Greetings, Talebones Readers!
Ready for something a little different?
This is a horror/mystery tale that I am calling Limbs.
Though the whole story is pretty much written, it stretched just past the wordcount I prefer for a single-post story, so I’ve decided for ease of reading to present it in two halves. The second half should be polished up and posted within the week.
I don’t want to say too much about this one up front—especially what originally inspired it—but I’ll just present it as-is and allow you all to draw your own conclusions.
I hope you enjoy!
❗ By Way of Disclaimer: this is a horror tale, and therefore may contain themes and situations that are darker than my average fare.
Reader discretion is advised.
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I dream, sometimes, of the Shepherds and the way they pulled us from the earth. Cold and shivering fresh from our amnion, we shrilled and reached for their faces and throats in desperation; knowing, somehow, what they intended to do. When they split us our howls of grief rent the night sky scattered like stars and tumbled to the soil again like drops of blood. I have never felt Home again since. Have you?
*******
Limb I: Olivia
Olivia Holt woke in the frigid, emerald light of a deep-forest morning. Cozy in her small tent and a sleeping bag softened with use, she half-hoped to soak in the warmth for a little bit longer, but between the squeeze of her bladder and the reason she was out here at all, she knew she had to get up and face the chill.
The day would not wait for her.
Once she was out of the sleeping bag her movements turned practiced and practical. It was early yet, but the forest around her was alive with birdsong and little else, just an utter quiet, a calm unique to the lonely places where tourists rarely go.
Olivia made coffee on the camp stove, ate a simple breakfast of instant oatmeal, then packed up her spartan campsite while she brushed her teeth and changed back into her hiking clothes. She stowed her trash, peed in a discrete place, and then got started down the narrow trail. Looking back, she was pleased to see that she had left little trace that she had ever been there. Just a vague scuffing in the soil, soon to vanish with time and weather.
Experienced as she was with backwoods camping, mostly when she was younger, Olivia knew better than to let her guard down on her hike. The Olympic National Forest covered nearly a million acres, and this trail was not on any map. If she put a foot wrong or behaved recklessly no one was coming to save her. She knew all too well how easy it would be to disappear out here.
Despite the risk, the hike had proved pleasant enough so far. The weather had held for her, mountain-cold but no rain. The sides of the narrow trail were thickly carpeted with moss and all was damp and spongy and clean-smelling.
At this point in her journey she wasn’t too far from the relative civilization of Lake Quinault, where she had left her car. If she turned back now and walked at a steady pace she could probably be back at the lodge before dark, if she wanted.
But what she was looking for wasn’t behind her, it was ahead. The coordinates for this small, unmarked trailhead were the only lead. The police had given up, but Olivia wouldn’t.
What else is left?
What else can I do?
She would go as deep as she dared before she would give up her search.
*******
Limb II: The Phone Call
On the night before Cassie went missing, she had called Olivia in a thrilled rush.
“I’m on the edge of it, Liv,” her sister had said, fizzy with something like glee. “I’m on the very edge of it, I can feel it. I’m about to blow it all wide open. This is big.”
She had received evidence, she said. Incontrovertible, she said.
Olivia, who had been in the middle of making a late dinner after a long shift at work, shoved the microwave door closed harder than she meant to and sighed into the phone.
“You always say that,” she said. “You always say it’s a sure thing, that you’re about to blow it all wide open...”
“But this is different this time.”
Olivia punched the numbers into the microwave’s keypad and snapped the start button. “Listen to yourself. This isn’t even a controversial one. This isn’t ghosts or Bigfoot, something with back-and-forth. You’re talking about a known hoax, Cassie. They use that website in schools to teach little kids about Internet literacy. It’s not real.”
“Geez, I’m not talking about Zapato.” Cassie sounded disgusted at her sister’s ignorance. “Zapato’s website is obviously bullshit, but it was based on something true. There is plenty of historical evidence of tree-dwelling cephalopods. Did you know that the Ancient Greeks thought that octopuses were amphibious and climbed olive trees?”
