Shadow Forest- The Complete Series

by Eliza Grace

  “Oh, yes!” Her face brightens as she remembers the painting, remembers our meeting. Although, I was not that man, not in that place, not even… alive at that time. Not really. I was dead in the forest then. Perhaps not in body, but certainly in mind and soul. “It’s nice to see you again, but…” her voice trails off, her mind searching for an explanation as to my arrival and what to say that won’t seem rude.

  “Well, you said if I was ever in the neighborhood, to ring you up. That the village burger at the Main Street Grill was top notch.” I infuse my words with my will, my will with my want, my want of being with her. This meeting will be perfect. This time, with the satchel having worked its charms and the girl witch held at bay, we will have hours upon hours to fall in love.

  “Right, right.” Her confusion is gone, along with the hesitation in her head that might make her pull away from me. “Why don’t you come in? I’ve just made a blasted mess in my studio and need to clean up. Great timing on your part by the way. I’m starved. Although…” her voice trails off and I see him in her mind, the officer she’s so fond of. He’s supposed to come over for dinner tonight. They’re supposed to watch a film this evening at the faux drive-in the town’s putting on. “It’ll have to be a quick lunch. I have plans for this evening.”

  “I hope my intrusion didn’t cause the mess. It sounded like my knocking caused a small earthquake.” My mouth is still stretched in a smile. It feels affixed to my face, like I might never frown again, as long as I am with her.

  I do not understand how I have become so entrenched in my new feelings for this woman.

  I do not understand it at all.

  What I wanted, more than anything, was to leave this place and get as far from the forest as I could manage. Yet I am still here, so close to my prison that it could reach out at any moment and swallow me up again. I wonder, for a moment, if my feelings for Jen are truly my own.

  But then she laughs, a tinkling wonderful sound, and I am all starry eyed again. She tosses a glance over her shoulder quickly and gives a quick shrug. “Oh, I make messes all the time with absolutely no outside assistance. I’m a real clutz McGee.”

  I follow her through the kitchen and into her studio, which is full of sunlight at the moment, little fingers of light reaching through the pristinely-cleaned glass. On the floor, I see the canvas she’d been painting on before my arrival. The colors are facing the ceiling of the room, so at least it did not land face down. The easel is on its side, one leg hiked awkwardly into the air. A cup of murky water has fallen also, sending a muddy-colored river across the floor. “I was sort of in a daze when you knocked. I’m always in a daze when I’m painting. I went to walk and my foot was on the wrong side of the easel leg. Next thing you know,” she waves her hands at the mess, “total chaos.”

  “Can I help?” I ask as she moves over to the easel and rights it quickly before appraising the painting on the floor.

  “It doesn’t look too bad this way. Maybe I should consider painting the floors in here. Some sort of fun mural. They’re all beaten up to hell as it is and it’d be cheaper than having them refinished again.” She’s sort of tapping her foot as she speaks, her arms crossed over her body.

  “Would you like some help?” I ask once more.

  She looks up at me then, her eyes alive with ideas, so sparkling and vibrant that I want to lean forward and pour myself through those wide portals into her soul. The satchel has proffered me insight, given me many of her deeply-buried truths, but I want to understand every bit of her, every nuance and memory. I’m not noble though. Undeserving.

  No. I rage internally. I deserve this. I deserve her. I deserve the life that was taken from me. Her niece is trapped in the forest and that is my doing, but it had to be done. There was no choice. I cannot regret that action now. “Sorry, what did you say? I have a habit of going all spacey. Tilda finds it…” her voice trails off. And, as if saying the girls name pokes a hole in my protection, I feel the stolen power inside my body pulse with recognition of its rightful owner. I slam down my guards, plug the hole with such force that if it were a dam it could hold the Nile at bay.

  “I just wondered if I could help in some way.” I gesture at the mess.

  When Jen replies, I want the moment to go on forever, even though what she’s said is mundane and oh-so-very human. I am human of course. I once was human. Am I still human? “Sure. Grab some paper towels from the kitchen.”

  I nod and turn back the way we came, spying quickly the roll of white paper stuff that she’s speaking about sitting on the table surface of the kitchen. It is so convenient to be able to ‘see’ in others’ minds what they’re speaking about, since much of these modern things that are so common now are still so alien to me.

  When I return to Jen’s studio- it feels odd to think of her as Jen in my head- I find her kneeling down on the floor, facing away from me. She’s taken off the green blouse and draped it over the sofa. The upper part of her body is now covered only by a fitted white tank top that is cut short, so that just the narrowest pink of pale skin is showing above the line of her pants.

  In my day, the time period within which I should have both lived and died had my course not been unnaturally altered, a woman would not have shown her body so. A woman Jen’s age would have been married off already too, though. She would be… unattainable to me, more so than she is here and now.

