At Woods Edge

by E. M. Fitch

  The real question wasn’t how to explain him anyway, it was how to get him to stop.

  “Do you guys remember that girl that got stalked by her ex-boyfriend years ago?”

  Every head swiveled toward Cassie.

  “You mean that Tracy chick? Tracy Ward, I think?” Samantha answered, staring quizzically at Cassie.

  “Do you think her ex is involved? Because I’m pretty sure he’s still in jail,” Rebecca added.

  Cassie knew that. The court case was big news in their area, only it was decades before. Her parents were in high school when it all happened. It was the stuff of urban legends, a domestic violence situation that got completely out of control. Tracy Ward had been beaten severely on her front lawn and no one had intervened. The incident had made national news back when domestic disturbances were still considered a “family’s business.” She still lived in the next town over and was frequently seen, a terrible limp still marring her steps, one that would never go away.

  She was the Get Help warning story that had been told to each of their parents and then handed down to their children. Cassie never once thought she’d have to worry about it. She had only dated casually. She was serious about Ryan; and he seemed to be serious about her. Even now he was staring down at her, a concerned tilt to his head. But Ryan was patient and kind and not pushy. He was not like Aidan.

  Aidan she hadn’t seen coming; and the worst thing was that no one else could see him coming. He was an invisible parasite, a worm that had gotten deep inside without her wanting him there. A myth to some and make-believe to others, he was her waking nightmare.

  “No, I didn’t mean that,” Cassie answered, backtracking. “Not to do with this, just, I saw her the other day.”

  “Oh,” Rebecca murmured. Cassie didn’t miss the concerned glance between her and Ryan. “Yeah, I see her sometimes, too.”

  Cassie let it rest. The others started up a general conversation, when sports would resume, if the art class kids would hate them forever, what would happen if Prom got canceled. Jon had heard one of the teachers talking about possible expulsions related to the graffiti, especially since one of the freshmen, a kid named Steven that took every art class possible and auditioned for both plays that year, had been caught in the boy’s lavatories with sharpies. There had been a crude, half-completed sentence already inked into a bathroom stall. Cassie made a mental note to tell her father about it, maybe he could put in a word for the kid.

  Cassie took her time finishing her soda, using the small sips she took to mask her disinterest in the general conversation. Her gaze kept darting to the tree line. It wasn’t dark yet, but memories of the light that bounced around in the woods after sunset, the voices and the rush of wind through the trees that accompanied it still came to her mind. Ryan seemed to notice her distraction and moved closer to her, pulling her against his chest as he sat beside her on the rocks.

  Ryan was warm and comforting. Cassie smiled up at him in gratitude as he squeezed her.

  The mantra that had started when she was running laps on the track still sang in the back of her mind. There was no easy answer. Acknowledging Aidan came with the possibility of Jude returning. Wild Jude. Aidan may be reckless, scary, and possessive. Jude seemed more somehow, more feral, more other-worldly, more removed from the sense of humanity that even Laney’s lover Corey seemed to possess.

  Continuing to ignore Aidan brought its own set of challenges. Even if she did acknowledge him, he wouldn’t necessarily stop. It might even get worse. These grand gestures to capture her attention, they were scary and causing no end of turmoil in her small town, but they weren’t really dangerous. No one had been hurt. It was all well and good to hide behind her parents and teachers and boyfriend whenever she was able. She could stay out of the woods, not go out alone to secluded places. That seemed to make sense. But those precautions weren’t stopping him.

  Both alternatives made her feel trapped.

  “As long as everyone knocks it off in time for the fair this year,” Jon said, breaking into Samantha and Rebecca’s concerns about the Prom. “That’s all I really care about.”

  “A fair? A stupid small town fair? Not tuxes, and dinner, and dancing?”

  Jon’s expression screwed up, staring in horror at his girlfriend. “It’s like you don’t know me at all!”

  He laughed and dodged back when she threw her empty soda can at him.

