This is a second draft of the story. If anyone has any suggestions for a title, I would welcome them.
ANTHEYA
or
THE ENCHANTED FOREST
CHAPTER ONE
"Come, children," the old woman said. "Dance and play while you may." Her voice lowered. "For tonight is the Night of Horrors." And in the open forest glade, the children danced and twirled wildly, and wound vines in their hair. High up above them, in the velvet black sky, the moon was full; but none of the children noticed. And from the trees all around the glade, strange, unearthly things looked out at them: ghastly faces and horrible, snakelike eyes. Slowly, the moon rose, until it rested right in the middle of the sky, and in the towns, the clocks were all striking twelve. And still the children danced, as the old woman watched from the shadows.
Alice sat on the edge of her bed, shivering and looking towards her window. In the center of her small town loomed the clock tower; the moon, rising from behind the forest, illuminated the face of the clock, but she did not need to see the hands to know what time it was. Bong! it struck once, then again. Bong! And then six more times. The next was louder: BONG! The last was always loudest. It was nine o'clock, and time to go.
Alice would have preferred to have gone sooner, but she and Joseph knew they had to wait until their parents were asleep. She got up; her shoes were already on, and she had a bundle of food and blankets on her shoulder, enough for both her and her twin brother.
She crept out of her room to Joseph's door and knocked softly. There was no answer, so she knocked a little louder.
"Joseph!" she whispered. "Time to go!"
She pressed her ear against the door to try to catch the sound of a snore, but all she heard was the sound of a strong breeze whistling through the window inside and playing with the curtains. She tried the door but it was locked. Then, faintly, she could hear music, wild and alluring, filling the room.
"Gone!" she thought, terror filling her heart.
Without waiting another second, she turned from the door and the music and fled out of the house, down the road leading out of town.
Behind her was the forest, two or so miles from the western edge of her town. At first, she could hear the wild, enchanting music, calling her with an almost irresistible charm and promise, but the pounding of her feet soon drowned it out, and at last she could not hear it at all.
After that she began to walk, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickening her pace. Her thoughts were busy with Joseph. He had gone out of his window; the music had called him, and he was gone. Would he ever come back? Why, why had he not waited for her as he had promised?
Suddenly, a sound jerked her from these ponderings: a long, drawn out howl, drifting down the wind. For just one second her blood seemed frozen in her veins, and then she began to run as hard as she could. She had nothing to defend herself with, but Joseph said she could run as swiftly as the wind, and she had no intention of stopping until she found a tree to climb.
Her feet hardly seemed to be touching the road as she picked up speed; she turned her head quickly to look behind her and saw something coming up the road towards her.
Doubt crept into Alice's mind. Could she truly outrun a wolf? Wildly, she looked ahead for a tree, and saw one about a hundred and fifty yards ahead. So far! And she could already feel her side cramping slightly. She dared not look behind her, but, as she neared the tree, she gathered up the last of her strength, she reached it and grabbed onto a limb. She was swinging herself up when she felt something touch her arm. With a small scream she looked around and saw a boy standing there.
"Why..." she panted. "Why...didn't you...say you... were there?"
He smiled apologetically but was obviously even more out of breath than she. Instead he climbed into the tree and held out his hand to help pull her up.
Then they climbed higher, until they were fifteen or so feet above the ground and safe from wolves.
After catching her breath, Alice said,
"Why did you sneak up on me like that?"
"I'm sorry," the boy said. "I had been running for I don't know how long, and then I saw you. So I ran to catch up. You must be part deer! I thought I'd never be able to speak again when I had caught up, and you had looked back, so I thought you must have seen me."
"I thought you were a wolf," she said.
They did not say anything else for a while. The boy was studying her.
"I think we've met before," he said at last. "Did you come to Radel about four months ago with your father?"
"Yes!" she replied, looking at him more carefully. "I do recall your face slightly. Were you in the blacksmith's shop? Gil was your name?"
"Gilbert," he said. "Gil is what my uncle calls me. I'm apprenticed to him. And your name was Alice."
"Yes, that's right."
He held his hand out and they shook hands.
"So," Alice said. "Why were you so far behind? Your town is farther from the forest than mine."
"I fell asleep," Gilbert said sheepishly. "Then I woke up and realized that it was sometime past nine."
"Really? I couldn't sleep. I would have gone sooner, except that I couldn't be sure that our parents were asleep."
"Our? You have siblings?"
"Joseph is my twin brother."
"Then...why didn't he come too?"
"He was going to, but," she broke off.
"Ohhh," he said slowly. "Well, try not to think about it. He may come back."
