The Girl

• Em Canepa, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

Come closer and see.
The unembodied echo leapt through the forest. It fell quiet in the haze of mist hovering mere inches above the ground and was replaced quickly by silence. A cacophony of peace.
See into the trees.
“But what’s in the trees?”
They scanned the mass of pines, glassy eyes glazing through the veined leaves. Their pupils strained in the dim light, struggling to adjust.
Find the girl.
Frustration grew like the weeds poking out leaves from beneath the gravel under their feet. Their face, eyebrows and lips contorted.
“I can’t see the girl,” their voice spoke in thin rasps. Fingers spread over their head and latched onto their hair. Their own gnarled fingers, chewed nailbeds caked with hints of dry blood.
See into the dark.
“Is the girl in the dark?”
They turned their head and forced their gaze deep into the lines of trees. Into the dark.
Just follow your eyes.
Their eyes travelled from the lines of trunks further into the gloom. If only it were that easy to find the girl.
I hear her voice.
“But I don’t.”
Exasperation and confusion now dominant, their steps came in hefty marches. Towards the trees. Towards the dark.
Calling my name.
“I don’t hear anything.”
Their heavy feet left track marks on the crinkled leaves coating the ground. Oaks, towering and lanky, blocking what would assumedly be the moon, hung over them from all directions. A labyrinth of endless gloom.
And start to run.
Their steps came in syncopated leaps, direction angled towards the centre of the forest.
Into the trees.
But they ran out the other side of the trees, into a small clearing before them. Where the whispers had led them. Their breaths came in airy heaves as they struggled to create rhythm with their lungs.
I’m lost in a forest.
“But I’m not.”
For there, in the centre of the clearing, lay a bundle of fabric. Drab colours in aluminium and steely blues. Loose strands of cotton where tears had ripped through the seams. A small pool of liquid the colour of red cordial beneath the fabric.
They stumbled over small rocks, their bare, callused feet dragging their body along. Their knees scraped against first as their legs gave way and the rough surface of the ground. Hands fumbled with the top of the fabric and it was pulled away to reveal-
Flesh.
White sunken flesh.
A body.
The girl.