At the Edge of the Forest Page 28

  “What do you think you can do?” Alice asks with a smile. “Shoot your way out? Beat me with your fists? That's not how it works in the forest.”

  “Were you always a monster,” I reply, “or is it just something that happened over the centuries?”

  “I was a good girl once,” she continues, “but I got so lonely, and instead of growing up I grew... in different ways. I've been here for hundreds of years, and I've had so much time to think.”

  “There's nothing special about me,” I tell her. “I'm no-one, I'm trailer-park trash.”

  “You resisted me,” she replies. “No-one else managed that, and finally I worked out what was different. You loved your sister, and that love gave you the strength to fight me. Once I'd realized that, it was easy enough to see the solution. I got rid of your sister in the outside world, and I made it so that this is the only place you can still have her around.”

  “That thing is not my sister,” I sneer, glancing back at the apparition of Rita for a moment before turning to Alice again. “It's just an illusion you're using to try to manipulate me. My sister...” I pause, as I feel a rush of sorrow in my chest. “My sister died out there,” I add, with tears in my eyes once again. “She died on the floor of that store, and nothing in this forest can ever change that. I watched it happen, I held her as she died...”

  “You could have dragged her in here,” Alice points out. “That was another possibility I considered. Either way, you'd still be trapped here if you wanted to be with her.”

  “She refused,” I sneer, stepping closer to her. “She said she didn't want to become a monster like you.”

  “Give Alice what she wants,” the apparition of Rita says calmly. “It's the only way you can be happy now, Shannon. It's the only way you can have any version of me.”

  I turn to her, just in time to see her fading away.

  “She'll come back when you've earned her,” Alice continues, with a hint of grit in her voice. “I need you to do a few little favors for me from time to time. I need you to bring people into the forest so I can try to feel their emotions. I really think I know how to do it now, I've been practicing for so long. Can't you start by letting me into your head, Shannon? I could force my way in, but I'm not sure that would be enough. If you let me in willingly... I can't even imagine how good that would feel.”

  “You're sick,” I reply, turning to her.

  “You have no choice.”

  She steps closer. I take a step back, but she just takes another step toward me. My mind is racing, but I have no idea how I can stop her. If I just turn and run, she'll be left here and eventually she'll just hurt other people, and she'll probably drag me back some day. There's no way to escape her reach.

  “Come on,” she says with a smile, “I just want a little of you. The problem with being undead in this forest is that I'm so numb. I need to feel again. I need to feel what it's like to be an adult.”

  Wincing, I realize I can feel her picking at the edge of my mind, as if she's trying to slip through my defenses. I try to push her back, but deep down I can already feel her trying other routes.

  “That's good,” she whispers. “I can already feel something. You have strong emotions, Shannon. Your mind is in turmoil. You've learned ways to hold your temper under control, but those are just parlor tricks. The real you is still waiting to burst out.” She pauses, before letting out a gasp of pleasure. “Maybe you're right, maybe I should just sip at your thoughts for now. There's so much inside your head, I can afford to take my time, and don't worry... After this little session, I'll let you spend time with your sister again. As your reward.”

  “Get out!” I shout, stumbling back even as I feel her twisting her way through my thoughts. “Stop! Get out of my head!”

  “That's good,” she adds with a shudder, still stepping closer to me. “It's working, it's really working, for the first time I...” She lets out a gasp, as if she can barely handle what she's experiencing. “I never thought it would feel like this,” she whispers, closing her eyes and tilting her head back a little. “Oh God, it's like... I need more! Give me more!”

  I try to force her out of my head, but the pressure is building and with each passing second I can feel her pushing deeper into my thoughts. Despite everything she said about taking her time, I can already tell that she's ravenous, that she won't be able to help herself, so I know I have to find a way to push back and keep her out. Staggering away from her, I bump against a tree and for a moment I'm powerless to move as she comes closer. I was strong enough before, two years ago, but back then I still had Rita to live for whereas now I know that she's gone.

