3. They say a monster lives in those hills.

 

He was six when his mother told him the story about the monster living beyond the trees and in the hills. She said that the monster was ugly – nothing, not even the witches compared to its ugliness – and that it was evil. A spawn of Satan, she added. It ate people; young or old, male or female, it didn’t care. It only wanted to feed on human flesh and drink human blood.

 

It was also a rainy day that day and looking beyond the sullen, fog-filled woods, nothing scared him more than the dark grey aura surrounding it and so he made a note to himself; a promise to his six-year old self, to never wander beyond those woods that his mother had told him about.

 

It had been eleven years since then.

 

And he asked himself now; why, on earth, was he here, on the skirts of the same woods he vowed never to visit? He didn’t know himself.

 

Except for the fact that he saw a girl, all dressed in white, rushing into the woods without a second thought and his mind screamed to him, what are you doing? Save her from the monster.

 

And so he did (or at least he thought so).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entering the woods, it was even more sullen that how it looked like from afar. The trees were drooping, bending at the middle like they were bowing down and leaves piled about on the ground; you couldn’t even see anything from the ground but he suspected there were thick roots and rotting tree remains everywhere (because it smelled distinctly like dried leaves and rotten berries and wood). He was almost surprised that he hadn’t tripped yet.

 

The tree felt soggy and drenched under his palms, sticky and soft – it left a disgusting feeling on his skin; he pulled back as soon as he touched it. The leaves didn’t even crunch under his weight anymore, they’re too moist and as he hugged his bodies tighter, the woods instantly felt colder, lonelier and definitely darker.

 

What was he thinking anyway? A girl entering the woods without even thinking of the consequences and with only a thin (he assumed) white sleeping gown on? How ridiculous, he must’ve imagined it, a trick of the mind. That was the only rational explanation to this, he scoffed to himself as he turned around to retrace his steps – only to find himself frowning; he’s lost and there’s not even a single trace of where he had entered.

 

“Well, that’s great,” he muttered, looking up the sky – or what seemed to be a patch of sky between branches and leaves and leaves; “I’m lost, and I don’t even know my way out; that’s just great.”

 

He thought of slumping, or leaning over a tree, but the idea of it disgusted him; the idea of lying on the floor disgusted him more so he just stood there, in the middle of nothing, in the middle of the woods (‘and in the middle of the monster’s eyesight, too, most probably’ a little voice at the back of his head added). In the midst of feeling sorry for himself and a, I would probably die out of starvation in less than a day; he heard a voice.

 

“Hello?” it sounded unsure, almost scared. His head whipped to the voice’s direction; all he could see was darkness. “Are you lost?”

 

It was a girl’s voice, and if he strained his ears enough, it had a slight tremble in it, but it was soothing. He scanned the gaps between the trees carefully, “Who are you?”

 

“Oh,” it sounded surprised, and a small laugh quickly followed, “I’m sorry, I’m up here.”

 

He heard a rustle from one of the trees and his first instinct was to look up. He almost tripped backwards because of surprise, a girl – the girl was sitting on a very fragile looking branch, her legs swinging up and down and her white dress unstained.

 

“What are you doing up there!” He quickly shouted and scrambled to the bottom of the tree, hands held up. “It’s dangerous, jump down and I’ll catch you before you fall!”

 

The girl giggled, hiding her open mouth behind her pale hand, “It’s okay, I won’t fall. You can relax now.”

 

He looked unsure as he let his hands fall to his sides but he was tense enough for his hands to spring right back up if the girl ever fell down. “What are you doing up there – no wait, what are you doing here in the first place?”

 

“Oh um,” the girl bites her lips and it’s only then did he really see how beautifully fragile the girl looked. Locks of her black hair swayed with the wind and her eyes seemed fully black and big, her thick curled eyelashes made them look bigger and her lips were pink and plump. Her skin looked like it glittered; she was very pale in contrast of the darkness. She looked beautiful, very beautiful. Her soft giggle brought him back to the present, “Didn’t you already know? I live here, I’m the wood’s little monster.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I – what?” he thought his ears might just be deceiving him. Clearly, a girl as pretty, as small and as fragile as the girl who was sitting in front of him was not – could not be – a monster. The monster in his mother’s story was ugly, was evil and was supposed to be rotting with its skin peeled off and its teeth sharp and protruding. “You’re not a monster. You must be kidding me,” he only heard his own laugh echoing across the darkness; he internally cringed at how fake and forced it sounded.

