Death: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Tree's Scorn

Ecological Body Possession Horror

1875

“What in the blazes are you doing, woman?” Thomas shouts at Elsbeth. She nearly jumps out of her seat by the fire, attempting to hide the book she was reading. Thomas despised her reading books for pleasure or anything but chores for that matter. After working all day, finding his lazy wife reading when she should be preparing dinner is deplorable. It takes all his strength not to throw her book in the fireplace.

“I am so sorry, Thomas. I-I was taking a break and lost track of time. P-Please forgive me,” she stammered nervously. Elsbeth, caught filling her mind with words again, is continually walking on eggshells with Thomas. She bucked against the rules for proper lady-like behavior at every turn, and as a result often suffered his ire.

“I’ve given enough rope to hang yourself with your excuses. Enough of your insolence – no more. It’s time for dinner – get yourself in the kitchen,” Thomas hisses with menace. Elsbeth scurries to the kitchen to prepare food while Thomas grunts and walks to the water closet to clean up after a sweltering day on the farm.

Dinner is quiet as usual, with Elsbeth looking down at her food while she ate. She avoids looking at Thomas’ scowling face when he is in a mood – nothing good ever comes of it. She nods her head with appropriately timed responses, still looking down at her food, as he rattles off about the work they need to do.

“Elsbeth, you need to harvest potatoes in the field tomorrow so we can sell them in town. I need to tend to the animals and . . . Are you listening?” he questions, noticing she is not paying proper attention to his instructions. She looks up to finally meet his eyes.

“Yes. Collect potatoes tomorrow to prepare to bring into town,” she weakly confirms, a dull, glazed look in her eyes.

“Yes, you have it right. Now, clean this up. Spotless, this time. I’m going to bed.”

Elsbeth watches him walk to the bedroom as she clears away dishes and utensils from the table. She sighs heavily as she glances around the kitchen - it seems too daunting, and she is exhausted. Scrubbing counters, washing dishes, and tidying the house takes the remainder of the evening. Elsbeth changes into her nightgown and slips into bed knowing the next day would be challenging.

---

The next morning, Elsbeth walks the path along the edge of the forest surveying the health of the potato crops while Thomas tends to the animals. She cherishes the feeling of wind in her hair and sun on her face, savoring the moment of peace. She often walks this path under the guise of tending the land, but in truth, it is to steal a moment of solitude away from the burden of work. It feels endless – hungry animals, harvesting crops, and the demands of her husband.

Elsbeth walks along the well-worn path, her mind deep in troubled thoughts. Marriage is not what she imagined it would be. As a young girl she expected to feel more love in marriage, not living the life of an indentured servant with a womb. Nobody told her how she would toil all day in the field and pull a second shift in the evenings tending to Thomas’ needs. Twenty years her senior and crotchety, Thomas is wholly unconcerned with what Elsbeth thinks, or how she feels.

After she married, Elsbeth privately complained to her mother about her unhappiness and Thomas’ temperament. “Mother, why can’t he be nice to me? All he asks me to do is work on the farm and tend to his needs. What about my life? When do I get a say?”

“Darling, this is the expectation of all wives in marriage – a proper lady lives to serve her husband first. She must always keep her composure and appearance, and yield to his desires - and never say no. I’m sorry that you are having trouble adjusting, but these are the expectations,” her mother advised sternly. It was clear she would not help her daughter.

“But there is no love! He wants children, but my womb will not fall pregnant. He is not tender with me, and I am so unhappy,” Elsbeth complained. Her mother embraces the role of a dutiful wife like an unchangeable truth, but certainly not Elsbeth – ever the rebellious daughter. Her family married her off as soon as they could manage a reasonable dowry, trapping her indefinitely to a brute of a man. After Elsbeth realized she had no advocate, she felt dejected and depressed at the thought of living the rest of her life in this marriage. She gave up speaking about it any further to others.

