Have you ever known a person that you hated with all your heart? The pure sight of them causing you to have violent fantasies, their voice leaving you annoyed, even their smell being nauseating to you? 

To Elle, almost everyone is like this. She can tolerate only a few chosen people. She had to drop out of school, her parents needing to move to the countryside so she wouldn’t have to encounter people when going out. They homeschooled her as best as they were capable of, but since even written communication can cause Elle to tremble with rage there weren’t many jobs she could do when she would be older. 

In the village near Elle‘s house, rumors started to spread relatively fast. The few times people of the village had seen her, she broke out screaming and cursing at them, not yet at an age where she could keep it together. They called her the daemon child, some devil. Why else would a child react with such rage to people just existing? The children in the village drew pictures of Elle and would for dares knock on her door or throw stones at her window. 

Of course, Elle‘s parents tried to go to therapy with her, but they never managed to find a therapist she could be in the room with for long enough and none of the experts knew what to do.

So Elle lived most of her life in isolation, only having contact with her parents. Until they died and she was completely alone. She did manage to get a job with next to no human contact and the modern world helped her being able to live a more or less normal life, keeping her out of any trouble. The rumors were still there, but with time and Elle never interacting with anyone, no one seemed to remember why they called the woman living alone in the woods the ‚devil woman‘.

Until I came along. My name is Samantha, everyone calls me Sam, and I am a journalist. I write a blog about curious people and bring the true story behind nasty rumors to light. You would be surprised how many awful rumors start from small innocent behaviors.

When I heard the story of the devil woman in the woods, I had to get to know her. Find out what was behind that name.

It was a stormy and rainy fall day when I arrived in the village.  

My first impression of the village was quite neutral. I expected some mystery to surround it, some kind of surreal feeling. But in fact, it just was like any other village. No houses that seemed too perfect, no weird children staring at me from the corner of the street, nothing in the least weird. I was almost a bit disappointed.

A family was so kind and let me stay in one of their spare rooms since the village had no hotel or other guest rooms. But when I reached out in one of the community apps if someone would let me stay I did get some offers.

I had no issues finding the house based on the description I got. It was a cute one-family house with a well-kept front yard, some pretty flowers, and a lawn that needed cutting maybe a week ago. The house itself had a cream color and some wood accents like the door and window frames were painted dark brown. 

I rang the doorbell and after some seconds a woman opened the door.

‚You must be Samantha! Come in, come in. Welcome!‘ she greeted me. 

I smiled and stepped in, only managing to say ‚Hello‘ before the woman shouted for the other inhabitants of the house to come and greet me.

That is how I met Heather, her husband William, and her two teenage sons Geoge and Greg. Bill Junior, her eldest son, was out, going to college. It was his room I would be staying in.

They were a lovely and completely normal family and welcomed me warmly. 

Heather insisted that I’d have a cup of tea with her before she would let me „go out and explore“ as she called it.

We were sitting at the kitchen table, each of us having a cup of warm tea in our hands.

‚So you said you are a journalist researching a story here?‘ Heather started, trying to make it sound casual. But I could clearly see her curiosity.

‚Yes. I am researching urban legends. Their origins, how they impact the people living with it, and so on.‘

‚Urban legends? I was wondering what a journalist would be researching in this boring village. Is there such a thing as an urban legend here? Maybe among the kids?‘

She seemed to really not be able to think of something I might be interested in.

‚I am here to meet the devil woman.‘

Heather didn’t answer right away. She didn’t seem to know how to react. But when she started speaking again all the easygoing casualness was gone.

‚The devil girl is not an urban legend. She is an awful human being. You should stay away from her.‘

Devil girl. She must have known her as a child. 

‚If that is the case then I will find it out.‘ I smiled, giving her my most girlish innocent smile. I might not be a child anymore, but pretending to be naive made people usually talk more.

‚You must have been confused by the name. I guess Devil Woman does sound like an urban legend. But that is just a name we gave her. She acts crazy. Screams and curses at anyone getting too close to her. Despises others, no matter what. We used to gossip about it. Surely only the devil would behave like this, we said. That is how she got that name. Just some children talking and trying to explain something they don’t understand. But the reality is, that she is just a bad person is all.‘

I nodded along and took a sip of my tea that had finally reached a nice drinking temperature.

‚I see. Maybe this story will be very short then. But still, I’ll talk to some more people, maybe there is more to it than meets the eye at first sight.‘ My experience told me, that insisting on the relevance of my investigation usually was seen in a bad way. Talking it down helped me stay in favor and might lead to more information being exposed. But this time around Heather instead switched the topic somewhat and we ended up doing some small talk instead.

After tea, I was allowed to go out. That makes it sound like Heather was controlling me, which wasn’t the case. She just had this kind of air around her that reminded me of my mum and made me feel a bit like a child in a nostalgic way.

My first destination was the house of the devil woman. I had contacted her before, and she had told me about her general dislike of people. I had to be very persistent but finally, she had agreed to try and meet me, under the condition that I would leave as soon as she would tell me to do so, even if this would be the first thing she would tell me. All I was hoping for was, that she wouldn’t tell me to leave immediately. I had also done some research and talked to psychologists and psychotherapists in preparation. None of them had ever heard of a case where someone would naturally hate almost everyone, but none of them did exclude the possibility. 

