What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

  ‘Magda’s not really up to it yet,’ he says.

  ‘Yes I am,’ I say. ‘I want to work.’

  Rob turns to me and puts a hand on my arm. ‘But I can’t stay here with you. It’s a women’s shelter,’ he says pointedly. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this right now? You’ll be by yourself.’

  ‘No she won’t,’ Gina says behind us. We turn and see her lurking just beyond the door frame. ‘I’ll make sure she’s OK.’

  I hold up my hands like I’m surrendering and smile. ‘I’m just going to sit and chop onions, Rob,’ I say. I look at him. ‘We decided this was good for me, right?’

  ‘I just didn’t think it’d be today.’ I see him grind his teeth for a second, but he relents quickly. ‘OK. Call me later. I’ll come pick you up.’

  ‘I can drive her home,’ Gina says, taking a step towards me. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  ‘Thanks, Gina,’ I say. She won’t let me do anything crazy, and she’s tough enough to flatten me if I try to do anything crazy to her. I should probably warn her, though. ‘Just keep an eye on me and don’t let me go anywhere without you, OK?’

  She gives me a strange look. ‘OK,’ she says.

  ‘Great,’ Rob says, although he’s clearly anxious about leaving me with someone who doesn’t know. He turns to me. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek to mask him whispering, ‘Be careful,’ in my ear before he leaves.

  Gina grabs on to my arm and steers me through the kitchen, walking fast. ‘How much Valium you on?’ she asks in an undertone.

  ‘It’s not just Valium,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I need these drugs, Gina. They keep me from seeing things that aren’t there.’ I swallow. My hands are shaking. ‘They keep me from doing things without knowing I’m doing them. I have a condition . . .’

  I take a deep breath to tell her – I mean, why not at this point? Gina won’t judge me for being schizophrenic. But Maria calls out behind us.

  ‘Wait, Gina. I needed to talk to you. Can you come back for a second?’

  ‘I’ll meet you at your prep station later,’ Gina whispers to me before turning and going back to Maria’s office.

  I go to my station, find my onion goggles, and get to it. I gratefully drop into the never-ending demands of the shelter’s overwhelmed and understaffed kitchen. It’s crazier than usual today. I keep expecting Gina to show at some point, but she doesn’t.

  I finish scrubbing my last pot and then wipe down my station slowly. Then I go and look for her. The kitchen is empty. That’s not normal. I have to call out through the pick-up window – the place where the kitchen and the front of the house meet.

  ‘Hey!’ I yell until the only girl out there looks at me. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, looking lost. ‘I finished my side-work,’ she tells me, like I’ve got the authority to tell her to go home.

  I recognize this girl, but I don’t know how at first. Then I realize she was that pretty young thing I saw sitting on the steps with Taylor at that first barbecue Rob took me to. She looks skinnier than I remember. Her face is more angular, and the baby softness that was still clinging to her just a few weeks ago is gone now.

  ‘Is Gina anywhere out front?’ I ask her. ‘The cook,’ I clarify.

  The girl looks perplexed for a second, and then she puts it all together.

  ‘She left before lunch started,’ she tells me.

  ‘Did she say why?’ I ask.

  ‘She just sort of took off her apron and left,’ the girl says timidly.

  I realize I’m interrogating her and stop. ‘Did something happen?’ I ask, like I’m looking for gossip, but really I’m starting to feel the first rolls of fear in my belly. Gina would never just walk out. And she’d never leave me. Not after I asked her to watch me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the girl replies, conspiratorially. She’s much more comfortable gossiping than being interrogated. ‘She left right after Maria. Like she was following her or something.’

  ‘Maria left? Before lunch?’ I repeat disbelievingly. ‘Yeah,’ the girl says. ‘I thought it was strange.’

  ‘It is.’ I glance behind me, but everyone’s gone. It’s late, but not that late. What the hell?

  ‘Hey, can you, like, sign me out?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say. ‘Come on back.’

  The girl meets me at Maria’s office, and I dig into my pocket to get the keys. I pull out the keys, and something else falls out with them.

