By: Emma Xing
The car was utterly silent. My brothers, who are normally ear-splitting annoying, were strangely quiet. Mrs. Lauren was also silent. The car went bumpily down the road.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mrs. Lauren said.
“It’s alright,” I muttered. My two brothers didn’t say anything. Ever since our parents died from a car accident, none of us had really been ourselves. We barely spoke to each other and we mostly stayed in our rooms as Mrs. Lauren, one of our parents’ dearest friends, began contacting our family.
Eventually, our grandma became our legal guardian. Neither my brothers nor I have ever seen our grandma. I had always asked my dad why we never visited her, but everytime he just changed the topic and promised to tell me when I was older.
The car went back to silence. The only sound was the engine rumbling. After an hour of this awkward silence, the car finally came to a stop. A house loomed in front of us. It looked quite old. The windows were shattered, and the front door was on the verge of falling. The paint was scratched and peeled.
“Well, here you are!” Mrs. Lauren told us. Michael and Sam stared at me.
“Carrie, please tell us you’re not gonna let us stay in this place,” Michael whispered. I stared back. Since our parents died, they also had been relying on me for everything. Sometimes I wanted to scream at them that just because I was two years older than both of them didn’t mean I have all the answers.
“I can’t do anything! We’re just going to have to put up with this,” I grumbled at them as I opened the car door and grabbed my luggage. Michael and Sam hesitated, but they eventually got out of the car as well.
“Well hello dearies! Why, you look so different than I had anticipated!” a scratchy voice came from behind us. An old woman appeared. She had a completely white head in a tight bun and wrinkled skin. The clothes she was wearing were ragged and scratched. And in her hand was a bloody squirrel. She held a rifle in her other hand.
My twin brothers gagged at the sight of the squirrel, and frankly so did I. Grandma dropped the rifle and the squirrel and hugged us three with her bloody hands. I tried to pull away but Grandma had a strong grasp on us. She smelled of rotten flesh as we closed in on her.
“Why is your house so broken?” Michael asked her. Grandma frowned at him. She let go of us and bent down to stare at all three of us.
“I am stuck here, I tell you! Your dad trapped me in this awful forest, isolated from human kind. He is a wizard I tell you! A wizard! He put a forcefield around this forest so I would never escape and be able to see my grandchildren! It is a marvel how Mrs. Lauren found me. I had to survive with this old wreck of a house! It’s your father, I tell you! Your father!” Grandma scowled.
Michael and Sam backed up behind me. Our grandma sounded delusional. She sounded as if she had been drugged.
“Before he left me, all he gave me was this bottle of purple liquid! He told me, drink it if you want to live, I tell you! He told me that!” Grandma showed us a bubbly purple liquid. All three of us were scared now. Grandma leaned closer.
“But I have a feeling you three would love to try out this purple thing as well!” Grandma licked her lips.
“Open wide!” The next thing I knew, a strange taste filled my mouth as Grandma poured the liquid in my mouth. My mouth began to burn. Then, complete darkness.
Image Credit by Amine M’siouri