Eliza Twitchel & The Haunted Forest

Eliza Twitchel & The Haunted Forest--Chapter 11

                       It Looks Worse From The Outside

When Eliza was nine, she rode her old blue Schwinn to the local haunted house hidden away from the world in dense woods at the end of an old forest service access road overgrown with blackberry bushes and saplings.

It was the day before Halloween and her nemesis Donnie Baker had bet her five free arm punches that she was too chicken to spend ten minutes alone inside the old Poe house—named after a spinster named Harriot Poe who lived alone in the house in the 1950s and was rumored to be a witch. According to local legend, drunken townsfolk murdered Harriet and buried her body in the woods in an unmarked grave.  It was said that her ghost haunted the old shack, cursing anyone who entered to spend their lives searching the forest until Harriet's bones were found and properly buried."

Eliza had accepted the wager and after school rode out to the dilapidated, weather-beaten house, followed by Donnie and the Grib brothers—twins with pale blue eyes, shocks of straw-colored hair and skin so white you needed sunglasses to look at them.

The old house leaned to one side and had a sway shake roof covered in lichen and moss.  Windows had long been broken out and a gray weathered door hung off its hinges.  It was the scariest house she had ever seen.

Until now.

The creepy cabin before her made Harriet Poe's shack look like a charming rustic resort.  Whoever built the wood and stone structure had long moved on, leaving the cabin to rot in the middle of a dense forest of thick spruce and gnarled alders. There were two levels, topped by heavy blackened wood beams and crude shakes covered by moss and rotting leaves.  A chimney made of gray stones rose through the roof.

"You want to stay here?" Eliza asked nervously from atop her piebald Tinker.

Talan hopped off his horse, then helped Jynx down.  He glanced at the cabin.  "It looks worse from the outside.  Once we get a fire going and a hot meal in our bellies, you’ll feel right at home."  He unshouldered his bow and nocked an arrow.  "Better let me have a look inside first to be safe.  The rest of you gather firewood."

Talan headed for the cabin’s door.  Eliza looked down at Grizzle.

"Safe from what?"

The brownie shrugged. "Any number of things: Witches, ghosts, wild boggarts . . ."

Eliza stared at the house, feeling the hairs on her arms prickle. "I thought you were a boggart—I mean when you get angry."

Grizzle vanished off the horse's withers and appeared on the ground. "A wild boggart is a brownie who prefers living in the wild rather than work as a house servant. They are unpredictable and dangerous."

Fayne landed on a weathered gray stump and swiveled her head in a complete circle.  She stared at Eliza with deep blue eyes, then lifted off and disappeared into the trees.

Eliza hopped off her horse and rubbed her sore bottom.  She gazed uneasily at the cabin. "Do you think there are wild boggarts inside?"

Grizzle stretched his back.  "Better a boggart than spiders.  I hate spiders."

Jynx scoured the ground, gathering dry twigs.  "Boggarts and spiders are the least of your worries."

Eliza turned to the gnome.  "What do you mean?"

"Talan told me of your plan to reach the Haunted Forest and rescue your sister from the witches."  Jynx shivered as he picked up more firewood.  "I have heard tales of elves and dwarves entering that forest, never to be seen again. It is said the trees themselves walk about at night, thirsting for blood."