  It’s the dirty, wrinkled piece of paper that I placed under a rock once. On one side is my handwriting. I’m shaking as I turn it over, expecting it to be blank. But it isn’t. In smudged, left-slanting handwriting are the words,

  And the day after that, and after that, and after that . . .

  ‘Are you OK?’ the girl asks. I feel her put a hand on my upper arm.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say breathily. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is that from your boyfriend?’ she asks, stealing a glance at the paper.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I might have written it.’

  She gives me a confused look. I give her a confused look back. Why would I write this note to myself? If I was going to add something to my fantasy of Bo, I would have written it in my journal. I’m quite particular about that. I can’t even start a new book of my journal until the old book is completed. This loose scrap of paper floating outside the neat edges of my journal doesn’t fit.

  I need to check some facts before I take one more step. Luckily, I know a lady who can help with that. At least I think I do.

  ‘Do you have a car?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah,’ she replies.

  I open the office. ‘After we sign you out, can you give me a ride to the library?’

  ‘Sure . . .’ she says uncertainly.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, taking out the logbook. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Amy,’ she says, pointing out her name on the time sheet.

  I enter the time, 3.18, and initial it. I look her over like I’m going to write about her in my journal. Which means I really look at her. Pretty. Young. Tired, but hunting for sparkle anywhere she can find it. Too thin, too fast.

  Just like Mila.

  ‘Amy, are you paying for your drugs yet or are you still getting them free from Taylor?’

  Her mouth drops open. ‘How did you—’

  I wave her off. ‘Do you know who supplies him?’

  ‘No.’ She can’t look at me, but not because she’s lying. It’s because she’s embarrassed. ‘He doesn’t pay for drugs, either – just so you know. I’m not sleeping with him to get high. I’m sleeping with him because I want to.’

  ‘Where’d Taylor get them?’

  ‘Some guy came to one of his parties a few weeks ago and gave him a ton of shit. Taylor said that guy had done that once before, and he never asked for money. Tay’s not a dealer,’ she stresses. ‘He’s never charged anyone for the drugs he gives out at his parties.’ She looks down. ‘It’s just that now it’s run out. And that guy hasn’t come back. There’s no way to reach him.’

  ‘But Taylor knew where to buy more drugs and sent you here,’ I say, gesturing to the shelter.

  ‘He would totally buy for me if he could,’ Amy says, defending Taylor. ‘But only girls can work here.’

  And now I get it. I get how Dr Goodnight did it and hid it for so long. I can see it all, probably because my mind is as predatory as his.

  It’s really a great system when you think it through. Gorgeous, fun guys reel in the cutest, youngest girls with free drugs. When the girls are hooked, the free drugs dry up, and the girls have to go get them. The girls tell their parents they’re working at a shelter for the summer, and their parents overlook all the hours their daughter is spending out. With no net, the girls fall until they’re in so far over their heads, they disappear. Great system, but only if the supplier is not interested in making money.

  ‘Grist for the mill,’ I say. Amy has
no idea what ‘grist’ means. Doesn’t matter.

  I think about confronting Taylor, maybe even Liam, but I don’t think they’re aware of the part they’re playing in all this. That’s the thing about parties and free drugs. Nobody asks questions as long as everyone is having fun.

  I look at Amy and give her a sad smile. ‘Best summer ever, huh?’

  ‘Not so much any more,’ she replies quietly.

  ‘I need to know for certain what’s real and what’s imagined. And I need to hurry,’ I tell her. She has no idea what I’m talking about. I turn Amy gently by the shoulders and give her a little push out of the office. ‘Library,’ I say.

  4 AUGUST. WANING

  ‘Do you remember me?’ I ask the librarian.

  I have no idea if I ever actually came here, or if I just imagined coming here. Right now, I’m not taking any of my memories for granted.

  ‘Yes, I remember you,’ the librarian replies cautiously. ‘You checked out several survival guides.’

  And I read them? I ask myself tentatively. And it all comes back to me.

