Welcome to the Playground.
A few months ago, I created a video story titled “Two Shadows,” and ever since then, I’ve been itching to continue it. So here it is.
I sense there is a thread connecting this to other stories I’ve written in the past. Maybe Jessica and the supernatural entities her family encounters are part of a larger narrative.
I’ll list the other stories I’m thinking of.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.
When the crying began, I was basking in the glow of the stove. Behind its glass door, the fire crackled softly, with each flicker pulling another memory from the weekend. Mountain pines filtered sunlight through their branches on the hiking trail. The cold shock of river water around our ankles. Daniel laughing with my brother over a smoking barbecue while the children chased one another between the cabins. It should have been the perfect holiday. Yet one memory refused to enter the firelight. Cold and separate from the rest, it lingered at the edge of my mind no matter how hard I tried to leave it behind.
My heart skipped a beat every time I remembered. The picnic had been laid out in a clearing halfway up the mountain. Jessica wanted to pick yellow flowers towards the treeline, so Daniel let her wander. I knew I should have said something, but once an eight-year-old’s mind is made up, arguing doesn’t accomplish much. Besides, we were all tired. Somewhere between a ham sandwich and pouring tea, I remember seeing my daughter standing between tree pillars, admiring her sun-drenched hair. Then she was gone. I almost died in that instant. Daniel, for his part, reacted before I did. One second, he was sitting beside me, the next, he was crashing through the undergrowth, screaming her name. “Jessica!”
It still gave me shivers to think about it. I couldn’t move. I just stared at the flowers she had dropped on the ground. Tiny petals scattered across the dirt. Somehow, that felt worse than anything else. People helped us search. My brother’s family. Other hikers. The forest swallowed every shout.
When we finally found her, she was sitting beneath a pine tree nearly half a mile from the trail. Perfectly calm. Perfectly unharmed.
“I went to pick the yellow flowers.”
“With who?” She looked back into the trees. The pause that followed had lasted only a second.
Yet it still haunts me.
Daniel muted the television and sat upright. “Did you hear that, Helen?” I looked up from the fire. The crying from somewhere in the cabin came again. Soft. Frustrated. Too close that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the sounds sooner. For a second, neither of us moved. Then the front door rattled, like someone was trying the handle. The metallic sound scraped through the cabin. Daniel was already on his feet. Search parties had a way of changing a person. Ever since Jessica vanished on the mountain trail, he reacted to every little emergency as though it were happening again. The room was dark except for shifting strobes of commercials across the television. Shadows stretched across the floorboards as we stepped into the hallway.
The crying stopped, but the handle shook a little harder this time. Daniel reached the door first, and although I could see fear in his face, determination won. When he flicked on the porch light, the hallway filled with an otherworldly light. He peered through the peephole and froze.
“What the—” Daniel said. My own confusion was reflected in his expression. He didn’t answer my question immediately, but for several long seconds he simply stared. Then, before I spoke again, he unlocked the door, pulling it open. Our daughter stood on the other side of the door. I couldn’t believe it. Her cheeks were wet, with the glimmering moonlight in the tracks they had left across her face.
“Jessica!” I hurried forward before I could think, embracing her in a way only a mother can. “What are you doing?” She was cold, and white.The expression on her face made her seem much younger than eight. She looked sheepishly up at me, arms behind her back, as though she was the one who should be asking questions. “You were already lost once today?”
“Mom! I’m sorry. I just couldn’t open the door.” The words broke apart into another sob, and in the darkness, she seemed much older than eight. With that, my concerns melted away. Knowing she was safe was all that mattered. So, I knelt beside her.
But it was Daniel who remained unconvinced. Watching us. Thinking. He stepped forward to brush her hair, checking for injury. “Sweetheart, why are you outside?”
“I wasn’t outside.”
The answer stopped me cold. It made no sense. She rubbed her eyes.
“But the cabin was locked.” Daniel exchanged a glance with me. “Jessica,” he said as gently as he could. “How did you get out and around to the porch?”
She ignored the question.
“It’s my promise to her.”
The way she said it made my stomach tighten, but I suppressed it. I had to.
Promise. The word carried weight in our family. Daniel and I had always taught her one thing. A promise mattered. A promise was something you kept, even when it was difficult. Especially when it was difficult. I guess children take lessons like that seriously, sometimes more seriously than adults who make them.
“What did you promise?” Daniel asked with eyes narrowing, like he was afraid of the answer.
Jessica’s lower lip trembled, but I knew she was brave. She’d never lie to us. “To help her.”
“Help who?”
“The woman from the forest.”
Silence settled over the porch. I felt Daniel stiffen beside me, and I guess I mirrored him. He repeated Jessica’s answer, slowly.
Our daughter nodded. A faint smile appeared through her tears. But it somehow frightened me more than the crying. “She’s very nice. All she wants to do is show me where the beautiful yellow flowers are.” An uncomfortable feeling settled in my stomach. The same feeling I’d experienced hours ago when Jessica looked back into the trees after being found. We waited for the punchline. For the explanation that would make sense of everything. Or if Jessica was having one of her bad dreams, it certainly felt like a bad dream to me.
But none came.
"Jessica," I said carefully, "when did you meet her?"
“Where is she now?” Daniel asked, overriding my question. Jessica pointed past us, toward the darkness of the forest.
“Out there. I’m sorry, but she’s afraid of adults.” The forest stood silent beneath the porch light. Pine trees swayed gently in the night breeze. Beyond the edge of the clearing, darkness swallowed everything else. Daniel stepped past Jessica and onto the porch.
“Helen, stay here with Jessica,” Daniel said nothing more as I watched him descend the wooden steps. He pulled out his phone to activate the flashlight, and it swept across the clearing.
Nothing.
The light moved between the trees.
Nothing.
“Hello?” he called out. Soon, I could barely make out his fading silhouette.
Still, no answer.
Nothing but the distant rustling of foliage being trampled underfoot came back to the cabin. It faded fast as he walked farther out. The light slipped through the trunks like a searching eye.
Nothing.
We waited for several agonizing minutes. Jessica’s face crumpled as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “No,” she whispered.
“Sweetheart—”
“I promised.” The words came out broken or desperate, as though she had failed something important. Her promise. I gathered her into my arms, and we walked inside. In the hallway, her small body shook against mine.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.” She buried her face into my shoulder.
“She’ll be lonely out there. I promised she could come, too.” For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. For the first time, I looked at her, a pale white face, almost colorless, and at watery eyes that hadn’t stopped leaking. Then I noticed the floor. I found myself looking down at the shadow that was elongating towards the open door.
And a second shadow stretched along beside it.
As I stared, Jessica stirred against my shoulder. Somewhere beyond the doorway, a distant pine creaked beyond the cabin.
“Jessica-?”
Neither of us moved.
