by Shannon Kirk
Behind the house, a sliver of grass divides the back side from a thick wall of tall pines, taller than the house. I think the sliver of dividing grass between house and forest is three feet wide, maybe four, no more. The trees grow straight, and since some trunks appear sheared here, too, like in the Bottle Brush Forest at the entrance, the closeness of trunks makes this forest of pines a solid wall. Some other varietals of evergreens grow lower, and their limbs are draped in boughs of dripping, possibly moldy, clumps of pine needles. Jerry grabs a white pair of cotton gloves off the thinnest picnic table I’ve ever seen and slips them on in a slow, aching sort of way. As he dons his gloves, I scan the back, trying to see how they exit the house to the backyard, but I can’t find a door. Are those newer bricks in a rectangle that used to be a doorway?
“In case a limb is low, can’t have a scratch,” Jerry says, referring to his white gloves.
I’m behind Mom, so I look to the ground in case she’s turning her head to raise her eyebrows. I remind myself, We’re all fucked-up.
We step into the wall of darkness by way of a skinny trail, which is the only notch at which we can enter because the ground-to-chest wires of electrical fencing running tree to tree stop and start around this trail. It’s possible another open notch for another trail is at the far end of the property, but I can’t tell for sure from this vantage, with all the thick trees. Walking in farther, the air switches to a biting cold. Mosquitoes swarm me, so I swat everywhere.
“Our Mosquito Keeper has a range to only about here, like the alarms and motion floodlights. But those are off now, since we’re showing you around.” Jerry taps his Apple Watch when he says this; Gretchen mimics the action with her own watch. “Anyway, the bug zapper has a silent noise to repel the ’squiters from the perimeter around the house. But the second you walk into these woods, you’re doomed. We won’t be in here long, just a quick walk.”
“Where you taking us, Jerry? We need to get back,” Mom says, stopping in the trail. She stands erect, pushing me to stay behind her, keeping herself between me and Gretchen and Jerry. She doesn’t lift a finger to hit any of the twelve mosquitoes on her cheeks and hands. I’m slapping my arms and legs and face all over. I’m under a full-on insect attack.
Gretchen points northwest, which follows roughly the snaking of the trail. “Use the binoculars,” she says. So I do, and in following the direction of her finger, about two hundred or three hundred yards in, I make out a roof of some sort. A house roof. I think it’s black, could be brown. Without the binoculars, it would have been camouflaged in this soup of brown we’re in. The angle of the roof is not drooping or draping or clumped and uneven, like the rest of the forest, so with the binoculars, the shape is visible. I think spots of mold or moss bloom on the roof. This forest is a fungus obscuring itself and all within. I want out; the mosquitoes are devouring me. Gretchen, with her white pulsing skin, seems immune. Jerry too. I wonder if they sprayed themselves with deet before dragging us here. And yet, they didn’t offer us any?
“What is that?” Mom asks, following Gretchen’s pointing finger to the moldy roof deeper in the woods. “And what about ticks? Jerry, I think we should leave. You can tell us about whatever this is back out where there’s no bugs.”
Mom takes a step back, forcing me to take a step back.
“Oh, Susan, you’re right. Ticks are merciless around here. You’ll need to check yourselves. But that’s everywhere. Even down at your place. New Hampshire is infested.” He holds up his palms in a gesture that says pause. “Susan, Lucy, I know this is odd and awkward. But I’m sure Lucy will hear things in town from the teens, and I want to make sure there’s no mystery here. And if she’s asked about it, it would be great if she said she’s seen it and it’s nothing. Because if she doesn’t, then I’m fearful the intrigue is ratcheted, and the teenagers will try to break in again—they haven’t in a long time. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Like I said, the animals, the cliff, the electric fence, the spring nets, et cetera.”
“Let’s go fast. We’re getting eaten alive. Just right there? To where Gretchen is pointing?”
“Yeah, just to that house. We’ll be done and out in five minutes.”
As Jerry and Gretchen move forward, I note how Mom checks the cell bars on the phone in her pocket and slickly sets it back inside. I do the same. No bars. I don’t have Wi-Fi on this burner. Mom walks slow, and since I’m behind her, a good solid distance grows between us and Jerry and Gretchen.
