Lochland Woods

Amala Zeus was a meek and unremarkable young girl, with nothing left, and an entirely unremarkable existence ahead. In her eyes at least. However commonplace she felt, her life had recently been anything but. She had recently lost her parents in a disastrous freak accident, her home was obliterated in an unexplainable explosion, and she was subsequently on the way to live with her affluent aunt Morwen whom she had only met once when she was ten years old. Her aunt had sent a driver to pick her up, too occupied and essential to come herself. The road from Amala's now-destroyed home to her aunt's estate wound through Lochland Woods, a most insidious place. Perhaps she simply wasn't willing to risk her own life, or maybe she just didn't care about Amala very much. Amala speculated both were true.

When the driver arrived he said nothing to Amala as he loaded her things into the carriage, and then gruffly said “In here,” and gestured for her to get inside before slamming the door shut behind her. Within moments, she was being sent away from the only home she had ever known. The remnants of it, anyway.

She looked out of the carriage windows as the driver eased the horse into the shadows, but all she could see were trees and lots of darkness. She had never been permitted in Lochland Woods, not even to travel. If her parents desired to leave to the city they took an extended route that traced the river further west.

Nervously, she felt into her bag for her beloved childhood toy, Rufus, but Rufus was nowhere to be found! Amala began to panic. She felt sure she had packed Rufus. He was one of only a few items that had survived the destruction of her family’s house. Their library had been obliterated, along with most of the second floor, and half of Amala's room, but she remembered keenly that Rufus was settled in her bed where she had left him when she first came home and saw the devastation. To make matters worse, she was now starting to feel hungry.

“He must be somewhere in here…” Amala thought to herself, ignoring the hunger twinges while digging through satchels and boxes littered around the carriage seats and floor.

As the carriage continued to bounce along, she happened to glance outside and saw a remarkably large barn owl dressed in a long green coat disappearing into the trees. As it slipped into the darkness she saw its sharp beak, flat face, and imposing eyes looking straight towards the carriage. It almost felt as if it saw her before disappearing completely.

"What in the world was that?” thought Amala.

Certainly, it couldn’t have been what she thought, and she chalked it up to the hunger.

“Madness. I’m finally going mad.” she sighed to herself.

But still…she had been plenty hungry before and had never hallucinated such a thing. At worst she got fairy dust and light cascades in her eyes when she was too hungry. This was something else altogether. She banged on the carriage ceiling below the driver to stop him, on the third rap he started to slow down.

“What is it?” he demanded when he opened the carriage door.

“Erm…I need to step outside. Feeling a bit sick.” Amala lied.

The driver sighed heavily and said, “Alright but make it hasty. We shouldn’t be stopped in these woods. Isn’t safe.” And he stepped aside for Amala to get out.

“Yes, thank you, I just need to feel the sturdy ground for a moment,” she smiled. His face remained unchanged and ruffled.

Amala walked towards the edge of the road on the side where she had seen the barn owl disappear. She squinted into the darkness beyond the trees but couldn’t see anything.

“What is it?” the driver had followed behind her, and when he spoke Amala jumped.

“Oh! Oh, it’s nothing.” Amala smiled and strolled back to the other side of the carriage to get in. The driver frowned at her and slammed the door shut again before clambering to his seat and snapping the reigns.

Something about the barn owl terrified Amala, and she snapped the curtains on the windows shut hastily. Even if it were a hallucination, she didn’t want to see it again. She realized her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it in her head, and she began to count the beats to calm herself down. She decided to lower herself onto the floor of the carriage, an extra step to ensure she wouldn’t see the beast again. While this made for an uncomfortable and even bumpier ride, she felt somehow safer on the floor. She had her back against the wall and her knees clasped against her chest when the carriage came to a startling halt.

“Woaaah!” the driver shouted to the horse. Amala held her breath and listened, but she could only hear the deafening hush of the forest surrounding them. She wanted to open the door to find out why they had halted, but she was petrified of what the answer might be.

Moments felt like hours to Amala as she waited for a sound or an indication of anything. Finally, she heard the reigns snap again and they began again deeper into the woods. Perhaps the driver saw something too, perhaps he saw the barn owl?

As the carriage proceeded along the woodland path, Amala's uncertainty eased and she sat back on the seat of the carriage. She surmised that they must be nearly out of the woods, as she had left her home at mid-morning and it must be twilight by now. But then, who could be sure? It was so dark in here already and there were no means to tell the day from night. Amala assumed it must get even darker once night fell, and the thought made her tremble.

While she had always resided on the edge of the forest, she had only ever heard tales while growing up. Lochland Woods was told to be many things: haunted, plagued, cursed, a parallel dimension, a portal for demons, a place fairies would snatch you away. Nothing pleasant was ever declared about these woods. She had never seen anything before, but it was said the beastly aberrations of the forest wouldn't dare come towards the light at the edges of the woods.

“Never go into the woods, poppet. Don't ever step foot beyond the edge. But don't worry, the beasties can't go beyond this edge.” her father would smile as he warned her while they walked the precipice of the darkness on their daily walks around their house.

Amala was never certain why that was, or why they wouldn't just wait to come out at night to pluck her away into the darkness. As she grew older, both of her parents proceeded to enforce that she never got beyond the edge of the forest, even weeks ago upon her 16th birthday she was reminded to never go in. She didn't want to think about the reasoning while she was deep inside the place she was never meant to go. Her parents were cautious, she reasoned. Nothing more.

Amala went back to searching for Rufus, the small teddy bear her mother had given her when she was two years old. She glanced at the seat opposite her and saw him reclining there as if purposefully placed.

“There you are!” Amala said out loud and snatched him up quickly into an embrace. She was sure she had checked the seat hours ago. But nevermind, she was just happy to have found the stuffy.

Amala eventually dozed off, rocked to sleep by the sway and bounce of the carriage. After what must have been hours, the driver slowed again and they came to a stop a short while later as Amala was waking up. She could hear the driver stepping down from his perch and making his way to the door. She meant to stow Rufus away in her bag, but the driver opened the door and Amala dropped him in anguish.

It wasn't the driver. It was the barn owl, in its green coat with glinting golden buttons. It peered inside and craned its snake-like neck to the side, as if questioning Amala's presence. And then without warning its massive head rapidly shot into the cab of the carriage.

“Amala Zeus.” its voice was low and imposing, unlike anything she had ever heard before. It nearly sounded like a chorus of voices, all speaking in unity. Amala yearned to cry out but couldn't find her voice as the bird's eyes glared deep into her own and it began to reach for her with its winged appendages. Past the owl, she could see flickering firelight and a thick woodsy odor began penetrating her lungs.

“You'll go no further. Oh, yes, an impressive offering you will make as pledged. We've been waiting sixteen long years for you to return, Amala. You were sworn to us before you ever lived. Poor despicable creature. The Dusk Father will engulf you after all.”

And all receded to black as Amala collapsed, the peculiar fragrance of the woods overwhelming her. Rufus lay on the floor of the carriage, the firelight gleaming in his button eyes as the barn owl scooped Amala up and vanished towards the fires, the trees ultimately concealing them from sight.

“Never go into the woods, poppet...” Amala's fathers voice echoed in her memory, before her memories were no more.

“Never go into the woods.”