By Mariya Kika
Elias falls asleep at dusk, nestled fetal-small at the base of a trembling aspen. His pillow is a low aspen bracket, his hand cupping its porous underside. Cicadas are his lullaby, the pill bottle’s warning label his bedtime story.
Roots grow around him, cradling his body tight to the trunk. Another aspen bracket breaks beneath his back, mycelial strands threading into a blanket over his slumbering form. Fluttering leaves break from the tree’s branches to brush over his slack face. A mother’s caress.
She lets him slumber as she remakes him.
Lenticels the shape of a mother’s wound burst anew upon her bark as she labours over his recreation. She pierces a root just beneath his sternum, popping alveoli and strengthening soft organs. Marking him in the most intimate of ways.
Her children’s mycelium slither into his ear canals and bleed into his meninges. Fragile, human membrane break beneath their touch as she guides them through the process of coating tissue and plugging pathways. They’re messy, stained with arterial blood, but she doesn’t mind. They will learn.
* * *
A nudge to his heart and Elias awakens.
Newborn fresh, he has a weak pulse and nary a thought. Hazy eyes track a weevil’s path across the dirt. Dancing leaves flit shadows across its path and he loses sight of it. White threads obscure his vision, but Elias isn’t worried. It’s a cocoon, meant to protect him until he can lift himself.
Elias snuffles his first breath, smells moss and dew. Another purifying breath, eyes blinking against the web of mycelium.
His heart is still slow, syrup-thick thoughts coalescing into consciousness as he wonders at his life. Had he meant to awaken?
The weevil crawls over his knuckles.
Jolting, his mouth opens around a scream. Dirt and bugs spill out, mycelium clings to his gums and threads beneath his tongue. He swallows, thrashes, screams. Buckles beneath the weight of roots, mind made of crumbling dirt as he claws his way out. A roll, the rhizome in his sternum breaking. He screams against the loss, hands coming up to grasp at the root in his chest. A final connection. To what, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand. Mindless, he yanks at the protrusion until it comes out, covered in blood and mucus and slime. Squirming away, he drops the rhizome.
Hands scramble amongst the leaves, knees digging into the dirt as he searches for what he once had. Life, death, rebirth. Which one? Which one?
He can’t see. He can’t breathe. Elias rears back, hands grappling at the cocoon meant to keep him safe. It’s in his nose, sporous air tickling his lungs. Nails claw at his cheeks, fingers pulling at his ears and coming away with fistfuls of mycelium. He wipes his hands across the dirt, attempting to cleanse himself.
His fingers knock against the empty pill bottle. Convulsively, he wraps his hand around it, staring at it in the weak morning light. Days’ worth of mud cake the plastic, label peeling at the edges. Frantic, he turns it, wipes at the mud, reads the packaging, shakes the bottle. He’d taken 100,000 mg of acetaminophen, but he felt pure. Unpolluted.
Elias twists his arm, examines the black threads that cover it. They won’t come off, no matter how hard he rubs. Thick and wet and embedded in his skin, the fibers replace his hair follicles. A yank, then another, the pain a sharp pinprick of proof that he is whole.
Sitting back on his heels, he stares up at the trembling aspen, her branches balding in anticipation of winter. She hasn’t any eyes and yet he feels watched in return. He wonders what she sees. Shivers under her regard. Heart slowing, he realizes it’s meant to be comforting as she tells him not to worry. That he’s safe.
He will always be safe with her.
His eyes follow the paths of her branches, searching for a lie. His acuity is sharper than ever, each leaf and shadow starkly clear. Reaching her tip, he finds neither a lie nor truth.
Listless, he averts his gaze. Safe though he may be, he needs an answer. She tells him to wait, that it will be clear with time. But, he wasn’t meant to have time, had meant to sacrifice his life for his sister’s. A pause as he rolls that word around in his head. His sister. He wonders where she is now. If she’s waiting for him to return, just as he’d always said in his now-broken promise.
