A Dark and Starless Forest

by Sarah Hollowell

  “It’s not. And you don’t believe it is, either. There’s probably evidence floating around in your brain—something you saw. Something you heard. You just won’t let yourself put the pieces together because it’s easier to believe he’s innocent.”

  I push myself onto my feet. “I don’t know anything. And neither do you.”

  She doesn’t try to stop me from leaving. I breathe hard the whole walk back, clenching and unclenching my fists, nails digging into my palms. Red flowers are left in my wake, bursting out of my footprints.

  In the tunnel, I take the time I need to get a hold of myself. Can’t be trailing flowers everywhere. Can’t let Frank know I’ve been up. Can’t, can’t, can’t—so many goddamn rules to remember.

  I don’t know how I sleep, but I do, at least for a few hours.

  The next morning, Frank is gone. He’s never left without giving us specific instructions before, but this time, there’s just a note on the fridge.

  Searching. Back soon.

  While my siblings puzzle over the note, I go to the basement.

  I push aside the pile of Frank’s laundry that’s been sitting on the floor for days now, unmoved because we’ve all learned so well not to touch his things, even if we think we’re being helpful.

  The floor is stained a dark reddish brown underneath the clothes.

  “Okay,” I whisper to myself. “Okay.”

  I return to the kitchen. The decision to tell the others about Elle is no longer about what it will do to their grief. It’s about keeping them safe. It’s about keeping them alive. If I could keep them safe while also shielding them from what I know, I would, but they can’t continue obliviously living with a murderer.

  When I get to the kitchen, I don’t draw attention to myself. I beg time to move just a little slower. I look at each of my siblings, wanting to remember their faces from before I became the bearer of such horrific news.

  I’ve been in my own little world, somewhere outside my body, so I haven’t noticed the changes to the others in the days since Elle went missing. Brooke’s face has settled into a frown, when usually smiles come so easily to her that they’re part of her resting face. The little twins cling to each other, one never even standing up from the couch without the other following her, unwilling to lose a twin the way they keep losing sisters. Violet listlessly sorts through a new jigsaw puzzle on the floor.

  Irene is a deflated, washed-out version of herself. She’s back at the window, staring, on the watch for Elle, but it’s clear in the slump of her shoulders that it’s more of an obligation. It’s the thing that keeps her from acknowledging what she must already know is true.

  Here I am to confirm all her worst fears.

  “Hey,” I say. The little twins and Violet look up. Violet taps Brooke’s shoulder and she turns her attention to me, too. “I, uhm. I have something I need to tell all of you.”

  Only Irene is left, and if I’m honest, I don’t want her to look at me when I say this. But I need her to, because I need to sign for Brooke, and I’m not good enough to sign and speak at the same time. “It’s about Elle,” I say, because I know that will get Irene’s attention, and it does.

  All of my remaining siblings stare at me, and wait.

  ‘I don’t know how to say this,’ I admit. ‘Elle is dead. I found her in the forest. She was murdered, and Frank did it.’

  This is the third time I’ve had to tell my siblings bad news about one of our sisters, and it’s not easier. It’s worse, because three times feels like a pattern. It feels like it’s my fault now. I didn’t kidnap Jane or Winnie or kill Elle, but still, my fingers curl into fists, my nails dig into my palms, and I think I deserve the pain. I must have caused it, because why else do I keep being forced to bear witness?

  The room is very quiet while they process what I’ve said. It’s quiet just long enough for that antsy, jump-out-a-window feeling to form in my veins.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Irene asks, her signing eerily slow, almost serene in its movements.

  ‘I saw her body,’ I sign. ‘I’m sure.’

  Irene nods but otherwise remains still. London’s the first to start crying, with Violet close behind. Olivia grabs their hands and even without being able to see it or feel it, I know she’s shielding them with her magic.

  London takes a deep, hitching breath and pulls her hand away.

  “Don’t do so much,” she whispers to her twin. Olivia looks woozy. She was drawing on her own energy to power the shields.

