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The Woods in the House

by Amanda Cecelia Lang

(part 1)

Finally, I had a decent guess about the cog-works of the witch’s magic. The theory swamped my head until it became my only thought. But how to test it?

Sneaking down 13th without eyes on me became impossible. The beat cops, my kryptonite, manifested whenever I stepped outside. Dad stopped working double-shifts to warden me to-and-from school. On weekends, he locked the apartment and grumbled about sacrificing the overtime. Restless days passed, countless awkward hours cooped up together—watching the boob-tube, fixing meals from cans, pacing grimy ditches into the carpet, back and forth, back and forth, silently missing Tina. Missing our girls. It felt weird not feeling so afraid inside his shadow. But I had other villains to worry about.

How bonkers was it that I felt thankful for that?

Pretty ironic, that my next visit to the brownstone was on Thanksgiving.

Aunt Camila, Mom’s big sister, brought us a turkey like she’s done every Thanksgiving since diagnosis day. Usually these visits weren’t all-out miserable. Aunt C’s an okay cook and she and Tina always forced the sunlight, always found something to be thankful for. But this year, without Tina, my aunt just looked sunken-mouthed and uncomfortable. She didn’t live on 13th Avenue, but her sideways glances told me she didn’t need neighborhood gossip to suspect me of something monstrous.

When she broke our table’s strangled silence by announcing how she forgot ice-cream for the pumpkin pie, I instantly volunteered. I’d run to the market, back in a jiffy, I swore it. Dad patted my back, maybe a little too steel-fisted, and instructed me to hurry.

The bodega was east. I swung west because west was the direction of witches.

As I approached the brownstone, every window shone ablaze with spritely glimmers and musical shadows. I crept up the front steps to confront the witch’s door. It was a chilly leaf-blown night—but on the grand stoop, a bubble of fireside warmth enveloped me. The shattered window had been replaced. No more stained-glass to preserve the brownstone’s mystery, this new pane shone crystal clear, waiting for me.

Pretty sneaky.

I crouched low to spy, and what I found inside blindsided me, like when I discovered the illustrated woods on Tina’s storybook. Inside the brownstone, the forest had returned, just as I’d expected.

But that’s not what squeezed the breath from me.

Between mossy firefly yews, a long mahogany dining table appeared. Silverware gleamed in the light of candelabras, and fancy platters held a feast beyond anything Aunt C ever served up. Game birds and hams, candied berries and lattice-frosting cakes. An enchanted supper plucked ripe from the pages of Tina’s storybook. Wafting scents of heaven filled me against my will. Frightfully tempted, I backed away, scrubbing my lungs with icy city smog.

That’s when Tina appeared.

Free of shackles, free of grime. I’d expected her to limp like a tattered prisoner of war.

Instead, she sprung from the hollow of a yew wearing a fairy-dress—a sparkling frilly exaggeration of the Halloween costume she’d disappeared in. She lilted, practically floating as she carried a platter of candy apples. She balanced the treats on the table then pivoted as someone called her name.

Coming alive again, I yanked the brownstone’s door handle. Locked. So I bang-bang-banged, while inside, Tina’s face brightened as Old Lady Sybil stepped from a tree.

The witch balanced platters on her shaky arms, steaming lobsters and roasts, all my wistful favorites piled to the stars. A bowl teetered atop her knobby arms, started to topple. That’s when a third set of hands appeared in a swirl of yellow mist, catching dishes mid-tumble.

I recognized the woman. Face so familiar I’d know her anywhere, beside any bedside, inside any coffin, haunting any broken dreams.

Except it couldn’t be.

Because Mom was dead.

Yet there she stood, just as I remembered her, before the black eye on the subway, before the cancer gnawed the strength from her bones and the future from her smile. The sight of her zapped my bones to jelly.

Laughing, she and Tina settled around the witch’s table, ghosts, lies, linking hands to give thanks for stolen blessings. That was the secret of the misty yellow magic. It weaseled our brains, suckled our nightmares, cast the stars from our wildest wishes.

“It’s not real, Tina!” I shook the door handle, pounded the window. “Don’t fall for it!”

