Forbidden Forest

"Mom! Johnny’s not helping me get ready for dinner!" exclaimed my sister at the top of her puny but blatant lungs.

"Yes, I am." I called upstairs to the room where my mother lay in a soundless slumber. "Would you shut-up! She’s resting, you know. She is exhausted!" I tried to whisper to my sister, Emily.

My mother worked two jobs to keep us alive. Six years had passed since the day my father died. Nobody really know how he died, but from what my mom told me, Emily the curious little girl that she was, and still is, walked into the terrifying, damp forest across the condensed street. Nobody had ever gone in there before. She walked inside and fell down a precipitous hill, luckily my dad saved her and they came out perfectly fine. However, after a week or so, he started acting weird, from what I remember. Then, a month later he just left us. I don’t know if he is deceased or still alive. Really, I prefer him dead.

As I helped Emily with dinner, she was telling me about her childish day. I love her, I really do, but I just wasn’t in a qualified mood.

"Would you shut-up! I don’t want to hear about you stupid day!" I shrieked and startled her tiny mind. That shut her up, I thought.

"What’s all that noise?" My overworked mother murmured as she came down from her slothful bed.

"Uh, nothing", Emily pronounced. I have to admit she is a cute ten-year-old. She has blonde hair, pale skin and dark ocean blue eyes.

The phone sang a customary tune. Emily and I raced for it. Of course, I got there first and knocked her over. She started crying yet stopped because she knew I would get in trouble. I didn’t look down at her nor did I care. It was my friend on the line. Without saying a word, I left her to finish the work in the kitchen.

The next day we had this extensive argument, like we usually do. However, somehow this discussion seemed divergent. Generally, she doesn’t talk much, but now it was like she was revealing to me all of her life’s problems, and connecting them with dad. It was so uncanny. I shrugged it off and went out.

That night my mother had to go to a funeral and left Emily and I alone. An inquisitive child, Emily came up to me and questioned, "What happened to daddy, John?"

"Daddy left, he’s dead. I don’t ever wanna see him again! He is gone! " I managed to wail out.

"Why?" she ventured to ask me.

"Because he hated us!"

"Your friend told me he went away in a forest or something. What?" Emily dared to ask me.

"You talk to my friends? Daddy ran after you, he saved you and I don’t know why he left. Now he is dead!" I screeched with my last breath.

"Daddy’s dead? How do you know?" She inquired.

"He just is." I said, but I really didn’t know. I just wanted him to be dead.

It was the first time I ever saw her face so aghast and full of knowledgeable questions. She then ran out of the house into the mid-fall chill.

"Where are you going?" I shouted out to the relentless winds, but she just kept running. "Fine go look for him, then." I said. I didn’t care. I just slammed the door and turned on the television and watched a movie.