Whisper of the Leaves
A Coming of Age Monster Story
The trees confide in me for they see a resemblance. The transformation of buds to tender leaves, their bright green heyday, the colorful splendor of old age and finally the breath that carries them away as they relive the trials and joys of their life on their way down, down, down. The trees watch as I too transform becoming different each time, as each comes to my bedchamber seeking the release that only my kind can provide.
The trees have no way of understanding that our transformations are not part of a natural life cycle. We are not like the leaves. Our shifted self is an echo of times past, skill born of necessity, now required for survival, though never intended to be used thus.
My grandmother spoke of times when we were respected. We helped babes enter the world, soothed the brows of those leaving it. We healed wounds and those we tended were thankful, bringing us beads of turquoise, indigo thread, sunflower seeds, corn and wool.
The turn came about as a means of protection. We were once the most powerful tribe on the continent. But seasons come and go and the world changes. War coupled with disdainful new arrivals to our land did what harsh winters and spreading sickness could not, winnowing down our numbers until we were at the mercy of all those around us. That was when we developed the ability to become other, other than man or woman, other than Navajo, other than human. We survived, were feared, shunned, left alone. Yet for those who had already courted the power, the ability remained present but dormant.
They were wrong about us, it did not take the murder of family for us to turn, only the murder of one person while changed into someone they love. We did not prey on our own, nor on women, children, the elderly, or the tender minded. Only when the war had turned against us or the new arrivals betrayed our peace becoming unpredictable in their contemptuous superiority, did we seek the turn.
Only then did those of us who had taken it upon ourselves to follow the dark path to its end instead of turning back once the dictates of our training had been fulfilled, turn. Only the few of those already having walked the dark path fully could decide who else would follow in kind. And then only to save our people. Otherwise, those who could turn, didn’t, those who couldn’t, remained that way.
“We were not evil, no, never evil,” said my grandmother. “We were tenacious, refusing to let others erase our memory from the earth. When you must find a way, you find it but the finding may not be dictated and the found may seem beyond accepted convention.”
Time passed, understanding grew and peace among brothers established respect between tribes. Most chose invisibility, the only existence the newcomers would tolerate. Tales were told, grew to legend, superstition and falsehood. The age of darkness lifted and as the newcomers haughtiness had never mellowed. They came to believe they were above fear.
They began seeking us out, some to worship the unknown, others hoping to learn our mysteries, still others dreaming of joining us. We did what we could to avoid them, coming to understand why the other nations had withdrawn into the forgotten. We came to see that they would never gain true understanding, would never perceive things as they were instead of that which they sought to make real and established as such in their minds.
But by then it was too late for us and in our fear that the killing would begin again we made a fatal mistake, We allowed our healers to once more fully travel the dark path to defend our small numbers from unpredictable slaughter. We weren’t careful enough and the newcomers caught enough glimpses of our healers as they shifted to begin formulating ideas of how we could be useful to them.
And so instead of seeking us out as supplicants, they trapped us, tortured us in an effort to get us to shift into the prisoners they put into the cages with us. We would never use innocents as models of those we would become lest we drive them mad.
Finally, our captors realized that we’d turn to save those we loved. They began torturing our young, those who couldn’t possibly have learned to turn yet so as not to waste any of those of us who might be able to. Those were the days of darkness. Those of us who had traveled the black path and could turn did so to save the children. Those who couldn’t screamed out their anguish, trying to force that which could not be, begged the newcomers telling them it was impossible for them to turn.
But the newcomers killed their young anyway, in an effort to teach a lesson to all the rest. Even when it became clear that some of us could change and others couldn’t, they didn’t stop the killing. Their type never would admit to making a mistake. We lost over half our young during those days and three quarters of our adults who hadn’t learned to turn who were put to death as well.
Now, my people are few and all take the steps to learn how to change, for that is all that keeps us alive. We have become priests and priestesses, but this does not imply respect, merely service. We are kept for those seeking solace, understanding, acceptance, cathartic release and the exotic thrill of a body which can become whomever they choose. We are expensive, but couples are taught to budget for our services while still dating, for no marriage is believed survivable without us. And so I steal out to observe wife or husband, gender matters not for shifts are complete, resigned at what I know will come — no one goes to a skinwalker for something soft.
Our official title is conciliators because we take the abuse, the anger, the sick desires of one spouse so that the other can remain loved and cared for. Any leaning that is considered taboo in proper society is exorcised in our bedrooms in the hidden cottages scattered throughout the wooded regions.
But our people were not meant to all become skinwalkers all the time. This has shifted our nature. Now care must be taken with us for skinwalkers are witches and there is reason to fear. It is said we can turn to pure evil if not well controlled should we murder a client while shifted into the form of their beloved. It is whispered that we become dangerous upon reaching the age of 18.
Though we are told we will be freed for our service at this age, we know better. We are removed from service at age 17 and given a year to breed. Successful or not, our days are ended a year later, a bit longer if with child. They can’t afford to risk it — a single full powered skinwalker can create enough chaos in a village to cause all within it to flee, die or simply go mad.
And so on the eve of my 17th birthday, I clutch the knife beneath my sheet. Only the keepers know that it is but a single death that can bring us over into our dawn. They say fully matured skinwalkers are driven to evil, must be prevented from passing from child to adult. And so I waiver as to whose breast to plunge the knife, his or my own. Do I have the right to live, thus? Do I have the right to choose not to?
As I try to come to a decision, my mind turns back to the leaves which seem to be falling more rapidly now. I hear the voices of the trees outside my window say together, “It is one thing should the wind worry them from their branches. It is another matter entirely when they choose to fly off on their own. This is not a natural thing.”
“I am not a natural thing,” I tell them.
Yet I know the lament of leaves who cry out as they fall, mourning a life not lived, who regret giving up too soon. The trees talk of a time when leaves held onto their branches with all their might, refusing to fall until, strength gone, they had no other choice. Then they’d wear their finest, their reds and golds, purples and oranges, not dressing down in faded green lackluster like today’s generation.
“But then the youth are less formal, these days,” the trees agree, though this pleases them not. “They take things less seriously.”
I sympathize with the trees, seeing the leaves premature end through their eyes. I hear the rebelliousness outside of leaves jumping from the safety of their branches only to realize, too late, their mistake. The scales of disposition dips slightly in my favor and I smile.
Natalie Frank, Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) 2019
Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured a several anthologies. She is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.
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