My mother was a pretty quiet lady. I was a pretty loud kid. If you filled a book with things she told me, it wouldn’t make it past chapter three. So anything she said, I tended to remember. So I remember her telling me: “stay out of those woods.”
Now, this was stranger than it sounded. For one thing, our house was surrounded by woods, and I was an outdoorsy girl from the get-go – as soon as I could walk I was finding rocks to trip over, and since home was nothing but a beaten-up, overgrown cabin and a shed with a door-squeak that could wake the dead, the farther I wandered the better. For another, she didn’t mind me wandering around out in the forests ’till just past dusk; as long as I carried the big stick with nails in it in case I ran into a bear. It wouldn’t do much to the bear, mind you, but it was a good reminder that there were things out there that could hurt you, and it kept me cautious. Sometimes.
So, it wasn’t the woods. They weren’t the problem. No, it was those woods. And here was where mom made her first mistake, because when I asked her the natural question, which was “what woods?” she told me where she meant. So I didn’t stumble into them by accident.
Then she made the second mistake, which was when I asked her “why?” she told me it wasn’t important.
Of course, first thing you do when you’re told that sort of thing, you go see what all the fuss is about.
So off I went. Mom hadn’t given me an exact distance, or a precise direction, but I knew where I was going – one of the older, more beaten-down paths led right where she’d pointed. It was right into old growth, where the trees shut out the sky and ate up the noise. Very quiet. I’d never been that deep in before, and if mom hadn’t warned me off, I probably never would’ve. Being a parent’s tough.
The boundary of where I knew I shouldn’t be was obvious. The trail went from near-gone to overgrown, and there was a blaze carved into a dead redwood that looked older than the snag itself. I kept going. After all, how was I supposed to know why I shouldn’t go there if I hadn’t been there?
It took me ten minutes to get pretty far into the off-limits area – there was some thick brush in there.
After about five, I started to notice things.
This was all gradual, mind you. It wasn’t like I took one step, two steps and BAM pins and needles up and down my arms. It was just something you noticed after a while, like that the breeze’s stopped, or that there’s a goddamned lot of flies out today.
When I did feel it – in a little clearing where a tree had died and rotted in place – it all sort of came to the surface at once. I stood there, one foot half in the air, and tried to tell what the hell was going on. It was hard to sort out, but what I remember as being the biggest thing was the air. It felt… thick. Not heavy, just thick. Like you could reach out and grab it, like it was stuffed with something. It was full. That’s what I remember the strongest. The air, straining at the seams to keep something inside.
The light was strange, too. Even filtered through a summer canopy, it was, I’m not sure, spotty. Wobbling. Like it was being passed through some sort of filter. And it was quiet, the quietest spot in the quietest depth of the forest, but it was because there was a blur over it all. Like white noise, but like breathing.
Oh, and it smelled like growing things.
I’d say I spent less than two minutes in that place before I lost my nerve and ran for it. Didn’t stop jogging until all the way back home, and I earned myself a black eye and four bruises on the way because I wouldn’t stop looking over my shoulder. Felt like something was watching me the whole way.
Mom was worried sick, of course, and scolded me up-and-down-and-all-about. If she’d known where I’d been she’d probably have done more than scold, but I told her I’d just gotten caught up in practicing skipping rocks on the creek and ran home a little too late and a little too quick. She probably wanted to believe that as much as I did, so not too many questions got asked and I got put to bed without any more sore spots than I’d given myself. Took me hours to get to sleep though. The window kept making me itch, even after I pulled the blinds on it.
That was the first time, and afterwards I pretty much followed mom’s advice and forgot about the place. Closest I’d have gotten at that age to admitting she was right about anything. So I hiked, hunted and fished and was reluctantly cattle-prodded off to school, where I learned what other people were. Whether I liked it or not.
David… hah, David was very much “liked.” Nice, but stupid. That was the age, though – I wasn’t exactly Einstein myself back then. God, we got up to some stupid things. Usually at his house – his parents both worked, and some nights they couldn’t make it home at all. Mom was always home at my place, so that was out for half the fun we wanted to have. And that didn’t really matter for a full school year. We had our routine and it worked out fine.
But David was curious. Always curious. Hell, if he was curious enough to date the crazy girl from the woods to see if she really ate raw meat and skinned her own clothes, he was curious enough to want to see firsthand if she really lived in a log cabin like everyone said. He kept asking and I kept turning him down, and finally he turned the screws on me right as summer was starting, because his family was going to go see some relatives cross-country and this-is-the-last-time-I’ll-see-you-for-what-have-you. Worked like a charm.
Mom was happy to meet him – I’d told her a little bit, just as part of the parcel of stories I gave her as reassurance that I was fitting in with the other kids. She had some half-stale raisin cookies we’d been avoiding eating for a week, David was polite and managed to eat three-quarters of one, and it was almost nice. Awkward as hell, but nice.
