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Chapter Two

Not to long of a time later, Anna made her way into the wood. She slowed to a walk, looking up into the unkept, tangled woods she was about to enter. Was she stupid? The wood had been rumoured to have wolves, bears, coyotes, and all kinds of dangerous, deadly animals. Of course, Anna knew better. Rumours were rumours, nothing more. But as Anna stepped into the wood, she felt a tinge of fright. Like the rumours were going to simply jump at her. Building up enough courage, she stepped boldy into the dense trees, and began picking her way through the tangle of vines and brush.
To keep herself occupied, she hummed. A simple tune, but one her mother used to sing to her to sleep. The thoughts began to rush through her mind. All of the loveing memories. Her father reading to her when she was younger, snuggled in a blanket in the comfy chair. Her mother making cookies and letting Anna steal a clump of uncooked dough. Her younger brother Joey always running around her when she came home, wanting to go for a horseback ride. Once more, Anna wiped her tears from her eyes, trying to keep her pace steady, and keep her vision straight. But the flashbacks of the earlier night made her stumble over a vine, and she fell to the ground, her knees digging into the ground.
"Keep... going..." She willed herself, pushing up and jogging around to find some sort of path to go through. Though every time she thought she found a pathway, she came to a blocked area, with vines strung across the trees and making her backtrack a bit. After a while of doing this, she finally found what seemed like a good, cleared pathway. Only the occasional spiderweb got in her way, which wasn't to easy to detangle from her hair, but it was better than the vines.
As she went, she looked back to her hands. They caused nothing but trouble... nothing but chaos. It made Anna sick just looking at them. It brought back the voices of her parents, talking to one another just before night fall. Anna could feel it, feel the moment she had heard her parents talking like she was really there.

"She isn't normal.... she doesn't belong in this town." Her mother's voice rang into her ears.
"She is unpure. She cannot live in this house. She is a witch. A devil's child... We must get rid of her." The rough voice of her father, almost a whisper, like he had known she was hiding under the desk.
"But how? How are we to rid her? It would be murder, if done purposly." Her mother's voice was frightened, yet soft and smooth.
"It will not be murder if we are cleansing our town." Her father's voice began to move, as if he was moving about the den. "Burn her. We take the old shed... get the feed out. Say she was trying to move it all to the barn. Let her use an old lantern, and we burn the shed. It is wood, it shall catch easily. And it will burn quikly. As... as she begins to run out, we slam the door shut. When anyone askes, we tell them. It shut by the wind, and she will burn quikly. No one would suspect us..." Her father's voice got a bit sinister, but quickly regained itself. He stopped moving.
"But is this really... necessary? I mean, she... is our daughter..." It seemed her mother was having second thoughts.
"Yes! It is absoulutely necessary! She is un-pure. We are doing the town a favor. I mean... useing her hands to magically lift thigns into the air without even touching them. Getting into our thoughts, making us hear voies. She admitted it. You heard her! She knows... she is being cursed by the devil....” Her father’s voice was frightening, loud, and booming. Anna scrunched in her hiding spot in fright, her heart thudding. She had been so frightened, so scared. And at that precise moment, she had decided to run.
Having jumped from her spot, she took off running up the stairs, moving fast towards the stairs. She could hear her father’s loud voice, shouting, while her mother screamed. Her father had taken off after her, grabbing her once, but his fingers slipped through her jacket, and she had taken off towards the town below their house.

Anna jumped, looking about the wood. She could have sworn she heard other footsteps. She glanced about. Nothing... nothing around her. She moved on, shivering in fright and from the cold. It seemed that a fine, cool mist was settling in the wood, making her jakcet, her shoes, and her hair damp and freezing. It must be near dawn... She thought, a yawn escaping from her lips.
Her skin felt prickled, like there was someone wathing her, someone just out of view. But... no one was around. She saw nothing, heard nothing.... Her mind was playing games on her. As the foggy mist began to get to thick to find her way, she sighed, setting herself gently into a soft clump of fallen, crunchy leaves. Curling her feet to her chest, she shivered, watching her breath escape from her mouth in a cloud. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she closed her eyes gently, letting her mind shut off, to let herself relax, to let her body get some rest.
But it seemed even her sleep was cursed, for she was unable to fall asleep enough to get rest. When she finally did, she was plunged into one nightmare after another.