Olivia massaged her temples, watching her bowl of leftover pasta spin slowly in the microwave’s glow. Not for the first time, she was wondering how she and Cassie could even be related, let alone twin sisters. Fraternal, she was quick to remind people. Not identical. Not identical in any way. They didn’t look alike, and they certainly didn’t act alike.
At some point in her sister’s development, an innocent love for the fantastic had turned into an obsession with cryptids, and a promising career in marine biology had taken a sharp and sinister turn into the “study” of cryptozoology. With no parents to guide them and only a longsuffering sister to look askance at her choices, Cassie had tumbled headlong into the world of conspiracies, government cover-ups, secret histories, and parallel dimensions.
The two of them naturally drifted apart, something Olivia often felt as a gaping wound and Cassie didn’t even seem to notice at all.
Olivia tuned back into the phone call as Cassie was detailing more ancient evidence for the tree-dwelling cephalopod, in the too-patient teacher voice that she used whenever Olivia pushed back on her explanations for the bizarre.
“Yeah, well, the Ancient Greeks believed a lot of things that wouldn’t pass muster anymore,” Olivia interrupted, terse, pouring herself a glass of wine just a little past her normal limit. “The point is that you can’t keep wasting your life on this stuff, Cassie. It’s going to do you real harm. It probably already has.”
There was a pause on the other end before Cassie murmured a single word that Olivia didn’t catch thanks to the microwave beeping at the end of the cooking time.
“What?” she said.
“Flesh,” Cassie repeated. “Someone sent me a flesh sample of a tree octopus.”
Olivia felt the frustration calcify inside of her. She yanked open the microwave door. “No, someone sent you a flesh sample of a normal octopus and told you that it was a tree octopus and for some reason that I’ll never understand, you believed it.”
“It’s not a normal octopus, Olivia. I tested it. DNA doesn’t lie. And along with the sample they sent me actual coordinates of where to locate this thing. This is real.”
For a moment, a genuine chill rippled down Olivia’s spine. It wasn’t so much the things her sister was saying. It was the tone. It was a martyr’s certainty.
“Cassie—”
“No, listen. The genetic material is definitely an octopus, but it matches none of our known species. And the texture…Liv, it’s the strangest thing you ever saw. It’s not normal. This isn’t nothing. This is important, don’t you get it? It could be one of the most significant discoveries in natural history as a science.”
“What you’re doing and what you believe in isn’t science, for the last time.” Olivia sipped the wine and stared at the pasta where it waited for her inside the microwave. The spaghetti noodles made her think of tangled tentacles, writhing in the sickly red sauce. Her appetite vanished. “It’s stupid. The whole thing is stupid. I used to think you were too smart to chase this stuff, but honestly I’m not sure anymore. I really think you’ve lost your grip on reality.”
Cassie went quiet for a minute, like she was thinking, or letting her sister’s words sink through her skin. Then she said, quietly, “Looking for answers isn’t stupid, but thanks for the support. Bye, Liv.”
The call ended.
Olivia looked down at her phone screen for a moment, slightly dumbfounded that Cassie had hung up on her. Usually her sister relished any opportunity to keep her on the phone for hours, just arguing details and semantics back and forth, seeking connection even in conflict like a lonely child might.
But not this time. And for reasons she couldn’t name—and wouldn’t become obvious until Cassie disappeared—that worried her.
*******
Limb III: The Twin Thing
Olivia climbed up on the trailside boulder and rested for a minute, stretching her legs out and rolling her neck. The spring sun tried to reach down through the thick canopy above her, but the deeper into the woods her hike took her the more tangled the interlacing fingers, the dimmer the greens and browns, the truer the ever-damp.
Out of habit she checked her phone, but there was no signal. Just as well. She didn’t want to know how many angry voicemails she had gotten from her manager when she didn’t show up to work the day before. It wasn’t like her to leave a job like that, without warning, but she had felt the sudden desire to embark on this hike like it was some kind of call to war. It felt too important to bother with something as silly as a two-week’s notice.
