In the Heart of the Dark Wood

by Billy Coffey

  “Maybe that’s all we have to go,” she told Zach. “Just to that hill. Maybe we’ll find her there, and then the needle’ll point us home.”

  “Yeah,” Zach said. “Maybe we’ll find a Dairy Queen and a wad of cash along the way too. How about one of them candy bars?”

  She turned her pack around and dug inside. “Got another Snickers.”

  “We had one for supper. Got anything else?”

  She dug more. “Baby Ruth?”

  “Okay. Split it again, though. Unless you want another handful of pine tree.”

  She tore the bar free, careful to put the wrapper back inside her bag, and handed half to Zach. He handed a third of his to Sam. The food was good (though at that point, Allie believed any food would have been good), as was the melted snow that washed it down. Allie only wished they’d had more to drink. Food she could do without, but a juice box of water wasn’t near enough to quench the thirst in her.

  “What would you be doing now?” Zach asked. “If we were home, I mean.”

  Allie checked the compass again. Up ahead, Sam barked at nothing.

  “Not sure,” she said. “I don’t even know what time it is.”

  “I’d be with my folks,” Zach said. “Probably down at the sheriff’s office or out riding with Daddy. We’re supposed to get Momma something for Christmas this morning. Then we’d all go to the diner for lunch. Daddy, he’d maybe let me throw his tomahawk some after. I’m gettin’ real good, Allie. He’s gonna give her to me proper when I come to be a man.”

  Her. Allie had always thought it funny, the way men named their toys. Her daddy kept a shotgun in the closet (along with the bottles and cans and his other self) that he called Beulah. Likely, Allie thought, because that was the perfect name for something old and rusty. Jake Barnett didn’t have a shotgun, but he did have an old tomahawk named Bessie that Zach had coveted ever since Allie had known him. She almost asked him how that went, becoming a man—if Zach was supposed to get Bessie first, or did that happen after he braved the rusty gate at Happy Hollow and carved his name. Anything to pass the time and keep him talking, keep him with her. She only nodded instead. Zach probably didn’t know how boys became men at all. Besides, asking him might lead him to wanting to know how girls became women. The only answer Allie could give him was it was when a girl’s body started turning against her.

  “What would you be doing?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. It’ll get your mind off stuff.”

  Allie checked the compass again. She lowered her head and shrugged her shoulders, shuffling the pack on her back. Sam’s nose had carried him nearly fifty feet ahead. He was still now, staring into a place where the trees ended and more scrub began. Almost like he’d spotted something.

  “Daddy’s off work till first of the year,” she said. “He’d likely go down to Bobby’s garage all day. If he did, I’d do some cleaning. Tree needs watering, so I’d do that first. Daddy always says the fireplace dries the tree out. If he stayed home and he ain’t gone to the bedroom to trade himself in for my other daddy, we might watch some TV. If he gets all drunked up, I’ll just sit in my room with Sam. I’ll go check on Mary in the front yard later, make sure she’s okay. Maybe Miss Howard’ll come by in the afternoon. I figure she probably will. It’s Christmastime, and that always brings out people’s yearnings. Then it’s bed. So all things considered, Zach, I’d rather be out here in the deep, dark woods with you than at home.”

  Zach said nothing. He only stared at Sam and kept moving. Allie felt bad, taking all the fun out of his game; then she realized Zach had probably not heard her at all. He was looking ahead, toward Sam. Toward what was hanging from the tree.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Don’t look like it belongs, though.”

  They moved with a slowness that was more fear than caution. Sam was sniffing the base of the tree ahead and whimpering. Zach came to the tree first. He extended a hand to what was there but didn’t touch it. The hunk of wood was as thick as Zach’s arm and nearly as wide as he was tall, pinned to the trunk by an ancient nail so long and fat he thought it could be a railroad spike. Age and wind had knocked the sign at an angle toward the ground. The wood had faded to a dull gray that could signify brittleness or petrification, he didn’t know which. The three words burned into the wood, however, could still be read well enough:

  WARE—NO FARTHER

  “What’s that mean?” Allie asked. “Ware?”