In her mind, she fights every expectation of a proper wife - obeying God, yielding to her husband, raising children and endless work. The addition of children to the household would only add to her misery, and she felt thankful she was not yet pregnant. Holding this much pain in her heart is depleting her spirit - I could have done so much better, perhaps waited for a better man, gone to school, anything but this hell. Soon, she will return to the house . . . and to Thomas. It never ends.

Step by step, Elsbeth unwinds her mind from these persistent worries. A daily walk is her source of serenity. She has the same thoughts every day and this peaceful moment is short-lived as Elsbeth trips and falls face-first into the dirt without warning, dust clouding around her from the impact of her body on the ground. She sits up, wipes the dirt off her face with her apron, and surveys the path to determine how she fell. Her skirts caught on a twisted, knotted root raised across the path and subsequently twisted around her legs, causing her to fall forward. She untangles her skirts and stands up. Elsbeth walks this path every morning and came to remember every tree and plant at the edge of the forest over the last year. She is sure this root was not there yesterday and follows it back with her eyes towards the edge of the forest to see it connect to a young incense cedar sapling - it was three feet tall.

“How did I not notice this little sapling before today? This is so strange; I know it was not here before!” she wonders aloud. Elsbeth approaches the tree and holds the top twigs of the sapling between her fingers to examine its scaly leaves in her palm. “Why is this tree vibrating? How is this happening? What in the heavens created this?” she ponders with curiosity, bringing her face closer to the sapling to study it closer.

Elsbeth notices small drops of white, slimy residue dripping onto her palm from the twigs. “This is no tree sap – why is it moving? Dear Lord, it’s all over my hand!” she exclaims with horror, releasing the twigs. She wipes her hand on her apron, to no effect, as the residue moves toward her open palm with an unnatural momentum. She looks at the cedar sapling and sees more residue oozing from within the twigs and leaves, dripping down the trunk and pooling on the forest floor at the base of the sapling.

“This is no tree from God, it is truly wicked. This is the devil’s tree!” Elsbeth declares. She prays with desperation to cast the evil away while backing away onto the path. “From sudden, unprepared, or evil death, from the snares of the devil, from anger, hatred, or ill will, from eternal death, Jesus, deliver me!”

Her palm burns, and full panic sets in. Intense pain explodes up Elsbeth’s arm as the residue grows over her palm, covering her entire hand and spreading over her body. Her head pounds, and with each pulse of pain she feels her entire body consumed by wickedness. She drops to her knees and clutches her head, feeling dizzy and confused. Her breath quickens as she falls to her side on the ground and curls into a fetal position. The deafening sound of her heartbeat echoes in her head. Her vision fills with bright, blinding light behind her closed eyes - she is terrified and helpless to stop it.

Elsbeth opens her eyes after a time, head no longer in pain and feeling a curious calm after the chaos her body just experienced. She sits up, feeling the powerful entity consume her heart and pump the potent residue throughout her body. Elsbeth breathes deeply in a feeble attempt to regain control, to no avail, as a voice invades her mind.

Elsbeth. We see you. We feel you. We know you. You cannot hide from us.

“No, no, no, no. This isn’t possible! You are the devil!”

Oh, no, not your devil. Much more than that. We are one with you, you are one with us.

“If you are not the devil, then who are you? What do you want?!”

We are the ground you walk on, the trees that grow, the roots that connect all things on the earth. You need us to live. We need you to live. We chose you.

“Why did you choose me? I am nobody. I have nothing to offer, nothing to my name and no freedom.”

We will help you with your freedom. You want to leave this place. We know you. In return you must help us.

“What do you need? What can I possibly do that would grant my freedom?”

Humans are destroying us. We need to take back the land. We will show you what we need, and you will help us. Only then can we grant you true freedom.

Elsbeth, no longer in a state of fear, listens to the voice. Her mind yields to its terms - this wickedness is now inside her body, and she has no choice but to comply. She is desperate for her freedom from this dreary life, and it promises just that – away from Thomas, endless work, and a life she never wanted.

“I will do it – but I must be free when I am done helping you. I need your guarantee.”

We will show you what it means to be truly free.

