The Drowned Forest

by Kristopher Reisz

  “Where … are?” A crack widens in the clay bank. No lips, no teeth, but a slug-like tongue moves inside.

  “Tyler … need help.”

  I can’t take this. Please, please don’t do this, Holly.

  The clay shifts. Something like a shoulder pushes upward. An eye opens.

  “Jane?”

  Tyler grabs the waistband of my shorts, heaving me up onto the grass, then scrambles after me. We run past the dark picnic shelter. Tyler checks his cell phone, but it’s wet and ruined. He cusses and smashes it to the gravel path.

  Reaching the road, he sticks close to the low wall, stopping to think. “Stratofortress! They live close by. Come on.”

  Crusting mud cakes my legs and hands. Tyler’s sneakers squelch with water. The sidewalk is fever-hot under my bare feet, but I can still feel the cold of the drowned forest below.

  No, the cold isn’t under me anymore. It’s inside. It’s termite-tunneling through skin and muscle. Delicate flowers emerge from the scratches on my arm, my hand—sticky, hairy stalks and tight buds already unfolding. “Ty-Tyler?”

  He looks over. And because he still has shoes, he heaves me onto his back and starts jogging. “Hang on, just … hang on … please.”

  I wrap my arms around his neck and cling to him. When you scratched me, you left some essence of the drowned forest under my skin. I can feel roots probing, teasing skin away from muscle, soul from bone. They’re reaching for my heart, but it doesn’t hurt. Their coolness feels nice on such a hot, humid night.

  Staring up past the streetlamps, I can’t see the stars anymore, Holly. Can’t you remember our nights down here? Burning to rush around and be loud and be alive, and who cared that the stars were all gone? I miss you so much. I don’t want to grow up without you. I can’t, Holly. The drowned forest is in my head now. Its voice is a lullaby, hypnotic like gentle waves lapping the shore. It promises death will be easy, like relaxing a clenched fist. Dying will be less painful than living.

  No, no, I don’t care. I want to live. I press myself against Tyler’s back, and I want to live. That’s all I know—one greedy breath after another.

  There’s the shabby house, overflowing ashtrays still on the porch. The gate is padlocked. Tyler tips me over the fence like a sack of potatoes. He lands hard in the dirt beside me. “Come on, come on.” He grabs my hand, pulling me up. Banging on the front door, calling out. Finally LeighAnn appears.

  “Hey. What’s … holy hell, what’s going on?”

  Tyler pushes past her without answering, dragging me along too.

  Max is wearing shorts and no shirt. “She’s got … are those flowers?”

  “We need to pull them out.” Tyler leads me to the living room couch. Somebody kicks the drum kit. The thump bounces off carpeted walls.

  Max turns on a lamp and runs careful fingers across the leaves and petals. “How … ? How is that even happening?”

  Tyler shakes his head. “Later. First, we just get them out.”

  Max holds my arm while Tyler plucks one of the flowers. Root torn from muscle—I scream, body bowing up.

  “We should get her to a hospital, man. If we—”

  “No.” I shake my head. The roots have reached past my elbow. They’re part of me. I feel the blossoms open with a sugary sort of fizzing. “They’ll kill me before we get there. Pull them out. Please, please.”

  Tyler pulls one. I grit my teeth against the pain but can’t keep from screaming again. LeighAnn cradles my head, wiping sweat away with the hem of her T-shirt. She murmurs, “Doing good. Almost through. Doing good.”

  I’m too tired to scream anymore, so I just whimper. Tyler plucks the last one. “Jane? That was it, Jane. You okay?”

  My skin looks scraped raw. Blood trickles down, turning gummy in the creases of my palm.

  “Okay, what … what the hell?” LeighAnn asks.

  Tyler’s face is fish-belly white and slick with sweat. “Something attacked us out on the lake. It pretended to be Holly and lured us out there, then—”

  “No.” I sit up. “That was Holly. I mean, her body was mud and weeds, but I talked to her. It’s Holly’s soul inside.”

  “No. Holly would never kill her pa-paw.”

