A Dark and Starless Forest

by Sarah Hollowell

  But not things we want. That’s the difference. We don’t need makeup or hair straighteners or anything but basic black hair ties. We don’t need to shave, don’t need extensive skin care. We don’t need heating pads for our cramps (it was a minor miracle when Violet came along and taught us about putting rice in a sock and microwaving it).

  We need to be clean and taken care of, not spoiled.

  I keep the lights off and lower myself into the empty bathtub. It’s always been a little too small for me. I can sit in it, but it’s a squeeze. My thighs press up against the sides. Right now, that’s what I want. The gentle constriction of the bathtub around me doesn’t feel like a trap. It feels like security. Right here, right now, in the dark, I’m safe and Jane is waiting for me in our bedroom.

  The size of the bathtub makes an actual bath feel awkward and unwieldy, though. It’s one of the few moments I’m jealous of my thinner siblings. They can be completely surrounded by the water, enveloped. Encompassed. Pretty okay word.

  I’d be able to do that too if Frank would just install a larger bathtub. So would Brooke. So would Winnie, and Violet.

  But we don’t need it, so . . .

  I sit in the dark long enough to not know how long I’ve been sitting here, and then I sit a little longer. There’s a pit in my stomach that’s threatening to overtake me if I have to see Frank again too soon. It’s a familiar pit. Frank’s good to us and everything, but sometimes the anxiety of being around him and knowing he’ll be watching and knowing he’ll see every flaw, every mistake . . . it can be too much.

  It can swallow me whole.

  I sit, and I wait, and I hope that when I finally clamber out of the tub and squint at the light of the hallway, he’ll be gone.

  When I finally emerge, Elle is waiting. Her eyes are still a little red-rimmed but she’s not crying anymore. She’s picking at her nails in a way I haven’t seen her do in years. She stops when she sees me, and reaches out for my hand. She tries to make it seem comforting, but I think it’s just to stop herself from picking.

  She frowns. “Derry, you’re hurt.” She holds up my hand. It’s covered in little scratches. The blood is dry and they’ve started scabbing over. There are tiny little wood splinters throughout.

  “Oh, I didn’t notice. It must have . . .” I pause. Did I scrape it on a tree when I was running? I never even felt the pain.

  “. . . it’s not a big deal,” I finish.

  Elle shakes her head. “You can’t leave even a scratch unattended, you know that.”

  I bite my tongue to keep from saying I’m not going to get sepsis from a scrape. Elle reads all the medical books, which means she diagnoses us with fatal diseases off of vague symptoms. Sepsis comes up again and again, especially with Violet, who’s clumsy and prone to scraping their knees or slipping up with a kitchen knife.

  On days when I feel charitable toward Elle, I think it’s a sign she cares. On days when I don’t feel so charitable, it seems like another way to prove her superiority.

  Elle covers my hand with hers. There’s no visible glow, but I can feel it, warm and a little itchy. Her magic absorbs through my skin. The splinters are pushed out. The skin stitches back together.

  “Better than Band-Aids,” Elle says. I smile at the familiar phrase—something she’s said every time she heals us, for as long as she’s been here. “So . . . Frank’s gone.” I had good timing, then. “And we were talking.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Irene and Brooke.” She stands with her shoulders back and looks me in the eye, but she also drops my hand and picks at her nails again. “We want to go look for her.”

  “For Jane? In the forest?” I ask. I’m about to say Yes, finally! because we should be looking for her, no matter what Frank says.

  Except for those shadows . . .

  Elle nods. “Yes. We can’t let more time pass without anyone looking.”

  “Frank said we have to stay here,” I say. The words are rough and dusty in my throat. But Frank said we shouldn’t isn’t an argument I use. It’s even weirder to use it against the daddy’s girl/teacher’s pet that is Elle—like I walked out of the bathroom and into an alternate universe.

  Elle clears her throat. “I know. Normally, I wouldn’t agree with this. But it’s important. Isn’t it?” She searches my face for some kind of confirmation, reassurance.