---

Elsbeth walks the path back to the house unsure what the voice will ask her to do, and it is quiet for the moment. She feels a curious energy and power flow through her body. This new state is certainly mutual, and she enjoys the feeling. This could change everything.

She walks into the house to the water closet, grateful for Thomas’ absence, so she can clean up from her fall. Thomas will suspect if I look disheveled – I must keep up appearances. Her dress is filthy, covered with dirt and twigs. Stray locks pulled out of her loose bun and framed her face in an untidy mess. Her face and arms are dusty and scraped. She notices a dry texture developing on her hands – subtle, but she is sure if she covers up, she can hide it. Looking in the mirror, her brown eyes have a new flecked amber hue, her vision sharper than ever. After cleaning up she re-pins her hair, and changes into a new dress looking more like her old self.

“I know what happens to women who are slovenly, don't keep their home and their person neat and clean, have meals prepared when their husband comes in the door at the end of the day – the asylum. I know ladies from town that went to asylums at their husband’s behest and never came back. Best to not raise further suspicion,” she speaks at her image in the mirror, acknowledging that her husband is already unhappy and unkind toward her. Her weak conviction and shaky tone of voice is not a convincing performance. Her behavior of late was proof.

Elsbeth walks to the kitchen window to locate Thomas, seeing him in the barn working with the animals. She has at least an hour’s time before he finishes the chores and walks back to the house for dinner.

We are ready. Walk to the crop field next to the forest’s edge.

Elsbeth picks up a basket she uses for harvesting crops to keep the appearance of working, just to be safe, unsure what would happen if Thomas deviated from his chores to seek her out. She walks the path between the fields towards the forest, which is conveniently out of view of her husband. Whatever she is about to do had to be worth the freedom promised.

Look at the rows of crops in front of you. Walk along the outer edges.

Elsbeth walks toward the corner of the potato field and turns left to walk along the farthest edge to stay out of sight. She stops after six feet when the voice speaks again in her mind.

Stop. Look down at the row of crops in front of you. Start digging with your hands into the earth. Your hands are more powerful than you know.

Staring at her hands, Elsbeth notices the texture of her skin changed again. The rough skin she noticed while cleaning up transformed into a brown-hued tree branch texture, as if she were becoming a living tree in human form. She flexes her fingers, feeling a new stiffness. Elsbeth kneels and begins to dig into the soil with her new hands, pushing aside the potatoes she encounters along the way. When the hole is a foot deep, the voice speaks again.

Good, Elsbeth. We will help you for this next part . . .

“Help me? . . . I don’t understand,” she said as her stomach churns with a fresh wave of nausea. She feels an unnatural molten swirling liquid in her belly threatening to retch. Hot tears stream down her cheeks as it forces its way up her throat, burning her esophagus along the way.

Put us in the earth!

Elsbeth, with no choice but to do just that, retches into the hole, her body heaving. She closes her eyes and takes a moment to recover from this terrible sickness. Her body is in a cold sweat and her face is pale white. It happened so fast she didn’t realize what had just occurred.

“What did you do to me? What came out of my body?” she asks nervously as she processed the events in her head. She looks inside the hole she dug and sees a small pool of white residue from the incense cedar sapling. It is alive, moving in a frenzy, bubbling up at the surface. Horrified, she realizes that her body is alive with this residue, and she has quite possibly done something she should not have – not that she ever had the choice.

We chose you to help us spread across the land – we are disappearing. Fill in the hole so we can take root in the earth.

Elsbeth, now at the mercy of this wickedness, has no choice but to comply. She scoops the soil into the hole with her hands and firmly pats it down. “I have made a deal with the devil. What have I done? I am going to hell, I know it. I am damned,” she sobs, with defeat in her heart. With desperation and perhaps foolishness, she stands up to flee but cannot run - her body is no longer under her control.

Elsbeth, we are not your devil. We are of the earth. We are eternal, elemental. Worshiped for millennia by ancient humans, respected. These new humans destroy our forests and murder our kind by burning and cutting. You are respectful to the land, we chose you. Each day you walk by the forest, we see you. We know you. We are one. With your help, we are making new roots in the earth to reclaim what was taken by humans.

