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A boy and a girl wandered through the woods.

The girl held the boy's hand--- or perhaps it was the other way around. Their fingers were so tightly intertwined that it was hard to tell. It was this alone that betrayed their unease; otherwise they would have resembled any two children taking a stroll in a beautiful sunlit park, rather than wandering around in the depths of a lost wood blanketed with fog. Their strides were slow and easy, and they regarded the passing trees with apparent curiosity, but their grips on one another were white-knuckled and fierce. Every so often, the girl would dart a glance behind them, as if looking for something. She never found it, but it didn't stop her from trying.

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At length, she finally spoke up. "Vincent," she whispered. The boy ignored her and kept walking, his eyes fixed ahead with a determination that felt at odds with his chubby, soft child's features. "Vincent," she said, more loudly this time.

"What? I told you not to talk to me," he hissed.

The girl, hardly deterred, said, "I think something is following us." She tugged on his arm, trying to get him to look, but the boy shook her off as much as he could without actually letting go.

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"Don't be silly," he said, but his voice was hushed too. It was the oppression of the forest, he thought. Everything was so quiet, it felt rude to disturb the silence. He wasn't afraid. His sister had her fears, but they were nonsense, and perhaps it was because she was a girl--- though mother would have chided him for that thought. But Amber wasn't like mother. Amber clutched at mother's skirts, and wept when he stepped on worms in the rain. Amber was merely imagining things.

The girl made a face, her nose scrunched up as if she didn't care for his verdict, but at least she fell silent after that.

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That made Vincent relax a little. It was much better now that she wasn't talking. It wasn't that he was afraid, but he remembered tales about places that were alive. This could have been one such place. It certainly felt... like it could have been part of a story. He stared up at the trees, impossibly high, and thought of Little Red Riding Hood--- except there were two of them, and there was no grandmother to visit. He thought of Hansel and Gretel too, but dismissed it immediately. There was no witch. They were not going to find a monster in these woods. Mother would not have left them here if there was really a monster.

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All this he wished to say to Amber, but of course she wouldn't listen, and he couldn't speak. He could barely breathe as it was. The forest was so quiet.

Meanwhile, the little girl hadn't given up on the idea that they were being pursued. Her brother was wrong; she wasn't imagining things. She knew exactly what he thought of her and her opinions, but the shadow had been there for hours, just dogging the periphery of her vision, always vanishing when she turned to look. It was a clever shadow, she thought. It only showed itself to her, and never to Vincent, so of course he didn't believe her when she told him.

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She also didn't see the hush of the woods as something to be fostered. Mustering her strength, she spoke again: "Where do you think mother went?" Her whisper was a compromise, for she wished to be loud. It was too quiet here, and it made her want to scream, to make as much noise as she could to fill the void. She wished for birds, most of all. She liked their singing. She had been excited when mother said they would be hiding in the woods, until she had realized there would be no birds.

What kind of wood had no birds at all? She had tried to look for them, and hadn't found a one. Mother had sent them here, it was true, but she didn't trust it.

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Vincent turned back just long enough to shoot her a dirty look, but she glared insistently at him. Couldn't he humor her for a while? They had tried his way for hours, being nothing but quiet, and it didn't make things any better. They were lost, she thought. Vincent wouldn't admit it and kept saying he knew where he was going, but she couldn't tell one tree from another, and she was sure he couldn't either. They were the same age, and Vincent didn't care for trees.

"Let's stop," she said, letting a bit of whine creep into her voice. "We've been walking so long. My feet hurt."

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He sighed dramatically at that, but he didn't quite argue. "Fine," he said, as if he were reluctant, but Amber knew better than that. Her brother would have insisted on walking a little further if he wasn't as tired as she was.

They had stopped at a convenient place, with a rock just the size for sitting. Vincent dusted it off before setting himself down, and Amber followed suit. She wished there was something to eat. She was hungry, but they had no food. Hansel and Gretel had it lucky--- she had thought of the fairy tales too--- at least they had breadcrumbs to scatter. Vincent and Amber had nothing at all.

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Bracing her elbows on her knees and propping her chin on her hands, she said, "There's no hiding place, is there? You don't know where we're going."

"We're going deeper into the woods," said her brother defensively. "We're hiding. We'll go so deep that the demons can't find us." His words didn't falter, but Amber caught him picking at the edge of the rock, his eyes turned down instead of looking at her.

"But what if we go so deep that mother can't find us?" she said.

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Vincent opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't have an answer this time. Out of the corner of her eye, Amber saw the flitting shadow again. She shivered. It was cold, and she didn't want to be here. She wanted to go home and eat and see mother again, and be free from strange shadows her brother couldn't see.

"She'll know," Vincent said. His voice wobbled slightly. "Mother knows everything. Of course she'll find us."

"But why do we have to come here? Why do we have to hide?" Vincent's answers had opened a flood gate. He was willing to speak now, apparently, so all the questions Amber had been holding back now came to the forefront, and she was in a hurry to ask them all before he clammed up again and insisted she do the same.

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"Demons," Vincent said simply, as if this explained everything. But Amber wasn't satisfied by that. They had been told, ever since they were old enough to understand what was being spoken, that they must hide from demons. And yet, neither of them had seen a single demon their entire life. If the shadow was a demon, then this would be the first time she'd laid eyes on one. Not that she would know it for what it was, having no point of comparison. It seemed to her a huge unfairness that they had never seen at least the corpse of such a monster before, if they were going to spend all their time hiding from one. It was just as bad as being told to hide from imaginary things.

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Thus, she said to her brother, "Stop saying that. You don't even know what a demon is." Her voice was sullen, her arms crossed in front of her tiny frame. Her brother bristled at this accusation, forgetting for a moment to be scared.

"Do too!" he insisted hotly. "Everyone knows what a demon is. You don't because you're a stupid girl."

"Fine," Amber shot back, "what does a demon look like then? See, you don't know anything!" she said, when Vincent tried and failed to answer that question. He sputtered, but as far as she was concerned, the case was already closed.

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The verdict was that her brother was a Stupid Boy, but that was hardly a surprise. She'd spent every waking moment with him ever since she was born, and there had already been ample evidence of his stupidity up until now. She just wished he wasn't choosing now to showcase it, since there was the very real possibility that they could get lost forever and never see mother again.

"I want to go home," she said. Her voice was very small, and there was a hot feeling in her head, a pressure against her eyes. Her hands curled into fists in her lap, gripping great handfuls of cloth from her skirt.

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"Amber," Vincent hissed, almost indignantly. "Don't start crying! The demons will find us for sure if you start!" The last statement sounded less like an admonishment and more like a boy on the verge of panic himself, by Amber's reckoning. That wasn't comforting either. It just meant he was scared too, and if they were both scared, then there was no one to be brave. Amber's eyes stung. She blinked furiously, and the first tears slipped hotly down her cheeks.

But for Vincent's sake, she kept her sniffling quiet. That seemed to satisfy him, as much as one could be called 'satisfied' when one was scared and far away from home.

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Vincent had no idea what to do. His sister was crying, which made him feel as if he ought to do something, but comforting Amber had never been one of his strong points. That had always been mother's job, and mother wasn't here right now. But then, if she had been, Amber wouldn't be crying now anyway.

All he could do was sit there quietly, and hold her hand, and keep watch for demons. It was true that he didn't know exactly what they looked like, but they were demons. They had to look like monsters. He would know one when he saw it.