A Forbidden Place

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The old trail leading to it was an old reminder of the days when the fur trade was still a way of life. Those days are long gone but the warnings of that area are still very much shared by my family and anyone living in our community.

Take it as you will, but I can tell you that some of my earliest childhood memories are that of my uncle constantly reminding me to never play or go near the trail for it was leading to a place that wasn't meant for people to be.

My father never took those warnings seriously, "This whole town is superstitious, wouldn't surprise me if they thought walking under a ladder or seeing a black cat was bad luck!" he would say with an annoyed tone while making gestures with a facial expression as if he was pleading for mercy, "What a bunch of nonsense!"

His struggle to comprehend the logic vs the belief of my mother and her side of the family made me laugh on the inside, I would smirk but only if no one saw me because I thought my dad was pretty funny.

It was only when I got much older that I had my first experience of that forbidden place. My mom, uncle and a few other relatives went away for a funeral in a town that was a day's drive from here. Me and my dad stayed behind because we only had one vehicle and there wasn't enough room for all of us.

I still remember that day as if it was yesterday, it must have been mid June, trees full of leaves with a full blue sky with no clouds in sight, my uncle was at the wheel and looked at my dad as if he was holding a grudge and everyone just slowly drove away, dust trailing behind as the car made its way down the dirt road. "We're going on a hike tomorrow just you and me" said my dad with a proud smile on his face. "Mom is gonna be gone for a few days, let's do something different."

I thought of bugs and not being able to have a shower right away but I didn't want to show any expressions of not being pleased with the idea so I just smiled at my dad and said "ok" which made him feel that he had the best idea ever.

We went camping before, pitched up a tent for a few days and ate our food prepared over a fire, nothing extreme but we always went with my mom, this would be the first time where it was just me and dad. "We'll just stay one night, maybe throw in a line or catch a rabbit, see how it goes, it'll be fun" said my dad looking at me with a smile, I didn't say anything but then I remembered that we didn't have a car to go anywhere. "Uhmm dad…" I said with a confused look, "we don't have a car to go anywhere, are we just gonna camp outside?..." The thought of pitching up our tent next to our house sounded terrible. My dad laughed "How would that be any fun?" He said looking at me, "We got bikes, we can use that" as he pointed to the two bicycles that he and mom bought but only used once years ago, "I bought 'em might as well use 'em" still smiling and loving his idea. I wasn’t impressed and he must have seen my expression which made him laugh and said "it'll be fun, you'll see" and rubbed the top of my head quickly as if I was a little dog or something.

When morning came my dad woke me up, must have been six in the morning or some crazy hour, "food is on the table, let's go let's go let's go!" And walks away to the table to eat. "Oatmeal, fruit, juice, toast and a boiled egg, good stuff, bags are packed and we're ready to roll". I felt so annoyed, I could see my mother's facial expression when my dad annoyed her.

"You done yet?" My dad waiting outside as I'm putting away my plate and cup, "yeah yeah" I said with an even more annoyed feeling. "There's your bag, there's your bike, let's goooo!" Said my dad as soon as I stepped out the door.

The air was cool, fresh, you could smell nature and it was another beautiful sunny day but I couldn't care less, I just felt pushed into doing something I didn't want to do. Regardless, with our backpacks on we made our way down our path with my dad smiling and looking proud of his accomplishment.

Our path led to the main dirt road where if you turned left you could go to town or turn right and head towards my uncle's house, the Virgil's, Billy's place and the Thompsons. "Where should we go?" said my dad looking at me but I looked straight ahead waiting for him to answer. "Let's go this way" and my dad turned right which made me think "where the hell is he going?"

We biked for about an hour, the road was winding with trees everywhere, no major hills or anything that would make you feel like you're having a workout. We passed no one since it was so early in the morning, never saw no deer or rabbits either, to be honest there might have been but my mood was already set to "let's get this over with already" and paid no attention to anything except sticking to the road and pedaling.

As we came up to the first path leading off the road my dad said "right this way" and followed it, this was the path to my uncle's house and I thought my dad was off his rocker. We went further down towards my uncle's house and turned off alongside his field, that's when I started having a bad feeling of what he was doing or where he was heading towards.

He was going off to the far side of the field, I followed and looked back to my uncle's house. I thought I saw my aunt looking at us through a second floor window but wasn't sure since we were pretty far. On the far end of the field was the small trail and my dad stopped in front of it. This was the "forbidden trail" that I was always told not to be near, I didn't like being there one bit. All I could think of was my uncle's stern look, my promise of never going near, the look on everyone's face when anyone mentioned the area, I did not want to be there.

