roots of all evil (a Halloween tale)

I woke up lying on a grave. At least I wasn’t in it.

I lay atop a scattering of leaves, atop a hardening of stone that held a carving of a name I didn’t know, atop a hole now filled with soil atop the worms that wriggle deep below, atop a coffin filled with bones from which no voice has been spoken nor heard for as long as it’s been gone.

I felt a carving of what must have been the date, born when, died when, my fingers tracing each and every numeral when dust to dust a funeral laid this soul to rest. ‘To rest’, ‘rest in peace’, such a strange word to use, ‘rest’ How restful is death? How much resting does a corpse do and does it even need to rest?

I blinked, my eyes slowly adjusted to the less of light somewhere in the middle of a night. When I was I didn’t know, where I was I didn’t know except I was clearly in a graveyard of, or a cemetery? By a church? I couldn’t say.

A slivering of silhouetted branches severing the sky into thirds, quarters, fifths, tenths, all sense of depth, for the moment defying definition.

Listen. I listened. Silence. No, not silence, rustling. Nature moving around me, barely, as though trying not to attract too much attention to itself lest the vagaries of night might smite them, just because they can. On this night, this night is, yes, I remember, all hallows eve, Halloween, a time when in a sense one year ends and another begins, when the year gets cut in two and opened wide, the gash when life and death collide.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, my watch, too dark to see but I hear it. Each second then the next counting up or counting down? I’ve never known for sure. Tick, tick, tick.

Running my hands over myself to check I was here. I was here. All of me? Yes, all of me in my Halloween party costume, I remember. What could I remember? Fancy dress? It was worth it, this dress a deepest almost black blue, flared from the waist, not unlike a doll, with one, no two petticoats, each with lace hems, and a corset top fastened with fine ribbon. A shawl, too warm I thought at the time but now very glad of it, lying here upon the grave wrapped in its velvet and silk.

I wore a veil. Yes. That explains much, the haziness of vision. I lift it, the dark remains as dark I at once more in focus. Black silk gloves. I’m was wearing black silk gloves. I still am. Black silk stockings, I was wearing black silk stockings. I touched my legs and found them still stocking-clad. Boots. I wore ankle boots. Black, zipped long the side, two tiny skull adornments dangling from each, making the quietest of tinkles as I walked. I still wore ankle boots, perfect for the costume and equally this autumnal weather.

Chill filled the air and my breath I watched with fascination come and go, like clouds without a reason to be clouds. Still, I didn’t stand. Despite the cold I felt warm inside my costume there upon the stone, somewhere and somewhen. Is this what it’s like to ‘rest in peace’? I hope whoever’s under me isn’t offended by my presence. I whispered an apology and promised I won’t overstay my welcome. Was I welcome?

An owl called, then another, a few more times then stopped. Silence, as it was, descended once again. The smallest of breezes plays round my ankles, round my knees, ruffling the petticoats then across my face. Warmer than cold but not warm enough to deserve the word warm. It felt, it felt, pleasing, enticing. I breathed it in and my exhalation danced away in patterns as though trying to tell me something; like looking for a message on a bathroom mirror through the steam.

A breeze travelled up my legs over my knees, beneath my petticoat, tantalising my stockings until it found the bare patch of thigh between their top and my underwear. Black, silk, decorated in lace with a small red bow sewn in, a hint of mischief, I thought when I bought them. I shuddered, it felt more than just a breeze, more like a presence. A something? A someone? Somewhere in the dark by the light of a pencil-line of waning moon and a few billion stars.

I heard deep breathing, quickening breathing. It was me. It was mine. Fear? Apprehension? Excitement? Anticipation? All of the above?

Again, the breeze, as gentle as before, as ephemeral, light upon my clothes, upon my skin lifting my dress, then one petticoat, then two, despite their weight, allowing more dancing air beneath, between my thighs, up around my waist. I reached out to my left and felt something smooth, gnarled but smooth, a root? A fallen branch? I couldn’t move it. I run my fingers over it, so smooth in a distorted kind of way. I couldn’t make it out in the dark. Then my hand was caught in it, or snagged by it?

That was clumsy. I pulled and pulled but my arm and hand just wouldn’t budge. I rolled over on my side to reach with my other hand but had barely moved before it too was pulled back down the same, snagged, bound. My arms now out-stretched I felt the more insistently the firmness of the stone beneath me. I was tangled in the roots. That must be it, but how did I manage that?

The breeze scattered dead leaves among the dead and among the one living, me, up again under my dress, my petticoats, seemingly in spirals, invisible as a breeze is.

I felt the roots tug tighter. I pulled at them but to no avail. Where had the moon gone. Suddenly it wasn’t there at all. Light lessened, dark darkened, my breath quickened. Tick, tick, tick. I was more pinned, more snagged and now by more roots.

A tickling sensation moved up the stocking of my right leg. That wasn’t the breeze, it felt, it felt like fingers. It couldn’t be, I’m here all alone. It couldn’t be. It continued making progress, slowly, twistingly, catching on the mesh. I hoped it didn’t tear them. It slithered around my knee.

A snake! Panic. But no, it’s winter, no snakes, too cold. Underneath my dress and my petticoats it went; a tendril, a root? More than one now, sliding up both sides of my thigh, stopping at the top of my stocking before moving further underneath, inching up until. It touched the black silk of my knickers and moved around of its own volition. I was certain now this was no rogue leaf caught in a localised vortex of air.

