I saw it for the first time when I was nine years old. It happened that we were on our way to the beach for a vacation, and I was stuck in the back seat alone, tired but too annoyed, in my infantile way, to fall asleep. My moms talked quietly sometimes from up front, though mostly they said nothing, to me or to each other.

​

Night was falling at home, and as we drove further and further away from town, it became impossible to read the book I had brought with me. Eventually, I had to give up because I simply could not see, no matter how stubbornly I imagined I could. I closed the book gently and set it down beside me, and then I huffed with indignation. Why hadn’t we left for the beach earlier? It wasn’t my fault we were running late! And now I couldn’t read the whole time (like they’d promised I could!) because it was too dark. I was furious with my parents. I swore to myself then that I would never make promises like that when I grew up.

​

I looked down at my now empty lap, the moon almost full and shining bright through the window on my right. I glared at my book on the seat next to me. I huffed again, for good measure. If my parents heard me, they didn’t show it. In that moment, I felt like I could blow the car apart with the force of my rage. My face was hot and my fists clenched, and I furrowed my eyebrows as much as any one girl could furrow. How. Dare. They!

​

Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. Something massive and dark. I whipped my head toward the window and opened my eyes wide, searching through the darkness to find what I had seen. All I saw was the black forest in the distance, and that wasn’t moving at all except for how we were passing it. What was that? I wondered. It had almost looked like some kind of animal, and it certainly moved like one. But how could an animal be that big and disappear? I closed my eyes hard, trying to remember the split-second flash and refresh my eyes at the same time. I forced myself to breathe in slowly, twice, and then out. My anger had dissipated and was now replaced by confusion. When I opened my eyes again, I moved closer to the window and looked out into the night. I still saw nothing but the sprawling forest and the night sky, the moon hanging conspiratorially just above. I looked a moment longer, and when I still saw no movement, I let out a small sigh and moved away from the window. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing, out of boredom or exhaustion, I couldn’t say.

​

My mom said something up front that sounded like “Full moon is tomorrow”, and Mum gave a mild “Hmm” in reply. Then it was quiet again.

​

I leaned my head back on the seat, tilting my face up towards the roof of the car. I knew the forest went on practically forever, so it would be a while before there was anything new to see. I closed my eyes again and thought I might go to sleep.

​

“Cass?” Mom called from the driver’s seat. I groaned, my anger coming back to me quickly.

​

“What?” Of course she had to wake me up. I never got any peace while they were around.

​

She paused briefly, hearing the attitude in my tone. “You know, you should probably just try to get some sleep. It’s too dark to read.”

​

“That’s what I was just doing, mother, until you interrupted me.” I only called her mother when I was really mad. Unfortunately, she knew that.

​

“Someone’s cranky,” Mum chimed in before she could say anything.

I scoffed with all the venom I could muster.

​

“Listen, little miss, there’s no reason to get so upset right at the beginning of our vacation. I thought you were excited to go to the beach?” Mom was skilled in the art of misdirection.

​

“I never said that,” I whispered, mostly because I knew she hated when I did that.

“What?”

“I said, ‘I NEVER SAID THAT’!” I practically roared at her. She deserved it.

“Cassandra Aileen—" She started to yell too, but Mum stopped her.

“Renée, I think we’re all a little tired. It’s only another two hours or so. Can’t we all just get along? I’m fine with silence if it means we’re not fighting the whole way there. Cass, do you think you can do that?”

I only huffed at her. I hated it when she tried to lecture me from the rearview mirror. At least turn around and look at me if you’re going to tell me what to do.

She turned around. “Cassandra? I would hate to have to cancel the entire vacation just because you decided to have a bad attitude. You owe your mother an apology.”

I almost exploded right there. Me? Owe her an apology? What planet were they from? I briefly considered opening the door and jumping out into the night. We weren’t that far from the house, yet. I could probably get there walking before midnight and then they could go on their stupid vacation by themselves.

​

But just as my eyes flicked to the door, I saw it again. The beast was completely black, so dark and shapeless it looked like it was made from the night itself. It was running, almost galloping, and it was fast. In just that instant, it turned its face (if you could call it that – it was nearly impossible to tell where the face started and the rest of its gigantic form ended) to look at me and smiled. Then it was gone again. I was thoroughly shaken. It had looked right at me. It looked right at me. How did it know? What in the world was that thing?

​

“Cassandra.” Mum repeated, pulling me back to the mess inside the car.

“Mum, did you see that?” I asked her, anxious and a little out of breath.

“See what, Cass? I said you owe your mother an apology.”

Of course she wouldn’t listen to me. I don’t know what I expected.

​

I had bigger problems now, though. I tried to make sure my memory of that creature was solid. What had it looked like? How did it move? The harder I thought about it, the more the image slipped away from me.

​

“Sorry, Mom,” I muttered without a hint of enthusiasm. That was all she was going to get from me tonight.

Mom sighed and moved her hands on the wheel. Mum turned back around to face toward the windshield.

“Fine, Cassandra, if that’s how you want to play it. When we get there, it’s straight to bed with you. No reading. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow morning.”

