The Forest’s Heart

Chapter One: Memories Lost, Memories Gained

The story in the newspaper goes that I was attacked by a wolf or wild dog. Through some miracle, not only was I able to survive, I dragged myself home before promptly falling into a coma that spanned two years. Mom claims it was Father watching over me, doctors say it was adrenaline or sheer survival instinct, and as for me, well I couldn’t even phantom a guess on the subject, as I don’t remember it. The Attack, as we call it, not only took two years of my life in a coma, but also took the majority of my memories of the previous three years, along with giving me so many other medical problems it’s a wonder that I was able to make it to sixteen. I can’t help but wonder what went on during those five years. Sure, Mom has stories and pictures to recall our time in Hartwood, the small town we were then living in, but it is not the same. I don’t know who I truly was then, and that is the root of all my problems.

~~~~~*~~~~~

I first became Dr. Lee’s patient six years ago, when I was month or so out of my coma. With his charm, good looks, and gentle ways, he was able to get me to talk about my feelings in a way none of the other therapist could. He gave me the encouragement I was searching for to be able to recover enough to attend my first day of middle school, and for that, I can’t help but feel immense gratitude for that. Without him, I probably would still be in a hospital or nursing home waiting to die rather than trying to live. It’s sad to admit, but he probably was my first love and I still do nurse a bit of a crush on him.

“How are you today Evangeline,” he asks with his normal warm and gentle smile, as he sits behind his desk and takes out my case file. I lean forward on the desk and rest my elbows on it and my head on my fist as I usually do. “How did your finals go?”

“They were finals,” is my lack luster reply. He chuckles at this and I can’t help but smile in return.

“I’m sure they weren’t that bad,” he adds. “And now you have the entire summer to look forward to.”

“Before my junior year,” I say. “Which is,” I put in air quotes, “‘One, if not, the most important and hardest year you will ever face. This is the year you must start thinking about your future and college.’ Or so my Councilor keeps reminding me.”

“You always rise to the occasion Evangeline,” Dr. Lee says. “And I’m sure this will be no different. After all, few people have ever overcome all that you have in so brief a time. You’re a very smart and wonderful young lady, and I’m certain that you’ll be able to succeed.”

“Thanks for that,” I say, blushing slightly. It is always good to have someone besides your family and friends in your corner. “But that isn’t what I want to discuss. Doctor, in two weeks it is going to be the eight year anniversary of the Attack, and I’m still no closer to remembering then I was after my coma. Am I ever going to get my memories back?”

“I can’t say for certain Evangeline,” he says, touching my arm in reassurance. “Your amnesia is amazing and a very rare case. You can recall general ideas from that time, but nothing concrete. And nothing…”

“About the Attack at all,” I sigh. “And I’m sick of it! I deserve to know what happened to me, but the more I try to remember, the less I do. Sometimes, I feel like I’m not even the same person anymore!” I lean back in my chair and cry a little. It is the most frustrating feeling in the world, and I constantly live with it.

“Have you been taking all your medications?” he asks, and my silent reply affirms his suspicion. “Evangeline, they won’t help you if you don’t use them.”

“I’m sixteen!” I whine. “I don’t want to take all that crap anymore, and they don’t even help! I’m still sore all over and sleepy all the time! I caught every virus that came near me and spent nearly every break in my bed or the doctor’s office. I feel as if every waking moment I have to keep myself together. It isn’t fair!” I wipe my nose and eyes with my hand.

“No it isn’t Evangeline,” is all that Dr. Lee can say. “But the only way to change that is to live, and to do so you may have to make the sacrifice of taking your medicine regularly.”

“Easy for you to say,” I mutter. He is silent for a long moment, thinking about what to say next. Uncharacteristically, he rises and goes to look out one of the windows. I stop my fit to pay attention.

“Evangeline, there is no easy way for me to tell you this,” his voice is sad. “But I’m afraid that I have taken you as far as I can. I spoke with Felicity…”

“My mom?” I break in. He nods. In all my times seeing him, I can’t remember him ever calling her anything but my mother or Mrs. Morgan.

“I spoke with your mother,” he corrects. “And we both think you should look into seeing another psychiatrist.”

“But I don’t want another psychiatrist,” I complain. “I want you!”

“I don’t think I’m good for you anymore,” he says, looking at me truthfully. “And there are too many complications…” He trails off. “Dr. Jones is an excellent psychiatrist, and I think she can take you further then I could ever hope to.”

“But she isn’t you,” I supply. He gives a smile at this.

“No she isn’t,” he says. “But she may be what you need. Promise me you’ll think about at least? I would never suggest anything that I didn’t think would help you.”

“Sure,” I say as I rise to shake his hand. He bids me goodbye and I walk out of the office and to the elevator that takes me to the hospitals parking garage. Taking a deep breath before I exist, I go straight to my sky blue Mitsubishi Eclipse and get in to drive.

For the first half of my trip, I believe my destination is home, but when I get to the intersection, I can’t turn right. I’m stuck at the wheel until a car horn beeps and I shake myself awake. Taking a sharp and illegal u-turn which nearly results in an accident, I head back. Passing the hospital and mall without a any plan of action, until I pull up in front of the last place I thought I would ever be again, my father’s nursery.

