Chapter 1 — Whispers in the Mist

Alina

Dawn crept over Willow Hollow like a hesitant lover, its pale light barely piercing the heavy mist that clung to the cobblestone streets. I wandered alone, my worn boots scuffing against the uneven stones, the chill of early morning seeping into my bones despite the soft, earthy sweater hugging my frame. My silver crescent moon pendant swayed gently against my chest, catching fleeting glints of light as if whispering secrets I couldn’t yet hear. In my hands, I clutched my sketchbook, its edges frayed from countless nights of restless dreaming, my fingers itching to capture the silhouette of the Forbidden Forest that loomed beyond the town’s edge.

Around me, the clapboard houses hunched together, their peeling paint and shuttered windows exuding a quiet dread, as if they knew something I didn’t. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke, a familiar tang that grounded me even as my thoughts spiraled. My piercing green eyes drifted to the distant Appalachian peaks, their jagged outlines barely visible through the fog, a dark promise of something untamed. But it was the forest that held me captive—its endless sprawl of gnarled oaks and whispering pines calling to me in a way I couldn’t explain. I stopped near a sagging lamppost, flipping open my sketchbook to a blank page, my pencil hovering as I traced the forest’s edge in my mind before letting the first tentative lines scratch across the paper.

Last night’s dream lingered like a ghost at the edge of my consciousness. Wolves howling under a blood-red moon, their amber eyes piercing through the shadows. Ancient chants humming in my veins, words I didn’t know but felt carved into my soul. I shivered, not from the cold, but from the ache of it—the longing to understand why these visions haunted me, why they felt more real than the misty streets beneath my feet. My mother’s warnings echoed in my head, sharp and unyielding as always. “Stay away from the trees, girl, you don’t know what’s out there.” Evelyn’s voice, firm and laced with something heavier than fear, had been a constant cage around me. But how could I stay away when every fiber of me felt pulled toward that darkness?

I murmured to myself, my voice soft and halting, “What if… what if it’s not just dreams?” My breath fogged in the damp air, and I paused, weighing the thought as if saying it aloud might summon whatever truth I sought. My pencil moved again, sketching the forest’s outline with a steadier hand, each stroke a quiet rebellion against the rules that bound me. I’d always been an outsider here, the strange Harper girl with her nose in books and her eyes on the horizon. The town’s whispers followed me like shadows, but today, I felt them heavier, as if the mist itself carried secrets.

As I neared the center of Willow Hollow, the murmur of voices broke through my reverie. A knot of elders huddled near a weathered porch, their faces etched with worry, gray hair peeking from beneath woolen caps. I slowed my steps, keeping to the edge of the street, my sketchbook pressed against my chest as if it could shield me from their judgment. Their words drifted to me in fragments, low and urgent. “Seen tracks near the hollow again… not natural, I tell ya,” one grumbled, his gnarled hand gesturing toward the peaks. Another, a woman with a shawl drawn tight around her shoulders, muttered, “Keep the young’uns close, forest’s hungry.” Their wary glances darted past me, toward the tree line, as if expecting something to emerge from the fog right then and there.

My heart quickened, a mix of unease and curiosity curling in my chest. Beast sightings. I’d heard the stories since I was a child—tales of monsters in the woods, of men who ventured too far and never returned. But these weren’t just old wives’ tales to scare children into bed. There was a raw edge to their fear, a truth I could almost taste beneath the superstition. I gripped my pendant, the cool metal grounding me as I wondered what they’d seen. What could make even these hardened souls tremble at the mere mention of the forest?

I turned away, my boots carrying me farther along the street, closer to the edge of town where the houses thinned and the forest’s presence grew stronger. The mist seemed to thicken here, wrapping around me like a shroud, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Not by the elders or the shuttered windows, but by something deeper, older. My fingers traced the crescent moon at my throat, a family heirloom I’d worn since I could remember, its weight both a comfort and a burden. Evelyn never spoke of where it came from, only that it was mine to keep safe. Another secret, another locked door in the maze of my life.

I stopped at an uneven rise, my gaze locking on the forest once more. Its canopy was a wall of shadow, impenetrable even in the faint dawn light, and yet I felt it beckoning, a silent siren’s song weaving through the rustle of leaves. My pencil moved faster now, sketching the jagged tree line with a boldness I didn’t feel, my hand trembling only slightly as I poured my longing onto the page. Fear gnawed at me—Evelyn’s warnings, the elders’ whispers, the sheer unknown of what lay beyond—but so did something else. A pull, inexplicable and primal, as if the forest knew me, as if it had been waiting.

A sudden gust swept through the street, sharp and cold, carrying with it a sound that froze me in place. A howl, distant yet piercing, rolled down from the mountains, echoing through the valleys like a warning—or a summons. My breath caught, my heart slamming against my ribs as the sound lingered, curling around me like mist. It wasn’t just a wolf, not with that depth, that intelligence threading through its cry. It was the sound from my dreams, the call that haunted my nights, now real and raw in the waking world.

I stood rooted, my sketchbook slipping slightly in my grasp, my green eyes wide as I stared into the forest’s depths. The elders’ voices had faded, the town holding its breath behind me, but I felt the weight of their fear mirrored in my own. And yet, beneath the shiver racing down my spine, there was something else—exhilaration, a spark of something wild igniting in my chest. My fingers tightened on my pendant, the silver biting into my palm as if anchoring me to a truth I couldn’t yet name.

I took a step closer to the tree line, then stopped, Evelyn’s voice slicing through my haze. “You don’t know what’s out there.” But what if I did? What if the answers to my dreams, to the restlessness that clawed at me every waking moment, lay just beyond that shadowed edge? My gaze lingered on the forest, its darkness promising both danger and revelation, and I felt the first threads of defiance weaving through my fear.

Turning, I found myself near the Old Briar Church, its crumbling stone and leaning steeple a grim sentinel at Willow Hollow’s edge. The graveyard beside it stretched into the mist, moss-covered tombstones tilting like forgotten promises. I paused, flipping open my sketchbook once more, the half-finished drawing of the forest staring back at me as if daring me to finish it. Another howl echoed, closer this time, a shiver rippling through me as I gripped the page. My breath fogged in the cold, my mind racing with the weight of a decision—turn back to the suffocating safety of home, or seek the answers Evelyn had spent my life denying me.

Under my breath, I whispered, “I can’t keep ignoring this… whatever it is, it’s calling me.” The words felt like a vow, fragile yet binding, as I stared into the forest’s dark heart. The wind whispered through its canopy in response, a sibilant promise of mystery and peril, leaving me teetering on the edge of everything I’d been taught to fear—and everything I’d ever longed to know.