by Alisson Feijoo
When I was twelve, my dad and I drove into Gathland Forest, the dark, sprawling woodland surrounding Burkittsville. To leave town, you had to pass through it as if the forest itself needed to approve your escape.
The trees stood like ancient columns, their branches thick with whispers. The air tasted cool and piney. Dust kicked up behind the wheels of our truck. Inside, tools rattled—a tangled rope, a dented bucket, muddy boots clunking against a sack of nails. The car was chaos, but it was our kind of chaos.
We didn’t need words. We spoke in shared glances, quiet nods, and half-smiles, understanding each other without saying much. That morning, my dad loaded the tools into the truck bed with that quiet, tight-jawed focus he always got when the shelves in the kitchen held more dust than food. We’d been living off rice and beans for a week, and I knew he owed the grocery man again.
He drove.
That day, someone needed a roof patched next town, but by the time we arrived, they’d canceled. The man had found his own fix. My dad took the news with a quiet nod, the lines around his eyes tightening. I saw it in the curve of his shoulders—how they dipped as if the weight of the news had bent him a little more. No work meant no money, and no money meant we’d be living off rice and beans for a while longer. We slid into the truck and headed back, the road stretching out before us, endless and quiet. As we neared the edge of the forest, I rolled down the window, the cool air rushing in like an invitation. My dad slowed the truck, and the sound of tires on gravel softened as we stopped near the tree line. The woods stood there, dark and waiting, their shadows creeping across the road like a quiet call. We glanced at each other for a moment, and then, simultaneously, we both said, “Race?”
We darted into the woods, the trees whispering above us as we disappeared into their shadowed embrace. The ground beneath our feet was soft and damp from the morning mist, and the scent of pine and earth clung to the air. The forest felt alive. We reached our tree, marked with an X carved into its trunk. My fingers brushed over the groove without thinking. My dad met my eyes. “First one back to the truck wins!” he shouted, already running. And with that, the forest swallowed us up again.
I pushed off the earth. My lungs burned as I ran, gravel crunching beneath my shoes. Then I heard it—a sharp whistle, close and unsettling. I froze.
The whistle came again, this time behind me, then ahead, then behind once more. It danced with me, weaving in and out, reading my fear.
Firm and sudden hands gripped my shoulders. My dad pulled me to him, turning me around to face him. His firm hands squeezed my cheeks, and he looked straight into my eyes. “Stay with me,” he said, voice low and urgent. “Do not listen. That thing is not human.”
~~~~~
Everyone knows about the forest entities near our town. Burkittsville is ringed by them like a secret kept too long hidden in plain sight. People murmur their presence in hushed tones but never dare say their names aloud. They pretend not to believe, but still, they make offerings: braiding flowers a certain way or hanging salt at the doors. On Sundays, they file into church, trying to keep their demons in order, then wander into the woods like fireflies chasing the heat that will scorch their wings, hands still smelling of tears and prayers. The women with long, flowing hair move through town like something sacred, their strands tucked neatly behind their ears, held in place by practiced hands. Hair like that was more than beauty—it was protection, a quiet badge of purity and belonging.
Eddie was my best friend for as long as I can remember. I told him about the Whistler, the thing that coiled its sound around my neck like cold fingers. He hated that story. Eddie was a soft soul—skittish, tender. Loud noises like slammed doors startled him. He’d flinch when someone raised their voice too quickly and get nervous if asked direct questions. I noticed his bruises—faded yellows and purples blooming under his sleeves. He always tugged his shirt back so fast if I ever saw them. He also carried a mark on his cheek—four deep lines, jagged and extremely long. He never said much about how he got it. When I asked, his gaze would drift past me, locking onto something far off—something only he could see. His jaw would clench like he was trying to bite back the memory. “It wasn’t human,” he said once, voice barely above a breath. He paused after that, eyes wide and blank, like the world had gone silent around him. “It was like…a nightmare in slow motion,” he murmured. Then his hands would start to shake. He would blink—once, twice—like he was waking up from a trance, and then he would turn away, pretending he had not said anything. I stopped asking after that. After all, in this town, we all had our stories.
