by A W Hartoin
I passed the ball diamond where the path opened up into a small field and then it was back into the green darkness. The closer I got to the pond, the faster my breathing got and the tighter my stomach twisted. I hadn’t been alone in the woods since Beatrice. My middle remembered what it was like in the woods alone with the man walking within feet of me, even if I didn’t want to. I had the same feeling when I was five and certain there was something moving around under my bed. Of course it was all Beatrice’s fault. If she hadn’t chased me, I never would’ve been off the property in the first place.
I walked faster and the pond presented itself, the area opening in a moment of warm revelation. Nothing was in the woods. I’d walk the perimeter of the property and find nothing.
I circled the pond and stepped off into the leaves. The woods grew darker, where even the crabapples wouldn’t grow. There was little undergrowth because my family didn’t allow logging and the woods was old growth. The tall trees sheltered the ground from the sun and only a few saplings and bushes found enough sunlight to grow.
When I looked around the barren forest floor, I was surprised I’d gotten so scratched up when I ran through. I must’ve hit every sapling there was. Lines of scabs and fresh scratches crisscrossed my arms, looking like my old scribbled artwork that Mom insisted on framing. I rubbed the itchy brown lines and licked a fresh line of blood on my forearm. The tangy, slightly repulsive taste coated my tongue and I spat into the bushes.
I walked for a long time. Luke estimated I’d run close to a mile the last time, so I wasn’t surprised when it took so long to find the edge of the property, but it was a relief when I saw the large orange signs saying, “No Trespassing!” or “No Hunting!” Some ancestor hung the signs thirty to forty feet apart, to make sure people knew where they were. The signs did their job well. It was rare for someone to violate our borders, but the man in the woods came from the direction of our land. The signs made no impression on him.
I stood with my toes touching the invisible property line. Slick and Sydney appeared by a tree, between two signs, swishing their tails. I called to them, but they yawned and looked at me like I was too stupid to breathe.
Did I hear something? Was the man there with his rifle and bad intentions? My hands tightened on my walking stick until a scratch opened up on the back of my left hand. I listened for signs of the man’s presence, crunching leaves or rustling branches. The woods were silent, but for a gentle wind. It came from no direction. It swirled, wrapping me in a soothing blanket of air.
A look over the border couldn’t hurt. Just a little look. I’d take one step over and peek through trees. I lifted my foot to take this small step, but the wind spoke against the idea. It rushed in my ears, brushed my cheeks and tugged at my clothes. The wind was no longer gentle, but insistent. The cats stared at me, their ears swiveling, but their fur still untouched by the wind buffeting me. The leaves above us were frozen on their branches.
I didn’t know what to think. My mind, usually so rich with ideas, was a blank page. Grandpa Lorne never mentioned anything about weird wind. Finally, I decided to move, not forward, but down the property line. I could go south to the creek or north to the road. North was better. I could walk along the road back to Camp, but the wind had a different idea. I turned right and it blocked my path. It blew so hard that when I stretched out my hand, I was pushing against an invisible, flexible wall.
I tried to go forward, stepping to the north, and the wind pushed back, harder. I staggered back three steps and bumped into a tree. The wind calmed, touching my cheeks with soft fingertips of air. I found myself slowly turning to the south. The wind was quite insistent about it, but I didn’t take the wind’s silent advice. I turned back to the north, sure of my own strength, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The wind knocked me back into the tree, whacking my head against a No Trespassing sign.
I rubbed the growing lump and let the wind push me with warm fingertips. It was like being in a warm ocean, rising and falling with each gentle wave, completely surrounded and supported. Fear should’ve been in there somewhere. Instead my mind got hazy with comfort. I was a small child again. On my mother’s chest with nothing in the world to dread. I walked south in this dreamy, perfect state, looking with sharp eyes for what the wind wanted me to see.