  “Let me in!” Alice's voice hisses, burning through my thoughts. “I want it all!”

  “No,” I stammer, dropping to my knees, but I can already feel her bursting through my defenses and swimming through my mind.

  “I need it all!” she continues. “You have so much and I have nothing. Give it to me! Share!”

  Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I hold my breath as I use the last of my strength to push back. It's useless to even try, however, and I can feel her moving through my memories, my thoughts, my emotions, experiencing them all in a fit of ecstasy. I know I have to find some way to keep her out, but my whole body is trembling with the effort and I feel as if I'm about to pass out. Long-forgotten thoughts are bubbling to the surface, like dirt kicked up from the bottom of an ocean, and I can't even keep my head straight.

  And then I realize what I have to do.

  I have to let her all the way in.

  I have to stop fighting.

  Letting out a gasp, I drop my defenses and feel Alice's mind washing through my own, flooding my every thought and throbbing with pleasure. I swear I can feel her cries of ecstasy as she tastes my mind, and her taunting voice has fallen silent now, almost as if she's in a trance. With my eyes open wide, I stare ahead at her rotten body and see that her eyes have rolled back in their sockets, as if she's so deeply embedded in my mind that she's barely even aware of herself. She's not used to feeling the crap I've got in my head. The anger, the rage, the sorrow, the passion, the frustration at my own idiot decisions, the guilt, the pissed-off sense of my own goddamn mistakes...

  “How do you...” her voice whispers in my thoughts. “How do you deal with such strong emotions? Such anger, buried deep down?”

  “Practice,” I mutter darkly, “and a few anger management techniques.”

  She lets out a gasp, and I can tell she's overwhelmed.

  This is my only chance.

  Staggering to my feet, I stumble forward and grab Alice, quickly lifting her into my arms. The razor-blades in her flesh dig against me, cutting my skin, but the pain is just more fuel for her as her mind tastes mine, and fortunately her emaciated body is extremely light. I start making my way through the forest, carrying Alice's trembling form between the dark trees. With every step I can feel her twisting deeper and deeper into my mind, getting lose in every emotion I've ever felt, in every memory stored in my brain. She's so overwhelmed, I don't think she's remotely aware that I'm walking or that her body is in my arms, so I keep going as fast as I can, stumbling through the undergrowth and bumping into trees in the darkness. I keep expecting Alice to realize what's happening and to pull out of my head so she can stop me, but after a few minutes I realize that maybe she can't, that she's too blinded by her enjoyment of my mind. She's like an addict who finally got what she wanted.

  Almost there.

  I just have to...

  Suddenly I almost slip as I reach the embankment at the edge of the forest. I stagger down to the long grass and then take a few more steps.

  “Wait,” Alice's voice whispers suddenly, as if she finally knows that something is wrong, “what are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

  “Out of the forest,” I reply, finally feeling tarmac beneath my feet as I reach the road. Taking a few more stumbling steps forward, I drop down to my knees and throw Alice's body forward, letting he
r land hard on the ground.

  Instantly, I feel her mind rushing out of mine as she races back to her ravaged body. She's screaming as her panic builds, and I watch as she tries again and again and again to get to her feet. At the same time, she's letting out a series of twisted, pained growls, but it's clear that she can't control her body, not now that she's shorn of the forest's healing properties. She reaches out to me, as if she expects me to help her, but finally she drops down and after just a few more seconds I realize that she's gone. In the pale moonlight, I watch as her rotten, ravaged body starts to twitch on the tarmac, but now that she's out of the forest she no longer has anything keeping her alive. She tries desperately to sit up, but her bones are crumbling and she slowly turns to me, opening her mouth and letting out a roar of anger. All I can do, however, is watch in horror as her body falls to pieces, and her scream grows until her mouth starts to crumble.

