They drifted deeper and deeper into the rich green twilight of the murky interior; dimly lit by shifting light that patterned the sinuous forest floor with leopard spots, shadows dancing in the camouflaged darkness. Velvet tongues of foliage brushed softly against their young skins and soon they glistened with humidity, drops from the heavy living walls slid like pearls down their silky backs, dark hair was crowned with dew. Steamy air enveloped lean limbs, shrouding them in the smoky silence that weighed heavily on the sturdy boughs above their heads, which were laden with voluptuous mosses and ferns that fell in brilliant cascades over gargantuan trunks. Through cracks in the yawning canopy glimpses of the sky were a dark oppressive grey, pregnant clouds laboured slowly across a landscape of billowing purple, shot through with thick beams of sunlight, which fell through the liquid air in a multitude of rainbows. Opulent flowers bloomed in the dark, glowing incandescently from every surface; poisonous greens and yellows beside capacious reds and luminous blues, all sparkling invitingly from the fleshy folds of hungry stems, poised to snap at any creature that fell to fatal temptation. The radiant flora lit iridescent nocturnal eyes, which gleamed malevolently in the gloom, but the children passed the dangers unperturbed for they were products of the extravagant landscape.
They left their home to escape the woman who had usurped their mother, and who treated them with cruel distaste. She was a wild woman, born in the heart of the forest and, legend had it, suckled by the night. Her coffee soaked skin was covered with ornately swirling lines and staccato splashes of ink, embedded in her hide, which flickered across her body when she moved and gave her the predatorial fluidity of a jaguar. Her hair was an unusual flaxen colour, and hung stiffly in long knotted ropes decorated with feathers, beads, bones, teeth and strips of coloured leather so that she moved to savage music, and her eyes shone as vividly jade as those of the creatures she was rumoured to have been reared by. She practised in the dark magic of voodoo and she despised the children. The tensions between them and the witch woman grew to such an intense heat that they slipped out of the town in the wake of the morning star and were swallowed up by the mighty indifference of the jungle.
They walked contentedly through the ancient wood, hand in hand; caramel flesh melting sensuously in the sun, thick dark curls dropping riotously around slender shoulders in a delicate mimicry of the tumbling vegetation, naked but for charms that adorned their throats with pagan luck. When night fell they slept curled in the hollow spaces left by strangler figs whose victims had rotted away centuries before, and the creatures of the darkness left them to their dreamless slumbers. The further they ventured into the deep heart of the jungle the less they felt the repressive spirit of the voodoo priestess in the smothering atmosphere; their freedom permeated the area surrounding them and the primordial trees pointed out the many forks that they could follow at their leisure. As they travelled the jungle changed, recognisable plants morphing subtly and becoming unfamiliar and new. They ate plump amaranthine and cadmium coloured berries that hung like ripe jewels in vast bunches from glittering branches; and found trees from which, instead of fruit, hung brightly coloured eggs covered with intricate stains and filled with sweet syrupy custard. Fat, satin-winged butterflies swooped about their heads and life appeared to grow larger and more vibrant with every step.
They came to a grove of towering golden trees, from which grew lustrous pearls like ripe apples, and whose branches formed a gilded awning that charmed the sunlight that shone through the precious boughs. Sparkling pools glittered with their own dazzling light and sent white prisms dancing across satin faces. The delighted siblings splashed through the water throwing diamonds into the perfumed air, crystal showers pouring across virgin flesh. As the sun dropped over the horizon the grove blazed, tongues of amber flame flickering up the priceless trunks before they plunged into smouldering twilight, until finally the moon threw soft silver spools of light down from her serene height. The cool beams sent shadows racing across milky flesh, revealing curves and shapes that neither of the pair had noticed in one another before. In the tranquil beams that filtered through the golden leaves of the timeless, immutable trees their eyes met; lips crashed together in the deafening silence, filled only with nocturnal whirring of insects and the liquid silver light, and the siblings sunk to the ground mesmerized by the enchanted shimmer of their skins.
The dusty morning woke them from their tangled slumbers, in which limbs and roots laced together like embroidery in bronze and gold. They left the magic orchard encased in their own awkward awareness, and moved on in silence. They soon came across a great river that cut a serpentine wound through the Amazon and blocked their path into the unknown. Slow water swirled sluggishly through sunken mangroves like molasses, and the roots of the old twisted trees latticed the banks in an ancient knotted tapestry. Strange currents floated up from brackish depths to wrinkle the surface with mysterious eddies; a peculiar silence lingered in the air, as through the forest was holding its breath. The cunning witch had cursed the river, but the girl heard a warning in its whispering ripples; should they set foot in the water they would become beasts of the jungle, and so the pair travelled on in search of a safe crossing place. They paused at a bend, where the river became thin and a fjord joined the banks, but again the waters gurgled their warnings and the children went on. Then they came to a bridge, hewn from the fallen body of a sturdy Kapok tree, and began to make their way nimbly across the rotting log. They had nearly reached the dry safety of land when the wood gave way beneath the boy's feet and he plunged, breaking through the glassy stillness of the surface and sinking out of sight. He resurfaced, swam quickly to the shore, and heaved himself up onto the pitted bank as the girl scrambled over the log to join him. As sticky droplets of water rolled off his skin like tears, so too did the skin appear to roll away, revealing a coat of sleek black fur. The water appeared to wash away his humanity until he was reduced to lean, shivering feline, slick with amniotic fluid as though he had just slipped from the womb of the forest.
When the girl saw her brother newly birthed in bestial form tears streamed down her cheeks and she whispered to him in the sing-song language that they shared, simultaneously backing away from the midnight carnivore that twitched its tail and expelled a sinister rumbling from between gaping, razor filled jaws. In her haste she stumbled on a snaking creeper vine that looped itself around her bare ankle and tipped her down the bank into the lethargic water. Soon she too shed her skin and, furred and clawed, the graceful twins padded silently into the cool shadows and vanished like wraiths into the deep recesses of the uncharted jungle.
A/N Please please pretty please review, I would love any criticisms/comments
DISCLAIMER: inspiration is from The Brothers Grimm and the incredible Angela Carter.