The house was nestled snugly at the base of the valley. There the trees crowd closely around the grounds, holding in the creeping fog and drifting wood smoke. In the pre-dawn light a pair of small brown eyes watched the house, unmoving, blinking from time to time, and they in turn were watched.

Peter’s breath condensed on the inside of his bedroom window, obscuring his view of the grass and trees below, the small greenhouse, and the old groundskeepers’ cottage, ruined and disused now, and overrun with creepers. He rubbed his eyes, doubting now that he had seen anything. The pocket watch on his bedside table showed 5 a.m. There was plenty of unpacking to be done later in the day, but for the moment he would much rather sleep.

His mother felt at home in that large house. It was her ancestral home, dating back past World Wars and Civil Wars; and though she had grown up in the city she had summered there every year until she had married his father. His father would no doubt have loved the place. He would have treasured the hidden corners and spaces that had not seen the light of day for years. Then again, if his father was still alive they would never have moved here in the first place. His sense of honour had been too strong to let his family rely on his wife’s inheritance, and a man of his nature couldn’t support a family in the country. As it was, Peter had rarely been far from the hustle and bustle of the city – and never for long. The spaces between the trees seemed dark and sinister, yet they called to something within him long hidden. The dusty rooms, filled with vast tracts of space held an air of expectancy. It was almost as though the house had been waiting for them – waiting for their feet to track prints through the thick layers of dust, and eventually for their hands to make everything clean again.

By their second evening in the house they had staked out a space for themselves in the wilderness of empty rooms. The fire in the grate played its light over the newly dusted surfaces. The kitchen benches gleamed black and white in lamplight and moonlight. The copper veins of the ancient refrigerator lay dormant – the electricity wouldn’t be connected until the following morning, bringing with it that background hum that seemed so absent in the flickering stillness. Upstairs their bedrooms were the only rooms fully unpacked – their possessions looking strangely at home in the foreign surroundings. Everywhere else the corners were stacked high with cardboard boxes – knickknacks and furniture and things they didn’t really need but could hardly throw away.

“I’m picking grandma up from the train station this morning,” his mother said at the breakfast table the next morning. “You could have slept in, you know. You are on holidays, after all.”
“There are still a lot of boxes to be unpacked,” he shrugged.
“Leave them, Peter. Take a walk or something instead. We did hire a housekeeper for a reason; besides, everything important is already unpacked.”
“Okay.”
“Good,” she smiled as she stacked the dishes on the sink. “I’ll be a few hours. I have to run some errands while I’m in town.”

Outside the mist had been burnt away by the rays of the morning sun. The tumbled stonework of the back patio was losing ground to the creeping weeds and the long grass that formed a verge before the first trees. Peter picked his way carefully across the battlefield and crossed to the tree line. He glanced over his shoulder at is bedroom window. Here was the spot he had seen the eyes the previous morning. Or thought he had. The only thing for certain was that there was nothing here now. Nothing but what may or may not have been a track leading away between the trees. He checked his pocket watch and, with the ignorant innocence of someone who had never been alone in the wilderness, set off down the path. Soon the twists and turns had hidden the house from view and the trees surrounded him. At least the track seemed to know which way he was headed, and which way led back home.

After what seemed like hours, though his watch protested, the track led to a forest glade, and there she was. She sat, cross-legged, dressed in a white nightgown from her neck to her ankles. Unmoving, she was, like a mushroom amongst the leaf litter. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed locked in concentration. For a moment the trees seemed to lean in, menacing. A frown flashed across her features, then she visibly relaxed, and her green eyes flickered open. The trees shrank back.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“No one,” he replied, regretting it instantly. “My name is Peter.”
A look (Relief? Disappointment?) flickered on her face, and she sighed, “That’s a very ordinary name. I’m Emily.”
He considered protesting but changed his mind, asking instead “What are you doing?”
“Trying to be somewhere else.”
“Is it working?”
“Obviously not,” she huffed, clambering to her feet.
The sound of a snapping branch echoed through the trees, and she gasped, spinning all about. Peter noticed the dirt and dead leaves clinging to her nightgown where she had been sitting on it. He opened his mouth to tell her, but at that moment there was the almighty sound of something crashing through the undergrowth.
She gasped again, and hissed, “They mustn’t find me!”
The sound was closer now, and the trees once more seemed to close in. Peter turned in the direction of the disturbance as a small white doe burst from between the trees and landed in the clearing, feet skittering to a halt on the loose dirt. There was silence for the space of a heartbeat, perhaps two, as Peter and the creature locked brown eyes. Then, the spell broken, it turned and was gone. Peter breathed a sigh of relief then span back around. The glade was empty. He was alone.

2004