The Woods

by R. L. Toalson

  48

  A glass surface sparkled in front of Lenora and Bela, mirroring the dark tops of trees that seemed to lean in and purposefully cover up the sky. A layer of mist hung above the water, and a thin blue light emanated from beneath it. The clearing was completely silent, except for Lenora’s thumping heart. It smelled as clean as the laundry her mother used to hang on the clothesline to dry—like earth and hope all mixed together. Lenora closed her eyes and breathed.

  Coming to the Waters of Aevum was the right thing to do, then.

  The waters rippled toward her like the keyboard of a piano, played by invisible fingers. And when it reached her, a vine of silver water arranged itself into a question mark.

  “What would you like to know?” The voice that reached her ears was like the collective whisper of a thousand people.

  Lenora scrambled back from the bank, remembering the other water that had nearly taken her to its black depths. Bela placed a glowing pink hand on her head.

  “Do not be afraid, Lenora,” he said. “This water will not hurt you. It will tell you whatever you desire, but you must only ask it one question.”

  One question. She had so many to ask.

  “I cannot ask more?”

  Bela shook his head. “The waters will answer only one. If you ask it another, it will drag you to its bottom. And . . .” Bela paused. “I am not entirely sure it has a bottom.”

  Lenora shuddered. So there was some danger here.

  “Are you ready?” Bela said.

  Lenora nodded, but she could not speak. It was too much pressure, only one question, when so many plagued her mind. She closed her eyes and breathed.

  “Look into the waters, and you will find your answer,” the Waters of Aevum said in their multitudinous whisper.

  Lenora peered into the waters. She saw her reflection briefly, before it disappeared. She did not see anything for a moment, except for the water’s silver glass, and then the surface shimmered and wrinkled and rose and fell. Her face turned into her mother’s face and her father’s face and her brothers’ and her sister’s and her mother’s again. Her mother said only, “He needs you.” And then the vision disappeared.

  It could mean so many things.

  “But—”

  “You must ask nothing else,” Bela said sharply, pulling her away from the edge of the pool.

  “Another day?” Lenora felt the tears welling up within her. She had no answer at all. He needs you? Who? Her father? Bobby? Uncle Richard? The waters had not done their work. They had not kept their promise. She had no clarity at all.

  Lenora clenched her fists. “They tricked me,” she said.

  “What did you see?” Bela said.

  “My family. It was not an answer to anything.”

  “The Waters of Aevum are difficult to decrypt,” Bela said. “You must try your best.”

  Lenora shook her head. “There is so much I don’t know.” Her voice wavered. “Everywhere. There are questions people refuse to answer, questions that cannot be answered, questions that should be but aren’t answered.” She glared at the water. “I would like to go home.”

  “Where is home?” Bela said, and the words choked Lenora.

  Where was home? Was it here, in the woods? Was it with Uncle Richard? Was it back in Texas City? She did not even know what had happened in all these days after the disaster. What if Texas City didn’t exist anymore? Then what?

  “I must find out what happened to my family,” she said. “What happened to my home.”

  “You have no need of your former home,” Bela said. “You have a home here. With the creatures of the forest.” Eyes pierced the darkness around them, eyes that lifted the endless black curtain and shone into it a golden promise. Connection. Companionship. Belonging.

  As if to punctuate the promise, one of the white rabbits that had invited her to tea brushed against her leg. He was warm and comforting. She felt Bela’s words tugging at her, pulling her to her feet, drawing her deeper than she had ever been before. But she strained against them, still unready to remain in the woods.

  “I must know,” Lenora said. “I will never truly enjoy a new home until I know.”

  Bela stared at her for a moment before dipping his head. The fur around his neck shifted with the movement. “Very well, Lenora,” he said. “I will take you back. But you may not return.” His eyes were very sad as he turned away.

  “I will.”

  “Your uncle—”

  “I promise.”

  Bela did not answer.

  Before crossing the border between Stonewall Manor and Gilgevnah Woods, Lenora hugged Bela tightly. “You are my best friend,” she said. “I will always come back to you.”

