by Blair Aaron
Augustus laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. “It's a lie, I'm telling you. He wants to keep us here in this forsaken place forever,” he said, trying to sway the conversation in his favor.
“Don't talk about Doc like that!” Niklas said. “I got your back, Kirby.” Niklas tapped the doctor on the shoulder, who did not acknowledge the little man. Niklas looked down, a puppy whose master was not pleased with his efforts.
“Zamir told me about the prophecy, as the crystal in that cottage deep in the heart of the forest spoke to him. The hunger to know why the cottage called to him was made clear, he said, in that moment, because he could glimpse a prophecy about when his time would come to an end. The crystal said a young, beautiful, pure woman would come wandering into the Forest, whose corruption would be a sacrifice in exchange for the freedom of all locked within the borders of the Forbidden Forest.”
“Oh, so we have a crystal that talks now,” Augustus said. “This is perfect. Just perfect.”
“Brother,” said Humburt, “Why is it so hard to believe for you? Have you not seen the magical things that have happened to you since were left for dead by our parents?”
“It's just ridiculous,” Augustus said. “It's like something out of a fairy tales, made up to put little children at ease. I guarantee you it's bogus.”
“The crystal never talked. I didn't tell you that,” Doctor Kirbleitz said. “I said the whole place spoke to Zamir, the way the Forest speaks to all of us--warns us of all the danger in its corners.”
“Where is this Zamir! Come out Zamir! We're all waiting for you! I'm not afraid. Show yourself, if you're real!” Augustus screamed through the airy pines only to receive dead silence in return.
“I can almost promise you, son, that Zamir knows all about you, but will not oblige you.”
“Oh, really?” said Augustus. “That's a shame isn't it? You're only proof just doesn't want to come out and play because he's too shy.”
“Trust me, Augustus. This wolf does not play. He's nothing but pure danger and power.”
“What makes him so powerful, doc?” Niklas asked.
“His experience near the cottage changed him permanently. And there's no telling what the Daevan God has done to him, as well.”
“Oh right I'm so convinced you're telling the truth, Doc.”
“Maybe we should listen. Everything he says makes sense, brother.”
“I will tell you what makes sense, Humburt. What happened to Theo makes sense. He was the only one of us, besides me, who wanted to leave this place and had the bravery to believe he actually could. And do you know what happened? He stood up on his own two feet and walked straight out of this hell hole. And he's out there, right now, trying to start a new life, and move past Doctor Kirbleitz's bullshit. The Forest never grabbed him by his ankles or held him in a thorny cage. He's working right now as a carpenter or cabinet maker. He's got a new wife, kids, he's probably in love. And look at all of us, right here, wasting away any hope of a normal life, living literally as wolves, eating raw meat in campfires, telling stupid jokes to distract ourselves from the fact that we're lost. We'll never be the same, but at least we can try to make things right.” Augustus looked up into the canopy of the forest, at the crows and other black birds sat perched on a random limbs, spread sporadically through the tree line. A few drops of rain landed on his forehead.
“You know what that girl right there represents? She's a reminder, not of a prophecy, but that our ticket out of this place sits right in our gut. All we need are the balls to act. Just get up and leave the forest.”
“I believe Doc,” said Niklas.
“I do, too,” said Humburt. Kirbleitz forced his expression to remain stone-like, unwilling to exacerbate the already upsetting fight between his clan of wolves. He cared for the boys from such young ages and truly wanted what was best for them. Any fight between them, especially regarding his own abilities to lead or guide, meant their bond had diminished. This broke Kirbleitz's heart.
“Fine. Have it your way. I'm leaving, heading straight for the exit, right there!” Augustus pointed north. “You guys can sit here and rot.” He walked straight past his twin brother.
“Don't go, brother. I'll lose you forever.”
“Then come with me, Humburt. Why can't you just see all this for what it is, a big sham.”
