In the late summer of 1940, by mother died in the Blitz, and I was sent to live in the country with my paternal grandfather. I was a shy and awkward city boy of twelve, raised mostly by tutors and wholly unprepared for the forest that awaited me or the darkness it contained.

The manor itself had been in the family for generations but had now fallen into disrepair, thanks to a lack of money, labor, and materials. My grandfather tried to pass it off as a sacrifice: let the lumber and men go to fight the war, not fix crumbling shingles, but no one really believed him.

Likewise, my grandfather’s once strong body had fallen victim to the entropy of time and inattention. He walked with a cane now, and poorly at that. He had once been a politician and talked ceaselessly about the Nazis, never mentioning my mother once, except to say that we would avenge her in due time.

I cried for my mother every night, holding my pillow hard to my face so that my cries wouldn’t echo through the manor’s crumbling halls.

It was on my third morning there, that my grandfather to the back woods and first introduced me to the Forest of Changing Paths.

“It’s time for me to admit I had an ulterior motive in summoning you here,” he said as we walked down a narrow gravel path to the edge of the woods. Thick fog surrounded us, nipping through my sweater and making it impossible to see more than a few meters in any direction.

“What’s that, grandfather?”

“I need you to play a game for me,” he said. “The rules are quite simple, but mastering it may take you the better part of a year. Scattered throughout these woods are three pieces of a silver medallion. They catch the light well and will be placed in new locations each day. You’ll know them when you see them. The game is to traverse the forest paths and find all three, then bring them back here to me at the entrance to the wood. I’ll be here, pocket watch in hand to assess your progress.”

I had to admit, I was a bit taken aback. I was no outdoorsman, and the concept of walking through the woods by myself in the foggy dark held little appeal.

“Well?” he asked, growing impatient. “Are you ready?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” I said. “If I see the point of all this.”

“Right, right,” he said. “Of course. I forgot to inform you that the information we glean here will be essential to our nation’s fight against the fascist bastards that killed your mother. And I have it on authority from none other than Churchill himself, that our findings could change the tide of this war.”

I had no idea how me wandering through a dark forest would help with anything, and I was beginning to suspect that my grandfather’s mind was in worse repair than his body, but he said the words with such assurance that I had little choice but to believe them, at least for the moment.

I nodded.

“I’ll go, sir. For Queen and country.” Though I’d just said it, it struck me as a strange utterance. Perhaps I’d picked it up from a film reel somewhere.

“Last thing then,” he said. “No shortcuts. No matter what you see, you must never stray from the path. Not only would it compromise your mission, but it would also place you in mortal danger. Understood?”

I nodded, not quite sure what he could possibly mean. Then he glanced down at this pocket watch and hit a button.

“Go.”

The fog lay even more dense in the forest, limiting my view to the five meters in front of me. As I walked, strange sounds echoed through the wood around me: foreign birdcalls and the skittering of ground squirrels. Once or twice, I thought I heard someone shouting in an unfamiliar language, but when I stopped and tried to listen, the words disappeared.

I found the first piece of the medallion at a circular intersection where three paths met. An ancient altar of stone lay there, covered in deep moss with the medallion on top. I picked it up, feeling its weight in my open palm. As I clutched it, a warm feeling passed over me, and I realized that for the first time since my mother’s death I actually felt happy, though I couldn’t explain why.

Placing the medallion in my pocket, I continued down the left path, only to find a dead end. Another altar lay there but with no medallion on top. Not knowing what to do, I circled back, hoping I hadn’t wasted precious time.

I took the other path this time, which led deeper into the forest, without any other forks for maybe a kilometer. Somewhere, I heard a man shouting again, this time clearly in German, followed by the sound of gunfire.