  Uncertainty is as weird from Elle as citing rules is from me. Elle’s got this unshakeable moral compass—she knows what’s right, what’s wrong, and you can’t convince her otherwise. Her rules have to be right, because they’re the same as Frank’s, and he’s the ultimate authority. He’s the one Elle needs to approve of her.

  Sometimes I understand so well it hurts.

  Sometimes I want to slap her.

  Elle’s uncertainty is enough to make me nod, though. “Yeah. It’s really important.”

  We’ll be fine in the daylight. Jane and I went into the forest during the day last time, and although something terrible happened, there wasn’t any sign of a shadow monster. It must be nocturnal. We can search together during the day, and if we still haven’t found Jane by nightfall, I’ll go alone.

  I follow Elle downstairs. I don’t know how long I was in the bathroom, but it was long enough for word to spread. All of my siblings are gathered in the living room. I bite my lip, looking at the little twins.

  It’s safe in the forest during the day, surely, but . . .

  Irene smiles when she sees us. ‘Awesome! Now we can pair up. I thought I could go with London, Elle with Olivia, Brooke with Violet.’ She glances up at me, expecting an objection. ‘Which leaves Derry with Winnie.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I sign. ‘But maybe someone should stay behind.’

  ‘We want to cover maximum ground,’ Irene signs.

  ‘Yeah, but it might be dangerous.’ I glance meaningfully toward the little twins while they aren’t looking. ‘We don’t know what happened to Jane.’

  Irene’s cheeks flush. I’m not sure it’s occurred to anyone else that there’s more than one thing that could have happened to Jane—lost, sure.

  But also taken, and if taken is the right verb, then we can’t pretend the little twins will be safe. Maybe we can’t pretend any of us will be safe, but eight-year-olds? I refuse to think about the other possibility—the one where someone stumbles upon a body.

  ‘Elle, maybe you should stay with them,’ Irene offers. ‘I could go with Brooke and Violet in a team of three.’

  I don’t know if Elle is more scared of the forest than she lets on, or if it’s that she’s not comfortable disobeying Frank even for something she considers important. Either way, relief spreads across her face.

  “Great plan,” she says. She claps her hands and turns to the little twins with a huge smile. “London! Olivia! We actually have a really important job to do here at home while the others go out to the forest.”

  Olivia protests, loudly, tears already brimming in her eyes. London squeezes her twin’s hand in support, but even as she nods along with Olivia’s arguments that it’s not fair to leave them out, there’s something on her face that looks a lot like Elle’s relief.

  It’s only when Brooke volunteers to stay behind with Elle and the little twins that any kind of peace is reached. Still, Olivia watches the rest of us disappear into the tunnel with her arms crossed and her cheeks streaked with drying tears.

  As the wall closes behind the scouting team made up of Irene, Winnie, Violet, and myself, I give us light. Jane’s mark is still on the walls. I don’t point it out, but I know when someone sees it because they gasp. Winnie reaches out for my hand and squeezes.

  We take our procession down, down, down.

  In terms of physics, the tunnel doesn’t make a lot of sense. London and Olivia’s far wall is an outside wall. It’s not underground. Some of the tunnel—before it descends—should be visible outside.

  It’s not.

  It also should take significantly longer to walk to whe
re it spits us out at the lake. The tunnel is where it shouldn’t be and is shorter than it should be.

  The lakeside entrance is weird, too. It’s not closed like the one in the house. It’s just stairs leading down into the earth. When you’re more than a few steps away, you can’t see it. You only see grass, and the shore of the lake. It shimmers into reality when you get close. I think you must not be able to see it if you’re not magic, because otherwise Frank surely would have found it by now.

  We may never know who made it, since Frank certainly didn’t. Whoever they are, I love them. Going outside without Frank is different. A little scarier, but energizing, too. Irene once described it as what it must feel like for Frank’s iPad when it gets plugged in to charge at night. It gets to exist outside of his sight for a few hours, unneeded, untested, and soak up all the electricity it can.

  Yeah. It feels like that.

  We emerge into sunlight. Winnie, less shaken now that we’re out of the tunnel, releases my hand and stomps ahead.