Then mom wants to go to bed. Early-to-rise, you know? So she asks us to keep it down thank you very much and heads to her room, and me and David, clever little idiots that we are, decide that this is the perfect time to head outside and enjoy the night, just the three of us: him, me, and Jack Daniels.
Of course, that plan was off the rails before it hit the track. I told him sound carried so we’d have to get some distance before we really relaxed, but of course we can’t wait to crack at the bottle and we’re taking swigs before the house’s lights have gotten dim behind us. Looking back, it’s pretty lucky we didn’t break our necks on the path, even with the flashlights. We sure as hell couldn’t hold them straight for very long. Must’ve given a dozen owls heart attacks.
Now, in between drinks, what we were doing kept changing. At first we were trying to make out. Then we were trying to complain about our parents – well, he was; I only had half as much material, and I got on pretty good with mom – and after that we were trying to find a really pretty spot in the woods I wanted to show him. I think we were going to make out in it, I don’t think I quite knew what was going on even then. By then the only one of us that wasn’t sloshing when we walked was mister Daniels.
So that’s the best guess I can give as to how we went off trail. I lived in those woods for years and years and never got lost once, ever. And I’m not about to count this as ‘getting lost.’ We were moved. One moment we were skirting along the edge of the old growth, and the next we were walking into that empty little clearing full of not-noise and with the moonlight filtering in all broken up. And I couldn’t smell the booze anymore. Just green growth, hanging in the too-thick air.
I sobered up fast, once I could blink enough to see where we were standing. David didn’t get it, he just asked if we were there yet… probably. I was practically carrying the poor boy by then; we’d both have probably passed out and slept ’till noon if I hadn’t caught wise right then.
So, what was the first thing I did?
Well, I giggled.
Yes, yes, very smart. Well, I’d just gotten lost in what was practically my own backyard, found myself in a place that had terrified the life out of me as a little girl, gone from smashed-flat to stone-sober inside five seconds, and was listening to my no-help-at-all boyfriend mutter something about how beautiful I was while he dribbled a little at the mouth. It was giggle or shriek, and you don’t shriek when it’s just two of you, only one awake, alone in the woods at night. It isn’t going to make you feel any better.
Now, don’t go thinking I was completely off my head yet; while I was giggling I was getting a better grip on David’s arm and generally getting him into a position where I could run like the dickens and bring him with me. And that’s when he dropped poor old mister Daniels. Smash, right on a rock, blasted right apart. And because I was a dutiful, clean (all the other girls in school made jokes about the smelly hillbilly who lived in the woods; I’d foolishly thought this would make them stop it), conscientious, stupid, stupid, stupid girl, I leaned over to pick up the biggest pieces and immediately cut myself.
Right away, the second that I felt that nasty prick in my finger, the air broke. I’m fairly sure that’s the right word for what happened: it broke. Snapped right in half and sprayed bits of light and colour everywhere, like stamping on a prism. Of course, it was night, so most of the colours were shades of grey-to-black, but it was pretty damned impressive, even so. More startling than the lightshow (fleeting though it was) was the thud you felt in your gut and your ears, because for just a little less than a second whatever it was that had made the air so heavy had been dropped right into it, and it was just as surprised as you were.
That last sentence needs a bit more explanation, I think. You see, when I’d blinked away the blindness, the first thing I saw – beyond that David was now moaning loudly and clutching his head – was a pair of big yellow eyes looking at me from just a little higher than I was. They were very large, seemed spread very wide, and I can’t remember what the pupils were like. Matter of fact, I can’t remember anything else at all, right up until I slammed the door of the house so hard that it nearly knocked mom out of bed.
We had a bit of an argument, Well, she asked me what the hell was going on while I put David to bed on the coach, then I passed out while she groused at me. I woke up in my bed, so I guess she wasn’t too cross with me. That, and she might’ve smelled the fumes and decided that I’d have enough punishment come morning whether I slept on satin or stone.
David was a bit dinged up in the morning; however I’d gotten us home, it hadn’t been without a few bumps. The poor boy looked like he’d been five rounds with an angry bobcat, and there was half a bird’s-nest stuck in his hair. A bit less of a romantic goodbye than he’d hoped for, but I suspected that after last night he wasn’t quite as upset about leaving me behind as before. The feeling was mutual. Some people like a relationship where they get to play the hero now and then, but if you ask me, anyone who needs to be dragged through the woods dead drunk at fifteen miles an hour is someone I’d rather not be sleeping with. Maybe it won’t happen twice, but once is too much. David met some other girl when he was out east anyways. Mom seemed almost upset that I didn’t need any consoling.
