I could have sworn my grandmother’s house did not neighbour a forest. My memory painted a row of grand houses with grand gardens next to a cracked concrete road. But here I was, on my grandmother’s porch, in the middle of nowhere. Bathing in nature. The gravel driveway led from the front door straight into a broadleaf forest. Through the leaves, the afternoon sun emitted a strange green light.
My grandmother’s absence was a palpable negation. This was her house, but it was not her house, because she was not in it. She was in Germany somewhere with her museum friend Marilla, no doubt admiring artefacts behind a display. I had invited my friends over for a little getaway: Felix, Anna, and Lola. A grand house like this should be enjoyed, after all.
Once my friends arrived, it started to rain incessantly. No matter. We were all inside together, so everyone was where they needed to be. I heard Anna laughing in the living room while I poured tea in the kitchen. The stained-glass lamp emitted the same green light as the forest leaves. Above my head, a vine of ivy crept in through the air vent.
“Who wants tea?” I called out, noticing the laughter had stopped.
When nobody replied I trudged into the hallway, poking my head around corners. Empty rooms and ticking clocks and grandma who wasn’t there. My bare feet left little steam footprints on the floor tiles. With a lump in my throat, I kept looking for my friends. In my peripheral vision I noticed a figure rush past the kitchen window.
Slowly, I opened the back door and gazed into the garden. Felix stood in the grass with his head down, like a statue, his grey hoodie slowly turning black from the incessant thick drizzle. “Come inside,” I shouted. His face shot up; he shook his head.
Suddenly I was overtaken by an urgent need to glance behind me, to see if Lola and Anna were there. Something was prying into my back. It was an empty hallway. It was not them.
Not considering jackets, flashlights or keys, I left the house. The forest swayed and swirled in its twilit green, the rain had stopped, and the only droplets left were the ones falling from the leaves with every gust of wind. First I went around the house as if playing hide and seek. The sudden loneliness was uncanny. I stopped on the porch, slightly out of breath, and considered the gravel path leading into the green.
Of course! My friends had all gone for a walk, most probably, and the forest was so distractingly beautiful that they must have forgotten how to get back to the house. If they knew the way back, they certainly would have returned by now. So they were lost, they had to be, and it was up to me and my bare feet to find them. I was determined to remember every twist and turn so as not to lose my way.
The road led me straight on and to the left. There was no more to it than that; it was much too easy. Panic rose in my chest, but the scent of wet forest reassured me. I stopped to breathe in through my nose, and noticed movement.
“Felix?” I called, and there he was, emerging from behind a tree as if he had lived there all his life, in the green clearing.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, deeply disturbed.
At this, I frowned. “I came to find you. You can all follow me back to the house now.”
“I know how to get back,” Felix shrugged. “I don’t want to go back.”
“But I do, I want us all to go back,” I said. With a shiver I looked down at my feet, black and wet from mud. My hands clammy with cold sweat. No reply. When I looked up, Felix was gone.
Oh God. They weren’t here. Nobody was here! And I couldn’t see the house; and I couldn’t see the gravel road; and no one had been here to begin with; and I didn’t know the way back at all; it was me who’d gotten lost all along; so I started running to catch my fleeting memory. The venom-green broadleaves hissed and taunted. My breath tore through my throat like sandpaper. Rain hung in the air like Osiris and his scales, and the forest awaited patiently.
:0 creepy