text: Summer had begun early that year, and in an effort to beat the punctuality of the coming seasons, I was already crafting willow reindeer for Christmas. Wrapped in lights and perfectly complementing any front yard, the reindeer were a sellout every year, and besides needing the extra cash, the willow field, colloquially known as ‘the cut’, was a serene place of peace, and the few combined hours I’d spent cutting that season were enough to ease even the worst nerves. Although my fondest memories of the field will always be with me, the worst always resurfaces. I was lucky enough to escape that day, though my mind never could. Sometimes a faint whistle will echo over the leaves and blend with the neighboring sounds of the cut, almost like she’s trying to draw me back through the stick. I’ve revisited, reviewed and rethought my daydreams in the months since, and this was no dream. The heat taxed my pores as the noon sun beat down on the birds and the brush around me. I had already cut a fairly large pile of willow, which I then trimmed down to easily transport to my car. Then, as every good willower would do, I collected my pile of excess and walked them around to my ‘secret dead stick hiding spot’- a spot that every good willower should have. It should be somewhere around the back of the cut, unnoticed by passersby, and not disrupting the vibes of nature. Luckily for me, the path to my hiding spot was coated in grass and untouched by the plague of stinging nettle. As I approached the high grass, I noticed something I hadn’t before in the ten years I’ve frequented this field: an immensely idyllic passageway leading into what looked to be a very narrow trail. My heart sank into my stomach before my mind could break the fall. I knew what I was seeing was real, but my soul hurt so badly; I had genuinely convinced myself that I had to have been suffering from derealization or some type of hallucinatory disorder. I felt more sad than insane, though. Was this the conclusion of every drug or drink my brain had filtered out just to bring me back to reality? How many times had I carelessly stepped past that entrance? There’s no way I could’ve missed it. Aside from my fear of disgusting spiders, my curiosity overwhelmed me. I stepped through the molded pathway and grasped my loppers tightly. Forget-me-nots and bellflowers and bleeding hearts nourished the dirt path on either side, stretching across to nearly greet their paralleled peers. The path quickly began to narrow and, after trudging through the knotted wood for about ten minutes, I realized that if I wasn’t on the other side of the small field by then, I might as well be in Canada. I stopped to gaze up at the sun when I heard a faint whistle, like wind snaking its way through the leaves. It wasn’t a sound I was unfamiliar with. The wind whistled through the willow almost constantly, but this sounded so... human. The path led into a lifeless latticed dead-end wall of brush. Looking through was a field. I was relieved to have found the other side. I chopped through three or four switches to release me from the thickening forest of tall shrubs and peered through to make out the train tracks that ran alongside. They were gone, replaced by a thick, black dirt clearing that expanded about 50 yards on all sides from a scarlet system of bare stems ripping up from the ground, enshrined in long, white thorns. The wicked tree sat directly in the center of the giant scorched circle. The cramped field wasn’t that big before. The path and entryway hadn’t been there before, and I wasn’t crazy. From the corner of my eye were a pair of pants and a t-shirt, propped up with several bundles of sticks, shoved through the pant legs and poking out the neck like a stick puppet. To the left was a sundress organized in the same manner, and behind that, a number of various clothing items perfectly set upright on their respective branches. I stepped onto the charred sand to get a better glimpse of the phenomenon when I tripped on a small stump and sent myself flying onto the jet-black earth. A strong, almost orchestrated gust of wind immediately ripped through the willow and kicked up the ash around me. I coughed and wiped my eyelids clean of the dust before I came back to my feet. I was growing more eager to leave, but I needed proof that this existence-defying plane did, in fact, exist. I made my way toward the rotted corpse-like tree in the center, loppers in hand. “Please don’t cut her,” the shrill voice of a young girl pierced my ear canal, cutting and slicing its way to the drum. I was completely frozen. My brain refused to tell my hands to move. This wasn’t paralysis. Something had my body in a tight iron grip. I couldn’t see where the voice originated, but I could still open my mouth to form words. “I’m not going to cut it. I’m just lost ma’am,” I muttered with everything left in my chest. “Liar!”, she roared through the leaves, falling to a sobbing stutter. “You always take her from me!” Her voice became weathered and raspy but filled with conviction. The shelled prison restraining my movement was slowly unbinding itself. I was finally able to turn my face to her. She stood on the outside edge of the circle, just within eyesight. She was much older than her voice had led on. Had I not been so alarmed, I would’ve assumed she was some passerby or maybe even a groundskeeper for the area, though I knew that field to be public land. Her hair was thin and gray, and through the shadows on her face I could see her eyes slowly changing from blue to green, then to a dark stone color in swift repetition. I swear at one point her iris had entirely disappeared, leaving her eyes as yellow as her jaundiced skin and crooked teeth. She was clothed in an almost-white, dirt-covered homemade dress, bare feet sunken into the muck. I didn’t give my brain a chance to respond with words. Instead, I dropped my loppers and turned tail toward the wall I entered through. She let off a wail like an injured goat, sending a sharp guttural tremor down my neck. I was able to jump through the wilted willow cage surrounding the clearing, but not without crashing onto the soft unstained dirt that blessed the other side. Her wailing and screaming ceased immediately. I didn’t stop long enough to show gratitude. The light of the sun was beaming through the entryway, presenting the opportunity to finally escape the palpable purgatory. I sprung from the field, overcome with relief but still incredibly uneased. She was still inside there. She easily could have followed me. My eyes widened at the willow, watching for any movement besides the blowing brush or whippoorwill whistles. It took me a second to accept that I was completely alone again. I walked through the grass until I caught sight of my isolated car parked in the remote lot. What a sight for my sore eyes. Like the grown man I am, I wanted to drive straight to my mom and explain to her what I had seen. I wanted to phone all of my friends and try to make sense of it. I’ve only kept it to myself up until writing this. It wasn’t until a few weeks had passed before the daydreams turned to nightmares. I began to see faces I’ve never seen, the same faces that caught my eye on missing posters in the grocery stores and gas stations around town. People long thought to have been kidnapped. I noticed their outfits were similar to the clothes on the branches. I see their open mouths screaming through dead silence, looking into their eyes before she takes them away. Maybe I’m still there with her and I never left at all. Maybe I’m a shell of clothing pinned up in the stick like her game trophy. I can’t defeat her from my memory.