The Ogre of the Forest
That’s what it was called, or at least, what I remember it being called. Not a video game or a movie, not even a book - a museum exhibit. Of all the things to be scarred by. Sure, kids are gullible and easily scared, me being the worst offender, but there’s something that sounds particularly lame about being so scared of a museum exhibit.
Well, perhaps exhibit isn’t the right term. And it’s not like I was shocked by an anatomy doll or a stuffed animal with bulging eyes. It was a yearly thing, I’m quite sure of it. This museum in downtown Trois-Rivières had a rotation going on on their second floor, which was entirely devoted to larger, more involved exhibits, most of which were aimed at kids. The first floor was a bore; big, open and empty. All I remember seeing there was a spinning-wheel propped up in the middle of the back room.
But upstairs… oh, that’s where things got interesting. A massive chunk of their building was dedicated to them, to these large, immersive set-pieces. You could almost describe them as playgrounds, because they were so expansive and intricately designed. Works of art into themselves, really. But this one exhibit marked me as a kid.
It was a school trip, I must’ve been 7 at the time. We got to the museum, an employee there had a little speech, and then we were let loose, two whole classes unleashed upon this weird maze. Because that’s what it was. I don’t remember what the exterior looked like, but once you were inside, it was like you stepped into a deep forest, a forest way thicker and older than anything you’d find in the province.
Fake leaves hovered above these narrow paths; the ground was entirely made of creaky old wood, and sometimes fake, large trunks. The illusion worked well, on a kid like me at least, since I remember not wanting to touch the walls, for fear of falling deeper into this forest. The first room we came across was circular, with a projector screen on one side, and a table on the other. On this table were some dishes, with a half-eaten plastic steak that I remember the class bully trying to steal - the only lighthearted memory I have from this trip.
The projector showed a short film, entirely in black and white, shot and presented like an actual documentary. A deep voice narrated over a slideshow of old photographs. Now, the memories are a bit fuzzy, but from what I remember, it talked about an ogre living in a forest, maybe in the early 1900’s, who tormented the nearby village. All this, the narrator specified, took place in Quebec, maybe even in Mauricie, where we lived.
They showed a photo of two little girls smiling at the camera, holding hands. An eerie music started to play. There already were bird and insect noises in the background of the forest, and deep rumbling now and then, which became even worse when this ominous orchestral part set in, screeching strings and drums, if I recall correctly. The next photo was that of a forest. Innocuous onto itself, but it was still creepy. It was shot from afar, on a hill. Nobody in sight, overcast sky, and all we could see from the forest was utter darkness in-between the tall pine trees. The narrator then mentioned a “tragedy”.
I don’t remember the rest of the film, but by that point, I was deeply unsettled, even if surrounded by my classmates. I wouldn’t be surrounded by them for much longer though, because from that point on, multiple paths through the forest were offered, and we had to find the one leading us out through the second entrance of the exhibit. Naturally, I wanted to stick with my closest friends, but they all went through different paths, and by the time I’d made my decision, they were all deep into the forest, so I scrambled behind.
Very little of this maze I actually remember. It was narrow, like I said, with plenty of steps, inclines and smaller rooms. The ominous music kept playing in the back, quieter but still there, and by that point there also were occasional growls. There were a handful of fog machines and green lights behind walls of leaves, and I also recall hearing a loud heart-beat in one section of the maze.
The only other room I remember was one I entered alone. There were weird drawings on the walls, and there was a large, open book on a table. All of its pages were identical, the same scribbled phrase: “The Ogre is coming”. Needless to say, I didn’t linger. I made my way through the maze as fast as I could but, interestingly, I didn’t exit through the second entrance, how we were meant to. Somehow, in my panic and confusion, I went through a loop and ran back through the beginning without even realizing, and I exited the same way we entered.
There were already plenty of kids gathered around our teachers; we were right about to leave. I wasn’t the last to come out, thankfully. My front neighbor, a boy one year above me, came out from the second entrance not long after me. He seemed pretty blasé about the whole thing as he walked through this weird curtain that was hanging above this entrance. He came to me and, with a smirk, asked me if “it” had chased me.
Confused, I asked him what he was talking about. He just told me that there was “something” that would crawl out and come after you. In fact, he said it was right after the second entrance, this thing would come out of the branches and come for you. Now, in hindsight, this seems obvious; he was just messing with me. But by and large, he was one of the few kids on the trip to look this relaxed and nonchalant; all the others, even the older ones, had this look on their face.
They weren’t shaking in their boots or crying, no one was injured or even bruised. But they were awfully quiet. Their eyes were dim, they all avoided looking back at the façade of the exhibit, especially the second entrance, where a bit of fog came out from under the curtain, and where the still-playing audio track came out the loudest. I did not dare take a peek through the second entrance. And yet I wish I did, if only to see what that “thing” was.
Because there was definitely something; my neighbor wasn’t just making it up. And maybe seeing it for myself would’ve appeased me in some way. But to this day, I’m still not sure exactly what it was. I talked to some of my friends on the way back to school. There were a few conflicting accounts, from what few I could gather, because even after the dust settled, my friends still changed the subject every time I brought it up.
It wasn’t the ogre. The ogre was said to be pretty massive, whereas this was always described as rather small. It had gray skin and it crawled on all four. That’s all I could figure out about it. My imagination ran wild with this, and for a month or two I often had nightmares about it, or rather, different interpretations of whatever it was. These nightmares were so bad they woke me up, made me jump from my bed and run all the way upstairs to my parents’ room, where I would crawl onto their beds in tears. Not just sobbing either - I was crying my eyes out.
And yet, all I remember my mother doing was just caressing me as I sat on the edge of the bed, before she told me to go back downstairs. And so I did. I eventually got over it, thankfully, and I was even able to go back to the museum a while after. I was still apprehensive when going there, even if I had no intention of going back into the forest. My cousin was having her birthday party there, for some odd reason, and there was no way I would refuse cake.
My fears were put at ease as soon as I entered; I looked up to the second floor balcony, and it was now a completely different exhibit taking the place of the forest. I didn’t go on the second floor anyway, I stayed down, ate some cake, and spent a long, boring while waiting for my mother to arrive at the end.
Years later, well into my teenage years, I was suddenly reminded of this whole mess. I asked my mom about it, and while she vaguely recalled my trip to the museum, she was extremely confused when I described how I had nightmares about it. She doesn’t remember me ever going through this.
And today, I was also reminded of it, for no reason in particular at that. I’m guessing it’s just a weight I have to get off my shoulders. It’s not much of a scar on my psyche, it’s just an odd and troubling thing I wanted to share. I’m a young adult now, living in Lévis, far from that museum and all those friends I haven’t seen or talked to in more than a decade. I’ve checked ever so briefly online, and it’s clear that this exhibit is long-gone and isn’t likely to return. I still don’t know what was in that awful maze, but maybe someone else will figure it out eventually. Still, I’m happy I could write this down; this is more than enough for me.