The Glass Forest

1 – Dreams With Sharp Teeth

Brilliant light. The kind that dazzles and disorients and leaves your pupils aching—a painful white poured straight into your skull. The car sputtered, coughed once like it had swallowed a snowball, and died. We drifted to a slow, stunned halt, my hands welded to the steering wheel at ten-and-two like a good little DMV poster child.

It didn’t feel like a moment then—moments never do until you’ve named them. Later, when the edges of things had names again, I stacked it with the big ones—first terrified leap off the high dive, first period (in gym class, because of course it had to happen then), one crowded German train and the way my family went from three to one in mere seconds. And now this—nonsense wrapped in daylight and heat and an almost metallic taste of panic.

The light thinned from blinding to bearable. Where there had been a winding, ice-glazed Missouri road hemmed in by bare oaks and dirty snowbanks, there was… green. Not Midwestern green, not the friendly flat of lawns and maples, but a layered, breathing green that rose in slick-barked columns and roofed the world in leaves the color of old wine. Browns, too, rich and wet as the high-grade potting soil my mom had always bought at Lowe’s. 

Somewhere, a creature barked once, twice. A thread of an exotic sweet spice rode the air—unfamiliar and heady, like someone had split open a cedar chest and added pepper and rain.

My breath fogged once, then didn’t. Instead, a heavy warmth began to suffuse the car.

And there was something just outside of my window. It hovered there, a smear of living fire against the deep, rich greens and browns of the forest, like someone had sketched a moth in lightning and then forgotten to erase the lines.

Its wings were the first thing I noticed. They were almost translucent sails of gold, veined with threads of light that glowed near the base, slowly fading to darkness at the top edges. Each slow beat of wings left a faint afterimage, as though the creature were constantly arriving from a second ago and never quite catching up with itself. The glow wasn’t just on the surface; it seeped from within, a steady, heartlike pulse that warmed the air around it.

The body, though, was shockingly slight. A narrow chest, wiry limbs too long for its size, and toes that ended in delicate hooks, made for clinging rather than perching. Its movements had that unnerving, jerky lightness of something born to the air—every shift of weight sent tiny arcs of light skittering along its limbs, as if nerves and electricity were the same thing here.

Its face captivated me. The head was a downy bulb of pale gold, fur ruffled as if by a wind I couldn’t feel. The eyes were enormous and glossy, black wells that swallowed light instead of reflecting it, clearly intelligent, if not inhumanly so. Beneath them, a cluster of four tiny black holes made it seem as if it had two noses instead of one.

It drew closer, and I leaned toward it in return, intrigued, not repelled. What was it?

Looking at its wings, I couldn’t help remembering the folk saying, “Aerodynamically, a bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly. But no one told the bumblebee that.” Apparently, no one had told this creature either.

I blinked hard, rubbed my eyes, looked again. Still there. Still hovering in the humid green world my frozen December road had become. Aunt Martha’s ancient rat terrier, Widdershins, would have hated it on principle. For a disorienting heartbeat I missed that stupid, snappish dog. I missed everything that made ordinary sense. God, I missed reading. The version of me with a library card and a stack of paperbacks would have known what to call this.

Tap. Tap-tap.

It knocked politely. One little hand flexed, claws catching the light, and it…waved.

“What… the… hell,” I said to no one, because no life skills had ever prepared me for a polite flying creature with gossamer wings that talked.

It leaned closer, bared fine needle teeth in something that tried very hard to be a smile, and called—muffled through the glass—“Hello!”

The voice did not match the face. Warm, cheerful, distinctly someone. My traitor body half-raised a hand to wave back before I got hold of myself, cheeks heating because apparently I was responding to hallucinations now. My brain felt sluggish, dream-thick, as if someone had filled my skull with molasses and then asked me to do algebra.

The creature spoke again, the words turned to mush by my closed window. It kept glancing up into the canopy—quick, nervous darts—as if checking for rain or judgment. Leaves whispered. A heavier rustle moved through the high branches, like a dog through tall grass. I glanced at the dashboard: stone dead. No lights, no indicators, the clock needle stuck in accusation. I turned the key. Nothing. Not even the mercy of a click.

I’d been on County Road 21 with Pink Floyd humming through the ancient speakers—and then the universe had pulled the plug.

Beyond the windshield: no road. No salty slush, no tire grooves. Behind me, trees shouldered close, trunks the high-gloss brown of furniture polish. It was so green my eyes didn’t know where to rest. Missouri can change its mind about the weather on a whim, but it doesn’t conjure a forest out of thin air. Either I was very, very concussed, or I was still asleep, or—

Tap. Tap.

I cracked the window two inches. Heat punched into the car like a body. Humid, loamy—a breath you could chew. My winter coat went from helpful to hostile in a second; sweat prickled under my collar.

“Greetings, Mistress, welcome to Fyrsta Heim,” the creature said, executing a midair half-bow that was honestly impressive for anything shaped like a festive gourd.