Rearing away, he lifts himself from the dirt, the last of his mycelial blanket falling from his body. He finds himself light, joints springy and flesh unrotted. Spinning in a circle, he searches for what little of his life he’d brought with him. He spies aspens and oaks and critters, fungi and moss and his bag, broken apart by scavenging animals.
His phone lays amongst scattered trail mix, scratched screen refusing to turn on. Elias wonders how long it’s been. If he could simply lay down for a second nap. Perhaps in the ravine, trapping himself under the ice that would soon cover it. The thought of water makes him salivate.
The leaves rustle, a quiet murmur shivering through the grooves of his brain. He will not find death in water. So long as there’s rain and mud, sunlight and space, he will never rot. The trembling aspen had found a son in him, the aspen brackets a brother.
But they weren’t his family. His family was a dead mother, a runaway father, and a sister he’d raised before abandoning. As was his family’s legacy.
Not anymore, a woman whispers.
He ignores the voice, focuses on the woman he must return to. Would Sarah welcome him back? He hopes so. He’d killed himself for her. He fumbles for his keys, weighing the mixture of alloys in each ridge.
The forest is still around him as he leaves behind his end. The wailing exists only in his head.
* * *
He doesn’t question his untouched truck, preoccupied with the too slow cadence of his heartbeat and the thought that he may no longer have a home. A voice the rustle of leaves tells him he’ll always have a home in the forest.
His fingers spasm and he throws himself into his truck, clicking the safety lock and flipping down the visor to stare into the tiny mirror. He finds himself raven-haired where he was once brunet. A tug finds it the same texture as the fibers on his arms. Freckles litter his face where he’d once been clear-skinned. It’s an infection, it must be.
The voice returns, It’s a gift, baby.
Elias screams, ramming his face into the steering wheel. Once and again. Thrice and there is no blood nor throbbing. The pain comes and goes, his nose realigning and his cartilage smoothing out. He watches the shift in the visor mirror, prods at his nose. Stalk strong.
He shivers against it, tears burning behind his eyes. Blearily, he inspects the mucous-thick sweat that dots his palms. A sniff, then a lick, the sporous discharge umami and delicious on his tongue. Only then does he wipe his eyes, fingers coming away dew-wet, tears pearlescent and thick.
Slamming the visor shut, he drives.
Forty-five minutes later, he’s staring up at the place he’d once called home. It feels foreign. The driveway is empty. He wonders where his sister is. Would she too be a stranger to him?
Shoving the thought down, he hurries inside, desperate for something familiar. With each step, he can hear the cries of his brethren in the floorboards. They’d been whole before they were cut down to build this broken home. He rushes into the kitchen, relieved to feel silent linoleum beneath his feet.
The fridge catches his eye. Logic tells him he should eat. He’d woken up pristine, hunger nary a thought. Even now, his stomach is still, like he needn’t eat or drink ever again.
He shivers when the cool fridge air hits his skin, glances down and watches his fibers curl up in an attempt to burrow. His lip curls. He pulls the door open further, reaching in to forage around the shelves. His palm dries, skin tightening in mere moments. What would life be like in the winter? Covered head to toe in sweaters and mitts, toques and woolen socks, vest and winter coat and longjohns and boots.
Don’t be silly, baby. You’d be beneath my roots where I can keep you warm.
Elias slams his arm into the fridge wall. The impact is nothing compared to the cold. He holds himself there until he’s shaking, shivering fault lines of mycelium bleeding into his parietal lobe and wresting control of his body. Clenching his teeth, he yanks his arm back, cradling it close to his body. Refusing to look down at his arm, his eyes catch on the water bottles stored on the side of the fridge. A hiss through his motor cortex and he’s reaching for one.
The first touch of water to his tongue and suddenly he’s ravenous. The bottle is emptied in seconds, plastic crushed in his hand. He doesn’t mind this coolness. Rather, he craves it. His fibers perk back up, secretion rising to coat his skin in joy. He turns, ready to grab another when he hears the lock of the front door. Elias freezes, eyes darting to the porch door off of the kitchen.
He could leave. Go back to that unnamed forest, find answers in the roots of his mother tree and fungal siblings. Pretend his sister doesn’t exist. Convince himself she wasn’t rapidly outgrowing him.