  Brooke laughs, an uncomfortable, disbelieving sound. ‘What do you—’ Her signs falter, and she laughs again, covering her mouth for a moment to muffle it. She shakes her head. ‘How do you even know she was murdered?’

  ‘The . . . condition of the body,’ I sign reluctantly. ‘And there’s blood in the basement. And . . .’ How much do I want to tell them? If I reveal Claire’s existence, will that just make them think I’m crazy and making it all up?

  But I’m hiding so much. It’s ruining me.

  Brooke nods, like my explanation makes sense. She’s not laughing anymore, but she’s smiling, as if I’m playing a strange and cruel prank.

  ‘I’m pretty sure you all know at this point that I’ve been going to the forest at night. I haven’t really told you . . . why. There’s someone out there, in the forest, who’s been helping me.’

  Brooke’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘You didn’t tell me that. Someone lives out there?’

  ‘Not lives, exactly.’ This is the moment where they’ll definitely think I’m crazy, but, well, I’ve gone too far. ‘She’s a ghost. Or something like that.’

  ‘A ghost,’ Irene signs. Her lips curve up into a smile, as if I’ve told a joke.

  ‘She saw Frank bring Elle into the forest. She saw him—’ My hands trip over each other as I hesitate, unsure of how much they actually need to know. ‘She saw him,’ I sign again. They don’t need to know how long Elle was alive in the forest, alone, bleeding out. They’ll figure it out eventually from the timeline—how long between her disappearance and her flower’s color draining?

  There are a million questions on the faces of my siblings, but they don’t get to ask any because there’s a pounding knock low on the front door. More like kicking, actually, louder than it should be. When Frank yells, “Open the door!” I know it’s because of his steel-toe boots.

  I can’t think of why he wouldn’t open the door himself, and a creeping dread falls over me. ‘Stay here,’ I sign to my siblings. I get up and go to the door, but it feels like I’m fighting my way through mud. I’m not just opening the door for Frank now. I’m opening the door for a killer.

  There’s proof of it as soon as I open the door. Elle, who’s been dead-but-not-decaying in the same forest he’s supposedly searched for days, is in his arms.

  Frank pushes past me, and I stay rooted where I am at the open door.

  A warm summer breeze comes in off the lake and I close my eyes. I try to believe that I’m lakeside with my siblings, that everyone is alive, everyone is here. We’re lying in the grass and squinting up at the clouds.

  Distantly, I hear screaming. It’s one thing for me to say Elle’s dead, and a whole other thing to see her body. I hope Brooke is taking the little twins away before they see too much. I don’t want them to be dreaming red.

  I could run. With a dead girl in his arms and several on-edge, grieving alchemists to deal with, Frank wouldn’t be able to stop me before I got to the forest. Before I disappeared into the trees and scattered into a million million lightning bugs.

  I open my eyes. The lake sparkles under the sun. Behind it, the forest is more shadow than light. Something moves in the trees.

  Run, wild girl.

  I close the door.

  18

  I remember the drive to the lake house. I was nine years old and wearing a purple shirt with unicorns on it that my mom found at some store in the mall. It was an adult size, and slightly big on me.

  I didn’t know where we w
ere going. They just said it was someone who could help. The drive took hours and hours. I didn’t mind that. I loved long car rides. I’d put on cheap pink plastic headphones and listen to music on the old iPod my mom passed down to me while I stared out the window and imagined a dancer running alongside our car. Her footfalls matched the beat of the song, her jumps perfectly timed.

  We only have CDs at the lake house, and not an impressive collection. Not that I’m not grateful for what we have, but it’s all to Frank’s tastes, not ours. You can only listen to the discographies of Elvis Presley and The Smashing Pumpkins so many times before you’re ready to lie down and die. I miss being able to bring up any song with a few button presses. At nine, I was mostly listening to the music my mom had left on the iPod. I wanted grown-ups to be impressed with my taste. My favorites—other than Veggie Tales—were Sheryl Crow and No Doubt.

