Part I

I was still getting used to waking up without her by my side.  My life since the accident has felt like one big blur like I’ve been functioning on autopilot—not fully here—for the last five years.  Our daughter, Cecily, had grown into a beautiful young lady, just as I had always imagined that she would. Watching her grow was the one thing that brought me joy after losing my wife, and I wished more than anything that she could witness our daughter grow with me.  

After my wife passed away, one of my favorite things to do was to take Cecily back to the spot where the three of us would always camp as a family.  With the anniversary of her mother’s death approaching, Cecily had been more quiet than usual, so I thought our annual trip to our favorite spot in the forest just outside the edge of town would raise her spirits.  This spot, surrounded by hiking trails, lively streams, and endless trees was particularly special to us because for years it served as our family sanctuary. There was something about it that made Cecily and I feel more connected to my wife every time we went back.  I often regretted how fast Cecily had to grow up over the last five years. She was only seven when her mother was taken from her, and that loss forced her to mature faster than she should have had to. Her childhood was stripped away from her, and as much as I tried to be attentive and shield her from the harsh reality of what her life had become, she had grown into a very headstrong and independent twelve-year-old.  

After a drive and a short hike, Cecily and I arrived at our special spot where we began setting up camp in a small clearing near a stream.  One thing that made this particular area kind of fun for us was the rumored “point of no return” which was described as a cave-like entrance surrounded by rocks that led to the “deep woods” a place that is never visited but talked about frequently by both locals and visitors.  This fable always made our spot feel mysterious, and was fun for the three of us to imagine and discuss. But for some reason, after losing my wife the idea of an entrance to the deep woods began to feel more dark, and cast a different tone on our special spot. Because of this, Cecily and I no longer took turns imagining what might be on the other side of the entrance to the deep woods like the three of us used to.  Instead, we just enjoyed a relaxing night beneath the stars, like we had so many times before, and allowed the connection we felt to my wife consume us. 

Part II

As the night grew dark and the comforting, soothing sounds of nature surrounded us, the familiar energy of our favorite getaway place began to set in. Cecily and I both fell asleep with ease, but sometime later I woke up from a deep sleep to a cold, empty tent and the tail end of what sounded like a strong, rushing wind. I looked beside me only to discover an empty sleeping bag. The moment I realized that Cecily was missing, I went into a state of disarray and began to panic.  I searched the area surrounding our spot and called out her name as loud as I could with the hope that I would find her unharmed and nearby, but I heard no response and found nothing. I tried to compose myself enough to function rationally and debated whether to head to town for help, as I had no cell service where I was, or to immediately begin searching for her on my own. I decided that there was no time to lose, and did not want to waste the precious time that I did have on making the journey miles away to town, so I began searching for her by myself.  I was so consumed with finding her that I did not once stop to consider the potential danger that searching for her alone might entail. Even if I had, I know I would have taken the risk anyways, because nothing was more important to me than getting her back safely. I had already lost my wife and I was not willing to lose my daughter—the only part of my wife I had left—too.  

Part III

I grabbed my flashlight from the tent and ventured out, accompanied by nothing but the moon, stars, and the small beam of light that my flashlight emitted.  I started by searching a few familiar places, hoping that Cecily had just wandered to one of them because she couldn’t sleep, but each place I searched felt more empty than the last.  As time went on and I still hadn’t found her, my worry and fear began to increase, and I strayed further and further away from the familiarity and safety that our spot provided, until the sights around me were not familiar at all.  Eventually I stumbled upon a path, I had no idea how far I had wandered from our spot or how long I had been searching, but when I saw the clearly worn path in the ground I had an overwhelming sense that I was getting closer to finding her.  

While the path was not marked, my fatherly intuition told me that it would lead me to my dear Cecily, and I followed it with a renewed sense of hope that I was just behind her.  I clung to this hope, as it was all that I had at that moment, until I realized where the path had led me. When I took in the cave-like formation of rocks just ahead of me, that looked exactly as it was described in the stories of the deep woods, I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I was in over my head.  This was a place I was not even fully convinced existed until the moment it was right in front of my eyes. Despite my doubts of its existence, it was a place I had hoped I would never see. Before I had time to fully process where I was, I heard a voice call to me from further down the path. I immediately followed the sound of the voice and walked through the cave-like entrance, finding the optimism within me that this path would lead me to my daughter. I kept searching and began to call for Cecily once again.  