Cassie was the kind of beauty that turned heads and fueled whispers. Her long brunette hair, glossy and unruly, cascaded in waves down her back—too perfect, too striking for this town. I never spoke to her face to face, but the day she disappeared, I felt bad for all of the things people said about her. Cassie vanished one evening just as the sun bled out behind the trees. Some said she ran off with a lover from the next town, leaving her husband behind “like all pretty faces do,” they whispered. They murmured about the shouting and how, night after night, her husband’s voice rose in anger loud enough to rattle windowpanes. No one ever knocked or asked. Others said the forest claimed her for what she had done—punished her for running, for leaving her husband behind. Some whispered she had made a deal with the entities, and they had granted her a gift too sharp for human hands.
After she was gone, her name turned sour in people’s mouths. Mothers crossed themselves when they passed her old porch. Girls weren’t allowed to talk about Cassie out loud. And the men would go around saying, “That’s what happens when you give a woman too much freedom.”
My father never spoke of these entities, and we never actually talked about these things happening in town. But if pressed, he would rather talk about the entities than mention my mother. That silence was louder than any answer.
Alicia was another name people whispered like a curse. She was a flash of fire, with short red hair that seemed to catch the light in a way that made her look like she was always on fire. Her clothes were an eccentric blend of colors and fabrics, always mismatched. Alicia is the kind of woman the town never forgave for being too much—too loud, too clever, too free. When I was little, I only knew her as the lady Dad brought firewood to. But as I got older, the stories grew louder. Some said she acted strange. She challenged men in ways that made them uncomfortable. They said she looked men in the eye too long, her words got under your skin like they carried a spell, and she could twist your thoughts with a sentence. That was enough for them to call her dangerous and demonic, but truthfully, I would not know what to say about that.
My first interaction with Alicia was when I was ten. One winter afternoon, I slipped on the ice behind the old post office. The wind had knocked over the crates, and I had tried to pick them up just to feel useful. My boots caught on something slick, and I fell hard—hit the back of my head and blinked up at a sky that wouldn’t stop spinning. Alicia was there before I even cried out. She wrapped her scarf around my hand, which was bleeding from a cut I hadn’t noticed, and held my head in her lap, whispering in a sweet voice I’d only ever heard in dreams—steady, warm, real.
“You’re alright, sweety,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
And she did. That was all.
Eddie and I became something more than friends in the soft hush of late nights and slow afternoons of fall. He was like a kitten I kept under my ribs—fragile, warm, needing shelter. We talked for hours about dreams stitched with escape, about leaving Burkittsville behind and finding a place where the trees did not whisper back. I wanted to get out. Not just of the town, but of its spell—the way it clung to your skin, the way people vanished without a sound. I begged my father to leave with me, but he only shook his head, rooted like the old trees he worked beside, and eyes fixed on the horizon like he was listening to something I could not hear.
Eddie and I had a quiet, beautiful year. And then, one morning, he was gone. No note, no goodbye. He left the town, his mother, his little sister, and me.
We had not fought. We had been dreaming. I do not know if those dreams carried him away or if the forest finally called him back. My chest cracked the day he left. My hands began to tremble and never really stopped. Sleep became something I remembered but could not reclaim. I found myself walking the edge of the woods, staring into the dark green, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, or at least the shadow of his decision.
Some nights, I think I hear the Whistler again. And I wonder if Eddie ever really escaped or if he was taken.
~~~~~
The years after Eddie bled into darkness. I became obsessed—with the forest, with the things that lived in it, with the shape Eddie had vanished into. Nightmares followed me like shadows: Eddie’s hollow eyes, a voice whispering my name, and my own hands soaked in blood as I stumbled through the woods. I would wake gasping, sure I had been there.
I tried to live a normal life. Worked the farm. Stayed within the town’s borders. But after Eddie disappeared, everything felt different. The streets felt narrower, the air heavier. People’s eyes followed me, sharp and hungry, like they were picking me apart.
Sometimes, I’d hear their words catch in the wind: “She cursed him with her dishonesty. How could she do that before marriage?” or “She’s not pure anymore.”
It stuck to me, their whispers, like a stain on my skin I couldn’t scrub off. I’d walk with my head down, my body tight, trying to ignore the weight of their judgment pressing into my back. I had loved Eddie, had given him everything I had.
My father and I, once close, drifted like leaves on opposite streams. He grew rigid and religious. Every Sunday, he dragged me to church, where he cried silently beneath the crucifix, mouthing words to a god we never used to speak to.
Then Trevor came.
