The Girl...

There was a peculiar girl in a forest, that forest was covered in poison oak, ivy, and many more dangerous things. Her old petite house wasn’t far because she lived inside of an old oak tree. This oak tree was one of the most dangerous in the forest because of poison ivy that grows nearby. This girl has been inside of that tree for at least 10 years. I’m aware of this as I am part of the Smeltzer County Forest Patrol and this was my job for more than 15 years now. The girl was always lonely and mysterious, she would never come out of there, but some old man would always come around and restock her with some food. For the past seven years we have been trying beyond our ability to get her into an orphanage or trying for adoption. The girl never seemed to have said anything, and she certainly did not move that often, at least when we were here. The only two things that I know about her that can actually help us communicate is that she can actually talk though she doesn’t very often...

How I know that she can talk is because at night all the time, she sings herself a very melodious lullaby. But the weird thing about this is that, she would sing it in a different way, her seemingly beautiful voice would crackle and turn into an old lady’s voice. She was somewhat different and interesting…

But now I will tell more things about myself. Firstly, I have 3 children; Becky, Javier, and Cindy. Though I love my children, I did have a love of my life, my dear wife, who is no more. Her name was Cynthia, she loved our kids more than anyone else, I went into depression for at least 5 whole years... But, the most traumatizing thing about her death was the horrible way she died, she got killed by a Tsunami in southeastern Florida. That was indeed the most tragic incident in my life so far. But I have moved on, and I am looking towards my kids bright future and our time together. Though nobody really wants to be a forest patrol, there actually is a story for why I entered this profession. It's a pretty simple story, when I was a little kid I was playing hide and seek, my friend finds really good spots to find in, and that day he chose to hide in a forest. Well, we were never allowed to go into the forest so we never expected him to go either. Well after several days he was thankfully found, and was safe as sound! From that time, I always wanted to be the guy who rescued people from the forest, and checked for forest safety frequently! So, there is the story of how I decided to be a part of the forest patrol.

This morning, I got up to that noisy noise of my three children’s video games. For me that seems like the worst way to wake up in the morning especially when you are having a vivid dream. Today is a pretty big day for me because it is the ceremony of my promotion. I am getting promoted to the Forest Council Assistant Leader, which has been my ultimate dream for years now! I am pretty sure that I achieved it because of the weird forest girl. Now coming back to the girl, there are no recent updates or facts we learned about her, which is pretty upsetting to me knowing that we have been trying our ultimate hardest.

 It’s the next day, and we are going to the forest to investigate on the girl again. Although we are not getting much leads on this bizarre case, that girl for the first time in seven years looked at us, of course still with her scarf covering her face up. She looked as though we were the first humans she ever saw in her life, but then as expected she went back to doing whatever she was doing in that tree. Somewhere in my heart I feel an unusual connection to this girl.. Later that night, as I was thinking about what I felt when I was near the girl I got an idea. We could install cameras all around the tree to see who the man was, and what the girl does everyday sitting in the tree.

After telling my higher officials about my plan, they all agreed and thought it could maybe give us more information on the girl and how she looks like. There we were going to the forest with technicians to install the cameras. But I noticed something odd, the girl wasn’t inside the tree, nor were her necessity items she had with her. As I take steps closer to the tree, I see an old wrinkled note just sitting there. As anyone’s instincts would tell them to do, I opened the note, and in big cursive letters I saw, “the person that opens this note next is the one that is cursed for the next ten years of their life! During their curse time they can only sing or talk in the night time. But not for very long, if they do their voice will turn into an old person.” This means that all the girl's life, she has been waiting for the curse to break, and for me to get the curse! This must mean the girl somehow already knew that I work for the forest patrol, and that I would be perfect for this curse. Oh wait, there is something on the back of the note.. It says, “in case you are wondering, my name is Lilly Holmes…” LILLY! I am in complete shock and disbelief, Lilly Holmes is the same girl that went missing ten years ago. There were private investigators and many police officers that were searching for her, but in the end they all just decided to give up. I guess every story has its own secrets and twists...

By: Vaishnavi Peddireddy