Wild Place (Archived)

***
The Church was full of children that time on a Sunday. Sunday School had never been his ideal choice, but he liked graves, and it was the only way he could get near them.
Graves: blocks of polished, jagged, beautiful, depressing stone. Church was insignificant compared to them. The graves seemed strange compared to the building itself; like they were part of the wilderness, like they had grown from the soil, tended by the hand of Nature. Beautiful, rambling Mother Nature. Why was she a mother anyway? Couldn’t she have been Father Nature? The boy watched as child after child in their special uniform: neat, crisp, so unlike his, hurried head down and minds on the Holy Spirit, to the crumbling shell of worship. He could hardly bear it: another Sunday in a stuffy, tiny church chanting meaningless prayers and warbling high-pitched hymns. Every Sunday seemed to be concentrated on how sinful he was, as were all young people... But, worst of all, he had to chant in agreement that he was evil and sinful and bad. He wondered if he were sinful as he watched a young girl skip to the oak doors. If he was, why hadn’t he died early, or caught the plague or fallen into the fire filled pit of Hell? He always supposed that that would happen to a child who was “possessed by the Devil” as the balding, old vicar always so dramatically put it. He had never understood...
Maybe he was evil and sinful, but he didn’t care, he thought, as he turned to plunge into the tangled undergrowth and study the graves. He’d pay the price, if there was a price to pay, but he didn’t care now; he’d worry about that later. For now, he had other things on his mind...
***
Thera was not in the mood. In fact, with the rain pouring down: ice cold nature’s arrows, it was hardly surprising. She shivered, and eyed the infestation of weeds clustered under the crab apple tree. Thera hated nettles. They were nasty, little sneaking things, wriggling their way through the undergrowth and viciously attacking anyone in sight. Her dog was buried under there. They were insulting Jigsaw’s memory.
She glanced at her hands, tightly covered in muddy gloves, and then looked over at the crab apple tree again. She hated that too, but her parents adored it. It took up too much space, she thought. Wincing with the bitter cold, Thera reached down to pull up the first nettle, the wind nipping playfully at her fingertips.
“Drat you,” Thera hissed in contempt. “That hurt!”
A dart of electricity had fizzled through her threadbare gardening gloves; Thera frowned at the nettles. They waved back angrily.
“Trust me, talking to some nettle! I must be mad,” she mumbled as she pulled the plant out of the ground, roots and all. “One down... Many to go!”
She cried out as a jolt of pain hit her hand with unnatural force.
“Argh! Honestly, nettles are so annoying! I hate nature!”
The wind rushed around her head and Thera felt thousands of sharp jabs all at once. A million knives were slicing her skin, cold metal.
Thera screamed.