Part IV

As I continued to walk down the path I eventually reached a clearing, if you could call it that, which was an area where there were no trees in the immediate space on the ground around me.  Because the surrounding trees were so dense, and stretched so tall above the clearing, sunlight could not make its way through. This made it impossible for me to know if it was day or night, and caused me to become disoriented and lose the concept of time.  I had no idea how long I had been searching for Cecily at that point, or what time of day it might be. The only thing that made it possible for me to see was that the clearing seemed strangely lit from within, not just by a single source of light, but by something that surrounded me with warmth and a feeling of ambience that caused me to feel a strange sense of serenity.  As I took in my surroundings, trying to grasp at reality, I noticed a tree on the other side of the clearing that had a strange staircase wound around its trunk. 

I slowly approached the tree, still not quite sure what it was or what was happening, and the light around me began to dim as plumes of smoke swirled up out of the ground below me.  I began to spin in circles while I looked around to try to understand what was happening, when a strange ringing started that was so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. I started seeing faces that twisted around the clearing and grew closer and closer until they closed in on me.  I did my best to push past them, but I was so panicked that I stumbled a number of times in my desperate attempt to flee. Each time I fell I pulled myself back up because I refused to give up and had to stay as strong as possible for my daughter, who needed me. I finally reached the stairs that wound around the tree trunk I had spotted before, and managed to get one of my hands on the warped railing so I could try to climb up them as fast as possible.  As soon as my hand came into contact with the railing, my entire body became paralyzed and I was overcome with a wet warmth like a natural hot spring. I heard a faint voice whisper something I couldn’t quite make out just before I blacked out entirely.  

Part V

I woke up in a hospital bed and a nurse informed me that I had been on the brink of a major coma and was unconscious for the last month.  As soon as I heard that I had been out for so long, I immediately started panicking about Cecily and asked the hospital staff if they had any information about my daughter.  I was told that I was found near the river after being spotted by a fisherman. Because my family frequented this area, the locals knew me well enough to identify me, and they had begun searching for Cecily as soon as I was found.  After four weeks of searching with no trace of her, the local police decided to officially declare her missing or dead. Either way, they had closed the investigation, with the exception of a few questions they wanted to ask me now that I was conscious.  

While being questioned by a local officer, I did my best to tell the truth about what happened out in the woods, but the more I talked the more I realized how ridiculous the whole thing sounded.  After the officer finished questioning me, he informed the doctor about my recollection of the events that had taken place, which surely caused the doctor to become worried about my psychological state.  I knew I must have sounded like a crazy person while telling my story, but I also knew with everything in me that it was all true, and that Cecily was in danger. I thought answering the officer’s questions honestly would increase the odds of finding Cecily, but after the interview was finished I knew it had been a mistake.  After the officer left and the doctor started talking to the nurse in my room in whispers, I was able to catch him saying he wanted to run a psych evaluation on me and I knew I had to get out of that hospital before it was too late and they held me there against my will.  

Part VI

I didn’t know how I was going to slip out of the hospital without anyone noticing, but I was determined to get back to the staircase in the forest because I knew that was where Cecily was.  The need to get back there was so strong I felt like I was being drawn to her. After the nurse came and checked my vitals, I knew I only had 10-15 minutes before she would be back to check them again.  I pretended to be asleep while she was checking all the machines I was connected to, and as soon as she was gone I sprang into action. I quickly grabbed the bag of my personal belongings from the counter near my bed and managed to get dressed without removing the clip on my finger that monitored my pulse. I knew the second I removed it the nurses would become aware that I was no longer connected to the machines, so I wanted to wait until the very last minute to remove the clip.  After I was dressed and had my shoes on, I quickly unclipped the monitor and slipped out of my room. I walked down the hallway, being careful not to run, and made it to the elevator. I made it down to the first floor and walked straight out of the building, and as soon as the crisp air outside of the hospital greeted me I ran as fast as I could.  

After I was a few blocks away from the hospital I quickly gathered a few things I thought I might need from one of the local stores in town and then got a cab and headed back to the woods.  I didn’t want to spend too much time in town because I was afraid that someone might recognize me. While I was in the cab, I drew a makeshift map of the approximate search area I wanted to cover on the back of my receipt for the supplies I had just bought.  As soon as the cab dropped me off near where we usually parked before we would hike up to our spot, I went in the direction I thought the staircase was, and searched for Cecily as I walked.  

