by Blair Aaron
“I'm sorry,” Elsa said, getting up from the bench and making her way over to Lili. “I didn't mean to upset you,” she said, putting her arm around Lili, who seemed almost frozen. Elsa got up and started a fire, using a candle to light it. While she continue warming up the house, she took notice of the dilapidated house. Lili was not putting things back together in the way the community might expect her to do. “Lili, my dream was about you.” Elsa looked over to the bench, as Lili began shivering. “What is wrong? Is everything all right?” Elsa asked her.
“Yes of course,” Lili said, through chattering teeth. “I just...knew this would happen. Tell me about your dream.”
“I was standing on the edge of town, with everyone else, and we were calling to you not to go into the forest. But there was no sound, so you couldn't hear us. And you went anyway.”
“My goodness. It's come back to haunt me hasn't it,” Lili said into the air, not directing her question at Elsa necessarily.
“What has come back to haunt you?”
“I cannot speak of it, my dearest Elsie. There's nothing I can do to make it better.”
“Lili, tell me what you saw in the forest. How did you make it back?” The bluntness of the question surprised Elsa, because she knew her own hunger for answers came at the expense of poor Lili, who had been apparently traumatized by something, or someone, in the forest. Lili covered up her face with her hands, weeping into them, while Elsa tried her very best to calm the woman, holding her in both arms and rocking back and forth. “I'm so sorry, my Lili. We all searched for you through the entire community. Even the children crawled into cabinets and under houses, trying to find any sign that you didn't go. When we couldn't find anything that said you were still here, we prayed that you would survive the worst.” Those words sent poor Lili further into despair, causing her to weep even harder. Elsa finished her point, on a hopeful note. “But you did survive,” she said, making sure Lili could look her in the eyes, as Elsa wiped Lili’s tears with her white dress. “You're here now. Right?”
Lili smiled through her tears. “Yes, I'm here. I just don't know how to be normal anymore.”
“What do you mean, 'be normal'?” Lili stopped crying for a brief moment, looking at Elsa for help. “Lili, you're back here with us. Everyone loves you. We're going to help you get better. You're alive. Be happy.”
“Do you think,” Lili said, contemplating how to put her question to Elsa, as she would pose a request for advice from someone wiser, stronger, and more knowledgeable than she was—in other words, someone she could trust—”Do you think that if a good person makes a mistake, a grave mistake, they can ever be good again?”
Elsa stopped, realizing there was more to the story about Lili's venture into the woods. “What do you mean?”
“I made a grave mistake when I went into those woods.” Lili looked at Elsa, trying to convince her she was being earnest and truthful. “But dear Elsa, I could not stay. I had no one. First it was the father of my son. Then it was Ennis. I was all alone. I had to go. If it meant I could bring my little boy back. Don't you agree?”
“Of course,” Elsa said, getting nervous now. She knew, along with every other member of the town, that very few people had ever been able to come back from the forest, and the fact that everyone so quickly assumed Lili had not been changed for good, concerned Elsa. Not a single person had mentioned the possibility that Lili was no longer…Lili. Elsa suddenly became very uncomfortable at this realization, and frightened to be in her presence. She decided to choose her words very carefully. “Did you...see…something? Was it that blond man who followed you back?”
“Oh no,” she said. “He was my hero,” she said, smiling. Elsa found herself becoming somewhat jealous, even though she could not control that.
“What happened when you stepped into the forest? How did you find Ennis and bring him back?”
“At first, there was so much darkness. I was so scared. I couldn't see the hand in front of my face. The air was different. It felt like I was breathing electricity. Does that even make any sense?” Lili asked.
Elsa nodded, urging her to continue with her story.
“I don't remember much. And it all happened so fast--”
“Fast? Lili, you were gone for three months,” Elsa said, interrupting her to make sure she had not disorganized the story after the fact, a possibility, considering the stress on her mind. Lili put her hand on her forehead, thinking.
“No, I was there for around an hour, if that.”
Elsa sat up. “How can you be so sure all the danger you were in didn't make it seem like time just passed faster?”
“If I was there for three months, I would have starved or died from dehydration. Much more would have happened,” she said, looking concerned about the state of her sanity.
“But you were missing for that long a period of time,” Elsa said, pressing her on the matter. She wanted to make sure the girl was not lying and had not lost her grip on reality. “You were gone precisely 21 days, and every last person can attest to that fact.”
“Oh, my my my,” Lili said. “I just wish it were all a dream. I knew I will never be able to escape him.”
“What happened in the forest, who did you see that has frightened you so?” Elsa asked.
“He's here, Elsie. I know it. I can feel him outside my walls at night. I see him in my dreams. I can't get him out of my head,” she said, growing uncontrollable. Elsa grabbed her by the hand, trying to stabilize her anxious fidgeting.
“Look at me, Lili. I'm right here, and I won't leave you.” Lili began to calm down. “Now,” Elsa continued, “tell me what happened. Who are you talking about?”
