The House In The Forest

Chapter XII

Chapter Twelve

"I don't understand, I get what happened and all that, but how are you still eighteen?" Damian asked with narrowed eyes, curious and confused all the same.

Giselle sighed like she was thinking about how to answer. "Have you ever heard the stories of the dark things in the forest?"

"The dark things?" Marlowe asked her with a light chuckle.

Amber and Elias both glanced at her though. "No, actually she's talking about something we know," Amber told her. "Any child will remember being told to stay out of the forest, because dark things lurk there that'll grab you if given the chance."

"My mother used to say that's why the weather in Rubin was so fickle, because it's based on what the dark things are thinking," Elias sighed. "I was taught they were demons to be avoided at all cost."

"Demons?" Damian asked, thinking for a moment. "I do remember my gram lecturing Daniel about spending time out there, because it wasn't safe, I don't remember her calling them demons though."

Giselle just laughed, but with no heart in it. "Demons is a fitting word choice, those things are terrifying, I've only seen them a few times though."

"So, like, are you cursed?" Damian asked her.

"Cursed? I suppose, it's not really like that though, it's more I'm tied to Sasha and he, well, it's complicated," she sighed, glancing at the window, or rather the forest beyond it. "I didn't really know how much time had passed in all honesty, there's no way to tell in there."

"This is all a great sci-fi story, but why should we believe you?" Marlowe asked her. "I ask nicely." She added when Amber glanced at her.

"You don't have to, I'm not asking you to, I just answered the question you asked," she told her, standing from her seat. "Since I'm still keeping up my Beatrice persona, I'll say what she would, it's none of my business whether you believe me or not. Albert, shouldn't we be getting home?"

The look on her face when she turned to look at me was rather enchanting, more so than I'd like to admit. She had me wrapped around her finger like it was easy. I had to wonder how charming Beatrice was for Sasha to fall in love with that one of the two.

"We can talk tomorrow," I told the group before following her out of the library. It wasn't until we got out of the school that she slowed down to match my pace, and then she sighed a sigh of relief.

"That was a lot of reminiscing I wasn't prepared for," she spoke, glancing up at the cloudy sky. "Did I tell the story well enough?"

I glanced at her side profile for a moment before following her eyes to the dark sky. "I wasn't there to see it, so I can't speak for your accuracy, but it sounded good to me. I can't lie though, it upset me that you had to go through all of that."

She chuckled. "It does?"

"Why shouldn't it?"

"I've spent the past seventy years being Beatrice, I haven't had anybody look at me as me in so very long, and yet you care for me, not Beatrice," she spoke with a smile. "Perhaps I'm a bad friend for being sick of pretending to be her."

"You're a better friend than any I've ever had, Beatrice and Sasha both are lucky, one's just too blind to see it," I told her, and she just hummed. A song I wasn't familiar with.

"Sasha was a good guy once you know, he could always tell what I was thinking, even from a distance, the moment I was uncomfortable he'd appear to chase off whoever was talking to me, to save me," she spoke, chuckling at the thought, "Beatrice claimed once they were my protectors, they'd make sure no no-good-guys would hold my ear."