Page 3 of Big Bad Wolf

Hopping in and out of foster homes, never staying at a school for more than a year, and never making any true friends except for a fellow foster kid I bonded with once and did everything I could to follow her around New Jersey because she was the only one who cared.

What happened in some of those foster homes—not all, but enough that it scarred me—before I aged out and realized that I had nothing going for me… nothing except a computer, shitty library Wi-Fi, and an account on a message board full of those who desperately needed to believe in fairytales because the real world was just too fucking cruel.

That’s how I found out about Blackmoor. About a small town in Germany that you have to be lucky enough to stumble upon, and if you do, then maybe the small village council might weigh your request and allow you to brave the dark, foreboding forest attached to it.

Anyone who knows fairytales knows about the forest. It appears in Hansel and Gretel’s story, Little Red’s, Snow White’s, Rapunzel’s, Sleeping Beauty… so many of the morality tales decorated as children’s stories feature a magic forest as another character, and according to the posters on the forum, that forest is known as Blackmoor.

Only you can’t just walk into Blackmoor. Oh, no. You have to be invited, to be chosen, and if you are, if you’re willing to spend three full days inside of its gaping maw, then it rewards you with something straight out of a fairytale.

It rewards you with a wish.

That’s right. If you believe it, the forest will give you one thing you ask for, that you wish for, if you survive it. It can be anything. Money. Good health. Fame. I’ve heard rumors of some petitioners who entered the forest in the hope that they can even bring someone back from the dead, though if Blackmoor plays by Genie’s rules, that one’s a no-no.

That doesn’t matter to me. I’ve made it twenty-three years without my parents, and I haven’t lost anyone else that I’d risk rising as a zombie. But, going with the theme of fairytales, there is something I want so desperately that I obsessively researched everything about the fabled forest that I could, saved up for three years to afford to journey to Germany and search it out, set out with a backpack and a determined goal not to let anyone stop me from finding it—including my childhood best friend, Goldie, who would shit herself if she found out that my ‘backpacking’ trip through Europe really was my attempt to play with magic at my big age of twenty-eight—so that I could get that wish.

Me? I want love. True love. I want someone—man, woman, or something else entirely… I’m not picky—to love me with their whole heart, body, and soul, so much that they would always choose me, always be there for me, and never, ever hurt me.

I want a happy-ever-after for Charlotte Linden, and after months of searching, I walked into the small village of Blackmoor this morning and told the first person that I saw that I would do whatever it took to get it.

I’m prepared. At least, I think I am. I should be after three years of digging through buried threads, archived posts, half-broken links, and anonymous accounts that all said the same thing in different ways: Blackmoor is just as real as magic.

A forest on the edge of a small German village that doesn’t show up on most maps unless you know what you’re looking for. All you have to do is survive three days inside, and when you walk out, you get your wish.

One problem: no one agrees on what the forest takes in return. However, everyone who’s ever posted on that message board agrees on one thing.

It takes something, and I’m willing to sacrifice everything.

“Do you believe in monsters?”

For a second, I blink, not so sure that I heard the woman right.

Blackmoor, I’ve discovered during my stay here, is the name of both the forest and the village. That makes sense, and it explains a lot of the discrepancies I noted during all of my deep dives through the message board online. Only, I wouldn’t say Blackmoor itself is a village, though that’s how it was described to me when I first stumbled upon it two weeks ago.

I got lucky. I’ll admit that. After months of searching, it was a tip from the local cab driver, Jacques, that had me switching my destination last minute and asking him to bring me there.

There are no restaurants here. Only a handful of houses built far enough away from the mouth of the forest that it has to be intentional. Luckily for me, there’s a hostel that hosts up to six visitors at a time, though there’s currently only one other traveller staying there.

Emily Monroe. I met her a week after I checked in, doing a double-take when I saw that, like me, she’s a redhead. My hair’s more of a deeper, ruby-red color while hers is much shorter and with an auburn tint, but it was unusual enough that it caught my attention. It isn’t often that I run into another natural redhead in the wild, and Blackmoor… it’s as wild and remote as you can get.

Meals come standard with our stay at the Blackmoor hostel. I’ve seen her every breakfast, lunch, and dinner since she appeared, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that she didn’t just happen upon the small village. Again, like me, she’s here because she wants a wish.

Too bad. It took me two days before the village council—comprising of a dark-skinned brooding man, a fair-skinned one who could pass for my grandfather if I had one, and a middle-aged woman with the stereotypical blonde Karen haircut—agreed to let me petition them. By the time Emily arrived, I’d already gone through four rounds of interviews. I had one with each of them, then another with the complete trio. Klaus, Noah, and Sandra, who I decided to call Sandy because she purses her lips every time I do. And maybe I shouldn’t be pushing her buttons like that, but I was the only petitioner at first, and they did tell me to be very honest and open and share my hopes, dreams, intentions, and personality with them so they could decide whether or not I’m a good fit for Blackmoor.

Because, surprise: only one petitioner gets to enter Blackmoor, and then it’s at least another season’s wait before they’re willing to allow anyone else to try.

I guess I was super lucky to arrive when I did because they had an opening for hard-headed outsiders who think they can brave the forest and earn their wish. Because I got here first, I was already a good way into the interview process when Emily showed up. I like to think that gave me an edge, but it’s been two weeks now, and I was still told to come meet Sandy for another interview after dinner.

So here I am, and I’m still pretty sure I heard her wrong because… “Monsters?”

She nods. “After talking it over with Klaus and Noah, we realized that you might have this grand idea that this is some sort of a fairytale. That is what you’re after, isn’t it, Charlotte, dear? Happy-ever-after?”

I was very clear about that. “Yes, but⁠—”

“What do you know about the beasts of Blackmoor?”

“Just what I read online. That since Blackmoor is the forest in every fairytale, it makes sense that every monster in those stories hides out in there.”

I wait for Sandy to tell me that that’s impossible. That magic is real, but Blackmoor draws the line at housing monsters.