~~~~~*~~~~~

My clearest pre-Attack memories are all of my father, Robyn Morgan. Like a shadow, I would follow him as he helped his customers and tended to the plants with his utmost care. Never would a flower bloom sweeter, a vine last longer, or a tree hold more fruit then the ones cultivated by his hand. He tried to teach me all their names, usages, and histories, but like any child, I cared more for carelessly plucking up the pretty flowers. He never scolded me or told me to stop doing it. His only reply was to give me a sad smile and then return to whatever it was he was doing. Perhaps he thought I would eventually learn not to, but I never did. He was the first to call me by my proper name, Evangeline. He hated my nickname Eva, which everyone else used until I stopped them when I was twelve and felt I had outgrown it.

And then he died.

During the early spring after I turned five, one of his employees found him lying amongst his plants, long dead. Doctors say it was a blood clot in his heart, and he simply fell over and died. I don’t think Mom believed it. She seemed to blame something else, but she never told me what and I was a bit too scared to ever ask. After the funeral, Mom, who in the best of times was flighty and flaky, whisked me away; five hundred miles away to Hartwood, where she had met and fallen in love with my father. There we stayed until the Attack, which caused her to move us back here to Greensburg.

She could never sell this place or run the business. Many of his old employees had offered to run it in her place, but Mom thought it fitting for this place to die with Father. She left it just how he had on the morning he died, not even bothering to lock it up or collect his personal belongings. It was to remain a silent testament to Father’s too short life to the end of time.

~~~~~*~~~~~

The door is askew, having fallen off the bottom hinge long ago. Turning the doorknob out of habit, I open it unto the remains of the once glorious place. Panes of glass have fallen out. The plants have either all died or grown to the point of taking over. The remains of trespassers in the form of beer bottles and candy wrappers lay amongst the natural debris. For the first time ever, I am glad Father was not alive. Seeing his pride and joy in this state of despair would have been a worse death then any physical one could hope to be. Even I feel my heart skip a beat and a tear come to my eye.

Carefully navigating the path that is all but invisible now, I head to his office. The door to it is warped and I have to use my full weight to budge it open. The place for the most part has been ransack, the cash register broken and anything of monetary value gone. On his desk, three pictures remain in a sea of broken glass and hazy colors.

This first is of his and Mom’s wedding, the same picture Mom has in the entry hall of our house. They look so happy and in love with each other, I can’t help but smile each and every time I see it. She is her simple but elegant white gown, holding that huge bouquet of blue and white roses, her pale blonde hair up in a bun and her eyes squinting a bit because she didn’t wear her glasses. He wears a suit with ease and grace of a movie star, holding his new bride close.

The next is of him and me together. He looks the same as he does in every picture I have seen of him; black hair pulled back, pale skin, thin, and bright blue eyes shiny. I, on the other hand couldn’t be more different now. In this and every picture I have before I’m ten, I’m stocky and tan, with short darkish hair and eyes somewhere between mud and stone. Now, I’m Father’s mirror imagine, pale and waif like, with his hair and eyes. I study myself in the photo. In no way do I seem like the girl in the photograph, that fearless tomboy I use to be. I wouldn’t feel right in her skin; I would hate her if we ever met. She is everything that I’m not. And I’m more than a little scared about that.

The last is of the old two-story cabin in Hartwood. I reach to pick it up, but the moment I do my head explodes in pain.

Anger wells in my little body as I kick at rocks and foliage along the forest’s path, muttering curses to people I don’t ever remember meeting. “Stupid Torin, stupid Aislin,” I mutter along with a slew of other unfamiliar names. “I can’t believe it!” I stop as I hear rustling nearby.

“I’m leaving!” I yell at the intruder in my baby voice, shaking fist that wouldn’t terrify a bee. “It’s my home! I’m leaving cause you told me to, and I won’t be back!” My anger is even greater now. I turn to glare, but all I see are two yellow eyes at an adult’s height staring back at me. My mouth opens to scream…

I gasp awake on the office floor, trying to catch my breath. The pain is quickly abating, but the images I saw remain just as vivid as they had a moment ago. Never before, even in my dreams, have I seen such things. Was this one of my forgotten memories finally coming back to haunt me? Or was it only a figment of my imagination? I shake my head, but it still makes no sense.