​

Whatever. As long as it gets them to leave me alone. The car was deadly silent again, but it didn’t bother me. I spent the entire rest of the night casting my eye ever-so-subtly towards the window, hoping to see the creature once more. It never appeared. Eventually, we passed the interminable forest and the land flattened out. At that point I succumbed to sleep. When I regained some consciousness, I noticed the car had come to a stop, and then the door on my left opened. Someone slid their arms under me gently and picked me up, cradling me close against their body while I kept my eyes mostly shut. I felt the most delectable hint of satisfaction, knowing that one of my moms was being forced to carry me after I had gotten away with barely apologizing. After a moment, the arms slid me into a bed, pulling the blankets up over me. I heard her straighten herself up and sigh softly. Then she left the room, shutting the door behind her, and I grinned a little, just to myself in the cool darkness. I could hear the distant waves through the window across the room, and as I finally fell asleep for the night, I wondered if the creature could find me here. Maybe it only lived in the forest. Where was it going?

​

Those days we were at the beach I looked for the creature everywhere. I wondered if it lived in the shadows, too, or just in the darkness of night. After the first few days of shadow hunting, I decided I should probably give up that hypothesis. I had seen it at night, hadn’t I? Why would it be around during the day? Instead, I stayed up three nights in a row trying to catch a glimpse of it. I hadn’t even touched the book I brought, and I had wasted almost the entire week already. On the fourth day, just as the morning rays began to break the darkness, I completely passed out from exhaustion.

​

In my dream, I went into the forest near home and a huge black dog was waiting for me at the edge of the trees. It wagged its tail excitedly at me, but stayed put until I reached where it was sitting. I reached my hand out to pet its head, but it barked and dashed into the forest like a lightning bolt.

​

Wait! I thought, and tried to run. At least, I thought I was trying. Nothing changed, and when I looked down at my body, I was standing still, facing the forest but not going in. I could hear the dog barking, and I knew it was getting farther away.

​

Suddenly I felt like crying. Why wouldn’t it wait for me? I thought we were going together! I was still stuck here, pinned to the ground outside, and unable to go in. Didn’t the dog know I was stuck? Why wouldn’t it wait for me?

​

When I woke up, my face was wet with tears.

​

​

I remember spending the remainder of that week trying to forget about that dog. We drove home from the beach in the day time, and when we passed the forest again, I didn’t even think to look out the window. I buried my head in my book, and before I knew it, we were back home again.

It wasn’t for another five years that I saw the creature again, and this time, I wasn’t alone.

​

My best friend Keba had been begging me all day at school to go over to her house that afternoon. Her dad worked during the day and her grandmother hardly ever came downstairs, so she mostly had the house to herself after school. It was autumn, and dusk fell early, and we wanted desperately to watch scary movies to frighten ourselves to death. My moms hardly ever let me watch horror movies, and definitely not without them. Keba said her dad had a few in the garage, and she knew he wouldn’t get too upset if he caught us watching. Keba’s dad, Adham, was quiet and hardworking. I knew she spent more time with her grandmother than she did with him, but I also knew she loved him a lot. He wasn’t a very strict parent, though Keba said before her mom died he was a lot more involved. She had died when Keba was only six, and since then, her dad had worked really hard to keep the family together. I didn’t know how old her grandmother was, but the three times I had seen her, she’d looked a different age every time.

​

The first time, she seemed like a regular grandma, maybe between sixty and seventy. Her hair was dark gray with thick streaks of white, and piled loosely atop her head in a bun. Her face was dark and wrinkled, but in her eyes, she looked just like Keba. She walked upright, but she used a heavy wooden cane, and as she paced the floor in her room where we sat, it thumped loudly against the floorboards. I wondered why I hadn’t heard it before when I was downstairs.

​

The second time I saw her, it was only for an instant, but I swear it wasn’t the same woman. For one thing, she was tiny and hunched. Her back had a hump in it like some kind of cartoon character, and the dress she wore was all black, dusty and lined with lace. Her hair was completely white, not a single gray hair in sight, and it flowed all the way down her back in waves. She didn’t carry the cane anymore, and she looked ancient. I didn’t get to see her face. When she was gone from my vision, I whispered to Keba. “Who was that?”

She looked at me funny. “That was my grandmother. You’ve seen her before, remember?”

“Yeah, but last time…” I trailed off. I tried to remember what was different about her this time. The harder I concentrated, the less I could figure it out.

“Last time what?”

“Nothing,” I murmured, still looking up the stairs after her. The door was shut and no sound came from inside. “I guess I just forgot what she looked like.”

​

The third time was that evening, but I had no idea that I would be seeing her when I arrived at Keba’s that afternoon. My moms had allowed me to go, on the pretense that Keba’s dad would be home the whole time and that it was a Friday, which meant no school the next day. They made me promise not to stay up too late and to be back tomorrow morning and to be extra nice to the adults. I said what I had to and high-tailed it out of there. Keba waited for me at the front gate, and when I re-emerged from the door and smiled at her, she jumped with excitement.

​

“Yes!” she squealed. “Oh, this is going to be so fun! We can stay up super late and get scared out of our minds! I’m so excited!”

​

It was hard not to share her enthusiasm. I didn’t bother trying. We giggled and jumped excitedly the whole way back to her house. I think that was the fastest I had ever walked.

​

When she opened the door, the house was very quiet, but it was a comfortable silence. We wouldn’t be frightened by it until later. For now, it just meant no parents, no rules, and the possibility of the best night ever.