  “Whoa. Somebody was killed?” LeighAnn asks.

  “She didn’t do it on purpose, Tyler. I don’t think she knows she’s dead.”

  “Um, how about we figure all this out on the way to the ER?” Max asks.

  “No.” I half sit up. “I can’t go to the hospital.”

  “There were plants growing through your skin!” He pushes his glasses up, leaving a red smear on the lens.

  “They’re gone. I can feel it.” Standing makes my head spin, but I force myself not to puke. “I just need to wash the cuts real good. You have any antibiotic ointment?”

  I follow Max down the hall to the bathroom. The hallway wall is covered in dozens of concert flyers, some of them wrinkled from rain. In the green-tiled bathroom, Max gets ointment and gauze from under the sink, then steps out. I pull my phone out of my pocket. It won’t turn on anymore. My dad once dropped his phone in a puddle, then stuck it in a bowl of rice to draw out the moisture. But I went swimming with my phone, so I doubt that would work. The only other thing in my pocket is the twenty-dollar bill. I unfold it carefully and lay it on the counter to dry.

  Next, I peel off my shirt and wash my arm under the tub faucet. The water turns pink as I scrub away blood and mud. The pain makes my hands shake. Muscles tighten into ropes. My face twists shut like the top of a plastic bag.

  You killed your pa-paw, Holly. We were coming to save you, and you killed him, and you don’t even know what you’ve done or what you’ve become. What happened to you down in the drowned forest?

  I flex my fingers. My arm still burns, deep in the muscle, when I do. I want to go to the ER. They could zap my arm with about a million x-rays to make sure every last root tip was dead. I want to go home. Even if Mom and Dad are furious, I’d just hug them tight. Even if they sent me to Dr. Haq or grounded me for a year or gave me a lobotomy, I wouldn’t care.

  I want to give up, Holly.

  I want to run back home and never talk about this night. Resting my forehead on the tub’s cool lip, I beg God to let this cup pass from me. But God has forsaken us, left us both blowing in the wind.

  And you had to talk about the church flower gardens.

  I open the cabinet under the sink and find some Windex. Unscrewing the spray top, I pour it across my arm. The ammonia and detergents seep down into the tiny cuts, killing off any root tips still buried under my skin. It burns like the edge of a hot pan. I bite down on a hand towel and empty the bottle.

  I won’t forsake you, Holly, no matter what.

  I smear ointment on my arm and bandage it. I fix my ponytail in the mirror and shove my fear down into a tight knot inside my chest. I can still feel it, but I can also walk and talk and force a smile. For once, I’m glad I can’t cry.

  Tyler and the others are still in the living room.

  “ … I don’t know,” Max says. “A catfish and ring, some ghost made from mud. It’s just pretty hard to believe.”

  “Well, you pulled flowers out of my skin,” I say from the archway. “You saw that yourself, right? You believe your own eyes, right?”

  Tyler looks over his shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

  I step past him, continuing to talk to Max and LeighAnn. “I know it’s nuts. I’ve spent the last day trying to figure out how everything I’m seeing must not be what’s actually happening. I’d be a lot happier if somebody could convince me I’m crazy. But Tyler sees the same things I do. And now you guys have seen it. What’s happening is what’s happening, and what I’m seeing is what I’m seeing. Here.” I offer my wounded, scabbing arm to them. “Feel the cuts if you want, but really, what’s happening is what’s hap
pening.”

  Neither of them take me up on my offer. Max says, “Okay, what’s happening is what’s happening, but, I mean, what is happening?”

  I shake my head. “Don’t know yet. But I need a big favor. I need somewhere to stay until we figure that out, and figure out how to help Holly.”

  “Jane … ” Tyler shakes his head. “Are you sure that’s really Holly?”

  “Yes. She talked about stuff only she’d know about. She’s scared and confused, but that’s Holly.”