Chapter Thirteen
THE WIND URGED me forward, but I’d lost interest. Walking the property line was taking forever and felt a lot like work. I turned around a couple of times, but the wind kicked up, blowing a furious gust in my face. Bits of grit stung my skin until I turned back to the south, trudging from sign to sign and wishing I’d stayed home.
I counted out five signs and then stopped. The wind increased until I was pushed forward a few steps.
“Don’t worry. I’ll go,” I said. “I just have to piss.”
The wind stopped so suddenly that I staggered back and nearly fell over. I unzipped my jeans, released a yellow stream and watched as it sprayed into the trees. A No Trespassing sign was nailed to a tree on my right. I thrust my hips forward, threw my head back and aimed. I splattered the sign pretty good and laughed out loud, both at my own pissing prowess and at the wind. It started up again the minute I finished.
Smart wind.
I zipped up and watched urine drip off the sign. Beyond it I spotted the cats, sitting impassive under a nearby tree. They were not amused. Too bad Luke and Caleb weren’t there. They would’ve been impressed, considering how short I was compared to the tree. But all I had were a couple of cranky cats as witnesses.
As soon as I turned away from the sign, the wind touched my cheek and tugged at my shirt.
“I know, I know. I’m going,” I said, walking three steps to the south. My foot froze in the air on the fourth step. My heart pounded. Fifteen feet in front of me, a body lay on the forest floor, partially concealed by a blackberry bramble.
The wind still blew. It was faint, but insistent. I had to go forward and see more. I looked back at the cats. Sydney yawned and Slick began cleaning his toes. Neither of them paid any attention to the bloody haunch protruding from behind the bramble. I leaned forward. The bush was thin, so I could see the creature’s entire form, but it was still thick enough to conceal its characteristics. It could’ve been anything or anyone lying there, rotting in the dirt.
The wind pushed me forward. I went to the left, keeping a fifteen-foot distance between me and the body. The wind didn’t protest my moving off its path. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it had. I did know I wasn’t walking right up to that thing until I knew what it was, and even then I wasn’t sure.
I sidestepped around the bramble and the body revealed its nature.
“Holy shit,” I said, my breath rushing out in relief. I bent over and put my hands on my knees. Huge gulps of oxygen rushed into my lungs. My eyes never left the bramble and the body of the large deer lying beside it.
The deer was skinned, headless, and all four of its hooves were missing. The metallic tang of fresh blood tainted the air along with the buzz of a thousand black flies celebrating their lucky day.
I looked it over again. The body was intact. Not a single cut of meat missing. Who would leave good venison to rot?
“It’s not even deer season.”
The wind blew softly in my ear, a confirmation. Maybe I imagined it. No, I decided. The wind had answered me. It was as real as the dead deer.
I sat on my haunches and considered the situation. It didn’t seem right to go, leaving it with the flies. I didn’t know why, but it felt obscene to leave it, disrespectful, wrong. But the deer was huge. I couldn’t drag it for any distance. Plus, I didn’t really want to touch it.
“I have to leave it like that,” I said, and the wind agreed.
I tried to memorize the spot so I could come back and bury it, but the area was indistinguishable from anywhere else on the property. I looked at the signs and realized the deer lay over the property line. Its chest pointed away from Ernest’s land. I crept clos
er for a look at the bullet wound and the wind breathed its approval.
I found the wound behind the left foreleg, a perfect lung shot. I leaned in closer and, even to my untrained eye, I saw the path of the bullet. It carved a two-inch groove through the muscle covering the ribs before it entered the body. I backed up and found blood spatter along a path fifteen feet behind me. The hunter had stood on Ernest’s land when he shot the deer.
He must’ve crossed the line right after. Or I might’ve found two bodies. A gun on Ernest’s land wasn’t a good thing. I knew that better than I knew most things.
The wind gusted, pushing me to the south again, so I walked away from the deer and its stink, glad to leave it behind. Sydney and Slick zipped away, weaving through the trees, never crossing the property line. Even the cats knew. It was weird to think that, but they were obviously very aware of the family rule.
