Chapter Text
Once upon a time, in a little village by the borders of a land known to many as Panopticon, there lived a little boy by the name of Jonathan Sims.
The boy himself was an orphan, raised by his grandmother after having lost both his parents when he was too young to remember them. His lacking in the way of common friendships among those of his age, however, was something ascribed to what many within the village who knew him might call ‘a rather strange and relentlessly difficult disposition’. For the young boy, as they saw it, was stubborn in his challenging of their rules and any wisdom they had to share, and worst of all; ceaselessly curious.
As such, by the time the boy was 8 years old there could be little in the way of surprise granted by those who knew him, to often find him wandering alone about the village and the woods nearby whenever his grandmother should fail to keep his attention with then necessary and repetitive upkeep of their small household and garden.
Of course, just as with every child who had ever called the village home, Jonathan had been well warned of the many dangers that awaited any persons should they find themselves wandering too far alone in such woods. However, whilst many of the other children and residents would typically be rendered sufficiently terrified of the monsters who lurked in the dark spaces between the trees –so much so in fact, that most wouldn’t so much as dare set a toe into such woods—Jonathan very much prided himself on being the brave exception. In fact, much to the dismay of his grandmother, not only did he not once falter in his many personal expeditions into such woods, his curiosity, (and proclivity to forsake all company in favour of exploring the many small wonders of the forest) soon grew to eclipse any notion of his to entertain any of the mundane joys he might have found tucked away within the safety of their little village.
Of course, many over the years tried to dissuade his reckless disregard of his own safety and their grief. His grandmother alone had told him many a tale of foolhardy adventurers such as himself who’d thought to wander as he did; who swiftly found themselves torn to pieces by the terrible jaws of the many monsters that lurked there. Or worse, returned so horribly cursed by evil magics that the terrible death at the hands of their loved ones that awaited them could be considered nothing short of mercy.
But even then, such tales only ever seemed to excite the boy’s curiosity further and drew him deeper amongst the trees. So naturally, it wasn’t long before many within the village resigned themselves to the supposition that such an important lesson would only ever be imparted by the firm hand of a terrible experience of his own, and no effort of their own could ever hope to draw him away from his solitary adventures within. So when goaded by the young boy’s stubbornness, or his many questions challenging the tales meant to warn him away, they refused to entertain him; instead resigning themselves to doing little more than pray absentmindedly from time to time, that such an event would be far kinder than many of them dared to believe.
The day itself would arrive in much the same mundane fashion as the many that had proceeded it. The sun rose as it had wont to do, and with it many of those residing within the village would set about the many repetitive duties that filled out their days. Jonathan’s grandmother occupying herself with running her errands and dragging her restless grandson along to assist her, and Jonathan himself inevitably growing bored and setting off without a word to expand his internal mappings of the woods he fancied himself uniquely brave enough to explore.
It didn’t take him at all long to reach the last of the many boundary markers he had placed to denote the furthest point of his travels thus far. This time, an arrow scratched into a thin tree that had since acquired a small glittering spider’s web on its lower branches. He’d carved it into the bark with the sharp point of a rock he had long since discarded, and the once fresh green wounds that had oozed with the line of thin sap had since scabbed over to darken the lines of the arrow. Pointed up, of course, so as to confuse any such malevolent man or creature seeking to follow it or know his way back home. He’d thought himself so clever when he’d considered it, and at the sight a familiar thrill of excited nerves thrummed and squeezed a little at his chest as he pushed himself further into the unknown that lay beyond.
The further he found himself beyond that final marker, however, the less he noticed himself stopping as he usually would to inspect the many new and hidden things that typically would have caught his interest. His attention glanced off a rotted tree stump here, and a strangely shaped rock there, so that eventually even the sight of a colourful patch of mushrooms at the base of a tree or the white glint of what he might have guessed to be the skull of a small creature did little more than catch at the corner of his eye as he continued to walk with some kind of purpose unknown even to himself further and further from the safety of the village.
For a time, the uncharacteristic impulses that spurred him onward registered as little more than a subconscious determination to see just how far beyond the boundaries of that which he had already explored before he could possibly manage within the day. But by the time the oddity in his own behaviour made itself apparent enough to warrant his concern, the unease of having walked so far without stopping to take note of his path reared in his mind and Jonathan at last took note of the way his steps refused to answer to his hesitation.
