✨ The Whispering Oak 🌳

       “Brother! Brother! Come see what I found in the forest!” Regan shouted, bursting through my bedroom door.

         “What is it? Did one of Mrs. Jann’s cats die again?” I asked.

         “What? Of course not! You won’t believe me if I tell you. Come see what I figured out!” she shouted, running downstairs. Grabbing Dad’s shotgun, I chased after her.

We ran to the forest behind our house, my heart pounding. Not many people go into this forest, at least not recently.

This wood used to be full of happy animals, pursuing hunters, and exciting travelers. Ever since people from near or far have heard the whispers, people have stopped going inside.

Many people think the whispers are the sprites of animals who once lived here, while some other people think it’s the enemy tricking us, but most people disagree with the latter.

My sister and I have been going into this forest day and night, trying to find the truth. So far, we’ve got nothing to prove any of those theories are true. We did find something to prove my sister and I’s theory, however.

At the end of every week, some sort of slime appears all over the place in the morning. We never saw anything like it (nor has anyone else) or its source. We also found out every full moon, even more slime appears.

Our theory is that many slimy monsters wander around the forest at night. Maybe even more monsters wander around on a full moon? We don’t know. The weird thing is, whenever we try to take some slime home for proof, the slime poofs into golden dust, then we get shocked with a spark of electricity or something; but don’t worry, only enough to keep us away.

“It’s here,” Regan said.

“What’s here? All I see is the slime,” I said.

“I made a map of all the locations of slime and amounts of slime there are in those locations. Look here,” She explained, pointing to the middle of the map. “All the slime either comes from here or leaves this tree. Or both. When I found this out, I saw the huge and twisty tree. None of the slime touched the tree, almost as if it was thrown from the tree,” she explained.

“The monsters live in the tree,” I observed.

“Exactly. Since this monster only comes at night, we will have to come to the tree at night to see it,” she said.

“But Mom and Dad will never let us,” I pointed out.

“We can sneak out the window,” she smiled mischievously.

“Would it even matter? It might not be visible without a full moon or something.”

“Do you want to solve this thing or not? Plus, tomorrow is a full moon,” she said.

“Fine, we meet here, tonight. If we get into trouble it’s on you,” I sighed.

“Agreed. Let’s get back; I’m starving!” She exclaimed, folding the map back into her pocket.

It took us a few silent minutes, but we managed to get home before curfew.

“Where were you guys!” Mom asked.

“We… went for a walk,” I lied.

“With your father’s gun?” she raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, there’s a lot of bad people out there, you know,” Regan said.

“Mhm,” Mom went into the kitchen to continue making dinner.

“Phew, that was close,” Regan sighed as we went upstairs.

“I know. Do you think they will get suspicious, and we won’t be able to sneak out?” I wondered, putting Dad’s gun back into his closet.

“No, I don’t think so. Even if they try to stop us from leaving, we’re going to leave anyway; this is important,” Regan said.

“Kids! Wash up and come down for dinner!” Mom called.

“So, kids, what were you up to today?” Dad asked.

“Besides school, nothing much. Lucy asked me if I could sleepover at her house tonight. Can I go?” Regan asked. Mom and Dad looked at each other, a pea falling off Dad’s face.

“Um… no, honey. You can’t go. We were going to have a family game night,” Mom answered.

“But Mom! I told Lucy I’d come!” Regan complained.

“Hey! Only I get to yell at your mother! Maybe next time you shouldn’t promise her false promises,” Dad shouted.

The clanking of plates and clanking of silverware were the only sounds for a moment.

“When does game night start?” I queried.

“Once we’re done eating,” Dad answered.

How’re we going to sneak out? We can’t both say we have to use the bathroom; we only have one. It’ll be suspicious anyway. As if reading my mind, Regan answered the question for me.

“Could Lee and I do the dishes?” she asked.

“Can you! Of course, you can!” Mom exclaimed, beaming.

Regan and I went into the kitchen with all the dishes after dinner and got the water running.

“We can leave through the door wall,” Regan nodded to it, next to the fridge.

“We should grab some flashlights,” I whispered back.

We grabbed a pair of flashlights: turned on the dishwasher for more noise; made sure Mom and Dad weren’t looking, then stepped out of the house.

“You have the map, right?” I asked.

“Never put it anywhere else,” she said, indicating to her purse.

We went around to the side of the house, left through the gate then walked to the forest. Our neighborhood is right in front of the woods. All the houses on our block side have the woods directly behind them. No one ever goes into the forest except us. I won’t be surprised if we get bullied for it in school.

All our life, mainly as kids, we went here to play. We played tag, hide and seek, we even found a tree to climb and read. Our parents usually don’t care whether or not we go, but they have been caring lately. We think some other adults in the neighborhood make fun of our parents for letting us go. Honestly though, if Regan and I could ignore bullies, then our parents could too.