​

Keba quickly set about making us some snacks, and I went to the garage to retrieve the movies. I was looking forward to watching them tonight, not only because they were forbidden gems in my house and I was getting to watch them with my best friend, but also because the Saidovs’ TV was better than ours. They hardly used it, so it seemed like a waste to me, but at least I got to take advantage of it whenever I came over. I rifled through the small stack, trying to decide which one to take inside. I quickly gave up and just grabbed them all. We had a long night ahead of us; seven movies in a row didn’t seem like a stretch. I was delighted by their titles; things like “Nightmares Beware” and “Will You Die With Me, My Dear?” that filled the mind with all sorts of delicious horror and gore.

​

The sun had already begun to set by the time I got back into the main part of the house. The smell of popcorn wafted in from the kitchen, and I could hear Keba pouring it into a bowl.

​

“I couldn’t decide where to start, so I just grabbed all of them!” I called out to her from in front of the TV.

“That’s cool! I know I wanna watch that one with the werewolf on the cover first!” she yelled back.

​

I looked through the stack in my arms and found the one she was talking about. The title read “Creatures of the Night” in creepy black script. Sure enough, what appeared to be a werewolf howled in front of a gigantic yellow moon surrounded by a dark forest on the cover. I took the disc out of its case and put it into the player, turning on the TV with the remote nearby.

​

I skipped the previews and selected play at the main menu, then put it quickly on pause to wait for Keba. Soon she came in with two bowls of popcorn in her hands. She handed one to me and we settled in on the couch.

As the movie unfolded before us, the sky outside grew darker and darker. A pale yellow moon rose above us. Keba’s house was closer to the outside of town than mine, and I could see the edge of the forest from her back window. In preparation for the scarefest, we had pulled all the curtains closed and soon it was pitch black in the house. The only light came from the TV screen, and the only sounds were the howling and gorey violence in the movie and the occasional shifting of our bodies on the couch. Not the slightest noise came from upstairs. When “Creatures of the Night” was done, I pulled myself up from the couch and chose another movie from the stack. I picked the one that looked the most adult to me: it was called “The Haunted”, and the cover showed only an old house, with dark windows and a gray sky behind it. Keba had gotten up to take the empty bowls to the kitchen.

​

“Do you want anything to drink?” she called out.

“What do you have?”

“We have water, orange juice, and coffee. Not a great selection, I know.”

“I’ll just have water, thanks,” I told her. The menu screen for “The Haunted” came up. There had been creepy music for the last movie’s menu, but this time it was just a weird and ominous ringing. I pressed play quickly and it stopped. I hit pause again.

​

Once she was back, I pressed play, and in we went. This one was definitely more adult, and way scarier too. In some ways, the house reminded me of my own, and I really didn’t like that. Luckily for me, Keba seemed just as scared as I was, and when the credits rolled, I heard her let out a sigh of relief.

​

“Do you…maybe wanna turn the lights on?” I asked quietly.

She turned to look at me.

“Maybe one. Not too many though. I’m not that scared,” came her meek reply.

I moved to the closest lamp and switched it on. Immediately the room felt safer. It had seemed like there was an eternity of space behind us there on the couch, all too easy for some possessed creature to sneak up behind us and attack. Now I saw it was just a few feet of empty space.

​

Keba rose from her spot on the couch and crossed to the front door. She shot a glance at me and looked outside through the small windowed portion. Then she turned the bolt and pulled the door open towards her. The night air came through and I saw it ruffle her long hair slightly.

I walked over to her and she stepped outside. As we stood on the walkway in front of her house, I looked up and tried to find the moon. When I did, I pointed to it and said, “Look!” softly to Keba.

​

It was more than half full that night and it stood still high above the forest line, like it was guarding the place. The night air was cool but not too cold, and a slow, sweet breeze passed over us. I could hear the sounds of the forest in the near distance: birds whistling to one another, crickets chirping, the occasional cracking movement of the trees and their branches. It was incredibly peaceful.

Keba let out a small whistle beside me. “Nice night, huh?”

“No kidding.”

I shivered just a little, remembering some of the more unsettling scenes from the movie we had just finished. Next to me, Keba rubbed her arms like she was cold. She turned and walked back inside, leaving me out there on the stone path. I stood still for a few moments, looking up at the moon and listening to the forest, thinking, feeling like there was something I had forgotten and ought to remember. Soon, Keba came back and was pulling on a sweater. She had another in her hands, and she offered it to me. I shook my head, but I took it from her anyway.

​

“You know, sometimes I wonder if there’s something in that forest,” she said suddenly.

I turned to her. “What?”

“I mean, I’ve lived in this house my whole life and I’ve never been in those woods. They’re practically in my yard.”

I didn’t say anything to her. I looked back at the dark trees.

​

“Don’t tell anyone this,” she whispered, “but at night sometimes I think I see something moving in there. Something big. I’ve only seen it a few times, but I know it’s there. At least, I think it is. My dad doesn’t really believe me. He says he does, but I can tell he thinks it’s just my imagination. But I’ve seen it. I know I have!” She was a little out of breath.

My eyes were wide, staring at her.

​

“What?” she demanded. “I’m not crazy, okay! I remember my grandmother telling me stories when I was little about this thing called ilohiy zulmat and I think that might be—”

I cut her off. “You’ve seen that thing too?”

“What?”

“I saw… something in those woods a couple years ago when my parents and I were on our way to the beach. I could never explain it, but it… it was like some kind of animal, but big. Bigger than any animal I’ve ever even heard of, and it was so dark. It looked like it was almost made of the darkness. I tried to ask Mum if she’d seen it but she was mad at me and thought I just wasn’t listening to her. But I know I saw something. I remember it now. It was looking at me! I think…I think it…smiled at me.”

