Something From the Forest Has Let Itself into My Home

Something From the Forest Has Let Itself into My Home

I need help.

My wife and I, both tired of the frantic pace of life back in Nairobi, decided to move to a quiet, rural part of Murang’a five months ago. We found a small, weathered farmstead on the edge of a quiet village, the kind of place you see in postcards—rolling hills, mist creeping through the valleys, a patch of forest across the road. Everything seemed perfect at first. The people in the village were friendly enough, the kind that wave when you pass them on the road, but there's something... off.

It’s not the kind of thing you notice right away. It’s the subtle things. The long, drawn-out silences at night. The way the wind sounds different here, like it’s carrying whispers.

I didn’t notice it immediately. I was busy settling in, working on repairs around the property, getting used to the rhythms of the land. But over time, something started to bother me. It crept in, like an itch you can’t scratch, until it was too much to ignore.

It started with the dreams. At first, they seemed harmless. Vivid, sure, but harmless. In each one, I was running—running through the thick, dark forest across the road. My heart would race, and the world around me would pulse with an unnatural rhythm, like the very ground beneath my feet was alive.

But then the dreams came more often. Night after night. Each time they grew more real, more urgent. I’d wake up drenched in sweat, heart hammering in my chest, only to find myself lying in the same place I’d fallen asleep, the quiet of the house pressing in around me.

One night, I had had enough. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, something was watching. So, I left the warmth of my bed, pulled on my jacket, and went out onto the porch, trying to shake the restless feeling. The cold air hit me like a slap, but I didn’t go back inside.

I stood there for what felt like hours, staring across the road at the forest, the trees standing like silent sentinels in the moonlight. That’s when I saw it—a shape, just beyond the edge of the trees. A shadow that didn’t belong.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell Mumbi right away.

Mumbi’s my wife, by the way.

She already felt so out of place here, so far from home. She’d taken to humming lately, and I feel like it’s a nervous tick for her. I didn’t want to make things worse for her, especially when I wasn’t even sure what I’d seen. At that moment, I convinced myself it was nothing—just the shadows playing tricks, the kind of thing anyone might mistake for a person out of the corner of their eye.

But it wasn’t like I could just dismiss it, either. I mean, the forest across the road isn’t exactly close. There’s a stretch of yard between the house and the trees, and whatever I’d seen wasn’t standing out on the road. It was deeper, further in, beyond the line where the trees start to swallow up the light.

I’d also been having those bad dreams. And how could I trust my own eyes when I was barely sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding? I didn’t know what I had seen, but I didn’t want to scare Mumbi. Not when she already felt so displaced here. She might think I was losing it.

But that was the way things were for a week or so—pretty simple. Mumbi and I settled into a routine. I work from home, so my days were spent in front of a screen, responding to emails, writing reports, and the like. Mumbi had inherited enough money that, as long as she kept some funds tucked away in index funds and didn’t splurge on things we didn’t need, we could live comfortably here. The farmstead was quiet—peaceful, even.

We had plans. We’d start small, make some repairs, and maybe get a few animals. The previous owners had goats and sheep, though the enclosures weren’t in much better shape than the rest of the property. Most of the posts weren’t even in the ground anymore, and a few of the stone fences were buckled and broken. I filled in the gaps where I could, but there was one spot—a stretch of old stone wall—that looked like it had been hit by a car.

Still, the place was cheap. I had no complaints. The goal was early retirement, and we were on track. The slow, quiet life was exactly what we had envisioned.

Then something happened to Atieno.

Atieno was a nice enough girl. Always smiling when she rode her red bicycle with the little basket in front, straight out of a movie. She lived a few properties down the road and would pass by each afternoon on her way to work a shift at the local pub on the edge of the village. She usually returned just past Mumbi and I’s bedtime, unless she got off early.

We’d had our few nights out in the village, chatted with her more than once. She was friendly, always waving and ringing her bike’s bell as she pedaled by. It’s a shame, really, what happened.

I remember the last time I saw her. It was a Tuesday afternoon. I’d been working on the gateway to the property when I saw her ride by, her bike against traffic. The bend in the road is wide enough that I never really questioned why she’d ride closest to our home before deciding to switch back to the proper side. She rang her bell, waved, and said “hi” without slowing down much.

