The Fairy

Chapter 4 - Forest Walkers

Kenzo's POV

At lunch, Margo's father brought the topic in what they felt were fairies in the forest.

"You should talk to Rodner. He's a detective of this town. He lives a few houses down. He's also the last of tribe that once lived here. He's sort of an amateur historian for the area and has plenty of stories to tell about the fairies in the woods. I'll give him a call and tell him you're coming over." Margo's father gave me his address and at the encouragement of Margo I ventured to his house that afternoon as Margo and her mother had planned to do some shopping in the next town over.

Kumatok ako sa pinto ni Rodner, unsure if he would be home or not.

The lock unlatched and the door slowly opened to an older man with a weather beaten face.

"Ikaw ba si Rodner?" I asked reaching out my hand for a handshake. "Ako si Kenzo, at..."

"You want to know about the woods, right?" He said cutting me off.

"Robert called and told me about you. Come in, please. I've got a few hours before I need to head to work to cover a night shift."

I entered his house. It was large. He led me to his living room and motioned for me to sit. His living room walled on all sides by filing cabinets and bookshelves. There was no TV. Kapansin-pansin din ang mga alikabok, marahil ay wala siyang oras mag-linis.

"So what can I tell you," Rodner stated slowly taking a seat in the chair across from me.

"Well, whatever you know about the forest or the supposed creature in the forest," I started.

"I know some unknown creatures, mythological creatures, or whatever you want to call them and I'm familiar with fairies in folklore but I've never encountered an entire town that seemed to fear these creatures like they supposedly do here."

Rodner sat back for a moment and look up at the ceiling as if to pull his thoughts down through the tile.

"My tribe, or rather my ancestors, was the first to settle this area. As the oral tradition goes, we were once a large and proud tribe that numbered greatly long before the settlers came. A warring with other tribes cut our numbers down and our enemies pushed us out of our original land. We wandered until we found this place. Cold, starved, and desperate for shelter we felt blessed to have come across a place with good hunting, the mountains to shelter us, and a river and lake to supply us with fresh water."

I looked at him eagerly as he took a small break to remember his words. He sat up and leaned forward in his chair.

"The story goes that when we found this land, we were forbidden to enter the forest by the strange creature that lived there. My people would call them the forest walker. They said it was the guardian of the pine forest here. The chief seeing his people starving and without a place to live struck a deal with the forest walkers. We could hunt, fish, live here, and they would protect us as long as once every moon cycle, we agreed to give them one of our own." mahabang paliwanag nito. Natigilan ako.

"Wait," pagpuputol ko. "So... like a sacrifice?"

"Yes," Rodner continued. "Each full moon we would send one chose person by lot into the forest. Their screams would fill the night sky. It was a horrible thing but for us to survive the chief made the deal and we kept to it. Many years would pass as we sacrificed one after another of our own. Our numbers would slowly decrease over time but those who remained were always safe, had food to hunt, and freshwater to drink."

Rodner got up from his seat and walked over to his bookshelf and pulled out a leather bound book whose page edges were yellowed from age. He plopped the book down in front of me on the coffee table between us. The book landed with a thud and a dust cloud filled the air........................................
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A/N:
May part 2 po siya.

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