I counted the trespassing signs from the carcass to the creek. It would be an easy way to find the body again, and easy sounded great.
“One, two, three,” I said to myself.
When I got to fifteen, the wind was gone. I stopped for a moment waiting for its encouragement, but none came. I stepped towards the property line, my foot poised to cross. Nothing. That’s when the fear came. My companion had left me alone in the woods with a dead deer and an illegal hunter.
Chapter Fourteen
I LET OUT a tense breath at the sight of Ernest’s house on the crest of the hill. There could be no sight better after the dark of the woods and shock of the deer. Laughter and the smell of baking bread came down to me on a light breeze, but it wasn’t the wind from the woods. It was an ordinary wind with no meaning or sense of comfort that I could find.
I trudged up the hill on the narrow path, thigh-deep wildflowers on either side of me. I unclenched my fists and the tension dripped from my fingers, flowing away from the tight chest that came when the wind left.
“Where have you been?” Mom stood in the garden to my right, surrounded by six-foot-high beanpoles and fluffy sprouts of lettuce that she and Aunt Calla planted early in the spring. I knew they did that, but I always felt like the garden magically appeared on its own, when needed, and conveniently refused to grow hated veggies, such as Brussels sprouts or leeks.
I smiled when I saw her there and the last vestiges of fear left me.
“I took a walk,” I said.
Mom came out of the garden with the cats coiling around her ankles. They looked like they’d been telling secrets. Mom made a shushing sound at them and walked through the flowers, carrying a basket overflowing with tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini and squash. Her short hair framed her face like a coronet of gold. She looked like the woman in a painting I’d seen at her friend’s gallery once. Maybe it was Mom moving through the artist’s fields of heavy brushstrokes with her golden hair and purposeful walk.
“Since when do you take walks?” She stepped onto the path and draped her free arm over my shoulder.
“I don’t know.” I’d planned to tell her about the deer, but the curious expression on her face stopped me. If I told about the deer, there’d be no end to her questions. She’d figure out I’d been over the property line. She wouldn’t understand that it was Beatrice’s fault and I didn’t mean to do it.
I avoided her gaze and began walking. She fell in step beside me. The scent of lavender oil that she rubbed on her burns enveloped me, making me relaxed and sleepy. When we neared the house, she stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Okay? Stop being so weird.”
I looked up. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes crinkled with worry.
“I’m the weird one?” she asked. “I don’t think so, not this time.”
“Whatever.” I jerked away and walked ahead of her into the house. When I looked back through the screen door, she still stood in the path with her basket. The cats sat on either side of her as motionless and knowing as their mistress.
Her lips moved in a chant. “See potential in ya, let me mold that. I can transform ya. I can transform ya.”
That was a new one. Chris Brown wasn’t really Mom’s style. I went inside to the kitchen. Ella and April were mixing dough. Luke and Caleb lounged at the table half-dressed and sweaty.
April turned with a smile. The smile dropped off her face the second our eyes connected. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing. I went for a walk.”
Ella came up and peered at me. “Something happened.”
“You might as well tell,” said April. “We always find out.”
“Nothing happened.” I looked at Luke and Caleb for help, but they only watched me with curious, concerned expressions.
I turned around and went right back out the door. The path was empty. Mom was gone, but I could still hear her song in my head.
The rest of the day went by fast. I set the deer, and the man who shot it, firmly in the back of my mind and concentrated on more enjoyable things, like getting a tan for Shasta and hitting a line drive past Luke. I accomplished the tan, but the line drive escaped me.
At six o’clock, The Pack walked back to the house, dragging our feet, almost too tired to carry our gloves. Only Ella had energy to crow about her homer, but no one paid her any mind.
I was the first to smell the intoxicating scent dancing on the wind. “Wow, do you smell that?” I raised my nose and sniffed again. The rest of The Pack did the same.