But then I saw something as she pedaled past—something over her shoulder, dangling from a branch.

A little pendant made of twigs, twine, and a dried flower.

It reminded me of my dreams. I don’t know why, but I walked over and took it down. It wasn’t even on my property, but it gave me the creeps. A sense of something… not right. As if it radiated malice, though I couldn’t explain why.

That night, I was woken by a shriek—piercing, frantic—pulling me from sleep. My heart was racing. I bolted upright, my mind scrambled. I went to the kitchen, stepped toward the window, and looked out.

There it was.

The silhouette.

I didn’t go back to sleep.

Atieno didn’t ride by the next afternoon.

Or the next.

Or the one after that.

This didn’t sit well with me for the following nights. Daytime felt fine, though it was the kind of fine where you just feel safer when the sun is up, and the shadows haven’t crept in yet. But eventually, the police showed up at our door, asking if we’d seen anything.

That was the first time Mumbi heard about my dreams, and also the first time I felt the sting of ridicule. The officers pointed and laughed as I told them about the shriek in my dream, and how I woke up and saw the silhouette outside through the window.

They didn’t take me seriously. It sounded valid enough—Atieno had lived alone in an apartment, and there was nothing to suggest foul play. She could’ve just packed up and left after her shift, the way some people do when they get the urge to start over. Aside from her boss doing a wellness check, no one else seemed overly concerned.

With my suspicions brushed aside, Mumbi seemed to relax. We decided to have a drink in Atieno’s memory, to toast our good neighbour who maybe, possibly, had just run away.

I wish I hadn’t drunk so much.

By the time we got home, I was tipsy enough to stagger, and Mumbi was... well, Mumbi was far beyond that. I shouldn’t have driven. But aside from my terrible parking job, no real harm was done. We stumbled into the house, too drunk to care about anything else, and fell asleep quickly.

But in my dreams, things had changed.

The pulsing now danced in red and blue at the edges of my vision, like neon lights flickering in time with my heart. This time, I wasn’t in the forest. I walked toward it, from my own home.

In the distance, a lute played—soft, lilting, and strange—carried on the wind. It wasn’t the song itself, but the whistle that followed it, a tuneful, rhythmic whistle that drew me in, like a melody I should know.

I reached the road. And that’s when I heard it—a woman’s giggle, light and playful.

I crossed the street, shoving branches aside as I swayed into the forest. Even though I’d peered into it countless times, every time the light seemed to disappear the moment I got close, swallowed up by the trees.

But not this time.

The moonlight broke through the canopy, and it led me to a circle. A ring of small stones, moss, and mushrooms, glowing faintly in the pale light. Inside the circle, a young woman danced—graceful, hypnotic. She seemed so familiar.

Mumbi?

No. No, it wasn’t her.

But as I tried to focus on her, my vision blurred, and the figure was shrouded in shadow. And that’s when I saw it.

A bike. A red bike, just beyond the woman, leaning against a tree. The same red bike Atieno had ridden. The same basket. And the same little bell.

My heart pounded. I glanced back at the woman, and the instant my eyes met where hers would have been, something happened.

Her neck snapped to an unnatural angle. Her arms dropped to her sides, and her wrists tilted in such a way that her fingers—her nails—pointed straight at me. Like they were attack vectors, ready to strike.

The sound of a lute string snapping echoed in the dream, and that was when my body went into full prey mode. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to escape, but my legs wouldn’t move.

That was for less than a second. It felt like an eternity, though. I violently pivoted, my body sluggish, weighed down by the alcohol, before I lurched into a drunken sprint. The pulsing in my head grew, as if the rhythm were tearing through the soles of my feet.

Thumping echoed behind me. Vibration. Branches cracking under the weight of something much bigger than I could imagine.

This couldn’t be Atieno. No, that wasn’t her. The figure in the forest—there’s no way that was her.

I crashed into trees, my shoulders scraping against rough bark. I hadn’t wandered this deep into the forest. But I could see it now—the road, just a little further.