Now it was Keba’s turn to gawk.

“You mean to tell me you’ve seen it too?” I asked her.

She nodded slowly. “Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and come downstairs to get some fresh air, and when I move to go back inside, I can see it…moving… out there in the forest. But then when I turn to get a better look, it’s gone.”

I reached out to hug her and pulled her in fast. We held each other as tightly as we could. She hissed in my ear, her voice terrified, “What in the world is it?”

“I don’t know,” I answered back. “I’m just glad I’m not crazy.”

​

She squeezed me with her arms. After a while we let go.

​

I gave one last look toward the moon and the trees, and then I walked back into the house. Keba followed. When we were both inside, she closed the door behind us and carefully turned the lock.

I looked at the TV, now playing a little screensaver while it waited for us.

“Do you… want to pick the next movie?” My voice was tentative. I cleared my throat, and then, a little braver, said, “I’ll get us some refills.” I picked up our two glasses and went to the kitchen. We both had emptied our waters and I filled them up from the pitcher inside the fridge. When I walked back into the living room, I almost dropped them both.

​

There was a woman standing in the hallway, talking to Keba. She was very tall and still, and I would almost have thought her a statue, but for the way she moved her hands while she talked. She wore a long flowing robe with a train that extended behind her. She spoke softly and with a thick accent I couldn’t place right away. Then I realized it wasn’t an accent I was hearing, it was another language entirely. I saw Keba notice me behind them with the glasses in my hands and the woman turned to look at me. Her face was recklessly beautiful. Her dark hair was braided elegantly and in an incredibly intricate style, and there wasn’t a single wrinkle anywhere to be seen on her skin. She clasped her hands in front of her and gave me a polite smile.

“Cassandra,” she said, and suddenly I realized my mouth was hanging open. I shut it. “It is very nice to see you again.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, and definitely with an accent. I managed a smile, though I didn’t have a clue why she would be saying that to me, or how she knew my name. See me again? I had never seen this woman in my life. She turned her attention back to Keba. Moving her hand to place it on my friend’s shoulder, the sleeve of her silvery robe shimmered. She said something to her that I couldn’t understand and Keba nodded. Then the woman moved toward the staircase and started to climb. She looked back at me once more just before she vanished and though her eyes were kind, they were black as night and gave me no answers. I heard the door upstairs close and then I felt Keba take her glass from me.

​

“I picked out the next one. It’s called 'Welcome to Dead University: School’s Back in Session'. I bet it’s so cheesy. Just what we need. My grandmother said she thinks my dad will be home around eleven. That gives us plenty of time to finish this one before he gets home.” Her tone was awfully casual, considering a strange woman I’d never seen before had broken into her house and spoken to her in a foreign language. And she was still upstairs!

​

“Keba, who was that woman?” I demanded.

“What?”

“That lady! She said something to you and then she just went upstairs! How did she get in? Who is she?”

My anxiety was becoming heightened. I started thinking that we might have to run, but where? Into the forest? No way. Back to my house? We could, but what if the woman chased us? Who knew how fast she could move? I wasn’t exactly an Olympic sprinter. I doubted we’d make it in time.

​

“Cass, what’s wrong with you?” Keba furrowed her brow at me.

“What’s wrong with me? You just let some random lady in your house!”

“Some random lady?” she repeated, clearly confused.

“Yes, that woman who was just here! You talked to her! She said all those weird things and then she knew my name somehow?”

“She’s not some random lady!” Keba snapped. “That’s my grandmother!”

“What? There is no way that woman is your grandmother! She looked like some kind of… I don’t know, fairy ambassador or something!”

“What do you mean? She’s just a regular old woman!” Keba cried.

I almost laughed. Nothing about that woman looked “regular” to me.

“She lives here, weirdo. You’ve met her several times. I don’t know what your problem is!”

​

My problem? What was going on here? I huffed and stormed into the living room, leaving her behind me. I walked over to the front door and almost reached to turn the lock, but then I changed my mind. What would my parents say if I came back now? I was supposed to be spending the night. And they would be especially mad if they found out I walked there alone, at night. Even though it wasn’t that far, it was far enough. I dropped my hand back to my side.

​

“Cass?” I heard Keba say.

“I think… maybe these movies are getting to me or something. I don’t know. Maybe we should just go to sleep.”

“I mean, if you want…” She sounded disappointed, but she didn’t push it.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I’m kinda tired.”

“Okay,” she responded. “Come on then.” She moved toward the stairs. I walked behind her, and when we reached the top, she knocked on the first door to the right. “Good night, buvi,” she called softly. I heard whoever was inside say something back, but I couldn’t understand what it was.

I followed her then to her room, and saw that she had set up sleeping bags for both of us on the floor. I went to the bathroom down the hall to brush my teeth, and when I got back, she was gone. I heard her footsteps coming back up the stairs behind me.

“I went to turn off the light. And I brought you your water,” she explained.

“Thank you.”

I took the cup from her and set it beside my spot on the floor. Then I laid down and pulled the cover of the sleeping bag on top of me. As I rolled onto my side, facing the window in her room, and closed my eyes, I heard her settle down in the place beside me.

“Good night, Cass,” she whispered.

“Good night, Keba,” I returned.

