CHAPTER ONE

Eden

Tuesday, February 3

I wasn't the most normal person and even as an adult I'm still not.

“Leave me alone!” I shouted. I was sitting on the grass at the park, I had a graze on my knee from where Elizabeth Lewis decided right then was the time to push me over. I had a cut on my elbow and mud all over me. Tears were streaming down my face as she just stood there looking down on me as though I was the one who attacked her first and she was just defending herself. This was one of those moments I remembered as though it was yesterday, the answer to everything was right in front of me that day. I just wasn't the one allowed to see it. I can remember five year old me sitting there looking around, hoping an adult would see me and help but they all seemed to be oblivious towards my presence.

I looked Elizabeth in the eye and managed to find my courage, I grabbed onto the railings bordering off the park and pulled myself up. She glared at me, she looked like my cat preparing to pounce at his prey, which she did. I dodged her attempt to knock me back over and I ran forward. I looked back over my shoulder almost instantly to see if she was ok, but deep down I couldn't have cared less if she was sitting there crying. She stood up and gave me the most menacing look I had ever seen a seven year old commit to. She started chasing me down the field and into the ongrowing forest ahead of us. “Hey, come back!” I heard her voice call after me but I didn't listen. Why would I. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my body as I ran.

The trees in the forest were either abnormally tall or I was just really, really short. They shadowed over all the plants below my feet. It was a dead end. My heart was beating out of my chest and my throat became sore very quickly as my breath stabbed it. I jolted to a stop, I had to catch myself before I fell into the nettles around me. I turned around to leave, thinking I had outrun Elizabeth but I was strongly mistaken. My heart was pounding, the air had gone crisp and I could see her ominous shadow emerging through the trees. She stopped about two feet in front of me and reached her arm out, snatching a twig off the tree to her left in an attempt to throw it at me, yet I fell to my knees and started crying before she could even aim her throw. Clearly scared of getting told off, she dropped the stick and made a run for it before anyone saw her with an injured five year old crying in a pile of dirt and nettles.

After a while I heard the leaves rustling ahead of me. It was Mum. She found me. I reached my arms out and she ran up to me, collapsed onto the floor and wrapped her arms around me. I didn't usually like hugs but this one was different, it made me feel safe. I could feel her warm breath brushing past my ear. She didn't say anything, she just cried, happy that I was safe.

Many incidents like this one continued to happen. Things would happen to the trees or the first in general and I would hurt. Through the first week or so Mum thought I was just attention seeking but when I actually started getting visible injuries and waking up with random bruises and scratches on my body she did get a bit concerned. She also started to believe that the forest wasn't just affecting me, I was affecting it. Whenever I felt strong emotions like sadness it would rain.The first time that happened she ignored it and treated it as a coincidence, but then it happened again and all of a sudden I wasn't allowed out of her sight.

Her paranoia about me being somewhat magical started on my seventh birthday. Mum had invited, guess who, Elizabeth Lewis to our house for my party. She brought me a barbie doll that she had drawn on and cut its hair as a present. I'm guessing she did this with the intent to upset me but being given anything from Elizabeth was a blessing so I treasured the doll. Well, I treasured it for about the five seconds I had it. Elizabeth, after noticing I wasn't upset by this monstrosity of a gift, snatched it out of my hands and pulled its head off. I don't know why this angered me so much, I guess getting something other than a hand sized teddy and a card from Mum for my birthday gave me the feeling that I earned that doll, no matter how destroyed it was. I wanted to yell, I needed to yell, but what I knew was if I shouted at her I would be the one to get in trouble for yelling at the house guest and I would be the one embarrassed in the long run. So I put on my I don't care face so she didn't know it bothered me and I continued to play with the new teddy Mum got me.

That was until I heard Mum call me from the kitchen with a worried yet slightly angry tone in her voice. I walked in, Elizabeth trailing behind me. Mum was just standing there frozen to the spot, in one hand she was holding a wet plate and in the other a washcloth she was near to dropping.

