When I was thirteen, my mother made the decision to pack up all of our belongings and move us halfway across the country. To a town, I will not tell you the name of. Immediately upon our arrival, every question that could have been asked racked my brain. I stopped sleeping on the nights when my brain was at its heaviest. The story starts with the mysterious forest that laid two hundred feet in front of my front door. It felt so comforting, being the new ones in town. My dad ventured out to ask the neighbors about the wildlife, he was an avid hunter. They strongly discouraged any attempts to make contact with the forest creatures and to stay away from it as a whole. Nothing else was said. Somehow my parents just understood the town folk; don’t go near. They expected no further explanation, and they gave me no further explanation. Old Man Jim lived right at the forest entrance. Directly in front of my house, though far enough that when I peered out I could make out movements, but not who or what they were doing. Everyone said he ventured into the forest one night, and though he returned, his aura was off. No longer the funny and wild man he was, but a figment of the past. Like he had aged far too long and seen it all, and the all was not worth it anymore. Some assume the forest just took too much out of him, others assume it isn’t Jim at all. Whatever it means, though the forest was beautiful with an abundance of colors and trees inviting you in; everyone knew there was no getting out. And the curiosity of that forest tore apart my brain. No one would answer questions about the forest like it never existed. Asking the elders, we got the same sentence quietly told to us over and over again. “Don’t go past the first tree.” Us kids did the adventuring, though we never found ourselves closer inside than Jim’s porch. That was until Preston from Jones Street went with us one evening. In the four years I had been here, I spent nearly every evening staring at the forest with friends from school. Where the gravel stopped, and Jim’s driveway began, we sat. Staring off into the darkness, illuminated by what seemed to be little fairies dancing and creating shows for us. When we told Preston about the fairies on his first, and only night with us, he told us we were losing our minds from staring at the darkness for too long. Maybe he was right. Jim was in bed asleep every night at ten o’clock. If he ever got any sleep was not known, but the lights were off and his odd presence was no longer felt. When the last light flickered, we would all run from our spot on my porch to sit and stare. There were usually six of us, joined by Preston on that particular night. Preston wasn’t like us, though. He didn’t care. His parents didn’t warn him, it wasn’t drilled in his mind that it was off-limits. He’d been there longer than I had, but he truly didn’t care what we had to say. We were just sitting there, admiring the show as always. And he starts getting pissy. “Is this really all you guys do?” “Why not explore?” “A bunch of pussys. I’ll go in.” And we warned him. We begged him to stay. To stop being so loud and just go home if he didn’t see the same excitement that we did. But there he stomped off, farther than any of us had ever been. Straight past Jim’s porch and the window we had figured he slept under. He got to the first tree that marked the beginning and hollered at us. Called us the worst of names for only watching from afar, and giving in to our parent’s demands. Then as soon as he got past the first tree, the screaming stopped. We thought he was playing some trick on us, but we never heard his voice again. The agony that overtook our bodies when he spoke, was never felt again. We all did what we knew best, and ran. The sheriff lived on the corner, right after getting past my house. And we banged on his door and told him what happened, and he went back in, slamming the door in our faces. “I told you kids to not mess around the forest. Better hope he shows up.” After Preston never showed, we decided that our watch crew should no longer meet. I went days away from the forest, watching from my porch as the cops came and looked around Jim’s house. Didn’t even make it to the first set of trees, and went on with their little evenings back in the main part of town. But my desire to watch the show got too strong, and I waited. When Jim’s last light flickered off, I ran off my porch to go sit in our spots. I was alone this time, though not nearly as stupid as Preston. Jim sat on his porch this time, though. A surprise I had never encountered. It was too late to turn around, so I went on. I felt like I was intruding on him, especially when I felt his eyes staring me down. From the very corner of his porch, I heard him cough and he started talking. “There’s people there in them there forest. They ain’t like us, and they don’t like us. I followed my girl in there one night, met ‘em. Now she’s done dead and I’m the crazy.” I looked at him, and he kept his eyes on me. I didn’t know what to say. He seemed to sense it, and went on. “They were real nice at first. Helped me find her. She was bleeding on the ground, and that’s all I ‘member. I woke up, she was dead, with a clear path home. I got out of there, you know they said I did it. That I killed her. They didn’t find her, they didn’t look. My daddy got lost in that forest when I was about your age. They don’t like us intruding.” “People just disappear?” I asked, “and no one does anything about it?” His rocking chair creaked again, this time moving up for him to get up. The planks on the porch made the same noise as the chair as he stepped over them, coming to stand at the end of the railings to get a good clear look at me. “When I was real younger, Jenny Lou and Malcolm, who was about twenty-two, sat where you sat, and decided to run away. I sat right there,” and he pointed to the corner of the porch, where I now noticed a chair I had never seen before. “And watched ‘em go. Waited for them to come back, and they didn’t. I told grammy, she told Malcolm’s daddy, Malcolm’s daddy told Officer Burke, and Officer Burke sent a party into the woods to find them. Not a one of them came home.” I got to thinking, I never realized how big the forest was. People go missing in wooded places all the time, if they took the time to properly explore, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. Jim didn’t think the same. “This forest is about seven acres big. The Landry’s farm is on more acres than that. People don’t just disappear, I hate to break it. They don’t like us. That little Preston boy pissed them off, and now he’s dead in there.” “You think they really are dead?” “What else would happen to them? Living some big life? As long as some of them been gone, I’d say there are bodies everywhere.” “Would you ever go back?” My voice was weak, asking a question that was so obvious. But it popped in my head, and my mouth ran faster than it sometimes. “I go there every night.” There went the squeaky planks again. His movement was swift, but not fast enough. He seemed to rest at the door for too long, trying to figure out his final words. “You sleep good out there tonight.” Jim was gone, but I felt his eyes staring me down. As the curiosity overtook me, I went out for my final adventure. Stepping past his porch, and next to the first tree. Engraved were an M and J, for the story of Malcolm and Jenny Lou. Lovers in the forest, but certainly don’t feel like the keepers. My legs were faster than my brain, though. Stepping farther and farther in. Felt like just a couple of steps, but when I turned back, I no longer saw the light of the neighborhood. And the Lovers tree no longer loomed over. With every step, it became ever more obvious why so many people were lost. It swallowed you up. Thought I felt comforted, surrounded by the abundance of blues and greens, and the trees that seemed to whisper sweet stories to you; I knew there was no getting out. I was a figment of the imagination of the town, joining a world that I knew nothing about.