Have you ever been somewhere that just felt like home, despite never having been there before? It’s like the reverse effect of a haunted place - rather than immediate fear and the urge to run, you feel a warmth that emanates from all around you, reeling you in closer. If it isn’t a thing that gets haunted but a place - a stain in the fabric of time that cannot be removed - I’ve often wondered if those places that call out to us are themselves a form of haunting, but a more insidious one. A beautiful feeling to pull you in to whatever wants to keep you there, rather than the warning fear that keeps you from traditional haunted places. A ghost that has learned to disguise its intent to harm as an urge simply to keep its victims.
The woods behind Allen Park spoke to me, and I listened whenever I could make time. Something about it felt so much more welcoming than most walking paths I’d been on - endless mazes of trails to get lost in, burbling creeks, an enormous rock formation, and unbelievable amounts of interesting mushrooms for me to take photos of. I’ve always loved walking alone, completely within my own thoughts in nature, and these woods were big enough to basically guarantee I never saw another soul.
It was odd, though. I once looked up maps of the trails behind the park, and it showed a single mile-long loop. There was no figure to signify the creeks, or the rock formation. There were no winding trails spiraling out from the main one, leading far deeper than the mile of the usual trail. It had made me feel…almost proud, to know of something that mapmakers seemingly didn’t. Like only I and those who walked among the leaves before me truly knew the forest well enough to navigate it. Seeing as I’d never seen anyone else back there, it felt like I alone knew them.
The last time I entered the woods behind Allen Park felt no different than the first hundred times. I walked past the playground, through the meadow, over the large hill, and between the bushes to the trailhead. Its inaccessibility surely contributed to the lack of people in it, but to those who knew how to find it the trail was clear. It also made it all the more alluring to me - like a secret that few had discovered. The afternoon sun flowed unfiltered over my skin, only for its path to be disrupted as I entered the shade of the trees.
Walking along the main trail, nothing stood out to me that day as different from any other time, though in retrospect it may have been quieter, a few less birdcalls and chittering insects than usual. All of my walks tended to blend together in my mind, jumbled into one unbroken stroll among the trees. As I walked along the wide trail, a patch of cream-colored mushrooms caught my attention just a few steps off path. It was a variety I’d never seen before, and I felt compelled to take a picture, something I usually do when I see interesting fungi. I kneeled down to take a picture, stepping off the path for a brief moment. After getting some cool shots, I was startled by someone walking past me, nearly brushing my shoulder with her leg.
She was gaunt and tan, with her clothes hanging limp and sun-bleached from her thin body. More alarming, however, was the fact that she hadn’t seemed to notice me at all. I was used to being absolutely alone in these woods, seeing another person was jarring to begin with, but having them not even acknowledge me was downright strange. As I continued to watch her walk away, tangled hair flowing behind her, I realized that she was barefoot. It seemed a very odd choice for what seemed to be a long walk, but as she walked quickly away I realized that there was no sound of crunching leaves beneath her, no noise at all to indicate movement.
I turned back to where I’d come from, a few feet off the trail, only to find a thicket behind me blocking the way. I didn’t remember going past it to get to the mushrooms, but I put the thought to the back of my mind and continued forward, trying not to remember that the woman had also approached from behind me, seemingly from within the bush.
The air hung thick with a distinct smell that I recognized often from the forest, filling my lungs long enough to distract me from my fears. As I looked back to where the main path very well should have been, I felt a distinct thought from within me that, despite using my voice, was not my own.
“I don’t want to leave yet,” it said, emotionless and static as if it were being read by a robot.
Do you think it stands to reason that something from within you is of you? That because you have a thought, that makes it your own? I could feel the shift in inflection, the way the voice that was mine wrapped around words that were not in a way that was unnatural to my own thoughts. It even referred to me as “I”. But I knew, somehow, that the voice was not my own thoughts, because my own thoughts were of confusion and fear that the path had seemingly closed behind me.
I didn’t dwell on it long. What is there to be done with a thought that is not yours? I could not pluck it from my brain, could not decide to not hear a voice that was no longer speaking, so I chose at first to simply ignore it. The woods were, after all, my happy place. The thought of something invading that happiness, of something sinister within my own corner of the world was too much to bear.
The next person I saw was circling the banks of a creek I hadn’t seen before, with a small manmade fountain in the center. It struck me as odd – if these paths weren’t even on the map, who was the fountain for? Still, I appreciated the gentle sound of running water so much that I nearly ran into the man who stood just feet from me.
Perhaps it was the soil, dampened from the lake, that made his footfall silent. I told myself it was mere coincidence that I’d seen two people on one day, both equally as silent. He too, was lean with skin that clung loosely to his bones, tan and burnt from the sun. But he smiled at me, and I had a sudden sense of familiarity, though I couldn’t place from where. He nodded, almost sheepishly, and walked past me just the same as the woman had. As he walked away, I noticed that his clothes were worn and tattered, and his hiking boots were caked thickly with mud and leaves.
As I continued around the creek, I tried to place where I knew him from. He seemed friendly, despite being silent, but I was sure somehow that I’d never met him. Perhaps I’d seen him on a TV show? Before he’d smiled, I hadn’t recognized him at all, and I wondered grimly if I was recognizing a mugshot.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” said the voice in my head that mimicked my own. The words flowed more smoothly now, as if they were learning how to mimic my speech patterns. As if it had heard my criticisms of its bad impressions and worked swiftly to correct them. For lack of a better word, I began to refer to the thoughts that were not my own as “Other”.
