Forest Castles・SAMPLE

Chapter II

in which i lose my way and find an untrustworthily attractive man

Right now, I figure I have two options: Move, and eventually find somewhere to be and somewhere to eat and some way to get out of here, or not move—and, you know, eventually starve to death. Having skipped breakfast, I've got a head start.

Everyone knows that the first thing you do to get your bearings is find a landmark, so I go for that first. It's difficult, mostly because everything looks the same around here—green and vaguely mossy, occasionally crawling with ladybugs. These trees are not the ones I had back at my school; I know that for sure. The ones back there were shrubby, odd-looking; they were bedraggled and bent slightly in different places.

These trees don't look like that. At least, not exactly.

A long time ago, I watched some old foreign film in a class. It was Russian, and subtitled something awful, and the whole thing seemed to be about brown-haired girls with big doe eyes running into beautiful burly men in the forest. The trees were strong, thick, and piney; you could tell that anything that tried to hurt those trees could be smothered right out of existence. Those were trees that were proud to be trees, if you know what I mean.

Well.

What I'm trying to say is that these are those trees—but off, slightly. I can't put my finger on it, but every so often I will see a shrubby tree. Or one that's bent. Or one that's losing some of its needles. It feels like a diorama of my woods made by someone who isn't sure exactly what they look like.

Once I've established that everything looks the same, I try using the moss to my advantage. You know, how it always faces North? Well, this moss doesn't, which is something I find after checking several different trees, all mossed in different directions.

So, you know. I'm going to die out here, walking into oblivion for eternity.

Strangely enough, the walking itself doesn't actually bother me. Usually I'm not one for running or jumping or exercise really whatsoever (hence photography, hence fear of not getting into college), but this is as simple as sitting down. I keep going, hoping for some change, and it doesn't feel very long at all before I get to a signpost.

RED CASTLE, it says. WHITE CASTLE. VILLAGE OF THE PINES. MOSSVILLE. MARINA'S CAMPGROUND. CARNIVAL. MAIN POND. SMALLER POOL. FLOWER TOWN.

It says all of these things, each on its own arrow, and every arrow is pointing the exact same way.

I spend a moment looking at it, anyway, because I've never heard of anywhere called MOSSVILLE and I think I kind of like it. Then again, it would be nice to meet someone as human-sounding as Marina. Or maybe I want to find out what the difference is between a pond and a pool, other than their apparent size.

"You're not a real sign, are you," I say, prodding it. It's very wooden. "You don't have any point at all. Well, I'll show you. I'm going to Red Castle."

And after taking exactly five steps in the direction of the arrow, I look to my right and there it is. Actually, it's roughly where the arrow used to be—except the arrow isn't there anymore, and now it looks like I've just walked out of a random spot in the woods. I would sit down, only my head is spinning too much to sit, so instead I focus on the nearest object, which happens to be the castle.

It is red. It's a sort of burgundy-red, with white windows, and it kind of reminds me of those photos of fog-clouded mansions people take in Maine. There are towers, too, though it's not shaped like the square wooden castle my siblings have at home. Red Castle is oddly thin-looking, and the entire front side is obscured by hedges and roses and smaller bushes of plants I can't begin to identify.