"Mumbo jumbo, this land was used long ago because it was a good place to be, trappers came here because they could live and make money here, just look at all this nature!" As my dad lifted his arms looking ahead. The trees were big since no one cut these trees down and further down the old trail it was much darker since the trees blocked the sun from shining through. Moss and plants were everywhere and you could smell the dampness, the air also felt so much cooler without the sun and I just felt a shiver go down my spine.

"Ready?" And before I could say anything my dad started going down the trail into the woods. After a minute of standing still as to what to do I reluctantly followed. We didn't go very far, the trail wasn't meant for bicycles, the area was so full of overgrown trees, roots and rocks thick with moss on almost everything it just made the path impossible to use. "We'll leave our bikes here" said my dad, "they'll be fine and that's why we got legs", my dad leaned the bike against a tree and continued down the trail.

The air felt heavy, as if you had just walked into a bathroom after someone had a hot shower except it wasn’t steamy or hot but the air was thick and it made me feel really uncomfortable. I did not want to be here.

There were no birds chirping and no bugs, everything just added to the weirdness, the vegetation was about ankle high so seeing the trail wasn’t obvious unless you looked at it with each step.

Suddenly I heard slipping and a thud followed by the sound of my dad in pain, “Aaaaaah!” yelled my dad ahead of me, “Son of a …” he added as I rushed towards him.

I couldn’t see him since he went ahead of me and the path winded through these ugly trees but when I did, he was sitting on the ground holding his knee with both hands, holding his breath and rocking himself back and forth with pain written all over his face.

As I came closer he held his hand up and said “ Wait! wait! wait!” and I stopped. I looked down and saw that the path slightly dipped a couple of feet but it looked slick and I could see the long imprint from my dad’s shoe sliding down but then I saw these broken loops that made me focus more on what they were.

There were five or six thin loops made of intertwined roots buried halfway into the ground lined up perfectly on the little path just past this slick little dip, they were no more than ankle high but just low enough that the leaves of the plants would cover them. As I stood there looking puzzled and confused at what I was looking at, my dad said: “what the hell..” in a laboured voice still holding his knee.

That's when I noticed he had something sticking out of his leg with blood running down from it and in that instant the light went thick black.

I could hear my dad shout in an echoed but muffled voice “Aaaaaaah!!! No no no no…” his voice getting fainter as it sounded carried further and further away until it was so faint that suddenly the light returned as fast as it left.

I was panicking, I had to catch my breath, my dad was gone. I looked around and called out “DAD!” and met nothing but silence, I yelled out again looking in all directions “DAD!... DAD!... DAD!...” but met nothing but the same silence.

I began to feel despair, my eyes started to water and that’s when I noticed that further into the woods I could see my father’s backpack peeking behind a tree and I ran towards it with my adrenaline fueling all my senses.

Once I reached his backpack I could clearly see that my dad wasn’t there, I looked for him in all directions from where I stood yelling out “DAD! DAD!” but just as with my last calls out to him, I was just met with silence.

I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t understand what was happening, nothing made sense and as I looked around from where I stood I realized I wasn’t on the trail anymore, I couldn’t see where it was anymore or from where I ran from, I was lost in this hellish forest.

I fell to my knees and wept, and as I sat there bewildered and disorientated, I began to feel as if something was near, that I wasn’t alone and that I was being watched. I didn't dare to move and slowly looked around without moving my head.

There in front of me was a small humanoid like figure, no more than knee high, wearing odd weathered clothes and had the most frightening smile, its eyes looked crazy with its troll goblin-like looking face.

I gasped and felt like fainting in terror but as soon as I blinked this entity had vanished as if it were never there. I froze not knowing what to do, I trembled and started looking around where I was, I couldn't see it, I didn’t know what to feel or think, “Dad!” I yelled and started crying loudly.

Suddenly a large branch snapped deeper in the woods with a loud popping sound, I held my breath and froze once again, listening to anything else I might hear.

A large dull thud landed off into the distance, I remained still and after some time had passed I could now hear repeated sharper, lighter thud like sounds. “People!” I thought to myself, “That's people!” I suddenly felt an urge to run but the reality of what happened made me afraid to move or make any sound.

The sound continued and I could somewhat tell from where it was coming from but I couldn't tell how far this was, I couldn't tell which direction was north or south or anything, couldn’t tell what time of day it was but I could definitely tell that I only had so many hours before nightfall and that thought alone was enough to make me slowly stand up because the idea of spending the night here was simply not an option I wanted to contemplate.