  She tries to reach out to me with her hand, but the bones turn to dust. A moment later I feel what's left of her mind trying to slip back into my thoughts, as if she's looking or somewhere to seek refuge, but this time she's far too weak and I'm able to push her back.

  I wait, and finally I realize the only sound now is the silence of the night and the rustling of the forest's trees as a cool night breeze blows past.

  She's gone.

  Alice is finally dead.

  Getting to my feet, I see that there's only a patch of dust left in front of me, and even that is getting slowly blown away, scattered on the wind. There's also a pile of rusted old razor-blades, but I quickly kick them away. Fortunately, the dust is being blown far from the forest, so there's no danger of her somehow managing to get back.

  She's really gone.

  “Was that her?”

  Hurrying along the road, Scottie stops next to me and watches as the dust blows away.

  “You were waiting for her, huh?” I reply. “I know this might sound crazy, but were you the doctor from the fairytale? Is that why you were just sitting outside that trailer all the time, watching the forest?”

  “She was a good person once,” he says, with a hint of sorrow in his voice. “It's not her fault that she ended up like that. She should have been given a chance to grow up, instead of becoming... Whatever that thing was.”

  I want to tell him to remember her how she was in the past, rather than how she was today, but I'm still in too much shock to really say anything at all, and I feel as if my mind is about to implode at any moment. Turning, I start stumbling along the road. After a moment, however, I glance up at the dark forest, and for the first time I don't feel anything watching me. Hundreds of years after she was saved from illness, I guess her fairytale is finally at an end. The edge of the forest is no longer such a dangerous place.

  Epilogue

  SHANNON

  Ten years later

  “Mommy, I wanna go feed the ducks. Can I? Please?”

  “Sure,” I reply, handing her a bag of bread crumbs, “but stay where I can see you, okay? And -”

  Before I can finish, Rita turns and runs over to the edge of the lake. I watch for a moment as she starts throwing bread into the water, and then I turn and see that my sister-in-law Louise is watching me with a smile. She always does that. Sometimes I think she finds me amusing.

  “What?” I ask cautiously.

  “Nothing,” she replies, “just... I still think Rita's kind of a cool name. It's old-fashioned and kooky, but at the same time it's totally unique. I wish more people -” Stopping suddenly, she seems worried about something. “Oh, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up anything about... If I stepped on any toes...”

  “It's fine,” I tell her. “If I didn't want to ever talk about my dead sister, I wouldn't have named my first daughter after her.”

  “I guess,” Louise replies, turning and watching Rita for a moment. “Do they look alike?”

  “No,” I say with a faint smile. “I'm pretty sure she takes after your mother instead. She's got her eyebrows.”

  “Yeah, you're probably right,” Louise mutters. “Still, I think it's really cool to kind of keep your sister's memory alive like that. I guess one day Rita's gonna ask about her dead aunt and...” She pauses again. “Well, James is always a little vague about exactly what happened to your sister... He said something about some kind of store or supermarket, and some bad stuff going down and a forest?”

  “It's complicated,” I tell her. “Another time, maybe.”

  “Sure. Absolutely. Like I said, I didn't mean to step on any...” Her voice trails off for a moment. “I'm sorry you don't really have a family of your own, Shannon,” she continues finally, “but I hope ours isn't too bad. Everyone's really glad that you and James are together, you seem like such a natural fit.”

  “Thanks,” I reply, getting to my feet and gasping for a moment as I feel the weight of my pregnant belly shifitng slightly and pulling on my back. “I feel like the luckiest woman alive. And now, if you don't mind, I think I need to go make sure Rita doesn't kill those ducks by giving them too much bread.”

  Turning, I start waddling toward the edge of the lake. I'm glad that James and I can give Rita a little brother or sister, but I'm starting to think I should slow down at my day job. Working at the university is fun, but my knees are killing me and as I reach Rita I can't help worrying that I should spend more time with her. The past decade has rushed past in such a whirl, and suddenly here I am with a five-year-old daughter of my own and another child on the way. Sometimes it's hard to realize that I'm actually an adult.

