"You must never go into the Woods alone."

Ever since little Penelope was young, she had heard the words of her grandmother echo in her mind: “You must never go into the woods alone.”  

Every time she heard it echo in her mind, she had this peculiar feeling, she wanted to defy her family. She felt like the woods were always calling out to her.  

The woods were part of the village, just past the windmill and the crumbling church. It was part of their life and they used it to their advantage, greedily, they chopped it down, tree by the tree until there was nothing left.  

The next morning after they used the chopped wood to fuel their fires, they came back to see something magical. All the trees had been replenished overnight; the villagers were left stunned by what they had seen.  

Their axes got to work again, but they also pulled out the roots from under the ground, they made sure that no tree was left alive.  

Penelope knew otherwise, she always knew that something strange was starting in her little town. She tried to tell the adults but they thought she was ‘making up stories’ again as all children do to get attention.  

Penelope knew that their hunger for using nature would probably go against them and she wouldn’t let that happen. She saw these trees as monsters in the night, their long branches calling little children into the forest so that they could gobble them up.  

Her grandmother still mourned the loss of her sister who had been one of the ‘lost’ when she had strayed from the path. She made up a story, to lessen the sting of loosing her, she said she saw a big wolf with sharp claws and a snarling mouth.  

She had said her sister had followed the beast and strayed off the beaten path. The adults knew it was a lie, they knew the child was a born liar and wanted to blame her for her sister vanishing.  

She expected screaming and punishment but they had just cried and hugged their daughter. They believed her lies and even rewarded her with it, they focused all of their attention on her and guarded her night and day.  

That was the price, she was never allowed into those woods ever again. Sometimes she stood at the gate, under the watchful eye of her brothers, and longed to go back into the woods. She longed to find her sister again and be reunited.  

The guardianship transferred over to her new husband, Sebastian. She loved her husband dearly but that peculiar feeling always came back whenever she looked at the trees, smelled their fruit and longed to touch their bark.  

One day when she was supposed to be minding her little daughter, who would be Penelope’s mother later. She left her child in her crib sleeping soundly, she gathered her shoes and her scarf which she tied around her face. She could not risk being seen by the other villagers, she could not risk having her little girl taken away or her husband leaving her.  

She approached the gate, feeling the rough bark u see her fingertips. Once she passed this gate, it was the point of no return and still she knew this and decided to take the plunge.  

The path to the actual woods was deep in itself and too dangerously close to the village itself. With a weary sigh, she ran past most of the citizens who were out for their morning shopping. They could vaguely see her figure but without taking actual notice of her actual face.  

She arrived at the clearing to the woods, the path twisted inside and out as she could not look backwards, it would admit defeat.  

She was also unaware of the two men who were not positioned to guard the pathway going deeper into the woods. They stood with their backs straight as they regarded the smaller woman, their axes lay beside them as she took a step closer to them.  

She had to time this just right, she couldn’t afford to have a misstep, it would cost her everything. “Miss?” One of the men asked, concern on his face as she kicked her feet into running as fast as she could.  

The stones beneath her trembled and flicked everywhere as she ran faster and faster, her breaths getting shorter and shorter. She was nearly there!  

She could hear one of the men come after her, his shouts calling her back to the mundane life she had left behind.  

They were calling her by her married surname, they had clearly seen her face and put two and two together, she was the sister of the ‘lost girl’ and her fame now preceded her.  

The smell of the damp earth beneath her feet was somewhat reassuring as mud stained her flat shoes. Her breaths was beginning to fade away as the darkness of the trees swallowed her.  

She felt the entire world spin as the ground seeped into her, she felt the ground before she could let out her trapped breath.  

The ground was hard and damp as it welcomed her with cold arms outstretched. The sounds of the man growing colder and colder as she felt the whole world disappear from beneath her.  

The man had either lost her or was lost himself as the darkness tolled on until she was awoken by the sound of someone softly singing.  

Her eyes were half blinded by darkness and muddy leaves. She felt a tugging at her foot and tried to look down but was unable to. She blinked harder as she tried to get up, her bones felt weary and bent the wrong way.  

A painful shooting pain stunned her left leg, she had probably bent her leg the wrong way when she had fallen down. She could feel her chest tighten and as her breathing started to return to normal, she felt the most peculiar feeling.  