“It's too dangerous, Augustus. You know this. You have had the same dreams I have. Besides, what will we do? Where will we go? All our family died years ago. Who knows what's out there--maybe all the people are gone and were replaced by something else. Maybe they'll eat us alive.”
“You're ridiculous, brother. I'm going.”
Elsa lay there, her eyes half opened, watching the twin boys and young Niklas talk amongst each other. Her body ached in the shoulders and the dirt rubbed its way through the wounds on her knees. The exhaustion funneled all the way down into the marrow of her bones, and she wished to sleep forever on the bed of that forest. But unfortunately she had a long journey ahead, uncertain and perilous, a path she would have to take alone, relying only on her strength of character and abiding love for Theo.
-----
“Let's kill her. I think he's telling the truth.”
“You better not,” Augustus said. “If you think you're corrupted now, just wait until you find out you burned an innocent girl alive at the stake, all because of your precious prophecy, brother.”
“You're giving us no choice, then,” Humburt said. “Maybe if we just go through with it, you'll see the Doctor is telling the truth and you won't destroy yourself trying to go back out into the real world.”
“Yeah, or maybe I'll leave anyway, and you'll be stuck with knowing you're a murderer. An EVIL murderer.”
Elsa figured that, because she needed to leave the forest as quickly as possible, and because she would be able to convince Augustus to help her get to the edge of the forest, she would need to back up his argument that Theo was alive and well in the real world. The truth was that she had no idea where Theo was, but she did have a hunch Freja kept him locked away. Regardless, he was almost certainly not in the Forbidden Forest. If she didn't say something now, Augustus would leave her here in this terrible place to burn at the stake.
“Augustus, don't go. Please stay with us,” Niklas said, as Augustus walked off into the distance. Now was Elsa's chance. She raised her head, mustering all the energy she could.
“He's right,” she said, over the commotion of the wolves. They all stopped and looked in her direction.
“She's awake,” Humburt said. Even Doctor Kirbleitz looked up, somewhat surprised. “What did you say, ma'am?”
“I said,” Elsa continued, “your brother is right. I came from the towns. Theo lives in a shack on the shore of a lake. He's fine. Lives a normal life.”
“It can't be,” Kirbleitz said, his mouth agape. “How do you know? Did you see him for yourself?”
“I didn't just see him. I am in love with him. I will be his wife.” All three men looked at each other in shock and disbelief, unable to entertain the idea that the prophecy was a complete sham. “This Prophecy of yours doesn't exist. It can't because Theo is fine. He left the woods of his own accord and never had any trouble.” The lie dripped from Elsa's mouth like poison. She could not help but feel a stab of betrayal from her own heart, even if it was for a greater good. There was no doubt in her mind that she, and the whole wolf pack, would be fine outside the borders of the forest, and she needed to get to Theo as soon as possible to save him from whatever Freja had in store for him. A white lie never hurt anyone.
“See! I knew it,” they all heard Augustus yell from behind them. “Doctor Kirbleitz's story was made up.”
Niklas and Humburt looked over to the doctor, who frowned because he had no energy left to fight. “I never made it up. Perhaps--” He stopped.
“Perhaps what?” Niklas asked.
“Perhaps I misinterpreted the prophecy. I don't think Zamir would lie to me deliberat
ely, even if he were in a manic state of mind due to his experiences near the cottage.”
“You mean all this time you were not as sure as you said you were?” Humburt looked over at his brother, and without saying word, apologized to him for all his doubts.
“Look I'm going, done with this limbo. Are you all coming with me?” Augustus said.
“The girl says she knows where Theo is, maybe she should lead the way,” Kirbleitz said, skeptical. They looked to Elsa.
“Um, yes. I do know where he is, but I don't know how to get out of this forest. This is not my place, it's completely foreign to me.”
“OK, just follow Augustus then. Right?” Kierbleitz said.
“Let's do it,” Niklas said, gung-ho for the adventure, yet unaware of his abrupt change of stance on the existence of the prophecy. Burning innocent girls at the stake amounted to little more than a small opportunity for some excitement in his otherwise languorous days in the forest.