  When I think about the drive, I hear “My Favorite Mistake” on a glitchy loop in my brain. I watch rolling hills turn into flat land turn into corn turn into trees turn into the lake.

  I wish I was still her. I wish I was still a little girl on a road trip with parents she thinks will be with her forever. I want to be the girl with music-filled ears who sat warm and safe in the backseat of the car.

  But I’m not. I’m something different, something grown, something with two sisters missing and another sister dead.

  Frank has placed Elle on the couch. She looks comfortable, at least, nestled into the corner of the couch as if she’s going to take a nap. Frank must have closed her eyes, so that she seems more asleep than dead.

  Irene sits on the floor in front of her, rocking, rocking, her strange calm broken. The crying and screaming come freely now. Brooke, Violet, and the little twins are all absent. Good.

  “Where did you find her?” Irene asks, not looking away from her twin’s body. She hiccups her way through it, but it still comes out like an accusation. “Where was she?”

  “Far into the forest. I thought I’d already searched there, but—I know this is crude, but she isn’t very far gone. I’m not sure she’s been dead long. She may have been alive, and then dumped in the forest.”

  Neither of us challenge him. Maybe we should. Maybe if we all stood up and said No, you’re lying, Derry saw the blood, you killed Elle, we’d win. Six alchemists all against one man? We could take him. We could do it.

  “I think . . .” He clears his throat. His voice even wavers, like he’s truly broken up, like he’s even scared.

  I hate that I can’t tell if it’s real or an act.

  “I haven’t wanted to scare you,” he continues. “But I’ve been wondering if we’re being hunted. I found little things in the forest that give me reason to suspect people have been through there, and we don’t live too far from a town. You know it’s been dangerous just for me sometimes, and—if they did follow me back . . .”

  It doesn’t make sense, and I know that, because if it was some vague mystery hunter, there wouldn’t be blood in the basement. I also know Elle’s body has been in the forest for a lot longer than Frank’s claiming, though it’s smart of him to take advantage of how well-preserved she is.

  But the idea of people from the outside creeping through the forest, hunting us, still brings such an intense rush of fear that I almost believe it.

  “How could they have gotten her?” Irene asks. “Elle wouldn’t leave the house on her own, and wouldn’t we know if they came in?”

  “I wish I knew,” Frank says. “It’s one of the parts of this that has been so frustrating. How did they lure Jane and Winnie away? And how did they get to Elle when she was on high alert?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. After I’m done here, I’ll be going out. Our home has been attacked and I don’t know the best means of defending it. I’m not even sure of who the enemy is. I need to see those friends again.”

  “The ones who couldn’t find Jane or Winnie?” I ask.

  “Yes, them,” he snaps. “Do you have a better idea?”

  I don’t. I don’t want him to stay, anyway, so I don’t fight it.

  Frank nods, satisfied with my silence, and picks Elle up again. Irene stands as the body rises. “What are you doing with her?”

  “She has to be buried,” Frank says gently. “I can’t leave her here. It won’t be good for any of you—psychologically, or frankly, physically. Derry?” He turns his head, sees me. “Good. I’ll need you outside. Come with me.”

  “What?”

  The gentleness disappears instantly. His words are practically a snarl. “Stop asking questions and do as I say.”

  I almost don’t. I almost stand my ground, almost argue—

  But I don’t. He looks at me, and everything is fucked, but he’s Frank and he raised me and I’m supposed to be good.

  I follow him to the back door. I open it for him, since his arms are full. He walks to a spot away from the house, and he places Elle on the ground.

  “How can I help?” I ask. I’m still not sure why he wanted me with him.

  “I have a use for your magic right now. I know we’ve mostly focused on your plant-growing abilities, but I have a theory that it’s connected to another ability to manipulate the earth. Not just plants. The dirt as well. And if it doesn’t work, well, I’m sure you can imagine some plants to do the digging for us.”

  I swallow down bile.

  Oh.

  He wants me to dig Elle’s grave.

