#
Aino stepped off the bus into the
buzzing chaos of New York, her heart racing beneath the weight of her backpack.
Against her skin, the cold bite of early autumn scraped sharply, its chill
mingling with the pungent blend of concrete and hot dogs clinging to the heavy
air. Around her, a cacophony rose—honking horns, shouting voices, the distant
wail of sirens—all pressing relentlessly against her ears. Her skin felt too
tight, the city closing in from all sides.
This was supposed to be a fresh start. A break from everything she knew. An escape from the tight spiral of her anxiety.
Her host family—kind, welcoming, a blur of excited chatter
and friendly smiles—swept her into the frenzy of introductions. But Aino
hovered elsewhere, watching herself from a distance. Even as they drove through
Manhattan, windows down, the wind in her face, she felt disconnected. Like
she’d already slipped into someone else's skin.
By nightfall, her eyes ached with exhaustion. She crawled
into bed, curling into the unfamiliar sheets, but sleep refused to come. Her
thoughts looped endlessly, tangling her in the web of homesickness. She longed
for her quiet room in Finland, the soft murmur of her parents’ voices, the
distant wind in the trees. New York, with its lights and noise, felt
alien.
Eventually, sleep took her.
Not deeply—more a hazy, half-conscious drift. At first, the
dreams were small, nearly imperceptible. In them, she walked through a
forest—but something was wrong. Around her, the trees twisted unnaturally,
their bark crinkled like old paper, and their branches stretched out like
gnarled fingers. Leaves shimmered in a strange light, casting long shadows
across the forest floor. She tried to move, but her feet dragged, the ground
pulling her down.
Then the woman appeared.
At first, she was a blur—features shadowed, indistinct. But
tall. Far too tall. As she stepped forward, the world warped, bending at the
edges. Her face came into focus. Eerily familiar. It was Aino’s own
face—hollowed, wrong. Her eyes stared back, wide and unblinking. Empty.
Aino jolted awake, breath tight in her chest, hands trembling
in the dark. She scanned the room, half-expecting to see the woman standing at
the foot of her bed. But everything was quiet.
She exhaled slowly and pulled her knees to her chest. Just
a dream, she told herself. But the woman’s face lingered like a shadow
burned into her vision.
#
As the days blurred into routine—school, a flurry of English
words that never quite fit, half-hearted efforts to belong—Aino found herself
retreating more often. In the quiet corners of the library, she discovered a
fragile refuge from the surrounding chaos. She buried herself in textbooks, the
weight of study anchoring her against the rising unease.
But the dreams persisted. Vivid. Unrelenting.
In one, she ran through the forest, heart pounding, the
woman’s presence pressing at her back. In another, the trees vanished, replaced
by an endless white room. She stood alone at the center—until the woman
appeared again. Silent. Watching. Waiting.
By the second week of school, Aino drifted between worlds—the
real one, filled with strangers and blurred faces, and the other, where her
reflection hunted her.
She began noticing things.
A flicker of movement just beyond the edge of vision. Warped
reflections in mirrors. Voices in the hallway calling her name—but not quite
her name.
“Aino, hey, Aino!”
A girl at her locker. The voice was too sharp, too
precise.
“Sorry, what did you say?” The words escaped before she could
stop them.
The girl blinked, confused. “Aino? You okay? You look kind
of... out of it.”
Aino swallowed, blinking hard. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just
tired.”
The girl offered a puzzled smile and walked away.
But something had shifted. Aino couldn’t shake the sense of
being watched.
That night, the dream deepened.
She was in the forest again. But the trees breathed, branches
stretching toward her like skeletal hands. The woman stepped closer, her face
inches away. Hollow. Watching.
Her lips moved without sound.
Something snapped inside Aino.
She shot upright, heart hammering so hard it drowned
everything else. Sheets clung to her sweat-drenched skin. The silence pressed
in—dense, oppressive.
But she wasn’t alone.
At the foot of her bed stood the woman—her own face staring
back. Hollow. Waiting.
Aino froze. Tried to scream, but nothing came.
The woman smiled, grotesque and slow.
“Aino,” she whispered, voice dry as dead leaves against
stone. “You don’t belong here.”
The world tilted.
Aino gasped awake as sunlight crept across the floor.
She was conscious again. But the weight of the dream clung to
her like a second skin. Her mind wavered at the edge of something unnamed.
Was it all in her head? A trick of homesickness? Stress?