  “We’ll go this way, if you want to wrap back around toward the house,” Irene says. She gestures off in the same direction Jane and I went two weeks ago. My stomach twists. There’s no evidence for them to find, and I definitely don’t want to go back, but . . .

  It should be me.

  “Well?” Winnie snaps as air gusts in my face. Her poltergeist is in quite a mood today. Irene and Violet are walking away.

  I follow Winnie to the tree line. She hesitates, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself hard.

  “I never liked the outdoors,” she says. She stares between the trees, into the shadowy places where the sun can’t quite filter through. Her words have gone round, leaning into the Minnesota accent that never quite faded and always gets stronger when she talks about Before. “My parents loved camping, but they also loved telling me scary stories about the things that can live out there.”

  “Like what?” I ask a little absently. I squint into the deeper parts of the forest. The shadows aren’t forming into human shapes. They aren’t too dark, they aren’t moving too much. We’ll be fine. I have to repeat it to myself a few times to believe it. We’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, we’ll be fine.

  “The usual stuff like ghosts or rabid animals, but the big one was the wendigo. They always told me that if I heard their voices calling to me at night, I should be careful, because it might be the wendigo luring me away to eat me.”

  “Seems like a good thing to tell a nine-year-old.”

  Winnie laughs. “I liked the stories. I just didn’t like that after they told me the story we still had to go camping.” She looks back at me. “Any wendigos in there, you think?”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  Winnie squares her shoulders against the wendigo threat, and walks into the forest. I follow.

  It’s cooler in the shade of the trees, more than I think it should be. I can barely feel the summer heat at all. Distantly, I hear Irene and Violet calling for Jane.

  Here in the last place I saw her, I have that sense again of Jane being both here and not here at the same time. I’ve never had any kind of extrasensory perception. I don’t have visions or read minds. I don’t magically feel emotions, like Irene does, or even have an overabundance of empathy like many of my siblings. There’s no reason for me to trust this sense.

  And yet . . .

  “Jane!” Winnie calls. “Jane, he’s gone! You can come out!”

  “Jane!” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. Winnie is wandering away, but not yet out of sight. “Jane!”

  “Derry?”

  “Jane?” I whisper. I walk in the direction I think I heard her voice, but it’s disorienting in the forest.

  “Derry?”

  That time it’s Winnie. I look back at her. “Did you find something?” she asks.

  I wait a moment before responding, listening hard for Jane to speak again. “No, I don’t . . . I don’t think so.”

  Winnie sighs, and keeps shouting for Jane.

  “Derry.”

  I whip around. That was right in my ear, but there’s nothing and no one there. Except—a flash of movement in the distance. I head toward it, slow at first, then at a jog. I keep calling Jane’s name, pausing each time to listen. A couple times I hear her whisper, a couple more, footsteps. I try to follow the sounds.

  It doesn’t make sense for Jane to play around like this. Why can’t she come back to us? It has to be can’t, not won’t, because Jane wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t run without us, wouldn’t hide without us. Wouldn’t leave us.

  Of course, that means there’s something keeping her away. Either there’s some reason for her to stay in the forest that’s more important than her siblings, or she’s a captive.

  A captive of who? Of what? We’re the only ones out here. The only person we’ve seen other than Frank in years is Dr. Sam, and—

  One other. One who would certainly have reason to want to hurt Jane and me. But he’s dead.

  “Hey!” It’s Winnie, making her way toward me, twigs snapping underfoot. She’s got her usual glare on. “Why’d you wander off like that?”

  “I thought I heard something,” I say.

  She perks up. “Jane?”

  “Maybe. But I couldn’t find her, so . . . maybe I just imagined it.”

  I didn’t imagine it, but I’m not sure how to tell Winnie what happened without her jumping to wendigos. That’s not what this is—I’m hearing Jane’s voice, her real voice, I’m sure of it.

  They always told me that if I heard their voices calling to me at night, I should be careful, because it might be the wendigo luring me away to eat me.

  I’m sure of it.

