Whispers of the forest - Part 1

"We will leave now… don't come looking for us… we should go, the gatekeeper is coming"… a whispering voice said from what it looked to be just behind the large redwood tree at the edge of the pond, behind the cottage. Eve froze, goosebumps on her arms; who was out there in the middle of the night?

"Going to where? Coming from where?"... she descended the spiral staircase carefully and silently going to look outside from the darkness of her kitchen; nothing… just the wind, blowing through the leaves of the old antique trees that blended the village's last few houses into the deep surrounding forest.

She was sure she heard what was like a young woman's whisper, clearly enough to know it was not just the wind. Someone was there. The good news, she thought, was that they were leaving now.

Eve just moved into the Midlands rural cottage a couple of days ago, after getting a new job as an antique restorer for an old nearby country house that was undergoing through a major restoration project. She liked the idea of living for a while in the quiet, pristine countryside where time looked to have stood still for centuries. The locals looked friendly and the air and surrounding nature so untouched by the modern world that it made you think you were still living in medieval England.

The nights, however, were different. Too quiet, as if to magnify any unusual sound echoing through the mind over and over again to then disappear into the void silence again; last night the sound of footsteps running deep into the forest and now the voices. Something was not right, maybe the villagers had some hidden path back home from the pub, or maybe there was a deeper, more sinister meaning to them. Eve dared not to think.

Her heart trembled with a shock when, after a peaceful good night sleep, she went into the back porch to have her morning coffee. On her garden table stood the bloodied head of a victorian doll, looking straight at her, bloody tears still dripping from its eyes. She looked away, shut her eyes. She knew the style, and this was not a replica, it was a perfectly preserved 18th-century rare specimen, probably the creation of one of the master craftsmen of the time, probably worth thousands of pounds.

Flashbacks strobed in front of her eyes as if reliving part of her life. Thirteen years ago as part of her internship to help restore a medieval mansion in the depths of Transylvania, a mouldy, dark red liquid would drip from the eyes of statues they were repairing, every Tuesday night, partly undoing her team's hard work. Never could they explain what happened, only that the dark, mysterious substance stopped returning the day they left the mansion. The statues reverting to their pre-repair antiquated look and feel within three days as if to stay as a testament of time's toll in stark contrast to the newly restored interiors.

She knew it was more to her work than meets the eye, more than just the looks of the old buildings, works of art and everyday objects they were bringing back to life. As if every single piece of wood, every bolt of metal and every patch of cloth had memory and a story to tell.

On her current project, she was restoring the armoury in the old country house. The previous owners left most of the pieces of medieval weaponry in the damp basement in a dire state of rusting and decomposition. Swords, spears, shields and knight armours dumped for decades were going to be displayed in a couple of years time in the mansion's ballroom and Eve had to make it possible.

As opposed to other projects where she would work on with a team, in the medieval buildings themselves, on this one she had the luxury of working in her own workshop, just a mile away from the domains of the mansion.

It was both good and bad, good because she had the quiet and time to focus without interruption on her work and bad because some times she missed the little banter and chatting with the other restoration artists. But for now, it was ok.

She turned her eyes towards the window; the sun was setting behind the trees, a bloody orange light filling the skies behind the old forest. Often, when working on intricate pieces of art, she would lose track of time and whole days would vanish in a blink.

Tonight felt better, no strange sounds, no spooky wind blowing outside, just a serine dark autumn night. Then suddenly she heard the door at her workshop slowly screeching, every split second she was focusing more and more, and the more she thought about it, the more real it became. The metal door was too heavy to be moved by a fox or by the wind.

And then a click, careful and calculated, someone closed the door, it was clear.

She thought about it; if she called the police, it would take ages for them to arrive at this long-forgotten corner of the world. The safest choice was to go and investigate, in the darkness, silently, maybe run, maybe hide.

The workshop door was closed, but inside, candlelight. Through the small square windows, Eve could see the empty room, filled with valuable antiques she worked on, all unmoved, nothing missing.

Then, she noticed the knife, glittering with a bright gold handle in the candlelight, it's blade piercing through a piece of paper now attached to the middle of her workbench. Whoever the visitor was, they delivered a message.

"Dear stranger to these lands,

You have disturbed the peace of the house, and of the forest, I guarded for centuries.

These trees and this house hold the memories of brave old warriors fighting forces more terrible than you can even begin to imagine. But they also hold the most horrific memories of which we shall never speak again. Behind the dust, behind the rust, behind the old covers of the dark, there are truths that should remain hidden.

Time has now come for you to go. Please leave us in peace and go back to your own world.

The gatekeeper."

Whoever gatekeeper was, the message commanded Eve to stop her restoration work but... Eve was not there for the money, she chould have retired many years ago.

End of part 1

To be continued...