Sincerely, Jennifer x

Everyone said that Mrs Goodal had lost it. The village thought that they understood why, but they had no idea. 

What happened to her son was horrible. Daniel got lost in the woods when coming home from school, and was never seen again. The whole village searched for him, but there was no sign of the poor kid. He could have fallen into the river and been carried off by the current, or wandered off towards a road and been hit by a car. It’s hard to think about, and probably even harder to deal with. 

That was why we all gave her some grace when she started stopping people on the way to the woods. 

She would stand by the clearing that led into the maze of trees and plead with anyone who went close to it. She was so insistent that there was something inside the woods, something wicked and damned. 

She would grab children who walked close to the woods, shaking them and screaming for all the village to hear. She would go door to door, pleading with parents to keep their children inside. The children avoided her gaze, and the parents shooed them away. People began to fear her, backing away from the graphic grief that spilled from her, and she became an outcast. 

I was seventeen when Daniel disappeared, and I can remember what Mrs Goodal was like before. She was a sweet woman, kind, but after she lost her son, she was changed forever, and the village abandoned her. 

I didn’t believe her at first, but I could see her pain. I wanted to help. I didn’t know what I could do, but I wanted to do something. She had always been nice to me, and the other kids in the neighbourhood before she lost it, and even now, the way she behaved came from concern. She really believed that something took her child, and she didn’t want one of us to be next. 

I began to visit her every Sunday after church. I’d sit with her, and we would drink tea. 

The first time, she just stood in the doorway, shocked for a moment or so before inviting me in. It was the first time that somebody had spoken to her in months, apparently. As we drank our tea, I carried the shame of our village with me. She meant nobody any harm. She was just lost, languishing under her pain, and needed someone to be with her. 

I decided that I would be with her. We would drink our tea, and she would ask me about school, and my plans for when I graduated. I wanted to leave the village and go into London. I thought I might go to University, or do an apprenticeship. She smiled politely as I told her, but I could see her sorrow as I spoke of things that Daniel could never do. I would try to change the subject, but somehow, we would always get back to something that called tears from her eyes. 

She would always smile as I left, though, and I think that just having some company did her the world of good. 

I didn’t expect her to talk about Daniel. I never talked about him myself, so as not to upset her, but one day, after we had shared many Sunday afternoons together, she told me the truth of what had happened to Daniel. 

She says that she saw it. She tried to tell the officers, and all of the other parents, but nobody would listen to her. She hadn’t seen it take the boy, but she had seen it watching him. 

Every night for weeks before he disappeared, out on the lawn, staring up into Daniel’s window was a figure, tall and gaunt, its shadow large across the dewy grass. Hollow, sunken eyes shone in the dark night, the moon reflecting on its pale, pasty skin, as it watched, all night, and vanished when the sun rose. 

She thought she had imagined it, at first. A nightmare that followed her tired eyes back to the living world, or a trick of the light. She couldn’t be sure, but the more she saw it, the more certain she became that it was real. She would stay up all night, watching the thing that watched her son. 

She tried to call the police, but they never found any evidence that someone had been there at all. She tried to tell herself that it was just in her mind, but she moved Daniel to her room, hoping that it was all a fiction, but the thing followed them. 

She said that she’d never seen anything like it. It never spoke, or made a sound. Just watching, with its sallow eyes, smacking its lips and flicking a long, black tongue across its sharp teeth. 

It stayed with them, until the night before he went missing, and after that, Mrs Goodal only saw it once more, peeking from the woods with a gleeful grin, and Daniel’s school bag clutched in its claws. 

I didn’t believe her until I saw it too. I couldn’t, I suppose. It’s the kind of thing that has to be seen to be believed. 

I was walking home, and I had avoided the woods, just as Mrs Goodal had always told me. I still had to walk past them, but I never set foot inside. Even though I didn’t quite believe what she’d told me, I was still a little freaked out. 