Nothing felt right, I felt like this wasn't real, that it couldn't be happening, “where’s my dad?” I thought to myself, “what the hell is going on?” I wanted to get out, “I didn't want to be here, I never wanted to be here” I thought to myself feeling angry which was enough to make me move.

I walked slowly towards the direction from where I was hearing the sounds, looking in all directions for that thing or anything, maybe I imagined it, I kept moving.

After a few minutes that felt like an eternity I started to smell smoke, like firewood burning, it was getting darker and I didn't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me but I kept seeing shadows moving within the shadows but my focus was on getting out of these woods and going to where the smoke was. I didn't dare call out to my dad, I just wanted to get out and get help from there.

The smell of smoke was getting stronger but so was the darkness of the night, I couldn't see the ground anymore, just rough outlines and shapes of the forest, there were no more sounds and tears just flowed down my face.

It was then that I could see off into the woods something that was emitting light, the smell of smoke also guided me towards it and as I got closer I could see the outline of what appeared to be a cabin with smoke slowly rising from its chimney, a lit candle was burning in its window.

“Hello?...” I whispered, afraid of even hearing my own voice, “Hello?...” I said a little louder. I could hear noise coming from inside the cabin, footsteps on the wooden floorboards walking to the door. I was shaking, not knowing what to expect anymore and the door opened.

There stood a man, maybe in his forties or fifties, thick moustache and wearing worn old prospector-like clothes, he looked like he just stepped out of a dusty cowboy movie.

“It takes two” he said, striking a match and lighting his pipe. I tried speaking, “What… What… I’m… My dad was…” I couldn’t make a sentence.

“It takes two to lift the curse, two come in, two come out but the first one in stays.” says the man. “Your dad was here, he’s still here but you can’t see him right now and I’m real sorry about that.” said the man in a calm and tired voice, puffing on his pipe. “I thought this day would never come, I gave up a long time ago but this place doesn’t care about how you feel” he inhaled and blew out a long trail of smoke and seemed relieved. “I can leave now and if you care about your dad, you’ll need to leave with me” and the man raised his eyes and looked directly at me.

“What do you mean my dad was here and I have to leave with you?! What the hell is going on!?” I said, panicking and confused, “What was that thing I saw out there?” I added, “Who are you!? What is this place!? What’s going on!?”. Nothing made sense anymore, my mind was at a loss and I felt like I needed some kind of reality because I felt like I was gonna go insane.

“This land is cursed.” said the man, “I came here in 1852 with my brother Frank” he added as he walked back into the cabin, “come in I won’t bite, I know none of this makes any sense but it is what it is and there’s not one damned thing we can do about it.”

The door was open, I was still standing outside and a strong feeling overcame me that I was being watched, I thought of that creature and whatever else might be out there and there was no way that I was going to wait out here any longer. I walked up slowly to the door and felt the floorboards slightly bend under my weight, I could see that the interior of the cabin looked somewhat maintained despite it looking abandoned from the outside.

“Time doesn’t exist here” said the man as he placed some sticks into the fire of an old cast iron stove, “It does and it doesn’t” he added as he thought of what he just said and slowly shook his head as if realizing that he didn’t make any sense.

“I’m sorry, it’s been awhile since I spoke to anyone” he sat down in one of the two chairs that were there. The cabin was a simple one room cabin but it had a stove, a table with a cast iron pot, two chairs, I could see some small leg-hold traps hanging on the wall, an old saw and other old tools that you would only see in old pictures and everything was lit with a candle sitting by the window.

“Your dad is here but not here yet” again he shook his head at what he was saying, he looked like he was trying to explain something with words that didn’t exist. “Long before my time, as I was told by the person that was here before when I first came here…” he paused as he was remembering his own past events, “this area” he continued “was home to an Indian preacher” he looked up at me, “not the bible kind of preacher but their own kind of preacher” he looked down again and appeared confused. “What i was told was people did him wrong or did his people wrong, something really bad happened and they were wiped out but this preacher really had a connection to the other side, the side that me and you don’t see and whatever was on that side, that side listened to him.”

He looked up at me again “I know it don’t make sense, I look at you and I don’t know what I’m seeing, I don’t know if you’re real or anything but I know that when I first came here, I was like you and a man told me the story like I’m telling you.” He looked puzzled but continued “Your pappy is in limbo now, a dark place, he can hear us but we can’t hear him, when we leave this place, he will take my place until the next people come to take his place and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Tears started falling from my face, “You're crazy…” I mumbled at him, “All this is crazy..” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I was feeling disoriented, light headed and confused. I needed air so I turned around towards the door, looked out into the darkness of the night and saw dozens of little eyes mirroring the faint light that came from the cabin, none of them were moving but all of them were facing me, I froze.