He could settle into this new self, growths littering his skin, mycelium trailing behind him. A few decades from now, he’d be part of a new system, a network of nerves amongst the forest floor, passing information between trees. Maybe then he could return, show his sister what had become of him. Maybe she’d want him the way he needs her now.
A scream and a clang.
He turns, smiling weakly at her.
“Hi, Sarah.”
Her mouth fumbles over words as she stares, unmoving. Her fingers are clenched around the doorframe as if she were of a mind to leave. Or perhaps she was simply giving him space, a wide berth for a canker in an already rotting house.
She starts simple, “You’re alive.”
He stays silent, smile slipping from his face.
She steps over her dropped bottle, eyes narrowing. “Where have you been, huh? Huh?” Her voice rises, “Do you know how long it’s been? Do you care? Three weeks! Three.” A step forward. “Goddamn.” Another. “Weeks. Where I didn’t know if my only family was alive. I thought you were dead! That you abandoned me!”
Elias moves back, goosebump spores flitting across his skin at her shrill voice. The fibers on the back of his neck tighten, mossed teeth clenching against this reality. For close to a month, he’d ceased to exist; body lying perfectly composed in an unknown forest. And now he stands, a new being. He had meant to abandon her, she wasn’t wrong. He’d only hoped that she’d understand.
Watching her advance, he doubts it. She continues until his back hits the counter and she’s jabbing a trembling finger into his chest. “And now you come back with, with stupid black hair, all muddy and freckled. What, were you hoping to start a new life without me?” No, he thought, not a new start, just an end.
Another jab, just over his sternum. His rhizome hollow has since healed, skin elastic and taut. If it hadn’t, he wondered, would she reach in? Crook a searching finger for his slow beating heart? His eyes trace her frame, note the natural roots peeking out of her dyed hair, the bare nails, the bags under her eyes. He’d taken her apart with his absence. Not even their father had done that.
She must notice his distraction, slamming her hand into his chest with a sound of frustration. She smacks him again and again, movements frantic until she drops her head forward and cries into his chest. Loud and blubbering, hands scrambling at his sides as if afraid he’d leave again. It rings wild, untethering spools of mycelium underneath his skin. He’s ready to wrap her in his threads, burrow them beneath her nail beds and tease them through her bloodstream.
His skin sings where her tears have soaked through his shirt, just over his hollow. It feels like an unwitting blessing: this area both women in his life have touched. His lip curls at the thought.
Elias focuses on Sarah, brings his arms up, knuckling fisted comfort into her spine. He ignores the slick feeling beneath his nails.
She’s mumbling into his chest, worries and threats and pleas spilling from her. Viscous tears prick behind his eyelids.
Why? His mother asks. You were willing to leave her so easily. You came to me to find a home.
That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true. He’d left Sarah because it would be best for her. Insurance and the deed to the house and all of his savings. Her future had been secure and it hadn’t any space for him. He hadn’t gone to that tree, he’d gone to die. And so, when he returned? Where would he go if not home? To whom would he return if not the one that had always been by his side?
This isn’t your home, baby.
Eventually Sarah’s tears dry and she sniffles, embarrassed. He lets her go, fibers mourning the dissipating humidity between them.
They end up on the couch, shoulders pressed together in silence. He’s toed off his boots, socks still a pristine white where he presses his heels into the threadbare rug. He’s not bothered with his clothing, doesn’t give much thought to the smudges on the couch.
His eyes trace the family portraits littering the wall. He’d once looked just like their mother, gangly limbs and shining brunet hair.
She’s not your mother, baby.
Studying a family portrait, he acquiesces that she may not be his mother in this new life. But he cannot deny the warmth of Sarah pressing along his side. She will always be his. That past or this future, he doesn’t know how to exist without her.
Who says you need to?
He shudders.
It catches his sister’s attention. She turns to him; he can feel her studying his profile as she breaks the silence. “So, where were you? You owe me that much, Elias.”