After walking down the block, we turned left and went through a gate to get to the woods.

“Man, we’re going to be in big trouble,” I thought.

We continued walking down the path we usually take to get to the tree in the middle.

“Let’s run; it’s sunset,” Regan said.

As it turns out, running wasn’t the best idea. We tripped on slime, roots, and holes in the ground. I could’ve sworn the whispers in the air laughed at us every time we fell. The laughter got louder and louder until we got to the great oak tree.

“Look; there’s a ton of slime around here. The patterns in it look like ripples in a pond going toward the neighborhood,” she said, crouching over some.

“Wow,” I awed, “When did you become a detective?”

We were silent for the next few minutes, waiting for the fifteen suns to go down.

“Hey, this tree would make an awesome treehouse,” I said, climbing it.

“You might not want to go up; the slimy monster might live up there,” Regan warned.

Unlike the fall colors covering all the other trees, this tree’s leaves are still green. The bark on the tree was extraordinary; it was going around in swirls, and ants would crawl from the bark every once in a while. Looking up, you could tell squirrels and birds haven’t lived in there in a long time. There was no bird poop, nests, or holes in the tree where the Squirrels would live.

“I doubt it; the birds from the other trees may bother it,” I said.

“Just like they bother you?” she chuckled.

I always wake up too early in the mornings because the birds are very loud. The rest of my family, however, don’t hear the birds. It’s not like my bedroom is near a tree; in fact, its the closest to the road. They make fun of me for it; it’s really annoying.

         Rolling my eyes, I laid on a branch and looked at the strange patterns in the bark.

         “Hey Lee, you need to see this,” Regan said.

         Jumping down, I jogged to her. “What is it?”

         “Look at this hole; it’s covered in slime,” she said.

“Do you think this is where it lives?” I wondered.

“I don’t know. It might live down here to block out the birds,” she said.

“Would you stop it with the birds!” I shouted.

Suddenly, the ground trembled, and the moonlight washed over us. All the slime on the floor and in the cave rose and forcefully threw itself onto the tree. We ran to the front of the tree to get a better look.

Half of the tree was covered in the brown, green, golden ooze. There was so much of it, it looked like it was made of the stuff, it was gross. The slime was also moving around hypnotically as we gaped at it.

“Want to make a treehouse now?” Regan teased; I just glared at her.

On the other side of the tree, the bark was purple and moved with the swirls in the bark. Instead of ants, gold-looking dust flew out of it and floated around the area.

“Cool,” we both breathed.

All was quiet and felt like magic. I don’t know about Regan, but I could just feel the magical energy coursing through my veins. We then heard footsteps coming from behind the tree toward the tiny hole.

“Come on, Grenald, it’s a full moon; we can come out,” someone cackled.

“Oh, hello,” the creepy woman said when she saw us.

“Uh…  hi,” Regan said.

“We have company, it looks like,” the slimy guy said in a deep voice.

“Give us a second, please. Regan and I need to talk,” I said, pulling Regan behind a bush. “We should leave. We have no idea who these beings are or what they’re doing.”

“But we need to know what these whispers are! Plus, they’re probably friendly, or at least they were so far,” she pointed out.

“It’s getting….” I started before Regan gave me puppy dog eyes. “Fine, only a few minutes.”

We left from behind the bush, the two newcomers were turned toward each other like they were talking.

“So, who are you exactly?” Regan asked, interrupting their conversation.

“My name is Erella, and my slimy friend is Grenald. I’m a witch, he’s a slimy monster,” she said. When she called him a slimy monster, said monster growled. “Sorry, he doesn’t like being called a monster. We’re the guardians of this magical tree.”

“Cool! I’m Regan, and this is my brother Leonardo, Lee for short. We’re children,” Regan said.

“What brings you to our tree on this fine fall night?” Erella asked.

“We figured out the slime was coming from this tree every night and that there’s even more slime on full moons. We live nearby,” I explained.

“Well, you should leave; it’s going to get very dangerous very soon,” the slime monster, Grenald said.

“Grenald, let’s be nice to these kids. I think it was very clever that they found us out,” Erella said.

“What did he mean, dangerous? What are those whispers?” Regan asked.

“Those whispers are the souls of the other guardians of this tree and other magical monuments,” Erella explained. “It’s going to get dangerous because every full moon, a pack of werewolves come and try to steal the magic of this tree. Every time they come, we were able to fight them off, however, I don’t think we will get to for very much longer. We’re getting older, and as we do, our magic fades,”

“Why do you guard this tree? Why do these werewolves want the magic?” Regan asked.