The paths I usually found were nowhere to be seen. They’d been replaced, seemingly overnight, with ones that zigzagged in odd patterns, branching into each other and never leading back to the main trail. Despite feeling like I knew the forest like the back of my hand, it still managed to surprise me. At first, this revelation filled me with a fondness, as if the woods had surprised me on purpose. But as I continued the looping, spiraling patterns, I found it more and more disheartening to be truly lost in a way that I hadn’t felt since my first walk here.
To be honest, it was almost as exhilarating as it was terrifying. The feeling of not knowing what I’d find next was one that had alluded me in these woods for some time now, and I had no thought to even attempt an exit yet, not before I found where the odd paths led. I was well past the creek now, and was navigating what could’ve generously been called a hedge maze had it been more clear-cut, or at all intentional. I pushed branch after branch away from me, earning little cuts along my arm in the process of trying to get through. The distraction from the sharp stings of pain must’ve made me not hear the other person wrestling through the brush - a shock of red hair sent a shiver down my spine as I was filled with memories of the woman who stood before me.
A Halloween party my sister had thrown at age 15, inviting all her friends over for candy and games. She’d shown up in a handmade ladybug outfit and stolen the show with her craftsmanship. Two years later, I’d seen her again when my sister had a chorus concert at her school and they had sung together. She was hard to miss, in her homemade bright blue dress. My sister and her fell into a cacophony of congratulations and giggling after the concert concluded. She’d been 17. At 18, just after graduating high school, my sister told me that she’d run away with a boyfriend no one had ever met before. A week later, frantically following headlines for the police investigation. A candlelit vigil held by her weeping parents. Widespread conspiracy ranging from serial killers to alien abduction. Participating in search parties and screaming for her until my throat was raw. All this, and I couldn’t remember her name. It had been five years, after all.
She stood staring at me, looking just as I remembered her at 18 except thinner, emaciated. She’d always been skinny, but she looked damn near like a skeleton, clear recognition on her sunburnt face. The outfit she wore was barely held together, burgeoning on indecent just from sheer wear and tear. Her vibrant curls hung limp, and she too looked like she must’ve been out here for a long time.
“Hey, Noah,” she said awkwardly, as if the conversation were an odd coincidence rather than an insane fever dream.
“Hey…you know -“ I started, trying to inform her of the many search parties, of her parents. A thought ran through my mind, as clear as my own voice.
“Don’t tell. She’s happier like this,” it said plainly. I knew the thought to be not my own, and it terrified me to have a voice so well mimic my own that I could almost convince myself it was an organic thought. Almost.
“How long have you been in here?” I asked eventually, sure she’d notice the silence between my questions. If she noticed, she didn’t seem to care.
“It’s hard to tell,” she said dreamily. “Maybe an hour?”
Her clearly homemade jogging outfit was in tatters. There was mud along her pant hem and in her once gorgeous hair. She used to wear her outfits like a runway model, they had, after all, been made just for her. Her shirt looked several sizes too big, and the matching pants swallowed the tiny muscles of her legs. Jessica, I suddenly remembered her name was. Jessica, who never wore the same outfit twice.
“People are looking for you, Jess,” I told her, and all at once my head was spinning, churning within my brain that dulled every other sense. It took every effort not to grab the bushes surrounding us for support. I’d had migraines before, but this was an entirely different level of pain. It was as if my every thought were amplified and sharpened, battering relentlessly within the inside of my skull.
“Well, I won’t be much longer. Tell them I’ll only be another hour or so,” she said, still keeping the detached aura of a stranger as she walked past me. Once she was out of sight, I fell to my knees in agony, having barely held on for the conversation. I had no intention of following her. As soon as I realized this, the pain subsided, and I was left shaking on the forest floor between brambles taller than I was.
I used to be able to wander these woods and find an exit as soon as I wished, as if the trees themselves opened up to my whim. I couldn’t tell anymore if I wanted to leave. Part of me was desperate, pleading. Telling me over and over that something was deeply wrong with these woods. The other was just as loud, reminding me that this was what I had wanted. I had always felt an odd possessiveness of the forest, had always relished the fact that I alone knew it. Was this not affirmation from the woods itself that it too, wanted me?
I found myself lifting my weight up from the forest floor and continuing the path I’d been on. At first, I meant only to pace, but the brisk air felt energizing in my lungs and I found myself again wandering idly through the woods, arguing with myself. As I argued, as contradicting thoughts grew more desperate, my thoughts again felt pointed, desperate to escape. I nearly blacked out from pain, and I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t live with the battling thoughts. I desperately tried to stop thinking anything at all.
The pain ceased as quickly as it had come. I couldn’t even tell you my surroundings for those minutes that my brain was attacked from the inside. It was easy, so easy to let my thoughts be empty. It was comfortable in the forest, with the sun beating down on my skin and the floor silent and reassuring beneath me. I could still feel the wanting inside me, to leave this place. But when I held it, I was able to be much happier with just my peaceful thoughts.
I’ve seen people, in the woods that I once thought to be only inhabited by myself. Young and old, familiar and strange. I’ve had people ask me for help, had them beg for an exit that I do not wish to find. I’ve never seen Jessica again, which goes to show the vastness of the place that now feels like my home. The sun has never set, the weather has never gone cold. I don’t even think it’s rained. I’ve never been hungry or tired. None of these are cause for alarm - it’s simply the woods caring for me as I’ve cared for it. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here - at once it feels like an eternity and a moment.
I am happy, I know I am happy. The urge to leave has never gone away, but it’s quieter now, less painful. And after all, why would I leave? I have seen natural wonders beyond description, beauty incomprehensible to those who do not wander the woods behind Allen Park. I always felt as though in all my secret knowledge of the woods, I owned it. I take great comfort in knowing that it too, owns me. One day I may wish to leave this forest, but in the meantime what’s another hour in the woods?