“Was the lion the stranger we're keeping safe?”
“Yes,” she said, “his yellow eyes were just as scary, but I could tell the moment before he came crawling from around the tree he was there to save us, that he had been waiting for the right moment to strike the black wolf. And that wolf's eyes, Elsie, oh the horror,” Lili said, looking out the window again upon hearing a suspicious sound. “Those eyes have followed me into my dreams. I can't get them out of my head,” she said. “I'm so afraid, all the time.” She got up, walked over to the front door, opening it just a click, to see if the wolf waited for her on the porch. “He's here, Elsie. I know it. He's coming for me, when I'm alone. He'll come for me, because he knows I should have never gone into that Forest. I'm so very afraid,” she said, sitting back down, her hips fused with Elsa's.
Elsa placed a hand on the back of Lili's head, trying to calm her down. “No one's coming for you, Lili darling. I'll protect you.”
“He's going to eat me, and he'll eat you too afterwards. For dessert.” Elsa tried not to laugh.
“Who's to stay he can't just walk right out of the Forest, just like that lion-man did?” Lili asked.
“We all know none of those creatures can leave the Forest, because that's where they belong,” Elsa said.
“Yeah,” Lili pressed on, “but you don't know for certain. Elsa I made a terrible mistake. I mean, I'm here, back with my son, alive, my heart beating, but...”
Elsa continued listening, as she got up from the bench and made her way over to the window, staring out into the grassy area behind the main area of the town. She could see the light from the fireplace inside the church windows.
Lili continued her story. “But something happened in the Forest, when I was there. I think I brought it back with me, into this village,” Lili said, trying to convey her terror in the night to Elsa, whom she thought might come close to understanding.
“How do you know that?” Elsa asked her, turning back around to face Lili, her back to the window. There was an eerie excitement in the room, as if someone were watching both the women and listening to their conversation.
“That's a very good question. I just do, I can feel it in my bones, Elsie. I've done something very wrong, made a terrible mistake. I—I just want to be a good person. Do the right thing. But something in that Forest changed me. I don't know what it is. I don't think I'll ever be the same.”
“How are you different?” Elsa asked.
“I don't feel—safe. The people in this village are hiding things. My dreams are full of nightmares. That forest corrupted me and my son. I used to be a good person, but now I'm…I'm full of rage and fear and can't control it. The other day, I threw a glass against the wall, shattered into a million pieces. What do you think Father O'Grady would say about that?”
“Don't tell him,” Elsa said, doing her best to contain her own fear. “He would tell you that you have been through a tough time, and that you're a fundamentally good person,” she said. “You're alive, you're healthy, and so is Ennis.”
“I just want to go back to my old life. I want things to be the way they were. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than this constant fear and paranoia. That man who saved me is a good man. Maybe he'll protect me from that wolf. He's going to wake up soon, I promise. I just hope he doesn't go back into the Forest and bring his friends.”
Elsa had forgotten about the comatose man from the forest, as she attempted to process the density and gravity of Lili's story. And Lili was right, the man would wake up soon, and Elsa couldn't help but get excited by the anticipation of that event. The blond man radiated a goodness in Elsa's heart that could not ignore. But she couldn't reconcile Lili's story of that blond man's heroism with everything she had been taught about the Forbidden Forest—namely, that all the creatures it contained were evil, black and Satanic.
“That black wolf is Satanic,” Lili said, as if she were reading Elsa's thoughts. “There is no way I'll ever get him out of my mind. It's like he infected me with his evil, Elsa. I'm so afraid for my soul. I don't know what I'm going to do.” Elsa herself was at a loss for words. If what Lili said was true, and there was nothing to suggest she was making up her story, there was a black wolf deep in the heart of the Forest, possibly lurking on the border of the town. Elsa did not understand what allowed the blond man to cross over, and subsequently, what would prevent the wolf from following suit. The thought sent shivers down her spine, and then her mind gravitated toward the blond man again.
