Forbidden Forest

The Fight

I finally finished my last year of high school, graduating at the top of my class with multiple acceptances to some of the best colleges in the country. I am ready to leave this place and my father behind. I drove home on edge, not knowing what I'll be walking into. He’ll know that today was my last day, he will know I'm leaving. It's not going to be a good scene when I get home, I have a strong feeling I should turn around and just leave everything behind. I drive home anyway; I can't leave without my mother’s locked wooden box, the one she left for me; I'm supposed to open it on my eighteenth birthday.

I pull into the driveway of my house; it's been in terrible condition. The shutters are hanging from its hinges, the paint peeling off the wooden frame, the screen door ripped and always open since my father tried ripping it off its hinges in a rage. It's time to say goodbye to this life and start my journey. I take a deep breath and go inside, the scene before me has me stop in my tracks. Beer bottles shattered all over the floor, alcohol dripping from the walls and ceiling. Pictures had been thrown to the floor, glass shattered and scattered. I could hear my father tearing the house apart. His rage was the most violent I had ever seen.

"b***h!" he yells, "I know you're home! I can hear you!"

I'm frozen in fear, what is it going to be today? A beer bottle thrown at my head, being slammed into a wall, whipped with his belt?

"Clean this s**t up, b***h!" he screams, "You f*****g w***e!"

Suddenly, he appears from the living room, beer bottle in hand. He lifts it and throws it at me. It slams into my ribs, and I fall onto the broken glass. I scream in pain as the glass shards pierce my skin, the alcohol seeping into the gashes.

"Get up you little b***h!" he screams from above me; I didn't even hear him get closer.

I grab a shard of glass and stab him in the leg, he screams and falls to the floor. I get up and dart to my room, locking the door and pushing my bookcase up against the it. I need to grab my mom's box.

I grab my duffel bag and throw in a few things, clothes, shoes, my notebook, and my shoebox that has all the money I saved over the years. I can hear him throwing things, everything shattering on the floor. How can he still break everything when I stabbed his leg? I thought. He shouldn't be able to walk.

Suddenly, I can smell smoke coming through the air vents. He's burning the house down! If I don't act quickly, I'll burn with the house! With all the alcohol on the floors, walls, and ceiling the house is bound to go up in flames quickly. I grab everything that I need, shove it into my duffel bag and go out the window. I go to get into my car and realize I don't have my keys; they must've fallen out when I fell.

As I ran towards the woods, I could hear him screaming. I dart into the them, and I turn around to see where he is in case I have to dodge something, but he's stopped at the tree line. Almost as if he is scared to cross the boundary into the woods. He's looking around, it's like he can't see me even though I'm about twenty feet away. I shake my head, I don't care. I turn back towards the rest of the woods and run deeper in.

I've been running for a while now, but I know I need to keep going further. Deeper and deeper I go, then I spot something in the corner of my eye. I start to panic because about a hundred feet from me is a large pure black wolf. It might be my eyes or my imagination, but it's larger than a normal wolf. I start to run faster, but as I look to the side I can see the black wolf is keeping up with me.

Then, I see a small stone cottage. I run straight to the door and bang on it hard. The door swings open and there stands a woman, in her mid-forties, staring at me in shock.

"Who are you," she demands, "What do you want?"

"Please," I say, "There's a wolf out here following me, my father just tried to kill me! Please! I don't know if I can go any farther."

Only then does she register the gashes and blood on my arms, legs, and side. Her eyes widen some more, and she ushers me in. When I get inside, I notice that her home is filled with plants, everything I see had to have been made from trees, plants, and rocks around her cottage. A large cauldron hung over her fireplace.

"Come sit," she orders, "Let's have a look at these wounds." She guides me over to a tree stump that was designed to be a chair. "Now, tell me what happened."

I hesitate, I'm not sure what I should tell her. This is a random stranger living in the woods that I had just come across. Yes, I entered her house, but it was out of fear from what was following me. Now, I'm wondering if I should be afraid of what she could do to me.

Noticing my hesitation she says, "Don't be afraid child, I am a healer, not a killer. It's my job to heal people."

Somehow a wave of calm washes over me and I am suddenly relaxed. Then, I find myself blabbing to her about what had happened. From when I had walked into my home, the disaster it was in, and the events that happened after. Then, I continued with everything from the past, how my home never felt like home, how my father had always been abusive towards me, how I just felt different from everyone else.

She nodded as she listened and put some kind of gooey herbal remedy on my gashes and cuts. When she was done with it, she then wrapped them in cloth. I suddenly felt extremely tired and she guided me to the straw bed in the loft of her house. The second I laid my head down, I fell fast asleep.

The next morning, I woke up to birds chirping. I climbed down the stairs to find the mystery woman that had taken care of me last night. I felt the need to thank her. However, she was nowhere to be found. I looked around her strange home and found a note on the wooden table. It read, "Went out to get some herbs. - Mary" Huh, so that was her name. I went back up the stairs to the loft she had me sleep in last night and found that my duffel was laying on the floor at the bottom of the bed. I panic, wondering if she went through my stuff. But everything was there. I pull out my notebook and write everything that had happened the night before. When I am finished, I close it and put it back in my duffel. Then, I pulled out the wooden box that my mother had left me. I hear a gasp from behind me and I almost drop the box. I spin around and find Mary staring at me, pale as a ghost.

"Where did you get that?" She demands, her voice shaking.

"It was left by my mother," I say, "Why?"

She walks toward me and puts her hands on my head, I freeze at her touch, then feel woozy. She pulls away quickly and says in shock, "You are my niece."