The Forest, After Dark.

When I was a child, I lived in the countryside in a small terraced house with my mother and father. My skin was nut-brown tanned from the scorching summer and I only came back to the house to sleep and eat, the woods around my house ate up the rest of my time.
“Your mummy’s sleeping.†My dad would tell me gently before he went to work. “Don’t wake her up.†It felt like my Mum was always sleeping, but when she woke up her eyes were ringed and she’d shout if I so much as put a mug down on the table too loudly. Then she’d cry and tell me what a terrible mother she was and hold me as she apologized again and again.
I liked it better when she slept.
The memories blend into a strange hazy mess sometimes, and I never know which of my memories are real and which are pretend. I remember an old woman living in the forest who had two long deer antlers that sprouted out of the skin on her forehead. She kept them wrapped under a tall scarf on her head. She would play games with me, her hands fluttering like moth wings, and she would always tell me,
“Never stay after dark. There are a different folk in these woods that come out for the moonlight.â€
I never told my parents about the deer-woman or her advice, but I made sure I was home before the tawny sun retreated beneath the horizon. I’d sit, cross-legged on my chair as my father and I ate in silence, and dream of the trees.
I began to stay out later and later, dreading the meal that was to come, and the stark white room where I slept that smelled of disinfectant and room spray. Sometimes the sun was touching the land when I sprinted back over the bridge into my house.
The bridge, the deer-woman told me, was over a thousand years old. When I went over it, I lingered. The cotton fresh scent of clean water over rock was always there, in the excitable eddies of the river. The bridge was a place where time sped up. Sometimes I thought I was there for an hour, but when I looked up the sun would be retreating and I would realize it had been closer to five.
That was how I didn’t notice the sun setting until it was too late. My eyes were closed as I felt the warmth of the wood beneath me, and when I opened them the last rays were sliding beneath the horizon.
For a moment, the daylight shone, then I was plunged into darkness. The shiver that went down my spine gripped me like a vice and I could hear the deer-woman’s words. There are a different folk in these woods after dark. I looked up and saw the lights of my house on the hill across the river flicker on hesitantly, and the distance between felt like ten miles. My legs were shaking so uncontrollably I felt like I couldn’t move, there was something speaking in the forest. I could hear thousands of whispering voices, the sound of someone crying.
Then, from under the bridge, a fox padded out into the moonlight. The fox stared at me with large, inquisitive eyes and when I looked into them I felt like I was seeing a mass of stars, clusters of galaxies as if reflected through a pond.
“It’s a good night for walking.†His voice was calm, quiet. It seemed so ordinary to me that he would be speaking and I almost chastised myself for having believed anything contrary might happen.
“Yes sir.†I said, addressing him the same way I addressed my headmaster. His paws touched the water, almost dancing across the surface as his moonlit reflection danced alongside him.
“A girl your age shouldn’t be walking alone. There are older things than me across this river.†His calm eyes drowned me as he spoke, and I couldn’t move.
“I have to go sir. Its my way home.†The fox lowered his head, the tip of his muzzle dipping into the river as it came out dripping.
“That’s unfortunate.†He reached the bridge and hopped up, catlike, to sit beside me. I felt his warm fur brush against my arm, and felt comforted. “When you cross the bridge, you mustn’t say a word. Don’t let them hear your voice, or they’ll take you into the woods with them. Don’t make a sound until you are through your doorway.†I felt his muzzle, wet from riverwater, rest on my shoulder.
“Who are they?†The fox looked grave as it wound its tail into rippling patterns. From the woods, the wind sounded like women screaming in the pines.
“They lost their children once, and they want more. It is, quite frankly-†The fox licked its paw sagely, “-all they can think about. They enjoy playing with them, I think much like I enjoy playing with a squirrel.†The fox paused, and I realized I was trembling.
“Will you come with me?†My voice was small, a pin drop in the roar of the silence of the forest.