  “It means beware. It’s the way the old people used to talk.”

  “Why would we have to beware?”

  Zach was quiet but for a wheezing sound rising up from his chest. He said, “Maybe this used to be somebody’s claim back a long time ago. Looks like it’s been here a while.”

  Sam had finished his sniffing. He crowded into the small space between them and perked his ears. His eyes were no longer on the tree, but to the span of underbrush just beyond. The tangle was tight and dark, nearly a wall. The trees beyond rose up at a steep angle, like the world had gathered into a wave and frozen. Small pines and cedars struggled to find a foothold in the slanted soil. The rough slope of the hill looked much steeper up close than it had back in the meadow.

  “That’s some real darkwood, Allie,” Zach said. “Could get lost in there. And even if we don’t, the branches’ll eat us up.”

  Allie checked the compass—still straight on. The darkwood in front of them didn’t hold nearly as much interest to her as what lay on the other side of it. She thought Zach could make it up there well enough, though he’d probably have to stop a few times to cough. Sam would likely have no trouble at all. But Allie didn’t think she could make it to the top of that hill, even if that was where Mary waited. Zach had boots and Sam had claws. All she had was the thin tread on the bottoms of her soaked Chucks.

  Assuming, of course, they’d even try getting there. Allie followed Sam’s gaze into the undergrowth. Zach was right—it was dark. No telling what might be in there. The needle said go but the sign warned WARE. It warned NO FARTHER. Just as the screaming tree back in the meadow had warned them before.

  “What’s the needle say?” Zach asked.

  “It’s pointin’ on.”

  “I think we should listen to it.”

  Allie asked, “You sure?”

  “No.” He didn’t like the look of that darkwood either. “But you said maybe the hill’s as far as we gotta go. If this is still somebody’s property, that might mean they’re close by.”

  Still, she didn’t know. It was Sam who decided for them both. His straining ears finally caught something from the brush. He let out a hard woof and charged.

  “Sam,” Allie called. “To me, Sam.”

  The dog disappeared inside. Limbs crunched and snapped. He barked once, high and far away. What followed was a long silence that ended with the sound of splashing.

  Zach’s eyes widened. “Come on.”

  The long walk in a hardening cold had left them too tired to run. The closest Allie and Zach managed was a jerky trot. They flung themselves into the darkwood, picking their way through the branches and brambles. What little sunlight leaked through cast shadows around their feet, giving Allie the impression that she was walking through oil. She felt Zach’s hand on her pack and turned to push him away, afraid he’d taken that one chance among all the others to finally see what else was in her bag. Instead of fighting her, Zach only stepped aside and carried on. He wasn’t nearly as interested in what secrets Allie carried as he was in being first out of the brush. He needed to protect her. To be a man.

  They pushed through the last tangle of branches together. What lay beyond was enough to slough off the doom that had crept upon Allie all that morning. A strong creek not six feet wide flowed through the forest there, gurgling its way along a jagged cut in the earth. On the opposite bank stood another narrow strip of brush and the base of the hill.

  Sam stood in the middle of
the creek, tail swishing and head down. He drank deep. Allie licked her lips and shrugged off her backpack. She moved forward as though in a trance.

  Zach took her by the elbow. “No, wait. Ain’t supposed to drink water in the woods, even out here. Might be bugs in it.”

  “We drank the snow.”

  “That’s different. We had to.”

  “Sam’s drinking it.”

  “Sam’s able.”

  Allie bugged her eyes, not believing what she’d heard. “Ain’t no bugs in there, Zach. It’s too cold.”

  Zach said, “Might be some,” but his hand had left Allie’s elbow, and he’d begun inching forward, toward the water. “Only way to make sure’s to boil it.”

  He looked at the backpack lying in the snow. The tip of the fire drill poked out from the top where the zippers met. Sam looked up as if to ask, What’s taking you stupid humans so long; can’t you see what this stuff is? He bent his head again, gorging himself.