A rogue brick sat on the grand stoop—definitely hadn’t been there seconds earlier. No hesitation. I brick-smashed the witch’s window again, unlocked the deadbolt, then dashed inside like the superhero I was destined to be.

Mighty Buster. What a joke.

Gallantly, blindly, my sneaker eclipsed dead-open air.

The festive moonlight forest had vanished. Poof!

The brownstone’s threshold became a cliffside. My swift and clueless feet dangled over a rocky chasm spiked with howling yellow winds and witchy cackles.

Only one thing kept me from the plummet: the door handle. I swung wildly, feet kicking, fingers greasing loose.

Across the chasm, the starlight forest mocked me. In the craggy tree-root cliffside below the yews, a subway system snaked the earth, transport and destination beyond my reach. And I wondered: was Tina better off without me?

With the last of my bully-strength, I pulled myself gasping onto the witch’s stoop.

By the time I slunk home, minus my sister and the ice-cream, Aunt C had already bolted, leaving the pumpkin pie untouched. I braced for another skirmish with Dad and his belt. Instead, he sat silently at the Thanksgiving table, staring at an old family photo. I knew the one—the four of us decked out in the matching blue sweaters Mom knitted her last Christmas before diagnosis day—it’d been missing from the wall for a long time. When I crept up beside Dad, he tugged me into a quick one-armed hug then ordered me to bed without dessert.

I didn’t argue.

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All I want for Christmas is my sister back.

It’s December 24th. Fifty-five days missing.

Aunt C begs out on Christmas Eve, but Dad grabs Chinese takeout and now we chew in bashful white-flag silence with the tree lights red-and-greening our downcast faces. He surprised me with it, a needle-bare misfit with drooping branches. I swallow hard, summoning my nerves.

“Dad? Remember how Tina used to call me Buster? Where’d that come from?”

He nails me with steely, watery eyes… then chuffs a sad, faraway laugh. “Baby-talk for brother.”

Decorations aren’t our skillset, but after supper, we hang ornaments leftover from Mom’s childhood: hand-painted candy-canes, sequin snowflakes.

“We should save the star… in case Tina…” Dad stammers, and I nod, realizing that he’s wearing Mom’s blue-knit sweater under his work flannel.

Forcing joy proves exhausting. Bedtime hits us around 9 o’clock. I crawl under the covers, wearing boots and my winter coat, and hold my breath until midnight—that jingle-bell clock-strike when anticipation turns to Christmas.

This is it.

I crack my bedroom door, ready to beeline to the exit—but a living room shadow freezes me solid. Dad. Sneaking gifts under the tree. Not dressed like Santa, but in a wistful light that makes my chest ache, he seems kinda magical. I ease my door shut, listening for footsteps. A soft thunk: his door whispering closed.

Now I’m alone. I tiptoe for the exit—but not before peeking under the tree. Two small gifts twisted in ribbons and funny pages. One for me, one for Tina. Nothing for Dad, but I know his Christmas wish because it’s mine too.

Outside on 13th, snow dusts the sky like the aftermath of a pillow fight. Seems the beat cops have the night off, so I duck my head until I reach the brownstone’s grand stoop. Gloom curtains the windows, though a string of feeble-blinking fairy lights drapes over the door. Red-red, red-red, echoing my heartbeat.

And Merry Christmas to me: tonight, the witch left the deadbolt unlocked.

Door moaning like a humbug ghost, I step inside. Yellow mist parts to reveal the mossy inner walls of the subway train—everything as before, the ride already in motion before I can get my grip on unreality.

Outside the windows, another misty slideshow reels past. More ghosts, forgotten fairytales this time.

Mom anointing Tina in pixie glitter while Dad straightens my superhero cape… Mom retying Tina’s kitchen apron while Dad and I lick pumpkin batter from beaters… the four of us singing off-key carols in matching blue-knit sweaters. Were we really that carefree?

I ball fists against stinging eyes, but of course the memories keep flashing. Funny how the happy ones cut deeper, hurt deeper. Maybe because they clash against the toxic jerk I’ve become. Maybe because I recognize what we’ll never be again, no matter how deep into wonderland I chase my sister.

