My parents have been living in our current house for about thirty-five years. I would say we lived slightly isolated from others, the closest house is ten minutes away, which isn’t that long of a distance, but it’s the best way I can express the fact that not many people live around us. Behind our house, is a large wood. My parents often took walks in it, and never have they seen the end of it, no matter how long their walk was.
Strange things have happened in the woods during my life. They didn’t happen only to me, though, stuff has happened to all my siblings — but the ones who were already teens when it first started to me were unwilling to talk much about it. I’m only starting to remember much of this now, as I grew up, they were blurry pictures, the feeling that something happened. It feels like I have to really think about what happened, and even then, nearly nothing comes to me. Everything is a jumbled mess.
The memories of the woods have been coming to me a lot lately, and I really want to find out more about them. The first memory that I’ve been able to recover lately surrounded the small lake that was located halfway into the woods — or what felt like the halfway point, it was hard to estimate in a place that felt endless. My siblings and I often played in the lake during summer, sometimes a parent joined us. The lake seemed to have been a resting spot for the locals, there was a bench on the lakeside, where the parent would often sit, just reading a book. Both of my parents were bookworms and they easily got pulled into the book’s story, so they barely paid attention to us. The lake was the best spot to have water fights, and it left us mostly unsupervised.
I was five when it first started — my siblings were also about that age themself when stuff started happening to them, too — every other night I would wake up near, sometimes even in, that lake. After falling asleep in the top bunk of the bad I shared with my twin brother Jace. After days of trying to turn a blurry picture into a full developed memory, I’m finally able to recall what exactly happened the first time this occurred.
I woke up with the feeling of cold water suddenly enveloping my head. My eyes snapped open due to the shock and barely kept myself from opening my mouth and breathing in, luckily, I didn’t, otherwise the lake’s dirty water surely would have filled up my mouth and lungs. I wasn’t fully submerged, and I noticed when I shot up into a sitting position that whatever got me here, positioned me in a way that would leave the rest of my body on the ground as my head dunked back into the water. I must have just been put there.
It took me a while to collect myself, the water hurt my eyes and though I knew it wasn’t smart I couldn’t stop myself from rubbing them. I was shivering from the cold as the water seeped from my hair to my shirt, droplets also falling and dripping on my lap. I was confused as to how I ended up in the woods when I was sure I fell asleep in bed, I must have — who would let their kid sleep by the lake? At first, I thought I was sleepwalking, but this point was later disproved.
I started my way back home as soon as I felt stable enough to walk again. Though I often walked the way from my house to the lake and back, it took me a little longer in the dark. There wasn’t a clear path that tracked the way, the trees just stood slightly more apart. I was lucky that I was put by the lake, due to the way that the memory of the path was engrained in my muscles, if I were anywhere else, I doubt that I would’ve found my way home. During my walk, I had to do my best not to run, since I knew freaking out wouldn’t help me find my way home. When I arrived at my house, all the lights were still turned off, I sighed in relieve that I hadn’t woken anyone up while I was “sleepwalking”. I pulled the door, expecting it to open up for me, my mouth contorted into a deep frown when it didn’t. The door was locked.
This confirmed that I didn’t sleepwalk. I couldn’t have, the door was obviously one that locked from the inside. Something that you should know about my family home is that we didn’t have a backyard, nor did it have a backdoor. The front door would have been my only way out, unless I sleepwalked out of my window on the second floor and ended up not injuring myself. The window was open, but even I, at five, knew this wasn’t possible.
I nearly teared up as all these things came to mind, all the facts that made my sleepwalking theory impossible, I’m sure you could imagine how scared and confused I was about the fact that I woke up some place else with no recollection of how I got there. I hurriedly pulled at the handle, hoping that it would somehow open for me. And, suddenly, it did open.
My sister Kaylee was fifteen at the time, I had an alright relationship with her. Due to the age difference, we didn’t have much in common, but when we did hang out together, we got along well, so I can’t say anything negative about her. She was the one who heard me frantically trying to pull the door open while she was going to the toilet.
“What are you doing? Why are you all wet?” she asked worriedly, her hand waving as to gesture me to come inside.
“I—” I was so confused that I could barely come up with the words I needed to describe what happened. I looked up at Kaylee and hoped she would be able to read my mind so I wouldn’t have to figure out what to say.
She looked at me, my mouth half open and my brows furrowed deeply, and I recognized the exact moment she understood. She lifted her head in a nod and let out a soft ah, then she grabbed me by my shoulder and pulled me inside, closing the door and locking it once again. She led me to the living room, her hand not leaving my shoulder. When we arrived, she gently pushed me down to sit on the couch. She crouched down in front of me with a serious look in her eyes.
“I know you’re scared. Buy you don’t have to be.” she said.
How could I not be scared? something happened that I knew should not have been able to occur, knowing all the facts. There was no reasonable explanation for it in my small mind. I was going to tell Kaylee this, but she didn’t let me interject. It was obvious something important was going to be told to me.
“It…It happened to all of us.” she told me and placed her hands on my knees, anxiously playing with the fabric of my pajamas as she thought about the right words to use. “We’ve never gotten hurt. It’ll stop eventually. I’ll promise you’ll be fine.”
“When will it stop?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But it will.” she shrugged with uncertainty in her eyes.
“Don’t tell mom or dad, they won’t do much.” she advised, stood up and left the living room.
I waited until I couldn’t hear her footsteps going up the stairs, and only then I made my own way upstairs. On my way I stopped in front of my parents’ room, I wondered if Kaylee was right when she said they wouldn’t do anything. I wondered if she even told me the truth, or that she was just lying to comfort me in the moment. I decided not to wake my parents and continued to my own room, getting in the top bunk again and tightly pulling the blanket over me. Like it would stop me from getting out of it again. On my own or not.
I did end up telling my parents, and Kaylee was right when she said they wouldn’t do anything. All they told me were basically things that I already heard from my sister. “It happens to all our kids, it’ll stop, no one gets hurt.”. My parents did think about moving, I don’t know exactly when they abandoned this idea but maybe it happened when they noticed nobody got hurt. I can’t tell you I agree with this decision, but I can understand when they started giving up on moving and saying goodbye to their house, especially after Jace and I were born. It’s not easy to find a nice house for five kids, nor is it easy to move with five kids. They love their home, and at the time they it was closest to their jobs, which they really needed.
Eventually I stopped waking up near the lake, but the rest never truly stopped until I moved away.
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