The children crowded in a corner of the room, staring at the door, their hearts racing. Shadow was in front of them, throwing a short growl once in a while. The footsteps were getting closer, accompanied by a rhythmic noise that sounded like a walking stick on the stone slabs. So it didn't come as a surprise when in front of them Mrs. Cobbs appeared. The children held their breath at her sight. Even Ferry was disturbed by the presence of that woman.

Mrs. Cobbs came closer, feeling the ground in front of her with the walking stick.

"Don't worry, children! I won't harm you..." she said in a rattling voice.

Matilda gathered the courage to speak, "Yeah, right! That's what criminals say to their victims before murdering them. But this time, it won't work. My dog, Shadow will eat you alive if you hurt us!"

The old lady gave Shadow a short, cold gaze before laughing. A burst of husky laughter that gave the children the creeps, "Oh, my dear girl, I've seen so many strange things in my life, I certainly won't get scared by your so-called dog."

Although she talked to Matilda, the old woman didn't seem to see her. The girl waved her hands right in front of her eyes, but Mrs. Cobbs didn't blink or do another gesture that would have proven she was pretending the whole time. However, her blind eyes were staring at Ferry.

Then, with hesitant steps, the old lady climbed the brick stairs and knocked on the door. Somebody opened it on the other side.

"Are you coming?" she said to the children, waiting for them at the stair top.

The children gathered in a circle; they needed an emergency meeting.

"What should we do?" asked Ben. "We could run back through the tunnel. Who knows what's waiting for us upstairs?"

"But what if somebody is waiting for us at the end of the tunnel?" said Matilda. "It's easier to escape from inside the house than through the tunnel."

"Matt's right," said Ferry, "for now, we have to follow her. And we mustn't show we're afraid."

Mrs. Cobbs was still waiting for them.

"All right, we'll come with you," said Matilda, trying to look confident, "but you can be sure our parents will search for us if we don't show up by dinnertime."

Mrs. Cobbs smiled. "You'll be home by dinnertime, you have my word. Now, follow me. We've got a lot to talk about."

The children followed her in silence. The brick stairs led to a long, dark corridor. Closed doors, behind which who knew what other secrets were being kept, were coming into sight on both sides of the corridor.

Tootsie, Mrs. Cobbs's niece, who opened the door, was now walking behind them quietly, like a soldier who was following an order.

At the end of the corridor, a tall window allowed the light to come in, a light filled with dust particles that sparkled like pixie dust.

Following Mrs. Cobbs, the children went down the stairs at the end of the hall. A large drawing room came into their sight. The room looked as coming from a long-forgotten time. They could feel a strange smell floating in the air. It wasn't the smell of dust or stale air, although the tall windows, hidden behind heavy velvet curtains, looked like they haven't been opened for years. It was the smell of old memories that time could not erase; it was the smell of regrets and pain. Like an opened wound that refused to heal.

The floor, covered with thick carpets that have lost their color, was screaking even under their light footsteps as if a cricket was hiding underneath. The old furniture, discolored and blotchy, snapped without being even touched. A big round wooden table dominated the room, surrounded by six chairs with tottering feet.

The fire was burning in the fireplace, now black because of the smoke—a sign that the cold has been taking over Mrs. Cobbs's house and refused to live it. The wallpaper had once a beautiful pattern of roses and daisies, but the colors had grown pale in time and the flower pattern looked now faded. The perfect, tomb-like silence was interrupted only by the tick-tock of the pendulum clock over the fireplace. And the only light in the room came from the fire and the candlesticks placed on the fireplace.

The couch was just as old as the mistress of the house, with a cankered backrest and the velvet cover, once green. The children barely stepped into the room, crowding one another. They avoided the small velvet stools, scattered here and there in the room as if someone was just playing. They eventually stopped in front of an old chest of drawers with a mirror which seemed like it lost its brightness and clarity for good. The chest was actually an altar where several objects were placed: a stuffed bear with a ripped open ear and a doll with a cracked porcelain face; a music box with a delicate ballerina, frozen on the top lid, doing the same pirouette over and over again; small bottles of perfume, combs, and a hairbrush with a silver handle; a vase with fresh flowers placed in the middle, the only ones to look alive among so many old memories.

