The secret place was down in the woods, it was dank and shady, in a curve and fold of the land that was revealed only to me.
It was grudging at first: I found it by accident. I could feel the hostile rustling of the leaves and the unfriendly crackling of twigs. It bristled.
But I had found it: there were wood violets there, and soft grass where the sunlight filtered through the trees. It was a place to rest, to spend time.
Bit by bit it accepted me, and admitted me to its secrets. I felt it yield around me, when I arrived the undergrowth would gently part and close up behind me.
There were wood nymphs there - dryads - I never saw them, but I felt their presence. And other woody, wild, strange creatures that slipped about but were too quick for human sight. Sometimes things watched me. Eyes gleaming in the dark hollows of trees, thorny twiggy fingers pointing to me.
They no longer grasped at me though: I was becoming one of them.
I sat and drank in the scent of the damp and the moss, the greenness. After a while I needed it. The longer I spent there the more it seemed to infuse me. Stained by the creeping herbs and wet with the damp foliage. It embraced me.
One day it would cover me over. One day the eyes and the nymphs and the shadowy green folk would finally appear: faintly like a movement in the gloom.
For the year must end. The ivy would entwine its way around me and the holly prick my flesh to colour its glossy berries. And my own heart would beat into the oak I had chosen, its sap running down and through my own veins, giving up my blood for sap.
My skin, already tinged green, my hair - was it still hair or fronds of fern?
They give, but they take. And I must give back.
I am the Green Man now, and this is my realm. I shall not leave my secret place. Men may come with axes but they will not find it. It lies in a fold of the land, folded away from mortal eyes and folded away from time.
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Fantastic Fragments
Paranormal* an old man captures a moon sprite * a dark witch visits a fairy market * a child takes a ghost train to nowhere Read these strange tales and more in "Fantastic Fragments", a new collection of short stories by mystery writer Edward Turbeville.