The Hoia Baciu

If You Go Out in the Woods Tonight

            Every culture has legends of monsters and demons that are now spoken of as cautionary tales but at one time their existence was absolute in the eyes of the world. Not three hundred years ago were people nailing corpses to their coffins and putting bars around graves all as a desperate measure to keep away the blood sucking, demon vampires. At the same time women were being hanged for fear they could be malevolent witches. We look back on these happenings and think of our ancestors as scared fools looking to gods and monsters to explain nature and any other event we lacked an explanation for. But there were those who held on to the legends believing with every fiber of their being that evil did in fact lurk in the shadows.

The believers were mostly made up of children who saw things; evil monsters in their closets, under their beds and outside their windows. "It's not real. It's just your imagination." They were told and so they grew up, believing every word just as they had once believed in the glowing red eyes staring at them through the glass. These children grew into adults and maybe they'd have occasional nightmares but mostly they'd forget these monsters or at least they'd stay quiet about them. Every generation a new group of children was added to the believers; adults of course saw things too but they were unfortunate enough to be cursed with logic so they couldn't believe what was right in front of their eyes. It was left to the children to carry on the legends even if they just spilled to their friends for the sake of scaring them at a sleepover.

One of these children was a special one. He grew up in a small house just beyond the tree line of a big forest. His father was a farmer and his mother a homemaker, who rarely left the house unless she had to. The boy stayed at home with her most of the day. His family couldn't afford to school him and he was too young to help his father at work. When it was warm he spent his time outside and played with his cousins but when it was cold he stayed in the house and helped his mother. He was in charge of making the beds, sweeping the floors, and fetching firewood. His favorite was getting firewood, it was in a stack beyond the house by the shed, the area on their property closest to the woods.

He wasn't allowed to go into the woods. His mother's directions were to get the wood and come right back, no dilly-dallying, they didn't want the fire to go out. He didn't know very much about those strange woods but they always tempted him. The trees he knew were not like other trees, they were bent, twisted and crooked like gnarled fingers beckoning him forward. In the few places where the trees were straight they were thin and stood so close together that hardly anything could get through. They were like bars keeping the forest isolated from the rest of the world.

His hands were turning pink and stiff from the cold, he pulled his wool sleeves over his hands and tugged on his hat, pulling it down to cover his ears. Every time he exhaled a small cloud escaped with his breath. It was the time of year when everything got cold and died. The leaves were turning all shades of reds and yellows. It was pretty now but in a just a few weeks the leaves would turn brown then fall and coat the forest floor like a blanket protecting the earth from the frost of the impending snow. As he gathered the small logs in his arms he could feel a thin layer of frost melt and soak into his jacket.

"Boo!" Someone shouted from behind and the little boy yelped dropping the wood onto the damp, muddy ground.

"You're not funny!" He started, stomping his foot at his older cousins who laughed.

"Oh, come on, Costel." His oldest cousin, Alexandru, clapped him on the back. "We're just trying to keep you alert, we don't want one of those scary wolves from the scary forest to get you when you're not paying attention." His second oldest cousin, Horea, provided the sound effects by growling like a wolf and shoving him from behind.