She walked away from the cherry stand and proceeded to walk back up the winding path to her house. She had almost reached the door when something caught her eye. A piece of cloth had caught on a splinter of wood by the door. The cloth was a deep blood red, and had a leaf like pattern on it. A chill went down her spine. She knew that cloth, knew whose dress it belonged to. Her heart leapt to her throat. She rushed to the door, dropping her cherries in front of the door step. She opened it slowly. The door was jammed against the frame, as though someone had tried to force it open while it was being pushed on from the inside. She opened the door and gingerly stepped on the floor board inside the door that always creaked. She stepped in something wet. She stifled a gasp of horror as she looked down at the crimson liquid now covering her sandals. Blood. Fresh, just spilled blood. Anala ran inside to her mothers room. The door was flung wide open. The interior was a mess. Clothes and furniture were strewn everywhere. The lamp was lying, smashed on the floor. She turned and ran outside. She looked around hoping to see her mother laying nearby
“Mother!” she screamed into the red sky.
There was no reply.
Her eyes searched the empty plain for any sign of life. A jackal howled in the distance. The setting sun was casting elongated shadows across the red grass. Her eyes welled with tears. First her brother and father, and now, her mother, the only family she had left, gone.
The rest of the day went by in a blur. Anala didn’t leave her room. She lay on her sleeping mat, staring at the ceiling. Her mind racing over all the possibilities. It could be a prank or a trick to throw her off her guard, but her mother was never a prankster. Her version of a prank was to hang your dead pet, upside down, outside your door when you misbehaved and laugh as you cried, And that was before her father left, and even then she only did it when she was really angry. This was no prank. This was real. Her mother was gone, she was in a house alone to fend for herself. Then again, she was always alone. Even when her mother was here, she was alone. While her mother was wasting away in her room, Anala had no choice but to live her life alone. Her best friends were empty rooms and yawning doorways.
When she had about reached the town something made her stop. “Anala….” the wind seemed to whisper. She looked around for the source of the voice, but saw no one. “Anala” said the voice again, more insistent this time. Again Anala saw no one. She turned and looked at the dark forest to her left. The sighing forest, A place for the souls of the restless, the ones that never really crossed over. The ones who chose to stay and become ghosts. These ghosts then would live in the sighing forest, occasionally coming out to terrorize people or to deliver meaningless messages. No one dared venture into the sighing forest, for those that went in never came out. The theory was that the spirits of the dead would lure you into a poisonous cloud or boiling sink hole, then they would take your spirit and make you one of them. Now as Anala looked at the forest she was reminded of all the rumors and all the disappearances that followed. She was drawn to the forest. She did not understand why, but it called to her, pulling on her loneliness, her sorrow. Wouldn’t it just be easier to let it all go? To forget everything? To leave this world of sorry behind. She slowly drifted towards the forest, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, yet her senses seemed to dull.