The Forbidden Forest
864 Words
The forest was forbidden.
But the headmaster said it like the forest was hiding dark secrets.
It was morning. We all gathered for orientation in one of the halls that looked like a chapel without crosses. The light was bright white. There were no windows, no air. It smelled like dust, like old books no one had touched in a hundred years. It seemed to have been opened only for special occasions. Or funerals.
There were murmurs left and right. Shoes clicking. Chairs creaking. Someone whispered it’s “her”and I didn’t turn around. I already knew they meant me.
The moment the headmaster stood on the stage, the whole hall went quiet. quiet enough to hear one’s heartbeat. Mine was too loud. Tick. Tick. Like the clock in my room last night.
Holding a megaphone in his hand, he looked at every inch of the room as if he was staring at us individually. His eyes were pale, just like the stones, like the wolves in the paintings. They landed on me and stuck. For three seconds too long.
He clenched his fists, held the megaphone to his mouth.
“The forest is strictly forbidden,” he said. “No student is allowed to enter it after dark.”
His jaw tightened. His fist clenched. The tendons in his neck stood out like rope.
It didn’t sound like a rule.
It sounded like a threat.
The megaphone clicked off.
The silence after was worse.
Chairs moved. Someone coughed. A girl two rows up choked on her own breath and covered her mouth with her sleeve.
My hands wouldn’t open. I had to peel them off my knees one by one. My heart was pounding. My teeth hurt from clenching. My jaw had locked sometime during his speech and I hadn’t noticed.
I hid my shaky hands in my pocket. The note from Grandma was still there. Don’t let them make you feel small. It felt like a joke now. I felt so small I could’ve crawled under the chair and disappeared.
The headmaster’s fist was still clenched. He didn’t unclench it when he stepped down from the stage. He walked past the first row with his hand balled up at his side, like he was holding something inside it. Or keeping himself from hitting someone.
Three kids in the front row didn’t stand when the headmaster left.
Everyone else waited.
No one breathed.
The girl with grey hair stood up first. Slow. Her chair didn’t make a sound. Her uniform was the same as ours but the grey looked older on her, like she’d been here longer. Like the color had washed out of her too. The other two followed. Boys. Twins, maybe. Same face, same stature, same cold eyes.
Then the rest of us followed after them. One by one. Row by row. Like we were waiting for permission.
I stayed in my seat until my legs stopped buzzing. Until I could trust them to hold me.
The hall emptied out in swarms of students with grey uniforms. No one talked. No one looked at me. Except him.
The boy by the door had a cut on his face. Fresh. Right across his cheekbone, deep, still red. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching people leave. Watching me.
He caught me staring.
He touched the spot where the cut had been.
And smiled.
And the cut was gone.
Not scabbed. Not healing. But gone. The skin was smooth. Unbroken. Like he had never been injured there at all. Like I imagined it.
But I hadn’t imagined it. I’d seen the blood. One drop, beading at the corner. I’d seen it.
My breath seized. I must have made a sound, because his smile got wider.
It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the kind of smile you give when you know a secret. When you know you’re the secret.
He pushed off the doorframe. Started toward me. One step. Two.
The lights buzzed.
I stood up so fast my chair tipped. I was trying to run with my eyes full of tears to only God knew where. I fell to the ground, my chair tumbled over me.
Nobody looked back.
The boy stopped, looking over me. Tilted his head, like a dog hearing a whistle I couldn’t hear.
He gave the weirdest smile ever. The smile was so wide like his cheeks tore on both sides.
I closed my eyes and screamed as I tried to drag myself away from him.
Then he turned and walked out. Didn’t look at me again. Didn’t have to.
The hall was empty.
Just me. And the smell of dust. And the echo of my chair hitting the floor. And me, trying to catch my breath.
And the headmaster’s voice still in my ears: No student is allowed to enter it after dark.
He hadn’t said why.
He hadn’t needed to.
I stood up, tried to leave the hall like every normal student.
Pretending I never experienced the weird boy.
I made it three steps before I heard it.
A whisper from the empty halls, from the air itself.
“Selene Mar.”
In grandma voice.
- Writer
