"Roots of Hunger" by Jim Donohue
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Roots of Hunger
by Jim Donohue
It was only their second night in the new house, when fifteen-year-old Daisy was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of her twin brother’s voice.
“They’re hungry.”
Daisy tried to turn over and go back to sleep, as she grunted her displeasure about her sleep being interrupted.
“They’re hungry.”
She opened her eyes. There was something about her brother’s voice she didn’t quite understand. It was just monotone, unsettling.
Daisy turned to face her brother, standing at the side of her bed.
“Danny, what’s the matter? Are you alright?” she said.
“They’re hungry,” he said. Same monotone voice.
Daisy reached over and turned on her lamp.
“Danny?” she said, concern now overtaking the sleep in her own eyes.
“They’re hungry,” Danny repeated.
“Who is, Danny? Who’s hungry?” Daisy sat up.
Suddenly, Danny’s head snapped in her direction and his eyes bulging.
”Danny! You’re scaring me! Do you want me to get Mom and Dad?”
Then Danny turned his head slowly, the glassy gaze again covering his eyes, as he turned and walked out of the room.
Daisy slid into her slippers, threw on her robe, and followed her brother out of the bedroom and toward the front door. She tried calling him but Danny kept walking.
They exited the house and headed toward the woods.
Once they entered the woods, Daisy could see the stiffness in her brother’s body disappearing, as he stopped so she could catch up.
“Danny, what is going on? We’re gonna get in trouble being out here.”
Danny said, “They must be fed, they’re hungry.” Danny was speaking in his normal voice, making eye contact with Daisy.
Thank God, she thought.
“Who, Danny? Who must be fed?”
The young girl’s voice was beginning to show a trace of annoyance.
“The woods,” he said, “They told me in my dream.”
Now, Daisy was angry. “Come on, Danny! We’re out here because you had a dream? I’m going back in. I suggest you do too,” she said.
“No wait! Don’t go. We have to feed them first.”
Danny pulled something out of his pocket, but Daisy couldn’t see what it was.
Then Danny opened his hand.
The little bird was dead, the neck broken. Danny’s hand was sprinkled with blood.
“Danny!! That’s your bird. What did you do to it?”
“I had to, Daisy. I needed something to feed them.”
With that, Danny placed the dead bird on a tree stump and turned to head back home.
“That’s it? That’s what the woods want?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s what they told me,” Danny replied and walked back toward the house.
Daisy followed.
Over the next couple of months, the scene repeated itself a number of times. Danny would wake Daisy up with “They’re hungry,” and off to the woods they’d go, as Danny offered his little sacrifices to the earth.
Once Daisy asked him, “Danny? Do your dreams ever say what would happen if you don’t bring them something?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it,” he replied.
“Tell me, Danny, I want to know,” she insisted.
“If we don’t bring them what they want, they’ll take one of us,” he said.
“Oh, that’s ridiculous!” she said, “you don’t believe that, do you?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know what to believe,” he replied.
And so it went.
Until one night, as Danny slept in his bed, he was awakened by his sister’s voice.
“They’re hungry,” she announced, flatly.
Danny jumped up. “Daisy, did you have a dream?”
“They’re hungry,” was all she said, as she walked out of the room.
Danny walked with his sister, excited she was having the same dream as he was.
Now, she would understand what he has come to know about the woods. As they reached the woods, her body relaxed, and Danny asked, “Did you bring something?”
“Yes, I have it,” she said.
“Good,” the boy responded.
When they got to the spot, he said “Ok, let’s put it right here. What did you bring?”
Daisy reached into her robe pockets, and her hands came out empty.
“Daisy, what’s going on? Where’s the sacrifice?”
Suddenly, they heard a low rumble come from the ground.
“W-what was that?” Danny shuddered.
“I’m not sure,” was Daisy’s response.
The rumble got louder, and a tree root burst from the ground and circled around Danny’s left leg.
“Daisy?? Help me!!”
Another root emerged, this one stabbing through Danny’s back and out through his abdomen, with blood and tissue hanging from its edges.
Daisy was sure that it was his kidney that had fallen to the ground and was immediately dragged down into the dirt.
The teenage boy’s eyes were bulging, asking the word what his mouth couldn’t form.
WHY?
“That’s what they told me they wanted,” was all Daisy could reply.
He tried to scream, just as another root entered his mouth and exited through the back of his neck. Pieces of Danny’s throat, his tonsils, his Adam’s apple were pushed onto the ground and slopped up by the hungry earth.
Daisy took a few steps back, as the earth rumbled again, and the roots that had trapped her brother pulled him down, under the ground, sure to lap up every remaining piece of tissue, tendon or muscle strewn on the grass.
Danny was gone.
*********
The following year, as Daisy helped her mom celebrate her Sweet Sixteen, Mom said forlornly, “I still don’t understand how he got lost in those woods and what he was doing out there so late. I miss him so much. I wish he was here to celebrate his birthday too.”
“Me too, Mom,” Daisy replied as she gave her mom a comforting hug.
Mom said, “I don’t know what he liked so much about those woods, but wherever he is, I hope he’s surrounded by trees, grass and nature. He loved it so.”
“I’m sure he is Mom,” Daisy offered, “I’m sure he is.”