  Just like with writing in my journal, I remember reading every survival book I could get my hands on, now that I think it through. Which means that everything I thought I learned from Bo could have come out of library books I read in bed at night. The crazy thing is, I remember reading about the edible plants, and I remember picking them with Bo. I have no idea what’s real.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the librarian asks. She looks concerned. It’s been a while since my last dose of meds, and I’m coming down. I feel sweat starting to slick my upper lip, and I can feel how dry my eyeballs are between my shrunken, peeled-back eyelids. I must look manic. I feel manic.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to pull myself together. ‘I need help with a bit of research. For a book. That I’m writing.’

  The librarian gives me a look. My lie sounded as clunky to her as it did to me. I just don’t have the brain-power to make up a convincing lie right now. My artificially enhanced chemistry is flatlining.

  ‘You’re writing a book?’ Amy asks, sounding surprised.

  I skip Amy’s question and get back to the librarian. ‘The book is about assisted suicide. I’m looking into the lives of doctors who have euthanized dying patients.’

  ‘No way!’ Amy says. ‘Is it a horror novel? I love horror. I will read anything by Stephen King.’

  I turn to Amy, impressed. ‘Me too,’ I reply. Back to the librarian. ‘Can you help me? I’m looking into one doctor in particular. His name is Ray Jacobson?’

  ‘And you’ve tried the Internet?’ the librarian asks drily.

  I nod. ‘He disappeared around twenty years ago.’

  ‘Ah-ha. Before everyone lived online.’ The librarian makes her way to her computer. She’s past the point where she has an opinion about my search and is already diving into this intriguing challenge.

  ‘Has this person been tried and convicted?’

  ‘No. He ran,’ I reply. ‘He’s been in hiding.’

  ‘Then the best place to start would be the FBI Most Wanted list.’

  I nod, and she starts typing. Then clicking. Then scrolling. Then refreshing. Then typing some more. Then frowning. Then shaking her head.

  ‘No Ray Jacobson,’ she says, in that curiously detached way of someone whose mind is several places at once.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. I sound plaintive. ‘He was an anaesthesiologist.’ The librarian shakes her head.

  So that’s it. There was never a Wildboy named Bo who lived in the woods and loved me, even though I am a broken, tainted, shitty excuse for a human being. I made him up.

  ‘That’s all you wanted to know?’ Amy asks. She takes a little tin of lip balm out of the pocket of her jeans and dabs some across her lips. I get a whiff of the balm’s scent.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask, suddenly thrown. That smell. I know that smell. Sage and lavender. Masculine and feminine. It’s Bo’s smell.

  ‘You don’t know about this?’ Amy says, enthusiastically handing me the tin. ‘It’s the best stuff ever. They’re local, and they have a whole line of lotions and soaps and natural deodorants and bath bombs. They’re amazing.’

  I stare at the cover of the tin. A wash of rainbow colours subtly tints the lid. This particular product is called ‘Raven’s Pout’ and the company is called ‘Ray of Sunshine’.

  OK. That could be coincidence.

  ‘I love this balm,’ Amy continues, ‘because it’s actually a lip plumper, but without the drying or the sting. Makes my lips look insane, and it’s totally natural and organic and good for you. Try it. I don’t have cold sores or anything,’ she assures me.

  I lift it to my nose. This is Bo’s scent. It was always there in the background when we were together. I loved it.

  I could never smell Rachel or David, no matter how clearly I saw their dead bodies displayed in front of me. No matter how vivid a visual hallucination of mine has ever been, I can’t recall there ever having been a smell.

  I take out the note I found under the rock and look at the left-slanted writing.

  My journal shifted from past to present tense, it even morphed from first person to third as my schizophrenia bloomed like a blood blister under the emotional pressure of Rachel’s suicide, but I never, ever wrote with my left hand.

  ‘Where did you get this lip balm?’ I ask.

  ‘You can only get Ray of Sunshine at the general store in Longridge. They’re totally local and small, but they’ll probably sell out to a huge corporation soon because they’re too good.’

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to trust any more.

  ‘Oh – hang on,’ says the librarian, still engaged in her task.

  ‘What?’ I ask, distracted.

