Of the Trees

by E. M. Fitch

  “I think they’re focusing on finding out the names of these guys,” Ryan continued, folding his notes and tucking them in his jacket pocket. “They were asking me about shelters and places in the area that someone could lay low.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “I don’t know much about it,” Ryan said, shrugging. “I guess if it were me, I’d probably just camp.”

  The weather turned colder and the search parties dwindled by the day, from hundreds to dozens to only a handful. Soon the woods outside her home were quiet. The flyers stapled to telephone poles were torn and mud-splattered.

  Cassie stepped out her front door to an empty, quiet street. She looked at her neighbor’s home and found them all seemingly empty. They weren’t. There was life inside. Somewhere in their home, the two little boys she babysat for must have been quietly playing. Their parents hadn’t let them out of the house in a while. Cassie could understand why. Fleetingly she wondered if they’d ever allow her to babysit again. She thought, probably not.

  The forest beckoned to her. A gentle wind blew through stripped branches, deceivingly innocent. She crossed the road, her purse slung over her shoulder. The asphalt was solid under her feet. She stopped at the other side, her toes nudging the curb.

  Aidan’s face stared back at her from a poster tacked to the tree nearest her, his eyes, so realistic because she had insisted, glared. She looked past it, letting her gaze followed the secret paths of the forest, dart past trees and skip over fallen limbs. Part of her ached to follow, to run and stamp through the underbrush, crushing the ferns to pulp and inhaling the resin of the dormant pines. She missed the treks with Laney, missed hiking the trails with Ryan. She hadn’t realized how much comfort she had drawn from the forest’s embrace. She hated that she now feared it.

  “You’ll be able to go in again.”

  Cassie didn’t startle when she heard him speak, not even registering the soft pad of his sneakers on the pavement until she had heard his words. She smiled, her eyes still tracing paths through the trees.

  “You think?” she asked Ryan. She didn’t need to turn to know he nodded.

  “You love it in there,” he said. “It will feel right again someday, feel safe, to go back.”

  “I didn’t hear your car.”

  “I know,” he answered simply. “I saw you over here, knew what you must be thinking.”

  “I can’t stand the thought that this has been taken away from me forever,” she admitted quietly. “I really did love it.”

  “You still do,” he corrected. His tone was chastising though gentle. “It can be yours again if you want it. I’ll help.”

  She nodded and stepped over the curb. She stared at the poster nailed to the nearest tree. It fluttered in the wind as she approached, his eyes seeming to search her out. Even as a black and white sketch, he was menacing. The grass was soft under her feet—wet from the misty weather they had had lately. A branch snapped under her foot as she moved forward. She flinched but extended her arm. The paper was thin and came away in her hands easily. She crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the nearest clump of beech trees.

  She turned to find Ryan watching her, eyebrows raised. “One step at a time, right?” she said.

  He smiled and nodded toward his car. Cassie followed.

  Cassie went with Ryan to the carnival. She knew the moment they parked that Laney wouldn’t be there. Cassie could feel it. The dust and scents of popcorn that saturated the air were all familiar, but it lacked something, some note of danger, of the unexpected that Cassie knew arose from the carnies that took Laney. Whenever they were around, Cassie felt watched. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Her gut churned in the expectation of something wrong about to happen.

  She didn’t feel any of that at the carnival. They wandered around. It was so unlike the night they spent together just a month before, wandering through the games, laughing, Jon and Laney teasing Cassie over Ryan. Ryan had been tentative with her. Now her hand was wrapped in his tightly. He led her around, hovering near her as she watched the carnival attendants.

  The men weren’t the same. She wasn’t surprised.

  “Nobody?” Ryan asked after their first walk through. She shook her head. “Once more around then, just to make sure.”

  They left after their second round of watching the carnival barkers. Ryan drove them an hour away to another carnival operating that night. It wasn’t the same company as the one that had come to their town, but Ryan speculated that maybe the carnies jumped companies after abducting Laney. Cassie didn’t mind tagging along.