The biggest change from that night was that I didn’t spend as much time in the woods anymore. After ending up in the place where I shouldn’t be through god-knows-how, I wasn’t about to get one inch closer to it than I needed to. Even the brighter, noisier, younger parts of the forest put me on edge. Felt like someone was always looking over my shoulder. I didn’t tell mom any of this, of course – she’d have put it down to the drink, and that’s fair, so would most people. I wasn’t going to take that chance. And after seeing those eyes, I wasn’t going to wander outside as often. And never at night.
There’s a few things I should mention before I talk about the third time, which was maybe ten years after that.
First, a couple of dogs went missing within a week of my little adventure. Big, healthy, well-trained animals. No sign ever found, no tracks, no tire marks. Just gone from someone’s backyard without a trace. There was a good-sized search, but nobody found anything. They figured someone stole them.
A month later, another dog goes. This one was on a hunting trip, and the man swore it went into the bushes to grab a bird and never came back. Same thing: no tracks, no marks, no muss or fuss.
Three days after that a rich guy loses a horse a few miles away, and that’s what makes people start connecting dots. Given another kick by some of the hunters complaining that it’s prime time for deer and they’ve barely seen so much as a hint of antler. I think they decided it was a really smart bear at the end of it, or maybe a cougar that had balls of steel. Neither one made much sense, but they were the best ideas they had, so they took them and ran with them all over the woods, with guns, with hounds, and at one point the rich guy hired a chopper.
Of course, they didn’t find anything. Probably for the best. Nothing else went missing.
But the deer stayed scarce. After the fifth year of that, the hunters gave up and moved on.
Things were already changing by then – I’d finished school, and I was doing most of the heavy work around the house. Mom was still tough, mind you, but her spine was more oak than iron now, and she appreciated that she had someone doing the lifting for once – especially the town runs. After school, I was more used to people than she was, and the old truck was drivable enough. It also meant mom had the time to make tea more often. God, the stuff she tried… I’d swear she worked through every single plant within ten miles, and she would’ve made tea out of the animals too if she’d still had the vision to take a proper shot with our rifle (or if any of them could be found; the wildlife kept getting more skittish). If it could be dunked in boiling water, she’d put it in a mug and give it to you without warning.
Anyways, this kept on for another five years or so. Slow and steady, but not much more. What brought that to an end?
Well, I met a man.
I was coming back from a fishing trip when I met Stewart. He almost got me killed right off the bat – the clever, clever idiot had managed to find one of the almost-gone deer left in the forest for miles around, then startled the thing into the road almost immediately. It left a dent in that truck’s hood that looked like it went all the way to the pedals, and it was only sheer luck that the dent didn’t end in my forehead instead. I did my best to show Stewart exactly what I meant, and I was pretty happy that he’d been blessed with a thick skull once my temper cooled down. For a minute after he keeled over, I almost thought he wasn’t going to get up again. Left a nice little scar, though, where one of my nails caught his scalp by mistake.
So once Stewart had woken up and I apologized, we got to talking what to do about my truck. He diagnosed it as a complete write-off ten years ago and said it was a miracle the deer hadn’t just sailed right through the rust holes, I said I was really sorry about hitting him again, and we agreed that it was only fair that he drive me home and we split the deer fifty-fifty.
Mom was happy to have guests again – if anything else, it gave her someone new to inflict all her favourite teas upon. Stewart was as polite as he could be with his headache, and in general everybody had a nice time for a little while before we had to go out back and butcher a deer. It’d been a long time since me or mom had a chance to do that, and we managed to… what’s the opposite of ‘many hands make light work’ again? Cooks and broth, yes. We spoiled that broth to hell and back – the deer came through all right in the end, but it took twice as long as it should’ve and some of the cuts were shaped in pretty peculiar ways when we stashed them in the shed’s freezer. I don’t think a steak is meant to be comma-shaped.
After that, we were all just about tuckered. Barely had the energy to cook up some of the meat for a late dinner, but Stewart helped. Man knew his way around a kitchen. We talked about the truck over the evening, and Stewart volunteered to loan us his. He’d just moved in a month or two ago, he said, and he was within hiking distance if we ever needed to borrow a ride. Everything was just warming up nicely when we heard the shed door squeak.
Now, when I said that door could wake the dead, I was only exaggerating. Slightly. But that rusty wail the thing made could, at the very least, make them roll over and complain in their sleep. And right there, in the middle of that shriek of cruddy old iron, there was a noise. Somewhere between a growl and a grumble. If we’d had time to think, we’d have stopped right then, but we were all a bit caught up in the moment and were right at the doorway before our brains could get moving. At least we had the presence of mind to snatch up our guns.
