The Witch's House - The Diary of Ellen

Chapter 4

A Girl Who Was Loved

Then a girl came over to play.

A cute girl with golden braids.

...Don't go too deep into the forest.

That's what my father had always told me.

All the adults in the village said the same thing, so it seemed like a plat.i.tude said to children who wanted to play in the forest.

The wind blew, making my skirt and golden braids sway.

Holding the hair out of my eyes, I looked up. Through gaps in the green branches above my head, I could just barely see the blue sky.

It was a hot summer afternoon.

And there I was, in the forest.

There was a great forest near the village I lived in.

The forest, which was bountiful year-round, was very useful for the villagers. I liked to pick flowers there myself, and it was a familiar playground to me.

I stepped on the twigs with my leather shoes.

I walked the forest with a hazy feeling.

I'm going to play in the forest, I casually said. At my back, father said it again.

Don't go too deep into the forest.

He said it just as casually, I felt. I let it slip through my ears as usual. But for some odd reason, his words seemed to clutch at my chest today.

I was thirteen now.

Do you really think I'd get lost in the forest, dad?

My father, a hunter, was always going into the forest. There were adults who went looking for wild plants, too.

It wasn't like they couldn't go deep in the forest. Why tell us we can't go? There seemed to be no reason at all.

Such was my thought as I walked along, going deeper than I usually did.

I hesitated slightly, but I knew my way back. I kept walking.

There was tall grass all around, probably because people rarely went this way.

I soon grew tired and sat down on a moderately-sized fallen tree.

There were little white flowers around the tree. As I gazed at the lovely flowers, I thought.

They had the same name as me - Viola.

Though I didn't see them often, as this wasn't their season.

I loved flowers. Just looking at them seemed to make time pass in a blink.

A pleasant wind blew at my hair. Just sitting there in the wind made me feel like I was a flower myself.

A perfectly calm forest.

It made my eyes droop shut.

...And then -

Rustle.

I nearly leapt up in surprise at the noise from the thicket behind me. As I turned around, my father's words filled my head again.

What would I do if it were a beast? But there couldn't be beasts in such shallow forest.

Wiping away a cold sweat, I saw...

Meeoh.

A black cat, meowing in a very low voice.

It looked at me with gold eyes, swinging its long tail.