On a cool autumn evening Derek went out into the
woods to fetch his sister. Twelve year old Madison had entered Timber Forest
earlier that afternoon, calling out that she was going to go play in the woods.
Derek watched her enter the old forest and disappear into the thick tree line.
Madison knew that forest like the back of her hand, and she also knew that she
wasn’t supposed to be in there as the sun was going down. Now the sun was
touching the top of the great trees, and Madison was nowhere in sight.
Figuring that she just must’ve lost track of time,
Derek set out to find her. Looking into the forest brought back memories of
when it held wonder for him. Like Madison now he had a great knowledge of the
forest. He still knew where the tallest tree he had ever climbed was, a hole
where a family of ground owls once lived, even the spot where he first camped
out. However, it had been a long time. Derek was seventeen now; the old woods
didn’t possess the magic it once did for him.
Right off the forest was a dense mixture of fir,
spruce, birch and elm trees. The different species would cluster together but
couldn’t help intermingling. The forest was a beautiful canvas of autumn
colors. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, as winter was around the
corner. The last few birds were making their way south, and squirrels and
rabbits scurried through the foliage in search of food to store away. Life went
on in Timber Forest as it always did.
Even through the carpet of leaves Derek could see
and follow Madison’s paths. He called out for her, telling her that she had to
come in. No reply came back. Derek kept yelling out for her, looking out for
movement, too. At first, Derek hoped that she would’ve just had her Ipod in her
ears and that’s why she wasn’t answering. As time went by and it got darker, he
grew more and more scared.
He walked deeper down the path, having now turned
his flashlight on, frantically calling out for Madison when a breeze whistled
through the trees.
“Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.” Derek froze. “Coooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeee
tooooooooooooooooo meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
The voice was clearly a girl’s, but Derek didn’t
recognize it. He ran further down the trail, yelling for the voice to answer
him, but it never did. The trail ran along a dirt ridge, but it was too dark
for Derek to notice it. He ended up running right off the ridge, tumbling head
over heels twenty feet down. He lost hold of his flashlight and it bounced
away. When he finally stopped, landing on his back, he was too disoriented to
move or call out, so he just closed his eyes.
When Derek woke up again, it was fully dark. The
full moon cast light through the trees as a cool breeze blew through their
leaves. Derek tried shifting around but found some slightly heavy object on his
stomach. He pulled his head up to see a cat sitting on him, staring at him with
yellow eyes that glowed in the moonlight. It was kind of big for a house cat,
but that might have been for the scruffy fur that covered the animal. When
Derek started moving around, it started to purr, the first indication that it
was alive, for it hadn’t moved a muscle the whole time since.
“What are you doing here?” Derek asked out loud.
The cat tilted its head, but kept its eyes locked on
Derek’s. “Waiting for you to wake up.”
Derek froze and did a double take. Unbelievably,
those words came from the cat. It was the deeper voice of an older man, but it
definitely came from the cat.
Derek was sure he was still reeling from the fall.
“I must’ve hit my head,” he said to himself.
“You didn’t hit your head,” the cat said. “And if
you don’t get up soon your sister is going to die.”
Derek’s wits came back to him instantly, and he
jumped up, letting the cat slide off him in the process. “Where’s Madison?” he
asked the cat forcefully. “Please tell me where she is.”
“Ask me my name first,” the cat replied, sitting in
the leaves. When Derek was thrown off by the request, it continued, “If you
want to know how to save your sister, you’re going to have to play my game
first. Ask me my name.”
“Fine,” Derek groaned. “What is your name?”
“So manners aren’t fully lost on humans,” the cat
commented. “My name is Damien.”
Damien said and did nothing more, but watched Derek
expectantly. He either didn’t understand or didn’t care that Derek only wanted
his sister to be safe if what he said was true. Grudgingly, Derek politely
asked, “Would you show me where my sister is?”
“Very good, now keep up,” Damien told him and walked
off into the woods. Derek quickly retrieved his flashlight and followed. The
cat took many twists and turns through the trees, but Derek was able to keep
him in the beam of his flashlight. Along the way, he realized how insane this
must be. He was following a talking cat in the middle of the woods. He silently
agreed to himself that, if this was really happening, he wouldn’t tell anyone
about this ever.
Damien’s path was completely nonsensical. He led
Derek for half an hour through the woods, for sure going in circles at times.
When they went through the same clearing at the bottom of the ridge for the
third time, Derek had had it. “Wait,” he yelled, stopping dead still. Damien
sat in the leaves, craned his head around and stared at Derek curiously. “Where
are we going other than in circles?”
“Patience,” the cat told him. “I’m retracing my
steps to where I saw them.”
“Who’s ‘them’?” Derek asked suspiciously.
“Your sister and the Witch,” Damien said
nonchalantly. Then it started licking its paws.
Derek froze in disbelief once again. Then he just
burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
The cat just sat licking its paws. “Believe me or
don’t; either way, it’s your sister.”
“But a witch?” Derek asked in disbelief. “There’s no
such thing as magic!”
