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Forest of Forever
Brett doesn’t believe in ghost stories.
He’s afraid of real things - lightning, car accidents, bad intonation.
But the tales of evil spirits whispered by his grandmother, or the haunted houses he was dragged to by his friends always made him roll his eyes.
Brett has lived for a few hundreds of years now, and hasn’t crossed paths with a single ghost or evil spirit.
“Dude, that forest is so spooky,” Jordon whistles as he eyes the woods spreading behind Brett’s backyard.
Evening lights are dying out, the shadows of trees spreading, like the forest is trying to grow and swallow Brett’s house whole.
“That calls for a test of courage.” Phoebe smiles, putting down her glass like she’s actually considering it.
“Don’t be stupid, we’ll just get lost.” Brett massages his sore shoulder.
They carried furnitures for most of the afternoon, and his back muscles ache and protest. They’re enjoying the evening now, a wine bottle open between the four of them, and a second might come out of his cupboard soon.
“Did you take a walk in the woods, already?” Hyung fills Brett’s glass.
“Dude, I literally moved today.”
It’s still strange to think that he owns a house. In all the years he’s lived, he never wanted to arouse suspicion about his immortality, moving around, changing country, names and orchestra every so often. Crashing back to his parent’s house in Taiwan when in-between two lives.
But as he got closer to three hundred, the desire to settle grew with him, until he stared at houses to sell during his free time and stopped in front of estate agencies’ windows on his way back from work.
It’s a long drive from his remote home at the corner of the forest to his current job at the Sydney Opera House, but he doesn’t mind.
“I wouldn’t go there after dark if I were you,” Jordon leans on the table, voice lowering. “You might-”
“Trip on a root and break my arm?”
“- awaken spirits.”
“Yeah sure, the spirit of not practicing because I broke my arm.”
Brett sips at his glass, the red wine is tangy and rich, it fills his mouth and makes his head spin mixed with tiredness, resistance never building with age.
The woods are beckoning.
#
There’s nothing on Instagram, and after refreshing for the third time, melting a bit more on his couch with every swipe of his finger, Brett eyes his backyard, the sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Inviting.
There is something about that forest that draws him in, the way the sun plays with the leaves, the smell of earth and vegetation that invades his house when he practices with the windows open.
But when night falls, behind the first few rows of trees, the woods are dark, moonlight refusing to penetrate the canopy, the roots seem to twist and turn, forming a barrier, like to prevent him from going in.
Today is nice and sunny though. Late morning and Brett is so bored his brain is melting through his ears.
“Alright, time to take a walk.”
#
As he weaves his way through the branches, making sure he can still his house, his breathing feels lighter.
Modern technology has a strong grip on him, and he took to it faster than most immortals he knew. Now, he has to admit it is freeing to walk this way, phone left to charge in his house. Just him and nature, like the old times, growing up remote from the world.
The forest smells earthy and deep, he spies some mushrooms at the foot of a tree - chanterelle, after a closer examination. A squirrel jumps from one branch to another right in front of him, the forest seems to cradle and welcome him. He can almost feel the weight of its gaze on him, the shade of leaves a reprieve from the burning sun.
Before he realizes it, it’s been two hours.
#
From this day, walks in the forest are a regular occurrence; in silence, humming under his breath, singing out loud the latest symphony he’s been working on.
And sometimes he talks about what he can’t tell anyone else.
There’s something alive about this forest. Like it listens.
“It’s a bit lonely sometimes,” he kicks an acorn. “Living for so long. I’ve met many people, but only a few ends up staying.”
He thinks of Hyung, Phoebe and Jordon, who’ll inevitably die, and his heart aches. His friends here are the best he had had in a long while.
“I wish I was a vampire instead of a regular immortal. So I could turn a few of the people I like most in vampires too.” A bird chirps on a branch and Brett smiles. “Kidding, I don’t think I could give up on sunlight, and blood sounds pretty gross.”
He feels a bit like a Disney character, talking to animals as if they could understand him, humming in the forest, picking up chanterelles from that spot he noticed on the first walk.
“I also got to meet a lot of composers, so it’s not all bad.” The memory of afternoons in Clarens with Tchaikovsky basks his chest in bittersweetness. “Even got close to some.”
The concerto Pyotr wrote for him escapes his lips, humming softly, heart full of melancholy.
Stories unfurls from his tongue, secrets he never told anyone, safely cradled by the fluttering leaves and twigs cracking under his feet.
