The Little Woods

by McCormick Templeman

  “Cally, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Jack, aren’t you attracted to me?”

  He pushed his hair out of his face and leaned against the wall.

  “Wood, you know that I am. Don’t make me do this.”

  “Then why won’t you kiss me?”

  “It’s complicated. I just can’t,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

  I spoke slowly, afraid of an answer. “Jack, are you seeing someone?”

  His face flushed pink, and he laughed but didn’t deny it.

  “Someone in secret, maybe?”

  “Leave it alone, Wood, you wouldn’t understand.”

  Despite what he said, he moved closer to me, a strange sort of electricity seeming to flit between us. He ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip, and then suddenly he pulled me to him, kissing me hard on the mouth. He held me close, and my body warmed to him, his hips flush against mine. I tried to catch my breath. He looked at me, holding my face in his hands, his cheeks flushed, his lips full and welcoming. And then it was my turn to back away. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and tried to steady myself.

  “Oh my God, Jack. What the hell was that?”

  “Too much?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  I shook my head. “No. No. Definitely not.”

  “Um,” he said, smiling and shrugging, “then should we continue?”

  I nodded.

  And we did until it was light outside.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I WAS STILL FLUSHED AND dizzy when we straggled back to the dorms.

  “We are so dead if someone sees us,” he said, laughing, clearly delighted.

  “Couldn’t we say we were out jogging?”

  “Look at us, Wood. We do not look like we’ve been jogging. We look like we’ve been up to our eyes in the dirty dirtiness.”

  “Then why aren’t you scared?” We were passing the swimming pool now, about a hundred yards from our respective dorms.

  “I don’t know,” he said, smiling, his eyes bright and clear. “I think we’re lucky.”

  When we reached the fork in the path, it was clear we didn’t know what to do, so I held my hand up for him to slap.

  “A high five, Wood?”

  I shrugged. It seemed as good as anything else.

  “Fine,” he said, joyfully slapping my palm. And then he ran off, and I slipped into my room. Helen cracked her eyes open and smiled at me.

  “Where the hell were you?” she muttered, and then turned over and went back to sleep.

  I showered quickly and wrapped myself in a towel. While I combed my hair and brushed my teeth, I noticed that I felt lighter than I’d felt in a decade. I hadn’t slept with Jack—it was nothing like that—but I’d done more with him than I’d ever considered doing with a boy, and somehow it had changed something fundamental in me. It was as if a layer of grief had been peeled from my aching shoulders.

  When I got back to the room, Helen’s alarm was going off and she was stirring.

  “You want to get breakfast?” she asked, staring up at me with one blue cat eye.

  “Sure.”

  “You look weird,” she said, but left it at that.

  I had a hot breakfast for the first time since coming to St. Bede’s: warm chocolate chip pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup. I ate with abandon while Helen looked at me funny.

  “So what happened with Alex last night?” Helen asked, a strange glint in her eye.

  “Nothing. I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” I said, smooshing half of a pancake into my mouth.

  “Okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “When you’re ready.” Then she cocked her head to one side. “You’re, like, really hungry, aren’t you?”

  Despite the many pancakes I’d eaten at breakfast, I walked to English class with a joyful pit in my stomach. I had no idea how to act when I saw Jack. I’d just seen him vulnerable and in compromising positions, but the thought of him sitting fully clothed discussing Aeschylus seemed absurd to me.

  He and Sophie were chatting when I walked in. I greeted them both like nothing was out of the ordinary, and he looked up at me and burst out laughing. That was exactly how I felt, but I didn’t want to be suspicious, so I choked back my laughter and took a seat next to Sophie.

  “What was that about?” she asked Jack.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  I tried not to make eye contact for the rest of class, but once or twice I couldn’t help looking over to find him grinning at me.

  He walked us to Spanish class, and the entire time I was painfully aware of the distance between us. I couldn’t stop questioning myself. Were we walking too close together? Were we suspiciously far apart? And all the while, my head was drunk and spinning, swimming in a lusty happiness I found totally unfamiliar.

  In between periods, I headed up to the library to compile my list of people who had checked out woodworking books. Unfortunately, the library’s woodworking collection consisted of one book, last checked out in 1993 by someone named A. Schumacher. Apparently I would need to devise an alternative second prong for my two-pronged attack.

  The rest of the day went well until I got to bio lab. Staying up all night was making me woozy, and I had second lunch, which meant I’d have to wait until after bio to eat. Alex was waiting for me when I came in.

  “Can we talk?” he whispered, his eyes deeply serious. “Outside on the stoop. We can pretend we’re emptying the morgues.”

  And for some reason I felt guilty. He had cheated on me, and here I was feeling guilty. I nodded and grabbed one of the jars of oil we used to dispose of the flies, and we met on the step. We closed the door behind us.

  “Wood, I feel sick. I know you’re pissed, but I am so so sorry. I swear, it didn’t mean anything. Please don’t break up with me. It was the drugs. I didn’t know what I was doing. And it was nothing serious. It wasn’t sex or anything.” He blushed. And then, to my horror, he wiped a tear from his eye.

