The Seeker's Guild and the Greenleaf Phantom

-1-

Kyle gasped. Then the girl brushed the hair out of her face and stared at him through pale, dead eyes. Kyle fell backward onto the floor and quickly tried to crawl away from her. The girl walked toward him, her arm reaching out.

"Kyle!" The girl called to him.

"No! Get away! Y-you won't kill me too!" He yelled back.

"Kyle!" She called louder to him, approaching him even closer.

"Please just leave me alone, ghost!" He scrambled under a table behind him and huddled in fetal position. "I've done nothing to you!"

"Kyle!"

"What do you want with me?!"

"Kyle, wake up!"

Then the dream ended and he could feel the pain in the back of his head again, this time with an ice pack on it. He found he was laying down on the bed in the nurse's office, and his younger sister Rachel was sitting beside him. She had messy blonde hair and bright blue eyes like Kyle and freckles dotting her cheeks.

"You okay?" asked Rachel, worried. "You were, like, freaking out just now! You must've had a pretty crazy dream."

"Crazy," said Kyle. "is saying the least about it. I must have hit my head really hard." He sat up slightly, rubbed the cold bump on the back of his head, and lay back down.

"Do you feel any dizziness? Feel like you're gonna throw up?" asked Rachel, placing her hand over Kyle's head.

"I don't think so." Kyle replied weakly, shaking his head. "And where's mom?"

Rachel snorted and rolled her eyes. "Who needs a nurse when you have me? I pretty much took care of you all by myself!"

"And I'm impressed." Mrs. Banks, Kyle and Rachel's mom and the school's nurse, stepped out from behind the door with a proud smile.

"Mooooom! You were watching the whole time?" Rachel sighed and pouted her lips. "You were waiting for me to mess up weren't you?"

Mrs. Banks shook her head and chuckled. "Of course not, honey! I think you play nurse really well!." Then she hugged her daughter around the neck and kissed the top of her head. "Just make sure that you don't always take my job, okay?" She and Rachel both laughed, but Rachel rolled her eyes as she did.

Mrs. Banks then turned to her son and asked, "So from what Rachel's gathered, you don't seem to have anything more serious than a bump on the back of your head. So I think that an ice pack should do fine for now." She walked over to the bed, bent down and put her hand on Kyle's head. "Though, you should get lots of rest tonight. I talked to Ms. Pettigrew, and you can make up the dissection assignment for Friday."

"Well, I guess that's good." Kyle sighed, then muttered, "Except that I still humiliated myself in front of the entire classroom."

"What?" Mrs. Banks asked curiously.

"I'm sorry, i-it's not a big deal." Kyle shook his head.

"That's fine, honey." His mom replied, with some doubt.

"I can't believe you guys got to do, like, a full dissection! That must've been a lot of fun." Rachel huffed and crossed her arms. "Meanwhile, we're still learning about the periodic table. Been there, done that. How was it, though?"

"It was...fine, I guess." Kyle shrugged.

"That's it? It was just fine?" Rachel asked, shocked and practically offended. "But, but science, Kyle! Science! That's, like, our thing!"

"Maybe it excites you more than others." Mrs. Banks chuckled. Kyle scrunched his face and held up his hand for a moment, as if about to say something, but only sighed and shrank back into the bed. "Now, we should head home soon. School's been out for over a half-hour, and I need to make dinner for the Matheson's tonight."

During the drive home, Kyle thought about the dream he had while he was knocked unconscious, about the girl in the classroom with the scar in her neck. He didn't believe in ghosts, and he didn't want to start now, yet what other explanation could account for such an elaborate dream to begin with? 

As he thought of this, the van passed by Spirit Woods, which was what the other kids in the neighborhood called it. So many stories circulated around the place that it became synonymous with supernatural occurrences and unexplained disappearances and deaths. Kyle's dream was so bizarre and terrifying that such a vision, he thought, would fit right into the lore of the place. 

The van stopped at 56 Sully Avenue, the Banks residence, a fairly new, two-story house, and Kyle stepped out of the car. He looked around the neighborhood, realizing that his entire neighborhood was surrounded by trees and forest, as if the terror of the supernatural loomed all around him and his family.

"Hey Kyle, you alright?" Rachel tapped Kyle on the shoulder, snapping him out of his train of thought.

"Have you ever realized that...we live in the middle of a forest." Kyle stared up at the trees looming over his head, nervous, but Rachel looked askance.

"Are...you sure you're alright?" She asked.

Kyle shook his head. "Listen, I-I think our neighborhood might be dangerous. Even with just the standard bears and possible serial killers hiding in the woods..." Rachel still seemed skeptical. "Look, do you remember when I was unconscious while we were at school? I had this dream where I believe I saw a ghost try to kill me in my sleep."

Rachel stared Kyle in the eye, bewildered. "...And that makes our neighborhood haunted...how?"

Kyle shuddered. "I think Spirit Woods may actually be haunted."

"L-let's not even get started with that place." Rachel immediately replied, shivering. "Look, I don't think that ghosts exist, and I don't wanna start believing in them. Whoever or whatever is out there in those woods should stay there, and we should stay right here." She paused and looked up at her brother. "OK?" Kyle nodded, and Rachel hugged him around his thin body. "Don't do anything that might get you killed."

"Kids, are you still out there?" Kyle and Rachel's mom called from a second-story window.

"We're coming!" Rachel called back and ran back to the house. Kyle followed and took one more look behind him at the woods before closing the door on his way in the house.