The Mystery of the Forest

Our story begins in a little village surrounded by great mountains and lush forests, in a small valley in the Aragonese Pyrenees.

It was a sunny afternoon on 31th October. Nieus and Acher were playing outside the house. Their mother was cooking a chocolate cake, her children’s and husband’s favourite.

The sun began to hide behind the mountain and dinner time was approaching. Izarbe, the mother, called her two children to come inside. She didn’t want to tell the truth, but she didn’t want her children to be out of house when night was falling. Many stories were being told throughout the valley that something dark was happening in those forests.

The family had dinner by candlelight near the heat of the fire. When the sun disappeared, the cold and the darkness came.

For dessert they enjoyed a piece of chocolate cake—the best cake that they had ever tried. It was getting late and it was time to go to sleep.

Something made Acher jump. He was disoriented. He looked around and he couldn’t see his sister anywhere. He looked through the window and saw her walking into the woods.

Nieus was almost hypnotised listening to the song that was calling her. Acher called his sister but she didn’t hear his call. Afraid, Acher left the house and began to follow her.

In the darkest part of the forest, there was a little cabin with the fireplace burning. She opened the door and saw a freshly-made cake on the table: a chocolate cake, like his mother made.

Suddenly the door closed behind her, and three old women appeared. They sat the girl, surrounded her and began to recite a kind of incantation. Slowly, these old women started to change—they were getting younger. During this incantation, Acher tried to open the door of the cabin but he couldn’t.

Once the incantation had finished, Nieus fell to the floor. The door opened abruptly and Acher appeared in the cabin and like his sister, was surrounded by these three women, now even younger.

The next morning, the parents of Nieus and Acher gathered all the people of the village to search for the children. They found the cabin but it didn’t seem like a cosy place; it seemed abandoned and inside they only found Nieus’s little teddy bear.