And photographs. Lots of photographs in which a small girl with braids and ribbons was smiling. She was wearing old-fashioned perfect dresses, adorned with lace and flounces.

"Take a seat, children," said Mrs. Cobbs, and the children sat on the old couch at once, very close to each other. Shadow sat at their feet, then yawned and went to sleep as if he would've been sleeping in that house forever.

Tootsie, who had disappeared for a while, came back with a plate full of cookies that she placed in front of the children on the small table. The table was completely covered in scratched drawings. Ben stretched out his hand for a cookie, but Matilda slapped his hand before he could reach it.

"Don't eat that," she whispered. "Who knows what she put in those cookies..."

Mrs. Cobbs might have been blind, but not deaf. "Have a cookie," she said, "they're fresh, Tootsie just bought them from the pastry shop."

"No, thank you," said Ben, massaging his hand while giving Matilda a cold gaze.

Mrs. Cobbs sat in a wicker rocking chair in front of them, close to the fire, watching Ferry. Even Ben and Matilda observed that, and they found it particularly odd. When she talked to them, she had a staring look, just like the ones of a blind person. But when she talked to Ferry, she looked like she could really see him, observing him from head to toe.

"Are you sitting comfortably, children?" she asked with an incredibly soft voice. ''Because I'm going to tell you a story. A fairy tale... But not a nice fairy tale, the one that would put children to sleep. Not one with good fairies with sparkling wings and pixie dust. No. One with quirky and vindictive fairies that the human mind cannot understand. Just like they cannot understand us, humans.

"But there are also fairies who love humans and who look just like us, and who live among people. And there are fairies who don't even know they are really fairies..." she said, looking at Ferry in a certain way.

"But let's start with the beginning. I was born here, in this very house, over seventy years ago, the daughter of one of the wealthiest people in the area. My parents left the agitation of the city and built a house in this forgotten place, away from the noise and cold, soulless houses and streets which all looked the same.

"I won't bother you with my childhood. I was just an ordinary girl, maybe a bit more curious than other children my age; which eventually would get me into a lot of troubles. I loved wandering around, especially the hills and the forest at the edge of the village. While the villagers avoided the forest, calling it cursed and haunted by reckless and vindictive beings, I was looking for any excuse to visit it. I loved to watch it, especially at dusk, when the forest seemed alive; like a being with a will of its own, capable of making things happen. I wasn't afraid of the whispers coming from above the rustling trees, nor of the whirlwinds that surrounded me, carrying me and pushing me from behind to the heart of the forest. 

In the middle, there was a small meadow, bordered by oak, poplar, and beech trees, covered with small flowers in all colours you can imagine. It was called the Round Meadow. The villagers said cattle would not go near that place, nor would they taste the fat, green grass that was covering the meadow like the softest carpet in the entire world. It was a cursed meadow, they said. A place where, on certain days of the year, floating beings of light were dancing in circles above the ground on the most beautiful music you could ever hear. But God forbade to find out you were there, watching their magical, otherworldly dance. Those beautiful creatures were turning into the most hideous beings, ones with dark souls and a thirst for revenge. The misfortunate soul who interrupted their dance was forever cursed with all his descendants for seven generations in a row.

"But I, in my foolishness, I would not believe them. Their words seemed to me just empty words of uneducated minds. So one day, I stayed in the forest longer than the usual thinking about seeing with my own eyes if their stories were true. I hid behind a tree and waited. It was summer, and it was nice and the scent of flowers overwhelmed me I almost fell asleep.

"Then, a cheerful laughter woke me up. And there they were. Showing up out of nowhere, seven sprightly young women wearing dresses of air, beautiful like I had never seen before; they were dancing and frisking above the ground, caressed by the moonlight. They were laughing and dancing to lovely music which seemed like coming from the skies. I couldn't take my eyes away from them, constantly pinching my hand to prove myself I wasn't dreaming.

https://youtu.be/PHCPJj3KPt0

"I don't know for how long I've stayed there, lost in that vivid dream. I just know that, at some point, a leaf tickled my nose, and I sneezed. That moment, everything changed. The moon hid behind the clouds and those beings of light turned into strange creatures with dark, empty eyes while beast-like growls came out of their throats, speaking in a language I could not understand. In a blink of an eye, they were next to me, hissing unknown words in my face. Then, everything around me began to spin, faster and faster and I fell into a deep sleep. I know I had the strangest dream, one I couldn't remember even to this day.

