A dark fairy tale about traps, lures and falling for shadows.
When you see an eldritch dark horror made of shadows by the side of an old cursed trail that no one dares to go, you expect it to be less charming as it tries to trick you with deceitful...
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Art by James Fenner (@JMFenner91 on Twitter)
The second time I noticed its presence, I was on that same trail near Redwood Forest, with yet another cart full of goods to deliver to Chalkbarrel. The previous delivery had been so well rewarded that I grew bolder and less afraid to defy the old trail again.
It was the same time in the night as the other trip, when the moon was dipping low in the sky, casting a longer shadow that stretched towards the trail. The wheel was still acting wobbly and still pulling to the side, making the wagon inch closer to the woods. I had to constantly pull at Wooly's reins to force him to redirect his path back to the trail and away from the trees.
I had a handyman at my village working to fix that wheel for a whole week, but the damn thing wouldn't stop pulling to the side. He had replaced the entire wheel already and all the pulleys and levers, but it made no difference. To be fair, that wheel wasn't the only part that was broken or defective in that wagon, the entire thing was so old and decrepit, it had been slowly falling apart for some time now.
It seemed that the only way to solve this problem, for once and for all, was to buy a new wagon, but I was nowhere near having that amount of money to do so. I'd been lost in my thoughts, calculating how many fast deliveries to Chalkbarrel it would take to get all the coins that I needed for a new wagon, when it happened again.
A luminescent figure appeared by the edge of the woods, near a clustering patch of those wild red flowers that only seemed to bloom by the foot of the forest. It looked like a young woman, and she was reaching an arm out as if to catch my attention and call for my help.
I pulled at Wooly's harness abruptly and he reared up high, whining loudly before coming to a halt. It took me a second to control the wagon and only after Wolly had calmed down that I turned to check on who was standing by the side of the road.
The woman was dressed in a white flowing gown that bellowed in the wind. She had long silky dark hair cascading down her bare shoulders and one plump breast fully exposed, the strap of her dress let loose seductively down her bare arm. She looked ethereal and enticing as she motioned with her head, trying to get me to talk to her.
"Miss? What is it? Are you hurt? Do you need help?" I asked, frowning at the ghostly apparition, but she didn't speak, just kept urging me to come closer.
Wooly whined loudly in warning as I made a move to step down the wagon. When I glanced again at the woman, her features flickered for a split second, switching into something else... Her flowing dark hair was spread out like an open fan and her face had turned into something strange looking and unnatural, and that's when I realized what Wooly had been trying to warn me about.
This was no ordinary woman.
"Oh, I see what's happening." I stopped and got back up on the wagon.
This woman, or spirit, or demon... whatever it was, it was trying to lure me into the woods. Thankfully, visions of half naked women didn't quite have the effect it was expected on me.
"You're bait." I said to the apparition, which stood there, staring at me with a baffled look on its ghostly face. "It's a trap, this is. Almost fooled me, you know." I told her with a chuckle.
It wasn't the 'tits out' that almost had me done, though, it was the helpless act and the begging for help, I thought to myself.
"Gotta get going, you see, I have a big cargo here to deliver and time's a wastin'. Best of luck with your future snares, forest spirit." I said, before clicking my tongue at Wooly, urging him to keep moving.
The seduction trick was a good one, albeit a bit too obvious and perhaps too on the nose, because no woman in her right mind and as beautiful as this would be standing half naked by the side of a deserted road in the middle of the night, calling out for strange men like that.
All of this I pondered to myself, shaking my head in disbelief at this blatant baiting tactic, and as I passed by with my wagon, the apparition's face shifted in rage before merging back into the shadows of the forest.
