1. Edge of the forest
Luna ( Age 9)
I’m not in the forest.
I’m just… close.
Close enough that I can smell the trees—wet bark, old leaves, something sweet and strange, like the air is made of dreams.
I’m standing on the mossy rocks that Mama says are the line. The place where our village ends and the wild begins.
She says it like that. The Wild. Like it’s a bad word.
But it’s not bad. It’s just… there. Dark and quiet and big. The trees don’t talk, not out loud. But I feel them. Like they’re thinking.
Sometimes I think they’re thinking about me.
I stretch my hand toward the first tree. Just a little. Not touching. Almost.
“Luna!” Mama’s voice snaps like a stick behind me. I jump.
She’s got flour on her arms again and her hair’s all messy like she forgot to pin it. Her eyes look tired. “What did I tell you about going near that side?”
“I’m not in the forest,” I say quickly. “Just the edge.”
She sighs and kneels to brush the dirt off my knees. “The edge is too close. You’re not to cross that line, do you hear me?”
“But what if Labubu lives in there?” I whisper.
Mama goes still. Like I said something dangerous. “That’s just stories your grandmother told you.”
I want to say, But Grandmother doesn’t lie.
I want to say, But I hear him sometimes, when it’s really quiet.
I want to say, He’s not scary—not to me.
But Mama’s already turning back, shaking her head. “Wash up. Dinner’s almost done.”
Later, after supper, I sneak into Grandmother’s room.
She doesn’t speak anymore. She just lies in bed with her white hair all fluffy on the pillow, her eyes soft and far away. She blinks when she sees me, and I think maybe she still knows me.
I crawl up beside her and take her hand. It’s warm and a little wrinkly, like old paper.
“I went to the edge again,” I whisper. “The trees felt like they were breathing.”
Her fingers twitch, just a little.
“I think Labubu is real,” I say. “I know you saw him once.”
She doesn’t answer. But her eyes look a little shinier. Like maybe she remembers.
“I wanna see him too,” I whisper into her pillow. “One day, I’m gonna go in. All the way in. I wanna know if the forest is magic… or if it’s just lonely.”
The wind taps the window behind us, soft and slow. I shiver.
Maybe it’s calling me.
