Forever Forest

Chapter 3

Once again, long ago on the edge of a forest quite overgrown, was a daughter named Terra and her father named Triton.

Triton was a burly man, his wife, Terra's mother dead from a forest fire. They moved to a small rural town for Terra to go to school, found it was a place for fools, and returned to the same forest that once killed her mother.

Terra was only an infant when her father carried her away. She wasn't even sure she remembered what her mother looked like but she did remember how his chest heaved with the great sobs of a broken soul.

She now sat in the old creaky cabin staring wearily at the math sheet in front of her. Warm summer light filtered in around her, illuminating the wooden cabin's reds and soft yellows. She looked to the white silk curtains that draped across the windows and stood up from her seat.

She never knew where her father went when he galloped away in the mornings.

He told her it was for 'work' but never spoke of which kind.

She walked to the curtains and moved them aside to peer through into the sunlight. The forest was there, as it always was. Not a house or road in sight, only trees that seemed taller than possible. Once she might have been overjoyed to live here, but now the looming green and brown only made her feel as trapped as she was in the cave that first day of school.

She shuddered and shook away the thought.

They had only been in the cabin for a few weeks but she decided she was already sick of it. She was bored out of her mind in the dusty old cabin. Homeschooled with no friends but her father. And of course, his horse, though it never did much talking.

She was craving an exploration and wanted to know where her father had gone, where he always went, everyday, at exactly two in the afternoon.

Or, perhaps she'd find herself a friend in those woods. A friend who could teach her how to be normal. How to stop imagining impossible things. She didn't think they had neighbors but then again she didn't go out often, if ever, to find out.

Either way she was sick of stupid math worksheets.

And so, 7 years old, she pulled on her green rain boots, pushed open the door and stepped into the forest.

Her father didn't say much about the woods. Or how far the trees stretched on for. All he really cared about was how much food it could bring them. He always brought home at least a rabbits full of dinner, though nature was unpredictable. And only nature knew for sure if they'd be well fed forever.

It seemed an endless cluster, so thick that it's shadows turned the world under its canopy a dark evening shade. No fields besides the small area of lush grass surrounding their cabin. Roots sprawled and stretched long in most areas. Good for tripping over, though she was careful.

She looked for their horse's footsteps but could find none. There were no paths leading to or from the cabin. Only forest and bushes and bugs.

The first journey to the cabin she remembered she fell asleep on her father's back as they rode through the night. She wondered if her father had planned such a conscience to make sure she wouldn't know how to return to the town. What she didn't want to wonder was why her father might do such a thing.

She shook off the thought and continued on through the woods with her best idea of where her father might have gone.

She had forgotten how beautiful wildlife was. Birds squawked and dove through the canopy. The farther in she walked, the more strange noises arose from all directions, an orchestra of animals. Some she found she could not even decipher which creatures they had come from. Terra wondered why no one else had found such an astonishing forest. She walked for as far as she could see. Viewing strange flowers and even stranger tree funguses.