“Grandpa, tell me a story!” Tori said, holding her small hands, up, folded together, a wordless pleased. Grandpa chucked.
“How about,” he said, reaching down to take her hand, “I show you a story instead?” Tori pulled back as he led her to the door.
“We’re going into the woods,” she wavered, “at night?” Grandpa chucked again and pulled Tori into his arms
“Don’t you worry, munchkin,” he said kindly, “nothing can hurt you while I’m around.”
The dry fall leaves, frosted over by the first cold snap of the season, crunched under grandpa’s large leather working boots.
His warm arms calmed Tori’s rapidly beating toddler heart and she grew enough courage to pull her face out of his faded flannel and started to notice the night-darkened woods around them. A completely different woods than the daytime woods she played in, completely different trees than the daytime trees she climbed.
No, this was an entirely different world than then the world the Nightshade Forest inhabited in the day.
Nihilistic Porcupine 