He looked down to his feet then and frowned, trying to move a lifted foot into a step back rather than forward. But despite his efforts and wishes he felt himself finishing the movement as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
He didn’t find it particularly terrifying at first, though the sight did concern him just ever so slightly. Really, more than anything else the boy found himself somewhat fascinated by the phenomenon, and occupied his attention by testing and toying at the extent of whatever strange magic it was that moved him.
It was so much different than how he might have otherwise imagined. He’d always thought to himself that such magic, if it even existed, would be accompanied by the stiffness of his limbs, or some kind of unnatural strain as he attempted resistance. But as it was, his body merely moved as it always had under the force of habit and repetitive motion, like he’d sunken into the pleasant rhythm of a task still to finish. Still his movements, still familiar in the gait of his walk and feeling as any movement ever had under his command, but as if any objecting thought he might have wanted to act on simply didn’t register in his limbs as definitive.
That feeling changed when he came upon the first of the many towering stones standing at the edge of a clearing entirely unfamiliar to him, and noticed the manner in which it had been set into the earth and accompanied by a circle of many others of its kind and a flat slab set like a table at its centre. He had the freedom still to turn his head to inspect the many complex patterns and shapes carved deep into the faces of each, all seeming to depict a figure of some kind surrounded by many accompanying symbols and runes that had him aching for the chance to stop and investigate them at greater length. But just as before his body would not obey him, no matter how he craned his neck to look and tried to pull himself back.
At last the horrible dread of what was happening registered in his mind, and he at last began to understand the many potential dangers of having stumbled across so clearly sacred and ancient a place as this that lay so deep in those perilous woods. So as he moved with a surety at war with the uncertainty in his mind and passed by the carving of a woman with many arms, his mind worked to make sense of what this was.
In all of the stories of foolish travellers and explorers his grandmother and the other adults of the village had told him over the years, so many had been dismissed in his mind by the simple notion of their protagonists having made the obviously wrong choice when faced with something they did not understand. A shepherd following a stranger and being tricked into stepping off a cliffside; perhaps an exile underestimating a witch’s power and trapping himself in a curse that would have otherwise claimed his rival; or a thief not heeding a warning and trying to dig up a treasure he’d buried when it had already been long claimed by the hungry earth that would go on to swallow him too. Jonathan had always thought himself clever enough to have been able to see when a situation warranted a hasty retreat, or perhaps in possession of enough common sense that he would not be foolish enough to trap himself in any such situation that would leave him desperate enough to reach for the first hand that offered him aid.
Here and now, and from the moment he passed that final boundary marker he’d carved into that tree, he couldn’t once think of anything he might have done or stumbled into that could have possibly ensnared him with such magic. The compulsion he now knew was drawing him onwards had taken hold long before he’d stumbled across the tense hush of the stone circle he had now long since passed. And even as he racked his mind for any sing of a strange array or change in the woods he might have stumbled across that day, he could think of nothing.
The path that waited for him beyond the stone circle was disturbingly well kept. Bordered by curling trees and shrubbery that did not dare encroach on the cleared path beyond, save to blanket the earth with leaves that crunched underfoot with each foreign yet determinedly assured step.
He could feel his heart racing in his chest the further on he went, though his chest hardly moved now beyond its standard calm pace of breath and made him feel on the edge of horribly deprived of air. His eyes whipped around on his stilled head to take in as much of the forest path as he could, determined that should he manage to break whatever enchantment spurred him onwards he would not find himself lost.
It was only as he noticed the many spiders’ webs spun between the branches of the trees that bordered the path, and the way their numbers only ever seemed to grow thicker the further he went, that his mind returned to that one innocuous little spider that had made its home between the branches above his marker. A pit of dread forming in his stomach as realization set in and light glinted off the sparkling eyes of far too many sparkling eyes watching him intently from the trees.
When at last he came upon the shape of a cottage he could suppose must be his destination, he couldn’t find it in himself to be anything but relieve at the possibility of finally regaining control of his limbs. His mind worked to summon up the many rules he had devised for himself after hearing and picking apart the many foolish mistakes of so many travellers before him who had met their own brutal ends in the stories he’d heard, determined to not let such an underhanded trick be the end of him.
Whatever manner of witch or monster had done trapped him in this, he would not barter with them, and he would not tell them anything about himself that they might be able to use against him. He resolved himself to run at the first opportunity that presented itself, as fast as he could for home and not once abandon his focus in retracing his steps well enough to return to the patch of woods he knew well enough to be sure he could not lose his way.