I searched for what felt like days, happy that I had thought ahead enough to buy water, protein bars, a flashlight, and one of those silver emergency blankets while I was in town. But still I had no luck finding the entrance to the deep woods that lead me to the clearing where I found the tree with the staircase.  I was beginning to think that the doctor was right, and that maybe there never really was a staircase out in the woods. Somehow during my search, I had gone in one big circle and ended up back where I started at our special spot. 

Part VII

Just as I was about to give up, I sat at our spot with my head in my hands surrounded by our tent and all of the remaining camping supplies that hadn’t been recovered.  It had to have been close to midnight for the moon was high and the sky full of stars, and I suddenly had an overwhelming, euphoric sensation. That was when I heard the voice, the same voice I heard when I tried to climb the staircase, and I chased after it.  The voice eventually brought me to the path, through the rocky entrance, to the clearing, and back to the stairs where my flashlight still lay, broken and covered with spider webs. The voice still filled my ears and my mind, it’s words jumbling together wildly as I approached the stairs.  The clearing in front of the staircase lit up, just as it had before, and I quickly crossed it, eager to climb the staircase. As I began to ascend the staircase I walked for what felt like so long that I lost track of the minutes that had passed and the number of steps that I had taken. 

Part VIII

After some time, I’m not exactly sure how long, I arrived to a new and unknown place that completely enlightened my senses with sights and sounds that I could have never imagined.  I was so overwhelmed by this new world that it took me a minute to regain my composure. As I tried to gather myself, I realized that parts of this world mirrored my own familiar world, while other parts of it were entirely different. I couldn’t quite pinpoint the similarities that I noticed between my and this new world I had stumbled upon, but it was almost like there were certain parts of focused energy where transfer between the two worlds was possible, such as the woods where I found the staircase that led me here.  

Part IX

Shortly after I arrived in what seemed like a whole new realm, I was approached by what I can only describe as some sort of spiritual being who had the most appealing features.  She was both ethereal and human-like, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I couldn’t identify exactly what it was that made her so beautiful, but I was transfixed by her grace. She told me that she was very familiar with both this world and the one that I lived in, and that she knew why I was there.  When she offered to help me by becoming my guide, one would think that I would have been a little nervous, given that the only thing I knew about her was that she wasn’t human. Instead, I didn’t hesitate to accept her help. Maybe this was because I considered anything to be possible at this point, or maybe it was because I was mesmerized by her.  Either way, she seemed to know more about this world than I did, and I was completely lost and desperate to find my daughter.  

Part X

As she led me through this realm, the being told me I could call her Aldreth, and asked me a number of questions.  It almost felt as if I was facing a trial of some sort, and that my past decisions and overall humanity were being weighed and examined for some sort of morality or purity.  I didn’t mind opening up to her because I got the sense that she already knew the answers to the questions she was asking me, but for some reason asked them anyways. Talking to her was also a nice distraction because it took my mind off of panicking about Cecily, and made our journey through this world go by faster.  Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask where specifically we were going, and how she knew. With a sweet smile she explained that she was the one who brought Cecily along this way. As soon as I heard her speak my daughter’s name I became furious and confused, and demanded to know the role this being had in Cecily’s disappearance and why.  

Part XI

After my questioning, Aldreth revealed herself to be an other-worldly manifestation of my wife, and declared that her existence was full of nothing but pain and torment.  When I heard this, my heart broke over losing my wife all over again, and I suddenly understood why she seemed to know so much about me. She gave me time to process, and after the initial shock of her confession wore off she explained to me that her true desire was to cease existing altogether from this realm and pass onto the next one.  She also explained that she couldn’t do that because the nature of her earthly death left her restless and terrified as to what may become of the family she left behind, Cecily and me. She told me that she needed both Cecily and me to come to this world together to help her complete her own post-spiritual journey that would allow her to pass.  She took Cecily first because she knew that I would not have gone with her if she approached us both, and that I would do anything to find my daughter if she was missing. She expressed guilt over how it had to be done, and I was so focused on learning that Cecily was safe and waiting for me that I was easily able to look past her actions, and even sort of understand them.  