“What's wrong?” I asked. Elizabeth was standing there next mimicking the exact same confused face as I had. Mum put the plate down on the kitchen counter and raised her hand to point out the window. She opened her mouth to talk, then proceeded to close it again instantly. I slowly edged myself towards her and pushed myself against the counter and onto my tiptoes in order to see what she was pointing at out the window. It was snowing. This was a bit strange as it suddenly started snowing with no warning. What made it even more strange was how it's the middle of summer. All Elizabeth could see at that point was both of our blank faces staring out the window. She didn't understand what all the fuss was about so she came over to look. Hungry for attention she glanced at me and started crying as though it was me who magically made it start snowing. Startled by the noise of Elizabeth's high pitched wails Mum went over, and comforted her until her parents arrived to pick her up. I felt like an outcast in my own home. The place you are meant to feel safe and comforted in made me feel like a monster. I took a step back from them and ran upstairs into my room.

Weeks had passed and Mum was still convinced I caused it to snow. I was being homeschooled in our garden, when the weather was nice, because Elizabeth went to school the next day and told everyone I made it snow. I didn't mind that, but I did mind being repetitively referred to as Elsa. In order to homeschool me full time so I had a decent education Mum had to quit her day job, she now worked night shifts as a veterinary nurse.

I was relaxing in the living room playing one of those AI games that come with sky tv when I heard a key turn in the front door. I had been watching too many scary movies, for my age, and I started panicking that some guy was going to break in and shoot me with lasers or something. Mum walked through the living room and opened the door for the person as it is very stiff and difficult to open sometimes.

“Hi, Hugh.” She said moving to the side to clear the way for him to come in, “You can make yourself comfortable in the living room, i’ll go make us some drinks.” She disappeared around the corner of the hallway gesturing to me to follow her. I grabbed the remote off the wooden coffee table and pressed the off button before getting up and following her into the kitchen. “I'm going to be having a…” She paused for a moment, “A meeting! Yes, I am having a meeting with Hugh so why don't you play in the garden for a while.” She spoke unusually fast and pushed me carefully through the back door so I would leave. It wasn't the first time she had a meeting and I wasn't allowed to be within ear shot so I was used to it by then. Every time this happened I tended to pick flowers and collect bugs by our pond. I stopped doing that though when I fell in and Mum had to come fish me out because I couldn't swim yet. I got bored very quickly at that age, and I still do, so I took one look at the trees ahead and decided I was going to try and climb them. It only took me twenty minutes, a scratched arm and a bruised leg to realise that nothing I ever did went to plan.

I walked through the backdoor and into the kitchen so I could grab a plaster from the cupboard to stop my arm bleeding. Milo arched his back as he rubbed his side against my ankle purring away like the lion he is. The air from the open backdoor blew the living room door open. I could hear every word that Mum and Hugh were saying, they were long complicated words for anyone at my age to understand. I peeked my head around the corner ever so slightly so they didn't see me and listened in on every word I understood. She had been having these meetings for months and every time she had one I was sent outside, I couldn't help but believe it was about me.

Usually when I would come in from outside I would see her sitting on the sofa with her head in her hands, but this time it was different. She was nodding along to everything Hugh was saying.

I heard them say my name multiple times commonly followed by the word ‘forest’ and the phrase ‘is cursed’. I had read enough books to understand what that meant and I was definitely not cursed. I felt a deep regret towards listening in on their conversation, if I knew it would have left me annoyed and angry I would have stayed in the garden away from them. I looked around the corner of the door wanting to know why they were talking about me, and I wasn't going back outside until I knew. It was bad enough they were talking about me and I was uninformed about it, it was even worse that this guy had the audacity to call me cursed and have my own mother agree with him.

“So I'm cursed?” I met eyes with both of them as I walked into the living room. I tried my hardest to sound calm but the words still came out with an angry tone.

“No! That's not what we said at all,” Mum raised from her seat and started walking towards me. She grabbed my arm and walked me back outside, “This is why I told you to stay outside, you won't understand what we are saying.”She sat me down on the log and started heading inside.

(Almost the whole of the first chapter, word limit made it shorter 😔)

This is from a book I started writing three years ago, its cringe, im aware, leave me alone 💀