Maybe I’m sick. Have I fallen ill?

Yeah I’m in trouble.

Get a grip. How’d you get your heart stolen by a human?

It’s the human only a one-bite meal.

I.

There's the full moon, tonight: it's so big that if I reach out I almost feel like I can touch it. Its light reflects on the white snow and even if the sky is pitch black, everything keep its outline and shape.

It isn't always like this. There are some nights when the darkness is so thick and absolute that it seems to float in the space. You have the sensation of being suspended, waiting for something that will never happen. Like a limbo of endless solitude and silence.

But not today.

The crystal light seems to say that everything's all right, there's nothing to worry about. I can see everything, yet I can see nothing.

I wrap myself in the blanket and draw the shape of a flower on the window pane, now clouded by my breath and the warmth of the steaming cup of cinnamon tea.

Dad is missing for a week, now, and I don't know when - and if - he will return; he has not called nor left a message. Anyway, the delivery boy leaves the mail, milk and bread at the entrance of the driveway every morning, but he never goes further, not even asking to be paid, so I guess Dad has already take care of everything. The cookie jar on the shelf is full of cash and the car has the full: to be always absent, at least Dad is attentive to details.

Sometimes I wonder if his prolonged absences are my fault. I look so alike to my mother that living with me under the same roof and accept that she'll never return must be really painful for him. He never says anything, but I can see it in his eyes.

I'd like to tell Dad that it's not my fault if I look like Mom, that genetics sometimes plays tricks and that I'm sorry to be a source of sad memories, but I don't have the courage to do so. I'm afraid that he would agree with me and I'm not ready to accept a similar rejection: therefore I let him be absent as he wants and enjoy the small attention he gives to me, like a new book brought from the last place he visited, a painting found in a second-hand stall, cute clothes or a nice wool scarf.

I take a sip of tea, staring over the edge of the forest, my gaze lost between the ancient trees and the paths that I have never explored.

Don't you ever go alone in the woods. Rule