My heart nearly beating out of my chest, I dove to the ground and laced my hands behind my neck, sure I’d been captured. I remembered the day mother had died. I’d been waiting at home one evening, practicing my violin while she went out for groceries. I’d just butchered Bach for the fifth time when the sirens went off.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I ran to the window. And I saw the whole thing unfold. The ball of fire ripping her apart, leaving little more of my mother than her torso. And somehow her groceries were spared. The paper bag ripped, two oranges rolled into the gutter. They had been her favorite.

I imagined I would join her now. A clean shot to the back of the skull probably. I wished I could be brave, but it wasn’t in me. I felt a warm trickle as I pissed myself and barely felt ashamed. I waited to die. At least I would be with my mother again.

But time passed, and the sound disappeared. Fearing I’d be seen out in the open, I considered walking to a nearby rock to take cover.

I was about to sprint for the rock when my grandfather’s warning came back to me–I was not to leave the path. But how could he have known that the enemy would be invading that very day, marching through his forest? Not knowing quite what to do, I turned and ran, retracing my steps until I’d returned to the forest entrance.

At first, my grandfather beamed when he saw me.

“An excellent time, my boy! A truly excellent time!” he shouted. Then he paused, finally noticing my disheveled state. “You’ve pissed your trousers.”

“We’ve got to get back to the house!” I shouted. “There’s Germans in the woods!”

“Never mind that,” he said. “Give me the medallion.”

I reached into my pocket, plucking out the one third I’d managed to bring back. A dark look crossed my grandfather’s face, some bitter cocktail of rage and disgust.

“Failure,” he muttered. “Utter failure.”

“But the Germans,” I started to say.

“I don’t care what you thought you heard!” he shouted. “Play the game right, or not at all! Or do you want the enemy to win this war?”

I was nearly in tears.

“No sir,” I whispered. “No I don’t.”

“Then I’ll see you here at dawn tomorrow,” he said, turning away from me. “And we’ll both pray for bravery tonight.”

That evening, I could barely sleep. Restless, I decided to head to the kitchen for some water, but as I passed my grandfather’s bedroom something gave me pause. On our previous visits, he’d been a dreadful snorer, keeping the whole house up. Mother and I had giggled quietly to each other in the guest bed as we held pillows over our ears. Today, though, he was dead silent.

Quiet as I could be, I opened his door and peered into his room. I could see his frail form beneath his bed sheet, but something seemed off about it. Not only was there no sound, but he wasn’t moving either. I stepped closer, watching his chest for the faint movement that comes with inhalation, and found none.

I must have watched him for five minutes, maybe ten. He didn’t move a bit. I mentally prepared myself for what I would face in the morning. A call to the local police, and then a visit from the coroner. A then what? A hundred legal questions of inheritance and whatnot that I had no capacity to answer.

“Go back to bed,” came his voice from across the room. “Big day tomorrow.”

A shudder ran through me. My eyes had not deceived me.

He hadn’t been moving.

I backed slowly out of his room and returned back to mine, where I spend a sleepless night.

In the morning, I met him at the entrance to the forest.

“Good lad,” he said. “I have it on authority from none other than Churchill himself, that our findings could change the tide of this war.”

Something struck me as odd about the way he said this. Hadn’t he spoken the exact same sentence the day before? I looked around as if hoping to see someone else I could confide in. Wasn’t something off about all this? But of course there was only fog.

“Ready boy?” he asked, holding up his watch.

I wanted to tell him no. That I had a hundred questions first. That something was all starting to feel deeply off about this, and fear was growing like a pit in my stomach. Instead, I found myself saying, “I’ll go, sir. For Queen and country.”

I walked into the forest only a few feet when my heart just about burst. Two paths stretched out before me in opposite directions. Neither looked anything like the one I’d taken the day before.

I looked over my back shoulder at the entrance to the wood. It was surely the same one I’d come through yesterday. But the path itself had changed.

Behind me, I could hear my grandfather shouting, “You’re wasting time! Don’t fail again! I have it on authority from none other than Churchill himself, that our findings could change the tide of this war.”

And so I picked a direction and started running, completely unsure of my destination, totally unprepared for the horrors that awaited me.