Anabeel had never been inside the forest before—its dangers were impressed upon her from a young age. It was a land of monstrous leviathans, misshapen into nightmares, that tore at her skin as she rushed past them. The forest was grey and gloomy. Not even one stray sunbeam broke through the twilight. Inhuman cries echoed around her. Anabeel had never heard any animals or birds make such spooky sounds. She shivered and tried to curl into herself, but the spikey legs of the bug stabbed into her.
Her captor pressed on deeper into the forest. Annabel bit her lip to stop herself from crying. She was cold and frightened. What was going to happen to her? How would she find her way home? The rhythm changed. They ducked into a muddy hole and wormed their way through dank, black tunnels deep down into the earth, until they came to a large cavern in the middle of which grew a gigantic oak. Its branches had broken free of its earthen prison, lighting the cave with the same gloom that inhabited the forest.
Sitting amongst the knots of roots, no less twisted and ancient than the oak itself, was a monstrosity. The thing was twice the size of the bug that held her. The two were alike, but instead of glossy armour, the monster was clad in rust-brown, pitted plates. It had a human’s head too, an old woman’s with limp, grey hair and wrinkled, ashen skin. Her sightless eyes were cloudy and dripped with a milk-like substance.
Her captor placed Anabeel reverently before her—a gift.
The old-woman head tilted to Anabeel, and the nostrils flared. She sniffed the air and her face cracked into a smile like a raw wound. “I’m Yaotl, Queen of the Chomites.” Yaotl’s voice sounded like the rustle of autumn leaves.
“Anabeel.” Anabeel stifled a sob. “Please take me home to my mummy and daddy. They will be worried.”
“But don’t you want the gift I have for you?”
Anabeel couldn’t think of anything she wanted from the queen except her freedom. “No, thank you, I just want to go home.”
She backed away but collided with a wall of insects that had emerged silently behind her. Most were as feeble and ancient as the old woman. The chomites pushed her closer to their queen. “We need you.” Yaotl’s mouth opened impossibly wide and her proboscis began to unfurl like the stigma of a flower that felt the morning sun.
Anabeel screamed but changed her mind as the organ began to inch closer to her mouth. She snapped it shut, her lips bloodless bits of string, teeth clenched so tightly her jaw ached. Two legs moved up to her head and held it in a vice-like grip. The proboscis, rough and coarse as unsanded wood, unknitted her lips and knocked against her teeth. It rapped so hard Anabeel feared they would break. She didn’t want to lose her teeth like her grandfather, so she opened her mouth. The proboscis slipped inside and wormed its way down her throat, making her gag, and stopped in her belly.
The queen emptied herself into Anabeel. The same milky substance that dripped from the queen’s eyes bubbled out of Anabeel’s nose and mouth drowning her from the inside out.
When Anabeel awoke the cavern was illuminated by dappled moonlight. She was nestled in the roots of the ancient oak. The queen was dead beside her, the body a husk, the human face skeletal. Anabeel’s throat was sore and bruised as if she’d swallowed a string of sausages without chewing a single one. The rest of her body ached.
Uncomfortable on her bed of roots, she pushed herself up. She started at what the moonlight revealed. Her hands were gone, turned to points. The insidious change had crept up her arm partially transforming the limb to something insect like. Black spurs pushed through her skin like thorns. The same thing had happened to her legs which were now longer and black. Two limbs sprouted from her midriff as if she’d been skewered by sticks, and small gossamer wings grew on her back.
Her skin had toughened, somewhere between the shell of a crab and flesh. Only her head remained the same, except for the white milky substance that trickled from her eyes. The queen had bestowed her dreadful gift upon her.
The thought terrified her. She must get back to the farm. Her parents would help her and send for a healer who would brew a potion to make her normal again. Anabeel dug the points of her legs into the earth and used the sharp spurs on her arm to drag herself up a twisting tree root. The new legs were like stilts, and she wobbled and fell back against the gnarled roots until she found her balance.
From the gloom of the cavern, the chomites appeared and nudged her back to her bed of roots. They stayed close, taking turns to mind her while others came and went leaving behind gifts, strange fruits and vegetables, dead animals and bugs. Anabeel was too grieved to eat. She missed her family, and her transformation frightened her.
Her keepers would not let her starve. They held her down—too many to resist despite her growing strength—and dribbled masticated food into her mouth.
Well nourished, her body transformed. The legs doubled in size, her torso became wasp like, and when she did walk, it was on all six legs like the other chomites. Her skin hardened and became black and glossy, gleaming in the light of the moon and the sun. She’d become a chomite queen.
Chomite queens are prodigious breeders. Anabeel filled the cavern with eggs. Her offspring were resourceful and strong, and in time, they found a place in the forest hierarchy of predatory species.
Despite her success, Anabeel remembered the person still inside her. Someone that craved the love and affection of her