Arriving at the little house a bit outside of the village I had a look around before knocking at the door. I was able to see a little vegetable garden and the house looked well maintained with a relatively fresh coat of white paint making the dark brown wood stand out beautifully. I noticed Elle looked out behind a curtain but pretended not to have seen it. Instead, I stepped up to the door and knocked. Three short knocks followed by a pause of 2 seconds and then another knock. She told me to use this code so she would know who I was. 

In the corner of my eye, I saw her figure disappear from the window, and shortly after the door opened a little. There must be a door chain preventing it from opening further. A green eye looked through the crack and a thin high voice asked ‚Sam?‘

‚Yes. I am Sam. Nice to meet you!‘

The door closed in front of me without any other reply. She wrote that this might happen and I tried not to be disappointed. I stood there, unsure of what to do next, about to turn around when I could hear the door chain being removed and the door opened again, this time fully.

In front of me, I saw a small woman, she barely reached up to my nose and I am not especially tall. She was very slender, her limbs looking stick-like even through the baggy hoodie and pants she wore. Her skin was pale as if it hadn’t seen the sun in quite some time. The beany she wore only covered a small part of her almost ankle-long dirt blond hair. Only her emerald green eyes didn’t match her muddied color palette.

She stepped out of the door, almost pushing me away if I had not made room for her, and closed the door before I could get a good look inside.

‚Let’s go for a walk.‘ she said and it sounded like a command. She started to walk away without waiting for a reply. I hurried to walk beside her, though she had a surprisingly fast pace and I seemed to always stay one step behind. I was fascinated by her long hair flowing in the air due to the fast movement. It must be really thin to be flying like this.

I didn’t dare start the conversation, wanting to let her take the lead, afraid to scare her if I am pushing in any way.

We walked in silence for about 5 minutes, now in the middle of the forest, when she finally slowed down a bit and started to say in her quiet thin voice ‚Why did you want to meet me?‘

‚I have a blog where I…‘

‚You already wrote me that. Why did you want to meet -me-?‘

I was taken aback. No one had ever asked me that before. Most of the people I interviewed were glad that someone was trying to tell the truth, fight the lies flying around.

‚Aren’t you tired of the rumors, the stories, the teasing from the children?‘

‚I don’t really care. I dislike almost all of them anyway, why should I care what they think and say about me?‘

She stopped and turned around to look at me expectantly, her hair, flying to catch up with the motion, framing her, seemingly separating her from her surroundings. Just like she is separated from society.

I didn’t know what to answer so I just went on with another question: ‚Many everyday things must be really hard for you when you can’t interact with others. What would you like others to do or understand so life would be easier for you?‘

‚What?‘ she just replied.

‚What would help you?‘

Her eyes narrowed and she for the first time seemed to really look at me. She looked so small and childlike despite being a few years older than me. I wondered what she was thinking of me. Surely she wouldn’t have answered the door if she couldn’t at least tolerate me. I also wondered why she could tolerate me, but not many other people.

Her having decided on whatever she seemed to have thought about brought me out of my thoughts.

‚Mostly I would love to just be left alone. Also…‘ she trailed off, seemingly unsure if she should continue. 

I gave her the space, patiently waiting for her to continue.

‚You know, you are the first person in a while that I can tolerate. It is like I am allergic to people and I never found out why. But also I never wanted to be different, never wanted to be able to live among people. I am happy on my own. I don’t need you or anyone else to help me in any way. So really, what I need everyone to understand is that I am fine. Leave me alone and I am perfectly happy.‘

During her little speech, her voice slowly grew stronger. She seemed to grow and materialize, whereas before I realized now, she reminded me of a ghost.

As a response, I just nodded and said ‚I see.‘

She smiled approvingly at my response, then turned and started walking again and I followed hoping that this was what she wanted me to do. Without any more prompting from my side, she started talking. Telling me about her childhood, her parents, the move to this house, the few times she went to school. I only followed and listened.

Without realizing it, at some point, we were back at her house. We approached it and I had no idea of how long we walked or what time it was. I didn’t say more than 5 words the whole time, and I wasn’t sure Elle had heard those. I followed her up to her door. She opened it and for the first time since the confrontation she looked at me.

‚This was nice. I hope you got what you wanted. Goodbye. And thank you.‘ and with that, she closed the door in front of me, not giving me the chance to react. Her voice had gotten weaker again and her figure looked like a doll against the darkness that seemed to flood out of the door opening.

I stood there, dumbfounded.

After a while, I caught myself and walked back to the house where I had the room. Luckily Heather seemed to have gone out so I just got into the room of this teenage boy I would be sleeping in. 

In the following days, I did talk to some of the other villagers, but I more importantly visited Elle almost every day and we went on more walks and I got to know her more.

This has been not only the story of the time I went and talked to the devil woman. This has been the story of how I met my best friend for the first time.