The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"I'm terribly sorry if I frightened you," the old lady said, reaching out to pinch me on the cheek in a grandmotherly way. 

I spluttered my apologies but she waved them aside. "I was just going to tell you how lovely it was to have you back in town, dear. Now that I see you properly, I think I must have been mistaken." She shook her head and chuckled, tottering towards the end of the bridge. "You see, I met a lovely young lady who looks quite a bit like you last month or so. Oh, it's just my eyesight. She stayed at my B&B. My husband died last year, you see, and this lovely young girl kept me, a silly old lady, company. You really do look like her." She raised her eyebrows at Evie. "Both of you, it seems. Are you girls twins?"

"You saw a girl hear?" I breathed. "She looked like both of us?"

"What was her name?" Evie asked.

The lady chuckled and drew her scarf around her hunched shoulders a bit more. "My, aren't you two sweet! Her name was Holly, if I do remember correctly. Lovely red hair, like yours." 

"Holly was here?" Ben said. 

"Why, yes." The old lady pinched his cheek. "And how old are you, young man?"

"Eleven!" Ben piped up. "And three eighths."

"Quite the little scientist!" the old lady said. She turned to us, a smile on her weathered face. "Yes, Holly was here. She disappeared after a day or two, though. Ran off into the woods. She was a strange little lass, lovely though she was. Kept on muttering about some HYDRA business. I've never met a girl quite like her." She chuckled. "Well, until now."

I blushed beet red. 

"Wait, HYDRA?" Peter looked shocked. "As in, Ivan HYDRA?"

"I'm not sure who that Ivan man is, dear, but Holly did mention a man named Kristoff. Do you know him too?"

"That's Kristoff Agnelsson!" I burst out. "I was right! She's being hunted by Kristoff Agnelsson!"

The old lady shivered. "The weather's getting a bit peaky," she said. "I'd better head inside. But it was lovely to meet you four, especially you, young lady." She looked at me. "Perhaps if we meet again you might be a little more gentle on an old lady like myself."

"I'm so sorry, ma'am," I spluttered, trying to hold back my excitement on this new lead. "It won't happen again."

"Well I hope not!" The old lady tottered away, laughing. 

Once she was out of earshot, Evie let out a whoop. "We have a new lead!" she exclaimed, excited. Ben giggled.

"The old lady-" I began to say.

"-Who you strangled," Peter added oh-so-helpfully. 

I glared at him. "Who I almost strangled," I argued, continuing. "-Said that Holly had disappeared into the woods over there." I pointed towards a large forest of dark, uninviting emerald-coloured fir trees at the end of the green pasture. "So I guess we just have to go..."

"INTO THE WOODS!" Ben yelled, pumping his fist in the air. "I LOVE THAT MUSICAL!"

He promptly began to hum the theme tune. Evie groaned. "You saw that musical once," she protested. "It wasn't even that good."

Ben gasped dramatically. "How very dare you!" he said in a posh Victorian accent. "Into the Woods is the superior musical."

Evie shrugged. "Eh, it's OK. I liked Wicked better though."

The chattering siblings moved off towards the forest, arguing about musical theatre. Peter and I lagged behind, me turning the locket over and over in my hands. "You okay, Old Lady Strangler?" he asked gently, touching me on the shoulder.

I groaned. "Are you kidding? Old Lady Strangler? Even British Bombshell is better than that."

He laughed. "I think it's a very accurate nickname."

"Accurate, maybe, but seriously. How do you manage to think up these terrible nicknames?" I was baffled.

He shrugged. "It's a gift."

"Sure." I grinned at him. The cool breeze ruffled his dark hair, making it flop down into his warm brown eyes. "You could, like, defeat bad guys by giving them such bad nicknames that they just die on the spot."

"That could be useful," Peter smirked. "I could have helped to defeat Ultron by calling him, like, Mr Metalmoos or something."

"Mr Metalmoos? Where did you pull that one from?" I couldn't help giggling.

"Like I told you," he laughed. "It's a gift. A gift that is the epitome of all things awesome."

"Says the guy who just used epitome in a sentence, let alone in that context." I threw my head back and laughed.

I caught Peter staring at me and blushed. "What?"

He looked away, his cheeks flushing with colour. "Nothing."

I looked up. The dark trees of the forest loomed above us, the branches of the trees reaching out like gnarled fingers. "Hey, guys?" I called out. Nobody answered. "Evie? Ben?"

"Where are they?" Peter began to walk inside the forest. "I can't see them anywhere."

We began to move inside the forest, darkness shrouding our vision. The woods were spooky, the tiniest amount of light managing to filter itself through the latticed overhead branches, casting the forest in a pale green glow. We called out into the woods, but nobody answered. I was starting to get a little freaked-out, even though I wasn't showing it: where was Evie and Ben? They'd just disappeared!

We'd been wandering through the forest for about half an hour, and only when I checked the time on my watch did I notice that we had wandered completely inside, the exit nowhere to be found. We were lost, but worse yet, we'd lost Ben and Evie.

I sighed and sat down on a root. "Peter, we can't find them," I said, waiting for his reply.

But it never came.

I stood up and looked around, Peter nowhere to be seen. The shadows shrouded the forest, mist parting with every step I took. I was completely alone, and that scared me. "PETER!" I screamed into the darkness. "PETE!"

After about an hour or so of wandering without any of my friends, I started to really panic. This forest wasn't like any other forest I'd known before... what if I never got out? I could feel my heart pounding in my ears like an anvil chorus and my palms beginning to sweat. 

THWACK!

An arrow lodged itself in the tree next to me, whizzing past my ear by a hair's breadth. I squeaked and threw myself to the ground just as another arrow flew into the tree, missing me by less than an inch. Cursing myself for not bringing any weapons, I sat with my back against a tree, the rough bark cutting into my skin. I could hear subdued voices, angry voices, coming ever closer.

And then something hit me on the head, and everything spiralled into darkness.

A/N: Hey guys, I'm bored. Do you have any ideas of fun stuff to do in quarantine? School for me goes back tomorrow but that's just online learning and I usually finish that super quickly. Normally I just do stuff like watch Netflix, write this fanfic, read more fanfics, listen to music, but I'm getting super bored. Help me out over here?