When the train slams to a stop and the doors slide open—end of the line—I’m not prepared. Too many comic books have tricked my common sense. I’m not kind or wise or made of steel, I’m no superhero. Just a lousy big brother who might never come back from this. How can I conquer a witch who keeps our secret dreams and nightmares squirreled inside her dining room?

I step off the train anyway.

And find myself a few short footsteps from another cliffside, this one facing a star-splashed cosmos. Glittery vertigo overtakes me. Comets rainbow-streak the sky—except that bright one’s not a comet. A sleigh and eight tiny reindeer?

Behind me, the subway train rattles and shrieks into motion. I whirl as it vanishes in a tubular swirl of yellow mist, replaced with the eerie edge of the storybook forest.

Yews loom overhead with raven-hued branches, twisted boughs knotted with ancient spells. All around, snowflakes pull from the frosted earth and drift skyward in an impossible upside-down dance. Is this how Tina imagines the world?

Golden pinpoints dot the treescape, flickering fireflies illuminating a path ahead.

Sucking in lungfuls of cinnamon and woodsmoke, I enter the forest. In the moonlight, the yews’ gnarled lacework boughs cast uncanny shadows against the frosted path. Occasional brownstone relics jut from the scenery: overstuffed chairs upholstered in blooming poinsettias, Tiffany lamps brightening tree hollows with shards of color, bookcases spilling pinecones and grimoires vined in mistletoe.

I shove onward, alone with my imposter syndrome even as constellations of fireflies lead the never-ending way. Uncomfortable heat rises from my collar. I tug my scarf loose then shed my coat—gobsmacked by a poof of yellow mist and comic book colors.

I glance down, suddenly costumed in a cape and breastplate stamped with a mighty B. My guts slither and sink, guilty with yesteryear fraud. Tina called for Buster, not the menace I’ve become. Is the witch mocking me?

Laughter gusts between the trees. Razor-cruel cackles swirl and soften into distant childlike giggles. “Santa came! Look, Buster, Santa came!”

“Tina? Tina!” I start running.

Sparks ignite beyond a thicket, one, two, a million. Ice-crystals gust, and candy-canes and sequin snowflakes appear on nearby branches. Sugar plum laughter dances the woodsmoke now. Up ahead, the yews reveal a meadow and a vast frozen lake.

A sky-high Christmas tree glitters on the shore.

My star-map fireflies scatter and flurry around the Christmas tree, claiming rank amid the fairy lights and bejeweled crystal balls.

Tina sits at the bottom in a scarlet-and-holly ballgown, lost in a cloud of lace ribbons and daydreams.

I run for her, twenty feet away, ready to sweep her home, when yellow mist twists around the Christmas tree and an imperial dragon with torrid ruby-jade scales shimmers forth. Flanking Tina like a loyal pet, it chuffs embers and chases me with blazing yellow eyes.

I tiptoe closer, hero-cape rippling, voice squeaking. “Tina?”

“Look, Buster, Santa left a present for you!” She tugs a box loose, starting an avalanche of candy-striped packages. Giggling, she holds out my gift. The dragon chuffs again, but allows me to take it. The box feels as hollow as my courage.

“Tina, we gotta go home…”

My little sister flutters eyelashes at me for the first time in fifty-five days—but what does she see? Mighty Buster of Childhoods Past—or the evil-doer who shoved her into the witch’s sticky-apple clutches.

“Mommy will be here soon.” Tina turns from me, waving a spritely hello at the lake. “They’re baking gingerbread.”

I lean cautiously sideways, pulse snagging on traitorous hope. Beyond the dragon, a wooden raft floats atop icy moonlit waters. Adrift, Old Lady Sybil stands before a cast-iron oven with a chimney pipe puffing mist toward frosty stars. With bare hands, she pulls a pan from the fire and offers it to the dream-phantom beside her hearth.

Blue-knit sweater, healthy glowing cheeks, sunshine eyes even on the darkest nights. She’s everything I remember.

