It Smelled of Honey……and something

Perdita, pink haired, self-appointed doyenne of the Woodland, handed Lucy the wooden goblet. The liquid inside smelled of honey. And something else.

It was a soft summer evening and Lucy was sitting in a clearing - part of a circle of twelve people - within one of the last remnants of primeval woodland, somewhere in Cheshire.

The ad had sounded intriguing: the opportunity to ‘Reconnect with the Natural World’, promising Lucy a refreshing change from her shuttle between a high rise Manchester flat to a high rise Manchester office. She signed up.

Now, she was feeling uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable, because in her formal white shirt and tailored navy trousers, she was the upstart cultivar in a wild flower meadow of patterned vintage shifts, deconstructed linen and multiple piercings. What’s more, unlike the others, she had had the common sense to bring a cushion.

Self-consciously displaying the tattoos of ancient runes on her pale inner arms, Perdita let the goblet hover before Lucy.

‘Probably not her real name’ Thought Lucy, who half recognised her from the big Waterstones in the Arndale Shopping Centre.

 ‘Take, drink and pass to the left,’ came the instruction.

Avoiding the carmine lipstick stain on the rim, she took a sip. It was quite palatable, in a cough medicine sort of way – but that smell……

 A young man from Congleton was next. Manipulating an emaciated plaited goatee out of the way, he drank before sending it on it on to the girl with a nose ring and battered green velvet Mary Janes.

The ‘pass the port’, ritual complete, Perdita, raised her arms and with a rattling of curated stacked brass and bead bangles, began an incantation to the slow accompaniment of a tattered African drum, with the legend ‘Souvenir of Ghana’ in a corner.

‘Last minute airport gift at the end of a gap year?’  wondered Lucy as Perdita began to beat.

Thrum, Thrum, Thrum… ‘Come you nymphs,’

Thrum, Thrum…  ‘Come you dryads,’

Thrum… ‘Come you fauns of the forest, come! Bring us your presence!’

Then to the assembled:

‘Close your eyes, breathe deeply. Release your inner demons and open yourselves to the spirits. Come Spirits!’

Lucy inhaled, closed her eyes and, trying to expel the demon who had once urged her to steal a bar of Dairy Milk from ASDA, hesitantly joined the chant, doubting any feeling of connection.

‘Come nymphs, come dryads, come, er, fauns…….’ She mumbled.

 And then, as if her voice had been taken over by an otherworldly power, her chant deviated from Perdita’s script, and became forceful.

‘Come ancient creatures. Ancient creatures, come!’

The effect was instant: what seemed like invisible hands pulled her backwards.

A whoosh, a crackle, a chill wind.

 Then, absolute silence.

******

First it was the light breeze that caressed her face, then the scents and finally the sounds: screeching, cawing, distant grumbles, that made her open her eyes.

She was completely alone.

Where were the others? Was this some elaborate game of hide and seek?

Looking about her she realised the surroundings were familiar yet unfamiliar.

‘Toto, I’ve  a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore’  she thought. ‘And we’re not in Oz either….. I think this could be Eden’

Lucy was still in a clearing but it was now vast; a plain of bobbing savannah-gold grass, soft as baby hair, punctuated by the odd thorny shrub. At its edge were lofty, whispering trees, overlooking glossy green-leaved undergrowth and flowers as big as dinner plates.  A rainforest? The same one whose sparse remnants she’d been sitting in not 10 seconds ago?

Probably so, as  the choked, dishwatery pond that had been nearby was now a twinkling sea of dazzling mercury, burnished orange here and there by the light of the setting sun. The surface so inviting she wanted to swim in it. Slice through its lapping waters towards infinity: to leave a wake of diamond droplets.

Tempted, she half rose, when an iridescent winged and dragon-toothed fish leapt, shattering the surface in an explosion of sparkling watery shards.

‘A fish with wings?’ puzzled Lucy, watching as it skimmed the water, snapping up early evening insects before disappearing, leaving  a circle of perfect watery symmetry.  

‘Maybe not a swim then, given what else might be in there – especially that small amber reptile that’s now clambering out onto the bank.’ She thought. The thick spines on its back made it look - Lucy couldn’t quite believe her eyes – prehistoric. Yes, prehistoric.

It was then that realisation hit her. Her deviant chant in the ritual had transpotrted her to the Cheshire of several million years ago.

 With no apparent way back.

No way back to her sterile flat, the traffic fumes, kebab shops, littered city parks and those poor, motley  ‘free spirits’ she had left behind in the woods. Salt tears pricked her eyes and she wept . Not out of fear. Nor for what she had left, but for the sheer purity of this realm. Its soft sounds, magical sights and sweet air. She could, and almost certainly would, happily die here.

Her reverie was broken by a rumble and heavy rustling in the forest: the little tassels on her cushion – yes, it was still there - started trembling. Then a crash of splintering vegetation, through which  a dinosaur, the size of several Manchester busses, now lumbered. Lucy knew from having played Dinosaur ‘Snap’ with her nephew, that it wasn’t one of the dangerous ones. It was the sort that had a huge body, long neck and teeny weeny head. These, apparently, were vegetarian.

Despite this, she couldn’t help feeling a little nervous as it ambled towards her. She might not be dinner but, given its pace, death by trampling looked imminent. But when the creature reached her, it stopped and lowering its tiny head, cautiously sniffed. It came so close she could smell its breath, as it blew, a bit like, she thought, an encounter with a curious wet-nosed heifer at a farm gate.

Closer now. Eye contact. Connection.

Small black pupils ringed with emerald penetrated hers with a burning intensity.  It wasn’t just looking, she realised: it was reading. Scanning the aeons between them, comprehending the whole history of existence that was hard-wired into this human from the future.

Lucy stared back and a great mutual sadness formed. A sadness as one species learned of its complete annihilation while the other acknowledged its own imperilment.

The eyes of the dinosaur began to mist up and, to her astonishment, giant tears began to fall, splashing onto her white shirt in great tawny droplets.

And while the baffled amber reptile watched from a respectful distance,  the pair shared their grief for their futures and the future of their worlds, as the day turned to twilight, while time itself disappeared. In the last of the light Lucy reached out to stroke the creature’s head.

‘It’s all right.’ She said, ‘I’ll stay with you.’ Then louder, looking about her ‘I’ll share your fate. I’ll stay with all of you!’

And as her hand met with the cool reptilian skin, thunder rolled, blue lightening flashed and with a whoosh and a crackle, she was back in the circle with the drumming, chanting and the goblet.

No one seemed to have noticed her absence, heard her cries, observed her ruined mascara or seen the great, damp fawn drops on her shirt.

The rough-hewn goblet was coming round again from an earnest-looking girl with a patchwork skirt and orthodontics.

‘Have you, have you.. connected?’ she whispered.

Lucy could only manage a slight nod.

‘You’ll never, ever know.’ She thought.

She took the cup and looked again at the liquid inside. It smelled of honey and something else, something else she now recognised.

Dinosaur tears.