I should have known, I thought grimly. 

Well, at least the werewolves didn’t kill the poor bastards who wandered too far. I tried to recall any incidents where townspeople had gone missing in the past, and briefly wondered if I was going to see any familiar faces. I wasn’t yet sure which would be worse; finding someone I knew as one of the hostages or not finding a familiar face. 

About an hour later, I wondered exasperatedly, “Just how big is this place?” I mean, I knew it was big, but not this big. By my calculations, we should have made it to the other side of Evergreen Forest by now. 

You’re thinking we should have made it to the other side by now, right? I was waiting for you to notice. 

At that, I frowned. He was waiting for me to notice? Notice what? That he was slow?

Actually, no, it wasn’t that Xander was going slowly for my sake after the tumble I had taken. Even at this pace, we should have reached the other side by now. 

Actually, Evergreen Forest is much bigger than maps or even your own eyes show you. 

“What do you mean?” I asked, truly puzzled. How could this be?

There is a barrier surrounding a portion of the forest, making it seem much smaller than it actually is. 

“A barrier… Like… a magical barrier?” I asked and held my breath, hoping Xander would laugh and say that that was ridiculous.

Yes.

I let out a shuddering breath. “Y-You can’t be serious.” 

I am.

I scanned the forest around us for any signs of the magical barrier Xander was referring to, seeing it in a new light. This place really was dangerous, even more so than the myths and legends that surrounded it ever described.

“So… werewolves are magic?”

The image of a werewolf wielding a Harry Potter wand and screaming “Expecto Patronum!” flashed in my mind. 

Xander’s booming laugh echoed in the recesses of my mind. 

My cheeks colored slightly. Embarrassed, I demanded, “Well, what is it then?”

Xander kept on laughing for a few moments longer, seemingly quite amused. 

Biting the insides of my cheeks, I waited for him to quiet down. 

Finally, when his laughter died down, he said in my mind: Witches, or as they like to be called, mages are also real, just like us werewolves. With the help of a mage, we cast a barrier in the center of the forest, concealing its true size from humanity and, most importantly, keeping the area inaccessible to humans. 

I sighed. “At this point nothing should surprise me, right?”

Well, you best get used to it quickly. I don’t want you to be… overwhelmed.

Was I hearing things, or was there a note of concern in Xander’s voice? 

Okay, I had to be hallucinating. My exhaustion finally seemed to be catching up to me, setting into my weary bones like a disease and slowing my mind; making me hear things. 

“Too late for that.” I said to him. Not only was I overwhelmed, I was inwardly freaking out.

Infinitely curious about the magical barrier, I asked, “So how does the barrier work exactly?” 

The barrier keeps the biggest portion of Evergreen Forest concealed and inaccessible to anyone not authorized to enter it. When an ordinary human comes into contact with the barrier, they’re instantaneously transported to the other side of it. It’s fast enough that no ordinary human notices it, and it’s harmless most of the time. This way, we keep ourselves safe from detection by reserving an area to ourselves, and we no longer have to kill humans who come into contact with us to keep our secret. 

Honestly, it sounded truly… magical and genius (not the part about having to murder trespassers, of course), like stuff from a science fiction movie or a fantasy book. 

I suspected I would have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that everything that goes bump in the night truly existed. Werewolves were real. Witches, er, mages, were real. 

What else? Vampires? Fairies? Genies? The possibilities at this point were endless. Mind-blowing kind of endless.  

I made a mental note to ask him about it later. If Xander was privy to these musings, he didn’t let on. 

“Wait, you said ‘most of the time’. The barrier doesn’t work sometimes?” 

There have been … incidents where the barrier didn’t work and a few humans slipped through it into our territory. These occurrences are rare. In fact, it’s only ever happened a couple of times according to my father, and we’re unsure why the barrier failed as it’s still running strong to this day, so we’ve written them off as anomalies in the barrier’s performance. 

So even magic wasn’t perfect. How… fascinating. And dangerous. Were those poor humans who slipped through killed? Earlier, he said that they ‘kept’ them, but now he was saying something different. Which was it? 

“What happened to them?” I asked, already suspecting the answer, dreading it, yet wanting to hear it all the same.

Xander did not immediately answer. 

“You killed them?” I tried to keep the judgment and condemnation out of my voice, understanding that their very survival depended on keeping their existence a secret, but I most likely failed from the way Xander tensed. After all, I was a human myself, so of course I’d find it contemptible no matter the justification. 

Those poor souls. They’d probably gotten lost and stumbled too deep into the forest. 

We’re here, he abruptly announced.

“What?” Once I registered what he meant, it was my turn to tense.

It seemed that we’d finally arrived at our destination. 

The trees parted to reveal a high cliff overlooking a part of Evergreen Forest that I’d never seen before. In fact, only two other humans had ever seen it, apparently. My only hope was that I wouldn’t meet their same fate.