The Grove of Unseen Things

In the autumn of 1987, I was shipped off to a rehabilitation ranch in the high desert of New Mexico, a place called La Mesita. The facility was an old adobe hacienda that had been converted into a dormitory for troubled girls. It sat on the edge of a vast, twisted piñon forest, and the nearest bus stop was a mile and a half down a rutted dirt road that cut through the trees. We were required to walk that road every morning at 5:45 AM, while the stars still glittered overhead.

I had been dragged there after a string of petty thefts and running with a crowd that liked to break into abandoned barns. My parents were fed up. The ranch was run by a stern woman named Señora Delgado, who believed in discipline and hard work. The other girls were a mix of the rebellious and the lost. There was Marisol, who had a chip on her shoulder, and Chloe, who barely spoke. We shared a dormitory with creaky iron beds and a single window that looked out onto the forest.

The mornings were cold. We would file out into the dark, clutching our backpacks, and start the walk. The road was lined with gnarled trees that seemed to lean in, their branches scraping together like whispers. The only light came from the faint glow of a distant porch bulb behind us, and the occasional flicker of car headlights far away. I always felt a knot in my stomach, as if we were being watched.

It happened on a Tuesday, about three weeks in. The sky was overcast, swallowing all light. We were halfway through the forest when I saw something up ahead. At first I thought it was a truck’s high beams, but the light was wrong. It was a shimmering, pulsing glow, and it was coming from the trees to our left. Marisol stopped and pointed. ‘What is that?’ she whispered.

The glow was moving, drifting between the trunks, and then it expanded into a circle about thirty feet wide. It spun slowly, throwing off ribbons of violet and green. The air felt electric, like static against my skin. I felt a pull, as if the light wanted me to step closer. But then I saw them.

Figures emerged from beyond the circle—not human, but not entirely alien either. They were tall, thin, with limbs that bent at odd angles, and their skin was the color of the bark on the piñons, rough and peeling. They moved in a synchronized shuffle, their heads tilted, and I realized they were studying us. One of them raised a hand, and it was then I saw the eyes—too many of them, scattered across its face like seeds.

I couldn’t move. My breath caught. Marisol grabbed my arm, and together we stumbled backward. Chloe was already running. But the figures didn’t chase. They just stood there, and the circle pulsed, and then it faded, like a TV being turned off. The forest returned to darkness, and the only sound was our ragged breathing.

We didn’t tell anyone. Who would believe us? But the walk to the bus stop became a gauntlet. Every morning, we scanned the trees, and every morning, we saw nothing. But the one thing that changed was the smell. It started faintly, like damp earth and burnt sugar, and it lingered in our clothes. The other girls complained, but they couldn’t place it.

A week later, I woke up with a strange mark on the inside of my wrist: a spiral of tiny dots, like a fingerprint. When I showed Marisol, she had the same mark on her ankle. Chloe’s was on her neck. We tried to scratch them off, but they only grew sharper, more defined. And then we started dreaming of the circle, except in the dreams we were inside it, and the figures were singing—a low, harmonic drone that felt ancient and wrong.

One night, I woke to find Chloe standing at the foot of my bed, her eyes open but vacant. She was whispering something in a language I didn’t know, her lips moving as if she were reading from an invisible book. Marisol was beside her, swaying. I screamed, but no sound came out. The next morning, they had no memory of it, but I could see the marks on their skin had spread.

The last day I was there, a storm rolled in, and the power flickered. The bus was late, and we were forced to wait at the edge of the forest. The rain came down in sheets, and the trees turned to silhouettes. I saw the light again—this time closer, nearly touching the road. The figures were there, their arms raised, and I could hear the drone even over the rain. I grabbed Marisol and Chloe, and we ran back to the ranch, not stopping until we slammed the iron gates shut.

When I finally escaped that place, a month later, I thought I’d left it behind. But sometimes, I still see the circle when I close my eyes. And I’ve noticed that the mark on my wrist has started to resemble a map—a map of a forest, with a circle at the center. I’ve never gone back, but I know the grove is still there, waiting for me. And I wonder if I’m the only one who ever walked away, or if they let me go on purpose, like a seed they planted in the outside world.