  Oh my God. I wasn’t prepared for this. I had been under the impression that he’d broken up with me, but apparently, he, um, hadn’t. I wondered what he would think if he knew even half of the things I’d done with Jack while he was sleeping peacefully in his bed.

  I should have broken up with him right then and there, but there were a few things holding me back. First, he was hot. He was gorgeous and brilliant, and I liked hanging out with him. I’d miss him if we broke up. Second, if I broke up with him, it would be a big deal with Helen and her lot. I knew they’d all simultaneously pity me and think I was a killjoy for dumping him. There would be tension in the group, and even though it would be his fault, I knew I was the one who would be on the outs. They’d all known each other for years. I was the new girl. If someone suddenly wasn’t going to be invited to the lake house, it was going to be me, not Alex. Then, of course, there was Jack. I really liked him, but it wasn’t like we were going to start dating or something. If I broke up with Alex, he’d keep feeling awful and guilty, and then I’d have to feel awful and guilty too, because technically, I’d cheated on him too. So I decided to do the most reasonable thing I could think of. I decided just to pretend none of it had ever happened.

  “Okay.” I nodded.

  “What?” He looked shocked, totally confused.

  “It’s okay, let’s, um, just forget it, okay?” I dumped out my jar and twisted the cap back on.

  “You’re not mad?” he asked, slack-jawed.

  “Does anyone else know?”

  “Brody.”

  “Well, let’s just pretend it never happened,” I said, and opened the door and walked back inside.

  This decision to keep going out with Alex was totally antithetical to my ideology. It had been born of intense guilt, sleeplessness, and a voluptuous kind of exhilaration, and I figured it was best not to think too much about it. I wandered up to lunch in a daze.

&nb
sp; I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Freddy since Alex had told me about the phone call, so when I saw her sitting alone at lunch, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t what I got.

  “What did you just ask me?” she said, her voice calm and cold. She set down her fork.

  “Nothing,” I said, a little stunned. “Alex told me you took the call, so I thought maybe you might remember something about it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think that if I remembered anything, I would have told the police?”

  “Yeah,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I was just thinking maybe there was something you didn’t want to tell them, or I don’t know.…”

  “You think that I would purposely deceive the police in a murder investigation?” Her voice was measured, her tone so crisp and cool that I had trouble matching it with the anger evidenced in her eyes. She picked up her fork again, and gripping it with bloodless fingers, she pushed her food around the plate.

  “No,” I said, trying to think of some way to backpedal out of the conversation.

  “You think …,” she whispered, color rising in her cheeks. “You think that I could have information that leads to the person who killed Iris and that I would lie about it? What do you think I am?”

  I was frozen, unable to speak. A strange kind of intensity radiated from her, and I was thankful I would never have to face her in a competitive debate. I could see how with Freddy involved a debate could quickly resemble something involving Christians and lions. Standing up, she dropped her fork onto her plate with a resounding crash. It bounced off and landed on the floor with an understated clink.

  “Watch it, Cally,” she said, pulling down her crisp white sleeves, arranging the cuffs just so. “Don’t get too big for your britches, okay?”

  She leveled her eyes at me, and I stared right back at her. Then she nodded to herself, mistaking my silence for acquiescence. She turned and clicked away in her oxfords, leaving her plate on the table, her fork where it lay on the ground.

  I hovered somewhere between amusement and shock as I watched her go. I knew Freddy was tightly wound, but her reaction was crazy. I picked up her fork and put it on my tray. The only question was whether she was acting like a psycho because she was psycho, or she was acting like a psycho because she had something to hide.

  That afternoon, Noel and I got back from independent walking even earlier than we usually did. We signed in with Ms. Sjursen, who seemed to be in the process of making a bird-house out of a boot.

  “Did you have a nice break, Ms. Sjursen?” Noel asked.

  Ms. Sjursen peered up at Noel and smiled. “Why, yes, Calista, I did. Thank you so much for asking.”

  Noel grabbed my arm as we headed out of the gym.

  “I can’t believe she thinks I’m you,” she whispered.

  “What?” I laughed. “What’s so bad about being me?”

  “No offense, but sometimes you look like Robert Smith mated with a mouse. Like, a construction-worker mouse.”

  “That’s very specific, Noel. Thank you.”

  Back in my room, I decided it was maybe time to clean my closet. I’d unpacked so hastily that I hadn’t noticed at the time just how dirty it was in there. The last time I’d pulled something out, one of the sleeves had been covered in dust. A bit of spring-cleaning would be good for me; it would keep my mind occupied. I put on a Dead Kennedys album and got to work. I pulled all the clothes out and set them on my bed, then grabbed some of Helen’s cleaning products and climbed inside. I was momentarily overwhelmed by the scent of cedar. As I adjusted to the darkness, my eyes focused on the back wall, and I froze. I found myself face to face with the blue dragon. It was drawn in hatched blue ballpoint, but it was the same wretched thing, with its terrible eyes and its sickle head. Had that been there when I’d moved in? The walls had been completely marked up, and it had been too dark to see much. What did it mean? Had he, whoever he was, been in my room? My breath caught, and for a second, I thought I might puke, but instead I let out a single bleat of a scream and clutched my hands to my chest. After pulling myself out of the closet and bumping my head in the process, I grabbed my messenger bag. I opened the door and slowly backed onto the lawn.