  The Scorlaman glowed with a radiant pink light that Lenora had come to understand, in their days together, was his expression of joy. She smiled as she turned away.

  But the smile soon slid from her lips, for there, just outside the border of the woods, stood her uncle, a storm gathering in his eyes.

  49

  Uncle Richard did not say anything. And that was much worse than the words she expected to hear.

  All the way up to the house, all the way across the porch, all the way into the dining room, he remained silent. And Lenora quaked. She knew the storm in his eyes would eventually break.

  Lenora was surprised to see that the sun was low in the sky. Had she been gone so long? Time did not pass the same way in the woods as it did outside, it seemed. She glanced back, but only for a moment.

  She followed Uncle Richard to the supper table. Mrs. Jones looked at her with eyes that sparked and flared. She set down Lenora’s plate with a loud clatter. She did not apologize for the noise that caused Lenora to jump; in fact, she looked as though she thought Lenora deserved it.

  And Lenora thought she was probably right.

  Lenora turned over in her mind every opening in this room, trying to determine whether she could pull off a stealthy escape between her uncle’s exit from supper and Mrs. Jones’s entrance to clear the plates. She was afraid of Uncle Richard’s wrath, but she was more afraid of Mrs. Jones’s.

  She stared at her plate and moved her food in slow circles, rearranging it to look like she had done more than simply play with it. The silence wrapped around her neck and squeezed, making it difficult to breathe. The waiting was torture.

  Uncle Richard ate his chicken and scraped up a forkful of peas and twisted off a small piece of bread and still said nothing. Lenora glanced at him every so often. His face had smoothed now and did not appear so terrifying, but she could tell his jaw was still clenched tight. When he chewed, there was a small muscle that vibrated. That had never been the case before.

  When supper was nearly done, she grew tired of waiting for words. She wanted to get this over with, so she said, “You did not have to wait on me to eat supper.” She felt rebellious, contradictory.

  Uncle Richard’s head snapped up. His dark eyes studied her, as though she were a curious specimen he was examining beneath a microscope in his lab. “One does not eat supper until the entire family is gathered,” he said. “Your grandfather taught me that.”

  A boulder dropped inside the middle of Lenora’s chest. Yet another member of her family she had never known. The sorrow of it—the anger of it—emboldened her. “We are not a family,” she said.

  The words felt true; a family talked to one another, spent time in the presence of one another. A family laughed, cried, played, planned together. Since coming to Stonewall Manor, Lenora had done none of those things with Uncle Richard.

  Uncle Richard set down his fork with a loud clang, and Lenora flinched, for the second time since supper began. He patted the corners of his wide mouth with a perfectly white napkin. He looked so proper, so unapproachable in his pressed blue vest and dark gray shirt buttoned up to his neck. A brass timepiece poked from the pocket of his vest like a miniature robot captured within a fold. She took a second glance. No. It was only a timepiece.

&nbs
p; “You are my niece,” Uncle Richard finally said. “We are a family.”

  “There is more to a family than blood,” Lenora said. She remembered Father saying something similar, when he talked about the men on his volunteer fire team. He loved them like they were brothers, sons, fathers. Did she love Uncle Richard? And, more important, did he love her?

  Uncle Richard stared at her for a long while, and though Lenora dropped her gaze to her still-full plate, she could see him out of the corners of her eyes. His head tilted, then straightened. He looked at his plate and back up at her.

  What was he trying to find?

  When the silence grew too heavy in her throat, Lenora spoke to the table. “I do not expect you to understand. Perhaps your family operated differently than mine did. But in my family, we enjoyed each other’s company.”

  She braved a look at her uncle now. His face was divided into lines of ancient sorrow. He looked much older in that moment, and she tried to rub the pinch from her chest, but her pressing did little to ease it.

  “And you believe I do not enjoy your company,” Uncle Richard said.

  Lenora bit her bottom lip.