  “I’m thirsty now, Zach,” Allie said. “We ain’t had nothing to drink but some juice and some snow. We need more’n that. Besides, drinking might make your cold better. I heard you coughin’ all morning. You ain’t managed to start a fire yet, and I know you’re trying hard, and I don’t mean to say you can’t. But if you sit here for an hour rubbing all that wood together while I stare at all that water, I’m gonna go loopy. This creek’s probably just snow is all. Probably ain’t no water in that cut at all unless it falls from the sky, and it’ll be bone dry again in a couple days. Bugs ain’t got no time to get in it, Zach. I say we dig in while we got the chance.”

  “Maybe that sign’s warning about the water.” Zach licked his lips. They were cracked and looked like hard plastic. He wanted to drink but didn’t want to allow himself. Not because there might be bugs in that water, but because Allie was the one doing the deciding again.

  Still.

  “Just a little bit,” he said. “But you gotta let me go first. If it’s bad, I don’t want you drinking it.”

  Allie said, “All right.” She would’ve said anything.

  Zach walked to a spot along the bank and cupped his hand, dipping it in the water. His fingers came out so shaky that most of the water spilled out. The little that was left went into his mouth. He tried again.

  “How is it?” she asked.

  Zach nodded and plunged both hands in next. The result was less than a mouthful. He took off his hat and dipped it in all the way past the band, then tilted it into his mouth. Allie joined him. She knelt by the bank and pushed her hands in. The cold was deep and instant and made her forget her itchy feet altogether. She brought a handful to her mouth and swallowed heaven itself.

  “Here,” Zach said. He handed her a hatful. “Don’t put your hands in. Can’t get them cold.”

  Allie drank. The clear water spilled over the brim and down her chin. It mixed with the taste of Zach’s sweat, making it almost sweeter.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “Even if it’s good, drinking a lot’s bad. We’ve gone too long without.”

  She handed the hat back before the urge to dip it in the water again grew too great. Zach put the hat on and smiled as the cold met the sweat on his head. He filled the juice box to the rim. Sam had gotten his fill of water and now lay curled in the melting snow, nearly asleep from exhaustion. The gurgling water was soothing, making them more tired. Allie lowered her head and spread her fingers. Pine pitch and dirt entered into every one of the dozen small cuts on her hands. It was because of her that the three of them were out there in the middle of nowhere. Not lost (never that), nor even turned around as Zach liked to say. Searching for Mary. Mary and hope.

  Zach asked, “Is this the place?”

  She turned her wrist over. Had Allie not been fallen away, she would have used the seconds before her eyes caught sight of the compass to pray for some small act of mercy, some signal that they were to go no farther. And yet the needle hadn’t frozen and died, its purpose finally complete. Instead, it had turned sometime since they’d arrived at the slope of the hill. Not pointing straight on to its top, but to the right along the creek. Deeper into the woods. Farther beyond the sign.

  4

  “This place ain’t it.”

  Zach’s eyes fell. He shook his head slow. What now? He figured they’d gone at least a couple miles already that morning. Add that to however far they’d walked the day before (he guessed that distance anywhere from one mile to twenty, the buzz in his head wouldn’t let him narrow things further than that). Which meant they were so far in the woods that it would take that whole day to get back to their bikes. His parents would kill him.

  “We should stay here for a little bit,” he said. “Figure out what to do. It’s a good place. I can try climbing that hill after, take a look around. If this’s the only water for a ways, might be some squirrels or rabbits nearby. Either’d taste good about now. Go good with the rest of the candy bars.”

  Allie didn’t bother to ask Zach how he planned on killing anything, much less cooking it. The itch in her feet had grown into much the same buzzing as had crawled into Zach’s head. All that walking from the meadow hadn’t smoothed out the kinks in her muscles. She only wanted to sit down for a while, and the corpse of a fallen oak lying just downstream looked like the perfect spot. Zach followed her there. He wiped away the snow that had accumulated on top with his sleeve, securing her a somewhat dry spot. His body swayed as he sat and closed his eyes. Sam made his way up the bank, lapping the water as he lumbered. Allie patted her leg as he neared. Sam rose up, placing his front paws against the leg of Allie’s jeans, but his claws couldn’t find a hold on the smooth denim. He made a scratching motion down her knee as he tried to grip and finally surrendered, landing on Allie’s foot. She jumped and cried out.

