yes i'm actually mormon, stop asking

This little fairy tale turns out to be exactly what happened, since after Thomas kisses Dove, they both realize it's wrong, because what Thomas actually wants is Andrew. Then Dove tells Thomas not to touch Andrew or even look at him.

There are also so many instances of a character's eyes or mouth being scribbled out or having roses growing out of them! What a freaking way to represent forbidden love :(

The second story we see is:

"Once upon a time there lived a woodcutter who crept into an enchanted forest and took his ax to an enchanted tree. It was said a log from here would burn bright and merry forever. Indeed, the woodcutter spent a comfortable night roasting apples with no care in the world. But the next morning, he found the enchanted forest had come walking. Acres of trees surrounded his cottage, all crying bloody tears. He ran through the forest, but could not find his way out. All he found were trees weeping blood and blood and blood."

The woodcutter is Andrew. The fire is probably love, warm and comforting, something that's supposed to burn bright forever. But then there's that log, or the branch that snapped and caused Dove's death. And everything goes to absolute shit.

There are also multiple instances where Andrew hallucinates, remembers, or sees leaves covered in blood. IMO this imagery represents guilt and regret.

Alright, last one:

"They gently lowered the fairy prince’s body into a glass coffin, leaving bloody fingerprints smudged on the case. His chest had been caved in from battles fought and lost, and they’d filled the space between his ribs with flowers. Even now the flowers grew, blossoming as they drank the last of his blood. The princess’s silver tears fell like rain upon the coffin. True love’s kiss should wake him, but she had tried seven times and nothing had happened. Behind the princess stood her brother, a poet with soft lips and soft moss for hair. He whispered, 'Let me try.' But no one heard. They buried the fairy prince alone. By evening, the flowers had grown over his whole face."

The fairy prince is Thomas. The princess, Dove, is the one who kisses him first because that's how love stories usually go. But not this one! The brother, the poet is Andrew.

So, now that we've seen a couple stories, we can start to pick out a few common words that we can use as clues to figure out who's who in later stories.

Thomas is often called the 'fairy prince' associated with 'sevens' and 'apples' and 'flowers' and 'blood' (specifically from injuries).

Andrew is the 'poet' associated with 'moss' and 'moth wings', and 'wishes'.

Dove is the 'princess' or the 'maiden' when she's alive, but more often in the fairy tales she is closely associated with 'trees'.

2. The Wolf and the Wishing Well

Ok, so if the fairy tale characters are real, then what about this one?

Alternatively, who killed Thomas's parents?

"Once upon a time, a cutthroat queen and a wormwood king had seven sons. They loved them all except for the last, who was made of sarsaparilla and foul tempers and had beautifully pointed teeth. They gifted their first six sons crowns made of willow switches. But they ordered the seventh son to be switched with the leftover rods. They gifted their first six sons golden apples. But for their seventh son, they put worms on his tongue and made him swallow. They gifted their first six sons a wishing well. But to their seventh son, they gave the hacked-off head of a wolf cub. The years passed and the seventh son’s skin toughened under the switching, and he developed a taste for flesh, and he befriended the murdered wolf cub and told it all his secrets. When the wolf decided justice was necessary and ripped out the hearts of the cutthroat queen and the wormwood king and ate their six perfect sons, the seventh son did not even notice. He had found his reflection in the wishing well and liked staring at his pointed teeth."

The seventh son is definitely Thomas. But who's the wolf? It could be Andrew, but I don't think it is. For one, I don't think Thomas ever told Andrew all his secrets. For another, I don't think Thomas's parents gave him Andrew. They hit him, they starved him, and they messed with his head.

The fun theory is that the murdered wolf cub is a perfect encapsulation of the impossibility of real, actual monsters. Something impossible coming to life, born out of Andrew's stories and Thomas's art.

The not-fun theory is that the murdered wolf cub is a Thomas who becomes a monster. Maybe he doesn't remember it, or maybe he's really good at denial, but this is the same guy who tells Andrew "I'd be a monster for you, if you asked" in the prequel. Later on in the book, it's revealed that his parents' bodies are probably in a well, and now reality matches the story just a little too closely for it to be a coincidence.

"You know how there's an old boarded-up well in the grove behind my house? I can't even tell the cops to check in there because it's as good as a confession."

I'm undecided on this one. Because Andrew was actually the one who originally wrote this story. He's the one who wishes for the wolf to exist, or for 'justice'. Thomas doesn't think about the monsters' motivations as deeply as Andrew does. Why would Thomas be the one who turned into the monster?

Just throwing this out there: I think it's because Thomas's parents would let him return to Wickwood Academy. I think they got into an argument the day before classes started, and they made the mistake of getting in between him and Andrew. Andrew straight-up disassociates for the entire summer before returning. Thomas doesn't care about the willow switches and the worm for food, but he does care about Andrew. That's the wolf - him and Andrew. Trying to keep Thomas away from Andrew would be a very realistic trigger for him to turn into a monster, throw them in the well, and then go buy a bus ticket the following morning.

3. The Woodcutter and the Ax

"Once there was a boy who slept in an enchanted tower, his back flecked with whip marks from battles lost and monsters who’d won. He wore a crown of cherrywood and firebird bones, gifted to him by his sisters who were trees in the forest. But they had not been able to protect him, and his capture meant endless years of torture. The boy whimpered in his sleep, waiting for the whips to return. Instead, a witch climbed through his tower window. She wore a cloak covered in the gold dust of wishes, and she promised to save him. For a price. 'Take this ax,' she said with a coy smile, 'and cut down every tree in the forest. Then nothing will ever harm you again.' 'But the trees are my sisters,' he said, his bones already filled with dread. 'Why do you care for them?' the witch asked. 'They do not love you. They did not come for you. Take the ax.' He began to cry, but he took the ax."

We already know, from earlier stories, that the woodcutter is Andrew.

But what's the purpose of the ax?

In this fairy tale, the ax cuts down trees. In the book, the ax cuts down monsters (who come out from behind trees). In the fairy tale, taking up the ax is a betrayal of his sisters. In the book, what is Andrew's betrayal? He forgets Dove's death, and he goes against her final wishes. And because he forgets, he never understands the source of his pain or guilt. And because the pain and guilt of her death doesn't go away, it manifests in the form of monsters. Monsters that need to be cut down with axes, not swords.

I think the ax or the hatchet is a temporary fix. A stopgap. A choice made out of desperation. Note that Thomas and Andrew don't actually defeat all the monsters by chopping them down one by one. What actually ends up working is Andrew rewriting the story into something different. Something happier.

3. What is the Forest?

So the one thing that repeatedly shows up in fairy tale after fairy tale is the forest. It's everywhere. It's in the title. It's in Andrew. It's where the monsters come from.

I think it's grief.

Specifically, suppressed grief, the kind that Andrew is feeling without remembering or realizing why he's feeling that way. I think the whole story of Don't Let the Forest In is about Andrew and Thomas, but mostly Andrew, struggling to suppress his grief. The Academy tries to fence it off. Everyone tries to tell Andrew to stay away from it. Thomas is the only one who goes there, again and again, and at first he's just fighting his own monsters, alone, but later he starts fighting Andrew's monsters too. But the ax is just a stopgap. The forest and its monsters start invading the school - it collapses a wing of a building, it bursts into the dining hall, it grows inside of Andrew and causes headaches and migraines.

When framed this way, the ending of the story is actually really beautiful. It no longer matters if the monsters were real or not, and if our boys were alive or dead. I mean, it matters, but not as much as the fact that in the end, they did let the forest in.