“Yeah, what is that?” said Luke.
“Mom’s making dessert,” said April with a frown. “I wish she would’ve told me.”
“She probably didn’t know this morning.” Caleb took off in a slow lope, half run, half walk. It reflected his grace, but none of his speed. The rest of us ran with him, except Ella, who hadn’t got a head start.
I reached the screen door as it slammed shut behind Luke and Caleb. I threw it open and held it for April, who charged past me.
Mom and Aunt Calla looked up when we ran into the kitchen. “Look who the cat dragged in,” they said.
“What is that?” I asked.
“What?” Aunt Calla smiled and coiled a long lock around her finger.
“That smell. It smells like pineapple upside-down cake.”
“Well, then, it probably is. Let me check.” She opened the oven door with a flourish and pulled out a rack. A large cast-iron skillet was in the middle, bubbling with a mixture of cake and liquid happiness. We stared at it with our mouths open.
“Why?” Luke asked.
“Why what?” asked Mom.
“Why’d you bake?”
“We can bake,” she said.
“I know, but you never bake here.”
“The times they are a-changin’,” she sang.
Aunt Calla closed the oven. Both of them bustled around the kitchen making salad and ordering us to wash our hands and set the table. Then Shasta walked in, wearing a skintight white tank dress. We all stopped and stared. Especially me. I might’ve babbled a little. That was one serious dress.
“I was invited,” said Shasta.
“Of course you were,” said Mom.
“What about the two-week rule?” Luke asked.
“Special circumstances.”
“What’s going on?” asked Caleb.
“Shasta needs to be here, so she’s here.”
We looked at Shasta. She shrugged. “Aunt Marion told me I needed to have some pineapple upside-down cake.”
I didn’t know what to think. Mom broke the two-week rule, which as far as I knew had never been broken before. All in the name of Shasta needing cake. I’d told Mom I needed cake a million times. She always responded with a snort. The cake thing would’ve been weird enough if we’d been in town, but we weren’t. Mom and Aunt Calla never baked at Camp. They used the oven for bulky storage. At Camp, if it couldn’t be cooked on the grill, it couldn’t be cooked. Mom an
d Aunt Calla made casseroles, turnovers, and pies on the grill, but cakes were impossible. They baked unevenly and fell. All birthdays during the summer were celebrated with mountains of ice cream, puddings and possibly pies, but never a birthday cake. Mom said it would heat up the house, because, of course, we couldn’t have air-conditioning like normal people. So the oven sat unused in the corner of the kitchen waiting for an extraordinary event.
That night was an extraordinary event. I got to sit next to Shasta. She smelled fantastic and her dress hem got a lot shorter when she sat down. We gorged on cornbread, barbecued chicken, and heaps of salad, dripping with homemade Caesar dressing, while sweating in the oven’s heat. After we finished, Aunt Calla cut me the first slice of cake. I leaned over the plate with eyes closed, drawing the steam deep into my lungs and when I couldn’t take the anticipation any longer, I took a bite.
I closed my eyes and the cake slid down my throat with barely a swallow to help it along. Mom was watching me when I opened my eyes. She smiled, but she didn’t look exactly happy. Two lines formed between her eyes as she watched me. Her piece of cake lay untouched.
“Can I have your cake, Aunt Violet?” asked Luke, his fork poised to dart in her direction.
“If Puppy doesn’t want it,” she replied.
“Do you?” he asked.
“I’ll split it with you.”
I gobbled the rest of my cake to ensure Luke didn’t take advantage while I was busy. He watched me, licking his lips until Aunt Calla smacked him on the head.
“That’s enough, greedy,” Aunt Calla said.
Shasta laughed, sending peels of laughter around the room.
“There’s one more piece left,” said Luke.
“That’s for Shasta to take home,” said Mom.
“Why does Shasta get it?”
“Because she needs it. Now get to work.”