“I’m so hungry,” Brett mumbles after his stomach growls, staring at his collection of mushroom. “I think I’ll go back home and cook those.”
And an apple rolls to his feet.
There’s no apple tree around.
“What the fuck?”
It looks fresh, red and devoid of beak marks. After picking it up, Brett frowns.
There’s a sticker on the fruit.
“Hello? Is someone here?” he calls out.
Nothing answers but a faint glow between two trunks, and a shiver through his spine.
For the first time, the forest doesn’t feel safe.
“Fuck this,” he mutters, backtracking.
#
He’s back home once he notices the sticker on the apple is the same one that’s slapped on the bag of fruit he bought yesterday.
#
“The woods are haunted.” Jordon is playing some chords Brett doesn’t recognize on his piano - probably a new composition.
“No, they aren’t, it just means there’s a little thief around here,” Brett grunts, scrolling further on the surveillance website.
“Really?” his friend hums, music picking up, minor chords and sharp notes flowing from his right hand.
It takes him a few seconds to realize he’s playing Dance Macabre.
“Dude, stop that.”
“Scared?” Jordon plays even faster, as if the ghosts dancing are in a frenzy, swirling around.
“There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“Then I’ll keep playing.”
Brett does his best to ignore him, focusing on his screen, but the music is getting to him, and the woods seem to progress with the growing evening, sound and trees getting closer until he feels like choking.
This is ridiculous, he’s an immortal, he can’t be scared of an apple.
“Maybe it’s an animal,” he mutters under his breath, adding a camera to his shopping cart.
“Ghosts don’t appear on camera.” Someone blows air on his ear.
“Fucking hell!” Brett almost shrieks before seeing Jordon’s smiling face a centimeter away from his own.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he laughs under Brett’s dubious glance. “Anyway, be careful, ghost or not, someone sneaked in your house. Do you want to sleep at my place until the stuff you ordered arrives?”
“No.” Brett doesn’t know why he refused, but the word rolled off his tongue on their own. “Don’t worry I’m fine, it’s just an apple. I’ll remember to lock the doors.”
“Okay.”
Jordon seems hesitant to leave, and his worry almost contaminates Brett.
#
Brett becomes wary of the forest.
It is lush and beautiful at the fringe, but seems dark and sinuous behind the first few rows of trees, the dense foliage absorbing all sunlight.
He tries going back once for the mushroom. The woods seem to observe and listen, but this time, it rips a shiver from his spine. The phantom eyes of the woods are no longer comforting.
“It’s just Jordon getting under your skin,” he mumbles to himself, hurrying back home. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing, Brett.”
But he doesn’t go back.
#
A day after installing the camera, it dies.
There’s smoke coming out of it, and the seed of fear that was planted since the apple incident sprouts in Brett’s stomach. Its leaves flutter with unknown under his skin.
His heart is beating faster than usual as he composes the technical support phone number, pacing in the kitchen. Something orange on the floor catches his gaze.
A chanterelle.
“What the-”
A meter away, there’s a second one.
He kneels down and turns it over in his hand; there is still some dirt clinging to the feet, as if it has been freshly picked up. A third one waits for him just a bit further.
With increasing confusion, Brett follows the trail, going from mushroom to mushroom until he reaches his back door.
When he opens it, exactly one meter from the previous one, chanterelles are carefully disposed; a straight path leading into the forest.
His pulse is thundering.
“You’ve reached Safe Home client service, what can I do for you, sir?”
The voice on the other side of the line startles him enough that he drops on his phone on the grass.
He’s swearing under his breath as he fumbles to take it back.
“Yes, sorry, sorry, it’s about a camera I bought a few days ago…” As he describes his problem, he eyes the trail of mushrooms warily.
There is no way this is an animal.
#
He spends all morning waiting for the technician to come, then has to hurry to rehearsal as soon as the camera is fixed.
No footage has been salvaged, the line of mushrooms is still waiting for him outside of his house. Unable to focus on what he’s playing, he’s going through the motions of Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead while something hot boils in the pit of his stomach.
#
He is staring at the forest when the feeling gets sharper.
Yes, he’s scared.
But also excited.
He has traveled all over the world, seen most of what was to be seen, played every music there was to play, and this is the first time in a long time he has been that surprised by anything.