The thumping grew louder, the air hot and foul, pressing against my back. My skin crawled. My heart hammered, feeling as though it might catch fire from the terror flooding through me.

I reached the road, stumbled into the ditch, and collapsed. My knees buckled under me, and the drunkenness I had managed to escape during the sprint came rushing back in full force. I hit the ground face-first.

But I forced myself onto my back, panic driving me to scramble for some defense, to prepare myself for whatever was chasing me.

And that’s when I saw it.

A little girl. In the treeline. Stopped, and stared right at me.

Next to something much larger. The thing I had seen before. But now, next to the girl, it was massive. Trollish. Ogreish. Dark, oppressive shadow cloaked them both.

My heart stopped, and my vision blackened.

And then I woke up.

6 AM.

What a terrible dream.

Mumbi still looked angelic, lying beside me, sound asleep. I rolled over, desperate to bury myself in the warmth of slumber, finally convinced that I was safe.

But then I saw it.

Mud. Tracked in through the door. I could see it from the kitchen all the way up to the bed. My boot prints. My boot prints?

Pain shot through my shoulders and my knees ached. My back burned, stiff as a board.

Grass stains on my palms. Dirt under my fingernails.

Mumbi woke up before I could finish cleaning the mess. It didn’t take much for her to convince herself that I’d gotten too drunk the night before and stumbled outside before we went to bed. She scolded me, made me promise never to drive in that state again.

I nodded, although I hadn’t really been listening.

Her reasoning seemed sound enough—that in my drunken stupor, I must have wandered outside, tracking in mud before collapsing into bed. And maybe she was right. I was well past buzzed, to say the least.

But something gnawed at me as I patrolled the yard. The ground around the house was solid, dry except for the usual morning dew. We hadn’t had any storms lately, no rain to soften the dirt into mud. I had reasonable doubt that whatever was smeared across the floor had come from our property.

Then there was the gate.

Just past the old iron gate at the front of our land, two clumps of upturned grass disrupted the otherwise undisturbed earth between the stone fence and the ditch—proof that I’d fallen there. I could picture it too clearly: staggering, breathless, tripping over my own feet, landing hard. But if that was true... how had I made it back inside?

And why couldn’t I remember getting up?

“Honey! Mukimo is ready, come back inside!”

What? Even looking back, I can’t believe I was so lost in my own head that I hadn’t noticed Mumbi was baking. I couldn’t even tell you how long I’d been pacing outside that day.

Minji and Warus. If you haven’t had it, you should. Back in Nairobi, we rarely saw Minji in the markets, but here, they were everywhere—growing wild along the trails, sold fresh at every farmer’s market. Mumbi had taken to them quickly, experimenting in the kitchen, turning them into something sweet, something familiar.

The food didn’t make me forget. But for a little while, it grounded me.

And really, wasn’t everything fine? The house was warm. The days passed quietly. Aside from the nightmares, nothing had happened.

I told myself that over and over.

Mumbi was happy. She came home from the village in high spirits, chatting about little things—the baker’s new scones, the neighbor’s new dog. Meanwhile, I had been dampening our home’s energy with my suspicions. With my paranoia.

Maybe that was all it was—adjusting to a new place. Maybe the tension, the unease, the sense of something lurking… maybe it was just me.

The following days:

No dreams.

No strange noises.

No Atieno.

Just wonder.

Wonder turned into dismissal, and dismissal turned me toward forgetting it all—until this week. My mood had lifted. The nights were silent. The house felt like ours again. I focused on finishing the stone fence out front, salvaging old rocks from a collapsed section of wall deeper in the property. The work was satisfying, almost meditative. With each stone I set in place, it felt like I was putting something behind me.

Until I found it.

I was wedging a large rock into the top of the fence when I heard another stone shift—a dry, scraping sound, just a few feet away. I paused. A loose stone. My natural prey. I nudged a few with my boot, and one moved too easily. Loose. Smiling to myself, proud of my manly blue-collar senses (guys who work on computers can be handy too), I pried it free, ready to set it with fresh mortar.

And there it was.

