Willow

Ritika flung the poo scooper into her bag for the third time that evening, wrinkling her nose. Her beagle must like giving her a hard time. She was sure of it.

While Coco busied himself with another paw dance on the grass, Ritika took in her surroundings. Greenery engulfed the thin grey ribbon of a trail they were on. The trees were performers in the wind, the sky a gorgeous palette of blues. Ritika wished she’d come earlier to savor some more of the sun because somewhere behind the glittering foliage, she was aware of a settling dusk.

Coco, meanwhile, had had enough of this joke of a walk. He lugged Ritika forward, chasing after a squirrel that shot up a large willow tree.

Willow. The word sent shivers up Ritika’s spine. Her grandmother would prattle on about old willow trees to her when she was young, spewing ancient folklore over cups of hot chai. Be unafraid, her grandmother would tell her. Be unafraid of this wise tree. Each drop of sun that passes through its leaves touches the earth like ambrosia. It heals the soil. It brings the ground alive. Ritika recalled how the tea sessions had scalded more than just her tongue.

She forced the memories away. She couldn’t care less about sun drops right now. “Hey!” she pulled on Coco’s leash to slow him down. “Coco!”

Unwilling to unlock thoughts of her buried past, Ritika instead wondered if this walk might’ve gone differently had her boyfriend joined them. For some reason, Coco always obeyed him better. Ritika was being green-eyed, she knew it, but she blamed Coco’s bias on his need for paternal affection.

“All right, boy.” Ritika petted his head. “Slow down.”

Coco stopped a short distance before the willow. At its base lay a tiny hole, an open wound on the skin of mother nature. It was a dark nook peering from the gap between the tree trunk and ground. Coco sniffed hard.

Groaning softly, Ritika rummaged through her bag to ready herself for another round of scooping when she heard it. Her head snapped up from her bag. What was that?

The faintest sound of a crack. From the ground.

She looked at Coco. Coco was eyeing the hole with his head tilted. He sniffed some more, then stopped. Ritika knelt by him and patted him aside. She peered at the dark circle. Snake hole? Anthill? A burrow?

There it was again. A subdued sound, a slow, deliberate crack, coming from inside the hole. Ritika immediately stood up and pulled Coco away, certain that they’d disturbed a wild animal. She traced their steps back onto the main path and increased pace, her heart thumping now.

Ritika could feel old memories squirming in her head like rapidly hatching spider eggs. Foreboding lessons played in her mind. You need to believe what you see, Ritika. Disbelief is the biggest disrespect to the evils of earth. Ritika blinked hard. “No,” she whispered an angry expletive to shut the memories. Hadn’t ten years of her childhood been enough for her grandmother?

Ritika had often spent nights in her twenties wishing she’d grown up listening to regular bedtime stories like her kindergarten friends had. They’d always giggle about princes and kissing boys with blue eyes, and then tease each other relentlessly. Instead, each summer, Ritika’s grandmother had made sure that Ritika knew of other tales. The kind that paralyzed children with fear before they finally gained the courage to go to bed.

They’d begun as harmless tales when she was younger, but Ritika had been mature enough to catch the morbidity in them. Over time, her grandmother’s storytelling started to become interactive. One summer day when Ritika’s parents arrived to pick her up, they had found her crying in the basement. She’d been trapped in an empty wine barrel for almost thirty minutes before the barrel had tipped over in struggle. Such is life, her grandmother had crowed to both Ritika and her parents when she finally released her. You writhe. You writhe and you writhe, but you taste freedom soon after.

Without a word, Ritika’s parents had stopped all her visits to her grandmother’s and put her in child therapy. But ten years had been enough to leave Ritika with a wound. A blemish. Just like the hole on the ground.

It was only a few seconds before the crack sounded again. More loudly this time.

Ritika made the blunder that every ill-fated character in a doomed scenario makes. She turned to look. Panic burst through her frozen nerves.

The hole had grown. The hole had grown.

Right there, in the middle of the trail, was a black hole the size of a basketball. The hole had grown. She let that sink in before she tugged on Coco, wetting her dry mouth to pretend like nothing had happened. Coco did not budge.

Her pulse dangerously quickening, Ritika peeked again. She was convinced she could unsee what she’d just imagined. She coughed noisily to overpower her numbness, to distract herself with sounds of false nonchalance.

Staring back at her was a black ditch.

A large gorge on the ground. Its edges were razor sharp, not crumbly, not earth-like. Ritika knew that this wasn’t mother nature’s doing. Mother nature was organic. Mother nature wasn’t perfectly crafted like this hole or her grandmother’s hellish stories.

A sad, hollow despair came over Ritika.

Be unafraid. Goosebumps erupted across her arms. Ritika thought about all the nights she’d cried out of fear from the tales the old woman had drilled into her head each summer. Hell consumes those who are afraid, Ritika. Her grandmother had cackled endlessly, repeating that line to the poor girl over and over with sadistic pride and malice.

Ritika ran. Coco must have sensed her fear because he ran right beside her. They ran until they reached a familiar crossing, and ran some more till they were at the entrance of the trail.

Why was it getting dark so fast?

At the fringe of the reserve, sounds of chatter and cars welcomed them. Ritika broke into gasps and couldn’t help but pucker like a child, drawing Coco close to her.

Coco had understood Ritika. There wasn’t anything that could explain what had just happened, but Ritika was full of wonder and love for Coco, her baby, a silent but knowing being, her companion against a hostile world. They’d synced together in a flash at the willow, understood not to waste time.

Ritika was filled with fear in wake of the event, but she felt contempt for her grandmother raging her insides equally. Her childhood was returning. Ritika felt it. She smelled it. The burning odor of matchsticks gnawed at her. Touch this to know how hot hell is. Touch it, Ritika, or I’ll tell the willow.

The sun dipped and the wind howled closer.

At the crossing by her house, a white car stopped to let them pass. Ritika wanted to plead for help and to seek some human comfort. An old lady in the passenger seat cradled a baby, whispering something rapidly into his ears and cooing him to sleep. She looked up and smiled at Ritika with a nod. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Coco began a soft whimper that made the hair rise on Ritika’s neck. No sooner had the old woman said that than her eyes clouded. She looked back and forth between Coco and Ritika and then smiled wider. “Why, you look as if you might faint! Be unafraid. Okay? Be unafraid.”

Ritika stopped still.

Then she screamed.