Roxanne
Somewhere behind her, a branch snapped, followed by a loud flap of wings.
The sound stabbed her brain like a needle, and Roxanne spun around with a jump, hurling the yellow beam of her flashlight like a sword. The owl landed on a branch of a rotten tree, hooted mockingly, and looked at the girl intently.
With another rustle, Roxanne spun around again. The light fell on the hedgehog.
The owl hooted, laughed, flapped its wings, and flew off the branch, showering her with dust.
The endless crowd of black trees parted, sending Roxanne away with the gaze of a thousand invisible eyes. The bare trunks shone as if covered in slime, their twisted branches reaching out to her like arms. A thick, thick fog spread over the stale, sunless soil of the Wiltshire Forest. Here and there, in the distance, wolves could be heard howling and owls hooting.
Several times Roxanne thought that someone was watching her, but each time she looked back, the light was only plucking peacefully sleeping plants out of the darkness.
Once or twice she seriously considered turning back, but the letter with Donaghan's words warmed her heart and strengthened her spirit, so she just wrapped her arms around herself and stubbornly walked forward.
After a while, she became tired and stopped to rest. It was hard to breathe in the thick, stale air, sweat was beading on her forehead, and for some reason, her legs were shaking as if she had just run a marathon.
When Roxanne wiped her face, she saw that her hand was shaking as well.
She threw her bag on the ground, at the rhizome of a tree, flopped down on it, and leaned back against the trunk, covering her eyes. It seemed to her that when she wasn't looking, the trees were slowly moving around her.
No, there was definitely something wrong with this forest. It really sucked the power out of her, drinking it in with its dry darkness, its silence and its heavy air. It seemed to be waiting for her to collapse, exhausted, so it could shamelessly sink its greedy, slippery roots into her.
She twirled the flashlight around, searching for the imaginary roots, and pointed the light upward, looking up for them. The sky above the treetops was dark lilac, serene, summery and warm, while the forest was dark and cold, like a cellar. And up there, in the warm ocean of blueberries, the stars were already shining. One shone brighter than the others. Roxanne involuntarily remembered her astronomy lessons at school. For some reason, she remembered:
'Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation in Canis Major.'
Strangely, for some reason, this name seemed familiar to her.
Roxanne looked at the moon, round and yellow. It looked as if someone had pressed it against the sky with their thumb.
Suddenly, she felt sad for some reason. This moon was probably looking through the windows of her house right now, illuminating the first dance of Lucius and his new wife.
In a better world, Roxanne would be watching too.
But she was ashamed of by her own mother, so she was not even allowed to watch her brother's wedding.
The light of the flashlight dimmed, and Roxanne flicked the switch, shining the fading beam in her face. Something inside the flashlight creaked softly, desperately, and it finally went out, plunging Roxanne into darkness.
'Great,' she grumbled, tucking the flashlight into her pocket, then stood up and picked up her backpack, the strap of which had caught on a root.
Suddenly, somewhere nearby, another branch snapped.