The slow drag of the symphony he played this afternoon is still ringing in his ears. It makes the trees sound menacing, but with the growing darkness of the evening, the mushrooms seem to glow, strange and out of place.
He takes a step forward.
#
The world is different during the night, like it enters another dimension when the sun sets. All paths are twisted and directions spin.
What made sense under the light is now confusing, and Brett has been turning in circles for the past half hour.
The trail of glowing mushrooms stopped a few feet in the forest, and when he tried to turn back where he came from, the path had disappeared.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
The woods are entrapping him, roots and vines tripping his feet like they want to grab his ankles.
“Oh fuck. Please, I just want to go home.”
From between leaves, a flash of light makes him blink. He stumbles forward, expecting to find his house, but all he sees are more trees. More leaves and the coldness of the night seeping deeper in his bones.
When another light floats a few meters in front of him, he frowns.
“Okay, that’s enough!” He calls to somewhere around him. “I don’t know who you are but stop playing games with me.”
No one answers and Brett’s nerves are more and more frazzled, but his irritation runs deeper.
“You’ve stolen my food, broken my camera, freaked the fuck out of me, what do you want?”
The glow in front of him gets fainter, wavering in intensity, and Brett propels himself forward.
He’s chasing after wisps of light, the faint idea of someone, and the forest is trying to stop him, growing denser around him, blocking his path but Brett doesn’t care.
It’s the eyes and the ears of the forest he’s after and with one last adrenaline push, he jumps on the evading glow.
Under him, there are startled eyes.
“I’m sorry!” the person on the ground yelps.
Brett’s heart is still thundering in his chest, heaving above the form of another man protecting his face with his arms.
“What the fuck-” he pants.
The faint glow is coming from him, body alight with something supernatural, and the grass under seems to borrow the shine - turning silver at the tip.
Then he moves his hands, blinking up at Brett. His features are sharp, young and full of wonder, every detail discernible thanks to the light he emits.
“You can touch me…” he marvels, before grimacing when he catches Brett’s angry expression. “I swear I didn’t mean to scare you! I just wanted to help you back home.”
In the fallen night, just trees surrounding them, there is only the sound of his pulse hammering, harsh breathing, and a nocturnal creature passing by. No heat comes from the one under his hands. His chest stays unmoving, no lungs or heartbeat shaking the ribcage with life.
The question he refused to acknowledge tickles his tongue.
“Are you a ghost?”
“Yes.” The admission comes easily. “And you’re immortal.”
“Yes.”
For a while, the air between them stays suspended. The information is settling on Brett’s mind, heavy and inescapable, now that the spirit is trapped between the forest ground and his body.
The ghost raises a hand slowly, and before he can touch him, Brett grabs his arm, forcing it back on humid leaves and dirt.
“Are you the one who stole my apples?” His grip tightens.
His arm is muscular, and the glowing man could probably throw him off if he wished so, but he doesn't look like he wants to pick a fight.
“It’s not really stealing if I gave it back to you, is it?”
“And broke my camera?”
“It broke on its own!” His tone climbs up in offense. “It really startled me you know. All that smoke coming out.”
“What were you even doing in my house in the first place?” Brett seethes.
“I, huh…” he hesitates for the first time, indignation bleeding out of him as he avoids Brett’s glare. “I wanted to give you some mushrooms…”
“Why?”
“Because you like them?” The ghost’s voice gets even shyer. “I always see you pick them up. So I thought… You might like it…”
Brett tries to cling to his irritation. He has every right to be angry, this guy stalked him, trespassed multiple times, and lead him into the forest.
“And since, you know...” The ghost squirms a bit. “You had stopped coming to the forest, I thought you were angry about the apple, so maybe you’d feel better with some mushroom? Maybe you’d come back if I gave some to you?”
The more he talks, the cuter he looks. Brett notices teeth peeking from his lip, the curl of his hair on his forehead, the scrunch of his nose, the embarrassed tilt of his mouth, and his leftover irritation dies.
“Have you- how long have you been following me around?”
“I don’t know… Time passes strangely for me. But I heard you speak a lot, about Tchaikovsky, and you being three thousand years, that you work in an orchestra and I listened.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I was lonely.”
He is staring right into Brett’s eyes now. Still letting himself get pinned to the ground, eyes older than his face. Sad.
It gets colder, and a shiver slithers up Brett’s spine.
“What’s your name?” Brett sighs, letting go of the ghost’s arm to rub at his eyes.
“Eddy.”