It was autumn, and the sun went down so much sooner, so daylight was a rarity in between the thick branches of the woods. I kept to the roads, and kept my eyes away from the trees as I walked past, but still, they always fell upon the clearing, every time, as if I was waiting for something to jump out. 

Nothing ever jumped out, but one day, I saw it… that creature, towering above many of the branches that surrounded it, with its haggard gaze, sinful smile, and long, snowy claws. 

It beckoned me closer, but I ran. I didn’t stop running, and I didn’t dare to look back until I was home, with the front door locked. 

It was on the front lawn, waiting with a patient smirk, waving as the wind whipped past the window and the cold night crept in. 

I asked my parents if they saw anything, but they couldn’t see the beast. I didn’t say anymore, not wanting to be written off as crazy, like Mrs Goodal, but I knew then that she had been telling the truth all along. 

I didn’t tell her that either. I couldn’t. It would have done no good to confirm all of her worst fears. Despite her seeing that thing, there were some days when she would wonder if Daniel really had just drowned, or been hit by a car, and I think the thought of something quick, with no suffering, and no malice gave her some comfort, even if she couldn’t always believe it. 

I couldn’t take that away from her, so I kept my mouth shut. 

I told her that I believed her about the creature, and I think that was enough.

I had tea with her every Sunday, and I held her as she cried. I went to school and focused on my studies. I waited and waited, until the day I could finally get out of the village and start my life, but I was always being watched. 

The thing was always outside on the lawn, every night. Nobody could see him. Nobody could understand. He just watched, and he watched, and he watched. 

I began to dream about it, on the rare nights when I could sleep. 

I saw Daniel, running for his life from the woods, and I ran with him, both of us desperately trying to escape. The beast was bounding behind us, its claws digging deep into the damp earth as it hurtled towards us. Up above as we ran, the trees would whisper and wail the same words. 

“The Silent One must have a soul to keep.”

I couldn’t get it out of my head when I woke up. It followed me, as the creature began to. I saw it everywhere, always extending an arm and calling me closer with its claws. 

There’s another child missing. I’ve seen her posters up on lampposts and post boxes. My Mum and Dad went out while I was in school today to search for her, but I already know where she is. 

Mrs Goodal knows too. We shared a knowing glance as I walked past her window on the way home tonight, and I saw her leaving her house just now to head down to the woods. 

We know what took her. 

Mrs Goodal thinks that this is the first time I will understand her fears, but I know more than she thinks I do. 

Charlotte has been gone for two days, and she isn’t coming back. 

She wants to go home, but she won’t. Her parents will join Mrs Goodal at that same clearing, eventually. They may not know it now, but it is where they are destined to be. 

I will join them too. I will beg and plead for nobody to go into the woods. I will tell them that it isn’t safe. 

It’s not safe, because those woods belong to The Silent One. 

The Silent One does not want to be disturbed anymore, not now that he has Charlotte. It cannot be disturbed, because then people will know how she got there. 

It was quite happy to take Charlotte, in exchange for me. She had to disappear, because I had a future. 

She was a nice girl, but not very bright. 

I’m a good girl, and everybody knows that. Everybody talks about how I’m going to make it out of this place and make something of myself. I might be a doctor, or a lawyer, or the prime minister. 

I have to make it out of this village, because I’m a good girl. 

I’ve been helping Mrs Goodal through her pain, and I will help Charlotte’s parents too, but Charlotte was always going to stay here. Maybe not with him, but she was never going anywhere other than this village. 

I can’t speak to anyone about this, but these trees. It’s not safe for anyone in these woods, except for me. It lets me pass by now, because I gave it a gift, in my place, and now, I need to tell them my story, so that I can go and be free. 

I can still hear her screaming, and I wish she knew how sorry I am, but I didn’t have a choice. It was watching me, with his hollow, haunting eyes, and I knew that it needed another soul. 

It just couldn’t be me. They tell me that I have a future. I have to live, for me, and for her, and for all the kids from this place. Someone has to make it out, and put us on the map for more than missing kids and whispering trees.

It just has to be me.