  Does he know I’ve done something like this before?

  “Here,” he says. “I think this is a good spot. It should be deep, and she’s a tall girl, so take that into account as well.”

  “Doesn’t she get a coffin or something?” I ask. “We’re just going to throw her in the ground?”

  Frank does his best comforting fatherly smile. “It’s all very natural, Derry. She’ll feed the earth. She’ll feed the plants. Her life will nurture other lives. Don’t you think that’s fitting?”

  I do, actually, but I don’t believe for a moment it’s why Frank is doing it this way. He wants whatever’s easy and fast.

  I sit down where he’s indicated the grave should be. He crouches beside me.

  “Now. You know how you’ve said that your magic is just a push and pull?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is no different. But instead of giving magic into the earth to make it grow something, you’re using that magic to do a literal push. To push the dirt up and out. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I can try,” I say. I know it’s not the right answer. Frank doesn’t like trying. But if I say I can do it, it’s too close to saying I’ve done it before.

  I dig my hands into the ground. It won’t be as simple as a push, like Frank says. I need to get my hands dirty. Feel the soil, let it under my fingernails, breathe in the minerals. Frank just wants it to be push and here’s a grave, toss, now he’s rid of an inconvenient dead girl.

  He takes everything for granted.

  “Square breathing,” he says encouragingly. I ignore him. My magic whispers to the earth, Please. Help me.

  At first, nothing happens. It’s so much easier in the forest, with Claire. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m doing something wrong, or if the earth just doesn’t want to listen, or if it’s because this feels like a test. I keep feeding my magic and pleas into the ground and I ignore Frank, who has stood up and started pacing.

  The earth between my fingers moves.

  Not much, but it does move, like trickles of sand. I pour my whole being into the magic, because Elle deserves so much better than being unceremoniously thrown into the ground but right now this is all I can give her.

  The dirt on the surface shakes. I’ve stopped breathing. I know Frank has stopped pacing because I can feel his feet on the ground, like they’re on me. It’s different than the first time. Then, in the clearing with Jane, the earth felt my desperation and it ran from me. Now it’s answering a call, and the difference in the power is indescriba
ble. My eyes roll back into my head—

  —and I fall. Deep, deep, deep into the earth, through rock and sediment and past fossils and veins of precious metals, into the core, which isn’t molten, but is made of blinding-white stars—

  I come to, and blink into the clear blue sky. I’m not in the core of the earth. I’m lying on the ground, which is solid as ever. When I breathe, it’s in gasps.

  “Good, you’re awake,” Frank says. I sit up, with some effort, because tendrils of flowering vines connect me to the earth and I have to detach them from along my arms like dozens of the IVs Dr. Sam had to put in Winnie during a serious illness years back.

  “What happened?” I ask. “I . . .”

  “You did a good job, is what,” he says. “Look.”

  I didn’t exactly dig a grave so much as part the earth. Waves of dirt are piled on either side of the hole, which is deep and wide, if not the perfect rectangle I think of graves as being. It’s rough. But it’ll work.

  “I did that?” I whisper. I stand up on shaky legs.

  “Yes. It took something out of you, though. Why don’t you go inside, get some water, clean up?” He stands by my sister’s corpse and grins at me. “I can take care of the rest.”

  On the way inside, I risk only one glance back, and wish I hadn’t. I’ll be replaying the moment when Frank rolled Elle’s body into the ground over and over for the rest of the day—maybe the rest of my life.

  I wash my hands in the kitchen sink. I scrub and scrub, under my fingernails, checking the fine lines of my palm. I don’t want my siblings to see Elle’s grave dirt on me. I don’t want to see Elle’s grave dirt on me. My breathing is coming in too-fast, too-short gasps. The corners of my vision are tunneling. With a low moan I bury my face in my wet hands.

  All I can think about is every mean thing I said about her. Every time I rolled my eyes when she performed for Frank like a prize dog. Every time I was annoyed with her for being selfish, for whining, for being overdramatic.