Part XII

We finally arrived to where Cecily was waiting for us, and the second she saw me she screamed for me to turn around and get out while I could.  This was not the reaction I expected. I immediately turned to Aldreth, expecting some sort of explanation about a misunderstanding, and recognized that whatever this being was, she was not at all a remnant of my wife.  The woman I loved with all my heart would never be capable of making the dark, manipulative expression on this creature’s face, no matter what form she was in. Once I realized that Aldreth had manipulated me, and had successfully captured us, I knew we were both in danger.  I began to panic and tried to come up with a way to get Cecily safely out of this creature’s reach. Once Aldreth had realized that I knew she wasn’t my wife, she knew there was no point in trying to convince me otherwise so she explained her real reason for bringing us to the staircase world.  She revealed herself to be a vicious demon of envy who desires to live in our physical world in what she considers the most beautiful of forms, my daughter. Aldreth’s true motivation for capturing Cecily was to use her body as a host to live in the physical world. Aldreth had her eye on Cecily for some time before the capture occurred, and in her opinion Cecily would develop an undeniable beauty that she craved for herself.  Because she had been watching us, Aldreth knew that when she abducted Cecily I would come looking for her, just as she had stated when she deceived me into believing she was a remnant of my wife. This made me wonder why she wanted me here as well.  

I learned that Aldreth needed Cecily there first to prep her body for the ritual in which Cecily’s spirit would be torn  from her natural human form so Aldreth could inhabit the body herself. Knowing I would come for Cecily was an added perk.  Before I had time to theorize why my presence was so important to Aldreth, she pulled out a large dagger and told me she needed me there to complete the ritual.  She explained that the key item for the ritual’s success was the dagger, which required the user of the dagger to share the same bloodline of the body being inhabited.  In other words, Aldreth brought me there to take my own daughter’s life so she could strip her of her soul and take over her body. I furiously told Aldreth that she was out of her mind if she expected me to harm Cecily so that she could steal her body, and she snapped at me for interrupting her before she was done and threw me to the ground.  She slowly waved the dagger in my face and told me she was prepared for my unwillingness to participate in the ritual with a cruel smile.  

“Inside this dagger is the soul of the woman you loved most on this earth,” Aldreth explained.  “I lied to you about being the remnant of your wife, but it wasn’t a lie that her soul is here in the staircase world.  She is imprisoned in this dagger between realms, unable to move onto the next one until her soul is freed. Before you ask how I was able to capture your wife’s soul, think back to that terrible ‘accident’ that took her life.  Did you ever find it odd that she was the only one who lost her life when you and Cecily were the ones sitting the side of the car where the impact occurred? It was no accident that you are here and she is gone. So you have two choices, kill Cecily with the dagger that only blood of blood can use and I’ll free your wife’s poor tormented soul to pass on.  Or, don’t kill Cecily, but force her mother’s soul to be locked away in this dagger and remain trapped in the staircase world forever with your daughter where they will both live in an infinite purgatory of non-death. The choice is yours.” 

Part XIII

Panic set in as I faced an impossible choice to make.  No matter what I decided, someone would get hurt. As I thought through my options with Aldreth standing over me demanding that I make a decision, I realized that my wife would be freed from the dagger if someone else was sacrificed.  That, paired with the fact Aldreth couldn’t actually use the dagger to stab Cecily herself because they didn’t share the same blood, gave me an idea. I told Aldreth that I had made my decision and reached out for the dagger. She eagerly placed it in my hand, grabbed Cecily by the arm and forced her next to me. Cecily looked up at me with a frightened expression, but I could see in her eyes that she didn’t truly believe that I would take her life.  I told her that I loved her, and then thrust the dagger into my heart with all the force that I had. If anyone was going to be sacrificed that night, it had to be me. I trusted that together Cecily and her mother’s spirit would be able to escape Aldreth and restore Cecily’s earthly life. While I wouldn’t be able to be there to watch Cecily grow, I had to give her a chance at living the life she deserved.  

Aldreth, who was still in shock, grabbed the blade out of my hands and rushed toward Cecily, despite knowing that only blood could wield the dagger.  As Cecily screamed, terrified by what I had just done, a hand grabbed Aldreth by the wrist and stopped the blade from stabbing Cecily. Aldreth trembled as she remembered the fact that spirits, living in a spiritual realm like the staircase world, have a physical form just as visiting humans do.  I had no idea how it happened or why I was lucky enough to be in her presence again, but seeing my wife save our daughter made my decision to sacrifice myself one hundred times worth it. Seeing the two people I love most in this world together again was my dying wish come true, only I wasn’t dead.  