​

It wasn’t long before I was asleep. Maybe I really had been tired. Unfortunately for me, it was a fitful, uncomfortable slumber, and suddenly I was awake again. I could see a bright light shining through the curtains on the window, and it was right in my eyes. I groaned and turned to get away from it, expecting to see Keba still sleeping in her bag. It was empty. I pushed myself up onto my elbow, and then stood, becoming more awake. I looked around her room and found her. She was sitting completely still on the edge of her bed, staring out of the window with eyes like saucers. Even in the darkness, I could tell something was wrong.

​

“Keba?” I croaked, my voice still immobilized from sleep. She turned her head to look at me, and I noticed how silent the house was, how eerie. The dead of night, a little voice in my head muttered.

“Cass,” she said, her voice low and grave. “I saw it again. Just now. Outside the window.”

I froze. “Out there?” I pointed to the window. She nodded.

I moved closer to the light and stretched my hand out to move the curtain.

“Cass, don’t!” she whimpered.

​

I hesitated. I was afraid too, but for some reason, I needed to look. It hadn’t harmed me before, right? It just… smiled. Besides, it probably couldn’t even get in. It was simply too big. Its head alone was twice as big as Keba’s entire house. I took a controlled breath in, and exhaled, steadying myself. Then I threw the curtain aside (looking back, I wonder why I thought I needed to move it so quickly – to surprise the creature, maybe?). I saw nothing except what had always been there: the dark forest, and the bright moon glowing above it. I pushed the curtain further aside, so that Keba might be able to see from where she sat. I heard her get up and come over.

​

“But—but it was just there! I definitely saw it. It looked like it was moving in circles, like dog chasing its own tail or something. But it’s gone now!”

“I believe you,” I told her. “It disappeared twice the first time I saw it a few years ago. It was like it wouldn’t let me look directly at it or something. Maybe it knows we’re watching.”

​

Maybe that was exactly it, I thought. Maybe in order to see it, you couldn’t look right at it – you had to catch it somehow out of the corner of your eye! But then… how could we prove it? Sit there and try not to look at the forest until we saw it somehow? That sounded ridiculous, and impossible.

​

“Keba, I think we can only see it if we’re not looking for it. It’s like it’s playing some kind of game with us.”

She looked concerned, but she nodded. “That makes sense, I think. At least, as much sense as any of this can make. I saw it this time when I was looking out the window into the front garden. Suddenly I caught it moving, and there it was. But now it’s gone again. Maybe we should keep watch, or not-watch, and see if we can catch it again!”

“I think that’s a good idea. I don’t think I can sleep now anyways. I’m too wound up.” She murmured in agreement.

​

We both climbed onto the low bookshelf in front of her window and tied the curtains back with a string, fixing them to the side so our view would be uninterrupted. Together we looked out into the night, trying to constantly shift our eyes away from the forest, hoping to glimpse the uncanny beast once more.

​

We sat there for a long time; hours, or maybe minutes, but we saw nothing. I’ll never know how long it was until I felt myself drifting back to sleep. Soon I was unconscious, and I found myself trapped in another dream. I was at the edge of the forest again. I could hear the dog barking within. I worried briefly that I would not be able to move, like the last time I was here, but when I tried to lift my leg to step forward, I found that this time I could. Tentatively, I moved to enter the forest. I was granted passage, and as soon as I was within the forest line, everything around me became unnaturally still.

Anxiety coursed through my veins; had I suddenly lost my hearing all together? The silence was all-encompassing—too full, too heavy, and almost painful. My head felt like it was going to explode. All around me, the dark forest had changed into one of blinding light. Everywhere I looked, it hurt my eyes to see. I had expected it would be darker within the trees, but it was entirely the opposite. I kept my gaze moving, hoping that eventually I would land on something dimmer to look at. No such luck. Everywhere, my eardrums were too full of the quiet and my eyes too strained by the light. I could feel myself sinking to the ground and my anxiety worsened to the point of nausea. When I could almost bear it no more, I started awake, only to find Keba blinking herself awake to look at me opposite her on the shelf. I was breathing hard, and she looked just as scared and uncomfortable as I felt. I forced myself to steady my breathing.

​

“Keba, are you alright?” I asked when I could finally speak.

She swallowed hard.

“I just had a terrible dream,” she said. “I guess we both fell asleep.”

“I guess so. I had a bad dream too.” I put my hands to my ears and felt them a little, and then I tried popping them with a yawn. I could tell they still worked, because I could hear what Keba had said to me, but I still felt queasy and ill at ease from the nightmare.

​

“What did you see in yours?” Her voice was so small. I wondered if she might cry.

“I… I was at the edge of the forest,” I began slowly. She was watching me curiously. It was dark in her room, but I thought her eyes looked almost bloodshot. “There was a dog. It was barking inside the forest and I wanted to catch up to it, but when I stepped in, I couldn’t see anything. It was so bright and the silence was deafening. It was awful.” I choked a little on my words. A lump had formed in my throat.

“That’s just like mine,” Keba whispered. “Only, I don’t think it was a dog. It sounded like something else. A cat, maybe. I didn’t recognize the sound, and I didn’t get to see the animal, so I can’t say for sure.” She paused. “But the lights… It was painful to open my eyes in there. I’ve never had a dream like that before. It was so… real.” She stared at me for a moment, then rubbed her eyes.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I told her. “But I don’t feel good. I’m…” I looked out the window. I couldn’t see the moon above the forest anymore. Maybe it was setting already. “I’m afraid, Keba,” I whispered, turning back to face her.