“The root that tripped me … that was your doing? You sought me out?”

Yes. We waited for you. Let us show you how you have helped us.

Elsbeth’s mind floods with a vision of her newly dug hole – darkness . . . tree germinating in the fusion of white residue and soil . . . sapling rising to the surface . . . roots fighting their way down into the earth, forming deeper than any other to spread under the fields and forest.

“The residue will infect everything – food, plants, humans . . . the land will take everything back. Infestation . . .,” Elsbeth concluded with revulsion.

You finally understand.

It did not matter that the last vestige of humanity left in Elsbeth is horrified at the thought of infestation - she is only present in her mind. Her physical body is no longer under her control, and any fight she puts forth is useless. She stands over the sprouting sapling like a statue, and her human mind fills with seething contempt. The wickedness inside her, sensing her scorn, silences her opposition and consciousness – she is still there but no longer has a voice, as if she is in a dream where she cannot speak.

Silence, Elsbeth. We still hold our promise of freedom to you, but we have work to do. Our tree is sprouting, and the roots are growing. It will not take long.

---

Thomas works in the barn all afternoon, sweltering in the heat and tired to the bone. The animals need feeding and pens need cleaning. Too many repairs to count with no help. That good-for-nothing wife is somewhere in the fields, he’s not seen her most of the day. It seemed he does all the work around here, and Elsbeth complains at every turn. He thought that if he married a younger woman life would be better, but not this one. She doesn’t know it yet, but the town doctor is visiting this evening to evaluate her – her attitude is willful and unfitting for a woman. He has been spying on her private moments to witness her insolent behavior – laziness, disregarding his requests, denying her womb, moping about the house, reading books - and he wants nothing more to do with her. Outside of a beating, which he does not have the stomach to do to any woman, the doctor is the only solution he’d consider.

Lost in his thoughts, Thomas came back to himself to see the sun setting, and it is now time for the evening to begin. The doctor will arrive soon, and he needs to clean himself up for the visit. Walking to the house, he spies Elsbeth in the fields harvesting potato crops at the outer edge of the field with her basket. At least she was doing something around here for once. She stands up and walks further down the row, crouching down once again to pick more potatoes.

Something was wrong– why was she placing her face deep into the crops? It looked like she was getting sick. After a few minutes, she stands up to walk further down the row . . .  only to do the same thing again. Curious, that woman. Good thing the doctor is due to arrive soon. He walks inside the house, noting to himself to mention this to the doctor this evening.

Thomas walks to the water closet to clean up from the day’s work. Elsbeth carelessly tossed her dress on the floor – apron covered in soil, and her filthy dress is torn at the bottom of the skirts. Just one more thing against her in his mind. Sighing, he washes his face, arms, and hands, then changes into clean clothes. Wondering what Elsbeth is doing, he walks into the kitchen and looks out the window. She is usually at the house by now, however she is still moving down the row of potatoes, placing her head into the plants in that curious manner.

The arrival of the doctor’s horse-drawn carriage alerts Thomas that the evening’s events were about to unfold. He walks out of the house to greet the doctor. The attendant steps off the front carriage and unhitches the horses while the middle-aged doctor steps out of the carriage holding a large travel bag, greeting Thomas as he approaches.

“Hello Thomas! I hope you are well this evening. As promised, we are here to speak with you about your wife, Elsbeth, and her curious behavior of late.”

“Thank you for coming, Dr. Williams. I am hoping you can help. Please come in, we have a lot to discuss,” Thomas replies.

Thomas leads Dr. Williams and his attendant into the house, pulls out dining room chairs, and bids them to sit at the table. Dr. Williams put his large travel bag down by the door and joins both his attendant and Thomas. He begins to speak before Thomas can start the well-practiced rant against his wife.

“Thomas, let me introduce my attendant, Paul. He’s from the asylum just outside of town in case we decide to commit her for treatment.”

