Into the Woods (61 page)

T
he half-heard singing of her granddaughter Meg was as cheerful as the sparkling creek, low enough to safely play in now that drought had taken more than half of it. Even the water spiders braved its reduced flow, and they danced around Meg’s calves as she turned over rocks in her search for crayfish. Sitting on the simple car bridge that spanned it, Emily dangled her feet over the water, weighing the trouble of taking off her shoes and tying up her skirts to join the nine-year-old. Days like this were rare. Something in the wind spilling from the surrounding wooded hills reminded her of her own youth—holding the promise of something new—something all her own she would never have to share.

“Little copper penny, stuck in a tree,” Meg sang, head down and her feet finding purchase on the cool stones below. “Tree falls down, and you can’t catch me. Little copper penny, as lonely as can be. Nothing lives forever but my penny and me!”

Emily’s smile faded, her gaze rising to look past the farmhouse she shared with her daughter and granddaughters to the woods beyond.
No. God, no
. It had to be a mistake. Leaning forward, Emily clasped her arms around herself, cold. “Meg, where did you hear that?”

Oblivious to the warning in her voice, the little girl straightened, water drops sparkling on her arms. “Penny,” she said, beaming a squinting smile up at her with one eye open, one shut. “I can hear him singing right through my toes. Gram, can I ple-e-e-ase go for a walk in the woods? It’s too hot in the pasture. I’ll stay on the path. I promise.”

Fear caught her breath, memory folding time as if the last five decades hadn’t happened and she was fourteen, balanced on womanhood and fighting for her life. Penn. Penny. How long had Meg been singing that song? Days?

“Ple-e-e-ase?” Meg begged, her creek-cold hands making a spot of ice on her knees.

Emily’s breath came in with a gasp. Reaching down, she yanked Meg from the water, her back all but giving way as the little girl protested when they fell together onto the dry, sun-baked wood. Emily blinked fast as Meg regained her feet, complaining.

“Meg, go in the house.”

Looking at the water, the little girl protested, and Emily reached up, pinching her arm. “Go in the house! I’ll get your shoes,” she said again, and, looking sullen, the little girl went, rubbing the grit from her arms.

Heart pounding, Emily looked past the farmhouse. The sun still sparkled on the water, enticing her to come and bathe in its coolness. The wind in the woods promised sweet release if she would slip under its soothing umbrella—it was a lie.

Her snare hadn’t held. He was loose. He was singing. He was free.

ONE

H
ands clenched, Lilly stood outside of Meg and Em’s door, listening to her mother’s age-lightened voice rising and falling as she told the girls their bedtime story. Leaning forward as if to knock, she frowned. Part of her desperately wanted to interrupt, to stop what she thought might be the first signs of a slow decline in her mom. Part of her listened with a rapt attention, remembering hearing the story herself as a girl when the sunset-cooled air breathed its first relief into her room, the very room her own children now called their own. The wide window edged in white lace looked out onto the woods, and she recalled all too well the times she’d kept herself awake listening for the wolves that no longer lived there, wishing that her mother’s fairy tales of a beautiful, mischievous boy with red hair were real. She had wanted an adventure so badly, but he had never come whispering under her window to lure her into dancing in the moonlight.

Feeling ill, she rocked back, hand going to her side. Penn, her mother had called him, her gaze distant and eerie as she told her stories, stories where the guardian of the woods could appear as a clever wolf or take on the face of a trusted friend to lull you to an untimely death in his unremorseful search for a soul—a beautiful boy with laughing eyes and a wont for mischief that no one could see unless lured into sight with the promise of honey. Crossing running water could save you from him, or trapping him in a tree. Dangerous, yes, but he would be your friend if you were daring enough to impress him. Then you’d be safe.

Her mother always had stories to tell. Her parents had been among the first settlers to the valley, attracted to the fertile farmland in the lowlands, the tall trees in the hills, and the cool waters coming from them. But her mother had scared her this afternoon with a frantic story of a monster in the woods, one that would kill unless it was stopped.

Resolute, she reached for the knob, hesitating when Meg asked, “Wasn’t the little girl scared?”

“More scared than anything in the world,” her mother said confidently, “but she knew that to believe him would let him destroy everything she loved in the world, so the brave girl shoved him into the tree and said the magic words to make the tree swallow him up forever.”