A small pendant, nestled deep in a pocket between the stones. Twigs twisted together, bound in fraying twine. A dried flower, brittle and colorless, woven into the center. Not truly colorless—rowan, long past its bloom, a cream-white husk of what it had been. This wasn’t lost or forgotten. Someone had placed it there. Hid it. The edges of the stone were too precise, too deliberate. I could see the raw scrape of metal against rock, pale and dustless.

I knew this fence. I had been working on it all day. Nothing kept the weather out—not the damp, not the wind. And yet, the hollow where the pendant rested was… fresh? If it had been there long, rain and time would have taken their toll. It should have been blackened with rot, disintegrating into the dirt. It wasn’t.

I reached in.

The moment my fingers touched it, the air shifted. A gust of wind swept through—not a natural breeze, but a single, deliberate push of air that curled around me, lifting the fine hairs on my arms. I froze. There, riding on the wind, was a sound. A whistle. High and thin, almost tuneful, deliberate. Too deliberate. It didn’t come from the trees or the distant road. It came from nowhere. From everywhere.

Something inside me recoiled. My gut tightened like I’d swallowed ice water. Then, just as fast, my fear burned away, smothered under something hotter.

Anger.

I was tired of this. Tired of the tricks, the whispers in the dark, the things just outside my sightline. Whatever game this was, I was done playing.

I didn’t take it inside. I wouldn’t. Instead, I carried it far out back and threw it, hard, into the underbrush. Let the woods have it. Let whoever put it there come and get it. I could even feel like they were watching. The hairs on the back of my neck, raising, just for me to pat them back down.

I dusted off my hands, turned toward the road, and started walking.

I was going to our neighbor’s house. I needed answers.

By the time I reached the Jabalis’ property, the sun was leaping from its peak, pressing heat into my shoulders, soon to set. Jabali and Zuhura were always welcoming. They’d hosted Mumbi and me once together, then Mumbi plenty more times on her own. My visit was met with the usual warmth—right up until I asked about the Wacucus.

Which, honestly, wasn’t long past our greetings.

I’d planned to ease into it, to start slow and ramp up the questioning so I wouldn’t sound insane. But the moment I mentioned the last family to own my house, the atmosphere shifted. Subtle but undeniable. Jabali and Zuhura stiffened, their easy smiles tightening.

"Well, what do you need to know about them?” Jabali said. “They aren’t coming back.”

What?.... What?

Zuhura shot him a look, then quickly softened her voice. “What Jabali means is, well… there’s not much of a legacy to them. And they shouldn’t concern you.”

Not reassuring. Not even close.

I pressed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are they—”

"Yes." Jabali cut in. Then hesitated. "Kind of."

"Wha—"

“Isaac Wacucu had been missing. His wife, Gathoni, is most definitely dead.”

Something heavy settled in my gut. My thoughts scrambled to piece together questions faster than I could ask them. Jabali must have seen it on my face because he exhaled and continued before I could interrupt.

“Isaac and Gathoni were good neighbors. A little odd, but happy. Moved in seven years ago, no fuss. Always friendly. Gathoni especially. She used to stop by often.” His voice softened for a second, like the memory was bittersweet. “Things only got strange in the months before Gathoni disappeared.”

Zuhura folded her hands in her lap. Neither of them looked at me now.

“She told us Isaac wasn’t sleeping,” Jabali went on. “Not just trouble sleeping—wasn’t sleeping at all. Some nights she’d wake up and he was gone. But he always went to bed with her. Always woke up beside her. She thought maybe he was sneaking out because of money trouble. She never got an answer.”

He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the table, thoughtful.

“The week she stopped coming around,” he said, “the police visits started.”

My mouth was dry.

"Isaac was clean,” Jabali said. “Not a single person believed he hurt her. You have to understand—he wouldn’t. They weren’t just some new couple who moved in. They grew up here. Childhood sweethearts. That house was their first home together.”

Jabali exhaled sharply, then stood and walked to the far window. He pulled back the curtain, revealing a small, familiar shape tucked on the sill.

A pendant.

Twigs, twine, and a dried rowan flower.

The same damn thing I found in my fence.

