Just because I couldn't find the path didn't mean I was lost. I poked the moss hugging the base of the tree, trying to remember if I was supposed to follow the bare side or the mossy side. Instead, I followed the sun.
The forest grew thicker and thicker. Tree roots knotted the ground; like a net they snagged my feet on almost every step so when a path emerged I was thrilled. After a while the trees thinned and the ground gave way to sharp black shale.
Then I smelt it. Cinnamon and apples. Pure Heaven. A short distance ahead there was a cottage, smaller than my parents house it had only enough space for one room, and was built entirely of black stone.
As I neared I saw shoes hanging from the trees, their laces knotted together so each pair could be slung over the branches There were hundreds of them. It was a forest of shoes.
A woman was seated on a wooden bench beneath the cottage widow. Above her, cooling on the sill, was a hot apple pie. She placed her sewing in her lap and smiled, almost eagerly.
"Are you lost?"
"Only a little." I lied.
She asked if I wanted some tea and of course I did.
"Why don't you take your shoes off, love?"
So I did.
She set our meal on a large tree stump, gave me lashings of cream and hot apple pie. We talked about my village, about the fair, and about Connor Pratt who I was secretly in love with. The world turned red as the sun sank behind the hills.
"I should go home."
"Should..."
"Where are my shoes?"
"In a tree above your head, my love."
And in the dying light her eyes glittered like hot embers.
Words: 300
Image courtesy of: Beforethedaybreaks
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