The Forest

The forest was a magical place. It was not like a fairytale magic or anything, it's just, mystical. This is a story about little Jack and Jill. No, it's not the classical one where Jack broke his head, no, this is much much worse.
    Jack and Jill were siblings. Their father remarried a witch. Not an actual witch those, are rare. But the woman was verbally abusive to everyone. Except her husband.
    In the early November, the family was moving across the forest. It was the largest and creepiest forest. But across there was a wonderful subdivision. Plus, it had cheap real estate! Today, Jack and Jill's parents were checking out the area and left Jack and Jill alone at home. After all, they were eleven.
    It had been fourteen hours since their parents left.
    "Where do you think they are, Jack?" Jill said.
    "I do not know, Jill. Maybe we need to see where they are," Jack said.
    "Possibly, but the forest is scary I don't want to go through it."
    "But we have to, Jill, maybe they got lost. We need to help. Let's take some bread or some other food," Jack said.
    "Okay."
    So they set off in search of their parents. Going through the woods was going to be hard, the twins realized, but they needed to. Well, not their mother, they could do without her. In order to find there way back home, they left a trail of rocks. They heard of a story where they left bread crumbs! How dumb!
    At that point, Jack and Jill did not realize that they were reliving their bedtime story.
    Anyways, there were lots of pebbles, but not good enough that it would be noticeable with all the foliage. But occasionally, there were some plump rocks! They would pick them up and and set them in front of them.
    After an hour, they ended up back at home.
    "Why are we here?" Jill said.
    "I don't know! You led the way! Stupid Jill!" Jack replied, angrily.
    "Me? It's all your fault! You used tiny rocks you didn't even realize that we were walking down the same path?"
    Their parents were still not home.
    "We need to go out again," Jack said.
    "Yes. We do."

Jane and Rob loved their children. But going through the forest wasn't going to make them come back to their children. The truth was, that Jane actually loved Rob's children. But the fact that they weren't her's. She couldn't get pregnant. It has it's good pros, but it had even more cons.
Jane had always had a fiery temper. She could never let Rob know her secret. Rob's former wife, Luis walked out into the forest and never came back. But Jane knew that wasn't the whole story.
In fact witches aren't fake. She new that for a fact. Because she is a witch. She wasn't the witch who owned the forest but she was one. The truth was that Jane was the witch the one who owned the forest a long time ago and she had killed Luis to be with Rob. Jane gave up her witching way to be with Rob.
They made it to the end of the forest. Rob insisted to go around so they did.
But there was no subdivision. What? Instead there was a small sweet and petite house. It looked fake. Made out of candy. Smoke bellowed from the chimney. Someone had moved into Jane's last house.. Where the new witch lived, whoever it was.
"Shall we go inside?" Rob asked.
"Yes, we shall," Jane said, wanting to see her old home.
Jane walked inside the familiar candy cane doorway. And inside was someone she recognized. The new witch pointed at Jane and said only one word, "You!"