“Do you know how to get out of here, Augustus?” Elsa asked. She forced her face to betray none of her fear or self-doubt, and crossed her arms to protect herself.
“I do. We all do.” Augustus said.
“Well then show us the way,” Elsa said, laughing. She wanted to keep all of the boys convinced she knew what she was doing and where to find Theo after escaping the forest. The truth was that she didn't know what waited for them in the towns, as a good great amount of time had almost invariably passed. Elsa wondered what was in store for them when they left. Even though she didn't know where Theo was, she knew he had in fact left the forest intact without the repercussions which this Zamir character had apparently suffered. She looked around her again. “Let's be clear, boys. You get me to the edge of the forest, I'll show you Theo myself, in his new life, proof that he's all right.”
“Yeah,” Humburt said, “but that means we need to cross the edge of the forest first. How will we know you're telling the truth before we leave this place?”
“I guess you won't. You'll just have to trust me.” She knew Augustus was on her side, but Kirbleitz, Humburt, and Niklas all worried they were being swindled. She had to convince them, no matter what, that the she was telling the truth and looking out for her best interest. She waited for their response patiently. “Are you coming with me and Augustus?” She looked over at the red-headed, stone-faced man, his sharp eyebrows and pointed chin belying fierce intelligence, the bow slung across his naked chest reminding her of the threat of violence underpinning every second of her relationship with these men. If they knew she was lying to them, they would never listen to anything else she claimed was true and would almost certainly burn her at the stake. That was her fate should they find out at any point along the way she was never fully truthful to them. Hopefully she would find Theo before they realized her true motives. “Let's go boys.”
------
Humburt and Augustus Jordan were identical twin brothers, and like all twins, they stuck to each other's sides. During what was perhaps the most terrifying journey of their life recently, they remembered how much affection and protectiveness they had for one another, even if their opinions differed often about many things, their current plans to leave the forest notwithstanding. Humburt, always more inclined to follow his gut and intuition, set aside his suspicions about their journey to the edge of the woods. Augustus was the lead in this situation, and it was clear to Elsa that Humburt at least wanted to be next to his brother should anything bad happen.
She walked behind them, bare foot now, and listened to their whispered conversation, while Niklas and Kirbleitz kept each other company behind her. It was funny, Elsa thought, that the first two werewolves she stumbled upon when she first entered the forest were the ones who, more or less, trusted her. The other two, Niklas and Kirbleitz, held radically opposite opinions of her. In both case, one wolf leaned on another for guidance and reassurance, as Niklas did with Kirbleitz and as Humburt did with Augustus. Elsa felt a pang of sadness for the entire wolf pack, as their relationships told her they were afraid of being separated from each other. In good times and bad, they turned to each other, against the cold and calculating forest in which they stumbled into. For a group of men hell-bent on declaring their evil to the world, in a full supposedly full of horrors of all kinds, they sure seemed to be the exact opposite. She wanted to get to know them better if she could, so she jogged up behind the twins and tapped Augustus on the shoulder.
Augustus jerked his shoulder from her hand, before he looked up to see who touched him. “Whoa, lady,” he said. “I would be careful if I were you. There isn't much telling what lurks along this path, waiting to gobble us up.”
“There are monsters in these woods?” She asked.
“You thought it was just us wolves and your dainty little tippy toes, huh,” Humburt said. He pointed to the darkened trees on either side of the path. Elsa thought she could see a serpent slither into the underbrush, ghost-white in color, standing in contrast to the earthy brown and greens of the grass and gravel. The image caught her breath, but after she blinked her eyes, it was gone, and she chalked what she saw as her imagination playing tricks on her.