"I woke up at the edge of the forest, scared and confused. It was dawn. Several hours have passed without me having the recollection of where I've been or what has happened. I told my story to my parents, but they wouldn't believe me. Instead, they took me to the most famous doctors in the Big City; but they couldn't figure out what happened to me. They put it all on account of my wide imagination. And soon, things went back to normal.

"But although intrigued about what had happened in that forest, I was happy the curse hasn't touched me, as the old people were saying—all the people who saw those creatures had to pay one way or another. So I believed that it was all a dream or just my vivid imagination, as the doctors said.

"But gracious heavens, I was wrong! Shortly after that strange encounter, my parents got sick and died, one after another. I was only a young girl when that happened. Then, I lost my family's fortune. This house is everything I was left with.

"When I met Nicholas, my husband, I thought my luck has changed. We fell in love at first sight and got married shortly after. Nick was a simple boy, yet a hard-working one. But when we moved to this house, everything changed. We've fought all the time, mostly because of my egocentric nature, he used to say. And the fights never stopped.

"Meanwhile, the world around changed. The old people in the village were dying while the young ones were leaving to the Big City for a better life. Nicholas also wanted to go, but I never agreed. I was feeling comfortable with my way of living which somehow gave me the illusion of security.

"Then the sawmill was built and Nick found a good job there, to my content. We lived a decent life, but our different natures were causing fights from just about anything. Not even when our little girl, Poppy, was born, the fights didn't stop. Although we loved her more than anything in the world, our quarrels were taking place right in front of her beautiful, big eyes. And when our shouts were getting louder, she would search for a place to hide, covering her ears; and she wouldn't come out until many hours later.

"Until the day she disappeared. It was evening. I don't remember the reason for that fight. I only remember Nick came from work when the quarrel began as usual, out of nothing. But this time, Poppy didn't hide inside the house. In our grimness, we didn't notice when Poppy went out of the front gate. We only realized a few hours later when it was already too late. Some villagers had seen her running towards the forest. We started looking for her that very night. Almost everyone in the village joined our search. We searched the forest inch by inch. Then, we searched the forest and the whole village. The search took weeks. But we found no trace of her presence in the forest, nor anywhere else. As if she vanished into thin air. No clothes, not even her bracelet of which she was never apart. She had a bracelet with four flower amulets, each one a present for her birthday. The fifth and last amulet she never received..." said the old lady and her eyes became flooded with tears.

The children barely breathed. Whether they believed the story or not, they felt sorry about Mrs. Cobbs; they were not afraid anymore.

"Eventually", she continued, "everyone gave up searching. They thought she was killed by the wild beasts in the forest. But I have never seen or heard any beast in that forest. Not once.

"Yet, I couldn't live with the thought of losing her. The guilt and the fact that I didn't know what happened to her were hard to bear. I lost my sleep, and I wandered day and night like a ghost, looking for her. I've become a shadow who couldn't find peace.

"And then, I thought for the first time in many, many years, about the encounter with the beings of light in the forest. What if what the old people were saying was true? What if the Unseen, as they called them, were the ones to blame for my little girl's disappearance? For there were many others to vanish in that forest long before my daughter had. What if what I've seen in that forest as a child was not my imagination? So I started to look at the world with different eyes. I met the families and friends of the ones who disappeared. Some of them gave up and refused to believe in the tall tales of simple minds as they've called the ones who believed in the strange occurrences from the Shepherd's Forest.

"But then, there were others; others who believed unexplained things and happenings are going on in this big world; things that cannot be explained, not even by the most educated or brightest minds..."

Well, I hope this chapter answered some of your questions and that the revelations are satisfying :) Thank you for reading and don't forget to vote and comment! I so want to know your thoughts :)