 

“Oh, but I am,” the girl pouted, her fingernail scratched at the wood lightly, “and I’m kind of sad because I don’t see how I’m a monster at all.”

 

Because you aren’t, he wanted to say but he couldn’t find his voice. The girl continued.

 

“I’m not a monster, am I?”

 

“I don’t think you are.” He finally said. The girl grinned at him, retreating her hand from the tree and resting it on her lap instead.

 

“Thank you,” she beamed, “at least I have someone who knows the truth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I mean I don’t get it! I don’t have the teeth, or the bad breath or even the threatening growl monsters usually have but why am I a monster?” The girl whined. As soon as she had jumped off of the branch (he nearly dropped his heart at that), she lead him to her ‘special’ place, a river hidden inside the woods and she started telling him her stories (as much as terrifying and dangerous that sounded like, he didn’t find himself having the heart to decline the girl’s request). He dusted off a rock but it didn’t do much, he sat anyways. The girl floated on the water and he wondered why he didn’t have a hard time adjusting to the girl’s ‘powers’. “I’m just… different. That’s all. I’m my mother’s child and my mother is nature, people aren’t afraid of the nature, why are they so afraid of me?”

 

The girl kicked at the water’s surface, not even wetting her own feet (she did not wear anything else aside from the white dress).

 

“I’m sorry,” he felt the urge to apologize, suddenly remembering the times he would stare at the dense woods and would curse the gloomy place. He also remembered sharing his ‘stories’ and ‘incidents’ with the wood’s monster back then when he was just ten, with his classmates who, like him, pretended to have the same incidents and they would scare some of the younger kids together, warning them of the woods and of the monster who lived in it. “I believe you aren’t a monster, I can’t see how you could be the monster.”

 

“So you’ve heard of me?” The girl looked at him expectantly, her hair perfect covered her back entirely, the tips ending at her waist (she looked at him with a look that told him that the girl knew that he knew, that she was expecting him to half lie and half confess like she knew he had heard of her and had been scared of her and had cursed her once; he felt naked under her eyes).

 

“Yes,” he whispered, almost too shy to meet the girl’s eye but he couldn’t look away, “and I’m sorry.”

 

The girl hummed and smiled at him and it only broke his heart even more.

 

“It’s okay,” the girl lifted her hand and her fingers curled, as if caressing his face from the distance, “I know you won’t do it again.”

 

He found himself falling in love (it was probably love, he thought anyway) with a girl who was supposed to be a monster but she was not and was completely the opposite; he fell in love with a gift of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He woke up in his room the next morning.

 

He didn’t remember falling asleep, or even going home but the covers were keeping him warm; He got out from the bed and found out that he was still in the clothes he wore yesterday.

 

He looked outside through his window, it was raining and dark outside and he knew he shouldn’t but he did anyway.

 

He pulled a random t-shirt from the stack on his chair, changing into it before dashing out of his doors and down the stairs, his parents probably still sleeping. He went straight to the woods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What are you doing here!” He heard the voice he was longing to hear, the girl’s voice pierced through the thin veil of fog. She came floating to him with worry in her dark eyes. “It’s raining, you’re going to get sick, go back home.”

 

“I’ll be fine,” he waved her off and looked at her instead, “are you okay?”

 

She let out a laugh and stared at him funnily, “I’m a monster – a monster like a ghost at that, I don’t ever get sick because of some rain, it’s like my sister.”

 

“Oh,” he breathed and saw her scanning him before he realized that he was cold, but he knew he wasn’t going back, not so soon and she knew it too.

 

He heard her sigh, “Fine. Come on, I know a place where you cannot get yourself sick, or sicker at least. I swear, once you get home you will be bed ridden for a week because of the fever you’re going to have once this is over.”

 

He grinned at her anyway, following her lead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I never knew the woods had this cave.” He traced the rough wall of the small cave he was currently in, somewhere north not so far from the river they were at yesterday.

 

“Hm, well, yes,” she looked at him with a twinkle in her eyes, “You never actually knew what’s in the woods, period.”

 

“Point taken,” he grinned at her.