“Uh. Hi.” Words had to be caught and dragged from wherever they were hiding. “Fyrsta…Heim.” It curled on the tongue like German, like something Mom would have enjoyed saying. The car’s interior was a small oven. The outside smelled like summer and cinnamon’s dangerous cousin. I rolled the window all the way down—if you’re going to hallucinate, you might as well get air.

“Mistress, I am Pernicious Pert,” it said, pleased with itself the way people are when presenting a calling card, “and I am your dragoman while you are here in the World.”

“My…what?”

He beamed harder. “Dragoman—escort, guide, interpreter, mm?” The little hands described wobbly shapes in the air. “I am summoned whenever you enter Fyrsta Heim, and I will remain by your side throughout your stay.” Another nervous flick of those extraordinary eyes toward the canopy.

Now that the heat wasn’t trying to poach me, I could see more details. His eyes were a deep violet, not black, after all. His rather human-like smile had displayed an array of tiny, sharp white teeth. But there was something in how his gaze kept scanning the branches made the hairs on my arms lift.

Something hissed above us. Leaves shivered. The sound was not friendly, not at all.

This is a dream, I told myself, because that’s what you say when reality skids sideways. I’m in bed under my ugly plaid comforter, and I haven’t had coffee yet. This is what happens when you go to sleep listening to The Wall.

If it was a dream, it was one with sharp, shiny teeth.

“You have perfectly purple eyes, Pernicious Pert,” I said, because if we’re leaning in, we might as well lean all the way. “Did you know that? I’m Liv Parker.”

His terrible smile widened. “Why, thank you, Mistress Liv.” He bobbed again, the glow from the base of his wings glowing and fading with increased speed, and cast another glance up. “If we could perhaps leave this particular area for—ahem—safer accommodations. The forest is not safe, even in day, and night will be here soon.”

“It’s barely noon,” I protested, then looked at the dim light filtering through the leaves and amended, “Well. Maybe noon is subjective.”

The hissing above us grew teeth. Something heavy launched from a branch—shadow upon shadow, a beating of wings that sounded as if they belonged to a rather large creature. I leaned out the window to look up. The trees weren’t like anything I knew. Their trunks were smooth and glossy, dark as syrup, and when the light hit them right they reflected like polished stone. I could see that the branches were covered with thick and slightly oily leaves that were red with a brown undertone, as if varnished. A smear of motion leaped from one limb to the next with terrifying grace.

“What was that?” I craned farther, heels snagging on the mat, purse strap biting into my shoulder. The air felt crowded, expectant—the way air feels in a theater when everyone is waiting for the curtain to rise.

“Mistress,” Pert said, and the wobble in his cheer sharpened, “it would be most advisable to leave now.”

Branches bowed and snapped back. Hiss. Reply-hiss. A conversation I wanted no part of. Sweat slid down my spine. I wriggled out of my coat and threw it onto the passenger seat. The keys looked useless and accusing in the ignition; I pulled them free, dropped them into my purse—because you don’t leave keys in a car, even in dreams—and shouldered the strap like a shield.

Pert’s glance ping-ponged between me and the trees until I was sure his eyes would spin. “Mistress, please—we must leave this area immediately.” Panic now threaded his voice.

“Okay,” I said. When the world makes as much sense as a fever dream, I figure it’s just best to go along with it. I opened the car door, and the hinges creaked, reminding me again the car was feeling every bit of its 30 years.

Humidity wrapped me, heavy as a wet quilt. The ground had give to it—springy, layered, the accumulation of years of fallen leaves turned to the blackest soil I’d ever seen. My heels sank with an undignified squelch. Dark vines twisted along the forest floor, and I wondered if they would come to life, like something out of a movie, and wrap themselves around my ankles, offering me up as a sacrifice to whatever monsters lurked in the trees. 

Something flicked close—a flash of yellow and red and leathery skin—and a blast of warm, rather rank, fishy breath hit my cheek. I recoiled on instinct.

“Mistress—now!” Pert’s voice snapped at me in alarm.

The creature came in low and fast, a ancient Cretaceous-era nightmare brought to life. Wide leather wings. A long, pointed beak. A skull-eye stare. No teeth that I could see. Far later I would learn that was not the mercy it sounded like. It hissed as it dove, banking for me, and only muscle memory from school dodgeball got me out of its path. I stumbled, planted a hand in the spongy earth, and got a palmful of damp leaf and grit for my trouble.

The thing slammed into the Dodge’s open window where my head had been a second earlier. The sound it made was a scream that sent a hard line of panic through me. Whether it was a scream of rage directed towards the car or me, I’m not sure. Wings thrashed; the creature wriggled through like a furious cat, shrieking, and then turning toward the radio, with a furious screech. There was the sound of grinding and tearing as the monster attacked it.

“If we could go into the woods now,” Pert said his voice a whine of fear. His head whipped between me and the forest canopy and then away, as if he were wondering if he should leave me there and save his own hide.

I pushed to my feet, spitting detritus, and spared one backward look. The creature had its head down and its back legs braced, tearing into the dash-era radio like it had insulted its mother. Wires yanked free and curled like cooked spaghetti. The volume button flew through the air. There was a savage satisfaction in the way it went to work that would have been funny if I wasn’t the one who would have to explain to Aunt Martha why the only car she had ever owned was missing its radio.

