The Introduction

She went walking in the garden. The soil dried as swift as the season. The pebbles stuck to the soles of her cold feet. The frost gathered at the peaks of the mountainous dirt and dissolved in the divots. Winter was impending. It lingered long enough for the living to shelter back into its roots.

Jane Scott wore no cloak or boots. Her toes froze on the crystallized earth and her platinum plait started to frizz in the bitter winter air. Jane did not choose the absence of her cloak or boots, her mother had torn them all to pieces. Jane's mother seemed to shred all of Jane's possessions: her ribbons, her sweaters, and her notebooks. She could not keep anything from her mother.

Jane's brother had been more privileged than her. He received toys and sweaters from their mother and never had his belongings ripped or destroyed. Perhaps this was because he was younger than she, or because his modest and considerate manners kept him out of trouble. Or maybe because he did not tell the local chief of police that his father beat him and his sister and sent his father to prison for two years. No, her brother was a good boy. Jane was the one who sought this justice for her brother and abandoned her father. The loss of her father had not affected her as greatly as it did to her mother. Jane's mother's stone heart could not shed a sliver of forgiveness for Jane. This all occurred two months before the Scott's rented their cabin.

A dense curtain of forestry camouflaged the rotten cabin from the outside world. The barren branches crookedly protruded from their trunks to cast soft shadows of lightning bolts on the frost-bitten ground. The forest floor had been flawless with an untouched layer of snow that contrasted with the flaming leaves beyond. Over the skeletal canopy, the porcelain clouds dimmed with the sky as dusk melted into night. It was almost time for bed and Jane still walked in the garden watching snowflakes flutter to the ground.

Jane always questioned what was beyond their cabin.The innkeeper had warned them to never go past the trees unsupervised and that something dangerous waited for them. Jane was curious and when she passed even a millimeter into the forest, she would retreat into the protection of the cabin. She often wondered what beast dwelled in the broad forest; a bear, a fleet of foxes, or possibly even a mystical creature like a Pegasus or a Griffin. Jane had never been more wrong.