“I’m afraid too, Cass.” She moved closer to me on the shelf. We hugged each other tight for the second time that evening, and I didn’t know what to say. “But at least we have each other, right?” Her voice was muffled a little by my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I answered.

I heard her sniffle. I sighed.

​

Then I saw something move. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it moving outside.

​

“Keba,” I hissed, letting go of her. “I think it’s out there again!”

She looked straight at me and I did the same, but we both were secretly looking out the window. If someone had come into her room at that moment, they would have thought us insane. We appeared to be staring wide-eyed at each other, frozen like marble.

​

And with good reason: I could see the creature in the darkness, moving with unnatural speed like I’d seen it before. Its body was at least the size of the entire forest, and forged of the same impenetrable darkness. It kept changing shape; sometimes it had defined legs and I could see them running like a dog, or a horse, and other times it moved like water encased in shadow. If it was an animal at all, I could spend my entire life trying to figure out which one it was, and I would always be both right and completely wrong.

​

Suddenly, it stopped moving. Its face (or at least what I decided was its face, due to the occasional appearance of eyes and a mouth on it) turned toward us in the room. I heard Keba gasp. I resisted the urge to cry out myself.

​

The eyes, sometimes two, sometimes eight, or a hundred, twinkled and shone out of the darkness. The mouth spread slowly into something that looked like a smile.

Unnerving and unfamiliar as it was, it didn’t quite scare me. Even though I couldn’t face it directly, I couldn’t find the malice in its face, and it seemed to me like the creature meant us no harm.

I could tell Keba had stopped breathing beside me and I took a moment to restart my own airflow. In an instant, the beast was moving again, galloping the length of the forest, but somehow in place. I saw it raise its unnatural mouth to howl like a wolf, but I heard nothing.

My eyes began to burn from the strain of watching the thing out of the corner of my eye and refusing to blink. I didn’t want to close them, since I didn’t know if the creature would disappear again once I did. A few more seconds I held out, and then I couldn’t take it anymore. When I opened my eyes again, Keba was pinned to the window, her eyes searching and scanning the night outside.

​

“It’s gone!” she cried. “I blinked for a second and it’s gone again!” She moved back to look at me. “What was that? It was like… nothing I’ve ever seen! It looked kind of like an animal, but I couldn’t figure out what kind of animal it was because it kept changing. Cass, what was that thing?! Did you see it smile at us?”

I nodded. “Yes, I saw that. I definitely saw it. I don’t know what it is either, but now we know it’s definitely real and it definitely knows we were watching it.”

“I don’t know if that comforting or even more terrifying,” she said.

“Me neither,” I admitted. After a brief pause, I added, “But I don’t think it wants to hurt us, somehow. Like when it smiled, it seemed like it was genuinely being… friendly? I don’t know if that’s the right word. But at least, something that big could definitely have killed us. It didn’t even try to come through the window at us. Maybe it’s a nice creature?”

“Or maybe it’s stuck in there,” Keba said gravely. “Maybe the only reason it didn’t charge us was because it can’t leave the forest. That would explain why we’ve only been able to see it there.”

​

That did make sense. Maybe that was why I could never find it those nights at the beach. Perhaps it was tied to the woods outside of town. If that was the case, what did we do next? What else lived in those trees?

​

I remembered my nightmare and winced. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into the forest and find out. If it had hurt that much to enter in my dream, could pain like that kill me in real life?

​

This was nonsense. Sure, the creature was real, but maybe it was only real to us. To kids. Nobody. Who would believe us? I thought of my parents. What would they say?

And furthermore, why did what we just saw mean that anything else could be in that forest? It had been there for decades, centuries, even, and I’d never even heard one story about it. There was no reason to believe anything magical or strange was going on inside. Be logical. Be rational. Get real, Cassandra.

​

“I think we should just go back to sleep,” I grumbled, my mood suddenly soured. All this talk of shape-shifting creatures and dark and treacherous forests had worn me out again.

“What?”

I crawled back down to the floor and into my sleeping bag. I didn’t answer her.

“Cass, that was real! What’s wrong with you? We have to do something!” Keba’s whisper was growing louder and more desperate.

I sat up and scowled at her in the darkness. “Do what?” I demanded. “What is it you think we can do about all this, Keba? I bet the grownups won’t even believe us! They’ll say we’re crazy, or hallucinating. And what about the forest? We can’t go in there! I don’t know about you, but for me that nightmare hurt really, really bad. That doesn’t exactly make me want to go running into the real thing.” There was bitterness in my voice now, and Keba looked wounded. I felt bad for shouting at her. She was my best friend, after all. We were all we had.

​

“Look, Keba,” I began again after letting out a sigh. “I’m sorry. I believe in what we saw tonight, and I’m glad I’m not alone anymore. But I just don’t think there’s anything we can do. We’re too young.”

She closed her eyes and sat so still she looked like she was frozen in the dim light from the window. Then, after a moment, she pulled the curtains out from their restraint and climbed down from the shelf, crossing the room to her sleeping bag next to mine. As she crawled in, she said, “’Night, Cass.”

“’Night, Keba,” I whispered back softly. Soon I heard her breathing slow and even out, and I knew I was alone again. It wasn’t long before sleep overtook me too, and in my dreams I was tense with worry. I woke up with an ache in my forehead, like I had been squinting and furrowing my brow all night long.