  “My son thought the same.” The words drew Lenora’s gaze back to Uncle Richard’s face. “It is why he ran away.”

  It was the first time Lenora had heard Uncle Richard speak freely about Bobby, and she sat still, hardly breathing, not wanting to break the spell. Perhaps he would tell her now what had happened to his family. Perhaps she would learn that he was not someone to fear but someone to love. She longed to trust Uncle Richard, but trust did not come without knowing another person, and she knew nothing about him, only the pieces she had been accidentally given, the pieces the woods had shown her.

  She would like to be given pieces on purpose.

  So she waited.

  Uncle Richard leaned back in his chair, and his next words were entirely unexpected. “It is not easy losing the ones we love, is it?”

  Lenora sucked in a breath. What was he telling her? His eyes were unreadable, dark pools of shadow and mystery. He seemed very far away from this room.

  “I did not know how I could possibly live after I lost Edith and Mary.” Uncle Richard’s breath shook out into a whisper. “And then Bobby.”

  Still Lenora waited, a silent statue. But she could not remain invisible; Uncle Richard was an observant man. His eyes moved and fixed on her. They were disturbing eyes now, angry and disappointed. “You were in the woods again.” It was an accusation that snatched her heart, spun it around, and let it loose so it galloped and thrashed in every direction. “Why were you in the woods again? Do you wish to die?”

  Lenora’s legs tensed involuntarily, as if she were preparing to flee. She didn’t know what to say, and even if she did, her voice had left her already.

  Uncle Richard must have noticed the terrified look on her face, because his eyes softened and glistened. “I want only to protect you, Lenora,” he said, his voice gentle. “That is all. I swear it.”

  Lenora closed her eyes. It could be Father’s voice.

  She said, “There are no dangers, Uncle.” She opened her eyes. “Bobby is there.”

  Uncle Richard’s eyes widened.

  “He is alive,” Lenora continued.

  “No.” Uncle Richard shook his head. “No, Lenora.”

  “He is! I will bring him home to you. Only don’t destroy the woods.”

  “Is that what the woods told you?” Uncle Richard shoved his chair back. It clattered to the floor. “The woods lie for their own purposes.”

  Lenora shook her head. “No.” It came out like a whisper.

  Uncle Richard placed two hands on the table and leaned toward her. It was a large table, but she could feel his anger. “From now on, you will be a prisoner at Stonewall Manor.” His voice was rough and jagged.

  “I will not be a prisoner!” She was surprised by her own fury.

  “It is the only way I can keep you safe.”

  “You are not my father. This is not my home. It will never be my home. And you will never be my family.”

  She gasped and smacked her hand to her mouth.

  She had not meant it. Not at all.

  Uncle Richard straightened. He tugged on the bottom of his vest, rubbed his nose, closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. “Stay away from the woods, Lenora. I will not lose you, too.”

  He was gone before she could say another word.

  If he had remained, she would have said so much, starting with, You are wrong. Or maybe, I will not lose you, either.

  Which would have made the bigger difference?

  50

  Mrs. Jones entered the room immediately, as though she had been listening at the door. Lenora knew she had been.

  “Here, love,” Mrs. Jones said. “Come with me.”

  Mrs. Jones wrapped an arm around her and helped her through the kitchen door and into a chair. Her legs felt so weak. She was so tired.

  “Would you like some tea, love? And perhaps a bit of cake?”

  Lenora didn’t answer, but Mrs. Jones set both in front of her anyway. Her throat throbbed, but she cut off a small chunk of the cake and shoved it in her mouth.

  After a time, Mrs. Jones spoke. “You cannot stay away from the woods, can you?” Her voice was soft, gentle, understanding—a warm balm on chapped skin. She folded her hands in front of her and leaned back in her chair.

  Lenora licked icing from her fork and stared at the table.

  “Bobby couldn’t stay away, either,” Mrs. Jones said. She whispered the next words: “It was our little secret.”

  Lenora’s eyes flicked to Mrs. Jones’s earnest face. “You let him go?”