“No, child, but I have a gift for you. It may help. It may not.†Then the fox leant to the river that was an inch from the wood of the bridge and dipped its nose in as I saw white teeth bared as they clenched around a rock. The fox dropped it gently next to me.
“Thank you.†I said hesitantly. I picked up the stone and felt its river worn smoothness against my palm. “But- how do I use I-“ I looked up to ask the fox, but nothing but the whispers of the river beneath me was left. That was the nature of foxes, I supposed. They were only there when they felt like it.
A cold wind drifted across the wooden bridge and it gave a deep sigh as it settled. I gathered my courage and gripped the stone in my hand, which was strangely warm, as if it was alive. I remembered the soft fur of the fox on my skin and began to walk into the woods.
A gentle dusting of mist had settled over the forest, and it felt powdery against my nose and throat, cloying. The noise of my feet against the sun-scorched twigs was unbearably loud, and the trees caught me and pulled at my skin. The voices in the trees grew louder and louder, and I caught words.
‘lost… when… starving…’
Suddenly, the screams in the woods stopped, and my mother stepped out of the trees, illuminated in a spotlight of light. I opened my mouth, and then snapped it shut as I remembered the words of the fox. I couldn’t say a word until I reached my front door.
“Where have you been?†She chastised me, but I could see her smiling. Her dress hung on her small frame and whipped around her legs, which were as pale as the moonlight.
“Come give your mother a hug. We’ll get you home.†Her voice was honey, and I pictured my mother in my head, small and fragile and as broken as her speech. They were not the same.
I shook my head, and kept walking, and her smile faded.
“Don’t walk away from me.†Her tone had changed, it was as frosty as the mist coating the inside of my throat and it made my pace quicken. I looked away from her, and in my peripheral vision I saw her elongate, her limbs becoming branchlike as they stretched out towards me.
I ran, my heartbeat thudding in my ears as I gripped the stone in my hand and kept my eyes on the road. The house was so close now; I could smell the smoke drifting out of the chimney.
I couldn’t help it, I looked back over my shoulder.
What had been wearing my mother’s skin was now a tangled mass of flesh and leaves and twigs stretching out towards me. I could hear its screams as it begged for me to talk to it, the blood coating the forest floor. Faces were in the twigs, as if they had been sawn off just before the ears and half digested. The eyes were monstrous, jagged holes, splinters erupting out of them.
I could see that they were the faces of children.
I turned back to the house, the air in my lungs was burning. I gripped the stone in my hand and felt my nails scratch against the smooth rock. I felt a tail brush against my leg, and somehow found the strength to keep going, to keep gasping in air, to make it home.
I fumbled with the front door, scrabbling with the lock, and felt a long, sharp branch rake down my back as it finally opened, and I slammed the door shut behind me.
On the sofa, my father was reading the paper in front of the fire as it crackled and spat. He didn’t look up as he turned the page, and licked his thumb contemplatively.
“Nice day, love?†He asked me distantly. “You know you really shouldn’t be out after dark. I don’t know what people would say if they knew you were gallivanting out in the woods at this hour.†I caught my breath, and immediately went to put the kettle on. My hands were shaking so much I could barely hold it.
“Sorry Dad.†I told him softly. “Won’t happen again.†He looked at me from over his glasses, and gave me a smile.
“Making tea?â€
“Yes.â€
“Two sugars today, love.†We sat in front of the glow of the embers as Dad read his paper and I fell asleep with my head buried in his shoulder, the smell of pipe tobacco and wool pushing out the smell of the woods until the fear had left me and my face was flushed warm from the tea.
There’s no saying which of my memories from the woods are real, and which are pretend. My parents died long ago, and the little house on the hill was left empty until vines grew and cradled it like a child but I can’t forget. The pebble that the fox gave me is sewn into my coat. I am waiting for the day that I walk those familiar steps again, and return to the forest, but it is not yet time.
I am not brave enough.


Source.