“And he couldn’t get out?” Meg asked, her voice earnest with admiration.

“Not for years and years, love. And everyone lived happily for a time, driving the wolves away and not fearing the woods anymore. But trees grow old, rocks fall apart, and waters shift their course. Even so, you don’t have to worry. Stay out of the woods, and you’ll be safe. Promise me that you’ll stay out of the woods, Meg. You too, Em. Quickly now.”

Lilly let her hand drop and she took a step back into the dark hall as the two little girls earnestly promised. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Her mother’s stories were harmless. And they did help keep Meg out of the woods. Vengeful tree spirits weren’t real, but hunters often overlooked the Keep Out signs. Not to mention the holes that opened up into unknown caves beneath your feet. The woods were dangerous. Perhaps this was her mother’s way of keeping the ever-wandering Meg close to home. Her younger sister, Em, wasn’t so venturesome, but Meg . . .

Head down, Lilly turned to go downstairs, shoes silent on the thin green runner as she left them to their bedtime ritual. Her worry trailed behind her like perfume, coloring her mood as she made her way down the narrow, steep stairs, working around the creaking boards so her mom wouldn’t know she’d been listening. Behind her, three voices—one old and featherly, two young and off-key—rose in a familiar, singsong chant.

“Wraith by moonlight, hunter by day; Bond is sundered by sun’s first ray.

“Blood is binding, blood is lure; Flesh is fragile, to blade’s sweet cure.

“Sunder wraith from flesh ill-taken; And bind fey spirit to wood awakened.”

Brow furrowing, Lilly looked up the dark stairway as her mother told Meg and Em that they were good girls and Meg giggled at the praise. She hadn’t realized her mother had taught them the fanciful, morbid rhyme. It was how her mother had once tucked her in, sandwiched in between her bedtime story and her prayers.

Her mood worsened as the poem echoed in her mind and memories. Pace fast, she went into the brightly lit kitchen, snatching up a cloth to move the dishes from the drying rack to shelves. Pepper, their yellow lab, stood waiting at the door, her tail waving fitfully, and Lilly let her out. The dog’s nails scraped as she took the porch steps, and she was lost to the night, leaving only the jingling of the dog collar to show she was there.

Still in the threshold, Lilly’s eyes went to the car bridge shimmering in the moonlight. Distressed, she let the screen door slam, agitated as she remembered Meg coming in this afternoon, hand on her arm and unhappy that her grandmother had pulled her out of the creek. Her mother had come in a few moments later, white-faced and distracted with her wild claim, going to her room for hours under the pretense of taking a nap brought on by too much sun, but she had heard her rummaging in her closet. Her room had looked unchanged when Lilly peeked in later.

The creak of the three bottom stairs made her eyes narrow, and she slid the four plates away as her mother came in. Her fiery resolve vanishing, Lilly put her hand on the counter and dropped her head, trying to find a way to begin.

“It’s my turn to put the dishes away,” her mother said, and the hint of challenge brought Lilly’s head up.

“Mom.” Lilly blinked, taking in the change in her mother. She was still wearing the cotton sundress with the blue flowers and honeybees, her hair done up in a gray and black braid at the base of her neck. Suntanned, wiry arms were crossed over her chest, and her pale blue eyes looked defiant. She stood in the threshold of her kitchen, almost as old as the house itself, almost as much a part of the land as the creek and woods beyond it. Her incredible stories of danger, death, and temptation had always balanced her no-nonsense, vine-tight grip on the here and now that had kept her family intact through the sorrow and heartache that came with farming alone at the outskirts of nothing. But now, taken to this extreme . . . Lilly was scared.

“I don’t care if you believe or not,” her mother said, coming to the point with a painful bluntness. “The girls need to be able to protect themselves. Especially Meg. She’s too close to becoming a woman.”

Arguing was comfortable in its familiarity, and Lilly slumped. “Mom, I love that you tuck the girls in, but I’m the one they come piling into bed with when they get scared. Can’t you just read them Snow White?”

Snatching the towel from her, her mother brushed past her to go to the sink. “Yes, a story of a murdering stepmother is so much better than a warning to not believe an attractive man who promises you can have him forever if you do him one small favor, no matter that it will damn your soul and set him free to wreak havoc on a world ill prepared to fight him anymore. No one believes.
That’s
why he will survive.
That’s
why he will kill again. He’s loose, Lilly. I couldn’t hold him.”