  Mrs. Jones nodded and smiled sadly. “If your uncle knew . . .” She shook her head. “Bobby would visit the woods while his father worked. I kept an eye on him, and he would tell me the wonders he had seen.” Her hands squeezed each other.

  But Bela had said the woods would disappear if she told anyone what she had seen. Why hadn’t they disappeared when Bobby told their secrets?

  “I could not see the wonders, but Bobby described them well.” Mrs. Jones wrestled something from her pocket and placed it on the table. It was a small brown book. She tapped the cover. “In fact, he wrote about them in his journal. He was a wonderful artist.” She paused. “Maybe he saw what you see.”

  Mrs. Jones pushed the journal across the table. Lenora looked at the book and back at Mrs. Jones. “Why are you showing me this?” she said.

  Mrs. Jones hesitated before saying, “If there is a way to put Bobby to rest and give your uncle peace, well . . .” She let the words trail off. Her eyes took hold of Lenora and seemed to warm her all over. “If his body can be found in the woods, we must find it.”

  “He’s in the woods,” Lenora said. “But he’s alive.”

  Mrs. Jones shook her head. When she spoke, her voice had a wistful tone. “I gave up my hope long ago,” she said. She nodded toward the journal. “His last entries were . . .” She paused, as though searching for a word. “Disturbing.” Her eyes turned to glass. “I should not have let him go that last time.”

  “But the woods are not evil,” Lenora said.

  Mrs. Jones shrugged.

  Lenora tried again. “They heal our sorrow. We should all go.”

  “The woods tell you what they want to tell you, Lenora. That does not make it so.”

  “But why would Bobby have stayed all these years?” Lenora stared at the journal.

  “Bobby died in those woods,” Mrs. Jones said. “He would not have left the father he loved.”

  Lenora thought it best not to mention the visions the trees had shown her today.

  “Sorrow is a necessary part of life,” Mrs. Jones continued. “The only thing that can heal sorrow is time. And even then . . .” She took a long, deep, shuddering breath and let it out. “Even then, it does not always heal straight. It sometimes heals crooked.” Mrs. Jones glanced at Lenora, then down at her hands. “That is wh
at happened to your uncle.”

  “What does he want?” Lenora said. She wasn’t sure what she was asking. What her uncle wanted with the woods? With her? With an army of robots? Maybe she was asking all those things.

  Mrs. Jones lifted her eyes and looked at the ceiling, as though it could give her answers to all the deepest wonderings. “He wants a family,” she finally said. “But he doesn’t know how to make one.”

  “Which is why he needs Bobby,” Lenora said.

  “Which is why he needs you.” There was no doubt in Mrs. Jones’s words, only certainty.

  The words rang in Lenora’s ears, the same words she’d heard from her mother, reflected in the Waters of Aevum: He needs you.

  “He doesn’t need me.”

  “He needs you more than even he knows.” Mrs. Jones leaned back again in her chair. “I want to tell you a story, Lenora. Do you want to hear it?”

  Yes. Of course she did.

  51

  Lenora thought the story might be about her family. And she was right, in a way. Just not the family she expected.

  “Your father and your uncle loved one another more than any brothers I had ever known,” Mrs. Jones began. “I cared for them. I had cared for many children before them. I should know.” She smiled. She must have seen the confusion on Lenora’s face. She said, “I only became a cook when your father and your uncle were too old for a nanny. I wanted to stay and watch them grow up.”

  Lenora leaned forward.

  “They were brilliant young men—loving, handsome, promising. It broke my heart when they separated.”

  “Because of science and faith,” Lenora said.

  “Yes. But there was something more.” She sighed. “Your uncle had fits. He would stare blankly into space sometimes, or he would fling himself on the ground, his eyes rolled back and his tongue hanging out. Sometimes he would bite his tongue so badly it would swell up and he would have trouble breathing. It was frightening for your father.” Mrs. Jones wiped at an invisible spot on the table. “The people in this town were always narrow-minded. They whispered about your uncle, said he had been possessed by demons.”