  Zach asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Allie cradled her right foot and tried not to scowl. “Sam just hit me wrong.”

  Zach pulled his hand from his coat pocket. He took Allie’s heel between his thumb and middle finger, touching it as one would coax a butterfly, and stretched her leg toward himself. Allie tried to jerk her foot away. This time the scowl showed through.

  “I just wanna see,” he said.

  Her Chucks had been pink the day before. Now the woods had left them so wet and filthy they’d gone a deep red, almost the color of blood. The laces were frayed to near breaking. Wide patches of the canvas sides had been worn near through.

  Zach untied what was left of the lace and lifted her shoe away. Allie felt the cold air against her toes and tensed. Zach pinched her heel again, holding it still. He let go long enough to remove her wet sock.

  “Oh man,” he whispered.

  The skin of her left foot had gone a pale gray. Red and yellow blotches covered the first three toes. Zach raised her heel. Allie didn’t know what the skin there looked like. The furrow in his brow told her enough. Zach lifted his coat and shirt. Before Allie could speak, he’d placed her foot against his skin. It was hot there, blessedly hot, and a shiver fell over her.

  “You got on the wrong shoes,” he said. “You can’t walk in those, Allie. Not out here.”

  “Didn’t think we’d end up out here.”

  She curled her toes against the gentle curve of his stomach, holding them there. Allie wanted nothing more than to take her other shoe off and place that foot there as well. That one buzzed more than the one against Zach’s skin. If it buzzed more, maybe that meant it looked worse.

  A willow tree stood just inside the edge of the darkwood behind them. Zach let go of Allie’s foot long enough to scrape a handful of bark from the trunk. He whittled away the outer layer and held out half.

  “I ain’t hungry,” she said. “And we got candy bars to eat.”

  “This ain’t for eating. Know where aspirin comes from? Willow bark. Go ahead and chew some. Might help your feet. Aspirin’s good for near everything.”

  “I don’t have a stomach for more wood, Zach.”

  “
Don’t matter. We gotta do what we gotta do now, Allie. Don’t matter if we got a stomach for it or not. Go on. If you can’t swallow, just chew and spit.”

  Allie looked at the fistful of bark in front of her face. Zach shook it.

  “Don’t watch me,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause the last thing I want’s you staring at me while I gnaw on some old tree, Zach Barnett. Now you turn away.”

  Zach shook his head and said fine. He turned his gaze upstream and munched on his own medicine, believing aspirin was good for near everything and a bad cough especially. Allie waited a few seconds to make sure he wouldn’t peek before slipping the bark into her jacket pocket. Zach said willow was aspirin, Miss Howard had said aspirin made blood run quicker. Not giving her feet medicine scared Allie, but the prospect of her woman problem getting worse all over again scared her more.

  “I’m done,” she said.

  Sam moved off back toward the stream. He stopped at the edge of the water and lifted his ears, listening. He’d done that so many times in the last day that Allie paid it no mind.

  Zach turned back around and spit out a wad of moist bark. “We gotta care for your feet, Allie. We’ll need more’n aspirin to do it. I’m gonna get atop that hill and see where we are, get us turned back around right. Then it’s straight home. My folks are gonna kill me as it is.”

  “We ain’t turned around wrong, Zach. Needle says the way’s on up the creek.”

  Zach shook his head. “Way’s back, Allie. We can’t stay out here no more. We’ll try again later. My daddy’d even come and help us look. I’m just worried about your feet.”

  “My feet are fine. We gotta fix your insides. You’re sick, Zach.”

  “I got a coat to cover my insides. You got nothing over your toes but town shoes.”

  Sam barked. They both looked but saw nothing; Allie gave it over to more snow falling from the trees until Zach jerked her foot out from under his shirt and leaped from his seat on the tree. Allie’s ankle smacked against the wood. The cry she gave turned Zach just long enough for him to stretch out a hand as an apology. He ran to where Sam stood.