“Mom . . . ‘Blood is binding, blood is lure’? You’re scaring the girls.”

“I am not.”

It was sullen, and Lilly came forward, hand out, pleading. “You’re scaring me.”

Her mother pressed her lips together, determination etched in her every move. “I need to go see. Maybe the tree died. I should have kept a better watch, but I didn’t think he’d ever remain awake this long.”

Fear slid through Lilly, fear that her mother was starting to lose her grip. “There is no tree spirit murdering men who chop down trees!”

“He is out there!” Her mother pointed at the moonlight beyond the window, her loud voice shocking Lilly. “Meg heard him sing. Today in the creek. He can’t cross running water, but he can speak through it, and if the tree he was in has died . . . He could be out there right now, watching us, learning what we most want in the world.”

Lilly watched her mother go pale. “Bittersweet,” the older woman whispered. “He didn’t like bittersweet. Do you remember what fencepost we saw it growing on last fall? I can tie some over the girls’ window. Maybe it will keep him out.”

“That is enough!” Lilly exclaimed, then glanced at the stairs, worried Meg might hear and come down.

“He’s out there!” her mother said virulently, eyes wild. “Meg is vulnerable. He hates men, but he is charmed by women and he
knows
what little girls want to believe. If we don’t find him and bind him, he’s going to hurt her. People are going to die! People you know and love!”

Lilly jumped when her mother’s grip pinched her wrist. “Blood will bind him, but he needs it to become strong enough to be seen, so he’ll risk it,” she hissed, and Lilly recoiled. “I don’t want my grandchildren having to go through that hell! He’s so cruel, so beautiful.”

Lilly watched her mother’s tired eyes fill, and she pulled her arm to herself when she let go.

“My grandbaby,” her mother said, head down as she turned away. “He’s singing to her. She can hear him. I should have done better. I should have told you the truth, but I didn’t
want
you to have to believe!”

“Mom?” Damn it, now she was crying. Frightened by the mood swings, she put a hand on her mom’s shoulder. “Mom, it’s just a story,” she said as the older woman took a tissue from a tiny pocket and hid her eyes. “It’s going to be okay. If you wouldn’t fill Meg’s head with stories of unicorns and evil witches, she wouldn’t make stuff like this up! Nothing is going to happen. Meg is fine! Em, too.”

Still she cried, and Lilly’s thoughts spun full circle. “Where’s your medicine?” she said suddenly. “Do you still have it?” Her mother hadn’t had a spell like this in twenty years. Not since Emily’s husband had died when clearing a windblown tree from a fence. The weight shifted when a limb was cut free, and the entire tree fell on him, killing him instantly.

“It’s poison. I threw it out,” the older woman said, grasping her sleeve and drawing her to a halt. “I’m okay. You’re right. Meg is making the voices up.” Color high, her mother touched her face, smiling even through the last of her tears. “It’s just a story. You’re right. I’m a foolish old woman who’s had too much sun.”

Hearing the lie, Lilly’s stomach clenched as she watched her mother set the drying cloth on the table and turn her back on her. “I’m tired,” her mother whispered, not meeting her eyes as she headed for the hallway. “I’m going to lie down.”

“Mom?”

Emily smiled tremulously again, hesitating in the threshold, one hand on the wood, the other clenched in a tight fist. “You have a good night, Lilly. I’ll see you in the morning. You’re right. It’s just a fanciful story of an old woman. I’ll gather the eggs in the morning. No need for you to get up early.”

Lilly’s eyes narrowed, and for the second time that night, she crossed her arms over her chest, angry with her mother. She didn’t believe the sudden change of heart for a second. But still, worry lingered as she draped the cloth over the drying rack and turned out the light to better find Pepper ranging in the moonlight.

Beyond the window, the creek shone, a moving, living ribbon of silver. Maybe she should call Kevin despite wanting to gouge his eyes out with a ice pick. Kevin was a prick, but his dad had grown up with her mother. Something had happened when her mother was fourteen, something that no one talked about and had never made the papers. It wasn’t a tree spirit, but maybe someone she trusted had raped her and she invented the drama to make it more bearable. Meg’s silly rhyme today might have brought it all back. Aging people remembered things from the past better than the present sometimes.