Chosen
folk horror fiction: Blessed are the Chosen. The Chosen become part of the Whole.
Written for the event Spring Fever: Horror in Bloom hosted by TIF and Garen Marie.
Chosen
Here, Spring wasn’t only a season but a smell–the scent of fresh green on earthy rot.
Ancient trees loomed, allowing dusk to settle in between. Villagers filled the lamplit grove with a rattling, buzzing, purring zeal. A nervous energy that Elsbeth found infectious.
Who would they be?
The Chosen Ones.
Chosen by the Forest itself, by the budding leaves, by waking trees.
In the sacred grove.
Names.
Not drawn from a hat or locked box.
No.
Names emerged from bark, not carved by human hand, but grown from inside out.
Shifting lanternlight, soft murmurs, the elders standing dark-robed and patient. Evening buzzing with the sounds of insects.
Elsbeth’s mother’s face shone with tears in the orange light of her handheld lantern, a gasp escaping her throat. Elsbeth’s name was etched in rough bark, had pushed its way out through phloem and cambium.
Elsbeth stared wide-eyed at the letters of her name, reached her fingers out to trace it. For as long as she could remember, Elsbeth had been told that being named by the Forest, being Chosen, was the greatest honor.
Villagers murmured and shuffled, eyes shining, seeking their own names. Someone lightly clasped Elsbeth’s shoulder in a quiet sign of congratulations before moving on.
When all the names had been recorded, the elders dismissed the crowd. Villagers walked in twos and threes, silently, reverently, back to their homes.
Through the sacred trees, the Forest had spoken; through the sacred trees, the Forest had Chosen.
+++
That night, in their shadowed cabin, before the crackling fire, Elsbeth’s mother leaned close. The light cast flickering shadows that defined her mother’s age. Elsbeth couldn’t help but notice.
“You needn’t complete the ritual,” her mother said, hushed, eyes darting like a nervous rabbit’s. “I have a way.”
Elsbeth’s breath caught in her throat at the blasphemy. She made the Sign of Forgiveness in the air.
“The Forest already took your aunt.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, glossy with tears. “It’s not fair. Spring can come without you.”
Elsbeth sat stiff, frightened by her mother’s words.
She shook her head. The village gives what the Forest chooses.
Being Chosen is an honor. The Chosen are Blessed. The Chosen become part of the Whole.
The Chosen are the Spring.
The oft-heard words pulsed through Elsbeth’s head, a whispered chant. The fire softly crackled, popped.
“I’m Chosen,” she said, eyes wide with the mystery of it.
“You don’t have to be,” her mother said, her words harsh, louder than intended.
Elsbeth took her mother’s hand. “Okay, Mama. Okay.” She closed her eyes, listening to the crackling of the fire, seeing only the lush green of a hungry springtime forest.
+++
The morning of the Equinox was heavy with white fog, clinging close to the ground, masking the world beyond their doorstep. A good omen, some might say.
“You’ll take this,” Elsbeth’s mother said, holding a muted green backpack. “It has clothes and other things you’ll need.”
Elsbeth’s eyes dropped from her mother’s worried face to the worn old canvas pack.
“Wear it under your robes,” her mother continued. “No one should see you, but if they do, no one will notice it.”
Elsbeth slid her arms through the straps, felt the pack’s light weight press on her back more than it should.
Her mother helped her put her arms into the sleeves of the billowing white robe that she would wear into the Forest, into the abode of Spring.
One way or another, Elsbeth would not return to this house.
“Don’t stop,” her mother said now with a hitch in her voice, tears freely flowing. “Keep walking, moving—run if you have to. Keep moving. That’s the trick. That’s the trick. That’s the trick.” Like a mantra. Something she needed to believe.
She raised her hand to make the sign of Forgiveness in front of her mother, but the older woman grabbed her hand. Kissed the back of it instead.
“Don’t ask for forgiveness on my account,” her mother said. “I know what I’m saying. I want you to keep going until you leave this forest, you leave this place. You hear? For me.”
Elsbeth nodded solemnly because it was the only thing she could think to do.
She peered into the white haze, tree trunks barely visible, lush green washed out in grey-white mist. The Forest stood shrouded and waiting.
When had her mother lost her Faith?
“There’s a postcard in the front pocket of that pack,” her mother said, releasing Elsbeth’s hand. “When you get out, you go to another town, look for help, for work. You don’t tell no one where you came from.” She leaned her head close, touching their foreheads together like she did when Elsbeth was small. Elsbeth could smell her mother’s honeysuckle shampoo. “You drop that postcard in the mail. Don’t write nothin’ on it. When I get it, I’ll know you got out safe.”
Being Chosen is an honor. The Chosen are Blessed. The Chosen become part of the Whole.
Elsbeth pulled back. “But—”
Her mother’s eyes looked wild in the hazy morning light. “Promise me, dammit.”
“Yes, Mama,” Elsbeth whispered. “I will.”
+++
Elsbeth walked through a curtain of white, the mist clinging then parting to reveal the silhouettes of trunks and branches, fuzzy in her vision. The ground underfoot was soft with new growth, spongy with moss, a living carpet.