We lose sight of the roof line we’re trekking toward for a couple of seconds as the trail bends the other way, but then we’re back on track and, indeed, a house in the middle of the forest is coming into focus. I think this is what they call a typical colonial. I read about different architectural designs in art class last year. We enter straight on dead center and stop a hundred yards away. Numerous pines in between obscure our view, so we cannot see the sides or the back. Given the placement of boarded-up windows, I have no idea what’s inside.
This forest house is painted brown, same color as the trunks. So brown, brown, gross brown, everywhere. The paint is peeling off, and the exposed wood siding is warpy gray. The roof sags, the window casings sag, and although I can’t see through the windows behind the boards, I can tell windowpanes are broken. I’m sure the interior is infested with mice and squirrels and birds and termites and mold and demons and ghosts. The front door is barred with boards too. Heavy soot and coal stains scar the exterior brick of the crumbling chimney.
“So here she is. A hermit, the brother of the man we bought this property from, built himself this place. No plumbing, no heating, other than the chimney and fireplace inside. He lived out here alone for fifty years. About ten years before I bought—and I bought, oh, twenty-some-odd years ago—hermit fell asleep, and a burning log rolled out of the fireplace. Set a whole room on fire, black soot and smoke filled every other room. Man wakes up and was lucky, at least in the short time, because he had a fire extinguisher. Gets the one room to stop burning. I think the fire didn’t spread because every board was damp with forest moisture. And was good it was spring, not a dry August. The whole forest could have scorched. Anyway, man dies in the hospital of smoke inhalation a day later.”
“So what are the rumors?” I ask as I take a step closer and head toward the house.
“No farther, Lucy,” Gretchen says, grabbing my arm. I shoot her a death glare to let go. She does, and her skin starts flickering and pulsing. “Sorry. Sorry to startle you. I’m, oh. Sorry. Daddy says walking any closer is not safe.”
Jerry looks quick to Gretchen and then looks away. Seems he winced in the same way Mom has been wincing at me. He takes a step to the side, away from Gretchen.
“Oh ho, can’t go any closer, Lucy,” he says. His voice seems unsure, almost like he didn’t expect me to try to get closer. Like he’s found himself in over his head, not sure how he got here in the woods in the first place. He scratches his cheek. I wait for an explanation.
“Here’s the thing,” he says.
Gretchen is shaking her head in micro moves as if she doesn’t want him to keep talking.
“Daddy, maybe just tell them what the rumors are. I think they want to get out of here.”
Jerry considers her and smiles. “Gosh, I’m sorry. It’s just, every time I come out here and consider how cruel they can be, I get a little shaken. They’re just kids. Anyway, kids in town have concocted some weird Blair Witch scenario that my wife and my son haunt this place. Obviously, they don’t. But teens. Anyway, they sneak here and drink and do Ouija. Well, they used to. Used to. Took me a good year after my wife died to erect all the electrical fencing and whatnot. And during that year . . .”
Gretchen coughs, her face in a scowl.
“I broke my leg because of them,” Jerry says in a super-fast rush, almost like he forced himself to take an unexpected chance and go on and take the tempting jump. “You see. It’s just not safe. That’s why I don’t want anyone going beyond right here.”
Jerry lifts his limp leg and rolls up the hem of his dad-man pleated khakis.
“Daddy, you don’t need to show them,” Gretchen says, annoyed.
He’s pointing to a blue bruise pattern, the size of a baseball, on his calf. “Kids set up these rock traps in holes and hid them under piles of leaves. Couldn’t see them. Gretchen says at school the kids say pyramids of rocks under leaves will catch ghosts. So I’m out here one day, and I step on one and, bam, compound fracture.”
Gretchen exhales, clicks her jaw, raises her eyebrows at her father, and when she sees me watching these angry reactions, she swallows away all the furious signs and forms a slow smile. She sighs. “A compound fracture is when your bone snaps and breaks through your epidermis layers,” she says directly to me. Swiveling fast to Jerry, she claps her hands and says, “Okay, can we go now? We get it, Daddy. No one will come out here, geesh,” Gretchen says, and rolls her eyes at me.