I suddenly realized that I wasn’t in pain, and I looked down to discover my own body at my feet.  My wife was still fighting to keep Aldreth from stabbing Cecily with the dagger, so I grabbed Cecily and started running back towards the entrance of the staircase world.  We made it back to the entrance and were surprised to find my wife there waiting for us. Both Cecily and I embraced my wife, still in shock that she was here with us. After a few minutes she pulled away from us, and I noticed her expression was filled with pain.  She explained to Cecily and me that because Aldreth was dead, Cecily was unable to leave the staircase world due to a spell that Aldreth had placed on her, which would cause her soul to be ripped from her body and discarded if she tried to leave. My wife insisted that she sacrificed what remained of her own soul so that Cecily’s soul would remain intact.  While it broke my heart to lose my wife all over again, and I couldn’t even imagine what Cecily was feeling to be losing her mother for the second time, I knew it had to be done in order to save our daughter.  

Part XIV

My wife opened up another stairwell from the ground, this one led up to a place that resembled a beach on an endless ocean.  She explained to me a few basic things about being a fully-passed spirit, and how just like from earth to the staircase world there were staircase entry points to the place she would be going as well.  If Cecily and I managed to find this staircase to the world she was in we would all be able to reunite as a family, and could be together once again. Hand in hand, the three of us walked along the beach in this new world to where my wife must go.  The sound of the water crashing against the shore and the birds calling offered some comfort to the three of us in this somber time.  

We reached the point where we had to part, and I noticed a strange bed with clean white linens surrounded by flowers.  As I stood there with Cecily’s hand in mine, the two of us faced my wife as we prepared to say goodbye to her once again.  Before I could embrace my wife, Cecily dropped my hand and walked over to join her, and the two of them now faced me. Confused, I attempted to ask them what was going on but was unable to speak.  I looked around, trying to figure out what was happening, and realized that I was laying in the white bed I had noticed when we first reached our parting point. Cecily’s and my wife’s hands were clasped tightly in mine, the two of them on either side of the bed, looking down at me with tears rolling down their cheeks.  My confusion and fear began to disappear, and I began to feel an incredible warmth and sense of calm envelop me. My sight began to fade, and the last thing I saw was my wife leaning over me, her lips mouthing “I love you.”  

***

In a hospital room full of flowers, Cecily and her mother sat on either side of her father as he lay in a white hospital bed, each of them grasping his hands. Cecily could see by his breathing that her father was beginning to let go after being in a coma that was caused by a horrible car accident for the last five years.  Shortly after her dad slipped into his coma, while she was still recovering herself, Cecily had hoped that her father would wake up and everything would go back to normal. Not being able to see him for that first month after the accident, because she was in critical condition and could not leave her hospital room, had felt like torture.  Knowing he was just down the hall, she felt like she was being drawn to him and couldn’t wait until she could be by his side. When she was finally able to visit him, seeing his eyes move back and forth beneath his closed eyelids, and the occasional twitch of his hands and feet made her hopeful that he was still in there somewhere. The doctors and nurses explained to her countless times that he was just dreaming, and that it was no indication that he would ever wake up, and with each passing day she began to believe them.    

As time ticked by, and the days turned into years, Cecily’s newfound maturity caused her to wish her father would just let go so he could move on to a better place.  She had a vivid memory of a conversation between her dad’s doctor and her mom after the first year had passed and her dad had shown no signs of recovery. She sat next to her dad in his hospital room as Dr. Aldreth pressured her mom to make a decision on whether or not to remove her dad from life support.  She could never forget the unmistakable look of guilt she saw on her mom’s face when she briefly considered consenting to it. Although Cecily couldn’t stand to see her dad wither away in a hospital bed, she knew that her mother would never forgive herself if she was the one to ultimately take his life away.  Part of her felt like her father must have known how difficult it was for them to continue to live this way and that he made the decision to let them say their goodbyes and move on. Her mother, sensing the same feeling from her father that she did, leaned over to give him one last kiss and told him that she loved him.  The heart monitor, which had begun beeping slower and slower as the day progressed, transitioned into one steady ring as her father took his last breath, and Cecily couldn’t help but feel that her father sacrificed himself so that they could finally move on and have a chance of finding happiness once again.