  I stood outside staring into the chasm of my room for a moment or two before I gave in to the overwhelming urge to run to the library. I was barely able to choke back my scream as I raced, the sweat dripping from my forehead. When I reached the front entrance, I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath. I had to try to shake it off and get my bearings so I could think like a rational human being. I headed inside and up to my usual seat. I took the steps two at a time and was relieved to find Carlos wearing his bifocals and playing sudoku.

  “You look kind of bad. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sinking into my chair. “Totally fine. I just need to read.”

  “Maybe you should get a book, then.”

  “I mean think. I just need to think.”

  He shook his head and turned away. I pulled my knees up to my chest. Next to Carlos lay a stack of manga and a large black book called Mysteries of the Unknown. I picked it up and began leafing through the pages.

  “Help yourself there, Wood,” Carlos said without looking up from his sudoku.

  I sat staring at Goya’s horrific Saturn Devouring His Son, and I noticed that I was shaking. I slammed the book. What if Brody was right? What if there really was something wrong with this place? What if it really was cursed? I shook my head. No, that was ridiculous. There had to be some reasonable explanation for what was happening, and whoever had drawn that thing in my closet was just a person—a person with a real-life connection to Iris.

  I pushed myself up out of my chair and wandered over to the yearbooks.

  “Iris,” I whispered. “What were you hiding?” I pulled out the previous year’s and there she was, right on the second page, laughing, her arms slung around two boys, presumably lameduck seniors. She was radiant, incandescent. Joy seemed to spill forth from her, and the two boys looked at her like she was magic. Despite everything I’d heard about her, I found myself thinking that I would have liked her, that I would have thought she was fun. What had she been mixed up in? It couldn’t have been just drugs. Lots of people took drugs. They weren’t all being brutally murdered.

  “Who were you, Iris?” I heard myself say aloud again.

  “Cally,” Carlos called from his chair. “They’re gonna send you to the counselor if you start talking to dead girls in the stacks.”

  And then I looked more closely at the picture, and suddenly it dawned on me. Her fingers, perched like spider legs on the boys’ shoulders, were stained with ink. And I knew. No monster, human or otherwise, had crept into my room and drawn that horrible thing. It would have taken far too long. The only person who’d had the time and the opportunity to draw the dragon was Iris.

  I knew with every fiber of my being that Iris had put that thing there. But if Iris had drawn the dragon in my closet, then that meant that Iris had also drawn the dragon up in the cave. She hadn’t been lured there. She hadn’t been dragged there and murdered. She’d gone of her own volition and had been comfortable enough up there that she’d had the time and inclination to draw a massive version of her dragon.

  What was it about those woods that seemed to draw people to them? Iris, my sister, Laurel—why had they gone out there? Hadn’t they known there was something rotten out there, something spoiled? I had to admit, though, that as much as the woods frightened me, as much as I wanted to stay away from them, I found myself thinking about them when I didn’t mean to, waking from unremembered dreams to catch a hint of pine, a whisper of wind through the needles.

  I didn’t believe those woods were haunted—I couldn’t believe that—but there was something strange about them, something dark. Sometimes it seemed to me that a fine curtain hung between St. Bede’s and those woods, and that if I could only find a way through it, if I c
ould pull aside the veil, I could find the truth. I could find Clare.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “WHY ARE YOU HIDING IN your closet?” Helen asked.

  My muscles tensed, and I banged my head stumbling out. I had been having another look at Iris’s handiwork, trying to figure out what it could mean. I shut the closet door.

  “You know, we have a whole LGBT society here, Wood. People are very open-minded.”

  “Good morning to you too,” I said, feeling like I’d been caught trying to blow up a mailbox. Adrenaline surged through my veins. “You were up early.”

  “I went running.”

  A gentle knock on the glass drew our attention. Alex, dressed in a french-blue sweater, waved from the other side.

  “You should probably tell him you’re bi-curious,” Helen said, batting her lashes. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m always making people gay.” Ignoring Helen, I grabbed my things and went out to meet him.

  “You’re gonna get kicked out for wearing that,” he said, eyeing my Sex Pistols shirt. “You couldn’t find any ones with pictures of dead puppies on them?”

  “Those were all sold out.”

  “You were wearing normal girl clothes for a while,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Didn’t take.”

  “I thought I was having a positive influence on you.”

  “I think I’m immune to good influences.”

  Just before we reached the classroom, he slipped his arm around my waist, and beneath the arch of the door, he gave me a kiss. I didn’t have to look to know that Jack was watching. I could feel his gaze running up and down my spine. After I waved goodbye to Alex, I walked over to Jack and Sophie. He was laughing.