Why didn’t Gretchen want her father to talk about the rock traps? Why did he show us his leg wound, which seems newer than years old? And what the what? Rock pyramids in holes to catch ghosts?
Gretchen’s arms are crossed. “This is so stupid. Come on, everyone. Let’s get out of this mosquito pond.”
Jerry is rolling down his pant leg as he continues, “So this here, this is the rumor and the danger. Please don’t come back out here, Lucy, Susan. All around the house they hid those rock traps, and Lord knows what else. So you see, this is not haunted. It’s just a hermit’s burned house. There are no ghosts.”
Gretchen sniggers. “Ghosts. Those kids are so dumb. Sorry Daddy scared you about the stupid rock pyramid stuff. All you needed to see was that this is not a haunted house.”
“And what’s that road?” Mom asks, pointing to what seems to be a narrow road covered in layers of fallen leaves.
“Just an old logging road,” Jerry says.
Mom turns to walk up the trail, pushing me in the back to move along. “Thanks, Jerry, we’ve seen enough. Lucy and I won’t come out here,” she calls over her shoulder.
I smack all over my body to kill the bugs biting me. Several red splatters of blood dot my legs and arms.
Holy freakville. They really do have demented Hansel and Gretel shit back here. I practically sprint to exit this forest that is literally eating me.
We’re walking between the side of Gretchen and Jerry’s brick fortress and the CAT excavator, and finally, no more mosquitoes. Mom and I leave their binoculars on the skinny picnic table. I need a shower, stat. I’m sure a thousand ticks have burrowed into me too.
“Hey, hey, let’s ride to Ferry Fudge. Snickerdoodles!” Gretchen says, showing she doesn’t read body language—Mom’s and my shoulders are stiff up around our necks—nor social cues; we practically ran from them in the forest and haven’t said a word since Mom turned her back and said she’d had enough.
I don’t answer Gretchen. I’m begging Mom in my mind to please extricate me.
“Lucy needs to help me unpack. Not today, sorry, Gretchen,” she says, looking over her shoulder as we keep walking toward our rental.
When we’re clear of their circular drive and far enough down the dirt road, Mom stops, turns, and places a smile on her face that I know is 100 percent phony bologna. We’re back to playing parts, back to covering up the fact we’re on the run and we’re weird too. Again, Mom sets me behind her, and herself between Jerry and Gretchen.
“Jerry, sorry if I had to leave so abruptly, but those bugs. Wow. We won’t be going back there. No trouble.”
“Thank you, Susan. Thought it would be better to show you right off.” He’s out of his weird white gloves, which I guess he must have set back on the skinny picnic table. Again, he lightly cradles one hand in the hammock of the other.
“And Gretchen, sorry, honey, but Lucy and I drove all night, and we both need showers and to unpack and rest. Another day.”
“But I leave early in the morning for camp for two weeks,” Gretchen whines. “Puzzle camp.” Something startles her, some thought, and she widens her eyes. “Oh, wait! Lucy, come with me! Daddy, can’t we get her in? Lucy, you could drive with us to North Carolina! Puzzles for two whole weeks!”
Mom chuckles. “Oh, Gretchen, you are a sweet girl. But no, we are pretty exhausted. Two weeks will fly by, and before you blink, you’ll be back, and then you and Lucy can get to know each other properly.”
“Oh,” Gretchen says, in the most heartbreakingly crushing way. Broken bird. And there goes her pulsing skin again. In a motion so slow and soft, as if Gretchen is wet tissue paper and he fears tearing her, Jerry places a hand on her back. He doesn’t give Mom one of those parent-to-parent looks about how difficult teens are.
“Some other time, then,” Jerry says, staring at me and with no smile.
“’Kay, gotta go. Gotta pee. Gretchen, have fun at camp. See you in two weeks,” I say, and run down the hill. I’m fifteen, so my abrupt movements and leavings can be as abrupt and rude as Allen flinging in and out of rooms and whipping his tail in your face. I leave it to Mom to erase my teenagerness with a parent eye roll.
What the ever-living hell have we gotten ourselves into?
