Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  “Have you helped families through this sort of thing a lot?” I step back instinctively as he comes forward, his hand out to touch my shoulder. “Please don’t touch me,” I whisper, “It’s all I can do not to fall apart. Every second of the day, I just want to collapse and not get back up again.”

  Officer Wheaton’s hand drops. “Before here, I was in New York. Ten years. You can’t imagine how many kids went missing. You can’t imagine how many cold cases I left behind.”

  “Officer Wheaton—” I start speaking, but he interrupts.

  “Call me Archie.”

  I quirk an eyebrow. “Archie?”

  “Short for Archibald. And don’t even ask my middle name.” He gives a lopsided grin.

  It’s enough to make me smile, smile without effort or thought, just because I found something amusing. It felt nice… but also like a betrayal. I cannot be happy, not with Tilda gone. “Archie then.” My smile tires too quickly for my liking. I want to capture that moment where happiness came quickly, over something as silly as a comic book character name given to a guy who looks like more like a ‘Moose’ than an ‘Archie’. “I expect if you had anything new to tell me, you would have opened with that.”

  I don’t make it a question. He doesn’t answer it like one.

  “We’ll find answers, Jen.”

  “I’d rather you promise to find Tilda.” I lower my face, staring at the sidewalk for a moment. “Off to plaster the town.” I swing the bag I’m holding; it bumps into my calf, hard enough to almost buckle my knee. I find I want my knee to buckle, to fall onto the sidewalk and just lay there against the hot concrete.

  “Let me help.” Archie walks past me and throws his cup into a green, mesh-sided trash can. I walk over to him when I see how his expression changes to a deep frown. “No, Jen, let’s go.”

  He turns to me and takes a step from the trash. I press forward, wanting to see what he has seen. And I do.

  There, in the trash can full of food wrappers and empty water bottles, is one of my signs. Tilda’s face is smiling up at me. Her name is in bold black lettering along with my phone number. She has been missing since X date. Her family is desperate to find her. Payment for any information that leads to her recovery.

  And the dregs of Archie’s coffee have spilled out of his cup to splatter all over it.

  “I’m sorry, Jen,” Archie murmurs, “I didn’t see it there.”

  “I won’t give up.” I put steel in my words. “I won’t give up on her ever.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but he follows as I hoist up my bag and take out two posters and the large stapler I’ve been using to put them up. It’s nearly industrial sized; a quick pop and the thick staples slide easily into the wood lamp posts scattered around town.

  We barely speak as we work. With every sign we hang, I feel a lump growing in my stomach, fraction-by-fraction.

  I won’t give up.

  I won’t give up.

  I’ll do this until I die or the world dies around me.

  Because she’s out there somewhere. I can feel it.

  Archie and I don’t part ways until the entire town is a collage of Tilda. Archie promises to discover whoever is destroying my signs. I can see it in his face that he means what he says. After he walks me back to my car, when I am seated and ready to drive away, I can see that he also wants to ask me something. But he swallows it down. And that’s probably for the best.

  Flying Up

  -Tilda-

  We don’t have time.

  All we have is time.

  The goblin has been gone for some time now.

  Enough time that Mom and I have argued again, then cooled again, and then argued once more. She is sitting contentedly now, skimming through a book whilst Arianna fades in and out of reality near her shoulder. It is like she is being drawn to some other place, but that place is also here and now.

  I am thinking back to that first time I stole my power back to free Arianna. I am thinking about the other times I have stolen back bits and bits, only to lose my grip on them, as if I am losing pieces of my very soul.

  I am angry that the witchfinder can so easily thwart my attempts to pull my powers back and that now he thinks it’s perfectly okay to send some hideous creature to threaten people I love. Mom says he beats me so easily because I’ve not been properly trained, that I have to focus and pay attention. She says I can learn things quickly, if I set my mind to it. But we don’t have time, even here in this forest where time is a trickster—moving slow, then fast, then slow again. I am practicing everything Mom teaches me. I am trying. But my heart is not wholly in it and I know that is hurting my progress.

  We don’t have time. I have watched him, for however many hours or days or weeks have passed outside the forest. He watches Jen, stalks her, and uses my power to spy on her. Every time I try to stop him, thinking that ‘this time I can do it; this time I’ll have my power back for good’, he beats me. He beats me on every level. All I want to do is protect Hoyt and Jen from him. My instinct is to stop trying to fight him, to let him have the power and give my life over to the woods, even if it means I will never see those I love again.

  And I know that if this is what I choose, if I succumb to my fate, then Mom will eventually fade away also—either in truth or in personality—and then I will be alone, save for the odd and often-times terrifying creatures that are trapped here with me.

  Mom reads for some time. I stew and fester and wonder if I am as useless as I feel, even more useless now than I was when I could not walk. Finally, our stalemate is broken.

  “Do you want to know the best part of being what we are, sweetheart?” Mom is looking at me, her eyes bright jewels within her face and her expression alive with a secret that she is waiting, so very impatiently, to pour out of her mouth. I do not know which version of my mother bothers me more—the twisted, dark thing with the glassy black eyes or this voracious sprite, bouncing about with unusual energy. I want my mother back. I want Sunday pancakes and the radio too loud. I want her dancing with Dad in the kitchen whilst the scrambled eggs burn.

