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Extract One
She could not remember a moment that she had not been afraid when the forest, that rose up sharply above the family home, had been shrouded all too suddenly in darkness.
In her thirty-two years, she had never lived in any other place apart from that house, and she had stayed on even after both of her parents had died, her mother from a wasting illness at just fifty-four, and her father from a heart attack a few months before he would have turned sixty.
An adored only child, she had been inseparable from Monica, the most kind-hearted of women, who had given art classes at the local secondary school, and from Hugo, a down-to-earth engineer with a keen sense of fun, and whose tireless mission had been to put the needs of his wife and daughter before any self-seeking concern of his own.
But while not only her father, but also her mother, both more than eager to humor her every whim, had spared no effort in doting on their daughter, they had never found the way to give her what she had desired most, a brother or a sister who, when a wan light penetrated the dense overgrowth that ran riot above the rambling villa, would join forces with her to pick the bluebells that, in their profusion, extended on all sides or, when night fell without warning, would take her by the hand and urge her not to panic as they were already on the path that led to the safety of home.
And seeing, and not far off, the warm glow that filtered through the living-room curtains, she would, if only she had been blessed with the solace of a sibling, have hit her own high notes in their chorus of victory over Boogy the Bogeyman, that monster in human form, who was said to lurk in the dark forest and who, if only he could get his wicked way, would feed his fill on the corpses of trusting children.
But bereft of any such brother or sister, and imprisoned in the haunting reality of her own aloneness, she knew, as the final flickerings of day were being snuffed out, that were she to wend her way down some wrong turning, she would not have the presence of mind, and for all that her nails were razor-sharp, to scratch out the Bogeyman's eyes before he had stretched his black-begloved hands towards her throat to squeeze from her being her last throttled breath.
A Dark Forest: Extract One
A Dark Forest: Extract Two
A Dark Forest: Extract Three
"The Power of Prose"
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