“What do you mean, he will wake up soon?”
“Well he's not dead, Elsie.”
“How did he manage to get across the border?”
“That's what I'm telling you. I don't know how. Maybe he's special?”
Elsa's spirit rose with that admission. Yes, of course, she thought. He was special, different from his magical brethren, because he was kinder, a savior for Lili and her son. “Well he did save you and Ennis,” Elsa said. “That must be why he was able to cross over.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Lili said, trying to convince herself, even though she still drowned in her fear of the black wolf. Tears welled up in Lili's eyes, and Elsa could see she was about to lose control of her emotions again.
“Mommy?”
Little Ennis stood in the doorway again, his innocent smile radiating compassion for his mother's fear. He walked over to her, his minuscule bare feet pattering on the wooden floor. He placed his tiny hand on Lili's cheek, pressing down to make small impression. She looked up at him, her chest still heaving from her sorrow, and smiled at her son's attempt to make her feel better. Then she hugged him. Elsa watched from the other side of the room, her heart warm for the scene presented before her, however tinged by a dark and ominous anticipation of some unforeseen tragedy waiting for all of them in the not too distant future.
CHAPTER 6
The clerics sent out word for an emergency announcement at 7 o'clock in the evening. The crowd of townspeople filed one by one into the church, as the teenage girls searched the pulpit area for Father O'Grady, who was nowhere to be seen. The middle aged couples anticipated the subject of the announcement would involve the mysterious blond man from the Forest, whom the town decided would watch over in him in his damaged state. While several members of the community had fallen into the clutches of the forest, and fewer than that had even made it back to the safety of their tiny civilization, never before had any magical stranger emerged from the weeds and wild tree limbs of the Forest.
The congregation waited longer than was comfortable for the majority of its participants, their compassion tethered not far by the weight of their hungry stomachs and falling energy levels. The crowd began to murmur after several hours, nearing the verge of leaving the town hall, knowing such a scarcely decorous action spoke volumes in the eyes of the other members of the community. But then a door near the podium shuddered, and three men walked through, the third being Father O'Grady himself. O'Grady reached the pulpit and the members nearest him on the first few rows of pews could see the shakiness of his hands and the sweat forming on his brow. They wondered if he was upset or excited. He unwrapped a piece of paper, crumbled from his pocket, and began reading a prepared statement.
“This afternoon, as we all prepared our Sunday meals, the chief medical leader of our village informed me that the man who entered our borders six days ago…” Father O'Grady stopped, taking a deep breath, preparing himself for the aftermath of the statement, as the rest of the audience listened with open ears to his every word. There was speculation amongst the crowd in the time since the announcement spread throughout the community that the man had succumbed to his injuries, expired into the afterlife, dead. Those rumors permeated the minds of the older members in the cast of something resembling hope, as the strange blond man threatened their sense of safety and structure, which they so desperately needed in the waning years of their lives. But for the younger members, particularly girls the age of Sarah and Chloe, and to some degree Elsa and Priscilla, they worried that this man, who symbolized the magic and spiritual creativity they so longed for in their community and which their minds flirted with at night, as they dreamed, might give them confirmation of all that had been missing in their lives. His death, therefore, would destroy the great excitement and hope he'd brought with him when he crossed over from the forest.
“The man has awoken,” Father O'Grady finally said, as the crowd erupted into turmoil. “Please keep your voices down, as the other clerics here have laid out a plan for his eventual assimilation into this community.” There was more turbulence with this last statement. There was a growing fear, in addition to a great swell of joy and excitement for what the man would offer the community. Perhaps he would teach children some magic he learned from the interior of the Forbidden Forest, some thought. This was both a good thing and terrible thing, depending on the perspective one assumed.
