Excerpt: Paper Tigers

I’m sure it would have been the first warning sign had I actually cared enough to pay attention, but the fact that it was November and all of the trees were still bedecked with healthy green leaves didn’t register with me. I marched through the trees, heading as far from this... place... as I could.

“Where you goin’?” asked a female voice, playfully.

I stopped and looked around. There was nobody there.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hi,” the voice said.

I looked around again, still not seeing anybody, though she sounded as if she were right beside me.

“Where the hell are you?”

She giggled. Giggled. My body was shaking with anger and frustration.

“Show yourself,” I said.

Nothing. Not even a giggle. Then the wind picked up, blowing past me and through the leaves. The branches above me swayed back and forth as if dancing.

“Whatever,” I sighed and continued storming my way through the woods. I didn’t get far.

“It won’t work,” the voice said again.

“Seriously, you’re starting to piss me off.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice high and upset, as if genuinely sorry. “You still can’t leave, though.”

“And you’re going to stop me how?”

“I have my ways.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“Kay,” she said, as if my challenge would be no harder than breathing.

I stood still for a moment. She didn’t show herself or say anything else. I peered around, waiting. Then I rolled my eyes again and continued walking. A grin spread across my face as I could begin to see the end of the woods. I knew the highway was right on the other side. I picked up the pace, my feet once again having a mind of their own, and the next thing I knew, I was running.

And then I stopped, lost my balance, hit the ground, and came to a skidding halt, grasping at the roots sticking from the ground like a baseball player who thought about stealing third and changed his mind right before hitting the plate.

My feet dangled over the edge of the canyon.

In front of me, I could see the back of the Forbidden Chapel on the island in the middle of the canyon. Far below, on the other side of the island, was the river. I had completely turned around in the woods; I had made a circle. I hadn’t been walking long enough to completely go around the village (not to mention I had gone straight the entire time). I knew she had done this. I rose to my feet.

I heard the giggling again. “Told you.”

She--this voice--had done this? “Bullshit. I just got turned around,” I challenged, though I knew better.

The wind blew through the trees again, blowing the branches, which looked to be shrugging at me. “If you say so,” she said lightly. “But you still won’t be able to leave until I’m given permission to let you.”

“Permission? Permission from who?”

“The Master.”

I closed my eyes. “Let me guess: the old dude.”

“You really should show more respect,” she said, a seriousness in her tone for the first time.

“Whatever. I’ll just escape through the river.”

“Well, I couldn’t stop you there,” she admitted.

“Good, then--”

“--that’s my sister’s territory.”

“God dammit!”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Everything went quiet. There was no wind. No movement. No noise. The air turned thick. The sky seemed to darken, as did the leaves on the trees around me. A chill ran down my spine, as if every fiber of my being decreased in temperature a few degrees. Everything around me, from what I could see to what I couldn’t, felt dead. I’d never felt so strange, so... disturbed.

I stood frozen, my eyes moving slowly, my head not moving an inch, glancing around me.

“I’m... sorry?” I said.

I could feel something next to me, but I was afraid to look. Though I didn’t have to.

“She is offended,” the old man said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking over at him. He stared out across the canyon toward his house, the very house I had run out of in the opposite direction of where I currently was.

“You used Divinity’s name in vain. Any Divine Being who heard you is now offended.”

“I was talking to God?”

“Not the Ultimate Divine. An Earth goddess. The Spirit of the Forest.”

We stood silently next to each other for a long time.

“Am I dead?” I asked, my voice restrained.

I didn’t like how the old man paused. “No,” he finally said. “But you are in a place not many living see.”

“Are you dead?”

“I never had life as you know it.”

“So is this Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? What?”

As usual, he never looked at me directly when he spoke. “It is neither here nor there, neither Heaven nor Hell. It is a place for wayward souls and lost travelers, a place for those seeking something. It is a place for spirits and for guidance.”

“So if I’m not dead, and I’m certainly no god or spirit, why am I here?”

“You will know in time.”

I looked at him again, ignoring his answer. “Will she stay mad at me?” I’m not sure I wanted a Divine Being mad at me. There had to be some bad repercussions for that kind of thing.

“She will forgive you when you are ready to be forgiven.”

“I’m ready now.”


 “Are you?”