  It was nice in his car. Warm, quiet. They spoke softly of normal things, looking to the future as though the one they had planned could actually still exist. He didn’t ask if she wanted to come on his summer-long hike and she didn’t mention how much she would miss him. He asked her about softball, and when practices would start. Her stomach clenched at the thought of playing without Jessica, how large that hole would seem once they were all together again and their first baseman was notably missing. But she didn’t say it. She told him after winter break, that’s when they normally started pulling back together. She laughed off his question when he asked if she still wanted to go for Captain, and he teased her that he’d still come watch her play even if she wasn’t. She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Sure you will,” she said, “just when the trails are opening again. You’re going to waste your time watching me get dirty and gross instead of working on that hike?”

  “I’ve seen you dirty and gross before,” he retorted. “Hasn’t put me off yet.”

  “I suppose you could just hike up and down the side of the field,” she mused, trying to hold back her grin. “I mean, everyone will think you’re crazy, but—”

  “Crazy for you,” he interrupted, waggling his eyebrows at her. She laughed. “Do you think they know?”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone knows you’re insane.”

  “Obviously,” he answered dryly. “But no, I meant about us.”

  “Us?” Cassie asked, watching his reaction.

  “Yeah, that we’re,” he broke off, looking over at her. She bit her lip against a grin. “I mean, we are, aren’t we?”

  “What, you mean kissing but not talking about it?” Cassie asked. He shot her a glare, and she burst out laughing. He huffed, watching the road, but she could see that he was fighting a smile. “So, what have you told them?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, shrugging.

  “Not even Jon?” she asked. He scowled. “Ryan, he’s your best friend, you can’t avoid him forever.”

  “Aren’t you still pissed at him?” Ryan asked.

  “Well, I’m not exactly thrilled about what he did, but—”

  “I don’t see how you can defend him. He wasn’t doing you any favors.” Ryan was quiet for a moment, obviously trying to sort his thoughts. When he did speak again, Cassie cringed at the words.

  “Who was he?”

  The question, tentative and quiet, hung in the air between them. She swallowed reflectively, her breath releasing in a gentle sigh. She knew he’d ask eventually, how could he not? She was surprised it had taken this long, actually. But that didn’t mean she wanted to answer.

  Cassie didn’t want to have to admit to the reality of that night, that she didn’t know who he was, or even worse, what he was. She cringed at the thought that she hadn’t even known his name at the time, remembering how uncomfortable he made her feel, with all his staring and groping. She didn’t even like him, and yet she had allowed him to run his hands all over her, caress her in ways she’d never allowed anyone before. She didn’t want to confess to the intensity of the feeling, the overwhelming surge of heat like drunkenness that had overcome her. Even now, she couldn’t fully explain it to herself, and explaining it to Ryan seemed well beyond her grasp.

  His pause, even his breath coming slow and quiet, grew more pronounced. He cleared his throat,
shifting in the driver’s seat. “You don’t have to … never mind.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” she broke in. He fell silent immediately. And maybe it was that, his willingness to just let it go, even though it obviously bothered him, that made up her mind. “He was … just some guy. A friend of Laney’s boyfriend. I just met him that night.”

  The words came out stilted and forced. Saying Laney’s name pierced her like a lance to the chest. Cassie paused, and the silence swelled, uncomfortable. She snuck a look at him out of the corner of her eye. His jaw was gritted, and his shoulders pulled tight, but he was quiet, waiting her out. She took a quick breath and went on.

  “I didn’t mean—” Cassie broke off because no, that’s not right. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t planned, but it had happened. She had to own that. “I’m sorry it happened. I was … confused, kinda ambushed. I didn’t see it coming.”

  That was closer to the truth, though still not complete. She struggled to find the words, find a way to explain it so he would understand. “The way it was there, it was weird. Like something came over us all. And then this guy, I turned, and he was literally just there. He pushed me back and then … He was there, just everywhere.”

