The Voices of the Beechwood

Uncle Ezequiel and Lía had gone down to the stream to fill the water bottles half an hour earlier when the campfire went out with a sigh. Bruno was left alone by the tent, with the full moon hanging over the tops of the beech trees.

Before they left home, Granny Remedios had gone over the rules of the Beechwood again, as she did every autumn. The first: at night, the forest imitates the voices it knows. The second: never answer if a voice calls you by your name. The third: while a fire is burning, the forest keeps quiet. And the fourth: if you get lost, find the stream and follow it downhill, because the trees move about, but the water doesn’t.

Bruno, who was twelve, had laughed at the rules a little. Lía, who was nine, hadn’t: she knew them by heart. That was why, in the forest, she never called her brother by his name. She called him “Cloud”, as she had at home ever since she learnt to talk.

Then he heard it. It came from high up the slope, from among the darkest trees, uphill: “Bruno! Bruno, come here, I’m lost!” It was Lía’s voice. Exactly. Right down to the way she stretched out the last syllable when she was scared.

Bruno took a step towards the forest. Then another. And he stopped. He looked at the dead fire; he looked up, towards the voice; and then down, towards where he could hear the stream running.

He didn’t answer. He knelt down by the embers, blew as hard as he could and threw a handful of dry twigs on them. As the first flame rose, the voice on the slope broke off in the middle of a word.