  Tyler doesn’t argue. I look at the others again. “My parents won’t believe any of this. They haven’t seen it, so they can’t believe it. And if I keep talking about it, they’ll probably have me committed or something. My friends from church won’t believe it, our pastor, he … I just need to stay somewhere until we figure out what to do. I … I can’t really pay right now—”

  “Nah, don’t worry about that. You know how many freeloaders have crashed here?” Max slaps the worn couch cushion. “You’ll be sleeping in the buttprints of giants.”

  “Except none of them had some sort of river ghost after them,” LeighAnn says. “What if it comes here and attacks us?”

  “Lee-Lee, we can’t just kick her out.”

  LeighAnn snorts. “Some people, a few nights on the street might be good for them.” She walks off without another word.

  Max agrees to drive Tyler back over to the marina to get his truck. First, he finds me a sleeping bag and pillow. I wish he’d offer me some dry clothes to sleep in, but he doesn’t. And I don’t want to ask these people for any more than I have to.

  I wish Tyler could stay, but he has his own parents to worry about. Hopefully he can keep them from freaking. Hugging me tight, he says, “We’ll figure something out, okay? It’s going be okay.”

  I smile and answer, “I hope so,” even though I know he’s wrong. Maybe we’ll figure out how to save you, Holly, but I know in my soul that it’s not going to be okay. It’s going to be hard and dangerous, and I don’t think anything will ever really be okay again.

  Tyler and Max head off. LeighAnn stomps around the kitchen. I lie on the sagging couch and pretend to be asleep. The house is sweltering. There’s no air conditioning, just some open windows letting in a weak breeze and cricket song.

  Eleven

  The door bursts open, and where am I? I yell, groping through unfamiliar shadows.

  The light comes on, making me wince. “Jane? Hey.” Ultimate Steve stands under the hard glare.

  “Hey.” I’m at Stratofortress’s house, I remember now. I remember everything.

  Steve is wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday morning. Sipping an energy drink, he says, “So … what? You crashing here?”

  I nod. “Holly’s a ghost. Her soul’s trapped in the river, and I have to stay here until we can free her.”

  “Wow, that sucks. It won’t keep you up if I play Xbox, will it?” He’s already down on the floor in front of the TV. I shut my eyes, but machine-gun fire from the game washes over me, keeps making me flinch. I open one eye.

  “Didn’t you just drive to South Carolina and back?”

  “Yeah.” His face flickers in blue light, then in the bright orange of a tossed grenade.

  “So aren’t you going to get some sleep?”

  “Nah, had, like, twelve of these things.” He takes another gulp of his energy drink.

  I pull the lip of the sleeping bag over my head. My skin is damp and itchy from my wet clothes. Plus I don’t have my Tenex. I’ll never get back to sleep.

  Lying hidden, I drift back to the time the youth group planted flowers in the church flower beds. Two springs ago? We were supposed to do it on a Wednesday evening, but bad weather pushed it to Saturday. Mom and me were both scrambling to make sure enough people came, and I couldn’t figure out why you were so mad.

  “You were gonna come over here on Saturday.” Your anger crackled over the phone.

  “Well, stuff got turned around because of the rain. Sorry.”

  “We were gonna make monkey bread.”

  “We’ll make it some other time.”

  “I wanted to do it Saturday. Please, we haven’t hung out in forever.”

  “Well, we’ve got five pallets of impatiens that need to be planted. Why can’t you come and help?”

  “I can’t deal with Jonathan. All the youth group guys are just … ”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “They’re just what?” I snapped, getting mad.

  “They’re goof-offs, Jane. They’ll work for, like, fifteen minutes, then start goofing off and make you do the rest.” Several seconds of staticky silence passed, then you muttered, “Why do you have to be in charge of every single youth group project, anyway? You’re such a goody-goody.”

  “I am not.” My lame response just made me madder at you. “I have to go. Have fun sitting in your house judging everybody.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” You hung up, the buzz of the dead line stinging like a wasp. You were angry because I couldn’t bake monkey bread with you. Angry because under the surface, beneath all your sweetness, there was always something desperate, something half-convinced that everybody had already abandoned you.

  That’s what came out of the water last night … that frightened, always-hungry shadow of yourself. That can’t be all that’s left of you, Holly. It just can’t.