  His silence was starting to scare her, and she inched over a bit, closer to him. “Ryan, I’m so sorry. I know we never said anything, but I wish I hadn’t done that. I would take it back a million times over.”

  Cassie stopped then, waiting him out. A nervous spiral was working its way through her chest, worming its way into her gut. She felt her insides twisting. She and Ryan had just gotten back onto solid ground, just found their way back together, to a level of comfort they both enjoyed. She felt as though she were out on a ledge now, pushed there by her own stupid actions and stupid words. She’d dangle there until he spoke, reassuring her that she was forgiven, joke lightly to let her know he wasn’t bothered, something, anything to end the torturous route her intestines were choosing.

  When Ryan did speak, it caused a sigh of relief to escape Cassie’s lips. His words were carefully weighed and deliberate. “I should have been there,” he said, his words a soft whisper in the night. Cassie shook her head.

  “Your hand … ”

  “If I had been there,” he said, ignoring her, “would it have happened?”

  “Maybe,” Cassie answered, a nervous thrill running through her as she licked her lips. “But not with him.”

  The silence hung, heavy and loaded. Cassie kept her gaze on his face, watched the minuscule widening of his eyes and noted the shift in his thigh when he pressed his foot to the brake. The car slowed to the side of the road. He threw it in park. They were surrounded by nothingness, fields and trees scattered about in the moonlight. Ryan cut the ignition and turned toward her, catching her face in his hands. He kissed her. The pressure of his lips was warm, gentle, but underneath that was a pressing insistence; an agreement that yes, it would have been him, it should have been him, and that no one else was going to get the opportunity for quite some time.

  The soft fervor of his kiss captivated her and for a long moment, the night around them stilled. He was so unlike Aidan, no hands grabbing at her, no teeth crashing against hers, her head felt woozy but she was grounded, her mind was her own. They moved together seamlessly. She leaned further into him, her seatbelt cutting into her shoulder. A couple of cars sped by and rocked their little space and when he moved over her, the tip of his nose grazed her cheek. She smiled against his lips.

  “What?” he breathed, catching her eye.

  “Your nose is cold,” she murmured, pecking his lower lip. He grinned.

  “So’s yours,” he said, rubbing the tip of his nose along hers. She laughed, and he pulled back.

  “Ryan,” she said, speaking into the soft silence that descended. He hummed, looking over at her. A slow smile spread on her lips. “We are.”

  It took him a moment, but then he understood that she was answering his first question, that yes, they were together. He smiled broadly at her before twisting the key in the ignition and starting the car back up.

  The second carnival for that night was a bust, more unenthusiastic barkers and men who looked like they hadn’t showered, but not the things Laney had gone with. They weren’t there.

  Cassie and Ryan tried again the weekend after that. They found more of the same. Cassie wasn’t surprised. Somehow she knew that Laney wouldn’t be at any of the carnivals, that the carnies didn’t really travel with them. It was a ruse, something they used to meet the girls away from parents, a way to watch them without calling attention to themselves. They didn’t need to do that anymore, they already found Laney.

  And me.

  The thought came unbidden but undeniable.

  “Did you see that?” Ryan asked, peering over the wheel and through the windshield. Cassie looked up, taking note of where they were. They weren’t far from home. They would be in before dinner, which was good because Cassie was starving.

  “What?” she asked, trying to focus on the trees through the windshield. She saw nothing unusual. The forest passed by her window in a blur, shadows elongated from behind the cold, gray bark into the darkened spaces beyond. The sun wasn’t quite set, but it would be soon.

  The car slowed, and Ryan pulled over to the side of the road. “Lights,” he answered, unbuckling his seatbelt.

  Cassie shrugged. “Probably a group of searchers giving it another go.”

  “No, this was different,” he answered. “Like a lantern.”

  Ryan opened his car door as a cold dread settled over Cassie. A lantern in the woods, a soft, bobbing, orange glow. She knew what was holding it.