  Lights bathed the trees surrounding them, a cascade of blue and red and blue again. A short blip of a siren sounded and Cassie jumped up from Ryan’s chest, twisting to face the road.

  A squad car crawled down the dirt road behind them, coming to a stop just beside Jon’s truck. The two vehicles completely blocked the road, not that it mattered, hardly anyone ever drove down it. Jon stooped to pick up Samantha’s thrown can and shove it in his backpack.

  “Party’s over, I guess,” he grumbled.

  “They can’t last like this forever,” Ryan placated. He stood from the rock wall, patting his friend on the back as he came nearer. Cassie reluctantly rose to her feet, linking arms with Rebecca as they turned to face the police officer.

  “What are you kids doing over here?” An officer emerged from the car, his skin washed in the revolving lights on its roof. Red, blue, red, blue.

  “Nothing, Officer,” Rebecca called out, moving forward with Cassie. “We’ll head out.”

  “It’s not good to be out and about just now, know what I mean? Especially in a cemetery,” the officer said. Cassie didn’t recognize him. He tugged at his gun belt as he stepped forward. He was thin and that made him look younger than he probably was. The belt looked like it was held up by his jutting hipbones. Cassie wasn’t able to read his name plate until she got closer. Officer Hawkins stood by Jon’s truck, his jaw set as he watched them all walk toward him.

  “Is that beer?” he asked roughly, gesturing to Jon’s backpack.

  “Yup,” Jon cracked, opening his bag to let the police officer see. He strode forward purposefully, his hand already reaching for his radio.

  “Geez, Jon!” Samantha reprimanded. “It’s root beer. Sorry, Officer, he’s an ass.”

  Office Hawkins scowled at Jon, rifling around in the open bag anyway. He shook his hand free of errant drops of root beer and gestured firmly toward the truck. “Get out of here,” he growled.

  “We’ll go now,” Ryan reiterated, pushing Jon toward the road. The officer shook his head but let them all by. Cassie, Rebecca, and Ryan all crammed themselves in the back seat again, making sure to reach for seat belts just in case Officer Hawkins was watching. He didn’t get back into his car until Jon had started the engine and pulled the truck out onto the dirt road. It wasn’t until the cemetery was just about behind them that Cassie noticed the can of soda they had inadvertently left for the Gray Lady, sitting at an angle on top of her headstone.

  One week following the town hall meeting that had resulted in the disastrous student assembly, Cassie still wasn’t sure what the purpose of that meeting had been. Unless the point had been to rile the entire town into a state of panic. If so, the meeting had done its job. Police were now present at the start of every school day. Lots of kids were still missing from classes. It didn’t help that some hiker, Ryan swore it wasn’t him, had called in a sighting of a butchered goat out in the forest. According to Cassie’s father and what he had heard from the school board, there hadn’t been much blood left on the scene, leading police to believe that the goat had been the source of the blood used to paint the school.

  No one could explain the freak occurrence of the animals that invaded the assembly. And no one wanted to speculate on the meaning behind one of those animals also being a goat. Theirs was a small, rural community. People in the area owned goats, raised them as sources of milk and even as pets. Cassie had heard it in whispers in the halls, one of the families who lived near the school had reported tampering on their property. She knew the family by name but not well. The
y had children, none old enough to go to high school. It was scary in one way, in the acknowledgment that Aidan wasn’t above traumatizing young children and stealing their livestock; but in another way, it was a relief. At least the goat butchering and gym invasion wouldn’t get blamed on another one of her classmates. It was already difficult enough to look Ami and Lexi in the eye when they passed one another in the hall. No one would think to blame any of the current events on a middle-schooler though.

  Ami and Lexi, to their credit, walked with chins held high down the hall every day, despite the pointing and the obvious staring. Cassie wanted to talk to them, to reassure the girls, again, that she knew it wasn’t them. She would have, if she thought they would have listened. The reality was that Cassie thought her speaking to them would do more harm than good. Any association with her, Cassie Harris, the girl who was linked to every disappearance in town so far, wouldn’t be the most helpful thing for the suspected girls.