The cottage itself looked like many of the older houses in their village. Wooden beams straddling cobblestone walls with a thatched roof and chimney leaking out plumes of smoke, potted plants and colourful flowers and berries lining the ground beneath wooden shutters swinging by paned windows that revealed little more than an inky darkness that persisted thought the revealing light of day.
The only real oddity, and the thing that had him most convinced that he could not allow himself to trust whoever waited inside, were the many spiders’ webs that laced about the awnings and fences like festival drapes. Their inhabitants waiting breathless with anticipation as he passed.
Unsurprisingly, he found himself approaching the front door. A simple thing, well treated wood secured with simple iron hinges and a ringed handle on the left side. Even here, tiny spiders had set webs into the corners of the doorway and strung from the edges of a wooden sign hung like a wreath at its centre that read, ever so simply: “It is polite to knock”.
He had scarcely decided that obeying any such sign or engaging with whoever inhabited the cottage was the very last thing he wanted to do, before he felt his right hand raise itself ever so slowly from his side to form a loose fist against the wood of the door before him.
He strained with everything he had to fight against the impulse, scrunching his eyes up tight and trying to lean back as far as he could away from the sign and the door to tear his hand away. But just as it had every other time he’d tried before his body would not obey him.
He flinched as he felt his knuckles rap hard and loud, but only twice below the sign. The slight pain of the thick wood spreading like lightning up his arm and into his shoulder.
He held his breath, and tried again to find some logical way out of this. His body held fast and still even as he was desperately hoping that whatever spell had brought him here must surely be broken when he finally did what it wanted and knocked upon that door.
He stiffened as the sound of the bolt slid and thunked beyond the threshold, the door slowly and patiently creaking open by an unseen hand. He’d half expected to see no one on the other side, or more half hoped, but instead the face that greeted him was far from the gnarled and grotesque face of a wicked crone he’d come to expect in his grandmother’s stories.
Instead, it was a fairly young woman, with a friendly tilt to her head. No pointed hat on her head, only rivulets of short and pale white curls spilling like seafoam to one side above her dark face and what looked like a patch of tightly packed webbing on the other. She wore a simple dark purple overdress with white lace trims and meticulously embroidered with black thread detailing. Topping it all with a slight smile and dark eyes that seemed to sparkle like polished obsidian with delighted satisfaction.
“It’s good to meet you at last Jonathan,” she said in a friendly enough tone, and Jon felt again his heart drop to his toes at the sound of a name he would have refused to share if given the chance. “Why don’t you come on in, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea?”
He wanted to refuse, but the unwelcome nod of his head and the gentle step of his foot beyond the threshold at her invitation left little room for objection.
The woman gestured to a small table she had set up with two chairs on either side. A tray bearing a delicate China tea set and plates of scones sprinkled with purple flower petals set atop a white lace tablecloth that tickled at his legs as he sat down and rested his hands gently over his knees. The position felt horribly at war with the dryness he fought to swallow at the back of his throat in its gentle show of politeness.
The space inside the cottage was fairly dark, little more than a few streams of light spilling in through the windows and the gentle flickering of a fire further in behind the woman, who quickly diverted his attention as she set herself across from him and set about pouring them both a cup of tea.
“Milk?” she asked with a smile, and Jon swallowed again and nodded, because the thought of offending or refusing the woman sent new sparks of terror down his spine.
As she poured, he finally let his eyes investigate more intently the interior of the cottage. It looked, of all things, like the studio of a weaver. Spools of fabric leant up against the wall, a steaming cauldron of dye aside the fireplace, and a spinning wheel innocuously perched to its side with a basket of thread at its base. If the world outside the cottage was blanketed by the workings of spiders’ silk, then the interior was artfully draped in what he thought had to be several lifetimes worth of meticulously detailed and expertly crafted tapestries that made his jaw drop slightly at the extent of the work that must have gone into them.
There were far too many details in each to properly take in any one at a glance. If he wasn’t so preoccupied with his own fears, he might have even indulged his wish to spend hours at a time just noticing the many fine details artfully and impossibly woven into the fabric of any one of the scenes depicted in each cloth.
To the side of the weaver woman, who had since taken to lifting her own cup to her lips to blow gently on the steaming liquid inside, a great loom and stool lay not too far from her against the wall. And as he puzzled over tracing the many threads and components that seemed to melt into the definitive shape of yet another grand tapestry, he registered at last the image she must have been weaving but moments before.
