The Magic of the Forest

two

A/N: this chapter contains abusive relatinships, emotional and talk of physical. if this will trigger you, please stay safe and don't read this! love you all

    In the small town of Shastaberry, Adeline Hazel lives a quiet life. She reads all day, and sometimes all night, and doesn't have any friends except for her sister, Iris Charlotte. Neither of them are popular, maybe because they never leave their house or maybe because of the condition Iris is plagued with. Their mother, Olivia, never lets Iris go outside for fear of her bullies. The small town is secluded, surrounded by trees and a massive lake, Lake Azello. There are old legends about monsters who reside deep beneath the glass-like water, waiting for an unlucky swimmer to tread too far for anyone to rescue them when things went wrong. Some children swear that they've seen people paddle out and suddenly get yanked under the waves, never to be seen again. Every evening, the local children threaten to throw Iris into the lake while she prays for them to leave her alone for at least one night. She wails and thrashes when she finally falls asleep, and has to be restrained by Adeline and Olivia, though the latter resents Iris for this. Why does she have to be kept awake by her daughter's incessant screaming? It's not fair, She told herself over and over, It's not fair. Not fair. Not fair.

    The local kids think of Iris as a waste of oxygen, not unlike Mother. She never says those words out loud, but thinks them every time she looks at her pathetic daughter. Why does she have to live with this constant reminder of him? Her deceased fiancé, not yet her husband. He never made it to the wedding. He's sick in the same way as Iris, the only thing left of her dear Benjamin. Now all she has left is his ghost. Her feelings don't affect Iris the same way they do Adeline. Adeline is the silent child, the one who listens and takes notes of everything: the happy and sad, the tension and relief, the deep hurt and scars that will never heal. She wishes more than anything to rescue her dear sister from this desolate household. She notices Olivia's deep hatred for Iris, though she can't imagine where it stems from. Adeline wonders if the bullying has finally seized her brain, and squeezed until it's wrung out all the good things about dear Iris, only leaving heartache and grief.

    Adeline calls her sister Cherry, and Iris calls her Addie. Adeline loves nicknames. To her, they show familiarity and affection. Maybe that's why Mother never uses them. She knows nothing but sleep, work, and praying for Ben to come back. She works the night shift as a nurse at Shastaberry's hospital, Saint Raphael's,  which is a five minute walk from home. Addie and Cherry call their house The Shack because of how run-down and cramped it is. It has two rooms, the bathroom and the common living area where they sleep and occasionally cook. The floor is concrete covered with cheap, fraying rugs and the loose wall panels are held up by tape and prayers. The roof leaks steady drops of water when it rains and rays of sunlight when it doesn't. They live on the very edge of town, close to the lake, which used to frighten the girls but now they're fourteen and brave. It seems like when they were young, The Shack was cozy, warm, and welcoming; a place of love and comfort. They loved the small space. But now that they're older, it's cramped, hot, and suffocating; a place of despair. The two sisters have become closer with age, but the chasm between them and Olivia has only deepened with each birthday.

    Adeline knew Benjamin in her young life, before Cherry was born. She remembers his hard hands, wrinkles deepening with each pack of cigarettes he smokes. Never in front of Addie, though. Not since that night. Adeline is exactly two years older than Iris. Addie was born on June 1st, 2005, and Cherry was born on June 1st, 2007. Adeline's memory is vivid, remembering things back to her late infancy, things Olivia still doesn't know. The way her sweet Ben treats her children when they're alone. He never does anything to get him arrested, but he's never been the nice husband Olivia wanted. 

    "Well, who wants to see the little stinker?" Benjamin yells out, his drunk friends whooping and stomping their feet. Ben walks into Adeline's bedroom, and sees she's already asleep. "Huh, guess someone fell asleep right after bedtime, didn't she?" He grumbles while picking her up, therefore waking her. Olivia's at work so she doesn't know little Addie is still awake, trusting Ben to look after her. Adeline's about nine months old and is still learning to crawl. She's an anxious baby, so when Ben saunters out the front door out to the lakeshore and she hears all his pals start cheering and drumming their hands on their laps, she screams so loud Ben was afraid Olivia would hear, considering how close Saint Raphael's is to The Shack. "Shut up, kid. I mean it! My marriage is riding on how much you like me so if you know what was good for you, you better shut your mouth!" He glares at her as he briefly goes through the pro's and con's of smothering her, and luckily for Addie, he decides against it. All he cared about was marrying Olivia, even though she had a baby. Benjamin's never liked kids, even though he now might have one. His high school therapist swore up, down, and sideways that it's extremely unadvisable for him to ever have children based on his persistently violent intrusive thoughts. He never acts on them but everyone in his life, except poor Olivia, knows he's impulsive and hard to control. In school, all he did was start fights and get expelled from school after school. Now that he's old enough, he gets wasted every night while Olivia's at work. She has no idea and feels perfectly safe with him there alone, but this night would change that.