  For the space of a small second, Cassie contemplated not getting out of the car. It was safe. They could go, drive, get as far from the forest as they could, but Ryan was already stepping off the pavement and into the trees, the lantern bobbed just ahead of him. She cracked her door, her limbs wooden and heavy. Her lips parted, intending on calling out for him.

  Another voice sounded first, soft but audible. It laughed. It called out. Unmistakable and undeniable.

  Laney.

  “Ryan, stop!” Cassie yelled. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, forcing a tight pressure into her throat. He darted ahead of her, following the light.

  “I can hear her,” he called back. “Can’t you hear her?”

  She could. But she knew, better than he did, that it wasn’t really Laney.

  “It’s not Laney,” Cassie shouted. “Please, come back!”

  He didn’t, he seemed to hardly hear her at all. The forest called to him, drawing him in with light and the mimicked voice of their friend. The pavement felt solid and sure under her feet, and she didn’t want to leave it. She called out to him again, straining to see his orange jacket through the dormant trees of the forest.

  He didn’t stop.

  She drew a strangled breath through her teeth and stepped off the road to follow him. The forest seemed to greet her, moving out of her way. Her feet didn’t catch on the low-lying brush, the dead branches didn’t whip at her face. It was easy, her path to Ryan and the light that twinkled beyond clear and free. She moved quickly, reaching out a hand and grabbing his arm when she drew near enough.

  “I could swear she was right here,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. He spun on the spot. The light had disappeared, and the trees had thickened. She couldn’t see the road from there and somehow doubted it would be easy to find. Just like the day she lost Laney to the trees, the forest would move, like a maze, and keep them there.

  Cassie wasn’t sure why. Did Laney want to see her again? Did he?

  “We should go,” Cassie said, tugging on his arm. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  He nodded vaguely, spinning to face her. His gaze darted over her head, and she tensed, wondered if he could see something behind her, but he frowned benignly. “Which way?”

  She tugged on his sleeve, letting her hand
run down his arm and twine with his fingers. They were cold. They moved cautiously, the underbrush denser now. It caught at her toes more than once, jerking her forward and almost out of his grasp.

  “I swore I heard her,” he muttered. “Didn’t you? Am I hearing things?”

  “I heard something, too,” Cassie said. “I just don’t think it was her.”

  Or if it was, it was a version of Laney that Ryan would not recognize.

  “You came.” The voice was sweet, pleased. It floated through the trees, and Cassie stared straight ahead, not giving in to the desire to seek out his gaze.

  “I thought you would,” it said a moment later, “for him.” There was an emphasis, slight yet unnerving. He hissed the last word, the sound cutting softly through the still air. Cassie didn’t respond. Ryan didn’t appear to have heard. She wondered, if Aidan walked in front of Ryan, eyed him face to face, would Ryan notice? Or, like the police and her mother, would he walk obliviously by, not realizing the menacing force that followed them.

  A branch broke with a loud snap just up ahead, and Cassie jumped. Ryan squeezed her fingers, and she drew a deep breath. The woods ahead seemed endless. It had been so easy running into the forest, a clear, straight line. But now she was sidestepping fallen trees, getting tangled in pricker bushes. Roots sprang up to catch her shoes, and they had already walked far enough to get them in sight of the road, but they were still surrounded by forest.

  “I’ve told you, darling,” a soft, feminine voice said. Cassie tensed, not recognizing the honeyed tone. “She doesn’t see. Not like our Laney.”

  “She does,” whispered Laney. Cassie let her eyes fall closed as a wave of pain swept through her chest. She was here, so close to Cassie. She saw her, was watching her, was walking practically beside her. But Cassie didn’t look up. She couldn’t.

  Something had dawned on her, some slow realization came to life.

  They truly didn’t know if she could see them. They knew Laney could. They knew Ryan couldn’t. They thought Jessica had been able to, but they were completely uncertain about Cassie.