The Forest Path Part 1

 

The first thing I noticed wasn't the silence—though that would come later, pressing against my eardrums like cotton wool—but the lights. Tiny pinpricks of gold that danced between the trees like earthbound stars, too regular to be sunlight filtering through leaves, too purposeful to be mere reflection.

Fireflies, my rational mind insisted. Nothing more than insects going about their evening business, despite the fact that it was barely past dawn and fireflies didn't typically illuminate forests in broad daylight.

But rational thoughts felt flimsy here, as insubstantial as the mist that curled around my ankles with each step. The deeper I walked into the forest, the more the normal rules of the world seemed to... bend. Time felt different. Distance felt different. Even the air felt different, thick with possibilities that made my skin prickle with unease.

The path beneath my feet was well-worn but somehow wrong—too smooth, too perfectly maintained for a trail that supposedly led to an abandoned estate. No fallen branches blocked the way, no roots had pushed through to create obstacles. It was as if someone—or something—had been carefully tending this route for far longer than any human lifetime.

My trunk grew heavier with each step, though I'd packed light by necessity. The leather handle bit into my palm, and I had to stop twice in the first mile to switch hands and flex my fingers. Behind me, the sounds of the ordinary world—birdsong, rustling leaves, the distant murmur of the stream that ran alongside the village—faded until they might have been memories rather than reality.

That was when the silence truly began to register.

Not the peaceful quiet of a forest at rest, but an active, watching silence that felt pregnant with intention. No birds called from the canopy above. No small creatures rustled through the undergrowth. Even the wind seemed to have died, leaving the leaves motionless as painted things.

The only sound was my own breathing and the soft thud of my footsteps on the impossibly smooth path.

This is wrong, whispered some primal part of my brain, the part that remembered when humans were prey animals and forests held dangers that couldn't be reasoned with or negotiated away. This place is wrong.

But I kept walking, because what choice did I have? Father had made his bargain, sealed it with gold and desperation, and I was the coin that would settle the debt. Behind me lay a family that would suffer—perhaps die—if I failed to honor the agreement. Ahead lay whatever fate awaited in a castle that existed outside normal understanding.

The lights grew brighter as I walked deeper, more numerous and somehow more organized. They bobbed and weaved between the trees in patterns that seemed almost deliberate, as if they were... guiding me.

Leading me, corrected that uncomfortable voice in my head. Like breadcrumbs in a fairy tale, drawing the foolish girl deeper into the witch's domain.

But these lights were beautiful in a way that breadcrumbs never could be. They pulsed with gentle warmth, casting everything they touched in gold that made even the moss-covered stones look precious. When one drifted close enough to my hand, I could feel its heat like tiny sunlight, and the urge to reach out and capture it was almost overwhelming.

Instead, I pulled my shawl closer around my shoulders and kept walking.

The path began to climb after what might have been an hour—though time felt negotiable here, elastic in ways that made my pocket watch seem like an optimistic suggestion rather than a reliable instrument. The trees grew larger as I ascended, their trunks so massive that three men holding hands couldn't have encircled them. Ancient things, older than Christianity, older perhaps than human memory.

And they were watching me.

I couldn't see eyes in the bark, couldn't point to any specific evidence of observation, but the feeling was undeniable. Every step I took was noted, catalogued, weighed against some standard I couldn't fathom. The forest knew I was here, and it was deciding whether I belonged.

You don't belong, that rational voice whispered. You're a London girl who's never been further from civilization than Hyde Park. What are you doing in a place like this?

But even as the thought formed, something else stirred in my chest—not fear, exactly, but recognition. As if some part of me had been waiting my entire life to walk this path, to see these lights, to feel this strange, watching silence settle around me like a cloak.

The feeling was so unsettling that I stopped walking entirely, setting my trunk down on the path and pressing my hands to my chest. My heart was beating too fast, and my breathing had gone shallow in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion.

That was when I saw the horse.