It was undeniably, irrefutably, an image of himself. Set large amongst the intricate swirling patterns and shapes that textured the woods and webs around him as his reproduction stood mid stride on the path he had walked but moments before.
He turned his eyes sharply back to the woman before him, assuredly the witch who had used her magic to draw him here, and tried to keep his breathing even as she smiled at him again over the rim of her cup.
“Why did you bring me here?”
His hand jerked to his lips as the words spilled unbidden from his lips, and he realized at once they were his own again to control.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like any tea Jonathan?” the woman said simply, and Jon felt his hand drift gently down to rest by the saucer and cup in front of him before he could even think about doing so.
He didn’t say a word as the witch took another sip of her cup, and let out a satisfied hum.
“What do you want from me?” he tried again, as his shaking hand edged its way toward the cup in a show of appeasement, despite the fact that he could not yet bring himself to raise it to quench the dryness of his throat.
The witch set her cup down gently on the table with a light clink, and threaded her hands together before her.
“Nothing much at all my dear, but to offer you a gift.”
He swallowed again. Knowing and feeling the need to refuse war against the fear that kept him locked in place and desperate not to provoke the ire of the witch before him.
“What uh… what kind of gift?”
The witch smiled, and Jon thought he saw a flash of legs scuttle by the dark spaces beneath the plates.
“Well, you see Jonathan, as I’m sure you’ve gathered I am quite adept in the art of spinning fate.” She gestured to the tapestry on the loom beside her. “Be it to help or harm is of little concern when compared to the whims of The Mother, but with the trade comes something of the freedom to know a little of what awaits one in their future, and at times, to share a little of what I know with persons such as yourself.”
“I… I don’t understand?”
She smiled again at this, and Jon felt his hands unbidden grip the saucer and cup of cooling tea that he had thus far determinedly left sitting on the table between them.
“I think you do Jonathan,” she said patiently, “You’re a clever boy after all. Clever enough to notice the threads pulling you here and to know not to immediately trust the word of a stranger who makes their home within the Deep Wood.”
He frowned as his hands brought the rim of the cup to his mouth. Warm and sweet-smelling tea gently lapping at his tightly closed lips as he tried to resist the urge to give in and take the sip he felt himself craving.
“Brave too,” she said with a light chuckle, “enough to embark out into the woods day after day, but you needn’t worry. Testing your bravery any more than I already have is the least of my wishes now.”
She leant a head on her hand.
“The truth is you’ve caught the eye of The Mother, Jonathan, and we think that such bravery to indulge your curiosity at the very least deserves to be satisfied.”
At last his hands lowered the cup from his mouth, the lingering taste of sweetened grey tea leaves on the edge of his tongue as he tightened them before speaking again.
“What do you mean?” he asked softly, trying and failing to keep his voice from wavering.
“I mean to show you the path of your fate,” she said simply, another tilt to her head. “A vision of your future.”
A million questions swirled in his mind at the confession. Questions about the nature of fate, if it even truly existed, if showing him would allow him to change it, and if knowing would curse him to a lifetime of fighting against the inevitable as he tried and failed to do so.
But despite himself, what he wanted most of all to know was if what awaited him was truly an awful death at the hands of the monsters so many seemed intent to convince him would claim his life and sanity. Or whether his lifetime of exploration and curiosity could one day bear the fruits of joy and accomplishment. They all built in his chest like a swarm, begging and crying to be released from their prison, but for once in his life he did well to restrain himself. Lest he prove everyone else right by following in the footsteps of so many others who’d made the mistake of trusting that which lay in the woods.
“What do you say Jonathan?” the glint in her eyes was back. It matched the sparkling of hundreds of tiny eyes glinting from the dark corners behind her, shining like flickering stars. “Don’t you want to know what awaits you beyond your tiny life in that village? What path might be best suited to follow from here? I figured you’d at least want to know a little more of what to expect, but I’m afraid I can’t offer you any more than that.”
He swallowed hard. Eyes fixed on the surface of the tea rippling within the little cup in his hands.
“What, uh… what’s the price?” he asked at last.
“Pardon?”
He gulped. “You- You’re a witch, right? Don’t your gifts always come with some kind price?”
She smiled and drummed her fingertips on the handle of her cup.
“I knew you were clever Jonathan, but you’re quicker on the uptake than even most who pass through my door looking for answers like these.” The compliment, which otherwise would have made him thrill a little with pride, instead sent mounting dread sloughing down into his gut like lumpy slime. He knew when he was being talked down to. He still had his wits about him enough to know when someone was trying to flatter him into doing what they wanted, he wasn’t that stupid.
