Pale Lise & The Thing In The Trees

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There once was a girl named Lise, who wore a cloak of pale white wool, for she was the daughter of a shepherd and knew the cold well. One day, her mother gave her a task—take a bundle of bread, cheese, and a small silver coin to her grandmother, who lived beyond the woods, at the foot of the mountain.   Her mother told her, "Stay on the path, Lise. Do not stray. Do not speak to anyone who stands between the trees, no matter what they promise you."   Lise promised she would listen.   She did not.   The path was narrow and winding, and as Lise walked, she heard a voice—soft, like wind through dry leaves.   "Where are you going, pale little thing?"   She turned her head and saw a man standing just beyond the trees. He was tall, but his face was too long, his limbs too thin, his smile too sharp.   "To my grandmother’s house," Lise answered, because she was not yet wise enough to be afraid.   "A kind child," the man said, tilting his head. "A kind child should share. Give me your bread, and I will tell you a faster way to reach her."   Lise hesitated, but she was kind, and so she gave him a piece of bread.   "Ah, but you still have cheese," the man whispered.   And so Lise gave him cheese.   "Ah, but you still have silver."   But this time, Lise refused. She clutched the coin in her fist and said, "No, this is for my grandmother."   The man did not smile this time. He only stepped back, melting into the trees like a shadow stretching in the dusk.   Lise hurried on.   As she walked, the wind changed. It was warmer now, but wrong—it smelled of earth that had been turned too long in the sun, of bark stripped from trees, of something distant and rotting.   Then she saw it.   A creature crouched in the path ahead, long and thin and covered in pale fur, its back arched like a starving dog.   Its head turned too far to the side, its mouth opened wider than it should, and in a voice that was almost human, it said:   "Where are you going, pale little thing?"   Lise did not answer this time. She turned and ran.   But the path had changed.   She ran and ran, but the trees had closed in, the path was twisting, and she realized—this was not the way she had come.   She stopped at a clearing where the sky was too dark and the trees had no leaves, and there, in the center, was her grandmother’s house.   But it was wrong.   The door was open too wide. The windows were too dark. The chimney was silent—no smoke, no warmth.   And standing in the doorway, her grandmother was waiting.   "Lise, dear," her grandmother said. "Come in, child. It is cold outside."   But her grandmother’s voice was wrong. It was flat, empty—like words spoken by someone who had learned them but did not understand their meaning.   Lise took a step back.   Her grandmother took a step forward.   "Come in, Lise."   Lise’s hand tightened around the silver coin. The only thing she had not given away.   She remembered what her mother had told her.   She remembered the man who asked too many times.   She remembered the creature that spoke in human words.   And she ran.   She did not stop. Not when the trees seemed to move. Not when voices whispered behind her. Not even when something cold brushed the back of her neck.   She did not stop until she saw the smoke of her real grandmother’s chimney, curling up in the sky.   When Lise reached her grandmother’s house, her real grandmother was waiting for her.   "Why do you look so troubled, child?" she asked.   And Lise whispered, "There is something in the woods that wears your shape."   Her grandmother’s face darkened. She took the silver coin from Lise’s hand and tossed it into the fire. The flames turned blue, then black, and a voice—high and thin and furious—screamed from the hearth before vanishing.   "You were lucky," her grandmother said, "but not wise."   And Lise never again strayed from the path.