“Get up, lazy bones!” A child’s voice called out to her as she started to prod the woman on her leg. She felt as if all of her worries had been drained from her body at this touch.  

“Seriously! Llana!” The child muttered, in a huff as she prodded her on the back. She felt suddenly cold, her body froze in all of her brittle bones, how did this child know her name?  

It couldn’t be. Could it?  

The flash of recognition in the child’s speech made Llana think irrationality. It had to be the forest tricking her into thinking her sister was alive, that had to be the answer. That was the only answer that she could truly think of, either that or she was slowly going insane.  

She thought of her baby back home, all alone and waiting for her mother. She thought of her husband back home, he would come home soon to an empty house and screaming from her baby.  

She finally felt the strength to lift her head, she now known that her baby and husband had to come first. She would deal with the grief of losing her sister in time all over again.  

The air around her made her feel dizzy but she gathered every ounce of the little bit of strength as she saw something that really made her heart cry.  

Her sister stood in front of her, it was if the last fifteen years had stopped her from growing. She was a child and exactly the same as the day she had wandered off the beaten path.  

Her hair was in identical braids with bright red ribbons tied at each of the ends. Her pinky pale dress that stretched to her wobbly knees was caked with spots of dirt as Llana started to cry, the ends of her eyelids prickled and stung at the corners of her eyes. 

"Seriously Llana?" the little girl huffed and puffed as she got a little frustrated with her younger sister, her hands at the sides started to bawl into tight fists. 

"Sopia?" Her gargled voice broke as the little girl smiled, she had no idea what their town was like and how many years have now passed since she vanished. 

"Catch me! Llana!" The little girl cried as she start to run away from her, past Llana who had given all her energy into pushing herself up from the ground. She felt more exhausted than she had ever been in her entire life, more exhausted than after giving birth, getting married and all the other painful tripes that people push themselves through. 

"Stop." She garbled but the little girl was too fast, she was ahead of her, she never stopped to help her sister and didn't even look back as she disappeared into the bushes that she had once, years ago, vanished into. 

"I'm going home." Llana said, she finally felt free, the woods didn't feel so ethereal to her anymore. It felt like she was a little child again, lost to all the senses overflowing her, lost to everything in her life. She was tired, lost, scared, defenceless against the droning of the trees, bushes, rocks and other nature as she felt it turn slowly against her. 

She felt like the trees were pushing her back towards the village, back to her awaiting husband and child, back to her true home. She was unwanted in this land, she was unwanted everywhere and by everyone she had ever known, she stopped, her little daughter needed her and maybe even her husband to an extent. 

"LLANA!" The cries of her abandoned sister rang through the wind as she tried to block her out, she could finally now see the village just in the distance, she was nearly home. 

She limped the rest of the way, passing through the trees silently as she shuffled along, each step echoed and got closer to her end goal, to her awaiting daughter and husband. 

She passed the men on the way out of the woods as they stared at her in disbelief, they thought no one could survive the woods, they had now been proven wrong. The men wanted to tend to the broken, limping woman but they held their tongues as her husband came along the path with a burning torch. Its flames made his features distorted and angry as he bit his tongue too, he couldn't make a scene in front of the others, he wasn't raised to. 

He roughly took the arm of his wife as she winced in pain, they didn't say anything to each other that night nor the next night as he left her to tend to their little child. Once she told him of what happened, he denied her story, he thought of her as a liar and had abandoned their child to follow some fairytale dream. 

She felt disgusted with herself, distrust between the couple turned to frosty good mornings and cold good nights as she raised her children to be good and kind and to ignore the woods. When her husband fell ill, she took care of him nursing him back to health, she really did love him but he had already fallen out of love with her. 

When he passed away, she resolved to always put her children first above even herself, when they struggled she tried to make their home a happy and safe place. When Penelope was born, she always warned her daughter that she cannot ever let the child go into the woods at any circumstance. 

The day the news came that Penelope was lost to the woods was the day that Llana sank to the floor, distraught and torn apart. Her sister had stolen her grandchild, the one she loved the most because she didn't follow her into the forest. 

The last thing that they found of Penelope was the bright red ribbons hanging in the trees and the sound of children laughing.