“Wards,” Jabali said. He picked it up, rolling it between his fingers. “Isaac gave us a bunch of them. Told us to tuck them around our homes. Said the forest took Gathoni. Said it took his wife. And before he left, he told us to keep the wards up.”

My skin prickled.

"Left?" I asked.

Jabali’s fingers went still against the twine. “He said he was going to get her.”

He placed the ward back on the sill, then crossed the room to another window. This time, he pulled the curtain back and gestured outside.

“Last time we saw him,” he said, nodding toward the bend in the road near my house, “was that night.”

I stepped closer and followed his gaze.

A couple hundred yards away, just past the curve, lay the treeline. The forest’s edge. Dark even now, with the noon sun glaring overhead. The wind barely stirred the branches.

“It was clear that night,” Jabali continued, voice quieter now. “No moon. No clouds. Just stars.” He exhaled through his nose. “We watched him walk in right there, lantern in hand. Never saw him come back out.”

Something inside me sank.

“They found him the next week,” Jabali finally said. “His parents went to check on him. Guess through everything, he’d never missed his Wednesday call with his ma.” He let out a slow, weighted breath. “Coroner said, heart attack, but he was in his bed. On his side of the bed, looking up at the ceiling, arms at his sides. Fully dressed. Mud on his boots.”

I swallowed.

“We keep the wards up,” Jabali said, voice low. He looked down at the one in his palm, frowning.

“Just in case.”

Jabali opened his mouth to say more, but I cut him off. I shouldn’t have even let him speak as long as he had—not after realizing what I’d done. What I’d taken down.

The wards.

They had been separating my house. My wife. From whatever was in the forest.

My stomach clenched. "I need to leave. Now. Please—can I have one of those wards?"

Zuhura looked like she was about to protest, lips parting with the kind of words people say to reassure themselves more than anyone else. That I wouldn’t need it. That Isaac had lost his mind. That it was just a story, just superstition.

But Jabali—Jabali knew.

He raised a hand, silencing her before a single syllable could escape. His expression was unreadable, but there was something in the way his gaze lingered on me. A weight. A quiet understanding. Like he had been waiting for this.

With a small nod of his head, he gestured toward a drawer.

Zuhura hesitated, then opened it.

Inside, lying in a thin layer of dust, were three more of those brittle little charms—twigs bound in knotted twine, flowers long dead. They must have been sitting, forgotten yet deliberately kept.

I didn’t wait. I grabbed them and turned for the door, my pulse a dull roar in my ears.

I had to get home. I had to get them back up. Before sunset.

As I stepped off the porch, I heard it.

The soft, deliberate click of the Jabalis’ door latching shut.

And then—the lock turning.

I must have looked like a madman, sprinting straight for the house. I didn’t care. I needed time. As much as I could steal before the light bled from the sky and darkness took its place.

Cutting through the yard, my breath ragged, I caught movement—a figure in the window.

Mumbi.

She passed by the bedroom window upstairs, the soft glow of the lamp outlining her familiar shape as the sun began to lower itself beneath the other side of our home. Relief crashed over me so hard I nearly stumbled. She was safe. Here. Home. Unaware of the wards I had torn down, unaware of what I had let in.

But relief was fleeting. Urgency took its place.

I didn’t slow down. I couldn’t. I barreled through the front door, barely remembering to close it behind me before rushing to the windows. One by one, I placed the wards, my hands shaking as I set them on the sills. They felt too small. Too fragile. Would they even be enough?

Above me, Mumbi moved across the floorboards, the creak of her steps steady and light. Humming a tune I almost recognized. Familiar. Reassuring.

But there was one more. One more ward.

I had to find it.

Without stopping to catch my breath, I tore back outside, the last remnants of daylight stretching long and thin over the grass. The sun was almost gone.

I ran. To the back. To where I had thrown it. I found it faster than I expected. Almost as if it had been waiting for me.

Snatching it from the grass, I didn’t hesitate—I sprinted back, my pulse hammering in my ears. The sky had darkened just that much more, shadows stretching and swallowing the last light. I nearly slammed into the front door as I stumbled inside and closed it behind me, heart still pounding, I recouped for 30 seconds or so catching my breath.

And then—the handle turned.