CHAPTER EIGHT
I’m in the living room waiting on Mom. She walks in, sets her phone on the red-blue-turquoise tiled kitchen counter with a scraping slide. She walks to the mouth of the kitchen that meets upon the dining and living room, turns right, and keeps walking toward her master bedroom. She passes me; I’m standing and waiting for her verdict in the living room area. I graze the lamp shaped like a bunch of grapes with my hand. She says nothing. When she enters the hall toward her bedroom, she stops, crosses her arms, and turns to me. Her steel gaze is directed beyond me, not at me.
“I’m not going to fight with you. Only yesterday that bearded man in the park with the Frisbee, only yesterday he seemed to have recognized you. We’ve been here only hours, after driving all night, and it’s weird and it’s off and it’s sudden, and yet you seem to insist on staying. As if you have roots here.”
What? When did I insist on staying? Didn’t she just extricate me from going to puzzle camp? Puzzle camp? What? Doesn’t she want to talk about how weird the house in the woods is? Is she creating a fight? Why?
“Mom, why are you so mad? Are you saying you want to leave because they’re a little weird?”
“A little weird? A little weird? Lucy, for cripes’ sake, did you not go through what I just went through? Listening about a brutal hunting accident, a dead baby, a child witness, and then some creep-ass haunted place in a forest? Boundaries and traps and electrical fences? Hello? And what’s up with showing us your broken leg skin, Jerry? A fungused, haunted house, Lucy.”
“The house isn’t haunted.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So why are you mad at me? What are you saying?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. But don’t you agree this doesn’t feel right? Only yesterday. Yesterday. Yesterday that bearded man seemed to recognize you. And now we’re in, what is this? What’s next? A river of blood under the house? A portal to hell? This is weird. I think we should leave.”
It is true. The whole incident with the bearded man was only yesterday.
“Mom, stop. Stop. We’re both tired. Can’t we make this decision in the morning or something? I’m sorry, I know they’re weird. But I do want to stay. And twice sorry, but maybe I’d like to have a friend around for once.”
I gasp at my own surprising words.
Mom cringes.
The air stiffens in metals once again.
I know saying I’d like a friend around “for once” is a strike that hurts. In fact, it’s a strike I’ve never taken before, so I also cringe. Cringe at my own audacity to call out an elephant in the room, just like that. Bam, out of the bag, said faster than a second, without me taking a breath to think through the consequences. Mom prefers it to be only us—she restricts my world to her. As she steps backward, she does
n’t try to hide her wide-eyed betrayal.
“Well, then,” she says, “I guess you’ve made up your mind.” She huffs, closing her eyes as if in disgust, and turns to walk toward her bedroom.
She stops in the middle of the hall.
“Oh and, Lucy, seems to me there was no space behind their house for a pool. Seems to me nothing had been marked for a pool ever. And no way anyone was anywhere near to starting to dig. Those trees have been growing for decades. Don’t you think?”
I don’t answer.
“Do you think?” she says, the question cutting and judgmental and rhetorical. She hurts my heart. And in a snap, the oxygen is only steel and titanium again. I believe she’s striking back in retaliation for the crime of me saying I want a friend around for once.
I suck my lips into my teeth, hold my tongue.
“Well, I suppose you don’t care about obvious lies and red flags. You dug in your heels and want to stay.”
She walks to her room and shuts her door. Whenever she goes ice like this, her piercing words, her disconnection from me, the way she asserts her intelligence over mine, I feel sick inside. From the guilt for making her feel like this, from the guilt for not being appreciative enough of her protections, for the fear of how long this battle of wills will last, and from the anger at her and at myself for allowing emotions to get so raw.
It’s been like this for as long as I can remember; although I think it’s only been in the last year that I started to recognize that this dance we do might not be normal or healthy. So many times we’ve done this dance. One time when she went cold on me, asserting her intelligence over mine, was on my tenth birthday. Obviously I couldn’t have a birthday party with actual child friends—back then I was sheltered and homeschooled—“highly protected,” she’d call it. Also, we couldn’t go to a normal place all out and about and free, because back then I didn’t yet have the blue contacts. So she crammed a bucket hat deep over my head and brought me to a late-night diner in Chicago at midnight.