by Jon Herrera
the oak and pushed her toward it. A portal of light opened on the tree’s trunk and Emma was swallowed up by it. As she was falling back into the light, she saw Domino dart into the forest just as a great beast burst into the clearing. It was an animal that had the face of fury. It had the head of a great bull with eyes that burned, and the body of a man.
Emma tried to cry out in fear but she was ripped apart into a million pieces by a noise that was like hundreds of windows shattering all at once.
Emma was sitting on a bench next to a bus stop.
It was morning on a busy street and the road in front of her was full of traffic. There was a bus shelter next to the bench and there were a few people inside. They were looking at her. A woman was sitting next to her but she stood up and walked away.
Emma glanced toward the people in the shelter and they all looked away at once and pretended that she wasn’t there.
She looked down at her lap and saw that she was holding a plain flute made of wood. She swung her feet back and forth as memories began to creep back to her. There was something about a forest. She hummed and waited patiently for all the memories to return.
A black cat came and jumped up on the bench beside her.
“Hello, Mr Cat,” she said as she watched him lick his paw.
The cat paused in mid-lick and looked straight at her and then at the people behind her in the bus shelter.
“They see a girl appear out of nowhere and that’s how they react,” he said. “They try to disappear her right back again.”
Emma blinked. She looked around and behind the cat and under the bench. He watched her the entire time. She wanted to giggle.
“I can talk to animals!” she said and raised her hands in the air in delight.
The cat blinked at her. “I can’t understand anything that you’re saying,” he said. “You’re just talking nonsense like the rest of them.” The cat leaped down from the bench and ran off across a lawn and around the building behind it.
Emma lowered her arms and frowned. After a moment, she raised them into the air again.
“I can listen to animals!” she said.
A bus pulled up at that moment and the people who had been waiting for it climbed in. A number of them cast quick glances at Emma as they departed.
When the bus drove away, Emma saw that there was a hospital across the street. There was a sprawling parking lot in front of it.
“He’ll take me where I need to go,” she said as her memory returned. “A hospital? Am I hurt?”
She checked herself over and thought that she was uninjured but she realized that she was still in her pink pajamas and slippers. They were still wet and dirty. Maybe the hospital would give her something clean to wear. She walked to the corner and pushed the button for the crosswalk.
When she was across the street, she walked straight through the parking lot and to the hospital’s main entrance. Automatic doors slid open and she went inside.
A voice from a speaker somewhere told her to sanitize her hands using a dispenser that hung on the wall. She did so and then went through another set of doors into the main foyer. It was a spacious room and there was a help desk off to the side. She couldn’t think of anything to say so she took one of the many chairs in the waiting area and considered it. At that time of day the hospital was busy, with people coming in and out for whatever reason. She didn’t see anyone actually use the help desk and she wondered how it was that they all seemed to know what they were doing.
An old man rolled by on a wheelchair. He had a cigarette in his mouth and he winked at her as he went out the door.
An elderly couple sat down on the chairs opposite Emma’s and smiled. She smiled back. The woman spoke to the man in a whisper.
A voice came over the public address system announcing a “code green” in the mental health ward.
“Emma!”
Down the hall came Jake. Emma stood up and ran to him and threw her arms around him.
“You’re alive!” she said.
“Emma, you’re filthy,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
She backed up and blushed as Victoria Milligan walked up behind him.
“Hello, Mrs Milligan,” Emma said.
“Hi, Emma,” she said. “Call me Vicky. What are you doing here? Look at you! What happened?”
Emma took a breath. “There was a singing tree in the forest and he gave me this flute. Then a thing with horns came and there was another bigger thing with horns and it was very scary but the smaller one pushed me into the tree and I showed up here. It was night then but it’s day now. I’m not sure what day it is though.”
“I see,” Victoria Milligan said. “Is your father with you, dear?”