  “Thanks!” Jen’s cheerful voice makes me realize that I’ve stood too long staring at her, long enough for it to become uncomfortable and perhaps inappropriate. She doesn’t seem to care though; she’s turned my direction now, staring wide-eyed and in her own little world. Still though, I stand silent, taking her in. And her ‘own little world’ fades, just a fraction. “You okay?” Her brow furrows and her hands rest on her thighs. She’s knelt there, looking unkempt with her hair piled atop her head in a messy bun and she’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before. The light pouring into the studio is casting a halo about her.

  I am the devil. I don’t deserve her. I should give myself back to the forest, give myself back and free the witchling child. I shake my head hard, realizing that the thoughts are coming not of my own accord. Something is breaking through my defenses and it is, definitively, not the child who is still learning how to harness magic. A pit forms in my stomach—the black innards of a rotten peach. The touch of this power that is making me unsure of myself… I know that feeling.

  It has haunted me all the days of my incarceration.

  “Seriously, are you okay?” Jen is standing now, her hand reaching out to touch my shoulder.

  Nothing will ruin this! I mentally scream, harnessing every spark of magic I contain to push back against the influence that seeks to bend my mind and have me willingly return to the hell I’ve just left.

  “Yes; I’m fine.” I mumble out the words, handing her the paper towels, and sounding half the confident man I normally am. “May I use your facilities? I think a cold splash of water is all I need.”

  “Oh. Um… sure. It’s right out there. Take a right and then it’s the next right.”

  I follow her directions until I find myself gripping the sides of her sink and staring into the mirror, which is bubbled and ancient. Where’s my bravado? Is this a new prison? A new trap? I am naked here, emotions worn on my coat sleeve. A hole once again forms in my guardian walls. The girl witch pushes in, snaking her reach to wrap against my body and siphon out what is hers. No… no… Mine! I shake my head, focus on my power. My power. She is trying, yet again, to rip it away from me; that meddlesome girl who does not know when to leave enough alone. Was my warning not enough? Should I send a stronger message?

  Yes… a stronger message.

  I return to the studio, a smile on my face, even though my body is tense fighting against the girl. “All better?”

  “Are you sure?” Jen doesn’t seem convinced that I am now fine, so I smile wider and tug at the magic that is still threatening to wander across the flowe
r-dotted pasture to the woods and to the little meddler. She is dogged this time, pulling and pulling, like she knows she was once close to winning and she will not relent now.

  “I assure you, I’m fine.” I pour conviction into my words as I try to yank back the power. It is mine.

  Jen moves a few feet away from me, a cloud of fear moving across her expression.

  “You know,” she says, “for a moment there I got the weirdest feeling that we’d never met at all. Isn’t that funny? I mean, I obviously met you in New York. You’ve got my painting hanging in your house or wherever.” Her laugh isn’t carefree and girlish now, but a bit nervous-sounding. “I’m sorry. I’ve been really off lately. You probably don’t know that my niece went missing about two weeks ago. There’s been no news yet. This is the first time I’ve tried working since then.” She moves to the canvas on the floor, which brings her back near me, and she picks it up. I try and push happiness into her, or at least the feeling of false joy, but I am not fully in command of the magic right now. I want her to see the picture the way she did only a short while ago—as inspiration to paint the scratched up wood flooring—but her niece is keeping me from doing so. “It’s terrible. I mean, it really is. This painting,” she picks at the corner of the canvas, where the paint is still damp, “I was on a roll before Tilda…” She swallows, the sound almost painful to hear, “Taylor’s going to have to cancel my next show. There’s just no way that I’m going to have enough material. And I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to socialize. I don’t want to make money.”

  Her sadness is enough to send me over the edge. I thrust myself at the tendrils of the little witch. I imagine I am shears and I will snip her to pieces. I feel the slightest tingle in my fingertips at first, the barest hint of a thread of the magic. And I cling to it like a stray string hanging off of a shirt, unraveling the girl’s hold quickly and deftly until, like a boomerang, the magic is under my control once more. It rushes through my body, warm and electric. And I can feel the girl’s protests, both emotional and verbal. I can feel her hands balling into fists and her voice nearly screaming with frustration. With the power back on me, like a thick quilt on a chilly night, I focus on regaining the positive atmosphere of before. Jen’s posture relaxes and the tension rolls off her in rapid waves. I will it so.

  “Who’s Taylor?” I ask, trying to restart the conversation. This is my chance. I feel my last chance, to make her mine. I thought the influence of the satchel would be enough to ease the way, but the girl is more persistent than I realized. And she does not heed my warning. She will regret that, when someone she loves is dead.

  “Taylor manages the gallery that puts on most of my shows. He also acts as my… sort of manager. I’ve never gotten around to getting actual representation. I’ve had a few offers since my pieces started gaining a following, but… God, none of this matters,” she changes the subject and crosses her arms over her chest. “None of this matters.” She gently kicks a colorful pamphlet on the floor. It slides beneath the shadows of a table before I can make out what it was advertising.

  Despite all of my power and spells and plans, depression is clouding between us. I won’t let it.

  It takes all of my concentration to slice through her depression and bring her back to sunshine. Bring her back to me.

