Labyrinth of Light
Dim vales—and shadowy floods—/And cloudy-looking woods,/
Whose forms we can't discover/For the tears that drip all over/
Huge moons there wax and wane—/Again—again—again—/
Every moment of the night—/Forever changing places—/
And they put out the star-light/With the breath from their pale faces./
About twelve by the moon-dial/One, more filmy than the rest/
(A kind which, upon trial,/They have found to be the best)/
Comes down—still down—and down/With its centre on the crown/
Of the mountain's eminence,/While its wide circumference/
In easy drapery falls/Over hamlets, over halls/
Wherever they may be—/O'er the strange woods—o'er the sea—/
Over spirits on the wing—/Over every drowsy thing—/
And buries them up quite/In a labyrinth of light—/
And then, how deep!—O, deep!/Is the passion of their sleep./
In the morning they arise,/And their moony covering/
Is soaring in the skies,/With the tempests as they toss,/
Like—almost any thing—/Or a yellow Albatross./
They use that moon no more/For the same end as before—/
Videlicet a tent—/Which I think extravagant:/
Its atomies, however,/Into a shower dissever,/
Of which those butterflies,/Of Earth, who seek the skies,/
And so come down again/(Never-contented things!)/
Have brought a specimen/Upon their quivering wings.
Fairy-Land (1831) by Edgar Allan Poe
It wasn't often Detective Nick Buchanan got a day off from the Victoria State Police. It was even less often he got a day off that wasn't filled with a family obligation or a thousand chores he needed to do around his house. But today, today he had all to himself. For whatever he wanted. And what he wanted was to go out to the forest all on his own and enjoy the quiet and do a bit of birdwatching.
It wasn't the most interesting or exciting hobby, he knew. And the few people who knew of Nick's love of birdwatching took the piss out of him for it. But it was a quiet, solitary activity and it provided a purpose to wandering around in the woods.
For about two hours, he followed the path through the park, veering off in whatever direction he fancied. Any sound in the trees, any rustle of leaves or bird's call, he looked up with his binoculars to see what he could find. Most of the local birds he knew very well, but there were a few that he couldn't remember. For those, he took off his backpack and flipped through his birding book to identify them. It was a very eventful afternoon for him, as far as birdwatching went. He got the chance to see almost every kind of bird there was in these woods.
When the sun started to dip in the sky, Nick decided to head back. The GPS on his mobile would lead him back to where he'd parked his car, and it was going to take some time to get there.
But before he could even check the GPS, a strange call caught his attention. He'd never heard a sound like that before. It almost sounded like a peacock, but of course there weren't any of those in the parks of Victoria. Not outside the zoo, anyway. But it was higher pitched than a peacock. He lifted his binoculars and searched the trees above him, trying to catch a glimpse of what could be making that noise.
The call sounded again, closer this time. He whirled around to his left and his gaze landed on a bird about the size of a magpie but looked more like a bristlebird with the long tailfeathers. Too big to be a bristlebird. And completely wrong coloring. This bird was black with iridescent blue patches on its wings and a golden breast. But that gold wasn't a color he'd ever seen on a bird. It wasn't the bright yellow of a yellow-tufted honeyeater. No, this was more golden. Like…well, it seemed to glow and shine like actual gold.
Nick watched it on the branch, making that miraculous sound. It gave a funny little hop and almost looked like it was calling to him personally. But then it opened its wings, surprising him with feathers of that same strange gold underneath, and flew away.
Only it didn't fly away. It only went to a tree a little further along the path. It called at him again. It was almost as if…almost as if the bird wanted him to follow. He really should be getting back, but what did he have to get home to? Might as well follow a strange bird.
The bird led him deeper into the woods. It would fly a bit and then land, calling to make sure he was following and waiting for him to catch up. Nick didn't need the binoculars to follow anymore. That golden glint in the trees was easy to spot with the naked eye.
All of a sudden, the bird started screeching uncontrollably and flying in circles in a small gap in the trees.
"Oh would you stop that!"
Nick was startled to hear a voice. A very cross voice. A woman's voice. He looked around to see the woman who belonged to that voice. And then he saw her. Caught in a hunter's net about four feet in the air, suspended over a high tree branch.
The woman gasped. Nick thought he saw some kind of golden light surrounding her, but he blinked and the strange light was gone. But she was wearing a pale dress with pink and gold flowers shimmering on it. That must have been what he saw.
"Hey, do you need some help?" he called up to her.
"You stay away from me!" she shouted.
"I'm not anywhere near you," Nick replied. And he wasn't. He was still about five feet away from her. Though he could tell that if he walked right up to her, the bottom of that net would have been about even with his shoulders. He would have been able to reach her easily.
"Stay back!" she insisted.
"Can I ask what you're doing in there?" he asked, hoping to calm her down. It looked like she did need help, but he didn't want to frighten her.
"Oh just having a kip in the trees," she replied sarcastically. "What the bloody hell does it look like I'm doing!? I got caught in this stupid net!"