“No, he’s still at home. I ran away crying!”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I think I understand what happened now, Emma. You sure got far running away. Well, we should get you home, don’t you think? We were just heading out ourselves.”
“Yes, Mrs Vicky,” Emma said. “I guess I’ve been bad and I should apologize to my dad.”
Mrs Milligan offered Emma her cell phone and she called her father. She was surprised to learn that he wasn’t angry with her and that he already knew about her adventure. He told her to get home safely and that they would talk about it then.
“I don’t understand how he knows,” she said as they were leaving the hospital. “It’s all so weird.”
They left the building and went straight back to the bus stop across the street. They sat at the bench to wait for the bus that would take them to the station where they would transfer to the one that would take them home.
“Why were you at the hospital?” Emma said.
“Grandpa,” Jake said.
“He had a stroke yesterday,” Mrs Milligan said, “and we were here with him all day and through the night. It’s Wednesday, by the way, my dear, in case you’re still not sure about the day.”
“Thank you, Mrs Vicky,” Emma said. “I’m sorry to hear about his stroke.”
“Just Vicky please,” said Mrs Milligan.
The bus ride home took almost an hour and a half. During that time, Emma recounted the previous night’s events in more detail to Jake and his mother. As she told the story, she became animated during the parts she considered to be the exciting ones and she drew glances from the other passengers. When she described the great monster at the end, she put her hands on her head like they were horns and roared loudly. Many of the passengers laughed.
“A minotaur, was it?” Mrs Milligan said. “And the other one was a faun, right? From the stories...”
Emma didn’t think that she was taking her seriously. It seemed more like she was playing along with a child’s made up stories. She didn’t blame the woman because the story really was outrageous and Emma would’ve found it hard to believe it herself if she hadn’t been there. Jake did appear to believe her and he had been caught in rapt attention the entire time.
“Yes, that’s right,” Emma said. “I didn’t think about it then but that’s what they looked like. The minotaur is scary, Mrs Milligan.”
“Yes, he is. Do you know the story, Emma?”
“I do. But he’s supposed to be in a labyrinth,” she said.
Jake’s eyes lit up. “Maybe he is,” he said. “It would explain a lot. You said it was like the forest was moving.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
When they arrived at Saint Martin’s bus station, Mrs Milligan went inside to use the facilities.
“Why did the tree send you to the hospital?” Jake said. “That’s weird.”
“I think it’s because you were there,” Emma said. “The faun said that it would take me where I needed to go. Yesterday was the worst day, Jake. I got three strikes and detention. It started when you didn’t show up at school. I thought you’d gone missing.”
“But why would it send you to me?”
“I think because you’re special to me,” Emma said.
“Oh, I…�
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“Because you’re my friend, I mean,” she said and punched him. “I just needed to know you were safe.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Listen, I want to come with you when you go to the forest. This faun person might know about my dad.”
Emma nodded. “Yeah, for sure. But I have to go talk to my dad first and straighten things out and he might kill me. But after that we will go.”
Mrs Milligan insisted that they would ride the bus with her all the way to her stop. They did so and then they walked her right up to her front door. After a brief introduction, Mr Wilkins invited them in but she declined.
“Thank you,” Mrs Milligan said. “But we really should get on home. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
Off went the Milligans back down the street. As soon as they were out of sight, Mr Wilkins pulled Emma inside and shut the door. He looked tired and his eyes were red as though he hadn’t slept.
“Dad, I’m sorry—” Emma began.
“Are you tired? Do you need rest?”
“No, not really,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like a whole night went by.”
“Well, it didn’t for you,” he said. “Go change, Emma. We’re going to the forest.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I know. I’ll explain on the way.”
She went to her room and changed into clean clothes.
Soon, they were outside. She walked alongside her father, holding the flute that she had been given.
“Where's Will?” she said.
“He’s at school. It’s Wednesday. You’ve already missed much of it today.”
She nodded.
“So you met Domino,” he said. “Yes, I know him and that’s how I knew