  “Don’t distract me,” I grumble out, arms crossed as I lean against the room’s wall formed of strong vines and trunks and magic.

  “Distract you from what?” her voice teases. “Pouting?”

  I look at Mom. She’s smiling beatifically, waiting for me to let go of my sullenness and engage with her.

  She doesn’t realize it, but I see her façade slipping then, that ugliness coming forth in lines and cracks across her lovely mask. I understand that, although she may look like my mother, she is also now an undead sort of creature, masquerading as something with earthly staying power. I want to tell her that I see it, that she needs to let go of her hold on this life and move on, truly move on. I worry she will turn into one of the others, something odious and rotting. But, then again, I also worry that she will move on and leave me.

  Is it terrible to subject someone you love to the prospect of rot and ruin just because you feel you cannot let them go? It is terrible…

  I stop looking at Mom, because now I am seeing the overlay of a zombie-like face across her own. It is like a thin cotton sheet covering her features. I wonder if it is my imagination. I wonder if this stupid forest is preying on my fears.

  “I’m not pouting.” I say, my voice very much in ‘pout’ mode. “I have to stop him, Mom. I have to.”

  “And you, will, My Little Witch. But first you must learn what you are. First you must become what you are meant to.”

  “There isn’t time,” I nearly yell, turning angrily from her and closing my eyes. I focus on him again, for what feels like the millionth time. He’s driving a convertible, steering deftly and navigating the road with many turns. I don’t recognize where he is, only that he is not alone. Jen is with him. She’s wearing paint-splattered jeans and a light green top. Her hair is pulled up in a messy, chaotic bun that draws attention to her lovely cheekbones. She’s happy. I can feel her happines
s. And his.

  But she doesn’t know what he is. Who he is…and what he’s done.

  “Tilda, stop.”

  I open my eyes at the sound of her voice. My mom is in front of me now; she’s reached forward and taken my hands. I hadn’t realized I’d been moving them, circling them around one another with my fingers bent in a sort of cup shape to clasp at the deeply yellow energy forming around my palms.

  “Tilda, what you were doing… you were pushing into a time that hasn’t even happened yet, not out in the world. An untrained witch doing something like that. Tilda, your mind could break. Even trained witches rarely mess about with time and projection.”

  “Projection?” I ask. “What do you mean that I was pushing into a time that hasn’t happened yet?”

  “No,” Mom says firmly, “we’re taking a break from this. We’re going to do something fun. I think you need to do something fun.”

  “What I need is to learn more. To feel more of this.” I pull my hands away from hers, clenching and unclenching my fingers and causing lightning bolts of deep yellow to flicker across my skin. “You don’t know what it feels like to be so helpless.” Stamping my foot, I turn away, walking out of the forest ‘room’. It is twilight here, shadow dancers prancing between tree trunks and glittering bugs beginning to spark to life, their little bodies glowing with inconsistent lights. I sense that Mom has followed me out into the open woods, but I don’t turn around to confirm. Her voice tells me only a moment later that I am right.

  “Look at the lightning bugs, Tilda. You used to love them when you were a little girl. You once asked me how the stars left space to come down and fly around us. Do you remember how I responded?”

  I take a deep breath before answering. “You said the stars only came down to earth when someone truly needed them to shine, needed that light in the darkness and the reminder that the sun comes back.”

  She nods slowly. “They’re shining for you tonight, Tilda. So you don’t forget. You won’t be here forever, Little Witch. Remember that. Hold onto hope and to that promise of starlight.”

  Tears have begun to fall from my eyes now. I cannot stop them. “There’s no light here, mom.”

  “How can you say that when the proof is in the pudding?” She gestures out at the dancing bugs, which seem to be growing ever and ever brighter with each moment.

  “Don’t use dad’s lines against me,” I huff, recalling the exact last time I heard my dad say ‘the proof is in the pudding’. I’d been babysitting Toby and we’d broken great-grandmother’s lamp. We were the only ones around, so we had to have been the ones to break it, yet still we’d lied hoping not to get into trouble. ‘The proof is in the pudding’ dad had said, waving his arms about and showing the absence of anyone else who could have busted the ceramic floral lamp. I shake my head and rub at the tears roughly with the ragged hem of my dress. I don’t want to think about my baby brother, his eleven-year-old face that always seemed so much younger. The freckles that seemed to connect in summer until he was a uniform golden-brown. His eyes and his laugh and his infectious personality.

  So I change the subject.

  Hard. And fast.

  As if that change will wipe the memories away like grime from a car during a hurricane-level automatic wash.

  “So what’s the best thing about being what we are?” I grumble out, not really caring what her response will be.

  Of course, then she does respond and my heart skips a beat.

  “Flying, Tilda. The best part is flying.”

  Her words hang in the air and, just as I am about to say something back, Arianna flies over our heads, sending glowing sparks to mingle with the firefly lights.

  I have always wanted to fly.

  To spread my arms and produce large wings covered in dove-like feathers.

  I have always wanted to fly.

  To lift up into the air and leave the world behind.

