Crystal Bennes

The Forest

I.

Deep in the forest, somewhere near the middle, but not quite in the centre – wherever that is – stands a tree; a very tall tree. When we come to the tree, I see it has no leaves, only branches. It smells of rosehips.

High up, on the tree's uppermost branch, there's a glint of gold, like a thieving magpie's nest. It's a princess sitting on the branch, still and unmoving. Slim arms holding knees to chest. The little princess is made of solid gold. She'll never move again. “How did she get there,” I ask The Prince, my guide, shading my eyes from the sun as I look up into the tree.

“Isn't it obvious?,” he says. “She climbed up their to get away from the wolf. Serves her right, if you ask me, turning gold like that.”

II.

The Prince seems uninterested in the little gold princess and is certainly in no mood to tell me her tale, so we move on deeper into the forest, or somewhere more towards the middle. He wants to show me something important, he says, so I trudge along behind. There's so much green. It's like being in one of my dreams. I try to stop and look at things, but The Prince doesn't like being held up.

Eventually, we come to a large stone. I realise that I recognise the stone from the newspaper. Two years ago, a man tried to turn himself into an emperor at this very site. Being not from around here, the man didn't realise that the stone once belonged to an ice sheet and that its only magical property was an ability to stay in one place for so long.

The Prince turns to me. I expect him to tell me about the man from the newspaper, but instead he says, “when I marry, this stone will be a gift from me to my wife, just as my father gave it to his Queen before.”

While I'm wondering why anyone would gift a stone to a queen, The Prince moves to stand before it. His face contorts and his shoulders fold forward. Tears slip down his chin and onto the stone. After three minutes of weeping, The Prince suddenly stops, steps away from the stone and transforms into a large, black crow. He hops, hops, hops onto the top of the stone.

“Aaawk, aaaawk,” the crow says, turning one dark eye to look in my direction.

“What did you do that for?” I ask, after The Prince stands before me again, a man, not a crow. I'm always asking the questions.

“Just to show you I could,” he says.

III.

Leaving the rock behind, we eventually come to a fork in the road. At the junction, an old hag stands beside an enormous wooden chest.

“Greetings Prince,” she croaks. “Wherefore be thou off to on this fine day?”

“To see the Book of All Knowledge, of course. You know I travel there on the Ides of every ninth month. I'm taking my companion along this time, to teach him the secrets of the Book.”

“The way has bechanged,” she smiles a little crooked smile. “You must right-the-way answer a riddle from The Chest of Words and, if, only if, you answer right-the-way, will I tell you the new direction.”

For a moment, I think that The Prince will shout angry words at the hag, but he says only that he will answer a riddle. He reaches deep into the chest, takes a slip of paper, looks intently at it for some minutes (over his shoulder, I see that the slip is blank) and finally says: “the answer is 'a life lived in pursuit of wisdom is never a wasted life'”.

With a great bang and a woosh of violet-coloured smoke, the hag and her chest vanish out of sight. The smoke hovers happily over the eastward-bound path, a purple cloud pointing the way.

IV.

“There's something else I want to show you,” The Prince says, beckoning me along the path, batting the candy-coloured cloud out of the way. “I have a cottage on the lake, where I often go to think about what I will eat for lunch, among other things.”

We walk through the dark canopy until it eventually parts at a clearing of speckled-hen and meadowsweet. On the other side of the clearing is a lovely great puddle of a lake, where a small, brown cottage is perched on an overlooking hill.

As we get closer, it becomes clear that the cottage is not really a cottage, but a simple sheltered structure of gingerbread and stained-glass candy windows. Inside, the shelter is empty save for a table, two benches and a cup on a hook in the wall.

A large hole opens up in the middle of the table where, seconds later, a soot-black cauldron appears with a small pop, bubbling over a small fire. Taking the cup from its hook on the wall, The Prince scoops up a glass of brown liquid from the cauldron. He holds the cup out to me, as if presenting a precious gift. “Behold,” he says, “the Book of All Knowledge.”

I drink up. It goes down, warm and delicious, like a smoky hot chocolate.

I feel better already.

The Forest, Part II

(or how to keep the forest always in your pocket)

Step 1

Go to the forest and collect various flowers, leaves, mushrooms.

Step 2

Once home, sort your forest pickings.

Step 3

Get a sealable glass jar, a cutting board, knife and the highest proof vodka you can find.

Step 4

Place forest pickings in the jar. Pour vodka over pickings, seal and store for as long as possible. Ideally two weeks.

Step 5

Strain forest pickings. Decant liquid into spray bottle.

Step 6

Take the smell of the forest with you wherever you go!

NB:

As an alternative method, a siphon and N2O canisters (along with with organic matter and vodka) can be used to create a tincture (and a delicious smell) via nitrogen cavitation.