She wants answers but there’s not much to say. He had wanted to die quietly. But death had deemed him unworthy and had spit him back out.
No, baby. It wasn’t death. It was me, I saw something beautiful in you. You’re mine now.
His saliva is thicker than it’s ever been, he struggles to swallow before answering, “…Camping.”
“Camping?”
“Camping.”
A disbelieving laugh. “You expect me to believe that you’ve been camping for three weeks without so much as a text?”
Maybe he should have had a more believable lie. Something of substance. But all he can think about is the fact that it wasn’t supposed to be three weeks.
He’s tired. “You don’t wanna know, Sarah.”
“I think I do.”
Her voice bubbles rage, slime thick and syrupy slow, inside him. He’s trying to protect her, to shield her from his mind and this rotten life. He’d given her everything, but still she was greedy, going after this one thing. He wants to yell. He wanted her to hurt. Eight years of life gone on raising her, and this was how she repaid him.
Yes, the voice says. Rage, it urges.
He’s never been angry at her before, it slithers through his mycelium, rattles at his brain. He wanted to tell her that he hated himself. That he missed their father and hated this house. That he was worried he’d ruin her, fumbling attempts at guardianship spoiling her. That she was ungrateful. He’d laid his life down for her but it wasn’t enough, was it?
Sarah is still staring at him. He lets her gaze bleed his anger from him, distracting him from the absurd sting of betrayal.
“You don’t, Sarah. Listen to me. I know you’re mad, but you know I’d never do anything to hurt you.” Truly, he had thought she’d be able to move on from his death, to brush off his inconsequential life.
You’re not inconsequential. She never showed you that she cared. I’d never forsake you like that.
Like a leaf on a branch, his anger easily sways, turning towards the tree. Who was she to accept him but reject his sister? She was perfection.
A touch to his wrist. He jerks. Stares down at his sister’s bitten nails. He can feel the sweat in the sworls of her fingerprints, skin drinking in the faint traces of salt.
A shaky exhale as he checks the need to slot their fingers together, to brush a kiss to her knuckles, coat them in sporous discharge, poison her just as he’s been poisoned. Why not let his mother see Sarah for herself?
He needs to leave, needs to distance himself before he ruins her. Before he spills the truth. “I—can we talk in the morning?” His voice is plaintive, wilting.
Her hand recedes. He mourns the touch.
He hears her swallow, thinks about her throat working around slime-thick mucous. His gums prickle.
Her voice is an eventuality, “Yeah, yeah. Of course. We can talk in the morning.” A pause. “We will talk in the morning, El.”
He just nods, rising quickly, practically running to lock himself in the bathroom. Stubbornly, he ignores his reflection as he turns on the tap, mindlessly bends to drink from his cupped hands.
Just like in the kitchen, the first touch of water has him ravenous. It spills from his palms, and splashes against his cheeks. Frantically, he smears it across his face, up into his hair and around the nape of his neck. It trickles down his spine, a pleasant tickle. He’s messy with it, lets it run over his wrists, chases it with groping fingers to rush it up his arms. Rivulets drip from his elbows, landing on his feet and soaking between his toes. The euphoria chases away the ghosts of one mother and the roots of another. It drowns the quiet disappointment of a sister.
Shocked, he realizes he’s out of breath, bulbous alveoli growing and growing to mitigate the strain. He wants its essence, to be part of this flow of water. The only thing better would be if it were in dirt. Oh, how he’d rejoice to bathe in mud, to pack it onto his skin, cakey and heavy until it weighs him down. Loam and mulch cracking over his skin, feeding him. He’d sprout threads and roots, lay himself next to his mother and laugh with his siblings. He hungers for deep, rich earth flavoured with rotten carcasses and decaying leaves.
He smacks the tap shut, staring into the pristine, white porcelain bowl. It stings his eyes. He can’t leave Sarah again. He can’t. But, oh, how he wanted. Why couldn’t he bring her with him? Why couldn’t things be easy?
They could, sweetheart. Just come back to me. I’ll show you.
Return to the one who had turned him into this? The one who’d just scorned his sister? He scoffs to himself.
