Whispers Beyond the Forest

Chapter 7

That evening, Emily and her two best friends sat in Maya's room, chatting about anything and everything. School, classmates, Maya's uncle Felix, Emily's boyfriend Tom – a subject she quickly changed. Emily struggled to focus on the conversation her friends were having. She couldn't stop thinking about all the things that made this world so incomprehensible for her: the boy in the drawing, the Others beyond the forest, people with... magical powers?

At one point she couldn't contain herself any longer and she said, "Hey guys, Eddy was telling me about the Others and how he hates them all... What's that all about?"

Maya and Dennis stared at her in surprise. Their conversation had been about something completely different. Emily knew this, although she couldn't remember what the topic had been before she so rudely interrupted them. Her friends glanced at one another, before Maya slowly said, "Well, of course he hates them. Everyone in town hates them."

A picture formed in Emily's mind of two groups of people, on the opposite sides of a massive field, shouting and screaming at one another. "But why?" she asked. "How can you hate an entire group of people? Surely they can't all be bad?"

Maya shrugged. "We've heard plenty of stories to assume they're all the same."

"What kind of stories?" Emily noticed that Dennis had purposely taken himself out of the conversation, pretending to check out one of Maya's magazines, his arms wrapped around his legs.

"Oh, you know, threats, things set on fire, people ending up in the hospital with the strangest of injuries..."

"But how do you know they're not all caused by the same person?"

"Because the others all have different powers," Maya explained. "One can set things on fire, while another has inhuman strength. I've even once heard of someone who got to the hospital with his hands frozen to death – literally – while there was nothing wrong with the rest of his body. The point is: people are being attacked by different types of powers and every Other has only one power. So it has to be many different Others that attack our town."

Emily stared at her hands, thinking this over. Maya did seem to have a point. Yet it still seemed wrong to blame these incidents on an entire group of people. "Do these kinds of attacks happen a lot?" she asked quietly.

"Pretty regularly," Maya nodded. "Everyone hates the Others, because everyone here in town knows someone, a friend or relative, who has been attacked by them."

"Even you guys?"

"Of course, even us!" Dennis suddenly said. "They chased away one of our best friends!"

Emily turned to face him with her eyebrows raised. "Do you remember Maya's mum saying there used to be four of us? Joshua was the fourth. When we were about seven years old, his dad got a death threat from the Others. They moved to the other side of the country, so that he was safe. We never saw Joshua again." Emily had not heard this bitter tone in his voice before. She had not seen him look so sad before. Apparently he still missed his friend a lot, even after all those years.

Maya chuckled softly and said, "You've still got us, you know."

"Yes, but now Emily has lost her memories, too. It's like we're being ripped apart, one by one!"

Maya stared at her friend, surprised at his sudden outburst. "It's like this town is cursed," Dennis continued. "I'm telling you, as soon as I'm allowed to live on my own, I'm out of here."

With a silent sigh, Emily shot another glance at the clock. Quarter past eleven. Could Tom have forgotten that he promised to come over? She did her best not to be irritated, but that got harder by the minute.