  That morning, we filled the flowerbeds with fresh potting soil before planting. Then we gently teased each impatiens’s root ball loose before setting it into the rain-dampened ground. I love the smell of humus—that old vegetable matter decayed into rich, dark dirt. Planting things, sinking my hands into the cool earth, may be the most calming feeling in the world, the most right feeling in the world.

  But that day, I was mad because you were acting like a jerk. I got even madder when the boys started goofing off fifteen minutes in, chasing each other around the community hall.

  But I prayed for you, Holly, right there on the sidewalk, clasped hands black with dirt. And when I prayed, I stopped feeling mad, and when I stopped feeling mad, I remembered it was the anniversary of your parents’ death.

  “Oh no.” I stood up. “Jonathan! Come here! I need you guys to plant the rest of this row. And that row over there.”

  “Okay,” he chuckled. “But Dylan took my—”

  “I don’t care! I have to do something, and all these have to get in the ground today.”

  “Okay, okay. But how do we—”

  “Figure it out.” Stuffing my straw hat on his head, I left. Just turned my back and walked away. That felt good, Holly, I have to admit.

  I jogged the two miles to your house. By the time I knocked on the door, I was panting hard. But when you opened it, I managed enough breath to snap, “Why didn’t you tell me what today was?”

  “I don’t—did your mom drop you off or something?”

  “I was at church and ran.”

  “You ran?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, stepping into the delicious air conditioning of your living room. “Where’s your pa-paw?”

  “At the studio,” you grumbled. “He always finds something to work on this time of year. He’ll probably put in a hundred hours this week.”

  I sighed and asked again, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Because it’s stupid.”

  “No, it’s not.” I pulled you into a hug. “You’re stupid for not telling me. But this is not stupid.”

  Burying your face in my neck, you began to sob. “Part of me just can’t ever remember that they’re dead. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think they’re in the next room. And then I remember, and it’s almost like losing them all over.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I miss Mom and Dad. I miss Me-maw.”

&nbs
p; “I know, I know. But I’m always here for you, Holly. All you ever have to do is ask. Okay?”

  You sniffled and nodded, then said, “Can’t believe you ran all the way here.”

  “Yeah. Oh, I also yelled at Jonathan.”

  “Really? Awesome.”

  Twelve

  The shower turns on. Is it morning already? I lie in my sleeping bag thinking about you, thinking about my promise. Max and Steve talk in the kitchen. I smell black coffee and pick out my name in their conversation. Tyler’s name too.

  “See you tonight, Lee-Lee,” Max says.

  “Bye, guys. Be careful.”

  They walk out. A motor starts and pulls away. Then LeighAnn nudges me. “Hey. Hey, wake up.”

  Pulling down the lip of the sleeping bag, I squint at her. She’s wearing a white blouse and maroon skirt. The airplane tattoo on her forearm shows through the thin material of her blouse, but she pulls on a maroon suit jacket that covers it completely. She looks normal now, except for a pair of bangles on her wrist made from old guitar strings.

  Flipping her hair out of her collar, LeighAnn asks, “You okay? No … ?” She mimes a flower blooming.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” Kicking out of the sleeping bag, I scratch at my bandages.

  “I got some clothes for you. If you want to wash what you’ve got on.”

  “Thanks.” The denim shorts and well-worn tee smell like cigarettes, but at least they’re dry. The old sneakers are at least a size too big. “How come you’re dressed like that?”

  “Going to work.”

  “Oh. I thought you were in a band.”

  She snorts. “Yeah, well, rock ’n’ roll’s just the money gig. My passion is being a bank teller. Want some coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Well, it’s there if you change your mind. Not much else food-wise. Some sandwich stuff, I think. Ravioli and some canned stuff in the laundry room.”

  For a table, Stratofortress has a giant cable spool in the middle of the dining room, Florence Utilities stenciled across the top. Dishes lie stacked in the kitchen sink, a fly buzzing round them. I really don’t want to eat anything from here, but I make myself say, “Thanks. And thanks for letting me stay here.”