My Grandmother, Victoria.

The story technically begins decades earlier, even before my own traumatizing event. My, whatever many, great grandmother, Victoria, had gone missing. I’m not 100% of the fact and fiction of the story. By the time I heard it, the game of telephone had already been played. 

Victoria had been a sweet young girl, about 12 when it happened. They lived in the same house I did, we all called it “the family house”. It had been built in the middle of nowhere, the town being built to the east of it later. When Victoria lived there, the town would’ve been even smaller than it is now, which is saying quite a bit. West of the house was pure woods. She’d been rather outdoorsy, so when she announced that she was going to be exploring, her parents weren’t alarmed. They weren’t even too worried when she hadn’t arrived by the time the sun had set, figuring it was taking her a bit to make her way back. By the next day, however, they were certain; Victoria had gone missing. 

I heard she was gone for a week, my cousin heard she was gone for months. When I eventually took to the library to get a solid answer, they hadn’t provided. In the end, I suppose it didn’t matter; Victoria had walked into the woods and hadn’t walked out. 

At this point in the story, my mother would begin the lectures of stranger danger and being safe while going out. Fair, considering that the story is about a young girl going missing. 

Victoria had eventually walked out of the woods. Oddly her clothes and hair had been perfect, near-identical to what they had looked like when she walked in. No mud or dirt, not even a run in her tights. Victoria had been covered in small cuts in bruises, similar to the ones she’d have running through the thick woods. Given the young girl’s insistence that she had been alone, that she had just gotten lost, the case was closed pretty quickly despite all of the inconsistencies. The biggest one being how exactly her eyes had changed color. 

Victoria had gone into the woods with dull blue eyes, similar to her parents and her brother, and had walked out with vivid green ones. Mistaken identity had been brought up, but besides the girl looked exactly like Victoria, and knew the layout of the house. No, everyone figured that if a child’s hair could go from blonde to brown when entering adulthood, who's to say that Victoria’s eyes had simply gone through a similar process?

My mom used magic to explain it when I was a kid. A fairy or a kind witch had blessed Victoria’s eyes to help her find the way home. As her grandchild, I was blessed with the same gift, whereas my cousin, born from Victoria’s brother, had the dull blue. 

Overall not a bad story, but I was always so curious about Victoria, always researching, when I couldn’t take it anymore and finally went to search for answers the hard way. I went into the woods. 

I was maybe 15? Teenage confidence convincing me I would be able to find something that the search parties and later investigations couldn’t. To be fair to my younger self, I did attempt to be smart about it, bring a compass, a knife, and some food and water in case I got stuck out there a little longer than expected. 

I walked into the woods early. I remember seeing the morning dew on the leaves. I remember not wanting to be in the woods at night. Which is why it’s so frustrating that the rest is so hazy.  

I walked in, went west, attempting to get into the head of a small child, trying to guess which way she’d gone when...when I realized my legs were aching. That I was deeper in the woods than I ever had been. When I realized the sun was going to set soon. I remember being so calm. I don’t even remember wondering how I had walked for miles in what felt like a blink of an eye. I just grabbed my compass and started heading east towards where I knew the house would be. 

I hadn’t brought a flashlight with me, figuring I would be out of the woods long before dark, so I was grateful when I saw the cabin. It was old and small. I could list the reasons that it makes sense for me to have stayed calm; I must’ve walked to the edges of the next town, or maybe my house wasn’t actually the only house that was built west to the town. But, those are both lies. Lies I knew then and lies I know now. The next town over wasn’t for hundreds of miles, and given that my house was known as the “most west” house to the neighborhood kids, I can confidently say that whoever built the cabin didn’t want anyone to know about it. I really don’t understand why I was so calm. 

The cabin was empty and given that it was so small, I wasn’t worried about anyone else hiding in there after I had searched it. It was finally starting to get dark, so I figured I would light a fire in the fireplace, and wait till light to continue my journey. I wasn’t planning on sleeping or anything, so I assumed I would be mostly safe. The cabin was extremely tiny, only two rooms, the main room with the fire, and something that functioned as a bedroom. I guessed that I had either completely missed the outhouse or it had been destroyed. 

Everything was actually pretty cozy, and I might even have fallen asleep if not for the knock at the door. 

I had been sure to latch the door, even shove a branch under the handle, and draw the curtains so nothing could get in. I was inclined to believe my mother about a blessing. 

Another knock sounded and then, 

“Hello, is anyone there?” a girl’s voice. A rather young one by the sound of it. 

It actually calmed me down a bit. I wasn’t gonna let her stay out there by herself, plus if some wild murder in the words was that good at imitating a child’s voice, well then they frankly earned the right to murder me. I open the door to...nothing. Absolutely empty darkness. 

“Hello” my own voice was so full of terror I remember it sounding foreign to my ears. 

Nothing. I shut the door. It had been my mind playing tricks on me then. Staring at the fire in a new odd place had caused it to want to scare me shitless apparently. 

I was suddenly grateful for my knife as I decided to snoop around the house to distract myself. The main room had some bookshelves and a really old couch. The only thing on the wall was a painting, hanging directly opposite the window. The light from it must’ve caused some of the details to fade, but it was clearly a face with red lips and blue eyes. It was clear that whoever had been painted had been relativity pretty. I turned my attention to the bookshelf, sifting through decaying books that must have been popular when they were put there, but now lost to time and trends. I came across a binder, one of the leather ones used for scrapbooking, and I had hoped to maybe be able to recognize someone’s relatives from the small town I was from. It had freaked me out a bit when I found it to be mostly empty, you never see old, mainly unused picture books. There were some pictures, but they were mainly of the woods around the cabin, nature shots. Finally, I came across a young girl, someone I recognized, Victoria. Her eyes were their original near grey-blue, and she had a look of absolute terror. 

I knew that something bad had happened to her, but it still hurt to see the evidence of it. 

The cabin I had been currently sitting in, stood behind her. Which, yeah was terrifying. And there was even a face in the window, details obscured by distance and glass but I knew it was the painting, the painting that had green eyes instead of blue. Again terrifying, but that wasn’t what caused the hairs to stand up on my neck. No, that was caused by the breathing I heard. So alike to mine that I almost convinced myself it was but, no, it was out of sync by a hair. I turned toward it. Towards the painting. The painting that had clearly had green eyes, green eyes the color of mine, in the photo but now had blue ones. I don’t know why I said it, but I guess I recognized those eyes, the color. 

“Victoria?” 

A tear rolled from those painted eyes, and I ran out of the cabin. 

I guess I somehow knew which way was east, even in the dark. To this day I would’ve sworn something was following me, not to catch me, just to...I guess watch? I felt the warm breath, but I didn’t turn around, not even when I heard something that could’ve been my name. 

The doctor’s say it was the trama, I had been in those woods for days, and my brain was blocking what actually happened with false memories. Given the loss of time and frankly unbelievable events, I was inclined to believe them. The event left me with some cuts and bruises from my mad dash, yet my clothes and hair had been completely unharmed. I had become a story just like my grandmother. I got over it eventually, until this last month. 

My cousin, who I mentioned earlier, needed some bone cells from a genetic relative. As we had grown up together, I volunteered. It’s odd, when he looked at me with his blue eyes, into my green ones, I knew what he was going to say. I was directly related to Victoria, and he to her brother, and yet we weren’t a genetic match. 

Whatever had walked out of those woods, it hadn’t been Victoria.