“Well, that’s the thing, Dr. Williams. She has been acting strange as of late, but today is the worst I have ever seen. I don’t understand why she is doing this!” Thomas begins.

“Please explain, Thomas. We need to know what she is doing,” Dr. Williams presses.

“Well, doctor, when we married last year, I had the highest of hopes for an obedient wife. A companion. But not Elsbeth - she is willful and disobedient – I often catch her reading books when she shouldn’t be. Why, yesterday evening after the day’s chores were done, I walked into the house expecting dinner to be ready. Do you know what I found? My wife filling her head with words from a book instead of cooking dinner. After I stopped her disobedience, she made dinner, but refused to speak to me unless spoken to, moping and quiet. I must remind her to work the fields and clean the house. She denies her womb claiming pain and poor mood. She’s unhappy and unwilling to change after many talks with her. I don’t know what else to do except defer to your expertise for what is making my wife so unwell. Elsbeth seems determined to go against me at every turn, nothing but defiance from her.”

“The asylum admits women like Elsbeth for treatment. Hysteria and madness are hard to treat, and rehabilitation is the focus. Asylums treat women so they can eventually be reintroduced as respectable members of society, and this is the moral imperative of these institutions,” Dr. Williams counsels.

“Where is she at this moment?” Paul inquires.

“This is the strangest part . . . she’s in the fields – I don’t understand her curious behavior. It’s nearly dark out there and she has not come back in. I did not let her know you were visiting this evening. It looks like she is harvesting potatoes, but I see her burying her face in the crops. Please help me, doctor,” Thomas pleads. His plan may have been prepared in advance to rid himself of Elsbeth, however her behavior today perplexes him. He can’t make any sense of it, causing genuine worry.

“Let’s go outside to find her and call her inside for a talk,” Dr. Williams replies.

Thomas picks up a lantern as it is almost dark. The moon’s light was all they would have otherwise. Thomas, with Dr. Williams and Paul behind him, walks to the potato field to approach Elsbeth. They each witness her curious retching into the soil, burying her face in the crops.

“Elsbeth, what are you doing out here in the dark? Why are you sick? Please come into the house so we can warm you by the fire and talk,” Thomas asks her in the gentlest tone he can muster. She turns her head up to him, sick and pale with tears running down her face, and nods her head to show she will follow them into the house. She struggles to get up and walks with Thomas’ aid back to the house, his arm around her waist. Elsbeth seems gaunt, thinner than before. Entering the house, Thomas places her on the floor by the fire with care and looks to Dr. Williams for help. He doesn’t know what to do, or what is happening to his wife.

“Elsbeth, I am Dr. Williams. You remember me from town, don’t you?”

Elsbeth looks up at his face but shows no recognition of the doctor. She simply looks around the room, at the men staring at her, at the fire, dazed. Dr. Williams studies her face and body language – gaunt cheeks, sunken eyes with an unusual bright amber hue, pale skin in a cold sweat. She will not make eye contact and hides her hands in the skirts of her dress, crying and mumbling to herself. The men cannot understand any of it.

“Elsbeth, we are here to help. Thomas is worried about your recent behavior and the current state we find you,” said Dr. Williams, louder and more direct this time.

“We must manage her with care. This poor woman is mad and needs to be committed to the asylum for treatment,” Paul whispers to Dr. Williams. Elsbeth continues to ignore the doctor and turns her head away.

“Thomas and Paul, let us speak in private,” the doctor requests, leading the men into the kitchen. “Elsbeth seems to be suffering from some kind of madness and hysteria. We need to take her to the asylum for evaluation and treatment. It really is the best plan for her.”

“We’ll take diligent care of her there, Thomas. We have the facility to treat her. Please consider this as your best option,” Paul adds.

Thomas initially planned to simply play the part of the concerned husband to the doctor when this part of the evening transpired. However, upon seeing Elsbeth in her current condition, he did not have to play the part at all - his concern is genuine. “Yes, Dr. Williams, I understand. You will take her for treatment at the asylum, for this I am grateful,” Thomas says with a heavy heart. His intentions of committing her happened, but not the way he intended.

