I didn't believe in skinn'

I didn't believe in skin walkers or Wendigo's, not in the I'm Brave way, more like the

My Brain files that under creepy folklore people used to scare kids' way. I believed in normal stuff, weird

animals, people trespassing, your mind filling gaps when it's dark, that kind of thing.

That belief lasted until last October.

My aunt's place is way up north, basically the last house before the forest turns into actual

nothing.

No neighbors you can see, no streetlights, just trees packed so tight the sky looks sliced into pieces.

Cell service drops the second you turn onto the dirt road. She lives there year-round. I was just

visiting for a week. The first thing she told me was a rule, not a warning. If you hear someone

calling your name from the woods, she said, not looking up from her coffee,

don't answer.

I laughed because obviously, she didn't.

She added, even if it sounds like me, that should have been my cue to take it seriously.

I didn't.

I'd been there before, when I was younger.

It hadn't felt like this then.

Back then it was just aunt's cabin in my head.

Quiet, old.

A little rundown.

The kind of place that smells like pine and wood smoke.

This time the place felt managed.

...