“The black wolf. When I walked into the forest, I got so scared, everything was so dark, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to see my little boy again,” she said, growing hysterical. “So I cried out, 'Ennis! Ennis! Ennis!' as loud as I could.” Ennis, hearing his mother calling his name from the other room, came storming in.
“I'm right here!” he said, a wooden car in his hand. Elsa looked over at Ennis, standing in the doorway, halfway expecting him to have no idea what was going on, but his expression instead was something a little more disturbing. He was smiling, a knowing smile that told Elsa he knew everything they're conversation was about, and moreover, that he was not afraid.
“Come here, my sweet Ennis,” Lili said, as her toddler son ran over to his mother, laying his head on her knee, while Lili stroked his hair. He looked out of his blue, possessed eyes at Elsa from the side, watching her askance. Elsa could not tell whether Ennis was smiling at her, happy to host a new guest who had come to pay her kindnesses to his small family, or whether he was casting a curse on her with his eyes. Her gut told her it was more the latter.
Elsa continued her line of questions. “When you were crying his name, Lili, what happened then?”
“He called back to me, or so I thought. I just kept walking into the darkness, in the direction of his voice, asking him to direct me where to go, but he wouldn't. He just kept saying, 'Mommy. Come find me. Let's play hide and seek.' I became so thrilled we would be reunited. But then…” She stopped, directing Ennis to go in the other room. When he had finally left, Lili continued her story. “But then I saw him. The black wolf with green eyes. At first, it was just a pair of green dots, but as I kept walking, thinking it might be my son, the green eyes had sharp white teeth. The black wolf was growling at me, and I could tell it was going to eat me if I didn't run. So I did. I ran and I hide from it. But Elsa,” Lili said, getting closer to her, looking around the room as if to make sure no one else heard her, afraid perhaps that the Forbidden Forest itself could hear her confession and come after her in the night, “the wolf knew where I was the whole time. He didn't even have to find me, went straight to the area behind a large tree. I was so frightened, thinking that perhaps he had eaten my little boy. I was ready in that moment to give everything up, knowing I would never make it out, but then, I co
uld see him.”
“See who?” Elsa asked.
“Ennis was walking between two rocks, calling my name, looking for me, the toy he'd been playing with before he'd wandered into the forest still in his hand. I ran to him, but not before the wolf pinned both of us against the edge of the woods. I held Ennis tight within my shawl, and the last thing I remember was a lion appearing out of nowhere, and attacking the wolf, just before the black animal jumped at our throats. Then we woke up in the grass, in front of all of you.”
“Was the lion the stranger we're keeping safe?”
“Yes,” she said, “his yellow eyes were just as scary, but I could tell the moment before he came crawling from around the tree he was there to save us, that he had been waiting for the right moment to strike the black wolf. And that wolf's eyes, Elsie, oh the horror,” Lili said, looking out the window again upon hearing a suspicious sound. “Those eyes have followed me into my dreams. I can't get them out of my head,” she said. “I'm so afraid, all the time.” She got up, walked over to the front door, opening it just a click, to see if the wolf waited for her on the porch. “He's here, Elsie. I know it. He's coming for me, when I'm alone. He'll come for me, because he knows I should have never gone into that Forest. I'm so very afraid,” she said, sitting back down, her hips fused with Elsa's.
Elsa placed a hand on the back of Lili's head, trying to calm her down. “No one's coming for you, Lili darling. I'll protect you.”
“He's going to eat me, and he'll eat you too afterwards. For dessert.” Elsa tried not to laugh.
“Who's to stay he can't just walk right out of the Forest, just like that lion-man did?” Lili asked.
“We all know none of those creatures can leave the Forest, because that's where they belong,” Elsa said.
“Yeah,” Lili pressed on, “but you don't know for certain. Elsa I made a terrible mistake. I mean, I'm here, back with my son, alive, my heart beating, but...”
Elsa continued listening, as she got up from the bench and made her way over to the window, staring out into the grassy area behind the main area of the town. She could see the light from the fireplace inside the church windows.
Lili continued her story. “But something happened in the Forest, when I was there. I think I brought it back with me, into this village,” Lili said, trying to convey her terror in the night to Elsa, whom she thought might come close to understanding.
“How do you know that?” Elsa asked her, turning back around to face Lili, her back to the window. There was an eerie excitement in the room, as if someone were watching both the women and listening to their conversation.
“That's a very good question. I just do, I can feel it in my bones, Elsie. I've done something very wrong, made a terrible mistake. I--I just want to be a good person. Do the right thing. But something in that Forest changed me. I don't know what it is. I don't think I'll ever be the same.”
“How are you different?” Elsa asked.
“I don't feel--safe. The people in this village are hiding things. My dreams are full of nightmares. That forest corrupted me and my son. I used to be a good person, but now I'm…I'm full of rage and fear and can't control it. The other day, I threw a glass against the wall, shattered into a million pieces. What do you think Father O'Grady would say about that?”
“Don't tell him,” Elsa said, doing her best to contain her own fear. “He would tell you that you have been through a tough time, and that you're a fundamentally good person,” she said. “You're alive, you're healthy, and so is Ennis.”