“Very well, we will now take the next steps. Paul, please get my travel bag - it is by the door,” Dr. Williams instructs.

Paul retrieves the travel bag and places it on the kitchen table. Dr. Williams opens it and removes a white strait jacket. He unfolds it, handing it to Paul. “Given her current state, it is best we fit her into this so she cannot harm herself or others. After we secure her, we will bring her to the carriage for transport to the asylum.”

Dr. Williams and Paul carefully approach Elsbeth to lift her off the ground into a nearby chair. As they lifted under both arms, her eyes flew open. Her head turned to look at both the men handling her and the strait jacket with new alertness. She flings her body backwards and kicks at the men repeatedly until she is free from their grasp. She stands up in the corner of the room by the fire with nowhere to run as her body transforms. The men back away from her terrified as Elsbeth’s amber eyes take on an ethereal glow, fierce power emanating from her body. She removes her hands from her skirts to reveal rough, scaly patterns on her chestnut-brown skin.

“I’ve had enough of your torment and control. I am taking it all back, I will no longer be at the mercy of your whims and desires,” Elsbeth screams at the men, mostly at Thomas. Thomas looks terrified and overwhelmed, and Dr. Williams moves to grab the strait jacket from Paul.

“Oh no you don’t, you will never take me, I guarantee,” Elsbeth threatens with menace. She brings her arms forward, twisting her dark hands toward Dr. Williams. He notices her hands are no longer human – they have become tree branches with gnarly roots grown out at the ends in lieu of fingers, slowly moving back and forth. He imagines that the long sleeves of her dress hide her tree branch arms as well.

“You will learn what it is like to have freedom taken from you, Dr. Williams,” Elsbeth declares. Thomas and Paul stare, frozen with fear, as they witness the roots at the end of her tree hands fly towards the doctor, extending out like whips. Her root fingers circle around the doctor, legs to neck, tightening like a viper suffocating its prey. His head turns beet red from the pressure around his body, gagging and choking as his lungs compress. She smiles as she tightens once more – Dr. Williams’ eyes bulge out of their sockets, bleeding out of his mouth and ears.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Dr. Williams,” Elsbeth hisses.

She tightens the roots around his neck, causing his head to separate from his body and roll towards Thomas and Paul. Blood gushes out of the open neck wound and pools all over the floor in a thick layer. Elsbeth pulls the roots back into her body to release Dr. Williams, his fresh corpse falling into the pool of his blood with a wet splash. Stepping over the bloody mess, she turns her attention to Thomas and Paul cowering in the kitchen, cornered with nowhere to run.

“Dear husband, I am afraid our marriage is at an end, I’m sure you understand,” Elsbeth menacingly explains. As she turns to go into the kitchen, she sees both men huddling together on the floor, shaking and crying. “Oh, you cowardly men, how you shake with fear. I will enjoy this very much,” she says to them both with a wicked smile. Her hands extend several tree roots to seize Paul’s lower legs, dragging Paul away from Thomas’ grasp, and then extend more to wrap around his torso. Paul is on the floor sitting up, wrapped in roots, and at her mercy. Two more roots whip out of Elsbeth’s outstretched arms. The first pierces his heart, sending a river of blood down his torso, Paul screaming in pain. The second pierces the middle of his neck, wrapping around several times, and squeezing with force. His head falls off, rolling towards Thomas and sending a shower of blood all over the floor. Elsbeth unwinds her roots from Paul’s corpse, turning her attention to her husband.

“Thomas, I have saved you for last. You took my freedom, made me your slave, and reduced me to someone I hardly know. Marriage should not be this way,” Elsbeth said accusingly.

“Elsbeth, I’m sorry! Whatever I did to hurt you, I’m so sorry! I made a mistake – should have never brought those doctors here to take you. I didn’t know what to do, I was so resentful! Please forgive me!” Thomas desperately pleads to Elsbeth as he crawls towards her, crying and sobbing.

