Chương 94: UNENDING DREAM

Once upon a time, there was a forest. It was not a friendly forest. It was an old, silent forest that had eaten up all its own sounds long ago. The trees stood too close together, and their branches were like thin, black fingers holding up the sky. The paths didn't lead anywhere. They just twisted in on themselves, like a trap waiting to be sprung. The birds didn't sing. They only watched. A girl walked into the forest. Her name was Anneliese.

She had walked so far her boots were falling apart, and the small bag on her back held nothing but old dust. She told herself she was a traveler, but the truth was, she was just running. She had left a house that felt cold, even when the fire was lit. The quiet there was heavy, like a held breath. Meals were eaten in silence, and smiles were careful and thin, like cracks in ice. She left because the quiet hurt more than the unknown. But at night, wrapped in her thin blanket, she would dream of her old bed.

She missed the idea of home—the warm yellow light in the window, the smell of bread that used to be baked there long ago—even though the real home had become a place where she felt alone in a room full of people. She ran away from the sadness, but a piece of her heart kept trying to run back. And now, she was lost. So lost that when she saw the house, she did not have the energy to feel fear. It stood on giant, spindly legs like that of a bird.

The house crouched on them, a rotten wooden skull with one window for an eye and a door for a mouth. The door was open. It was always open when someone new arrived.

"Hello?" she whispered. Her voice was echoeing in the silence.

"I'm Anneliese. I'm lost." The house slowly turned its whole body to face her. The legs creaked then it lowered itself like a bird siting down, the legs being burried under the house. Anneliese wearily went inside. Baba Yaga was by the fire, but she wasn't warming herself. She was feeding it little sticks that writhed before they burned. She was so old she looked like a bundle of sticks and rags herself.

Her eyes were the colour of a frozen puddle and her white hair was soo long it seemed to swallow the shadows around her.

"Mud and leaves," she said, not looking up.

"You drag the forest's mess onto my floor."

"My name is—"" Anneliese. I heard you the first time." Baba Yaga finally looked at her.

"A name is a string you tie to your finger so you don't float away. Tell me, are you lost, or are you found??" Anneliese hugged her arms. She didn't know the answer.

"You may shelter for one day," Baba Yaga said, stirring her pot. It smelled of wet earth and sour milk.

"But my house requires payment. Choose: sweep my yard with the broom of whispers. Or draw water from the well of echoes."

"Wh-what happens if I draw the water?" Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"You will see your reflection in the black water. It will not see you." Anneliese chose to sweep.

"Wise," Baba Yaga hissed.

"Sweep until the first ray of sun stabs the highest branch. If you see a black butterfly don't touch it or it will taste your fear. If you hear your mother's voice... you must bite your tongue until it bleeds. Do not answer." Anneliese nodded and began to sweep. The yard was not made of little white stones. It was a carpet of tiny, polished bones. Finger bones. Bird skulls. Teeth. They clicked and chattered as she swept with the heavy, grey broom. Shush-scrape. Shush-scrape. The night was a thick, black blanket.

A butterfly, black as a hole in the world, fluttered down and settled on her shoulder. She felt a cold pinprick where its feet touched her skin. A single tear rolled down her cheek. The butterfly's coiled tongue uncurled and licked the salt away. She felt a little more of herself disappear as she swatted it away. Then, from the dark line of trees, a warm, sweet voice:"Anneliese, my darling! I've found you! Come here, my love!" It was her mother's voice. It was perfect.

It came from the dark, gaping mouth of the well. Anneliese bit down on her tongue so hard she tasted iron blood. She did not answer. She swept. Shush-scrape. At dawn, her hands were raw. Baba Yaga was at the window.

"Why does your house walk?" Anneliese asked, her voice a dry leaf.

"So it can find the lost things," Baba Yaga said.

"Things that can not find themselves." The house shifted its weight, as if agreeing. Baba Yaga gave her some lumpy porridge and let her sleep on a scratchy straw bed. While Anneliese slept, the house stood up and walked in a circle. It didn't do it for her. It just did it, because that's what the house did sometimes. When she woke, Baba Yaga said, "Go. Or ask your question. The answer is the price."

"What is left for me in the world I came from?" Anneliese begged. Baba Yaga put down her sewing and leaned in, her breath cold.

"No," she said, and her voice was not mean, but it was very sure.

"Your bed has someone else in it now. Your plate is used by someone else. They have gotten used to you being gone. You are like a story they've finished reading." The words didn't just make Anneliese sad. They unmade her. They took the memory of her mother's smile and turned it into a lie.

"Now go," Baba Yaga said, pointing a bony finger at the door. Anneliese had no home to go back to but ran, not out of longing or hope but of sadness. The forest didn't stop her. It was as it was Silent. Baba Yaga had given her a crust of black bread. It never got smaller and kept her alive but never full. She walked for what felt like years, in a circle of endless, silent trees. Then, one evening, she saw a familiar scar on a pine trunk—a mark she had made with her nail the first night she swept the bone-yard.

Her blood went cold. She pushed through the same thorny bush. There was the clearing. There was the house. It wasn't just standing. It was perched, legs bent, as if it had just landed. It was facing her. The single window watched her like a dull, knowing eye. The door was wide, wide open. The open door didn't say"come in." It didn't say"go away." It was just an open door. Inside, the fire cast jumping shadows. The pot bubbled. And on the wind, she heard it. Not from the trees. Not from the well.

From inside the house. Her mother's voice, soft and loving and wrong.

"Anneliese... you're finally back. I'm in here. Come in from the cold." Anneliese stood frozen at the edge of the bones. The bread in her pocket was now a hard, dead lump. The house stared. The warm, terrible voice called again, sweet as poison. And Anneliese wondered, had she always been Lost or had she been waiting to be Found? ***^***"That's the story," Elias said with a yawn. Jamie lay beside him, listening carefully.

"What happened to Anneliese?" Jamie asked.

"Did she go through the door again?"

"…Who knows," he said readjusting his position and pulling the blanket over his shoulder.

"That's not fair." Jamie protested. Her words fell on deaf ears as Elias was already sound asleep. Jamie pouted and turned pulling the covers off Elias.