“I just want to go back to my old life. I want things to be the way they were. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than this constant fear and paranoia. That man who saved me is a good man. Maybe he'll protect me from that wolf. He's going to wake up soon, I promise. I just hope he doesn't go back into the Forest and bring his friends.”
Elsa had forgotten about the comatose man from the forest, as she attempted to process the density and gravity of Lili's story. And Lili was right, the man would wake up soon, and Elsa couldn't help but get excited by the anticipation of that event. The blond man radiated a goodness in Elsa's heart that could not ignore. But she couldn't reconcile Lili's story of that blond man's heroism with everything she had been taught about the Forbidden Forest--namely, that all the creatures it contained were evil, black and Satanic.
“That black wolf is Satanic,” Lili said, as if she were reading Elsa's thoughts. “There is no way I'll ever get him out of my mind. It's like he infected me with his evil, Elsa. I'm so afraid for my soul. I don't know what I'm going to do.” Elsa herself was at a loss for words. If what Lili said was true, and there was nothing to suggest she was making up her story, there was a black wolf deep in the heart of the Forest, possibly lurking on the border of the town. Elsa did not understand what allowed the blond man to cross over, and subsequently, what would prevent the wolf from following suit. The thought sent shivers down her spine, and then her mind gravitated toward the blond man again.
“What do you mean, he will wake up soon?”
“Well he's not dead, Elsie.”
“How did he manage to get across the border?”
“That's what I'm telling you. I don't know how. Maybe he's special?”
Elsa's spirit rose with that admission. Yes, of course, she thought. He was special, different from his magical brethren, because he was kinder, a savior for Lili and her son. “Well he did save you and Ennis,” Elsa said. “That must be why he was able to cross over.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Lili said, trying to convince herself, even though she still drowned in her fear of the black wolf. Tears welled up in Lili's eyes, and Elsa could see she was about to lose control of her emotions again.
“Mommy?”
Little Ennis stood in the doorway again, his innocent smile radiating compassion for his mother's fear. He walked over to her, his minuscule bare feet pattering on the wooden floor. He placed his tiny hand on Lili's cheek, pressing down to make small impression. She looked up at him, her chest still heaving from her sorrow, and smiled at her son's attempt to make her feel better. Then she hugged him. Elsa watched from the other side of the room, her heart warm for the scene presented before her, however tinged by a dark and ominous anticipation of some unforeseen tragedy waiting for all of them in the not too distant future.
CHAPTER 6
The clerics sent out word for an emergency announcement at 7 o'clock in the evening. The crowd of townspeople filed one by one into the church, as the teenage girls searched the pulpit area for Father O'Grady, who was nowhere to be seen. The middle aged couples anticipated the subject of the announcement would involve the mysterious blond man from the Forest, whom the town decided would watch over in him in his damaged state. While several members of the community had fallen into the clutches of the forest, and fewer than that had even made it back to the safety of their tiny civilization, never before had any magical stranger emerged from the weeds and wild tree limbs of the Forest.
The congregation waited longer than was comfortable for the majority of its participants, their compassion tethered not far by the weight of their hungry stomachs and falling energy levels. The crowd began to murmur after several hours, nearing the verge of leaving the town hall, knowing such a scarcely decorous action spoke volumes in the eyes of the other members of the community. But then a door near the podium shuddered, and three men walked through, the third being Father O'Grady himself. O'Grady reached the pulpit and the members nearest him on the first few rows of pews could see the shakiness of his hands and the sweat forming on his brow. They wondered if he was upset or excited. He unwrapped a piece of paper, crumbled from his pocket, and began reading a prepared statement.
“This afternoon, as we all prepared our Sunday meals, the chief medical leader of our village informed me that the man who entered our borders six days ago…” Father O'Grady stopped, taking a deep breath, preparing himself for the aftermath of the statement, as the rest of the audience listened
with open ears to his every word. There was speculation amongst the crowd in the time since the announcement spread throughout the community that the man had succumbed to his injuries, expired into the afterlife, dead. Those rumors permeated the minds of the older members in the cast of something resembling hope, as the strange blond man threatened their sense of safety and structure, which they so desperately needed in the waning years of their lives. But for the younger members, particularly girls the age of Sarah and Chloe, and to some degree Elsa and Priscilla, they worried that this man, who symbolized the magic and spiritual creativity they so longed for in their community and which their minds flirted with at night, as they dreamed, might give them confirmation of all that had been missing in their lives. His death, therefore, would destroy the great excitement and hope he'd brought with him when he crossed over from the forest.
“The man has awoken,” Father O'Grady finally said, as the crowd erupted into turmoil. “Please keep your voices down, as the other clerics here have laid out a plan for his eventual assimilation into this community.” There was more turbulence with this last statement. There was a growing fear, in addition to a great swell of joy and excitement for what the man would offer the community. Perhaps he would teach children some magic he learned from the interior of the Forbidden Forest, some thought. This was both a good thing and terrible thing, depending on the perspective one assumed.