“Right,” I said to the world at large, which wasn’t listening, and ran.

“This way, Mistress!” Pert zipped ahead, one clawed hand pointing, the other worrying at the air as if he could pull me faster by sheer force of personality.

The undergrowth closed around us. Pert seemed to be following a faint path. Or maybe it wasn’t a path at all, merely a suggestion on one. Leaves slapped my bare arms. Vines tried to trip me. Once a low branch scraped along my hair and it tumbled out of the neat bun I wore for work, bobby pins flying. I yanked a hair tie from my wrist and grappled my hair into something that wouldn’t strangle me. Sweat slicked my back. I did not regret leaving the coat behind.

Behind us, the car gave a noise like it was being murdered and then the sound cut off as if a switch had been flipped. The forest reclaimed the space it had made for that drama with a thrumming chorus: insects vibrating in unseen reeds, birds calling from different countries, the distant persistent rush of water that was not a highway. From above, a raw-throated scream tore the air—triumph, or warning, or both—and was answered by half a dozen smaller voices. The hair at the nape of my neck tried to climb off my body.

High heels were a decision I was no longer committed to. The right one caught in a mat of roots and tried to pitch me. I kicked out of both shoes, snatched them by their straps without breaking stride, and immediately stepped on something sharp and offended. “Dammit,” I hissed, then realized saving my toes today would mean losing my everything else. I shoved the shoes into my purse so they couldn’t take revenge later and kept moving on adrenaline and stockinged feet—a sentence I never expected to narrate.

“Left,” Pert called, and I ducked into a cleft between two slick trunks that smelled faintly of resin and rain. Something enormous and yellow-gray with splotches of black flared over us, a shadow with claws and sharp angles. A branch ahead had been freshly scored; sap beaded like tears along the wound and then slid, slow and viscous, down the glossy skin of the tree. I wondered, with the calm of shock, if this was why it was called the Glass Forest—if that was its name at all—because the trunks caught light and threw it back at you.

“Duck,” Pert hissed.

I did, and a wingtip skimmed where my head had been, raising a whisper from my hair. Another inch and it would have raked its talons across my skull.

The forest broke on our right into an opening that fell away in a slick, crumbling edge. I flung out an arm for balance and saw, far below, a river thrash itself white against dark rock—a ribbon of violence in a green cradle. The sound I’d thought was wind was water all along. The sight of it snapped some small taut thing in me: this was not Missouri, this was not any place I could drive to on a bad day with Pink Floyd and a coffee. The thought took one step too far toward panic and slid; I yanked it back inside me and tried to return to consciousness or the real world or whatever I had somehow lost moments before the bright, blinding light.

“This way!” Pert’s voice was a clear bell in the cacophony. He zipped left, then right, a jackstraw of orange and motion. He never quite touched the slick trunks; each course correction was a last-second mercy.

Another creature—the same species as Car-Radio Enthusiast, I suspected—burst from the canopy ahead and slammed into the ground not ten feet in front of me. It raised itself up on wiry hindquarters, wings mantled, and opened its beak in a hiss that showed a neck corded in muscle. Up close there were red mottlings along the yellow skin, patterns that crawled if you stared too long. It bobbed once, twice, like a terrible pigeon considering a french fry. It’s breath smelled rank and… fishy?

Show no fear, Dad said in the back of my skull, as if I was facing down a stray dog in our old neighborhood and not a prehistoric nightmare that hated music. Animals can smell it on you.

I straightened. My heart banged like a bad tenant on a shared wall, but I refused to give the thing my eyes. It hissed again, took one mincing sidestep, and I moved past in a smooth flash of movement as it twisted, turned and hissed while lurching to one side in an ungainly pursuit. It seemed far more clumsy on the ground than it was in the air. My purse swung against my hip and Pert’s wings hummed mere inches from my ear.

“This is such an amazingly clear dream,” I said out loud, because sometimes your options are screaming or false calm.

“Mm,” Pert said, which in Dragoman apparently means run faster.

Something ripped at the sky. The air above us filled with bodies. Hisses braided into one ragged rope of sound. I didn’t look up. I couldn’t afford to. I did not need that image stapled to the back of my eyeballs later.

Ahead the path narrowed to almost nothing, a seam through slick trunks and ferns that gleamed like they’d been dipped in oil. The ground dipped, then kicked up without warning. I stumbled, flung out a hand, caught myself on bark that was cool and impossibly smooth, and felt—not for the first time—the oddest hum under my palm. Not sound. Not quite vibration. Like the tree was a living wire and my skin a sensor and somewhere far below us an old, sleeping thing had rolled over.

Pert threw a look over one shoulder that was a whole conversation in half a second: This is very bad. Run faster this way, please.

I stopped trying to understand. There wasn’t time. There would be time later to name the trees and the creatures and the way the heat leached the cold out of my bones like the car heater never could. For now there was only breath, and the slap of leaves against my arms, and the hot metallic taste of fear.

I ran.