  And once, the best part about that prospect, about using great, unfathomable wings to spring away from the Earth’s surface, was that legs did not matter. Not that much. They could dangle uselessly beneath my body and still my wings would carry me higher. I have my legs now, but I still wish to fly like a bird and leave this world behind.

  Of course, I’d soon find out that flying doesn’t exactly work that way… for a witch.

  Unless you have an… ahem… broom stick or something similar, you don’t really ‘fly’, not like a bird anyways. No, you hover— sort of like the way a hummingbird can seem to float in one place, its wings beating furiously fast, but a witch doesn’t have all of that telltale movement to give away what’s happening.

  It’s almost like, the intent of power, holding the idea of flying in your mind, it lifts you up… like you’re standing on an invisible support bridge or magic carpet that can go hither and thither and anywhere you think. In the blink of an eye.

  So, if we were free and out of this prison, mom and I could hover, imagine a place, and be there. She says that flight travel is almost like opening a portal, where you skip the middle bits and just arrive at point B from point A. Here, in the confines of the trees, we cannot test this and, say, go for dinner in France. But we can hover, to the very tips of the trees, and see the stars. We can go that short distance, wind speeding past our faces, and skim the treetops with our fingertips.

  So we do.

  “What do you think?” Mom’s face is shining with life, her smile wide and unfiltered. “Don’t you just love it? Doesn’t this make everything okay, if only for a moment?”

  I run my hands across the leaves at the very top of the large oak I’m floating next to. “It’s really great.” I try to smile, but all I am thinking about is that I wish we were not imprisoned, so I could hold the picture of Hoyt in my head and suddenly, in a blink, be next to him. I want to kiss him. I can still feel the memory of our first embrace in the meadow. I want to kiss him again.

  But the woods will not allow a portal to be opened; it will not allow us that escape. So we float like those hummingbirds, the magic and our minds the fast-moving wings, and we enjoy what little pleasure this flight affords us.

  “I thought you’d like this more.” Mom’s face falls, the fingers of her right hand grip a bunch of leaves and she tears them away from the tree, quite violently; she does not seem happy that I am not more happy.

  “No, mom, it’s really great. I just miss Jen.” And I miss Hoyt. My Hoyt. Is he safe? What is he doing right now? Where is Jen? Where is the witchfinder?

  “And you miss that boy, don’t you?” Mom is looking keenly at me, the way only a mother can look—knowing the truth beneath the onion layers you’re trying so desperately to keep her from peeling back. Because you don’t want to be left raw, eyes burning with tears.

  “Hoyt,” I murmur. “Yes, I miss him too.”

  “You’re too young for a serious relationship, Tilda. And, sweetheart, he was in a position of power in a lot of ways. He’s been helping you heal. That alone could make a lot of people fall into like or a façade of love. Use your time here to distance yourself. It’ll be healthier, when you escape, when you go back to being…” her voice trails off.

  “I will go back to being broken, won’t I? I’ve been wondering about that.” Strangely, this fact doesn’t make me sadder than I already am. I think I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that when I was free again, I would go back to being wheelchair-bound. A different kind of cage, one with wheels instead of bark.

  We hover there in the tree tops letting the night air kiss our faces and the stars twinkle above us like little promises. We say nothing else. She says nothing else, not even offering a slice of sympathy now that she’s confirmed that I will, indeed, be without my legs once more—when these shadowed woods are but a memory and I am free.

  We hover there. Floating and listless and lost. There in the tree tops.

  The leaves rustling from a breeze that is not a breeze at all, but spirits moving through branches, and then we are floating down
, back to the ground and the reality of the dark woods.

  Falling Down

  -Tilda-

  Learning is a language.

  Time is of the essence.

  “Teach me something new,” I say, as soon as my feet hit the ground. I want, no, I need something to do to take my mind off of Jen and Hoyt. I need to take my mind off of my worry and the uncertainty of tomorrow or today… yesterday. I do not even know what hour it is, what day of the week. “Anything new. Just teach me something.”

  She looks at me oddly before she replies. “I’m tired, Tilda. Tomorrow.” Mom’s voice is low, her words slow. It is easy to tell that she is exhausted. That surprises me; I’ve been thinking of her as some sort of apparition of her former self. And apparitions do not need to sleep or eat or thrive in a humanly way.

  “Tomorrow… today… when time doesn’t matter here, mom. You know that better than me. You’ve been here longer.” I cross my arms, holding myself together. I feel that, at any moment, I might fall apart. That little fractured bits of me will splinter away from my body and cascade to the ground. It is a terrifying sensation that makes me plant my feet more firmly on the ground. And I know my face is stern and unhappy. I am trapped here; the least my mother can do is help me feel better about my imprisonment.

  “Yes, I’ve been here longer, Tilda. And I’m telling you that I’ll teach you something new tomorrow. Right now, I need to rest. I’m,” she puts her right palm against her forehead, “very tired, Tilda. Very tired.” She repeats the last and I realize how pale she is, how thin, like her skin is pulled too taut across her bones and there’s not nearly enough fat to keep her alive-looking. I thought the wraith version of my mother was terrifying, the most terrifying.