“Oh, it is too late for forgiveness, dear husband.” She lifts her hands towards Thomas, whipping her roots around both his arms, pulling in opposite directions. He screams in agony as both shoulders dislocate out of their sockets. She pulls harder, sinew flesh tearing as his arms fall away from his body, still wrapped in her tree roots. Blood pours out of the stumps, pooling on the floor. Thomas falls forward onto his torso, unconscious, but not for much longer.

“May you burn in hell, you bastard,” she curses Thomas, spitting on his body. She gathers her roots back into her body, feeling a freedom unlike anything she had ever felt before. Walking away from the kitchen and out the front door of her home, she breathes in the cool night air, power coursing through her body.

---

Elsbeth, finally free, turns to look back at the house. It was never her true home, just where she was captive to the life imposed upon her – the house that Thomas built. The power coursing through her body as she killed those men recedes back into the core of her body, allowing her to take a moment. She closes her eyes, so very tired, and takes a cleansing deep breath.

The confrontation in all its terrible viciousness set her free – she feels vindicated. The wickedness in her body gave her the power she needed to reclaim her life.

You did it, Elsbeth. You have gained freedom from your husband and his ill intentions.

“Finally, I am free!” she exclaims to the world looking up to the moon, spinning around with her arms in the air, until she realizes she now has a problem. “Where am I going to go now? I cannot stay here; these men will be missed, and someone will come looking for me.”

We will help you. Are you ready for the freedom we promised you? It is time to evolve.

“Yes, please! What do I need to do?”

Walk out to the fields by the new saplings you created in the crops. Take off your shoes and clothing. We will do the rest.

Elsbeth walks up the path to the edge of the potato field, approaching the newest cedar tree she rooted this evening. Taking off her shoes and clothing, naked in the moonlight, she feels ready for whatever this wickedness is about to do. Elsbeth sustained enough trauma to last a lifetime, so what could possibly be worse?

Stand next to the tree, we are ready.

She steps closer to the sapling, her feet on both sides of the sprouting branches. The earth vibrates underneath her, an unnatural energy shifting and swirling. Blinding pain courses through her body from her feet up to her head. Elsbeth screams as her feet tear apart between each toe back to her heels, splitting each foot into five bloody strips of bone and tendon at the end of each leg. They curl into themselves like talons, moving around with preternatural intelligence as they search for a way underneath the earth. As they dig down her bones darken and become tough, transforming into roots like her hands, peeling off the tendons at the earth’s surface.

Elsbeth no longer feels pain but is still alive due to the residue transforming her body earlier that day, her mind unconscious and helpless. She descends into the earth inch-by-inch as the the bones in her legs transform into dark roots, outer skin falling off as her body sheds her human form, piling around her on the ground. As the earth takes her knees, she is barely conscious. Her torso falls forward, bending at the waist as her lower body sinks. Elsbeth’s spine lowering causes her intestines, liver, and stomach to spill to the ground, spreading out in a wide, slippery span around her body. Her heart and lungs tumble out from underneath her ribs, rolling off the growing mountain of organs into the field of intestines surrounding it, creating a grotesque, wet platter of delicacies with Elsbeth the main course. As her shoulders and head sink, the skin of her neck, face, and hair peel away like a scalped facemask.

Elsbeth’s brain connects her awakening consciousness to the colossal new root under the ground, becoming a pulsating, pumping heart pushing residue into the field and forest’s root system. The earth now has a source, a mother. No longer human but something organic and elemental, something more, she travels along the connected roots as pure energy. She moves through the maze of pathways along the edge of the field, infusing her elemental spirit into each new sapling. These trees will grow strong, multiply, and spread the residue along all roots – contaminating food and plants along the way. The wickedness spreading across the region will infect humans who desecrate the earth, and they will never see it coming.

---

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Tree’s Scorn

© Erica Phillips

2023

Special thanks to

DOOM FICTION

for guidance on this story and

Tracy Quigley

for feedback and the gorgeous picture of the carved tree hands photo.

For a retrospective behind-the-scenes on the writing of this story, please read: