Paradox

Paradox

The town had one rule. Don’t eat the wild berries. For most, this wasn’t a problem. The town was filled with the working class. People who had money and could buy food. For the Evans’, it was a struggle day after day.

They lived in a cottage at the end of town that overlooked the wild berries. Large, plump purple berries packed onto bushes. They made Cole salivate. His stomach growled with hunger. His father hadn’t caught anything in weeks and the family had lived off rice. Then came the snow. It buried the town so deep, that those who tried to trek through it sunk like stones. A few died trying to scavenge for food.

The rice stores dwindled after a week. Mrs. Evans tried to ration it, but eventually the rice ran out. All they had left was rock soup. The only thing left outside that could resist the cold, were the berries.

A crack and howling wind grabs Cole’s attention. His father enters the cottage with his bow and arrows slung over his shoulder. The spears of the arrows are clean and Mr. Evans’s face is grim and hollow. In the kitchen, Mrs. Evans washes the dishes for the third time that day.

“Anything?” she asks.

Cole looks down at his boots. The leather warn from years of walking. He already knows the answer.

“We’re gonna have to think about leaving,” Mr. Evans says as he hangs his bow and arrows next to the door.

Through all the years of suffering, not once has Mr. Evans brought this up. The town of Mora has always been their home.

“What!? No! Our family’s been here for generations! For years! We can’t leave!” Mrs. Evans says.

“But there’s no food! Hasn’t been for years! Not since Annabelle…”

Mr. Evans looks out of the window at the berry bushes. He’s looking for Annabelle, hoping she will show up as if nothing happened.

“It always gets better in the summer, when the animals come out. We just have to wait till then.”

Mrs. Evans takes a step towards her husband. He brushes past her and slams his fists on the table.

“NO! IT WON’T!” he shouts. “You don’t understand, you haven’t seen the---”

Mr. Evans looks at Cole, whose eyes are fixed on him.

“Seen what, dad?”

“Nothing, son. It’s going to be ok.”

Mr. Evans’s voice is high with worry. Like he’s hiding something.

“Dad…”

Mr. Evans ignores his son’s pleas for information. He doesn’t want Cole to know how bad things really are.

“Dad, I’m seventeen. I’m practically a man.”

Those words. That statement. The truth. That’s what breaks Mr. Evans. He looks up at his family.

“The blithe is here and it’s spreading.”

Cole sits down. Mrs. Evan’s drops a plate. It shatters into a million pieces, but no one moves to clean it.

“How long?” Mrs. Evans croaks.

“Wendy…” Mr. Evan’s gazes at his wife with pity.

“How long?” she repeats.

“Two years.”

“Two years and you didn’t think to tell us?”

Mr. Evans says nothing. He thought about telling his family two years ago. He wanted to tell them the crops were dying. He wanted to tell them it wasn’t just their family starving in Mora, that more people had eaten the berries and gone missing. He wanted to tell them about the Mitchell’s leaving, then the Sanders, and many other families. But if he told them, then it would be real and he’d have to face the problem. But now, the animals are migrating. As time goes on, less and less wildlife remain in the forest.

“We have no money and the animals are leaving,” Mr. Evan’s states. “I haven’t sold meat in years. It’s been one big lie to protect you.”

“Then, why don’t we eat the berries? We can take previsions to make sure we don’t go missing,” Cole says.

Mr. Evans stands up and looks down at his son.

“I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. The Stuart kid ate them last week and he’s still missing. Your own sister! Missing! How could you even thing about it?”

“Who even made the rule? And why do all people go missing? Where do they go?”

It’s Mrs. Evans who answers Cole next.

“They go insane and get swallowed by the forest. I watched it happen to my childhood friend. One second, she was fine. The next, she sprinted into the forest.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I tried. But never mind that. The point is, you don’t eat the berries. No one has ever come back for them and anything you can possibly think of to try and stop the effects of them, has been tried. No one lives to tell the tale.”

“Ok,” is all Cole says. He gets up and climbs the ladder to his loft. He lies on his bed and stares at the rotting wood ceiling of his cottage, listening to his parents argue about what to do next.

Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Evans stop arguing. Day turns into night and all the Evans’s crawl into their beds. Cole in his loft bed, and his parents in the main room. When Cole hears his father’s snores, he knows it’s time. He will soon feel no hunger.

He puts on his boots, grabs his warmest red jacket, and heads outside. For a moment, he stares at the berries. He contemplates going inside, but the hunger hurts. Everyday his muscles ache more and everyday his father comes back empty handed. Cole knows it’s a matter of time before he starves to death. So, he pops a handful of berries into his mouth with ease.

They burst and sweet juice overwhelms him. The berries are better than candy. They are better than anything Cola has ever tasted. They are out of this world.

Cole closes his eyes and tilts his head back in pleasure. A groan escapes his lips as he fills his mouth with more and more berries. He opens his eyes. He probably ate a hundred berries, but there isn’t a single berry missing. It’s like they’ve all been magically replaced.

Cole just shrugs and grabs another. He should have done this a long time ago. They are just berries and he knows how to get home. He won’t get lost. He’s seventeen.

Cole’s worries melt the more berries he eats. He’s no longer hungry for the first time in his life. The constant grief that looms over him like a shadow numbs. It’s replaced by satisfaction and joy as he munches away at the forbidden berries. It’s only when the first light pierces the clouds that Cole finally feels full and heads back to his cottage.

When he gets there, his parents are still asleep. Cole goes to the stove and grabs a pan to boil water. He can at least prepare the tea. His dad wakes up first.

“Good morning,” Cole says.

Mr. Evans walks past him to the stove. He says nothing. He doesn’t acknowledge his son’s existence. Instead, he bends down to pick up the tea pot. The same one Cole just picked up moments ago. But how?

“Dad?”

No response.

“Dad, can you hear me?”

His mother’s voice comes from the other room.

“John, honey, have you seen Cole?”

“Mom! I’m right here!” Cole hugs his mom, but she doesn’t hug him back. She walks through him to Mr. Evans.

Cole shouts their names over and over, “Mom, Dad!” but they can’t hear him. They walk right by him as if he doesn’t exist.

Cole puts the pieces together. The berries. He ate them. He came home. He became invisible. The berries don’t make you get lost, they make you lost to the world. Was he in some alternate reality? Maybe he could find someone in town that could help. Someone had to notice him.

Cole leaves his cottage and heads down the dirt road until he reaches the town square. Merchants push their wooden carts, the wheels click as they roll over the cobblestone, smooth from centuries of use. Restaurants open their doors and townspeople flood the streets. Nobody notices Cole as he wades through the crowd. Nobody but one person.

At the end of the path, stands a girl. Her strawberry hair scraggly and long. Her blue eyes the same as Cole’s.

“Annabelle?”

The girl stands still as Cole pushes through the crowd.

“Annabelle, is it really you?” She smiles. Cole wraps her in his embrace, but she doesn’t hug him back. She’s cold. Ice cold.

“Where are we? How can you see me? Why can’t mom and dad see me? Are there others?” Cole fires off questions. Annabelle takes his hand and leads him down an alley to a green door nestled between two restaurants. She opens the door.

“What is this place?” Cole asks as he steps inside the room.

There’s a coffee table, a red sofa, a stove and sink against the back wall, and a wooden staircase that leads to another floor. Cole sits on the couch and Annabelle sits next to him.

“You ate the berries just like me.”

Annabelle’s voice is smooth, calm. But it’s not like her. Then again, Cole hasn’t seen her in years. But how come she hasn’t aged a day?

“Annabelle, how long have you been here?”

She smiles and there’s a twinkle in her eye.

“I don’t know, a while.” She turns her head and stares into Cole’s sole. “It’s your fault. You should have stopped me, Cole.”

Annabelle tilts her head.

“I-I’m sorry. I di-didn’t know.”

Cole buries his face in his hands and cries.

“But you did know. You knew I was hungry, you knew what I was planning! You ignored me, Cole. You wanted me to go away, you wanted me gone so you could eat more. You wanted---”

Cole sobs. For years, he blamed himself for Annabelle’s disappearance. If only he had been home instead of his friends house. Then maybe she wouldn’t have gone missing. “I should have been there. I should have—'

Annabelle’s voice changes.

“It’s ok, now you can stay with me forever,” she says in a happy, high-pitched voice.

It gives Cole the chills.

Cole stands. Annabelle grabs his hand and pulls with unnatural strength.

“Stay with me!”

Her voice is angry now and her eyes flash black.

“Ok,” says Cole as he sits back down. “So, how do we get back home?”

“We are home, silly.”

“No, I mean the world where mom and dad can see us.”

“Why would you want to go to that world? There’s food here. Are you hungry?” Annabelle asks.

Cole’s stomach growls.

“What do you have?”

“Anything you could possibly want. But I’ll need you to do something for me first. I need you to tell me why you feel guilty for my disappearance?”

Cole thinks for a moment before telling Annabelle it’s because he is her older brother. The room gets darker.

“Can we put on a light?” asks Cole.

“I like the dark.”

Another thought pops in Cole’s mind. Annabelle isn’t the only one to have gone missing.

“Hey, Annabelle, where are the others? Many have eaten the berries over the years.”

“It doesn’t matter, Cole. What matters is you’re here now. And you’re here to stay.”

Goosebumps crawl up Cole’s back. Something seems off and he can’t pinpoint what. He tries to stand again, but Annabelle pulls him down like last time. Her grip, her strength. A ten year old shouldn’t have this level of strength.

“I-I wanna go back to the town,” Cole mumbles.

“No, stay. It’s your fault I’m here. You’re the big brother, you should have been there.”

“I’m here now.”

Annabelle hugs Cole. Her body is cold and something changes. Shadows grow around her. Her eyes darken.

Cole tries to pull back from her embrace, but Annabelle won’t let him.

“I-I have to go, now. Let me up.”

Annabelle squeezes tighter. Cole winces in pain. This isn’t like his sister. What if it isn’t his sister? Cole screams. The shadows grow around Annabelle. He cries out for help. A dark shadow enters his mouth.

Cole’s cries are muffled. And just as he loses hope, the door bursts open.

An older girl, who looks to be around his age bursts in. Others follow. Each of them carrying flashlights to fight the darkness. They shine them on Cole. He can breathe again. He can talk.

Cole moves his arms and legs.

“Wh-what the…”

He doesn’t know what to ask. Annabelle, or what he thought was Annabelle, is gone.

“We call it the deimos,” says the girl.

A young boy steps forward.

“It takes the form of your biggest guilt,” he says.

Cole recognizes him. He’s on the missing board in the town square.

“You’re Tommy Reed.”

The boy nods his head.

“And I’m Caroline,” says the girl.

Someone else comes through the door. And when she sees Cole, she runs to him, her red, scraggly hair flows behind her.

“Cole,” she cries as she takes her brother into her embrace.

Cole apologizes for not stopping her. Annabelle claims he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his fault. But Cole can’t help but feel guilty.

“Listen, Cole, we have to get out of here. That thing will be back soon. We know a safe space.”

Cole follows Annabelle and her friends to a treehouse in the woods.

“So, how do we get out of here?” he asks.

The others look at him with pity.

“We can’t leave. We can’t go back,” says Tommy.

“There’s something you should know, Cole. The town has one rule. Don’t eat the berries,” says Annabell.