“Such trades as these do come with a price yes, but I like you, Jonathan. So I won’t demand at all too much. Merely a hair or two from your head before I send you on your way with my gift.”
“A hair?” he said, face scrunching up with disbelief and suspicion as he tried to puzzle out whatever it was she could possibly want it for.
“Not even a lock,” she said sweetly, “Just a little memento you’d never even think to miss. A far greater offer than any other I would typically offer to anyone else were they making such demands.”
“But what are you going to use it for?” he asked, and biting his lip and ducking his head a little at his brashness, before easing his eyes back up to see if the words had spurred her to irritation.
They hadn’t. Or at least, she didn’t look it.
“Does it matter?” she said plainly. “A vision of the future is of little consequence for me to give, just as a hair might be from you. Besides, the more you know from here of what to expect, yes? And the greater your chances are of preparing yourself for what is to come.”
The urge to ask for more pressed like a craving at the back of his throat. His mind spinning again, trying to find reason enough to justify refusing her. But as he searched her gaze, he found himself struck by the simple fact that she seemed to know him far too well to be fooled by any notion that he would not so deeply want to know what lay before him. Nor the lie that he would be content to return and not give so much as a second thought to her offer.
The fact was that he didn’t know if he believed her, or if she had the power she said she did. Even if she could somehow compel him to visit her so deep in the woods against his will, surely fate was far more complex and powerful than that? But he if refused her gift he knew he would spend the rest of his days wondering, and something about that felt far worse than the possibility of knowing with certainty that something dreadful was to come.
Besides, if he was smart enough, maybe, just maybe, he might be able to use that knowledge to twist fate in his favour. To avert any horrible future he might see, warn others of what was to come, or rest assured in the certain knowledge of a path he still had yet to choose. To see in the years to come a life that awaited, the kind he’d thus far been too afraid to dream for himself.
And so, despite his better judgement, the boy agreed. And tried not to shiver as the witch smiled.
“I thought so,” she said, and just as he was about to ask what was to happen next, he felt his body abruptly straighten up and stiffen. Locked in place in the chair and completely unable to move, spine rigid and arms pinned but resting on his lap, as if bound tightly by a thousand impossibly strong and invisible strings. His breath stuttering in his throat as the witch stood calmly, completely unbothered by his panic, and held out a gentle hand to the loom beside her to let a small scuttling shape crawl into her open palm.
He tried again, desperately and frantically to escape his invisible binds. Her heels clicking a little as more and more scuttling shapes spilled out from every dark corner of the space and over the many beautiful tapestries around him to join her unhurried approach.
He whimpered. Trying to find a way to open his mouth to take back his choice and refuse, but again his body would not obey him.
He winced as her left hand plucked two hairs from his head, looking on in horror as she twirled the fine threads between her fingers and said, “These should do nicely,” before letting the spider in her other hand lower itself down by a thread strung between her outstretched fingers to hover just an inch or so away from his eyes.
He’d never really thought much of spiders before. At least, not beyond a slight annoyance at the thought of being told to clear a cobweb in his grandmother’s house or slight fascination in seeing one spinning a web between two branches. Like most things in the woods, curiosity and the desire to see for himself the many small wonders that lay beyond the treeline had far overshadowed any apprehension or empathy for those in the village who screamed and batted clumsily at the sight of a spider among their wares.
Staring at the hovering shape of the spider’s face, it’s many sparkling eyes and twitching chelicerae and the twin points of fangs peeking out like a horrible black smile from beneath its hairs, barely a finger from his eyes, he understood perfectly and completely the terror that must have gripped them. Perhaps better than they ever did.
He shut his eyes tight to block out the horrible sight of the spider, and flinched as he felt its many feathery legs touch down upon the end of his nose. The sick feeling in his gut all the more overwhelming as he whimpered and felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.
He could do little more than shiver in place as he felt it scuttle along the skin of his cheek, and then down from his jaw to his neck. Hovering and wandering about, as if perhaps to inspect or search for something he was too terrified to contemplate.
“Thank you, Jonathan,” a voice said before him then, as a hand came to cup his cheek and angle his head up to look with watering eyes at the serene face of the witch.
“I look forward to the day we’ll all see you again,”
His eyes widened just a fraction more in their sockets, and then he sucked in a gasp. The sharp sting of two little fangs piercing into the flesh at the back of his neck.