In pockets of clearing mist, she could see buds unfurling, grasses reaching, and she thought of her mother’s blasphemous words: Spring can come without you. Poor Mama.
The Chosen are Blessed. The Chosen become part of the Whole.
Lush greenery sprouted, towered, beckoned the Chosen Ones into Spring.
She knew the other Chosen Ones were out here in the Forest, too, following their own paths, as the vegetation seemed to open and close around each of them.
Her mother had said to keep going, come out the other side. Leave the Forest, and her duty, behind. She shook her head. “I love you, Mama,” she said aloud.
Then she slipped out of the white robe. It was cumbersome, and she wouldn’t be needing it. In that moment of pause, a green tendril, thick, solid, sentient in the way of an ancient thing, snaked around her ankle. Gave a tug. She pulled her leg away. It let her go.
She kept walking, her ritual robe draped on a moss-covered log like a deflated ghost.
She didn’t look back.
In a matter of moments, her divested garment was crawling with greenery, tiny roots and leaves burrowing, tearing it asunder, transforming it into Spring.
+++
The sudden crunch of a branch and a voice surprised her.
“Elsbeth!” Barely above a whisper, distorted. Impossible to tell distance, though the mist was beginning to clear in the dappled morning light.
As she stopped to turn her head, she imagined she felt spores lodging in her lungs and when she looked down at her shoes, they were coated in furry green moss.
It was Katie Rickert, cutting a path toward her. Elsbeth resumed walking. A bit quicker, maybe, than before.
Katie was a few years younger. Chosen her first year eligible in fact. Now the girl was pushing through the verdant brush, kicking up that fertile scent of Spring with each step, making a beeline for Elsbeth.
There were to be no perpendicular paths between the Chosen. Elsbeth quickly raised her hand in the sign of Warning.
Katie abruptly turned and began walking parallel, in step with Elsbeth, a few yards away. Two pairs of Chosen feet forging paths through burgeoning undergrowth.
Katie eyed Elsbeth’s backpack. “I wanna escape, too,” the girl whispered. Elsbeth’s stomach clenched at her words. Escape. As if an honor were a prison? A blessing nothing but a fetter?
She made the sign of Absolution in the air as she continued forward, not looking at Katie’s face.
“They say if you don’t stop, if you keep moving until you get to a creek, and then you cross it, you come out of the Forest,” the girl rambled on. “I’m not staying here,” she asserted with conviction. A deep, wild-sounding conviction, youthful.
Different from the conviction with which the elders spoke of the Forest, the Spring, the Chosen.
The mist had lifted like a veil, exposing them. They shouldn’t be traveling this close.
Elsbeth glanced at the girl beside her as they pressed onward through too-green growth that now seemed to reach tickling fingers at their passage. The girl’s eyes were shining as she gazed beyond the branches pregnant with budding leaves, beyond the sacred treetops toward… a creek? A world beyond the Forest?
She looked down to see a tendril gently winding round her own shin. Pressing now. More persistent. She felt the green canvas pack resting against her back. She slowed her pace and shrugged it off. As she did, leaves seemed to unfurl around her ankles, branches dipped lower to scratch at her arms.
Katie turned, slowed for a moment, too. “No, keep moving,” Elsbeth said, more harshly than she intended. “Find your creek.” She tossed Katie the worn backpack.
Already she felt vines lifting her into the air, embracing her as Chosen, spores filling her lungs. “There’s a postcard in the front pocket. When you get out, drop it in the mail, just as it is.” She looked down to see her lower legs lush with moss and Katie below, hopping and jogging, still moving, eyes frightened. “Promise me!”
Elsbeth was already heady on the scent of earth and moss and pine. Leaves enveloped her as tendrils drew her further into the air, held her close against the trunk of an ancient tree. But she could still see, as green began to cloud her vision, Katie below her, making the sign of Promise in the air.
“Run if you have to!” Elsbeth called, echoing her mother’s words. “Don’t stop! That’s the trick. That’s the trick. That’s the…”
But Katie had already disappeared into the towering, sprouting, budding trees.
And Elsbeth, the Chosen, was being subsumed—consumed—by an ever hungry Forest. As she lost her vision, as tiny roots burrowed into her skin and the secret, sacred sound of buds opening filled her ears, she felt a flower bloom against her forehead and smelled the fresh sweet scent of honeysuckle.
Spring would come. The Forest would be fed. The Chosen become part of the Whole.
Thank you for taking time to read this story and check out the Spring Fever: Horror in Bloom event:
This is the Shrouded Grouse, and here you’ll find supernatural short stories and novellas, essays and musings, zines, and illustrations that explore the liminal spaces and moody places.
Thanks for taking the time to view my work. Every view and like and comment inspires me to keep going. If you decide to subscribe below, make sure you check your promotions tab or spam for my Welcome Email.
Oh my stars, this GG is fantastic. I wanted to run!
Wow! Your descriptions and the atmospheric tension were divine. Well done, this was such a pleasurable read. Did you start first with the setting in mind or the premise of the Chosen, or ???