The front door creaked open a few moments later, and there was Mumbi. Standing in the doorway, holding a little woven basket full of potatoes. Her face was flushed from the cold, strands of hair falling loose around her cheeks.

I shoved the ward into my pocket, forcing my breath to steady.

She giggled. “Well, what had you running like that, you goof?” Her smile was warm, teasing. “Couldn’t even hold the door for your wife.”

I blinked. She wasn’t home?

“I thought you’d been inside,” I said quickly, covering the rush of unease creeping up my spine. “That’s my bad, darling.”

I pulled her into a hug, burying my face in the warmth of her neck, breathing her in. She smelled—earthy, crisp, with the faint bite of napier.

She leaned back slightly, brushing her fingers through my hair. “I told you I was going out to dig Warus today. Didn’t I do good?”

Her voice was soft, sweet, but something about the way she said it made my stomach twist.

I had heard her. Upstairs.

Humming. Walking. Moving through the house.

I swallowed hard, tightening my arms around her just a little. “You did so good, honey.”

I forced myself to let go. Forced myself to act normal.

“Be right back,” I murmured, stepping away.

I slipped around the corner, pulling the ward from my pocket. Like a burglar, I crept up the stairs, my pulse in my throat. Holding the ward out in front of me like some kind of idiot, I swept each room as if I were clearing a house in a war zone. Nothing. Closet, clear. Bathroom, clear. Hallway, clear.

My muscles loosened, but only slightly.

Then, from downstairs—

“Honeyyyyy? Are you done hiding from your wife now?”

Her voice was sing-song, playful.

I exhaled, forcing the tension from my body. “Yes, I am.”

I ducked into our bedroom, knelt down, and slipped the final ward under the bed—right beneath her side. Extra protection.

The rest of the evening passed peacefully.

That should have been the end of it.

But I wouldn’t be writing this now if not for the dream.

It started with me waking up. Sitting straight up in bed.

The sheets beside me were cold.

Empty.

A giggle drifted through the room—soft, familiar, wrong.

My head snapped toward the door just in time to see Mumbi’s bare feet disappear around the frame.

Jolted, I threw the covers off and followed. The wooden floor was cold against my feet as I stepped into the hall, catching the faintest sound—bare feet slapping softly against the stairs.

She was heading down.

I reached the landing just as the front door groaned open.

I rushed to pull my shoes on, the laces tangling under trembling fingers. When I finally looked up—she was already outside.

Skipping. Dancing. Drifting.

Straight toward the trees.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the dream shifted.

The moonlight dimmed. The sky felt too low. My vision tunnelled, narrowing toward the trees as though the house behind me no longer existed. The closer I got to the woods, the louder her humming became.

And then—the lute.

A melody, plucked softly from the shadows, rising to meet her song.

I stepped past the brush, and there it was.

A small ring of stones, moss, and mushrooms, glowing faintly in the pale light.

My stomach turned to ice.

At its center sat an apple—half-biten clean.

A string on the lute snapped with a sharp, jarring twang!

And I woke up.

Next to no one.

The bed was empty. The house was silent.

I rushed downstairs, my pulse still hammering from the dream. And there, on the kitchen table, was a note.

“Went to drop off some apples at Jabali and Zuhura’s. I’ll be back around noon, baby!” Signed—“Mumbi”

That’s not right.

That’s not right.

She doesn’t spell her name like that.

A slow, creeping chill spread through my chest. I turned the paper over in my hands, searching for anything else—something to explain why my skin was crawling. But the handwriting was perfect. Too perfect.

Like it was trying to be natural. Trying to be her.

I swallowed hard and turned on my heel, bolting back up the stairs. I dropped onto my hands and knees beside the bed, heart in my throat.

I lifted the bed skirt.

The ward was gone.

A sharp wave of nausea rolled through me. My mouth was dry, my hands clammy as I pressed my palm to the floorboards, scanning for something, anything.

And then I saw it.

Faint. Nearly invisible against the wood.

The smallest outline of a footprint.

Dry mud, barely more than a smudge, as if someone had carefully wiped it away.

Almost perfectly.

She almost had me.

It’s 10 AM right now.

I need ideas, guys. What do I do?