“We’ve been training to be guardians throughout childhood. We were chosen out of many to be here. Little did we know it would be boring while waiting for the action to come. We do not know why these enemies want the magic. We just know that for every magical object, place, or monument, a different evil creature wants to take the magic from that place. Every night we wish there was a way to make it so no one could take the magic from this tree, but it’ll never happen. It used to be like that, but they found a way to bypass that. We learned that lesson before your World War 1 happened,” Erella explained.

“You don’t eat people, do you?” I asked, gazing at the slimy monster.

“What! Ew, no!” Grenald shouted.

“We should get going, they said this place was going to get dangerous, and we’re in trouble as is,” I suggested.

“But we just met them! They won’t be able to see us until the next full moon! Plus, we have to help them fight off the werewolves,” Regan objected.

“Ask one more question, then we can leave,” I said.

“If you guys don’t come out every night, then why is the slime everywhere everyday?” she asked.

“When sunrise starts, all the slime on the tree explodes from it, putting the slime all over the forest,” Erella said.

Then suddenly, the wind stopped, birds no longer sang, the leaves stopped moving. Then after a moment of silence, there was a deafening noise that sounded like a cross between screeching and howling.

“You two need to leave; now,” Erella said urgently.

“Are those…” Regan started before I pulled her arm, and we ran toward home. “We have to go back! We have to help them!” Regan shouted.

“No, we don’t! We’re not even supposed to be here!” I shouted. “We have school tomorrow, anyways,” 

A few minutes later, we broke through the woods and took a breather before running for home. The bowling and screeching didn’t stop until we got to the house.

“Where were you two! We almost called the cops!” Mom shouted.

“Never mind that! We found a magical tree with a witch named Erella and a slime monster guy named Grenald!” Regan shouted.

Mom just stared at us and blinked. Her phone was in her hand, and it looked like she was in the middle of dialing 911. Now her face got red, and she lowered her eyebrows.

“Were you two on drugs! I knew that school was not very good,” Mom shouted.

“What! No!” I shouted. “She’s telling the truth! We’ve been working on finding out why there are those whispers in the forest, we know why now!”

“Just go to bed! We’ll talk about this after school!” Mom shouted.

Regan and I both dreaded coming home the next day. Usually, Mom’s punishments consist of cleaning the whole house or scrubbing the bathrooms for a month. Luckily, Dad is home today, so maybe he can help quench Mom’s thirst for torture.

“I wonder what happened; if Erella and Grenald are okay,” Regan said as we walked home from school.

“Don’t sweat it. They’re magical beings; they’re fine,” I replied.

“I sure hope you’re right,” Regan said.

We were silent the rest of the way home. The sidewalks were littered with leaves, so was the grass. There were only a couple of trees that were green, all the others were either red, purple, yellow, orange, or they had no leaves. A few houses had Christmas trees and or Christmas outdoor decorations. Some places still had Halloween decorations up.

         We put our backpacks away, then sat at the kitchen table to await our punishment. After a few minutes, Mom came into the room.

         “Your Dad and I made a conclusion. We’re locking your windows with a key and no t.v for a week,” she said.

         Regan and I sighed. We thought it’d be more severe.

         “Now that we got that cleared up, where did you two go?” Mom demanded.

         “We told you already, we found…” and Regan was off, telling them about what happened by the tree and how we found out everything.

         They were silent, looking off into the distance. “I don’t believe this. Why are you lying to us?” Mom asked, looking us dead in the eye.

         “No! We’re not lying! Look!” Regan shouted, pulling out her map.

         “I believe them. It’ll explain why it was so important to miss family game night,” Dad said.

         “You’re seriously siding with them?” Mom asked.

         “They have proof, that’s enough for me,” Dad replied.

         “If you want more proof, we can take you to the woods and show you the slime,” Regan insisted.

         We spent the remainder of daylight traveling to the woods. On our way to the great oak tree, we showed Mom and Dad the slime. They touched it to see if the slime would turn into that dust; it did. As we continued walking, I started having doubts Erella and Grenald were okay. The slime in most spots was only a tiny amount. I know the tree only lets out a little slime, and Grenald does the rest. That’s the only explanation for the little amounts of slime. That being said, something happened to them.

         “This is where we were last night. Over here is the hole where Erella the witch and Grenald the slimy creature came out of. This side of the tree was covered with slime. The other was purple with magical-looking things floating around it,” Regan explained.

         “Wow, this slime stuff is fascinating,” Dad said.

         “Just because you two proved this is real doesn’t mean you get no punishment. It will, however, be less severe. We will not put your windows under lock and key,” Mom said.

         “I wonder if they’re alright, and what happened,” Regan said, peering into the empty hole.

         “I’m sure they’re fine,” I replied.

         For years after this event, we visited the tree every full moon. Over the days, the slime slowly disappeared more and more. So far, we haven’t seen them since. Regan held on to the fact that they were okay, but I, on the other hand, knew they weren’t. Regan could’ve sworn she saw them one day on a train. I think that was just her eyes messing with her.