"But what if he doesn't!" Alice said, sounding as though she might break into tears.
Gilbert did not know what to say, so he said nothing.
"Do you think," said the boy at last, hesitantly. "Do you think he might have gone ahead?"
"No!" Alice said indignantly. "We agreed to go together, and he wouldn't go without me!"
They sat in awkward silence for a long time, dangling their legs over the branch. They heard no more howls. The moon was right above them, and faintly they could hear a clock tower chiming twelve o'clock.
"I wonder why more don't leave," Gilbert said suddenly.
"What do you mean?" asked Alice.
"I mean, why don't more children run off before they have to go to the forest? It seems like a lot of them would."
"I don't think that most of them are afraid to go," said the girl. "My cousin didn't seem very nervous about it."
"What I don't understand," Gilbert said, talking slowly as though he were trying to work something out. "Is why it's allowed at all. Why don't parents lock the doors and stand guard over their children to prevent them from going?"
"Well," countered Alice. "Why don't they go in and hack the forest up?"
"They couldn't do that! It's magical. Their axes would probably burst into flames or something."
"Yes, and so is this night," she went on. "I doubt that they could keep them in once the music is strong enough to reach in and enchant the children."
She looked down as she was talking and noticed Gilbert fingering a long knife, running his thumb up and down the blade.
"Where did you get that?" she asked in awe. "I thought..."
"I had to make it secretly," he said. "In the blacksmith shop when my uncle was away. I hid it whenever I saw anyone coming. You have no idea how many scares I had. Once, I caught some fellow staring at me through the window. Fortunately, at that time it looked nothing like a knife. Another time, the mayor himself came in. I can't imagine what would have happened to me if he had seen it."
"I wish we didn't live so close to that beastly forest!" Alice said with a shudder.
"Well," Gilbert said. "It looks like our time is almost over. It's about one o'clock, I think."
To confirm his words, they heard the nearby clock tower striking three quarters of the hour. Alice shifted uncomfortably on the tree branch, and shivered. It was the middle of autumn, and the breeze was chilly, especially at night.
As the last strokes of the clock died away, Gilbert suddenly said,
"Hush! Listen!"
"It's music!" whispered Alice, wonderingly. "But it's...not the same as the forest music." It was, indeed, unlike the wild, heady music which she had heard upon leaving her town: this was a light, almost merry tune which conjured images of water falling down rocks in the sunlight. The two children listened intently until it had faded away, and they were again left in the dark and cold.
"What was that?" Alice asked, shaking herself out of the wonder which had fallen over her. "I've never heard anything like it before!"
"I...I don't know, but it was..." Gilbert struggled for words. "It was...beautiful."
He jumped to the ground and helped Alice out of the tree.
"I say!" he said. "I'm hungry!"
"Didn't you bring anything to eat?" she asked.
"No, I didn't think about it."
"Well, I brought enough food for two. Have some."
They sat down on the ground and ate, then started down the road.
"Get off the road," Gilbert said quickly, and pulled Alice into some bushes.
They watched as a straggling procession of children walked wearily down the road. They came by ones or twos, with their heads hanging and their eyes dull and listless.
"They're coming from the forest," Alice said, stating the obvious. "That's what we would have looked like."
"If we came back at all," Gilbert murmured. "How many didn't come back? I'm going to ask one of them something."
He stepped out onto the road and stopped a boy.
"What did you see?" he asked. "What happened in the forest?"
The boy's eyes wandered, and at last he said in a languid voice,
"There were trees. And moonlight and music."
"What else? What happened there?"
"I can't remember; maybe nothing," the boy said, and walked past Gilbert.
They said little to each other the rest of the way; both were rather solemn and depressed. Alice was thinking of the long years stretching behind them of thirteen year olds going to the forest and never returning, and the long years stretching ahead in which they would keep doing so, until the end of the world perhaps.
"When I grow up and have children, I will move far away, to where they have never heard of the forest," she said out loud.
Gilbert nodded absently. His mind was elsewhere.
Gilbert and Alice walked until they reached the gate to her town.
"This is out of your way," she said.
"I know, but I wanted to make sure you were safe. Farewell. I hope you find your brother waiting for you."
"Farewell, and thank you," she said, and entered the gate.
She was met by the town mayor, who startled her by stepping out of the shadows by the gate.
This was a really interesting story which drew me right in. I love how you kept this fairy tale feeling to it. It reminds me of the Pied Piper story. 
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My general rule is that if it’s obvious by what’s said how it’s said, don’t add a tag.