“Listen, I want to know something,” she said. “Where all have you been throughout these woods? Theo never got a chance to tell me why he was a lion, instead of a member of your wolf pack.” Elsa caught herself in the story she was making up on the spot. “I mean. Before I was taken.” Both twins looked at each other, a silent knowing which said volumes about their suspicions of Elsa. But they answered her anyway.
Augustus adjusted his bow to the other side of his torso. “My brother and I came long after Theo and Dorien. First it was Zamir, now we know that, because Doc would never talk about it until now. Then Doc came.”
“We'll let him tell you how he got here,” Humburt said, interrupting.
“Doc told us that he doesn't know when Theo and Dorien came into the woods, if they were here before or after he came. But he found them walking along as young guys, from a place at the center of the forest Doc would never go to. He said the place they came from was dangerous, but somehow they were protected from being more corrupted by the forest. Doc figured they would have lost their minds at one point, going that deep to the heart of the forest. But they seemed fine, like someone was protecting them from the start, like someone was watching over them.”
“Who was it?” Elsa asked.
“They wouldn't tell him. They seemed like they wanted to protect Doc from something, so they adopted him, and eventually us. No one knows what made Theo a lion or Dorien a dragon, honestly. There must have been something in them both, different from us,” Humburt said.
Just then, something ahead in the distance caught Humburt's eye. “What is it, brother?” Augustus asked.
“Look,” Humburt said. Up ahead, the pathway in the forest trailed off into the grass, fading away. A semi-circular opening in the trees shrouded the upper path of the forest.
“What the hell?” Augustus said. “This is the way out. I don't know any other way.”
“Shit,” Elsa said, under her breath. She was counting on Augustus to get them at least to the edge of the forest. Then she would have to coax all of them over to the other side, or, even better, if they refused to go with her, she could just leave them there and get back to her life with Theo. Something told her at least one of them would follow her simply out of a burning curiosity to see if Theo was in fact all right.
The trail was gone, though, and Augustus obviously had no idea what to do next.
“Brother, what will we do? Do you know any other way?” Just then, Niklas and Kirbleitz caught up to them. Niklas looked around to the twins for instruction on what to do. But Kirbleitz clearly expected this to happen. Humburt asked him, “Doctor Kirbleitz, do you know what's going on?”
“The Forest knows we are trying to leave. I told you it would get angry.”
“What do you mean, 'get angry'? That's ridiculous. The Forest is not alive,” Augustus said.<
br />
“I beg to differ, son. Though we have already had this conversation.”
“Well if you know so much,” Augustus said, “why can't you tell us where to go next? I can, but you're not going to like it.”
Elsa's swallowed hard. She had a bad feeling about Doctor Kirbleitz. He might try to take her and the other boys down a wrong path, or worse, back the way they came.
“Where will go, doc?” Niklas asked.
“Over there,” Kirbleitz said, pointing across the grassy ditch to a bridge over a swampy area.
“That's not so bad,” Augustus said, trying to convince himself as much as the other guys of his resolve.
“Say that when we've passed through it,” Kirbleitz said, shaking his head.
“Doc, I'm scared,” Niklas said, tugging on the doctor's black vest.
“I am, too,” Humburt said, looking at his brother.
“What's so bad about a swamp? It doesn't look all that dangerous,” Elsa said.
“The swamp is not dangerous,” Kirbleitz said. “It's the creatures in the swamp that are dangerous, lethal of course.”
“Then let's just turn back,” Humburt said. Niklas shook his head in agreement. Both Niklas and Humburt looked at Augustus for his vote.
“We all know what Kirbleitz thinks,” Humburt said. “So are you going to drag this out any longer, or do you want to die along here with my fair maiden?”
“Let me think,” Augustus said, showing for the first time some solidarity with his pack. Elsa could see the group was beginning to have an effect on Augustus' resolve. Elsa decided she better do something.
“Wait,” she said. “I'm going alone or with you guys. I came in here alone and I'll get out of here alone, if I have to.” She looked at Augustus, to show him her bravery. He looked over at her with his beady green eyes, looking her up and down.