  “They're not eating it much,” she says, with a hint of disappointment in her voice. “It's like they don't want the bread.”

  “That's because they're smart,” I tell her. “It's not really so good for their stomachs.”

  “Why not?”

  I watch the ducks for a moment, and for a few seconds I'm mesmerized by the sight of afternoon sunlight on the lake's calm surface. “I'm not entirely sure,” I say finally. “You'll have to ask your father, that's more his kind of area.”

  “Why's that girl staring at you?” Rita asks suddenly.

  “What girl?”

  “Over there.”

  Turning, I look away from the lake-shore and spot a few families making their way along the path. At first I don't see what Rita means, but suddenly I see that one little girl, being led along by her parents, is staring at me intently. Even though I want to dismiss the sensation, I swear to God she has my sister's eyes. I was half expecting my own daughter to look like my sister, but instead this completely random girl is her spitting image. After a moment, however, the girl and her family disappear into the crowd and I tell myself that I was just over-reacting.

  “Maybe she was staring because you're so pretty,” Rita says.

  “You're such a flatterer,” I reply, as we start making our way back to the table where Louise is waiting.

  “Or maybe she just likes your dress.”

  “I guess it could be that.”

  “I like your dress,” she adds, hurrying on ahead before stopping and glancing back at me. “I think you should wear green dresses more often, Mommy.”

  “Maybe I should,” I reply.

  As Rita goes over to her aunt and starts digging through the bags of food, I can't help pausing for a moment. Looking down at my belly, I realize that I'm wearing a long green maternity dress and that, right now, I'm standing with the lake behind me. I think back to that little girl a moment ago, the one who looked like Rita, and then I remember my sister's final moments on the floor of the BarraBuy store, caked in her own blood.

  “Shannon,” she whispered all those years ago.

  “I'm here,” I remember telling her.

  “Green dress,” she gasped. “I can see you, in a green dress with the lake... I can really...”

  And then she was gone. Is there any chance that somehow...

  Figuring that I could go mad trying to figure it out, I make my way over to the table, just in time to k
eep my daughter from stuffing an entire peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her mouth. I glance over my shoulder, in case the other girl is anywhere around, but she and her family seem to be long gone. It's as if we just crossed paths briefly, almost by accident, but we recognized something in each other...

  In some ways, I think I slightly hoped that Rita might have come back somewhere in my daughter's soul, but I quickly got over that idea. Still, the girl I saw just now looked so much like my sister, I can't help wondering whether in some way, at the moment of her death, she skipped ahead slightly and saw something from her future, something that maybe doesn't even make sense to that random little girl who just walked past. Just a hunch, or a moment of intuition.

  Or nothing.

  Maybe it was nothing at all.

  I guess I'll never know, but I think there's a chance I'm right and that she's out there somewhere. I just hope that her little moment of recognition was a one-off, and that she doesn't have any other memories of her previous life, and that she's happy.

  And that this time, she gets the chance to grow up and become whoever she's meant to be. No longer trapped, half in one world and half in another, at the edge of the forest.

  Also by Amy Cross

  THE FARM

  No-one ever remembers what happens to them when they go into the barn at Bondalen farm. Some never come out again, and the rest... Something about them is different.

  In 1979, the farm is home to three young girls. As winter fades to spring, Elizabeth, Kari and Sara each come to face the secrets of the barn, and they each emerge with their own injuries. But someone else is lurking nearby, a man who claims to be Death incarnate, and for these three girls the spring of 1979 is set to end in tragedy.

  In the modern day, meanwhile, Bondalen farm has finally been sold to a new family. Dragged from London by her widowed father, Paula Ridley hates the idea of rural life. Soon, however, she starts to realize that her new home retains hints of its horrific past, while the darkness of the barn still awaits anyone who dares venture inside.