Heart-punched, what I have to say sucks the breath from me. “It’s not real, Tina. Mom’s gone. You know that…”

Tina falls silent, smoothing ribbons on packages.

“Please come home.” I kneel beside her, and the dragon arches closer. Swallowing a lump, I set the Santa gift in the snow. “Dad got us presents, left them under the tree. He really misses you. We both do.”

“We’ll have cocoa and gingerbread,” Tina singsongs, eyes pooling with enchantment, ears echoing misty curses. “And Mommy says after that, we’ll live happily ever after.”

“No, Tina. It’s like a dream, it can’t last. The witch put a spell on you, kidnapped you. But I’m here, ready to fight an epic battle. But first, it’s time to wake up.” I tug her hand, like how she used to tug me down 13th. She stiffens and the dragon belches a fire-swirl warning, flame-charring the ground beside me, flash-boiling the snow.

“It’s real,” Tina whispers.

My heart knots, knees weaken, but I stand anyway. How do I break this curse? Slay the dragon? Shove the witch into her oven? I step forward, and my boot trips over my Santa gift. This time, the empty box rattles, clatters like sword play.

Tina watches me. “Mommy won’t mind if we open just one.”

So, I do. A gift no bigger than a shoe-box, but when I rip it open, infinite sword-in-the-stone options tumble out like tricks from a magician’s hat.

Iron maces, celestial wands, swords of light—everything needed to complete Mighty Buster’s transformation. I weigh a battle-axe in my hand, already sensing the truth. My breastplate pounds, betraying my heartbeat. Betraying that mighty B.

Tina giggles. The witch’s cackles haunt the lake. I indulge a final long look at the phantom in the blue-knit sweater—absorb her into my memories.

Then I lower the battle-axe and choose the only magic I have.

Empty-handed, I face Tina. The rumbling inferno of her dragon overshadows me, and I’m ready to burn to say the words I should’ve said from the start.

The only words strong enough to break this spell.

“I’m sorry.”

Tina goes very still, and those sunshine eyes rise to meet me. Not Mighty Buster.

Just her brother. The brother she needs.

“Anthony?”

My real name breaks me. An entire B-line of regret speeds on through.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry for ditching you, for shoving you away. After Mom died, I became your villain. The cops, the gossips, it’s true what everyone said. I did this, I put you here. Mom dying isn’t an excuse. You lost her, too, but you still found sunshine in the gloom.” I tilt my head back, taking it all in, tears rolling into my ears. “Look at the world you’ve dreamed. I’m sorry I never appreciated who you are. My bright, creative, clever little sister. I’m no hero, but I wanna be your brother again.”

A small hand curls around mine.

“Look what Santa brought.” Tina points at the woods.

The brownstone’s front door awaits us on the edge of the yews. Beyond the window, snow crystals swirl between fire-hydrants and lampposts and the silent sidewalks of 13th Avenue.

Tina raises an eyebrow. “Dad really left presents under the tree?”

I nod.

“Let’s go home,” she says, like it’s her idea.

Footsteps padding forward along the parlor rug, I glance back at the witch’s raft. No more phantoms, though Old Lady Sybil remains, adrift in the last tendrils of yellow mist, paisley kitchen walls solidifying beneath fading starshine. She stretches that elastic smile at me, and cast in the lamp-glow from 13th Avenue, she doesn’t seem so sinister.

Not anymore.

Tina tugs my hand. For the first time in forever, I joyfully follow.

Our ending won’t be all happily-ever-after and bluebirds singing. That I know. That’s the deception of storybooks. Real life is never so breezy beyond the pages, beyond the magic. And as we open the door and step outside onto Old Lady’s Sybil’s slippery grand stoop, I feel the enchantment scatter from us, evaporating like mist.

We’ll have to discover our own powers now.

A thousand new hardships and traditions and turbulent wonderful days await us before our final The End.

For now, Dad’s at home hoping for his lost children, and the first sunrise snowflakes of Christmas morning sparkle against our cityscape.

And whatever misadventures await, my holiday wish is that we’ll face them as a family.