The idea that she had blown up what was left of her life to come out here had not escaped her. But she was forty-four, unmarried, childless. She did not own a home. She had no other family aside from Cassie. All she had was a retail job that paid the bills just fine but did not inspire. And after this, she definitely didn’t have that anymore, either.
Her lack of anchoring was one of the few things she and her sister had in common. When Cassie went missing two months earlier, Olivia watched firsthand as the authorities struggled to make some sense out of her sister’s life, to see if they could decipher what had made her disappear. But a middle-aged woman with no connections—no spouse, no partner, no kids, no parents, a vague job and odd hobbies—might as well be a spirit, a wisp of mist. Who can know her ways?
It was little wonder to Olivia why unmarried women in the old days either moved into the cloister or out to the woods. There was something about the canopy of a cathedral, the ceiling of the trees, that seemed to give a rootless woman meaning that she couldn’t find anywhere else. It gave her context.
In the investigation, the police had asked Olivia all kinds of questions about Cassie, none of which she had sufficient answers for.
Did she have any secrets?
Enemies?
Reasons to want to disappear?
Olivia didn’t know. The “twin thing” had never applied to them. She didn’t feel her sister’s joy or pain. She didn’t read her sister’s mind. All she had were guesses.
The Holt sisters were like mirror images on two sides of an unscalable fence, living parallel lives in isolation.
In the end, the case went as cold as a corpse when the police realized that Cassandra Holt was a woman with strange beliefs and nothing holding her in place, keeping her sane. Not even her twin sister; they were essentially estranged in every way that mattered.
So Cassie followed her madness into the woods and vanished. Who can be surprised?
Olivia leaned back against the rock and stared up at the place where the sky spread out in patchwork snippets, bright seams, reaching fingers of light through the tree boughs, and she tried to imagine Cassie out here doing the same. Tried to imagine her living, breathing, and waiting to be found, despite how impossible that felt.
Digging deep, she tried to tap in to something beyond reality, to feel Cassie’s presence, dead or alive.
But all she could hear was her own voice on the phone, the condemnation of their final conversation.
It’s stupid.
The whole thing is stupid.
Olivia winced. Not much of a mind-reader, and probably for the best.
She climbed down from the rock, shouldered her backpack, and kept going down the narrow trail, following what she hoped were her sister’s phantom footsteps.
*******
Limb IV: Hazel
At dusk, Olivia found herself a decent spot just off the trail and set up her campsite again, tent on a level-enough patch of moss with a few good fallen logs nearby for sitting on. Though she had the supplies with her she chose not to light campfires unless she had to, hoping not to attract unwanted attention, flirt with the gamble of a stray spark, or spend the excessive energy of gathering firewood. Instead, she set up her camp stove near a log to boil water for coffee and rehydrate her powdered-soup dinner.
It had been a long hike, and she was feeling it. She wasn’t sure how many miles she had covered but it was significant. There was a time in her younger days when hiking out in the woods felt like a relaxing day out, but these days her legs and feet absorbed every step like a delayed insult.
Even so, sitting on the log with her lantern lit and camp stove hissing under the small, lightweight aluminum kettle, the peace settled around her and turned the evening sweet. She could already tell that it would be a cold and clear night. The night-noises crept in as the light fell, the chorus of frogs in the lower marshy places rising up into the higher hills while owls called across the valleys to each other, divided in every way except in voice.
As Olivia watched a lick of early steam rise from the kettle, eyelids getting heavy from the fatigue of the day, a branch snapped in the opposite direction from the trail and she froze. The can of bear-grade pepper spray sat by her foot, always within reach, and she took it up now, removing the safety clip with a flick of her thumb. She rested it between her knees and waited, trying to look out past the circle of her lantern’s glow.
