My name is Wolf Johnson. I hail from Minnesota. My parents named me that so that I would be able to handle bullies in school better. But I learned the most from the great outdoors, how nature operated and how to deal with her. I'm an International Red Cross trainer out of Amsterdam. My wife, Christine is, too.

I just got word of a mission in Transylvania, but I've got a problem. Christine is in South Sudan helping out with an urgent rescue mission there. And I can't seem to find any one to take care of seven-year-old Sophia and three-year-old Anders. I guess I'll have to take them with me and have the villagers watch them while I go about my training activities. We are leaving a little late this afternoon since Jason de Harken, my Dutch assistant, couldn't get here any earlier.

The flight wasn't long, only about three hours, but it was getting dusk when we landed in a field about a half-mile from where I would be training the villagers in Haven in disaster protocol. Danger that manifests itself in avalanches and floods throughout the region. Lately, there have been devastating droughts affecting their crops that they use to sustain themselves through the winter since the village began in Roman times, it was said, to protect the local people from evil after dark. Hence its name.

I'd also learned that the villagers made sure that they were inside the walls of the village every night. Something that seemed strange to me, but was glad that we had such a short distance to the village when we landed and got off the plane. Little Anders taking hold of Sophia's hand as they came off the plane and waited while Jason and I said goodbye to the pilot who would be coming back to pick us up in a couple of days and watched him take off. When I turned around, Sophia and Anders were gone!

You can't imagine the dismay I felt after bringing them there! There was a few people on the path leading to the village walking by. Jason and I rushed it to them and asked if they had seen the two children and where they went. 

From what I could see, my kids weren't walking towards the village and I didn't understand how they could simply just vanish in thin air! I got desperate and began running the other way, approaching every villager straggling in to find out if they had seen anything. I tried Dutch and German, but most of the villagers did not speak English either so they didn't seem to understand what we are asking them for.

Up ahead we saw a barn and a farmhouse. The farmhouse was dark, but we saw a flicker of light from a partially opened barn door and we headed for it. To our surprise, there was a young boy about 12, feeding some cows and sheep. I yelled at him, "Do you speak English!"

"Yes, I'm learning it in school."

"Can you help us! My seven-year-old daughter and my three-year-old son are missing and I can't find them. Do you know where they are? Why aren't you going to the village like the others?

"Because they are old and they don't know any better. There is no harm to me as long as I stay here in the barn and sleep in the hay like I like to do. I know where your kids are."

"You do? Please tell us! They are so young and I'm responsible for them."

"They were probably taken by the old matron into the enchanted forest."

"Where is this enchanted forest? Can you take us there"

"Of course." The boy nonchalantly replied. "I'm through here for now, I will take you there, it's not very far.

Indeed, it wasn't. From the barn, it was only a couple hundred yards until there loomed a very dark and ancient forest that looked like it'd never been cut by the saws or axes of woodcutters and had the primal look in the growing darkness that would make it seem… enchanted.

Along the edge of the forest we walked back toward where we started until there was an opening in the denseness of the trees and a clear path inside.

I thanked the boy for taking us this far and asked, "What will we find if we take this path? Will you take us to it?"

The boy replied, "You will find the cottage of the old crone, so it is rumored.  Anyone who goes in there never came back out."

"It's just a forest. What do you mean, 'Never came back out?'"

"It is rumored that there is a wolf in the forest. That's why I'm not going to take you there to the cottage."

I countered. "I'm carrying a loaded pistol and not afraid of any wolf. My name is Wolf and I'm desperate to find my children who would be in danger from a wolf. We are going in with or without you, right Jason?"

"I am armed, too, and with you all the way, Wolf! Let's go, it's getting too dark to see and we don't have any light except our cell phones."

I thanked the boy again and we hurried down the path into the now, very dark forest. We hadn't gone very far when we saw, up ahead, a quaint little cottage with a warm glow coming through the windows. As we approached close and came up to the doorstep, the door moved open as if by magic and we could clearly see Sophia and Anders with their backs to a fireplace fire sitting alongside what looked like an old woman in a sweater and scarf with her hair done up in a gray bun.

As we were about to enter the door, the old lady turned and became a raging wolf that was the size of the door. It's fangs sunk in me before I could even reach for my gun.

The only reason you have my story is from where I'm at in another realm, I have placed it in a dream in the author's mind.

Moral: Sometimes myth is based on reality. Don't risk your children where myth meets reality.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

1/12/23