Prologue

The Golden Trinity

Whenever we visited my grandmother's house, a quaint, little two-story home, the color of robins' eggs and green plants cascading on her porch, a testament to how some things never changed, there were three rules she had us follow.

One, never lie. There was nothing worse than lying in Grandma June's eyes. She used to say that every lie would plant a seed of evil into your heart, and before you knew it, the seed would take root, a weed blooming and enveloping your heart to the point that it would never be able to find its way out. I was so scared of my heart becoming covered in evil, lie weeds that I never lied to Grandma June.

Two, always remember your manners. Thank-yous and excuse-mes and pleases, they were law at my grandmother's, remnants of her southern roots. You never swore, never spoke harshly; there was only sweetness and respect, something that would have been annoying if it weren't for my grandmother's natural ability to bring that out of a person in the first place.

Three, never go into the woods. Never. Her little wooden house was nestled in them, tall redwoods and oaks and hitches reaching for the sky, their branches outstretched and towering. We were pretty isolated; the nearest town Greenward was fifteen miles east, and the nearest neighbor was about eight. Nothing but trees and leaves and the animals that lived in them.

We used to joke and say that it was the ideal set for a horror movie, the perfect scene for homicide. The thought sent shivers down our spines as Carrie and I giggled underneath my grandmother's covers, whispering ghost stories into the night. And all the stories revolved around one thing: the woods. We spun tales about fairies and elves and gnomes that inhabited the forbidden forest, that crept in moonlight and snatched up little children with a hungry greed.

I hated those woods.

When we were young, those rules guided our lives. They were the parameters, stronger than God's law or legal law combined. As long as we were with Grandma June, we would follow them.

But by the time of my eighteenth birthday, I had broken them all.

A new day, a new story, and after the last month of torture I went through (NaNoWriMo kicked my butt physically and emotionally—I was still victorious, but ugh), I'm ready to start a new story.

Thank you for reading! Hopefully, I can keep this story updated on a regular basis, but feedback is always a motivator.

-lalamydear