“Whatever you say,” Damien replied in his usual
manner. “I guess you should just stop talking to me and go on to find your
sister. If magic doesn’t exist, then I don’t exist, and you’re just losing your
mind. There’s no use denying magic, or else your sister is already dead, and
that witch is going to have herself a nice Madison steak.”
Derek couldn’t believe this, but Damien was right. It
was crazy enough that there was a talking cat, so he might as well just go all
the way. “I’m sorry,” he conceded. “Would you please show me where my sister
is?”
Damien nodded curtly and darted back off into the
woods with Derek right behind him. The path was much straighter this time, and
soon they were approaching a new clearing, where there was clearly a fire
flickering through the thick brush. Damien stopped just outside the field,
turned to Derek, and said, “They’re in there.”
Derek nodded and peered through the brush to see a
huge fire about six feet wide and two figures standing by it. Derek recognized
one as his sister, Madison. She was just standing still, swaying back and forth
with her head hanging forward. It was hard to tell if she was conscious, but
she was standing firmly.
The other person was walking tight circles around
her, whispering something to Madison as she did. She was Madison’s height, but
her large tattered cloak hid the rest of her features. From what Derek could
tell, she was filthy, or at least her clothes were. She had spent a long time
in this forest for sure.
Derek had no idea what she was doing to Madison, but
he wasn’t going to sit and watch. He burst through the brush, yelling “Get away
from her!”
The witch calmly stopped her chanting and turned to
face Derek. Her hood concealed her eyes, but Derek could clearly see that she
was smiling. Madison didn’t react at all. “You must be Derek,” she said in a
musical voice. “Dear Madison here has told me so much about you while we were
playing.”
“Well, game’s over,” Derek replied. “If we don’t get
back home soon, people will start looking for us.”
The witch started walking toward Derek, who was
starting to get nervous. “And will they blame me if they find me? I’ve done
nothing wrong. Madison is here of her own choice; she wanted to see some old
magic, but I told her that we would have to wait until dark to do it, and she
agreed to stay.”
The witch kept walking toward him, which was starting
to creep Derek out. “Well, she can’t stay; we have to go.”
“She can’t leave,” the witch protested. “We’ve
already started and can’t just stop in the middle of this process. This is
delicate work that can’t wait.” Derek still couldn’t see her face, but
something about her smile changed. “If you want to speed this up, there is
something you can do to help.”
Derek wanted nothing more to do with this. He rushed
past her and grabbed his sister. She went limp as soon as he laid his hands on
her. The witch turned around and started screaming at him. She made no move
toward them, but started chanting in a language Derek couldn’t identify. Derek
picked up Madison and rushed out of the field into the night.
Derek ran through the trees with his sister in his arms,
trying to get as much distance as he could from the witch. It was cumbersome,
and he had difficulty pointing his flashlight steadily, but the point was to
keep moving.
Derek stopped for a second to catch his breath, but
took time to inspect his sister. Setting her down against a tree, he tried
rousing her, but with no success. He shook her, flashed his light in her eyes,
yelled right in her face, but she kept still. She was breathing and her heart
was beating, but she was completely unresponsive.
“Deeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeek,” came a voice on the wind. Derek froze as chills ran
down his spine. “Yooooooooooouuuuuuuu caaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn’t
ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnn.”
Derek, officially terrified, scooped his sister back
up and ran. He picked a direction and just ran, figuring sooner or later he
would get out of the woods.
In his panic, however, Derek forgot about his
flashlight, so he didn’t see the root he stumbled over, or the twenty-foot drop
off that he then tumbled right into.
A few hours later the sun was starting to rise and
shine through the trees. The witch stood at the edge of the cliff, statuesque
and covered in the morning dew, looking down at the lifeless bodies of the two
children, disappointed. If she had gotten there sooner, she might have saved
them from such a painful death.
Behind her she heard a soft rustling in the damp,
dead leaves. She turned to see the scruffy cat, Damien walk toward her,
appearing to have a smile on his furry face. The cat walked up to her legs
under her cloak and rubbed against her, purring affectionately.
“They didn’t survive,” the witch admitted with
guilt.
“They weren’t going to one way or the other,” Damien
pointed out.
“But we didn’t get what we wanted from them,” the
witch replied.
“Others will come,” Damien reminded her. “More
always come. It may be a while before we see more youthful faces, but they
always return.”
“And next time I’ll do better,” the witch assured
herself. “I promise I’ll do better next time, Damien.” The cat purred in
response and continued to weave through her legs.
“It is a shame, however. I wanted to have some more fun
with them,” Damien said. “But the spirits of the woods will have their fill of
fresh souls. We did our job.”
The witch and the cat each felt a cold wind from
behind them. “Brrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnng
mmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeee mmmmmmmmmmmoooooooorrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee.”
When the wind became silent, a dark smile formed on
Damien’s face. His ears twitched to pick up the sound of children already
wandering and playing in the woods. “Let the game begin again,” he said with an
evil glint in his eye.
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