Jack and Jill kept wandering the forest.
They hadn't yet found their original row of stones. They guessed it was a good thing. But they had not realize that they were just went around the outer rim of the forest, then the second ring.
It was starting to get night. That's when the people get taken by the witches. Of course
that was an old myth, wasn't it? But it had been just about a full day since Jack and Jill's parents had left their cottage, and even if they were back home, it had taken hours just to get to this spot in the woods. Hours just to get half a mile inside. After all, it spanned a circumference of twenty, even thirty miles. That's the only part that had been explored. The ones who came back.
The truth was, that Jack and Jill were lost. Even with their trail of rocks, it had gotten them know where. Just in circles and circle. They should have never set off their parents. What if they got right after they left for the second time? They didn't need to think about that. They needed to focus on getting out.
Little did they know, they were just going in a spiral into the middle of the forest. Once they were there, then what? No matter what direction they went from there, they would cross with their trail. Even if they had enough rocks. Right now, they could possibly be just collecting the stones from their previous trail and was going in a really big circle. That was another thing they didn't want to think about.
This wasn't a traditional forest that has birds chirping, sun light shining in from gaps in the forest tree line. All of these trees were... christmas trees. But tall. It did not have any gaps. No matter what time of day or night, it was always dark. Always.
There were no paths, benches to picnic or camping sites. No wood chip areas just dirt. Not paved, not gravel, just dirt. It was hard to imagine how any water got down here. Did water just slide down the pines? Everyone knew not to mess with this forest. Witch or no witch, this place was scary.
But besides from dark all the time and tall trees, it seemed to be... haunted. Jack and Jill have not been in the forest for twelve hours. Which is when the horror really starts.
There was a scream.
Maybe the clock just turned to twelve.
It had.
The twins looked at each other. Horrified. It was a woman's scream, maybe their mother. But Jack and Jill didn't care about their mother. But they would never say that to her face. Never. She would kill them in ways that you couldn't imagine.
Another scream.
A woman's but different than the last. A cackle of laughter. A man's scream. Moans from ghouls and ghosts.
Jack and Jill had no idea that they weren't real. Just the ways of the forest. Making you go crazy. There was one good thing that the forest didn't do. It didn't make you see stuff. Everyone knew that. What they were seeing was real.
Jack and Jill stumbled upon a candy house. It was the first food they have had in probably ten or eleven hours, besides their bread, which their gobbled down in the first few hours of their arrival in the forest. They needed food. And it was the edge of the forest, they though, so the subdivision couldn't be far. Or was it the left side of the forest... Or maybe the edge on the side of their house... They didn't want to think about that possibility that there was none. Which was the actual case.
    The house was just like a gingerbread house. Like the one they made at Christmas time. Which would be coming soon, they realized. The doorway was outlined by two short candy canes. The door itself, was made out of salt water taffy. The roof looked like it had snow on it. But it was frosting with gum drops all along it like shingles. This still was no clearing, it had the darkness of the forest over head.
    Cotton candy rose from the wafer chimney. The yard was full of green frosting and a path lined with a chocolate bar. Ooh, chocolate. It was something from Willy Wonka's Factory! They couldn't help themselves and... dug in!
Jack and Jill realized they were greedy when they started sucking on most of the candy, when the candy cane went white, or when the sugar off the gum drops was off, and what was left was a gelatin residue, or even when the pathway of the chocolate bar was licked into one solid piece, they didn't stop. Candy was such a rarity in this era. They've never experienced the consequences--which was the stomach aches.
They heard a noise.
They froze.
The owner had come out of the house.
The woman said, "Well, well, well, I saw someone who looked just like you kids wandering this type of area. I don't usually get visitors, but I get more food that way!" What was that supposed to mean? They both wondered.
"Come inside come inside! I have more than just silly candy!" The woman looked like a witch but witches were wise not to let none witches into their home.
"But... We like candy," Jack said. This was not a witch. Thank god! Jack and Jill were secretly afraid of them. Not even each other knew.
"No, no, they'll give you tummy aches." It bothered Jack that the woman talked to them as if they were babies. Which was probably the only thing that the woman ever took care of.
"Um. Okay, just for a little while, we're actually looking for our parents," Jill said, pointing to herself and then to Jack.
"Oh! They passed by here! A while back," the woman looked pleased to see them.
"Do you mind pointing in the direction they were heading?" Jill asked.
"Oh, that way," she said pointing towards their house. That can't be right. Wouldn't they have passed them?
"Thanks. We better get on our way," Jack said.
"No, no. You should rest. You've been traveling for past twelve hours! That's when bad starts!" How'd she know? "Please. Rest"
"Okay. C'mon Jill."
    The woman lead them into her house. "Make yourself at home! I'm going to collect your rocks-- oh I mean some firewood. There's food in the fridge. I just made it today!"
She walks out.
"She seems nice," Jill said.
"Indeed. Let's dig in."