
next day. The people that found them, botanists taking notes about the plant
life of the region, said that they suspected the trees to have showered them in
their sleep with a certain kind of spores that was deadly to human beings. They
died in their sleep without even knowing it. Their families mourned them and,
once more, people forbid themselves to go to that forest.
Due to the lack of wood and the difficulties
having a way to harness energy from nature, most towns in the course of both
rivers began decaying rapidly. Many factories closed, almost putting an end to
industry. Many local businesses closed too due to the lack of resources to fill
their shelves and make their products. And finally, people had begun migrating
somewhere else, where there might be enough jobs and hope for a better future
for all the kids who had grown in the good times of the region.
But some thought they had left too soon, that
they had given up too easily. And they said that because one day, without
people ever noticing it before, trees started to grow where men had chopped
them all off. Some creatures, animals and plants, had come back to the plains.
Besides that, people started feeling the wind blowing a bit stronger, coming
from the forest. That made no sense but it was what it was.
Slowly,
some towns began flourishing again, this time calculating every move they made
to survive. The new trees where taken care of for some years, until they where
good to chop down. And they only chopped down one section of the trees
corresponding to each town. They created a schedule on how and when to chop
each area of trees and that seemed to work because in no time life had been
brought back to the plains, and no plants or animals were being harmed.
The scientist among them realized the wind’s
strength was ideal to be harnessed. Somehow, they had never thought of it,
thinking only water could be strong enough to give them the power they needed.
So they started building windmills and other structures to harness the power of
the wind and it worked. The wind generated power not only for the mills, where
they could make flour to make bread, but also to illuminate the dark streets of
the towns and the homes where people spent most of their time. The lighting of
several squares and public buildings was always an event but with time, the
people saw this as normal. Some of the windmills were eventually replaced with
higher and more powerful turbines, which gave energy to the whole region.
People now lived much better than before and the belief that it was all because
of the forest was stronger than ever. Small shrines where built near the
turbines, to thank the god and spirits.
Nevertheless, some people had grown even more
curious than before about the secrets of the forest. Some many times, groups
went into the forest trying to discover its secrets but, yet again, they always
ended up coming out of the woodland instead of really penetrating the area.
That was until a men and his wife, both scientists trying to uncover the
mysterious properties of the forest, arrived and attempted to get to the core of
the place. Their first couple of attempts ended up in failure as everyone
else’s. For the third time, they had come with their child, who had learned to
walk recently. As they had no one to leave him with, they had decided to bring
him along and show him the animal and the smells of the forest.
But one day, the day the father attempted to
enter the forest, the child went after him, without her mother noticing. When
she did it was too late and when her husband came back, they started to worry.
The man said it wouldn’t’ be long until he came out of the forest but nothing
happened. It was already afternoon and the kid was nowhere to be found. So they
entered the forest together looking for their son and, this time, their attempt
was successful. The trees grew larger and closer together deeper in the forest.
The couple held hands as they walked and yelled the name of their son. But he
didn’t hear them or he couldn’t answer then. They knew what had happened to the
loggers who had come and ended up dead. They were very afraid for their son and
how he might be.
After hours of walking, they finally reached a
clearing, where moss was very green and very damp. They were close to the
source of the rivers but they weren’t thinking about that at all. They screamed
their child’s name and started yelling and crying. They didn’t care anymore
about the water or the wind or anything about that place. They only wanted
their son to come back to them.
Suddenly, they saw a light beyond the trees
and they decided to follow it. They walked with difficulty through trees and
branches and roots but finally got to a smaller clearing. The lights they had
seen where the eyes of a wolf that appeared to be almost invisible. They couldn’t
be sure the creature was looking at them but it was strange how it stood there,
still. He finally moved and revealed their son, sleeping on the mossy floor.
The parents got closer and took him in their arms and woke him up by kissing
him and touching him, checking he was fine. The creature looked at them all
that time, until they stood up. Then, the wolf jumped towards the trees and
they saw the lights disappear.
As it had happened many times in the past,
they just had to walk aimlessly to get out of the forest. It was fast and they
didn’t care about anything that had happened inside there. They had their son
back and that was all that mattered. When they went back home, they wrote a
book about the forest, claiming the spirit story was true and that there was no
real way to explore the forest if all you wanted was to unveil its secrets. The
forest only opened itself to people looking for help because nature was caring,
like a mother. Men, however, were not as caring most of the time so it was shut
out from that place and it would remain shut out for many generations to come.
The forest’s secrets were many but not for the
eyes of men.