I groan as I get up and walk back to the entrance, but stop when I see something glittering in the dirt beside a rose bush. I tell myself it is nothing but trash left from some party, but I catch myself going back to it twice before I finally give in to my curiosity. Careful of the thorns, I reach for it and feel the coolness of metal. Pulling it up, I find it to be a platinum necklace with a pendant that fits perfectly in my palm. It is of a weeping willow tree with a rainbow of miniature gems in the shape of flowers hanging on the branches. I can’t imagine anyone leaving such a treasure. It has to be pricey, and who ever lost it must be frantic, though I have no idea how long it has been here. I turn it over in my hand. On the back is written Robyn. In shock, I drop the necklace before I follow it to the ground.

“Evangeline,” the eyes call from their hiding place in a deep echoing voice. “Come and play with me Evangeline.”

“You’re bad,” I whimper. “They told me you were bad.” My voice is shaky, and I am slowly moving back from the speaker. My anger is suddenly gone and fear is setting in.

“Who,” the voice chuckles meanly. “Your friend Aisling? Torin? Didn’t they send you away, never to return? They no longer care about you Evangeline. But I do. I care deeply about you.”

“Go away,” I stutter, but he only laughs again.

“They turn their backs on you, why not return the favor,” he argues. “I could help, if you promise me one thing, I will help you get back at them for betraying you. After all, it is what they deserve.”

“I don’t care what they did!” I cry out. “I love them still. I would never hurt them! I rather die!” I turn to flee, but it is too late. All around me creatures crawl that look as if they were made of rocks and wood rather than flesh. Slowly they circle me as the voice turns icy and says “So be it.”

Awakening this time, I vomit where I found the necklace. Every nerve of my body cries in pain as I drag myself up, having enough sense to remember to pick up the pendant as I limp to the entrance and back into my car, before curling up and passing out in the driver’s seat.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Groggily, I open my eyes to see that the sun has set. The taste in my mouth and the smell of my body, sticky with sweat, causes me to feel sick again. I barely manage to open the door before the wave of nausea hits me once again and I am sick all over the grass by my car. Dr. Lee’s warning about taking my medicine regularly echoes in my ears as I toss what is left of my lunch.

When it finally passes, I groan and check my cell phone for the time. Nearly ten. I have been asleep in my car for almost seven hours. Surprisingly, there are no messages from either Mom or my friends. I move to put my cell phone back on my dashboard, before I notice that I still have the pendant in my hand, bringing back the memories of my early dreams, minus the pain and passing out. I never remember seeing my father wearing it, but it could still be his. I feel an inkling to toss it out the window and forget about it. The dreams it and the photo brings me are scarey, but I can’t. Even if it is a long shot of belonging to my father, there is still a chance that this is a connection to the one part of my past I actually remember and maybe a part I don’t. Sighing, I hook the necklace around my neck before I drive off, back toward the main road and my home.

Through some miracle I manage to not hit anything or have the police pull me over for drunk driving. What could I tell them if they did pull me over? No officer, I’m not drunk. I just merely came from the greenhouse my dad died in after my psychiatrist told me he was dropping me and found a photo and this mysterious necklace that is making me hallucinate about a past that might not be. Yeah, I can see my license disappearing before I could say half of that.

Parking in my driveway, I see that Mom’s silver Mustang is not alone. A black Mercedes is next to it, the owner’s name is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t recall which one of her friends drives it or who would even be over at this time of night.

Feeling my last ounce of strength leaving my body, I decide to attempt to get in my house before I fall asleep in my car again. I hobble to my front porch to find that the door isn‘t locked and I let out a sigh of relieve that I don‘t have to try and find my keys that I had left in my car. Stumbling in, I pause a moment to decide whether I should chance navigating the stairs or simply crash on the couch for the night. Deciding on the path of least resistance I head for the living room to find Mom and Dr. Lee in a very passionate embrace.