Black Forest

"That $20,000 won't be enough." I couldn't help sighing to myself. Standing by the gate of what felt like a five mile driveway, I was staring down my inheritance with nothing short of discontent.

What was described to me as a mountain top cottage with gardens and acres of land, was merely a rotting white weatherboard structure with years worth of overgrowth shrouding every corner of the yard. The surrounding flora had long since crept across what I could only assume was where the ‘gardens’ used to stand, reaching out towards the old cottage in what seemed like a desperate bid to consume it. My plan to use the $20,000 I'd received alongside the house to renovate, had completely crumbled to ashes at the sight of it all.

'Black Forest'—the place my estranged father had locked himself away in for god knows how long—certainly lived up to its name. The trees stood high with their canopies filtering out much of the afternoon light, which gave the entire place a murky, unsettling feeling. How could one have any quality of life in a place that seemed to only know a never ending night?

"Black Forest?!" An elderly man had exclaimed when I'd stopped for directions at the last town by the bottom of the mountain. "You don't want anything to do with that place, trust me." I had chalked it down to local superstition and went on my way, but standing in Black Forest on my lonesome, I felt a vile feeling settle into my stomach.

I sighed again at the wreckage before me, before finally mustering up the courage to enter the property, a duffel bag swung over my shoulder and the old skeleton key for the house clutched tight in my palm.

Reaching the front steps, I felt a lump form in my throat and I stopped in my tracks to take a deep breath. I never knew anything of my father, just that he left my mother when she was pregnant with me after years of them trying to conceive. I'd condemned him my whole life for his heartless actions, but there I was standing on his doorstep. I always secretly wished I knew him, and now I was faced with my only chance to ever piece together the puzzle of Him.

Who was he? What was he like? Why was he here, in a creepy forest of all places? I had no choice but to enter that house and try desperately to find out.

The steps groaned under my weight, telltale signs of wear and tear calling out to me. I had no choice but to tread carefully along the front porch towards the door, worried the boards would give out underneath me. Everything about the place was falling down around me, I didn't want to get my hopes up in regards to the interior. The more I saw, the more I just wanted to turn around and run, there was no way I could possibly afford to fix everything with the lump sum I had.

I unlocked the place—the rusted lock clicking loudly in the quiet forest—and pushed open the old door with hesitation, listening to the way it cried just as the steps and porch had. This was it, within those walls would hopefully lie the story of the man who never wanted to know me, and I couldn't wait to get to know him.

I was met with a damp, musty smell, a clear sign that no one had been there in a very long time. Boxes upon boxes were stacked in the hall, overflowing with everything from clothing to household goods. It seemed to be that my father was planning to move away, but he never managed to make it to the moving date. Strange.

The hall drew me further in, my footsteps heavy and jarring in the silence. In fact, I hadn't heard a peep from anything other than myself since arriving at Black Forest, not even a stray bird singing up towards the sky. Perhaps it was why I had felt so uneasy about the place, nothing seemed to want to live here, not even the animals.

The floorboards groaned louder the further I ventured into the house. Dust had gathered on absolutely everything, particles dancing around in the air as they tickled my nose.

The untouched state of the place made me wonder just exactly when my father left Black Forest, clearly leaving behind everything he owned. I wasn't told when he died, just that the house and money was all mine, and seeing it all had more and more questions forming rapidly in my mind.

I reached the large room at the end of the hall, in there nothing but two old sofas and a fireplace. Everything seemed to be stacked in the boxes in the hall, ready and waiting to take a leave that never arrived.

Except for a journal, old and well loved. I couldn't help the way in which I was entirely drawn to the tattered leather on the blue stone mantelpiece, it was as if a force was drawing me right over to it. My answers could be in there, wedged between worn pages, just waiting for me to find them.

I helped myself, unwrapping the twine that held the contents in tight and flipping open the cover. Chicken scratch, all of it barely legible aside from a word here or there, so I flipped another page. It was the same, over and over, and as I turned the pages I began to feel overcome with disappointment.

I couldn't decipher any of the entries, but as I was about to give up I found a page entitled 'Black Forest'. It was all written in neat cursive, still difficult to read but nothing like the illegible penmanship at the beginning of the journal. I flicked forward to see more readable pages, excited that I'd have more than just the one entry to give me some answers.