I shivered and shifted my hips away but didn’t get far before a weight slid across my waist from the left to the right and I found myself pinned firmly to the slab. Another then another. Roots? I craned my neck, they looked like roots, just like the ones which held my arms. Two, three, four, more. They slipped up both legs and tangled themselves around them and each other, they were strong, smooth, flexible, beneath my dress, lifting it. At first the dress itself then the first petticoat, then the second. They were being pulled up to my waist.

By what? Unseen hands that weren’t hands. Roots? Yes, roots. I’d seen them. But that’s impossible, ridiculous. I must be dreaming, or tripping? I began to lose count of how many were now roaming my stockinged legs, up to my thighs, wrapping and unwrapping around each leg so gently as to almost be sensual, inviting. Testing me perhaps?

I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t move my waist. I twisted my legs but the tendrils, now countless, held me firm. A shooting star went past, there and then gone in a space in Space that if I hadn’t been looking at that spot just then I’d have missed. Now they were caressing. That’s the only word for it, sliding across my stockings until I felt them tear at them, pull them, rip them to shreds while not scratching me. I couldn’t see properly but felt the hose come away and my now bare legs fully exposed to the less of light and more of dark.

Minutes passed, my legs felt naked but for my boots. More roots seemed to be joining in, enveloping each leg all the way up to my thighs, my knickers, touching me just where it made me jump, startle, gasp, and eventually moan. What is happening?

Roots slipped inside my knickers without an invitation and started to pull, not pulling them down at first but stretching and teasing the elastic until, just as with my stocking I heard and felt them tear. Their efforts easily pulling them clean away in pieces leaving my thighs also now naked to the less of light and more of dark; as nature intended perhaps. It seemed certain it was as this nature intended.

Most roots seemed small, some as fine as hair while others more like fingers, kneading my legs, urging me to quicken my breathing, coveting my thighs and freely playing over my smooth and bare sex. I could barely arch my back in reflexive response for being held so firmly to the stone.

My legs were pulled apart, slowly. At first I barely noticed but then I did, how could I not. I tried to pull them back but failed, too many roots now pulled as though I was just their puppet.

Wider and wider until I felt clearly the tips of one maybe two roots teasing my smooth pubic mound, then my clit. They became relentless. I was becoming moist. I knew it. I felt it, as well as a tightening inside. Their touches determined, insistent, demanding. My muscles contracted and felt tortured, so much so I’d almost forgot where I was and what was doing this to me. I bit hard my lip, tasted blood, and held back until, until I couldn’t and an orgasm thrashed through me.

I convulsed while remained securely held for several seconds until it subsided leaving me scrabbling for breath. Cool breath from the cool air. My thighs were hot, wet, held wide apart despite my wanting to close them when I cum.

Before I could reorientate myself I felt, or saw, a shadow, or not a shadow, a darkening, come across me. It didn’t blot out the sky, just made the stars stand out even more. A shapeless shape, if that’s possible, but it seemed to have arms. Was it arms or more roots?

My legs were pulled wider, pushed up to bend my knees and I felt something forcing itself against my folds, my sex now very much moistened by my moment of release. Tiny roots tease my folds apart, gently, and then the pushing, something wet, warm, very, very hard, almost solid stretched my tightness. I bit my lips again, more blood. I tried to pull back but then felt it pop inside me, almost painfully, deeply. It took my breath away, literally. I felt like I was drowning. It pulled out then in it went again, deep again, wet, warm, very, very hard, again and again.

I felt my corset coming loose. The lace on the front being untied unlaced, knot by knot. I raised my head and all I could do was watch these dextrous and salacious roots eventually able to pull it wide open exposing my breasts which shook with every continued thrust between my legs. Tiny roots played around my nipples, arousing them, arousing me even more than I now had become.

Tick, tick, tick. I heard a voice, my voice, I was speaking in tongues. No, not tongues, just I could barely enunciate with the force of being fucked so, like this, here in the graveyard, by, by who? What? Inside my hips felt full with who or whatever it was that was using me so flagrantly, once again making me cum as it continued while several roots held me down.

The force, the passion, the lust of it all was overwhelming.

The scent of soil, the earth, as though I was becoming one with it. It was as far up inside me now as it was humanly possible, and thickening, I could feel it. I began to shake until the breeze swirled excitedly around me lifting the leaves like scattershot and then the hardest thrust, then another, jerking me along the slab, and then an explosion of what felt like pure warmth, thick, it was filling me inside with a flow continuous, or that was how it felt, for how long I wasn’t sure. My thighs took it all, I took it all, greedily I had to admit.

All at once I felt a lightness of being, even though I could still feel the stone, I was floating. The darker darkness was gone now leaving just the darkness of a waning moon night, a moon which had suddenly reappeared, albeit having moved in the sky from where I’d last remembered it. I brought my hand to my face to wipe away sweat. I realised I wasn’t being held anymore, and neither were my legs, nor any part of me.

I noticed the thin line of the first signs of dawn skulking low on the horizon. It was All Hallows, no longer the eve. I run both hands down my dress which was in order, across my corset which was fully laced as it should be and pulled myself to sitting. I looked around, no one here but me, and quite possibly still at least two owls.

That was one weird and surreal dream. I looked down at my legs which poked out from my dress, bare, stockingless, and the remains of the hose just shredded remains around my booted feet. I cautiously slipped my hand beneath my skirt, then I knew.

(specially-commissioned photo)

© Emmaleela