  Cassie tried not to feel singled out herself, but she did. She felt not only Aidan’s eyes, but the cautious eyes of her teachers, her coach, even the nameless police officers that stood guard at the school entrances.

  You’re Cassie Harris? they’d accuse, with nothing else to offer. Just suspicious, wondering stares.

  Cassie came home after school one afternoon to see Mr. and Mrs. Evans pounding on the front door of the Blake home. The snow had mostly melted away from the front of the door. The small piles that were left on the porch dripped in a steady pattern onto the matted grass below. Mrs. Evans pleaded through the closed door, “Linda, please! Talk to us.”

  Cassie could just make out the muffled reply from across the lawn, telling the Evans to go away. She hurried inside her own home before they saw her, not wanting to get involved in whatever Jessica’s mother’s agenda was.

  The curfew had put a strain on everyone, not just because of the inconvenience, though it was one, but because it was a constant reminder that something dangerous was happening. It was a cloud hanging over everyone’s head. It left everyone unsettled and on edge.

  Cassie felt cut off, unable to leave her house after dark, unable to have her friends or boyfriend over. No one wanted to cut it too close to curfew.

  Ryan came in the afternoons, though. Sometimes her parents were home, sometimes they weren’t. He kept her company and she appreciated it. But she made sure to scan the doorstep every time his car pulled up, watching for the flowers she knew could be waiting.

  So far, her stoop had remained empty. It wasn’t until it was too late that Cassie realized she should have been checking inside the home, too.

  “What are these?” Ryan asked, stepping inside Cassie’s house after her. He had driven her home from school. A trail of rose petals was left on the staircase, scattered about in an inviting pattern. Cassie’s insides froze. The air was tinted with their sweet smell and though it was cold, the breeze licking up her back from the still open front door, she felt sweat prickle at the base of her skull.

  “Uh, probably my dad,” Cassie stuttered, unable to take her eyes off the silky petals.

  “In the middle of the day?” Ryan asked, his brow furrowed as he looked from Cassie to the romantic gesture spewed all over the floorboards.

  “Actually, I better clean these up. He’d be, you know, embarrassed … ” She couldn’t finish the sentence, a terrible thought laced through her mind.

  What if the rose petals were leading somewhere? What if Aidan was upstairs, waiting?

  “Let me just … ” Cassie bent over, grabbing handfuls of lush pink and red petals even as the muscles in her back clenched in trepidation. “I should probably check upstairs, too. Could you just throw these away?”

  “You want me to throw them away?” Ryan asked, perplexed. Cassie shoved the flowers in his waiting hands, avoiding his eyes. Her palms felt sweaty as she forced her gaze to the top of the stairs. “Won’t your dad be kinda mad? It looks like he spent a lot of time—”

  “He probably forgot you were coming over,” Cassie said, already taking off up the steps. “He must have thought that I was going to your house. Trust me, he’d thank us.”

  Ryan still looked confused, but he bent, scooping up errant petals. Cassie turned at the top of the stairs, facing her closed bedroom door. At least Ryan was close by. If Aidan was there, Cassie could scream.

  She stood in front of her door, her arms at her side. She could actually feel her heart beating, a thrum vibrating in rapid beats down through her fingertips.

  “Need help up there?” Ryan called out from the kitchen. Cassie startled but spoke calmly, forcing normality into her tone. She told him not to bother.

  She reached forward and gripped the knob, twisting as she leapt into her room, forcing her door open with a bang.

  The room was empty.

  But the window Cassie kept locked was open, the wind rifling through her belongings. The bare trees beyond twisted and rubbed, a string quartet without the sweetness, and a voice laced through the noise.

  Soon.

  She ran forward and slammed the window shut.

  “Hey, you missed a few.” Cassie screamed as Ryan appeared in her doorframe, a few crumpled petals in his fist. “You okay?”

