The family of bears was angrier than I thought they’d be from an innocent mistake. We were once friends; but the distance between us had grown. Leaping from the comfort of Ebar’s bed where I had found long-lost solace, I left blankets in a heap on the floor behind me. I sprinted out of the door that led away from their small upstairs bedroom and down the back steps into the forest.

The family had startled me out of my unusually peaceful sleep. After so many months of barely resting I had finally taken an escape, a moment’s respite from all the death and sadness around me.

Growler had been the first to lunge towards me and his son, Ebar, followed suit. Only Matra hadn’t moved. Perhaps she understood something it took me longer to figure out. It had been two weeks since we’d buried our last friend and now only my mother and I were left. She could no longer prepare food, or really take care of me.

The morning I went for that stroll through the forest I didn’t intend to cause such a raucous. I was out exploring; trying to get away from something I couldn’t escape. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and the porridge was sitting there, spoons ready. Ebar’s bowl had been perfect. I now understand it better, that my body and spirit were tired and I just needed a quiet place to rest.

They considered it an invasion and I’d upset them. I’d gone in when they were out. That was the moment I knew the balance in the forest had shifted and my kind were no longer in charge. Instead, we were just others living there with everyone else. Growling with a mixture of anger and frustration, they chased me away. I ran back to the safety of my home, my tangled hair in my eyes and tears streaming down my face in fear.

I’d never felt fear like that before Growler and my old friend Ebar had chased me from their home. It was a sensation I didn’t understand until then. Even with everyone dying, I didn’t fear death. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but death was natural after a long-life lived.

I felt that kind of fear again as my mother’s condition worsened. It was an evening like any other in the forest. The brightness of the stars and the low-hanging full moon cut through the blackness of the night, letting me see her clearly.

I’d asked her once more, “Are we going to the lake tomorrow?”

My mother glanced hesitantly at me before looking away and around the room, but she didn’t speak.

“Are we, mami? Isn’t it time?”

She tried to sit herself up in the bed she’d often been too weak to leave. “Oh, we have so much to do tomorrow, Amarilla. There are berries to be gathered for your store. Winter will come before we know it. I must show you again how to collect the nuts and make sure you understand the power of the fire. I must teach you more lessons so you can care for the forest with the fairies. You haven’t learned yet how to work with the bigger animals to heal them. They will need you. You must practice still, to grow stronger in your magic. There is just so much, Amarilla.”

She leaned against her headboard, propped up by two pillows and another on each side of her. She looked so small. She tried to avoid my gaze but I wouldn’t let her. I stood closer and touched her hand. Finally, she struggled to let her fatigued eyes focus on me. Something else was weighing heavy on her. My mother’s thin hands grasped mine desperately.

“Never leave Sorseluna, Amarilla. You must listen to me. No matter what happens you cannot leave the enchanted forest. It is not safe. There is one out there who would try to harm you. And out there, they cannot be trusted. They may look like us but they are not like us. They will hurt you. You must stay here. Do you understand?”

She was pleading with me, using the last of her numbered breaths to get me to make the promise. I was only nine and she was my world. I would have said anything in that moment if it meant making her happy one last time.

“Okay, mami. I will stay. I promise.”

“Thank you, Amarilla. Your fairy godmother, Rose, will help you when I no longer can but she cannot take care of you. Once I have taught you all I can, the rest will be up to you. You can survive in these woods. You are smart. You are resourceful. You are a child of the enchanted forest and of mine.”

I looked at my mother. Her pause in that moment felt forced as if there was something more she wanted to say, but chose not to. There wasn’t much time left to leave things unsaid.

I waited by her side hoping she’d say whatever it was that she’d been thinking. Sitting by her bed, my hand with hers I studied her face, trying to make sure I’d always remember her. Even dying she was beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.

The faded shade of yellow of her thin hair was barely a glimmer of the golden locks she’d given me. Her eyes looked past me. They were seeking something that wasn’t where I was and wasn’t in those woods.

I think they were reaching back to a memory or they were already glimpsing the next world. I figured she saw the world where she would reunite with all of our other people and my father. A world she could only go to by leaving me.

When my mother lay there telling me all the reasons we couldn’t leave for the lake cottage and why I couldn’t leave the forest I tried to listen. I wanted so much to give her whatever she needed. But I couldn’t accept it all. Like every single person I’d ever known or loved, she was leaving me too. She wasn’t going to leave me behind in Sorseluna.

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Thank you for reading the first part of Out of the Woods. Please check back each week for a new chapter! I'd love to know what you think.

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