“Well, Eddy, if you can bring me back to my house, you can stay here a bit with me, long enough to explain what’s going on with you at least.”
“Okay! I can do that!” Eddy brightens up.
It almost hurts Brett’s eyes.
#
In the lights of his living room, the ghost’s glow is almost unnoticeable.
Eddy could be any twenty-something years old, could be one of Brett’s friends.
He’s wringing his hands on his lap, looking deeply uncomfortable, sitting on the couch.
“Come on, don’t pretend like you’ve never been here.” Brett rolls his eyes, pushing a mug of tea on his coffee table. The steam rises and blurs Eddy’s features for a second. “Can you drink?”
“No.” Eddy looks more and more awkward. “Sorry, this is really strange to me. You’re the first human I’ve spoken to in… Probably since I died. I’m just-”
He shrugs, and Brett’s heart squeezes.
It’s impossible to imagine he was scared of this lonely ghost, now that he has him in his house.
“Can you eat, too?”
“No.”
“Why did you take my apple, then?”
“Because you were always complaining about being hungry, while walking in the forest, and then you went home and left me. So I thought if I brought you a snack, you’d stay longer.”
“You didn’t think I would find an apple rolling to my feet the second I mention being hungry weird?” Brett’s trying to wrap his mind around the ghost’s logic.
“I told you,” Eddy clears his throat, wrapping his hands around the cup in front of him but not taking a sip. “It’s been a long time since I interacted with someone.”
“How long?”
“Don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. But then they leave, or they die. And I don’t talk to them because everyone’s afraid of ghosts. But then you- you came and you’re the same. As me.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not dead, that’s actually kind of a core component of being an immortal.” Brett raises his eyebrows, feeling a little bad about the teasing when Eddy sends him an annoyed glance.
“That’s not what I meant.” Under him, the couch is starting to borrow the glow, like it’s being infused in the fabric. “No one stays for me, and the way you talked… It seems you felt the same way. Everyone else just- they just leave. One way or another.”
He cradles the cup closer to his face, like he’s just absorbing the warmth of the tea, and Brett is doing the same, on the other side of the couch. Eddy’s eyes are looking everywhere but at him, until they rest on his violin case.
“This isn’t the only thing we have in common.” He offers a slight smile. “Did you know? I used to play too, back when I was alive. It was nice to linger at the edge of the wood to hear your violin.”
“So, what, were you planning on just standing there or following me around for all eternity?” Brett jokes, but his voice is soft.
“No, I was- I was working up the courage to talk to you. I’m a bit shy.”
“Yeah? Wouldn’t have guessed,” Brett teases, but moves just a bit closer to the ghost. “You tried to lure me into the forest with a trail of mushrooms.”
He’s not sure ghosts can blush, but Eddy certainty looks like he’s trying, cheeks glowing brighter and brighter.
“I just wanted you back,” Eddy mumbles. “I like listening to your stories. I was afraid I had driven you out before even introducing myself as the resident ghost.”
It takes Brett a few seconds to realize his cheeks hurt from the smile on his face. He’s never met any ghost before, in his three hundreds year of existence, but he’s pretty sure if he were to see a new one every day for the next three hundred, Eddy would stay the most adorable one.
There’s something both terribly lonely but bright and childlike about him.
“So, how do we do this?” Brett whispers.
“Do what?”
“Do I have to give you permission to haunt me?”
“Don’t tease me. I’m embarrassed enough.”
“No, no, I’m not.” Brett’s still smiling, getting a bit closer. “For real, I’d rather have you talking with me like that rather than creepily follow me around in the woods.”
“It would be nice to have an immortal friend…” Eddy’s biting his lip.
“It’s a deal then, I give you formal authorization to haunt me and my house.” Brett extends his hand, warm from the cup of tea, and Eddy eyes it for a few seconds. “Come on.”
Slowly, Eddy puts down the mug on the table, extends his fingers, then slides them between Brett’s, holding his hand with wonder.
His skin retained none of the heat, still cold, but his smile is warm enough to compensate.
“Other humans just go through me…” Eddy squeezes his hand a bit harder. “I don’t think I’ve been touched in-”
He doesn’t say more.
Brett slides closer on the couch, until his side is pressed against Eddy.
He finishes his tea in silence, enjoying the ghostly presence of his new housemate.
They have all of eternity to learn about each other.
#
“Also, the camera. It was my fault. Sorry.”
“I knew it.”