  “Derry,” Jane says, close enough that I should be able to see her.

  Winnie has no reaction. She obviously didn’t hear it, but I still ask, “Did you hear that?” She shakes her head, confused.

  Okay. Jane is alive, and she’s out here in this forest, but I can’t find her. I can only hear her. More specifically—only I can hear her. If Winnie can’t, I have my doubts the others would either.

  I can’t begin to know what that all adds up to.

  “Derry,” Jane whispers, to me and only me, as Winnie and I carve a path back to the lake. “Find me.”

  5

  We search for as long as we dare. Frank never says exactly how long he’ll be gone, but he tells us if he’ll be gone overnight or for multiple days. Knowing he’ll be back sometime today—but not knowing if that means in an hour or when we’ve already gone to bed—we only stay out until the sun starts its dip into afternoon.

  The four of us return to the house in defeat. The others murmur, their voices floating through the tunnel, comparing notes. Did you see anything? No, just trees.

  Elle is waiting for us in the little twins’ room. Seeing us, she holds out her arms, and Irene collapses into them. Elle looks between me, Winnie, and Violet. “It didn’t go so well, did it?”

  “We called and called and called,” Irene says, pulling away from Elle. “And nothing.”

  “I can’t imagine her staying in there willingly.” Elle wraps her arms around herself, as if against the cold. “It’s so scary in there. She has to be dead, right?”

  “Or she’s not in the forest, dead or alive,” Winnie says. “She saw her chance to run and she took it.”

  “She wouldn’t leave us,” Violet snaps. “It’s not that.”

  “Oh, so you want her to be dead, then?” There’s a beat of silence after Winnie’s words, and she clearly knows she shouldn’t have said that. But instead of apologizing, she sets her face into a stubborn glare until Violet stomps out of the room.

  “Very well-handled,” Irene says. She sighs, rubbing at her eyes.

  “Well! I’m not wrong!”

  I should tell them what I heard. The weight of Jane’s voice—find me—is so real, so vital and alive, but when I try to put it into words, they sound silly. I can’t give a voice to them.

/>   “Violet’s right, though,” Elle says. “Jane wouldn’t leave, much less run. What is there to run from?”

  Winnie sends a significant glance in my direction. I shake my head. There’s no shaking Elle’s conviction that no one could ever want to leave the lake house, even if they’ve said it directly.

  We don’t have a bad life. It’s just that we don’t all love it as much as Elle does, and Jane’s been here the longest. She’s the only one who ever had to be alone with Frank in this big old house, being tested on her magic. If any of us has a right to be tired of this place . . .

  When no one responds to her question, Elle claps her hands together. “Okay then! It’s time for lunch. Brooke and I have had the little twins busy with prep, and it’s just about done.”

  For a few minutes, it all feels painfully, wonderfully normal. In the kitchen, the table is set with plates stacked with French toast. Brooke and Olivia are debating over Gabriel’s right to eat with us. Brooke argues beetles don’t belong on the table, Olivia insists he’s not doing anything wrong, and eventually Olivia sighs the kind of put-upon sigh that says Brooke is ruining her life and takes Gabriel back to his place under her bed.

  We all settle into our regular seats. Elle tells Winnie she’s using too much maple syrup, so Winnie pours on more. The only fruit we have is raspberries, which Violet keeps thinking they like, but as soon as they try one their face screws up unhappily. They transfer the rest to my plate. I pop one in my mouth and make an exaggerated “Mmm,” sound while Violet fake-gags.

  For a few minutes, I can forget the empty chair and the spaces in conversation that should be filled by Jane.

  Find me.

  The front door opens. We turn as one toward the sound, tense, waiting to see which version of Frank has come home—or if, by some miracle, it could be Jane.

  It’s not her.

  Frank stumbles into the living room, leaning against the door frame. Elle gasps. Frank is bloody and bruised. He wipes a hand across his face and it smears red.

  “Bad trip,” he says, before collapsing on the couch.

  Elle is the first out of her seat, rushing over to him. Irene follows close after. The rest of us stand, but hesitate and hover, not getting too close.