Sweet smile. Gentle voice. Kindness that glowed. He felt like a fresh breath in the rot. For the first time, I thought I could stay in Burkittsville, but only if it meant staying with him. I wanted him completely. I needed him to see me and make me feel like I was worth something again. I dreamed of him constantly—sunlit walks, holding hands, or stranger visions where he was a bunny, soft and trembling in my arms. I liked those dreams. I liked him small. I liked him mine. I liked him vulnerable. I didn’t know if love spells existed, but I was sure that if they did, Trevor had put one on me. My obsession for Trevor bloomed. I followed him some nights, desperate to decode the silence between us. And one night, as I stood at the edge of the woods, thinking of him, I remembered Eddie. It hit me like a whisper behind my ear: Eddie was still out there.
I had so many questions. No one really talked about the forest. Then an idea hit me—Alicia. People said she was the only one who ever escaped its spell. Others said she was mad, maybe even one of them now. Still, I had to know.
At dawn, I crept through town unseen. As I neared her house, the door opened. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “For a long time.” Her words made me flinch, but she held my gaze. “Aren’t you curious, Lu? How can I help?”
She invited me in. I asked to talk behind the bushes instead. She smiled. “However you want, beauty.”
We found a spot. She looked at me and said, “You’ve been claimed by the Whistler. He’s not letting go.”
I stayed silent, heart racing.
“If you want Trevor, you can ask the Whistler. He’ll answer… but it might not be what you want. Do it only if you really want him.”
I blinked, trying to find words.
“If you go,” she added, “take a rabbit, red ribbon laced on one of his ears, a basket of fruit, and don’t forget your beautiful hair.”
I stayed silent, heart pounding, but her voice didn’t waver. She stepped closer and, with a look in her eyes, reached out, brushing a stray lock of hair from my face. “It’s not too late, Lu,” she murmured. “There’s so much more to you than you think you need. Think about that.” Before I could answer, she wrapped her arms around me, the hug tight and warm.
After that, she left me there.
It sounded ridiculous. But with each passing day, Alicia’s words pressed heavier on me. I wanted to laugh it off, but something in me felt drawn to it. A few days later, I found myself preparing the offering—each item more absurd than the last. And yet, it felt strangely comforting, like I was meant to do this. Before I knew it, my feet carried me deep into the trees.
The day I went to see the Whistler, I woke up early and packed everything Alicia had told me to bring. I stepped into the forest, unsure if I truly wanted an answer—or just silence. I walked deeper than ever before and waited.
Hours passed. I held the bunny to my chest, petting it softly when I heard that known whistle. It wasn’t quite human. It was like someone trying to mimic a person but failing. Instead of
soothing, it set my heart racing, an instinctual jolt that screamed danger. At first, I thought it was my imagination. But then the bunny whistled back. Every animal in the forest turned to look at me—their eyes unsettling and still. That cold breeze touched my neck, and I froze.
I knelt, placed the bunny on the ground, and covered my eyes. The whistling grew louder, then came the voice—thin, almost human, but wrong. It echoed from everywhere.
“Trevor, huh? Why him?”
I could not speak. Fear held me still.
Then, “Should I eat the bunny… or not?”
I begged, “Please do not hurt me.”
“Oh? So you do not care about the bunny?” it teased. “You or the bunny—choose.”
“Me,” I said, my voice cracking.
Laughter followed. I felt it close—right beside me, smelling like rot.
“You can have both,” it said. “But I’ll keep the essence of your hair. Deal?”
The words it spoke echoed in my head, swirling like a storm, suffocating the air around me. My chest tightened, my breath shallow. I could feel the air around me, thick and heavy, pressing in on my lungs. My heartbeat pounded in my throat, drowning out all sense of space and time. Then the voice—sharp, cruel—repeated its offer, and the world folded in on itself.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
My knees buckled, and before I could stop myself, I was falling. The last thing I heard was the sound of my name, faint and distant, and then—nothing.
I woke at home, Trevor and my father leaning over me. My father said Trevor found me crumpled on the porch, like a letter the wind had tried to carry away.
I could not explain it. But Trevor was beside me, and so was the bunny.
~~~~~
At first, it felt like a miracle. Trevor and I became inseparable. Then he changed. Possessive. Jealous. His love turned sharp.
One afternoon, we were walking through the market when I laughed—just a small, polite smile at something a stranger said. A harmless moment. But beside me, Trevor froze. His hand crushed mine. His whole body tightened like a wire pulled too tight.