“Yeah they’re always there” said the man, “some call them the little people”. I walked back slowly, “you can close the door, they won’t come in” I still stood there staring at the little eyes, I was petrified.

The man stood up, walked to the door and closed it. “I can heat up some water, it ain’t much but I find it sometimes better than it being cold.” and he placed a pot on the old stove. “Where’s my dad?” I asked the man, he took a deep breath and sighed, he said: “I was the first one to step in before my brother, I got tricked into thinking there was a shaft of gold nearby, I just remember smelling something awful then a giggle and as I turned something hit me. I was then in a black place, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face, I thought I was dead but then I saw a light far away, I got closer to see what it was and here I was in this cabin right here.” The man started looking at his hands and turned them over as if he was looking at them for the first time. “There was a fellow sitting there and he said he only had a moment to let me know what was going to happen, he told me that if two people come to this area, one replaces the one that stayed before, only then can he leave with the second that came. The day will never set, you will never grow hungry, you will never grow old, you will never see anyone until that day that someone will come.” The old stove made crackling sounds as the fire danced within, it made small reflections around the room through the stove’s little openings.

“You can’t run away, there’s no way out, the forest comes back on itself like a giant loop no matter where you go.” The man looked tired as you could tell he tried leaving many times and failed each time. “If only one person comes in these parts, those things out there will kill them. If more than two people come, those things play tricks and separate just one and will kill just that one…” The man looks at me with tired eyes, “They will let the others go without those things ever being seen, this place is cursed and there is no other way.”

“So I’m stuck here? Is that what you’re saying?” I asked, making no sense of anything he was saying, “Haven't you heard anything I just said?” said the man, “You’re pa is the one that is gonna be stuck here now, we are the only ones that can leave this place if you want him to live” said the man. I shouted: “I’m not going anywhere!” but he didn't react to my outburst and said: “If you don’t, then he will be stuck in limbo forever, with no light and nothing but darkness…”, “See that light in the window?” the man pointed at the candle, “That’s his light now, if you stay, that light will blow out and your pappy will be trapped in darkness until the end of time but if you come with me, he will be brought back here in this cabin waiting for his turn to leave this cursed place.” When morning comes, that is when we must leave, I am leaving as my choice is already made, but your choice is what will decide what will happen to your pa.”

I had to sit down, I looked at the candle and asked myself how could any of this be possible. I looked outside and to my shock I could see that it was soon to be morning. “Time doesn’t exist here, be ready to leave, there’s nothing we can do, look at your pa’s light, it will soon go out.” said the man. I looked at the candle and it seemed shorter. Maybe it had an hour left if that. Through the window I noticed a trail, it looked well used and not at all like the one I used to get here, “There she is…” said the man who stood up immediately and opened the door, ”There she is!” he looked relieved and expressed sounds of joy as if he struck gold, “I’m free! I’m finally free!” and he rushed to the trail and kneeled on it and sobbed.

“If you stay you doom your father, if you leave, he will have his chance, stick to the trail.” The man picked himself up, “The choice is yours, I done my part, I wish you well” and he began to walk down the trail. I looked at the candle, it flickered a few times and I thought it was about to go out, I quickly went outside and saw the candle’s flame grow brighter, I took a step closer to the cabin and the light dimmed once again, I took a step towards the trail and the light grew brighter. I kept walking towards the trail and I could see the cabin illuminating from within, my eyes began to water.

I continued further down the trail, rustling sounds could be heard through the forest following me as I walked, the sun was out and I could see the edge of the forest, I ran towards it and it opened up even more. My uncle and mother were both standing there at the end of the trail, as were other members of my family, my mom had open arms and had tears of joy seeing me run towards her.

We held each other and I said “Mom! Mom! It’s dad, he’s..” and my mom said ”I know, hush now, hush” as my uncle looked back into the now small and dark trail, “It’s over now, there’s no more we can do” said my uncle with his hand on my shoulders, “we must never talk about this place, it’s not for us to know these things”, “Where’s that other man?” I said, still holding on to my mom, “What other man?” my mom said, I looked at her and everyone else then looked around and he wasn’t there. A warm summer breeze then brushed my face as the leaves of the trees started to sway, “It’s time to go home now” said my uncle, “let’s go home.”

We sat in the car and drove off back onto the dirt road. I decided to look back towards the trail and thought I saw that man waving away at me but now I’m not sure if that is even what I saw since we were already driving far ahead. I put my head down on my mom’s shoulder and closed my eyes as she held my hand. We drove in silence and ever since that day, we never spoke about my dad or what happened on that trail ever again.