 

“Oh!” she floated next to him and even if she was supposed to be cold, he felt blood rush to his cheeks, “I should totally give you a tour here sometimes. It’ll be fun, to have someone I could share my home with!”

 

She boasted about the secret spots she knew (pretty much everywhere) and planned each visit with so much enthusiasm he could only look at her with adornment, his eyes memorizing each and every beauty her face had to offer.

 

He felt himself fall in love more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, he found himself with the fever – his mother checking in on him every ten minutes and he rolled his eyes at her every time. “Mom, I’m okay, honest. I’ll be all better tomorrow, I promise.”

 

“I just don’t know why you have this fever all of the sudden,” she muttered, placing a bowl of hot porridge on a tray beside his bed.

 

“I told you already, I went outside early in the morning to jog a little and the rain started pouring all of the sudden, so I had to jog back here and change and all,” he assured his mother.

 

“Just,” his mother was halfway out the door by the time he finishes, “stay in bed today, okay?”

 

“Yes, mom,” and the door clicked close.

 

He sank into his bed further; the heat from his insides turned his cheeks bright red and his eyes blotchy. She was definitely right about the fever, but he was determined to get better tomorrow. His eyes strayed off to the window, and he could have been imagining it but he saw a flash of white among the tree tops and locks of hair swaying with the wind and then it was gone.

 

But he felt a different kind of warmth in his stomach; he easily slept the whole day with a girl in his dreams, and not a monster nor a ghost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They’ve tried hunting me down,” the girl started as they both walked through the trees. It has been nearly a week since he’s gotten down with the fever (he managed to feel better after a day and he thanked all the heavens for that), and he’d been visiting the girl ever since. His mother never really asked him where he went all the time, he never even thought about it either. “But they never succeeded, I’m a girl who can float for goodness sake, I don’t even make a sound.” She giggled lightly, twirling like a ballerina in her dress.

 

“I’m glad,” he stared at her graceful body, her starry eyes, her nimble fingers, her flowing hair, completely entranced at everything she does, “I hope they don’t ever.”

 

She stopped right in front of him, feet flat on the ground and just then did he realize how really small and fragile she was with the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. She smiled up at him, her eyelashes fluttering, “Will you protect me from them when the time comes, then?”

 

“I will.” He said, not missing a beat, not even hesitating. “I will protect you from them, whatever it takes.”

 

She laughed and the sun shone on them through the leaves and branches and it felt like magic when the trees looked livelier, the roots fuller with life and butterflies fluttered in, flowers sprouted out from the ground.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered, bringing her hands up to cup his cheeks. He ached to feel her skin against his cheeks and even though he felt nothing, not even coldness, he pretended that he could and that her hand was warm and smooth.

 

“I’ll protect you,” he whispered one more time, and everything went white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Daddy, what happens to both of them?” A little girl, age of six, whispers under her covers, looking up at her daddy who smiled down at her lovingly, “Does the girl live and do they end up together?”

 

He tucks in a piece of her dark, black hair behind her ear before kissing her forehead, “I don’t think they do, honey. But he kept his promise, he protected the girl until the very end.”

 

“But why!” She cries, gripping on the covers tightly, “I wanted them to end up together like my princesses and princes.”

 

“Hmm,” he stands up before going to the windows to draw the curtains in, “then let’s change the ending. They do end up together, they lived together until they had a baby girl, and soon enough, people forgot about the story of the monster and they lived happily and peacefully ever after.”

 

“That’s better,” she giggles before turning to her side, “good night, daddy.”

 

“Good night, baby,” he whispers as he takes on last look at the window before smiling sadly, the image of people burning the woods down flashing before his eyes – the girl, his girl reaching out to him with a smile on her face – and the people pulling him back away from the fire.

 

He broke his promise, he couldn’t protect her until the end and he wondered every night if she ever saw him now with a wife who looked exactly like her and a child who he wanted to grow up looking like her; if it could be the same thing, and sometimes he heard her say, “it’s okay, thank you” when he’s looking out the window where she used to live and he doesn’t have the heart to tell himself that it’s not, that it’s what he wants to hear and he’s lived like that ever since.

 

“They say a monster lives in those hills…”

 

But he only saw a girl who he had fallen in love with, only met a girl who he had felt himself fall in love with each day, and found a girl who he had let himself fall in love with forever.