A sharp rap to the door. He jerks.
“I, uh, I changed your sheets for you. G’night.”
Elias grunts out a thanks. He listens to Sarah leave, eyeing the tap as he wonders whether he could explain this to her. She welcomed him back so gracefully, what would she say to the truth? How would she react, knowing that he hated himself? That he missed their father and hated this house? That he was worried she’d outgrown him?
He’s noisy as he passes her room, ignoring the whines of the old floorboards. They don’t deserve an apology, not as Sarah does.
What about me, baby? You left your mother without saying goodbye.
He locks himself in his room.
Settling into bed is odd. It’s both too firm and too soft, the springs a poor mimic of spongy earth. Something tells him to move to the floor, to slip beneath the bed and press up against the slats. That he’d be protected like that. He refuses, curling up tight beneath the blanket, no matter how exposed he feels. The air is too open, the ceiling too far, he’s too lonely, no one to twine fingers and roots with. He squeezes his eyes against it all, reaching for stasis.
* * *
Elias startles awake, twisting within his blanket. The cotton sheets too shallow, too dry, not deep enough. He wants to go home, needs damp mulch and deep burrows, darkness and depth. He needs comfort and touch and echoing voices in his head. This was a mistake. He doesn’t belong. The aspen bracket of his cerebellum hums with urgency.
He pauses, just outside of Sarah’s door. He wants to barge in, shake her awake, take her with him. He wants to introduce Sarah to his mother, to give her a mother back. To show the tree that she’d been mistaken.
Unconsciously, he sways closer to Sarah’s door, hand reaching out. A shift and hardwood creaks beneath his bare feet, distant relatives screaming at him. Startling back, he runs from their voices.
He bolts through the kitchen door, clearing the porch in a leap, stumbling to a halt on damp soil. Absorbing the bleeding light of dawn, he’s briefly grateful not to live in the heart of Vancouver; the city too loud, the air too stale, the sun pale. Out here, the faint morning rays warm his skin and his pores open, letting in light and energy.
His eyes sweep the yard, catching on the cluster of old elm trees just on the other side of the fence. A whisper and he’s marching across the yard, leaping over the fence, and crashing down in front of a rotten log. It’s hollowed out, small holes in the rind showing off bugs and dew and sweet, rotted bark. His mouth waters, gums prickling with anticipation. His saliva doesn’t seem so thick now, enzymes ready to break down this delicacy.
He’s rough as he breaks off a piece, stuffing bark into his mouth, grunting as its flavour hits his tongue. He doesn’t question how he can so easily bite into something that should chip his teeth. It’s gone in seconds and he’s bending over the log, scooping out bugs with fingers and licking at dew. He breaks off pieces of rind like it’s nothing, sucks at the dirt that’s collected beneath his nails.
He hadn’t realized he’d been so hungry. That this was what he needed. It would be hard to get this in town, he thinks distantly. He’d have to scavenge, live his life in shadows and niceties as he declined food and searched for bugs and rot. What would he do in the winter? With fresh snow covering it all?
Come back to the forest, baby. I’ll teach you everything. You’ll never go hungry again.
He moans at the thought. Aches for his mother.
Yes. Yes, come to me. Bring your sister and I’ll forgive you. We can be a family.
“Elias!”
The voice is sharp. And close.
He hunches over, considers running. But he turns, face muddied and viscous drool hanging from his lips. He wipes at the drool, dabs its ovum across the dirt as his sister stomps towards him.
“That’s a tree!”
He nods. She stops short, baffled.
“Why were you eating a tree, El?”
He shrugs. “I was hungry.”
He’s left her speechless again. He turns to the log. “Come, look.”
When they were younger, he’d always steal her from their mother’s darkened room, leading her away from the frail lump beneath the sheets and into the land surrounding their home. He’d show her nests and burrows, pick berries and point out animal tracks. He’d capture frogs for her, slide snails onto her fingernails, urge her to chase ground squirrels until she was breathless and giggling. He’d steal her from reality until their dad’s sharp whistle called them back.
