dread wood by Agelast

Chapter 1

The drip-drip of water was always the same, falling against his hungry roots. Years wore on and nothing changed. The rustle of the wind against his leaves were the only sound for many years, and the splashing of the stream. Peace, peace, peace, all seemed to say to him, to lull him to a sleep that would last forever.

But he refused such blandishments as he had once refused commands. The Old Man Willow held on to consciousness as well as his grudges and his thirst. For water was good, but blood pleased him better. And for those foolish two-leggers that dared disturb his rest -- they deserved nothing better than to be taken in whole, their innards providing nourishment for the Willow’s roots, their bones becoming the armor of his bark.

Once, long ago and in a long-drowned land, he had been different. Young and full of green buds, pliant and tender. There, he had wandered through a place of willows and soft breezes, at peace. If he encountered any two-legged creatures, he did them no harm. Some even played on his roots, took his bendy rods to make baskets with and slept in his growing shadow, finding only relief there -- and peace.

They would sing, sometimes, and the Willow would listen to them contentedly.

But then the land was lost -- torn and and laid to waste, crumbling into the hungry sea. It was the two-leggers’ fault that it happened, it was the fault of their endless war that the paradise of willows drowned. And for that, Old Man Willow would never forgive them.

So let them come now to the quiet place he had made so long ago. Let them be tired and be weary enough to rest in his shadow, to lean against his trunk. Let their eyes grow heavy and their limbs grow slack. One by one, their heads would loll against their necks and and Old Man Willow would have his revenge, even against his smallest enemy.