​

In the morning, I got up and prepared myself to leave Keba’s house. It was uncomfortable between us for the first time since we had become friends. Usually I stayed late into the morning and earned myself a scolding from my parents for my tardiness when I got back to my house. Today, however, I just packed my things, said good bye to Keba and her dad, and walked home alone.

​

​

Gradually, Keba and I returned to our usual closeness in the following weeks, for the most part, but we never spoke of the thing we saw in the dark again. It became like an unofficial secret between us. It didn’t matter much, though, that we couldn’t talk about it, because I didn’t see it again for a long time. First a year passed, and then another, and then another three in arduous but rapid succession after that, and I found I had scrubbed the memory of that night from my mind. It was almost like the beast had just stopped existing entirely. Keba and I stayed friends through these years that passed, but never like we had been before. One day, in the winter of our sixteenth year, I got an unexpected call from her. I had just returned from a grocery trip with Mum, and suddenly the phone in the house rang. I was closest to it.

​

“Hello?” I answered.

“Cass? Oh, good. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go through your moms first to get to you.” Keba laughed a little, more out of politeness than anything else.

“What’s up, Keba?” I asked cautiously. We didn’t talk every day anymore, so a call from her out of the blue was potentially cause for concern.

“Listen.” Her voice turned serious. “I was talking to my grandmother over breakfast this morning, like always. Out of nowhere she asked me if I had ever seen anything in the forest. She had this weird look on her face. It was like she already knew.”

​

I suddenly felt spring-loaded at her mention of that night. Pieces came rushing back; darkness and fear and loud voices. The thoughts made me wince. I was afraid of what she would say next. I could hear Mum messing with the groceries in the kitchen behind me, and I almost screamed at her to be quiet. Instead, I clutched the phone tightly to my ear.

​

Keba went on. “I told her about that night. When we saw it. How it…moved and looked at us. How we couldn’t see it if we tried, but when we didn’t, we saw almost too much.” I heard her draw in a steadying breath. “Cass, she just looked at me and nodded, like she believed every word. She believed it. And then! You won’t believe this—she told me she knows what it is!”

​

I almost dropped the phone. Luckily, my reflexes were quick and I grabbed it just before it hit the floor.

​

“Cass? You still there?”

“I’m here,” I said breathlessly. “What did she say? What is it?”

“Do you remember when I said she told me about that thing -- ilohiy zulmat -- all those years ago?”

​

I didn’t, and shook my head in response. I realized that she couldn’t see me do that over the phone, so I swallowed dryly and urged, “Remind me?”

​

“Well, my buvi said that there’s this thing they knew about back home. The divine dark, they called it. Ilohiy zulmat. It’s the darkness from which all things came. The night is the beginning of creation, and so when things are darkest and serene like the night, that’s when you’re closest to glimpsing what the world was like when it all began. She says it takes on many forms, like the creature we saw in the woods. That would explain why we can only see it at night. She said the darkness is everywhere, but sometimes it chooses one shape to inhabit for a while, while it creates something new. I asked her why it lives in our forest, but she said she didn’t know. She asked me what it looked like, how it moved. I told her that sometimes it looked like a cat, sometimes a puppy, sometimes like some creature not even invented yet. I remembered how, even though it looked like it was running, galloping even, it never left the outline of the trees. Maybe it was too big.”

​

I hadn’t thought about the creature so distinctly for a long time. Now my head was swimming with it. I had so many questions.

​

“Did she say anything else?” I wanted to know everything before I did anything.

“Yeah,” Keba responded. “She muttered that she thought it might be trapped somehow. But when I asked her about it, how something that big, and that powerful too, could get ‘trapped’, she didn’t answer me. She just got up and went back to her room upstairs. She looked like she was lost in her own world. That’s when I picked up the phone and called you.”

​

“Hmm…” I became lost in my own thoughts for a moment. If that creature truly was real, not just to me and Keba, but real to the universe, what did that mean? It probably wasn’t evil, or at least it didn’t sound that way, but I knew now for sure that it was incredibly powerful. And if it was trapped, who had done that? Or what? What kind of power could capture a beast like that? I didn’t want to know.

​

“Cass?” Keba called out through the receiver I had forgotten I was holding. Almost at the same time, Mum called from the kitchen. I answered Keba first.

​

“Hang on,” I told her. I inclined my head back toward my mom. “What, Mum?”

“When you get done in there, can you come help me with lunch? I put the groceries away, but I want to get the food started as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” I replied. “Just let me finish talking to Keba.”

​

I put the phone back up to my ear. “So what now?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she murmured. “But Cass?”

“Yeah?”

“I think… I think it’s time we went in there. Into the forest.”

I was shocked. Go in there? That was madness.

​

“Keba, are you nuts? We can’t go into the forest! What if there’s something dangerous in there? We definitely can’t go in at night, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I have to know, Cass! Besides, if what my grandmother says is true, then we can’t just leave that thing stuck in there. Who knows what kind of evil power is holding it hostage? We have to save it!”

“Exactly!” I was practically hysterical. “We don’t know what’s in there! At the very least, we’re no wilderness experts, Keba! How do we know that forest’s safe at all, let alone if there’s some kind of—“ I dropped my voice lower “—magical evil force field in there or something!”

​

The line was silent for a moment. I could feel her disappointment in me, in my cowardice. So what? I thought. Let her be disappointed. I’m not going out there to get myself killed, just because I saw some creature running around in the woods a few times. She’s out of her mind.