  Her whole frame was shaking and she tried to mask it, reaching for her bed and sitting down. Ryan frowned at her, watching her cautiously. She patted the empty space beside her and he sat, the mattress tilting underneath his lanky frame.

  “What’s going on, Cass?”

  In another world, a world in which bizarre creatures from the forest didn’t taunt her through open windows, she realized that having Ryan on her bed for the first time since they started dating might have been a big deal. She reached forward with numb fingers and gripped his hand, hard.

  “You okay?” he asked. She nodded. “We don’t have to be up here, you know. We can go back—”

  “No, it’s not that,” Cassie interrupted, squeezing his fingers. She offered a small smile, leaning closer to him. Her lips had barely brushed his when he pulled back, staring down at her seriously.

  “You know,” Ryan started, his voice soft and low, “we never really did talk about what happened that night.”

  Cassie felt the muscles of her back stiffen, tension ripping through the fibrous chords up her neck. She wet her lips slowly, stalling for time. “What night?” she asked, hoping he might let it go.

  Ryan sighed and shifted away from her on the bed.

  “You remember the day you lost Laney in the woods?” he started. Cassie cringed, her gut folding in on itself. Of course she did. Even as he said the words, the smells, the sensations of that day invaded her mind. She could taste the rot that saturated the air, feel the tiny roots dance up her arm, seeking purchase. The clean, warm air of her bedroom was transformed. Dirt, fresh churned earth, it saturated everything, flooded her mouth. “That next day, when I came to see you, you were a mess.”

  “I know I was,” Cassie whispered in a small voice.

  “But it was more than just losing Laney. You wanted to tell me something that day. You tried but your parents were here. Remember?”

  She did. She remembered tracing words on his thigh, begging him with her eyes to believe her, to listen. She wanted to tell him. Then, flying on the back of the terror, it had seemed to make sense. But now? How could she prove it? He’d think she was paranoid, insane. And maybe she was. She saw things that weren’t there, heard whispers that no one else seemed to hear. But it wasn’t all in her head, it couldn’t be, because Laney was gone and Jessica was dead.

  “I don’t—”

  “You’re hiding something. I can tell that you are,” he pressed. “Is it about Laney? Is something really happening again? Everyone swears that Laney ran away, and who knows, maybe she did. But you were so sure she was kidnapped. We searched everywhere, remember? Is the vandalism and the birds a kind of sick prank? Just a stupid kid? Or is there seriously a group of people out there, looking to d
o more damage?”

  Cassie’s mouth bobbed open and she closed it quickly, gritting her teeth. Ryan watched her intently, locking gazes with her. His hand darted out and caressed her clenched fist.

  “Ry, I told you before,” she started, her words coming out haltingly at first but then gaining strength, “I’ve been saying it from the beginning. There was a group of guys, the same ones from the carnival—”

  “No one ever found anyone from any carnival at all, Cass!” Ryan burst out. He pulled away from her again, bringing one hand up and running it through his hair. “No one else saw anyone like the guys you described. No one.”

  “Because we only thought they worked there!”

  “What happened that night that we landed in that well? How did I hit my head? I had a lump the size of a baseball on my skull, but I landed on my ass. How?”

  “I don’t know!” Cassie cried out, standing up from the bed and pacing to the window. The branches outside were just starting to show the green of the foliage that was making good on its yearly promise.

  “Tell me now, Cass,” Ryan begged. He twisted on the bed, brought his knee up so he was facing her. She turned to face him, hating that this couldn’t be normal boyfriend trouble, that Aidan, and Laney in a way, were still taking over every aspect of her life.

  “Ryan, it was nothing. I was delusional, on meds. I don’t know—” He sighed and got up. “Ry!”

  “Forget it,” he muttered. She moved closer, trying to get him to look at her, but as she did, the doorbell rang downstairs. She stood up straight, her nostrils flaring, trying to pick out any change in the air, any floral hints that would give him away. But no, Aidan wouldn’t ring the doorbell.

  Ryan walked into the hall, peeking down the stairs and through the small window in the top of her door.