Chapter 6: The Stranger's Eyes

Chapter 6: The Stranger's Eyes

The hours after midnight bled into one another, each marked by the hollow chime of the mantel clock. The cabin had become a tomb, silent except for the drone of the generator and the ragged sound of Mark’s breathing. He sat slumped in his chair by the door, the hunting rifle held loosely across his lap, his vigil having devolved into a state of exhausted, catatonic despair. Maya was a small, still lump on the couch, lost in a sleep that was her only escape.

Alex sat at the kitchen table, his eyes burning from lack of sleep. He stared at the dark window, at his own pale, haunted reflection superimposed over the blackness outside. Every gust of wind was her last cry. Every creak of the old logs was the snapping of her bones. He had moved past fear and into a state of numb, aching grief. She was gone. The forest had taken her, just as it had taken the smiling man’s body, erasing her from the world.

And then, a sound.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three soft, polite taps on the front door.

The sound was so alien, so out of place in their desperate vigil, that for a moment, Alex thought he had imagined it. But then Mark’s head snapped up, his body going rigid. Mack, who had been dozing fitfully at his feet, scrambled up with a low, uncertain whine.

Another series of taps. Knock. Knock. Knock. Quieter this time. Patient.

Mark was on his feet, the rifle suddenly held tight, its muzzle pointed at the floor. He moved to the door not with relief, but with the cautious, shuffling steps of a man approaching a trap. He glanced at Alex, his eyes wide, asking a question for which neither of them had an answer. Who would be knocking on their door in the middle of a forest at two in the morning?

His hand trembled as he reached for the deadbolt. The click of the lock being thrown was a gunshot in the silent room. He pulled the heavy wooden door inward, revealing the figure standing on the porch, bathed in the weak, yellow light.

It was Sarah.

The relief that washed over Alex was a physical force, so powerful it almost buckled his knees. He let out a breath he’d been holding for an eternity. Mark sagged against the doorframe, the rifle lowering, a choked sob escaping his lips. "Sarah… Oh, God, Sarah, where have you been?"

She stood there on the top step, looking in at them. She was unnervingly pristine. Her clothes, the same ones she’d been wearing that morning, were free of dirt, leaves, or tears. Her long hair was neat, falling over her shoulders as if she’d just brushed it. There wasn't a single scratch on her. She looked as if she had just stepped out for a brief, pleasant stroll.

"Hello, Mark," she said. Her voice was calm, placid, utterly devoid of the emotion the situation demanded. There was no fear, no relief, no trace of a harrowing ordeal. It was the voice of a person politely greeting a neighbor.

She stepped inside, her movements smooth and unhurried. Mark reached for her, trying to pull her into a desperate hug, but she sidestepped his embrace with a subtle, fluid grace.

"I just needed some air," she said, her eyes sweeping the room, taking in the rifle, Maya asleep on the couch, Alex’s terrified face. "It seems I worried you all. I'm sorry."

The apology was as flat and empty as her gaze. It held no remorse. It was a line of dialogue, delivered without feeling.

"Worried us?" Mark’s voice cracked with disbelief. "Sarah, you were gone for almost eighteen hours! I was about to go into that damn forest myself! I thought… We all thought…" He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Well, I'm back now," she said with a small, serene smile that didn't reach her eyes. Those eyes… Alex stared at her, a new and more terrible fear beginning to bloom in the pit of his stomach. Her eyes had always been warm, expressive. Now they were like polished stones, windows to an empty room. They looked at him, but they didn't see him.

Mack saw it, too. The dog, who adored Sarah and would normally be leaping up, tail wagging, had flattened himself to the floor. A deep, guttural growl rumbled in his chest, his hackles raised, his lips pulled back to reveal his teeth. He was staring at the woman wearing his mistress's skin as if she were a wolf that had just crept into the fold.

"Mack, what is wrong with you?" Mark snapped, his relief so desperate that he was blind to the wrongness of it all. "Heel! It's just your momma."

But the dog didn't obey. He continued to growl, a low, constant threat, as he backed away towards Maya, placing his body between the sleeping girl and the woman by the door.

Sarah looked down at the dog, her placid smile unchanged. There was no hurt in her expression, no confusion at his behavior. There was only a cold, detached curiosity.

She moved towards the couch where Maya was sleeping. "She must have been so frightened," she murmured, the words sounding rehearsed. She reached out a hand to stroke Maya’s hair. Maya stirred in her sleep, whimpering, and instinctively pulled away from her mother's touch, burying her face deeper into the cushions.

Sarah’s hand hovered in the air for a moment before retracting. She turned her gaze on Alex, and the full force of her alien wrongness hit him like a physical blow. It was the same penetrating, observational stare he’d felt from the Winter Man on the road. A look that was not recognizing, but cataloging.

"And you, Alex," she said, her voice a soft, melodic whisper. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Her smile widened slightly. It was a jarring echo of the smiling man's grin—not as extreme, but sharing the same chilling lack of humanity.

Later, after a shell-shocked Mark had finally gone to bed, insisting that everything was now fine, that Sarah was just in shock, Alex found her in the kitchen. She was standing by the window, looking out into the impenetrable darkness, perfectly still.

"Mom?" he said, his voice barely a whisper.

She turned to face him, her expression unreadable in the dim light.

"Where did you go?" he asked, the question he was burning to ask. "Really."

She was silent for a long moment, her placid smile returning. "It's hard to explain. The paths out there are strange. You walk for a minute, and it feels like an hour. You walk for an hour, and it feels like a minute."

It was a twisted, mocking echo of his own experience on the crooked mile. She was using his own impossible truth against him.

"It's so peaceful in the woods at night," she continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. "Once you get past the noise. Everything is so clear. The trees have such stories to tell. And the things they hang from the branches… they’re like strange, beautiful ornaments."

Alex felt the blood drain from his face. Ornaments. The word struck him like a viper. Only he and his father had seen the Rabbit Tree. She couldn't have known.

He looked into his mother’s eyes and saw nothing there but a terrifying, patient emptiness. He saw a stranger looking out at him from behind a familiar, beloved mask. His mother hadn’t come back from the woods.

Something else had. And now, it was inside the house with them.