The Woman in the Forest

TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE (not bloody, but true)

Middle Ages, in the Megger forest, Switzerland.

Since birth, she has been considered somewhat different in her community due to her gift. When she was ten, her mother took her to the old woman in the forest. The old woman taught her everything one needs to know when walking between worlds.

Now, in her mid-twenties, after the old woman's death, she lives in her little cottage and cares for beings who cannot find help anywhere else. Girls who are pregnant against their will, boys who have caught low-level spirits in the forest, and everything among the adults that the herbalist in the village cannot heal.

She does not work with matter. She works with the energy behind it.

That is why her tribe finds her uncanny. It has been a long time since her work was respected.

The illusion of separation has already progressed too far.

The others leave her alone because they see how she helps, but they don't like having her around. She sees what they cannot see - reason enough to be frightening.

There are constant rumors that men are roaming the forests, brutally killing women like her. In the name of a god they brought with them from abroad.

When she delves into Akash, she sees that these men really do exist. She also knows that they will find her eventually.

When they come, the first thing they do is break her knees so she can no longer run away. Then they cut out her tongue so she can no longer call for help.

Almost a little unnecessary - no one would have come anyway.

For days they torture her, rape her, just for the pleasure of it. Her consciousness must fragment in order not to break completely.

One night, she manages to make contact with her jay. He brings her a herb that she had hidden for this very occasion.

She chews it and dies – knowing that she will spend many of her future lives retrieving and reintegrating the fragmented parts of herself from those days.

“A new form of initiation,” is her last thought - “everything will be as it should be.”