Forest Cursed

Tag was annoyed by being called young by a girl that looked the same age as he, and said so, never noting the significance of her knowing his name. She giggled and said; "I am the dryad of the forest here, and have been here much longer than your kind, I take the form you most desire to see." Tag was entranced and they talked for hours, she told her story, he listened raptly.

Her name was Twilight Green, and she was the forest. For Eons (Tag was not sure what an Eon was) she had embodied the forest, living, dying, and breathing with every season. Long ago, the lover of a very powerful man had died here, falling prey to a angry boar. Enraged that the dryad had not saved her, he laid a curse upon the forest. The forest would be as dead as the dryads emotions, for dryads were emotionless beings. This made the forest dank, depressing and dead. Tag vowed he would help the dryad find a way to restore her forest, and not having a family back home decided to stay with her in the forest.

Years passed, and slowly Twilight began to love Tag, and slowly the forest came to life. Tag began to love the dryad as well, and as the forest came to life, he contemplated returning to town and explaining his absence. He did not know that they had passed him off as dead years ago. No hunting party was assembled to look for the foolish boy that trekked into that haunted wood. When Tag returned one spring, the greeting he got was not what he expected. Instead of smiles and happy, familiar people, he only got fear and the hate that fear brings. They thought he was a ghoul, and chased him from the town. Faces Tag recognized were clouded by anger, hate, and fear giving them the veneer of strangers. So they treated

him, and in anger, and despair, he fled back into the forest, back into the comforting arms of Twilight.

Weeks passed, and as every day came to an end, the fearful courage of the townspeople grew stronger. It was a boiling courage, full of spirits and bravado, but it was enough to build up an expedition into the heart of the forest and destroy the ghoul of young Tag, so that his soul could rest for eternity. Tag knew nothing of this, and was out in the forest the day the villagers came, never did he see the slaughter of the woman he loved, nor did he realize what was going on until he smelled the smoke of the forest burning. If tears and anger could have put out a forest fire, it would have, such was the sorrow of young Tag. Such was the Rage, and madness of young Tag that he cursed the village, and vowed that they would never know rest, never know happiness, and never forget the injustice they did to him.

Not all fairy tales are happy, certainly not this one. It deserves the telling, for it is a true story. I live in this village now, and even generations later, it is said you can hear the wailing of anguish coming from the dank, nearly dead forest. The dead forest perseveres, long after it should be gone, as a reminder to all who can see it, to the villagers that caused it. To those that let fear live their lives and rule their hearts.