Their father is long gone. This home is now a carcass.
Elias pats the ground next to him. His sister gingerly lowers herself down. He sings with the connection. Could he really have this? His fungal siblings cheer at the thought of another.
He points. “Look, bugs. They’re good for iron and protein.” Breaking off a piece of wood, he holds it up between them. “Those rotted bits? They taste like caramel.”
She’s disgusted. “El. El, that’s not normal. Let me take you to the doctor. We can figure this out. Together.”
He’d thought they were together until he found her acceptance letter. Full ride to university in her dream field. Everything he’d wanted for her. But it was across the country. All he’d done for her and she’d soon be leaving him. He couldn’t handle it. And yet, here she was, caring for him as if there were no place she’d rather be. Perhaps his time away had done her good. Maybe she realized just how much she needed him, that she couldn’t leave. His mycelium thrums with joy, eager to reach out, to bury that past for the mistake it had been.
They could be together again.
If that’s what you want, baby.
Slowly, Elias bites off a piece of bark, chewing it as he looks over his little sister. “This is who I am. No doctor can fix this.” He swallows around his bite, flicks the rest of the bark down into the log, continues, thoughtful, “There’s nothing to fix, Sarah. I’m better than I’ve ever been. This is a gift. It’s in my brain, my blood. It’s made me better than I’ve ever been.”
“That’s not true, Elias.” Heartache coats her voice. “You had nothing to improve.”
He giggles, spores floating across her face. That’s true now. But before? She had been ready to leave that man.
He has something new to offer her now; more than he ever thought he could give her. Swiping his tongue around his molars, he catches a bug and bites down, delighting in her shock as he picks a spindly leg from between his teeth. Leaning in close, he tilts his head in search of her perturbed gaze.
“D’you wanna know the truth, sister?” His voice lilts around the title, syrup sweet. “The truth is, I died. Took a whole bottle of painkillers and went to sleep. I died and you were my last thought. But,” he exhales noisily, “but I’m back. So, do you accept me, dear sister? Am I enough?”
The voices in his head roar, upset he’d ever ask such a thing. He’s been reborn flawless and eternal. For once better than her. She’d never understand in this life.
She’s shivering, desperate fingers twisting together. “Of course. Of course you are, Elias. You’re my whole world, always have been. But this is weird. You have to know that. You just went away and you come back like, like this. Don’t you wanna know why? How?”
He shushes her, one hand carding through her hair, the other slowly easing over her nose and mouth, sticky with spores. “It’s easier if I just show you. C’mon now, go to sleep. Just like when I used to tuck you in. Atta girl.”
She struggles, a hand coming up to clutch at his wrist, body arching even as her eyes close. He doesn’t let go, not until she slumps in his arms, unconscious. A gentle kiss to her forehead before he stands.
We’re coming home, Mama.
* * *
Sarah falls asleep at noon, nestled fetal small at the base of a trembling aspen. Elias had gently placed her in the cradle the shape of his body, before gazing up at their mother. Since he’d awakened, there had been a frenetic buzz beneath his skin. He can no longer feel it.
His mother has no face, but he knows she’s smiling.
Is this why you let me go, Mama?
Yes, baby. I knew. I knew you’d never survive the loneliness, no matter how you craved it.
Leaves fall across his sister’s resting face. A mother’s caress.
His fingers follow their path. She looks peaceful like this, young. He leans down, brushes a lingering kiss to her cheek, mouth opening to let out mycelial strands, wrapping her in a cocoon.
His siblings’ strands join his and soon he can no longer see Sarah’s face. Digging beneath the dirt, he twines his fingers with his mother’s roots as he settles in to wait.
Soon, his sister will awaken.
Soon, they’ll be a family.
Mariya is a young Toronto-based student pursuing an MHSc. She most prefers the forms of prose poetry and short stories; her writing often centers around healing, revolution, and family. When not writing or attending class, she enjoys staring out windows with her cat. Her work has appeared in such publications as Pyre Magazine, Livina Press, the Bitchin’ Kitsch and more. She can be found on Twitter @mariyakeeka.