She couldn’t be sure.
But something was following her.
Something with her face.
#
That evening, the air in Aino’s apartment felt strange—dense
with something she couldn’t quite name. Beyond the windows, the city’s usual
noise and pulse seemed distant, as if muffled by an invisible barrier. At the
kitchen table, she sat with an old box of family papers spread open before her.
Yellowed letters, faded photographs, and brittle documents whispered secrets
she wasn’t ready to hear.
She had stumbled across it by accident—a mention of her
grandmother, Satu. Her mother had spoken of her only in passing, a shadowy
figure from the past who once lived in the village of Korvenranta. Aino had
never given her much thought. Until now. With each page she read, the pieces
fell further into place—an unsettling puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted to
complete. From the faded ink, a story began to emerge, one no one had ever told
her.
Satu had been more than a woman. She was the key to a
legend—one Aino had heard in fragments as a child, spoken in hushed tones by
her grandmother on winter nights. The Metsänneito—the Forest Maiden, an
ancient spirit of the woods. But this wasn’t folklore. According to the
documents, Satu had lured the Metsänneito into the human world, unraveling the
fragile boundary between realms. Across generations, the consequences rippled
outward. Now, a curse tightly bound to their bloodline had begun to stir once
more. Now, it had reached Aino.
The realization struck hard. She gripped the edge of the
table, knuckles white. Before she could absorb it, something caught her eye.
The room felt wrong.
At first, it was a faint crackling sound, like dry leaves
swept by wind. Then, the wallpaper—was it peeling?
She stood abruptly, heart pounding, and stepped toward the
wall. Her breath caught. Birch bark—real bark—peeled away from the
plaster, curling at the edges. As if alive, the walls seemed to breathe around
her. When she reached out, their rough texture sent a chill skittering down her
spine. Earth and damp wood filled the air, ancient and familiar. The scent of
the forest.
Her pulse quickened. Beneath her fingers, the bark—pale as
bone—twisted like a tree shedding its skin. She jerked her hand back as her
chest tightened, the sensation of being watched surging once more. She glanced
out the window, half-expecting to see someone in the shadows.
Nothing.
Her breath came fast and shallow. It’s not real, she
told herself. Just a trick of the light. Stress. But something deeper
told her otherwise. The curse wasn’t a story. It was alive. It had found her.
She couldn’t stay. Not with the walls peeling. Not with the
dreams. Not with history pressing in. To break free—to understand—she
had to go back. To Korvenranta.
#
Through dense Finnish forests, the road wound endlessly as
the journey stretched on. At the back of the train, Aino sat in silence, her
eyes fixed on the blur of trees rushing past. She hadn’t told anyone. Not her
host family. Not her friends. They wouldn’t understand. The truth of her
bloodline, the curse bound to Satu’s actions, wasn’t something she could
explain.
Korvenranta lay at the forest’s edge, where trees grew close
and thick, branches tangled like the threads of an old tapestry. As the train
pulled into the station, she felt it—the weight in the air, heavy with pine and
damp earth. In her apartment, that same scent lingered, and now it permeated
here as well. Silence, dense and smothering, enveloped the town. As if the land
had swallowed its people whole, the streets stood eerily empty.
Boots crunching on gravel, Aino stepped off the train, the
weight of her decision pressing against her spine. Nestled beyond the final row
of houses, the cottage of her birth stood where the forest’s branches, curling
like beckoning fingers, stretched inward.
The door creaked open with a groan, reluctant to let her in.
Inside, it was exactly as she remembered—dim, quiet, wood smoke lingering in
the air. But something was wrong. The silence felt alive, wrapping around her,
holding her breath.
She moved deeper into the house, eyes sweeping the room. Dust
clung to the shelves lined with books, their spines cracked and worn. A stone
fireplace loomed in the corner, hearth cold. In the far corner, the old
chair—her grandmother’s—waited, indented from years of use. Aino stared,
wondering whether Satu had known what she’d unleashed—what price the family
would pay.
On a shelf, barely visible beneath the dust, sat a small
wooden box. Her heart stuttered. She reached for it, hands trembling as she
opened the lid. Inside lay a journal, pages yellowed, corners curled. Skimming
through the entries, she read fragments of Satu’s dealings with the
Metsänneito.
The forest calls to us. It whispers, pulling us toward its
heart. It offers power, knowledge, glimpses of eternity. But the price...