Nick frowned. Obviously she'd got caught in the net, only he wasn't entirely sure what that net would have been doing there. A net like that wouldn't be used to hunt anything that was in season around now. Though maybe the net had been left for quite some time? Well, the reason for the net being there wasn't really very important. What was important was that a woman was caught in that net. "I have a knife in my bag. I can help cut you loose, if you like," he offered.
She glared at him, and even from his distance, he could tell that her eyes were some kind of light blue color. Large and wide and full of fire. She looked at him in a way that, though she was silent, she might as well have been snarling at him like a panther. "Fine," she spat.
Slowly and carefully, he made his way toward her. It strangely felt like he was approaching a wild animal. Only this one was a blonde and thankfully able to speak to him. When he reached the net, he took his backpack off and unzipped the front pouch to find his multi-tool. He always had it in his bag. He had another one he kept in his car. Nick was a handy sort of person, and even though he wasn't by any stretch an outdoorsman, hunting and camping and doing survivalist exercises, he knew how to do the things he needed to get by. "Here we go," he said, finally finding the knife. He moved his things out of the way and took a step back, trying to think of how to proceed. "Right, so how about if I cut through a couple of these ropes in the net and then maybe you can climb out and I'll help you down."
"I don't need your help down," she snapped.
"Yeah? Alright, if you want to fall down five feet and break an ankle, fine by me," he fired back.
She opened her mouth to argue but quickly closed it, obviously thinking the better of it for some reason. "Please just cut the net open," she conceded.
He nodded and did just that. It was more difficult than he expected. The ropes were thick and strong. High-quality hunting grade, meant to keep an animal secured. "What's your name?" he asked, realizing that he might as well try to make a bit of conversation with the strange angry woman he was rescuing, since this was going to take longer than he thought.
The woman hesitated for a moment. "Erm…Jennifer," she said at last.
Nick looked up at her. "Did you just make that up?"
Her brow furrowed in annoyance. "No, that's my name. I just don't tell it to people very often."
Well, that answer just put more questions in his mind. But something told him asking more about her name and why she didn't tell it to people often would not make her happy. "How did you get caught in this net, Jennifer?" he asked, trying a different tack.
"I was walking through the woods and that damned bird distracted me and I wasn't looking where I was going and here I am," she explained.
The bird, still perched nearby, gave another of its distinctive calls. Almost as if it could somehow understand that they were talking about it. Jennifer turned to look at it and glared in annoyance.
"The bird distracted you?" The bird had certainly distracted him, but he was in the woods specifically for bird watching, so his attention to the bird made sense.
She turned away from the bird and back to where Nick was still diligently sawing through the net with his knife. "You don't see birds like that around here, do you?"
"I've never seen anything like it," he replied.
"And that's why I was distracted. I didn't know what it was doing here."
"So what is it doing here?"
"Why don't you ask it and see if it tells you?"
Her snarky reply made him chuckle. And he was about to answer her when she shifted inside the net and the changed weight distribution caused about ten more strands around the handful he'd cut to snap apart. Jennifer tumbled out of the hole with a yelp. Nick tried to catch her, but they both ended up falling to the ground with her landing hard and knocking the wind out of him.
Jennifer scrambled up but hissed in pain, rolling over onto the forest floor. Nick was coughing and trying to sit up.
"You alright?" he asked hoarsely. He noticed she was clutching her leg. The flowing skirt of her dress was splayed out around her as she lay there, wincing in pain.
She moved her hands and Nick immediately saw that she wasn't alright. There was blood staining her dress and seeping onto her hands.
"Jesus," he breathed. She must have gotten sliced by his knife when they both fell. "I'm so sorry," he said, his training and instincts kicking in. "Let me get you to hospital."
"No!" she shouted. "No, you can't do that."
He wasn't going to fight her on that. Not just yet. "Here, let me see."
Jennifer moved her hands and dress away. It looked like there was just a shallow slice in her calf, hopefully not deep enough to need stitches. But certainly deep enough to bleed a lot. "It's not bad," she said. "It just surprised me. Here, it's fine." She found the seam on the side of her dress and ripped it a bit and then tore off a long strip from the hem. She deftly wrapped the fabric around her leg to bandage the cut and tied it tightly and stave off too much more bleeding.
"And what are you going to do like that?" he asked incredulously. "No, come on, let me get you some first aid."
"I'm fine, really," she insisted. She even tried to stand up and walk but stumbled almost immediately.
Nick hurried over to help keep her steady, holding her arms. "No, you're obviously no fine. Listen, it was my fault, I need to make sure you're alright. Let me at least drive you home," he offered.
Her eyes darted first up to the bird in the tree and then off to the dense woods behind where the remnants of the net hung in the tree and then back to Nick. "You can't take me home. But…fine, if you have somewhere you can take me to get clean and bandaged, that's fine."
Nick wasn't quite sure what she meant. She wouldn't let him take her to hospital. She wouldn't let him take her home. That really only left one option. "I suppose I could take you to mine. I've got first aid materials."
She looked up at the bird and then back again. "Alright," she agreed.