It was all part of the backwoods experience, of course, and Olivia was no stranger to nocturnal sounds. You had to be aware and respectful of the animals. After all, this was their home, not hers. It was best to act wisely, keep out of their way, take no unnecessary risks. The likelihood was high that the sound she had heard was something harmless, probably a deer.
Despite a thin exhale of fading light still present in the sky as the sun sank behind the mountains, here in the deep woods it might as well be night. The shadows beyond her lantern’s circle were absolute, a shapeless void, a held breath.
Because of this, Olivia startled hard like a prey animal when a shape appeared there at the boundary of the light without warning.
It was a person. A woman.
But not Cassie. Of course it wasn’t Cassie.
It was a short old woman, wrinkled in all the right and generous ways. She had two frizzy, fluffy braided gray pigtails under her straw hat and held a hand-carved walking stick in one hand, natural, as if it was part of her. Though her presence was unexpected she was clearly familiar with hiking and prepared for the trail, wearing sturdy leather boots, the right layers of clothes, and a big bulky woolen sweater.
“Oh, now. Didn’t mean to startle you,” the old woman said, and her voice was soft, as if she didn’t use it often. “Not every day I see folks out here. I saw the light and couldn’t help my curiosity.”
Olivia had the brief, bewildering realization that the woman had not come from the direction of the trail. But she let this thought pass through her for the moment, lowering the bear spray to the ground, though she kept the safety clip off.
“This doesn’t seem like the kind of place people wander through by accident,” Olivia said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice and bring her heart rate back to normal. “I really wasn’t expecting to see anyone else tonight.”
The old woman shrugged. “I live on the edge of these woods, so I do a lot of wandering. Keeps me young. May I sit?”
Olivia didn’t say yes, but the woman came forward anyway and sat on a log on the opposite side of the camp stove.
“Name’s Hazel,” the old woman said. “Looks like your water is boiling.”
Steam was flowing out of the spout as the water boiled fretfully in the kettle. Olivia removed it carefully, pulled out her small jar of instant coffee, and heard herself ask, “Would you like some? I don’t have any cream or sugar or anything—”
Hazel nodded. “How kind of you. I would love it.”
So Olivia unpacked her spare cup from her backpack and poured coffee for herself and for Hazel, handing it across.
In that brief moment of closeness when the old woman took the cup, an odd feeling swept over Olivia. It was an uncanny familiarity. Something about the woman’s hands, maybe, or the look on her face. Something about the motion of reaching for her. The woods. The harsh light.
The feeling dissolved as soon as Olivia withdrew back to her own side of the stove and settled herself down on the log.
Hazel cradled the mug in her hands and said, “If I’m right, you’re not here because you want to be. You’re here because you have to be.”
Olivia didn’t like the knowing look the old woman gave her, but she knew there was no use playing coy. “I’m looking for my sister. Cassie. She disappeared out here two months ago. This trailhead was the only lead. The case went cold and they stopped looking for her, so…”
“So here you are.”
Olivia shrugged. “She’s my only family. It feels wrong to give up on her.”
She didn’t like how noble that made her sound, but she couldn’t figure out another way to explain her presence out here. She knew the likelihood of finding Cassie at all, let alone alive, was next to nothing. It was about Cassie, but also it wasn’t. And she didn’t expect a stranger to understand that.
“Was she out here hiking?” Hazel asked.
Olivia hesitated. “Not really. She was a…she’s a scientist.”
“Oh?” The old woman raised an eyebrow. “What does she study?”
Olivia sighed. “She’s a trained marine biologist, but she’s currently interested in…um…in cryptids.”
“Ah.” The old woman smiled. “Sasquatch and things.”
Olivia sipped her coffee. It was too hot for the gulp she took and she grimaced. “Yeah. That kind of stuff.”
“Lots of folks come out here for that. This place is loaded with stories about ‘em. Hard not to believe in hidden creatures and strange monsters in a place like this.”
Olivia nodded out of politeness, but couldn’t quite agree. These woods were beautiful, yes, but in the end they were just woods. Full of incredible biodiversity on their own without adding anything to it. Why can’t places just be beautiful without magic or mysteries or conspiracies or anything like that? Why can’t they be alive, but not awake or aware of us in ways we find frightening?