  When she finally smiles, the tension leaving for a second time from her body, it is almost like seeing a person post-lobotomy. All the pain of the past and demons of the mind exorcised with one fell puncture of a needle. It was a barbaric practice, but I utilized it now for my own gain. “Let’s get out of here and get some food, like we’ve planned. I think you need fresh air and a change of scenery.”

  Jen has turned away from me to face the windows. The spilled paint on the floor is drying, working its way into the wood grain, but she doesn’t seem to care. The paper towels are forgotten in her grip. Power. I push the power. More and more, until I feel I might collapse under the use of it.

  Send the tingling manipulation towards her.

  Be happy.

  Be willing.

  Leave with me.

  “Screw it. I’ll clean later,” Jen says as she tosses the cleaning products onto the floor, jumping a little when they clatter against the hard surface. Like she was not expecting to throw anything, was not expecting the consequences, was not expecting the actions of her own body. When she looks at me this time, her eyes speak of innocent confusion, hidden beneath my magical urgings.

  “I completely agree.” I said, reaching out for her. She looks at my outstretched hand for a moment and then the confusion melts.

  I wonder what I am doing to her—she is a turbulent ocean, her waters rising and trying to crest, trying to make sense of what is going on in waves of sensations edging towards comprehension—I am taking that understanding away from her though. I am not allowing the truth to war its way in so that she can realize that we have never met, not properly. That she is not happy and has no desire to go anywhere with me. I am warping her mind with my selfish determination. “Off for a village burger then?” I say, keeping my hand hovering in the air, waiting for her fingers to rise and lay against my skin.

  She nods slowly, the smallest of smiles curving her lips. “That really sounds great.” Her voice is quiet, demure.

  “Do you want to change first?” I eye her outfit. I don’t want her to go out in public like this. I don’t want anyone else to see the line of skin between tank top and jeans. I don’t want anyone to see the way she looks when she has been lost in her art—or, at least trying to be lost in her art. It hits me that I have not only stolen her niece, I have stolen perhaps, her artistic soul as well. Her desire to paint. Her ability to paint. If I have taken her talent… that is a sin I am not sure will be forgiven in whatever afterlife awaits me.

  “Oh, the grill isn’t fancy. I go in there all the time like this.” She’s staring down at herself though, appraising her looks. I push against her with the power, let it pulse and convince and urge. “But, yeah, I guess I can change.” She has not taken my hand still and my palm is twitching with the anticipation. I lower my hand, though, as she reaches up to the messy nest of her hair and pulls out the band that is keeping it tamed and away from her face. Her hair falls down in lovely light brown waves, hints of gold glinting in sun rays from the windows. It’s beautiful.

  And it is nothing like her sister’s was or her niece’s is.

  She walks briskly from the room then, away from me, those brown gilded waves swishing against her back becomingly.

  It is then that I realize, and I find that I am quite stupid for not grasping it much earlier, that my artist is not blood relation to the witch who stole my life. I can taste it now that I have had the thought. I can taste her dissimilar lineage. I can taste the clean humanness of it. Even a witch without powers, one that was never taught, never came into their gift, as was the case with a magical eunuch, would have some inherent ability to resist my manipulations. Like the little witch in the forest, always pushing back, never accepting that our positions are now switched.

  No, my Jen is no descendent of Elisabeth. She cannot be.

  And with that fact in my heart, I continue to wait feeling more lighthearted than before. She enters the studio soon after. She hasn’t changed, but she radiates pure and untainted light. I feel like each splash of color on her clothes is a stroke of who she is fundamentally, to her very core. She is lovely and rare.

  Lovely.

  Rare.

  And mine.

  The Dollhouse 1

  -Jen-

  Twelve days after Tilda’s disappearance.

  I am going to change my clothes, but halfway to my room, I realize the silliness of it. I don’t dress up to go out; I don’t change my jeans simply because they’ve been touched by my art.

  I turn around, taking the hair band off my wrist and slopping my hair back up into a messy bun. When I reenter the studio, the man is there. I stare at his face a moment not knowing who he is, b
ut as soon as he speaks, it all floods back. He bought my painting. We’re going to lunch. I know him… I even like him. Do I like him?

  “I was going to change.” I stare down at my clothes.

  “That’s alright,” he says, retrieving my green blouse from the sofa and handing it to me. “You can just put this back on if you’d rather.”

  Would I rather? I think furiously, trying to make sense of things. Yes, I would like to put it on. I slip my arms through the holes and fasten the line of small, pale buttons.

  “Shall we?” His voice is honey and cinnamon and a cool breeze on a warm day.

  “Sure.” I walk ahead of him, once again leaving my studio. The feet that begin to separate us start to dispense the cloudiness in my head. I am unsure again. Of who he is and what we’re doing…. I can hear him rustling in the room behind me, so I turn around. He is reaching for something beneath the pillows of the sofa. I can only see a small fold of cloth before he has tucked whatever he has taken into the inner pocket of his jacket. He turns and finds me hesitating in the doorway.

  “Is everything alright?” He smiles, disarming and handsome and everything leaves my head like spider silk catching a breeze.