Chronicles of Mystery

A Meeting in the Woods

Suddenly, a great shock came to disturb the silence that had settled in the cab. The coach had just hit something and stopped suddenly. The sound of the horse's hooves had stopped.

Inside, the man and the girl, surprised by the shock, had almost taken off from the seat. They both straightened up quickly and got off the cab, intrigued.

The driver had come down from his seat, all confused. He turned to the two passengers and explained:

 "I can't go any further. There's a strange forest. Something bushy and wild. It's way too dense for me to get through with the horse. It's really weird around here. It's a desert. Besides, on the maps, it doesn't say anywhere that there's a forest here. Are you sure it's your countess's house in that direction? It's not a noble place around here!"

The coachman continued to mumble and grumble for a few minutes while Alistair looked at the girl even more attentively. This one frowned.

 "I'm sure of it. It's around here somewhere. Too bad if the cab can no longer move, we will walk! Eventually we'll find the Averley mansion!"

The coachman looked at her rather surprised.

 "Well! Do as you wish! As long as I get paid! This is really no time to travel. My horse is exhausted by the wet roads. As for me, humidity is not good for my old bones. I can't see much!"

He returned to examine his horse in the front, leaving the two companions alone.

 "Maybe we should drop this story. Everything looks suspicious to me. I think we've been played a trick and we should go home."

The girl, upset, clenched her fists so tight that her knuckles whitened. Her face closed and her eyebrows tightened.

 "But... We need to be there..."

 "It's probably just a lie."

 "I still want to go! Understand me, Alistair, this is my dream!"

She turned to him a soft face, again smiling with that spark in her eyes. A look that was familiar to Alistair and that he had already seen in the past, similar but on another face.

He looked away. Too many memories threatened to come back. He had already accumulated so much in his mind that he avoided as much as possible digging into the mass of his memory. He didn't want to run into painful things.

He nodded slowly.

 "That's all right. Let's continue."

The girl uttered an exclamation of joy and leaped into the air. Her smile widened further. Her cheeks rose with pleasure.

Alistair sighed, half annoyed, half amused.

 "All right, let's go into that forest."

They left behind the coachman, with the money he had claimed, mumbling about people crazy enough to die in the woods.

The forest into which they had just entered was hardly welcoming. The trees looked like dead bodies, thin and lifeless, bent and crumbling, agitated by bursts and threatening the living with their branches, like bony fingers. The wind, passing between the branches, produced whispers from beyond the grave. The mist, which had also invaded the forest, gave the decor a supernatural silver hue. It concealed the outline of the objects. Everything in the forest looked fantastic and mysterious. The slightest cracking became gloomy. And the flapping of the wings of the birds taking off from the trees shattered the ambient silence.

The murmurs of the wind became the hoarse breaths of the dead. Everything was dark and colorless, as if life had deserted the place. These woods seemed to be the entrance of the underworld, threatening by their appearance the mere mortals to cross the limits and to enter.

The two companions almost expected to see Charon appear out of nowhere, with his oar in his hand, ready to take them across the river of the dead in his boat.

The few animals around them seemed to be watching them, watching their every move with frightening fixity, and the further they advanced into the depths of the woods, the less they crossed of living beings.

The trees and thickets seemed to have been dead for years in this forest. As if centuries had passed since the slightest leaf had grown at the end of a branch.

Suddenly, a loud noise rang out. Someone else was present in this place.

The young girl jumped, while Alistair stood in front of her, in an attempt to protect her. However, the girl did not seem scared, rather intrigued by the situation. She looked in all directions, fascinated.

A silhouette drew little by little in the middle of the fog, a human silhouette. It approached the two companions at an alarming speed.

The person emerged from the fog. She was a young woman, tall and thin, with a vacant expression. Her face was morbidly pale. She had big eyes, huge, scarlet, which seemed strangely empty and stared at the two travelers. Her lips were small, thick and ruddy. Her hair was short, cropped at the neck and ash-colored, with a long lock that hid her left eye. She wore a black and white lace headband set with a red rose on the side. She had on a servant's outfit in the same shades as her headband. The delicate, supple shape of her arms was highlighted by half-transparent black nylon gloves, drawing delicate flower patterns on her skin. Her puffy white sleeves were set with ribbons with roses as well. The collar of her dress and the end of her skirt bore lace. She had a black choker, with a white ribbon on which had been delicately sewn a ruby ​​of the most beautiful red. An apron completed the set, embroidered with a red rose motif. The skirt stopped at the shins, revealing thick tights as well as black ballet flats enhanced by heels.

This was the dress of a servant of a great house. The garment was rich and of high quality. The lace, of an irreproachable whiteness. And the ruby ​​that came to complete the whole thing added to the opulence of the adornment.

The young woman stood upright, with an almost frightening stiffness, in the middle of these lost woods. She showed no astonishment in front of the two partners. Her face seemed incapable of any emotion. It was empty, neutral, giving the servant the appearance of a doll, just like those displayed in shop windows. She almost looked like she wasn't human.

 "You shouldn't be here, you weren't invited to the master's house." She said in a cold and neutral tone.

Back from their first fright, the two travelers were finally able to breathe.

 "Are we really on the estate of the Earl of Averley?" The girl asked. 

The servant cocked her head to the side, studying the girl carefully.

 "Indeed" She finally answered. "And you shouldn't be here."

 "This is where you are wrong! We were invited here by the Countess! Look at this letter."

At these words she produced from her satchel an unsealed letter bearing the seal of the Earl of Averley. She unfolded it and revealed a signature that seemed to belong to the countess.

The servant bent down to study this missive. Her eyes pleated and her eyelids shuddered. Her hands twitched slightly. She finally straightened up.

 "This is my mistress's signature. But, may I know who you are?"

 "The Countess didn't tell you about it? We are very known, and much in demand detectives. This is my partner, Alistair De Saule and I, Lucy Moon."

The servant uttered a slight exclamation, intrigued. Alistair coughed, rather skeptical of his partner's assertions.

 "Ah. Yes, it comes back to me now, I believe the Countess spoke to me about you. Forgive me for this rather cold welcome, we are not used to visitors here. The Count and Countess... do not receive. Please follow me, the mansion is in this direction."

She plunged back into the bushes, without waiting for Alistair and Lucy. She seemed to know the place by heart and never hesitated. God only knew how she could navigate this place where each tree was a double of the previous one and where the fog covered everything.