I turned to him, and for a second—I swear—his eyes weren’t his. They were wild, unseeing like something had unhinged behind them.
Before I could speak, he lunged. He struck the man so fast, so violently, it was like watching a storm collapse from the sky. The man crumpled, blood already pouring from his face. It took six men to drag Trevor off him.
We lived together then, but I felt like a fish in a glass tank—surrounded by water but gasping. Trapped by my own desires, unable to remember what freedom felt like. I should have left that day. But I didn’t Instead, I learned how to tiptoe through each day, careful with my words and careful with my eyes. At first, I told myself it was love. That maybe I was the one who had to soften, who had to make it work. But the walls began to hum with fear. The air thickened with his moods. I stopped smiling at strangers, I stopped breathing freely, and most importantly, I stopped seeing Dad.
I missed my father more than I would care to admit. Every day, the silence between us stretched further, the walls between us growing higher, taller. One afternoon, feeling a surge of defiance and longing, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I slipped out of the house without a word, the door creaking as I pushed it open and stepped into the cool air, my heart racing in my chest. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I needed to find him. I needed to hear his voice again.
I didn’t get far.
Before I knew it, Trevor was there, blocking my path. His face was hard, eyes narrowed like a hawk spotting its prey. His gaze pierced through me, and the ground beneath my feet seemed to buckle with the weight of his presence. “Where are you going, Lu?” he demanded, voice low, simmering with fury.
I tried to dodge him, to slip past, but his hand shot out, grabbing my arm in a vice-like grip. His hand tightened on my arm, pulling me toward the forest. His words came faster now, thick with venom. “So, you think you can just disappear? You think you’re free from me, free from everything I’ve done for you? You don’t know how lucky you are, Lu.”
I stumbled, trying to break free, but he was relentless, dragging me deeper into the shadows where the trees grew thick, pressing in on all sides. With each step we took into the woods, I could feel the weight of his anger. I wanted to scream, to escape, but my body betrayed me, each footstep dragging me closer to the unknown.
“Do you think I won’t make you pay for this?” His voice cracked, raw and desperate. He stopped abruptly, turning to face me. His eyes, wild with rage, locked onto mine. “You’re going to regret this.”
I said nothing. My heart pounded harder, my chest tightening.
Then, just as the silence stretched too long and the trees seemed to close in around us, something inside me snapped. It wasn’t anger, not entirely. It was the sharp, cold realization that I had lost myself somewhere along the way.
I fought back, lunging toward him, the pulse in my veins beating faster than the fear that had gripped me.
Trevor stumbled back, surprised by my sudden aggression—then the crack of his skull against a stone.
Blood bloomed beneath his head, soaking the moss. I dropped to my knees, hands shaking, pressing my dress to the wound like that could undo what I had done. “Trevor,” I whispered over and over. He did not answer.
I ran through trees that whispered my name like a warning. Then I saw it—the bunny that had started it all. The red ribbon was now tied around its neck and soaked in blood. It lay limp in the underbrush, and the air around me turned sharp with the metallic sting of something dead, something wrong. The smell clung to my skin, thick and inescapable. I kept running, barefoot and breathless, toward home. My home. Next to Dad.
And there, just like before, our telepathy worked. As soon as I stepped out of the woods, there stood my father—arms crossed, eyes already knowing.
I collapsed into his arms. The only safe place left. And for the first time in years, I felt peace.
My dad squeezed my cheeks, his eyes steady as I shook in his hands. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said, his voice a calm anchor. “You’re going to be okay.”
He took me home, his presence a steady anchor in the chaos swirling around me. He found new clothes for me, something simple, something that wouldn’t remind me of what happened. We burned everything—the remnants of my blood-soaked clothes, the memories that clung to me like oil.
He searched for Trevor, but by the time he went into the forest, all he found was the bunny, its fur matted with blood, its eyes hollow. We burned that too, until the ashes scattered into the wind.
Months have passed. Trevor’s family suspects me, whispers in the town talk of the “truth” they think they know, but they can’t prove anything. A few have said that when the Whistler calls you, he always finds a way to you. I don’t know if that was the last time I interacted with him, but I fear it’s not.
When I look at the horizon now, I hear his whistle. Sometimes, I hear Trevor’s voice, faint and distant, calling my name. They know what I did. And they will come for me one day.