Elsa stood at the back of the meeting hall, watching Chloe and Sarah squeal with delight. Priscilla, sitting next to them, looked back at Elsa, her face conveying all the fear about what the red ivy meant. Elsa herself worried what would happen if the rest of the town found out Sarah and Chloe idolized the man. He was dangerous to such young girls, particularly those prone to fantastical imaginings and exciting themselves with secrets. Elsa reached down in her pocket, gripping some wad of cloth with the red ivy, having confiscated it from the girls. Standing there in the crowd, seemingly anonymous, Elsa could feel a spotlight on her, someone looking down on her from on high, and she became suspicious the people around her, without voicing their insight, knew her secret, that she was becoming infatuated for this dear blond man whom she had never spoken a word to. That forbidden desire was growing from the interior of her heart, no matter how long or hard she struggled against it, and it would burst forth any second to take hold of her. Her heart was set ablaze by a mysterious and inexplicable tug toward that man from the moment she set her eyes on him, and this was something Elsa had never experienced. She became afraid, almost as fearful as Lili herself, that she had summoned an evil from that terrifying forest into her soul, a sickness she could never rid herself of, because she opened the door through some weakness in her personality. That she would seek the blond stranger out to keep for her own, before she knew how or why, terrified Elsa, as the emotion pulled her into action, overriding any conscious thought, in the way someone might feel when they were possessed by an evil spirit, as it took control of their soul. She prayed God would give her the strength to resist the longing for the blond man growing more powerful with every passing second, and yet grieved for the possibility as well, for this passion presented a new side to life with which she had heretofore been unfamiliar. So Elsa stood there, surrounded by scores of people, yet completely alone, resolved to avoid the blond man's cabin, while at the same time scheming a way to get as close to him as possible.
CHAPTER 7
The leaders of the community kept the blond man locked away for several weeks in a cabin by the cliff, near the sea. The house Father O'Grady offered to give him was once occupied by the oldest living member of the community, long since passed, before Elsa was born. She surmised it could have been the blacksmith who followed his children into the forest, in the hopes he could bring them back, the same man Elsa's father told her about when she was just a little kid.
The blond man didn't emerge from the cabin for days, while several village leaders guarded his door, lest the young girls like Chloe and Sarah meddle into his cabin at night, and disturb his sleep. The whole town united in solidarity in protecting the blond man, spurred by Father O'Grady, from any perturbation. Father O'Grady counseled anyone who would listen, both on Sundays in his time at the lectern and on the sidewalk as he came from his home to work every day, about the importance to letting the man be. The man gave every indication that he wasn't wanted by the community, that they would reject or ostracize him. O'Grady also made it clear to the town's people that the man would warm up to the people in time, as he promised he had no plans to inflict harm on his neighbors.
In the weeks since the announcement, the man's residence sat atop a steep hill, overlooking the sea on one side, and on the other side, a wide gradual slope which neared the depth of a typical valley, on which the main area of the town resided. The tiny blue house was a metaphorical star which attracted the attention of every last resident in the town. The children created games around it. The teenagers came as close as they could at night, before the leaders guarding the young man ran them off, into the dusky night, the freshly grown grass of summer just beginning to fade. Autumn was upon them.
And for Elsa, the longer she tried to ignore the house, the more it consumed her attention, lurking in the back of her mind at her job as a waitress in the local tavern, and directly overpowering her thoughts at night, as she sat in a rocking chair on her porch, watching the sun set. She waited and waited for signs that he would come out of his house and join the rest of the town. The idea enervated Elsa's imagination, to think of a magical man from the forest who decided to permanently reside with them in the town. She surmised all the glorious possibilities it would bring to their village. Perhaps, she thought, they might one day leave, with the man as a guide to how to pass into the wilderness. Elsa stopped that line of thinking, realizing how unholy it was. Father O'Grady would never forgive her. The cool air careened down from the cliff on the sea, through the town and onto her porch, bathing her naked neck in a sweet, cold draft, sending goosebumps through her skin's surface. She lay her head back, daydreaming about the man, wondering what to call him, and how he would respond to her once he laid conscious eyes on her.