​

“Well, I’m going. Tonight. Come with me or don’t.” And then she hung up.

​

As I nestled the phone back into its holder, I was overcome with a flurry of emotions. Curiosity, fear, excitement, anger, indignation, maybe fear most of all. Something in me needed to know too, but at what cost? I was only 16! I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of dying early. Especially since no one would believe why I had done what I did in the first place anyway. Keba was out of control.

​

Besides, I rationalized as I worked in the kitchen with Mum preparing lunch, since I was still a kid, my parents wouldn’t let me go on some suicide mission into the dark and dangerous forest anyhow. I couldn’t go even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t, but that didn’t matter as much.

​

Or did I?

​

As the hours dragged by, I couldn’t stop thinking of Keba and what she was about to do. The wind outside was chilly and thin, and strong gusts of it whipped across the houses in town, shaking shutters and driving people inside. Tonight there might even be snowfall. Going into that forest would not be safe by any measure, but it would be made exponentially worse by the merciless cold and her going in alone. I lay on my bed in my room staring at the ceiling, thinking of her. I could see her standing there in front of the treeline, shivering, singular, screwing her courage to the sticking place and finally stepping in. The mammoth shadows of the trees engulfed her immediately. I remembered my nightmare of all those years ago and saw her form crumple in pain, her hands clasping her ears. Her eyes were shut tight and she was screaming, but no sound came out.

​

Suddenly I sprang from my bed. I threw open my closet and grabbed a thick sweater and my heavy winter coat, pulling them both on in a frenzy. I looked frantically around my room for any other warming clothing I could put on. I seized my hat and gloves and dashed out the door, almost tripping in my haste on the stairs. The night outside was nearly fallen, and it would be dark soon. She hadn’t said on the phone, but I knew as soon as it was dark, Keba would set out for the forest.

As I approached the front door, I made sure I had my keys in my pocket, and then I called out, “I’m going over to Keba’s!” with no further explanation as I slammed the door behind me. I broke into a run as soon as I got onto the pavement. If I was going to be in trouble for this when I got back, so be it. For now, the only thing that mattered was reaching my friend in time.

​

When I rounded the final corner onto her street, I could see two figures in her front garden already. Keba was standing closer to the gate, and another woman hunched close to the door. I slowed as I approached, my lungs burning from the thin air, my face chapped from the wind. Keba turned to see me open the gate. She looked surprised.

​

“Couldn’t… let you… go alone… after all,” I gasped. I was not a natural sprinter. I swallowed heavily. “It’s too damn cold.” I grinned a little, and luckily she smiled back.

The darkness around us was deepening quickly, and I could already make out stars in the sky. I didn’t see the moon anywhere yet, but I hoped it would rise later, maybe to guide us on our way.

​

“I’m glad you came,” Keba said. “Buvi,” she started, turning back to the woman beside her. “You said tonight is the full moon?”

The woman nodded.

Once again, Keba’s grandmother had changed her appearance, and once again, it seemed I was the only one who even noticed. I would just have to get used to that, I supposed. The woman who stood before me now looked as old as time. She was shriveled with age, and looked so weak one stray breath might blow her away. She was very petite, barely taking up half the height or width of the doorframe she inhabited. Her eyes hid behind an ancient pair of spectacles and her wizened hands were covered in dozens of rings. Her wispy hair was very sparse, and the skin on her face and scalp was marred with innumerable wrinkles.

Keba leaned down to kiss the woman on her cheek, and the woman gave a sweet little smile in return. She said something to her I couldn’t understand, in Uzbek, I would guess, and then the little old woman turned to look at me. Her black eyes felt piercing, and a shiver passed through me.

​

“Cassandra,” she said in her heavy, mysterious accent. The voice was arresting and powerful, despite the weakness of the woman’s physical form. “Do not fear the darkness. It will always arrive.”

​

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded, and the woman turned and went back inside. I heard the lock slide behind the door, and Keba and I were left outside with the cold.

​

“Well, come on,” she said, linking her arm in mine and leading us out the gate. She walked confidently and with purpose and next to her I nearly forgot my fear. That is, until we arrived at the entrance of the forest.

​

I was already shivering with the cold, but as we slowed to a stop in front of the mass of trees, I felt myself begin to tremble with fear. My legs threatened to buckle underneath me. I could see Keba’s breath like a miniature snowstorm in the air beside me, and I attempted to steady myself. Maybe she could tell I was struggling, and that’s why she pulled my arm more tightly to hers. Maybe she was scared herself.

​

I looked above us into the sky and I could now clearly see the moon hanging in the air above us. It was full and brilliant. Its light shone cold, so very different from the warm harvest moon of the former season. This moonlight was pure silver and the moon’s presence was at once a comfort and a warning to me. I felt like it was watching us, and maybe if it could speak, it would tell us to turn back and go home. To run, as fast as our legs would carry us. I was chilled to my bones and more afraid every second. Going home seemed like a wonderful idea.

​

“Ready?” Keba looked at me and asked. Confidence shone on her face, though I knew she had to be as cold and frightened as I was. We were just two regular teenagers. If there really was something in there, how could we possibly be equipped to face it? I felt a lump form in my throat. My eyes started to burn with the threat of tears, but I forced myself to be brave. I could try, for a moment. At least we were together, right?

​

“Ready,” I said, finally. And with that, we stepped into the forest.

​