#
The forest in Korvenranta was different. Though Aino had
walked these paths as a child, they felt impossibly foreign—wild, untamed,
darker than she remembered. Trees pressed in around her, their ancient trunks
twisting like the arms of forgotten gods. Every rustling leaf, every shifting
shadow, carried secrets she wasn’t ready to understand.
Ilmar walked beside her, his camera slung across his chest.
Quiet for most of the journey, his eyes scanned the surroundings, alert. His
presence was heavy at her side, offering no comfort. Not yet.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ilmar’s voice broke the
silence as they pushed deeper into the forest, his boots sinking into the damp
earth. His dark eyes remained on the path ahead, face unreadable.
Aino paused. His weathered face, shaped by years in the
wilderness, hinted at stories he hadn't told. Something had drawn him to this
cursed place, just as her bloodline had drawn her.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said quietly. “The
Metsänneito—it’s part of me. I have to face it. I have to undo what was done.”
Ilmar gave a slight nod, though hesitation lingered in his
eyes. “You should understand,” he murmured. “This won’t affect just you. Or
your grandmother’s past. It will change everything.”
Deeply, his words weighed on her chest. No longer just
vibrant, the forest now throbbed with a darker presence. As trees loomed
larger, their bark rougher and limbs stretching to ensnare her, every instinct
screamed for her to flee. Yet, she remained rooted, unable to move.
Not anymore.
They reached the clearing as the sun dipped low, casting
ghostly light through mist that clung to the ground. In the center, a mire
shimmered black and slick, its surface oily, glinting with unnatural hues. The
air turned cold. Silence deepened. Aino’s heart pounded as she stepped forward,
the earth squelching beneath her feet, heavy with ancient power.
At the mire’s edge, the Metsänneito waited.
It had no fixed form—no true body. It was shaped by the
woods, a shifting mass of shadow and light. But Aino saw it clearly. It wore
her grandmother’s face—twisted, hollow-eyed, lips stretched in a too-wide smile
that never reached the eyes.
With a voice like a whisper on the wind, the spirit spoke,
its words flowing through her mind as effortlessly as water. “You came... to
atone. To bind yourself to the forest. To join the old bloodline.”
Aino felt the pull—an ancient force thrumming in her veins,
rooting deep in her bones. It called to her, whispered of sacrifice,
redemption. The cost of Satu’s greed.
“I’m not my grandmother,” she said, voice trembling. She
stood tall. “I didn’t make that choice. But I’ll do what needs to be done.”
The Metsänneito flickered, as though wind stirred a still
pond. Its smile twisted further. “You do not understand. You never will. To
break the curse is to break the bond. The forest has always been in your blood.
It will remain, whether you accept it or not.”
Aino’s throat burned. “What are you asking me to do?”
Its form grew clearer, eyes like deep pools of water. “You
must choose. Bind yourself to the forest, as your grandmother did. Become its
keeper, its voice. Never leave. Become one with the trees, the earth. Your
identity will fade. You will be forgotten—but the forest will endure.”
Heavy and cold, the words lingered in the air. Beyond human
understanding, the forest extended the same fate her grandmother had embraced—a
life tethered to an enigmatic force. Though it promised peace and belonging, it
demanded the entirety of her being in return.
The Metsänneito’s form darkened, its smile widening. “Or
destroy me. But know this, child: in doing so, you sever your bloodline. The
forest will forget you. You will be lost to it. And without it, you will be
nothing.”
Aino’s thoughts spun. Each path was a loss. From one side,
her ancestry tugged at her, while fear pulled from the other. Already, the
forest's trees whispered, their calls urging her to surrender and claim her
destined place.
But surrender meant erasing herself.
“I can’t,” she whispered. Tears burned at the corners of her
eyes. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m already so far from home. I don’t
want to lose myself.”
The spirit’s voice softened, its expression almost pitying. “Then
destroy me. But understand—those who break the bond vanish. You’ll return to
the world of men, but not as you were. You’ll be a stranger there. A shadow.”
Aino closed her eyes. No answer was easy. No choice pure.
Either become something not human, or lose what made her whole.
The forest waited.
“I choose to destroy you,” she said. “I won’t be part of this
curse.”
The air shuddered. The Metsänneito flickered, eyes narrowing
in silent fury.
Aino stepped back, breath ragged. Around her, the forest held
its breath, waiting for the consequences to unfold.
#
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