We only had a single instance of face-to-face time with the thing that was already half out of the shed. Then it was leaping into the bushes. Overall impression: almost as big as the shed, very large yellow eyes, furry, probably not a bear, and very, very fast.
And right when we should’ve all been frozen and thinking what-the-hell-is-that there goes Stewart off and after the thing down the trail.
Well. Of course I had to follow him. Who knew what sort of trouble he’d get into. Maybe nobody’d gone missing hunting after this thing before, but they hadn’t been alone, it hadn’t been night-time, and they weren’t right on its heels when it was trying to eat. Besides, the brave moron would get lost out there. As well as I remembered those trails, I hadn’t walked some of them for years, and they were overgrown. Somebody had to bring him back.
That midnight run through the woods was the run home with David turned inside-out: I remember every single step I took on that path, every branch that brushed my shoulders, every thought that went through my head, all as vividly as if I’d practiced them half a dozen times over before. And I knew all along, just as I’m sure you do right now, exactly where the trail would end.
The clearing was the same as it ever was, as if nothing had changed since ten years ago when I cut myself – I could even see the glitter of glass on its floor. The only changes were in its residents: Stewart, me, and whatever our runaway visitor was.
It was a poor thing, and I don’t mean that in the isn’t-it-cute sense. I could count every one of its ribs – huge things – and its eyes were sunken and erratic. Every breath it took seemed to exhaust it more than the last, and there was less calm in the slowing of its pants than there was, well, finality. Its four long legs trembled to keep itself upright, and its chocolate-coloured fur (milk chocolate, to be precise) was marred by patches of manged skin. Its mouth was wide-open, but the fangs inside it looked about ready to drop out – one of the canines was snapped off near the root, and something was glistening unhealthily on it, mixed with the bloody remnants of our venison.
John’s rifle was low and at his side, I saw. All of us could see that it wasn’t necessary. He gave me a look that was somewhere between sad and embarrassed. All three of us were wearing something like that. Along with, in my case, probably a pretty big helping of guilt.
“Good boy,” I said, softly. Its ears twitched. They were oddly long for something its size. Reminded me of a fox. “Good boy.”
It crouched lower. Not to pounce, not to flee, not even to relax. Just because it didn’t have the energy to do anything else.
Stewart opened his mouth, and although I didn’t know precisely what words would come out, I knew that they would be stupid. Then he shut it again.
“Good boy,” I repeated, glancing at him. He gave me a look.
“Steady,” I said. I started walking towards it. It wasn’t going anywhere. “Calm now. You’ve been a long way from home for a long while, haven’t you? Brave boy.”
It sunk lower. Its belly was on the ground now, its head cocked to one side at me. A noise came out of its mouth, but it was too slight to tell whether it was a growl, purr, or hello-how-are-you.
“Good boy,” I said, picking up a little bit of glass from the ground. “I know this hurts, but it’ll just be a little more. Don’t you want to go home again? Hold still, brave boy.”
The nose twitched a little as I held the glass to its ear, but just a little. I had to stretch to reach, and its muzzle pressed into my side. Its breath was surprisingly warm.
“Good boy,” I said one last time for good luck, and I cut loose one drop. Which I let drip.
The air didn’t break. At least, not any more than it already had. It just… slid aside. To make room for whatever was pressing against it.
Nothing big, nothing new. Just different air, with a different sky, popping into place in the middle of the clearing. It was funny, how much more normal that made it seem.
One sky under one canopy: impossibly tall and green, with a sun brighter than a light in a mirror.
One wind, calm and steady up above, brushing through leaves that were odd, with the sound of a breath that didn’t end.
And that smell, that smell of deep, pure green life, all around.
Something furry and frightened scurried away in the underbrush, and I felt our visitor’s nose twitch against my stomach again.
“Good boy,” I whispered. “You’re home.”
It sighed, and I’m pretty sure that it was happy. The sigh broke. And then we were in the clearing again, where the skies overlapped and the wind blurred and the air was thick with somewhere else pressing close against it.
That was the third time. And when I moved in with Stewart two years later, there still hadn’t been a fourth. It didn’t seem right to go there. And when mom’s heart took her just before your tenth birthday, well, it didn’t feel right to stay anymore. We buried her under the flower garden she’d started – god, she could barely get dandelions to sprout, but she tried so hard that it always almost worked – and that’s when we decided to move.
So now you know what you need to know, Tommy my boy. Because someone should know about this, and now that it’s just me, we need someone else. My chest hurts a little more than I’ve let you know (thanks, mom), and it’s been getting worse since your father left last May.
I’ve left you this letter, and I’ve booked a flight. I think there’s time for a fourth now. Don’t cry too hard when you find this; you’ve always been a brave boy, and you know that nobody lasts forever. And if you ever want to find me, now you know where and how.
Goodbye.