Just as I was about to sink my teeth into the page, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a tuft of ginger fur sticking up just outside the southern facing window. A rather fluffy orange tail, peeking over the decaying wood of the window sill and wagging side to side like a ticking metronome. Nobody ever mentioned a dog—and that was certainly a dog's tail—which led me to move to catch a glimpse of the canine, but not quickly enough before it was gone.

Its presence seemed out of place considering there were no signs of any life whatsoever, so I placed the journal back where I found it and took off back down the hall and out the front door, to find the dog sniffing around by my car.

It was a lean and shaggy Irish setter, but nothing about it seemed scruffy, which didn't make sense when the house was so decrepit. Its shining coat looked out of place among the overgrowth surrounding the cabin. It couldn't have been lost either, the cottage was the only known residence for miles and this dog was clearly well cared for by someone.

"Here, boy! Here, girl!" The common call headed no response past a raised ear, the dog staring at me as if I were a fool. I whistled, clapped and waved my hands but the dog instead turned its head and padded off, disappearing behind the north side of the house.

I followed my new found ginger friend out of curiosity, rounding the corner and sticking close to the wall in order to squeeze past the overgrowth, old white paint flaking off and scattering around me every time I rubbed against the wood.

The dog disappeared between two trees and without a second thought I followed, squeezing my body through the narrow opening. It led me down a winding path, myself cautious of the cracked and crumbling stepping stones underneath my feet. At some point there was a shift in the air, and all of a sudden my hearing was flooded with the sounds of a lively forest. A bubbling brook, chirping birds and the rustling of leaves above.

A bright and beautiful clearing was revealed at the end of the path, lush with picture perfect greenery and a soft moss floor. The clearing appeared to mimic the one I'd left behind, except the cottage in the middle was well looked after, the white paint of the weatherboards pristine.

Looking up, I felt my breath leave my body as I wasn't met with blue skies, but by rippling crystal blue waters. The 'sky' was more like the sea, as if I were underwater in a calm reef, the sun filtering down in gorgeous streaks of light.

With a bark, the dog took off towards the cottage and jumped up onto the porch, before it turned around to sit and stare at me. Its tail thumped against the porch and I could hear the telltale signs of footsteps coming from the cottage.

I wanted to run—I was scared of the unsettling beauty around me—and yet my feet drew me closer and closer to the house until I was standing on the front steps, waiting for the stranger to reveal themselves.

The lock clicked, the door opening painfully slow but without the creaking I had to endure before. "Hello." The person spoke before they stepped into view, but the tone of their deep honey-like voice seemed as if they were waiting on me.

A boy around sixteen years old stood in the doorway, tall and broad with shaggy blonde hair. He looked familiar and like a stranger all at once, his presence blurred at the edges like a daydream. "Did you find your way without trouble?" He asked, offering me a gentle smile.

"Yes." I found myself answering, suddenly completely at ease. "Where am I?"

The boy stared at me with a confused tilt of his head, unblinking. His eyes were cold, irises black and seemingly soulless. "Black Forest."

I didn't know what to say, this certainly wasn't Black Forest with the beautiful greenery and rippling underwater sky. Something about this was all incredibly strange, the feeling of dread I had felt before I had crossed the fence line into the property had returned.

"I think I'm lost." I said as I turned to look at the dog I had followed, but it was nowhere to be seen. I started to feel panic rising up inside me, my hands growing clammy when I realized the empty black colour of the boy's irises had bled right into the whites of his eyes. "I need to go home."

As I turned, I expected him to say something, to reach out and stop me, but he did nothing. Not a single word was spoken as I turned and ran back up through the clearing. I slipped on the stones, clambering up the pathway out of breath and no longer caring to be cautious. I crossed the threshold once more, my ears popping and the beautiful, calming forest sounds were replaced by silence once more.

When I reached the top, the contents of my stomach came pouring out, bile burning my throat as I heaved all over the ground. My legs wouldn't move and all of a sudden I was so weak that all I could do was hunch over against the side of the house and sob.

I didn't know what was happening to me at that moment, but I would come to find out once I returned inside. For on the wall in the hallway was a crooked frame, and behind the smudged glass was a peculiar sight waiting to be found. Hand in hand with a young version of my mother was the boy from the clearing, smiling back with curious eyes as if to say 'you've only just scratched the surface'.

There was only one thing for me to do; read that little black book.