The dark glinting eyes of The Spider Witch followed him into darkness, and the boy wondered how he ever could have allowed himself to be fooled by the notion that she was human.
There are no words to describe the true extent of the fear that awaited him in sleep…
A thundering growl that rattled his very bones the moment he came to understand himself on this knees in the shivering cold of the forest at night.
Leaves whipping about his face like flying daggers carried alongside the terrified screams of people he did not yet know but knew he cared for echoing in the night. Blood pounding in his chest as he scrambled to his feet and raced with all he had to follow their cries, though he could not remember even the faces of those he sought to aid.
Past the shapes of sharp toothed smiles dripping with blood, past the cruel laughter echoing from the spaces between the trees, faster than the claws that scratched at his back and made his nose sting with the thick smell of iron tickling down his spine.
He froze as he came at last to a clearing, the same clearing from before. The stone circle with the figures carved into their faces turning their flat heads impossibly within the rock to stare him down as he lurched to a stop by its centre.
The moon above was full and stained a deep and terrible red, shining direct and beckoning down like a thin shaft of sunlight upon the stone slab at its centre. The longer he stared the more convinced he became that it was not a moon at all, not anymore, but rather the great and terrible eye of something so much larger than himself staring down from the heavens and making him freeze under its relentlessly hungry gaze.
He heard again the thundering growl behind him, and whirled around to see a hoard of glowing green eyes intently and unflinchingly focused on him from beyond the darkness.
He stumbled back, falling to the ground and frantically crawling back through the grass until the rough surface of the stone slab met his back.
The creature stood tall and menacing above him. A great mass of claws and teeth and wings and far too many eyes that bore down on him and, with a final earth-shattering roar, lunged with its horrible maw outstretched towards him.
He lurched to wakefulness with a terrified cry the moment just before he could feel those teeth touch his eyes. Gasping and panting as he tried to shake the sight of that terrible monster or the feeling of bone deep terror that gripped his heart and lungs tight enough to burst in his chest.
It took him a minute to compose himself, and a moment longer to realize where he was and recall the events that had proceeded his unwilling rest. Even longer for it to set in that somehow, impossibly, he was still alive.
He was back in the stone circle. The one from his dream and the very same that he had stumbled through in the minutes before he’d knocked upon the door of that witch’s cottage.
He was not leaned up against the stone slab at the centre of the ring, as he was when the nightmare had ended. Instead, when he hesitantly peered up and behind him, he found himself propped up against one of the many towering stones. The image of a man holding a tablet and a small chisel staring down with three unnervingly dispassionate eyes at the quivering boy below.
Jon swallowed and tried to quell the tears now flowing freely from his eyes.
His neck still stung where the spider must have bitten him, but his hand came away clean of any blood, and he could not feel so much as a lump where the stinging pain still pulsed under his skin.
The sun would be setting soon, and even running home he knew it was likely he would not make it back before dark. So he dared not spare a moment longer to untangle the many horrible things he’d seen and experienced in that dream, nor waste time trying to interpret its contents and what it all might mean.
He just ran, as fast as his legs could carry him. Back past the last boundary marker he’d placed on that tree and tearing through the woods that had once felt so familiar until finally he was home. Babbling and sobbing into the front of his grandmother’s skirt as she held him tight and chided his recklessness and at last asked him what had happened.
But when he tried to get the words out, he found one final cruelty to the witch’s ‘gift’. Though he could describe the path he’d taken, and the woman he’d met he found he could not utter a word of the deal they had made, nor put to words so much as a hint to the horrible future he’d seen. That burden of truth, it seemed, would remain locked firmly inside of him. The horror of what was to come reserved for him and him alone.
Jonathan Sims did not return to that part of the woods, nor did he dare wander any further to place any more markers on trees lest he encounter such terror again. And though others would come to notice and roll their eyes at the way he flinched and cried with newfound fear at the sight of scuttling legs or cobwebs hanging in dark corners, they couldn’t help but blink back their bafflement and relief at the swiftness of the boy’s insistence that he would never again step a foot beyond the treeline.
When they asked of what had happened the boy simply refused to share so much as a word of his encounter with them, and his grandmother had little more to share. So it was that those that knew him would marvel and forever wonder as to the true nature of the nightmare that had done what they had all been trying for so many years to achieve, and managed to finally dissuade the curious and recklessly brave Jonathan Sims from his endless wanderings into the terrible woods beyond their village.
And so, the young boy lived fearfully, ever after.
End of Chapter 4