After all, Olivia couldn’t find much real dignity in the idea of a tree octopus, no matter how much the Ancient Greeks thought it was real.
The old woman continued, “I’ve lived here for a long, long time, and I’m always surprised by the things I find out here. It’s certainly never boring. Even the little, natural cycles of birth, growth, death, and rebirth in this place are the cycles of the whole world, the miniature a reflection of the grand, the divine. Roots in the earth, branches reaching to heaven. It’s quite poetic, really. The Great Limbs that hold everything together.”
Oh, great. Olivia felt the conversation drifting into the kind of stuff she would argue over with Cassie, so she tried to steer it back to familiar ground, small talk. After all, she was sitting in the dark with a stranger.
“Do you live out here by yourself?” Olivia asked.
“No, certainly not,” Hazel replied. “Never. I am absolutely never alone.”
It was said with quiet ferocity, too vague to be good conversation. But something about the way the woman said it made the hairs on Olivia’s arms and neck rise. It also stirred an unusual emotion within her, a heaving tide of something.
Sorrow, maybe? Envy?
Because she had always felt alone. Always. Even around Cassie, like there was a divide between them that they could never cross. They had never known their parents, passed from foster home to foster home, raised by everyone and no one. Friends came and went. Jobs came and went. Cassie went to college on an academic scholarship, sank herself into her school work, and came away with a degree and not much else. Olivia worked job after job, made enough money to live on.
Forty-four years in utter isolation, even in crowded rooms, even with a twin sister who was supposed to be her lifeline. It almost felt like a cosmic joke, the pain of it all. But it was a pain she had kept hidden within. After all, she had no one to tell it to; a vicious cycle. Round and round the wheel of solitude, tamping down on the wild desire for something more—something better—until it was fully stifled within her.
A tear burned in the corner of Olivia’s eye, unexpected. She wiped it away quickly with a fluid and casual motion, kept her voice light.
“That sounds like quite the life,” she said. “Living in these beautiful woods and surrounded by family all the time. Sounds really nice.”
Hazel watched her over the stove, the lantern light casting harsh shadows on her old, craggy face. Like living stone.
“Funny you mention family,” the old woman said, “because I sure didn’t.”
Olivia didn’t know what to say, afraid she had caused offense.
But Hazel just added, with a note of eerie sympathy in her voice, “Your loneliness was long, and I sure am sorry for it, but it was a crucible, Youngest. It had a purpose. You may not understand that now, but you will soon enough. You’ll learn it, the deeper you go.”
It was Olivia’s turn to wonder if she should be offended at the way the woman seemed to assume things about her and her life. Discomfort filled her from head to toe, an intense sensation of being observed, watched. Like the trees knew her secrets. Like the old woman had disarmed her and displayed her naked to the world.
Silence seeped in as the owls in the valley moved further away on their soft and soundless wings. Olivia wished there was a campfire to stare at, but instead she just watched the night-bugs dance around the lantern, unable to meet the old woman’s gaze. Thankfully she didn’t have to, because Hazel stood up presently and set her cup down next to the camp stove.
The cup was empty, but Olivia didn’t recall seeing her drink any of it.
“Thanks for the company,” the old woman said. “I should be on my way, now. Plenty of miles to cover before bed.”
She stretched, picked up her walking-stick, and said, “Don’t stop, Youngest. This trail only leads one way. You’re here now, and that’s what’s important.”
Before Olivia could speak, could ask anything more, Hazel turned on her booted heel and left the circle of light, the underbrush parting and shivering as she passed, until there was nothing but silence and true darkness beyond the lantern’s glow.
Always packed with quotable snippets! Equal parts giving and holding back to make us readers wonder (and hope and fear) what’s coming next!
The knowing irony of "Why can’t places just be beautiful without magic or mysteries or conspiracies or anything like that?" is delicious