  The librarian turns to me with a triumphantly raised eyebrow. ‘There is a woman, née Maeve Jacobson. A former philosophy professor at UC Berkeley, she’s wanted by the FBI because her husband, Ray Walters, a former anaesthesiologist at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, who’s wanted for helping seven terminal cancer patients end their lives.’

  I almost fall down. ‘No way.’ The librarian moves so I can see her screen.

  ‘Yes way. Here’s a picture of one of the men he euthanized,’ she continues when I don’t respond. ‘This was taken moments before the man’s death. I believe the victim’s wife took the picture – yes, see? She’s credited with the photo.’

  The librarian points down to the name in italics at the bottom of the picture, but I can’t see to read right now. I wipe oily sweat off my face and focus my eyes well enough to make out a grave yet hopeful group of people surrounding a withered husk of a man lying in a hospital bed.

  The dying man’s hands are so twisted that his palms lie flat against the underside of his forearms. His head is bald, his skin a dry membrane stretched tight over nothing but agony. Even his attempt to turn towards the camera is obviously such a bone-breaking effort that my blank eyes sting with tears for all the suffering that man is enduring.

  ‘That’s his son, those are his two daughters, and – wow – twelve grandchildren standing around them,’ the librarian continues in a subdued tone as she points out the background figures.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Amy gasps. ‘That poor man.’

  ‘He’s not poor, dear,’ the librarian reminds her. ‘He’s surrounded by his family.’

  We linger on this photo for one more moment, and then the librarian decides we’ve looked enough and moves on to the next.

  ‘And here’s one where you can see Ray’s face. This photo is also credited to the wife of the victim,’ she says in a low voice.

  Ray looks a lot younger. Twenty or so years younger, but that’s definitely him. He looks just like Bo. He’s cradling the suffering man as gently as he can while he inserts an IV. Everyone else in the room looks grateful. Relieved. Like this is the moment they’ve fought for, waited for, even prayed for. But Ray looks abstracted while he works through the mechanics of death. Gentle, kind
, reluctant. He takes no joy in killing, or in this justifiable death. He looks like a man apart.

  And I know. Because there’s a fixed line between people who have, and people who haven’t. And I’ve killed.

  I remember now. I remember everything.

  ‘Do you want to see some more pictures of his victims? Or the headlines? I guess an ex-husband of one of the euthanized women pressed charges. There was a manhunt spanning three states . . .’ The librarian trails off.

  ‘No. Thank you,’ I reply. I should be moving, but I can’t. I need a minute to think, but I don’t have a minute. The pieces are all here, I just need to put them together. I need someone logical and grounded to help me walk through all the steps. Amy’s sweet, but right now I really wish she were Gina.

  Wait.

  Where the hell is Gina? What would make her leave me if she knew I needed her? Gina lives to save dumb-ass junkie girls who beg her to take care of them while they come down.

  I can only think of one thing that could be more important to her.

  The librarian hits a key, and the screen goes black.

  ‘This is a horror book you’re writing?’ she asks disbelievingly.

  I feel my heart start to speed up. ‘For me it is.’ I grab Amy’s hand and pull her after me.

  ‘Good luck,’ the librarian calls after us.

  We get back into Amy’s little car, and she looks at me uncertainly, waiting for instruction.

  There’s a long pause while my brain pans through scenarios like eyes tracking trees as they whip by on the side of the freeway.

  I didn’t make up Ray. He’s real. Maeve is real. So Bo is real, and everything that happened between us is real, including tracking Mila’s footprints and getting almost all the way to Dr Goodnight’s camp. That means I know most of the way to Goodnight’s Camp. I can find Gina, I tell myself, but it’s less comforting than it should be.

  Because Bo is real. That means Rob lied to me. He told me I made up a family in the woods, but I didn’t. Why would Rob tell such a huge lie?

  Did he even know he was lying, or did he just jump to the conclusion that Bo had to be fabricated because he knows I’m sick? He read my blog for the Cultural Outreach Club. He knows I lied about dozens of people I’d said I met, then befriended, and some I even became intimately involved with, like Ali Bhatti. My fifth best friend who was so real to so many people, but actually wasn’t.