I am returning in a few days and wish to give you warning. The citizens in the city are uniting and we fear, are staking targets. I am anxious to return to you and despite the fun and joy found here our fear clouds it all. Smoke isn’t the same anymore and I regret this, but I believe everything will end now so soon after its beginning. I will hopefully see you before this letter reaches you but if I do not please assure everyone that I am safe and am planning on leaving as soon as possible.
Your loving Adele.
Thoughts circled Linette’s head. Should she tell Isabella? Or perhaps wait until she actually had answers. The letter was perplexing and held no obvious answers except she now knew some things she hadn’t before: the buildings within the woods existed in a place called Smoke, and somebody wanted it gone. Deciding on the latter, Linette pocketed the letter and shut the drawer.
A low mournful sound shook the ground around its origin and flew on the air until it reached the girls’ ears. They started, jumping up, startled like waking from an unintentional slumber.
“We’ve got to go!” Isabella hissed her eyebrows arched high on her forehead in surprise.
They scrambled about the cottage, grabbed their few belongings and claims they had made on the forgotten possessions and took off into the woods.
The Penser Woods are a dark and foreboding place. To a cowardly traveler it held every ingredient for his worst nightmare. Identical trees filled the expanse of wood with no significant landmarks or way to gauge location. The thick canopy even shielded the stars from sight. While the traveler got lost amidst the labyrinthine trees all manner of vicious wild beasts salivated in the shadows. Soon darkness would fall and he wouldn’t make it out. But Isabella and Linette were neither cowardly nor travelers. They had lived by the Penser Wood all their lives, had played in it for as long as they remembered. Learning how to navigate it was like learning a language. They had picked it up unconsciously when they were very young and as they grew their knowledge of the wood grew too. Now they knew the language of the twigs and footprints so well that they could never forget it, even if they wanted to.
So they went through the Penser Wood with ease and contentment, not needing to think. They even allowed themselves to run and never tripped. When they reached the other side they raced along the paths until they were on the outskirts of town. There they stopped running and instead walked slowly so they could catch their breath. As their hearts stopped racing they reached closer and closer to home; a small house huddled between two of nearly identical shapes and sizes.
Isabella brushed her hair out of her face and brushed off her dress, Linette obediently mimicked her and they walked up the few steps that led to the front door.
They entered right into the living room where their parents sat, giddy with excitement and each sporting a smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s.
Isabella stopped as if to taste the atmosphere and found something one part wonderful and one part displeasing. Her nose wrinkled up but her mouth smiled in a way that did not reach her eyes, they were too glassed over with curiosity and busy scrutinizing her parents.
“We have something to tell you!” said their parents joyously. “You two are going to have another sibling!”
Shock was evident on both girls’ faces but of a different quality.
Isabella’s eyes were wide at the thought of space, where would the baby go? And of the sickening scent of milk and diapers. Her horror of what this all would mean appalled her, the attention she wanted to be hers split once more. But a lasting comfort was of the sweet adorable face and how people would compliment her on the baby when they went into town.
Linette was ecstatic. Alight with thoughts of what she’d teach the baby, tell the baby, give the baby. Baby names, baby clothes, and baby toys brought such delight that she jumped up and hugged her mother.
“This is wonderful!” she cried.
Later that night after the celebration over dinner and pie Linette and Isabella went to bed. Linette, remembering the letter placed it in the box beneath her bed before wriggling into her nightgown.
When she drifted off to sleep thoughts of The Ruin escaped her mind, replaced by the image of a cherub faced child and so it stayed for years after that.
The excitement of the baby caused the frequency of visits to The Ruin to diminish until it became only a few times a year. As the baby grew into a child the visits that did occasionally occur were only half hearted, a sentimental remembering of childish times past that meant nothing to what was happening now.
The baby had been born on a windy November day and promptly named Alice. She was adorable as Isabella wished, who proudly presented her to many adoring neighbors, only heightening Isabella’s sense of superiority. Alice began talking early, walking early and doing practically everything at a quicker pace than average much to the encouragement of her older sisters who mentored her in every aspect of life she could need mentoring in. Alice looked exactly like her mother, dark ringlets framed her pudgy face and her wide intelligent green eyes peered up at them with angelic expressions.
Linette always exclaimed about how beautiful Alice was and with all the encouragement and advice by the time Alice was six she was quite advanced in life in general.
By that time The Ruin was far from Linettes mind except that it was soon to be chased back into it again.
