The Woods

by R. L. Toalson

  Lenora pressed her hands to her sides, to still the trembling.

  A hole gaped from the bottom of the trunk, carved like a fairy-tale door, though there was no door, only a black cavity that led—where?

  Lenora squinted. Is that where Bobby was?

  And then she had a sudden, horrifying thought. “Is Bobby the Master of these woods?” she said.

  Bela laughed. “No. He is merely the Master’s assistant.”

  What did that mean? Who would receive her? The Master or Bobby?

  And how could she run away with the Master’s assistant?

  Lenora began to doubt the wisdom of coming here, alone. Uncle Richard was right; the woods were dangerous. She could feel it now, in this hollow.

  She glanced behind her. The choking vines blocked the way; how would she escape?

  Bobby. She had to find Bobby. She said, “I want to see Bobby.”

  “In time,” Bela said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Perhaps he is sleeping.” He gestured toward the tree. “Would you like to go inside?”

  No. No, she would not like to go inside. Never, ever, ever.

  “Yes,” she said. She would have to go inside; it was the only way.

  Bela took her arm and pulled her forward. They stopped several feet away from the tree’s gaping hole. It was even blacker up close.

  “The Master must approve your entry,” Bela said.

  Lenora waited for Bela to call. When he didn’t, she said, “How will he know we are here?”

  “The Master knows everything in these woods, Lenora.” The tree in front of them gusted with a violent wind. Lenora shivered.

  “You have nothing to fear, Lenora.” Bela’s hand on her arm was warm and comforting. The wind settled and twirled around them. A leaf landed on her foot. She kicked it off, but not before she saw the shimmering X that marked her black shoe.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Many have come to visit over the years,” Bela said.

  “And where are they now?” She tried to stop her voice from shaking, but it was impossible.

  “They are in the tree,” Bela said. “Living happily ever after, without sorrow.”

  Was happily ever after real? Mrs. Jones had said sorrow was a necessary part of life.

  “The Master has been waiting for a long time to meet you,” Bela said.

  “Why?” Lenora’s words were nearly drowned out by the trees’ hissing.

  “You are brave and kind and . . .” Bela paused. “Young.”

  Something cold knotted inside Lenora’s chest. She suddenly wanted very badly to flee. Right now.

  “I would like to return to Stonewall Manor now,” Lenora announced, her voice high and shrill. She glanced back toward the choking vines. Would they let her back through?

  “But you have not met the Master yet,” Bela said. His hand warmed her arm again. Was that magic he was using? “You are not afraid, are you?”

  Yes. Very much so. But all Lenora could do was shake her head.

  “You have come so far, and you will meet Bobby soon.” Bela’s eyes shone into hers.

  “I want to go home.” It was weak, insubstantial. Did she even believe it?

  Bela clearly didn’t. He smiled. He leaned forward. He said, “He is here.”

  Something emerged from the tree.

  Lenora quaked.

  56

  He was not at all what she had pictured, this Master of the woods. He was much more terrifying, much more ancient. He looked as though he were made of mud—a mud-mummy. He wore a hood around his head, but Lenora could clearly see the black hole for a mouth and the bottomless black eyes that seemed to reach out and grab her by the throat. A shadow cloaked his body—real, or imaginary? Lenora couldn’t be sure. A rope dangled from his crooked neck and unraveled at the end that dragged along the ground.

  Lenora had seen something like him, in the history books, in the faces and figures of those who were hanged as witches or pirates.

  The man held up a bony hand, covered in mud, and pointed one finger at Lenora. His head had a permanent tilt.

  Lenora looked at the tree, at the limbs that twisted and turned. A hanging tree? Is that what it was? Had this man lost his life on it?

  It was much worse than she had imagined.

  The man began to move toward her with leisurely, measured steps. Lenora tried to run—he was so slow, outrunning him would be easy, except that she could not move.

  Bela wrapped a pink arm around her, exuding warmth and comfort. But no amount of warmth and comfort could still Lenora’s thrashing heart or her shaking shoulders.

  And then the man stopped and spoke.

  “Lenora,” he said. “I have missed you.”

  Lenora faltered. “Father?”

  He had the voice of Father. Could it be? Was this a trick of the imagination, or was it real? Had Father finally returned?

  Lenora took a step closer, and Bela’s arm fell away from her shoulders.

  The man did not answer. He did not smile, since he had no mouth with which to smile. He simply stared at her with that strangely tilted head and crept closer and closer and closer. His steps were so slow she almost couldn’t tell he was moving. He stopped several feet from her. All the air sucked out of the clearing.

  “Lenora,” the man said, exactly the way her father had always said it—tender, loving, as though she were his favorite person in the world.

  Tears streaked down Lenora’s cheeks. She knew how improbable it was, but these woods were magical. What if?

  The man limped two steps closer. She could smell the wet mud that covered him.

  Run! her heart said. But she remained.

  “Father.” All her pain wrapped around the one word.

  “Come with me, Lenora,” the man with her father’s voice said.

  But she could smell it now. The death, the decay, the danger. This was not her father. This was not her home.

  The man reached out to touch her, but Lenora cringed away.

  “Lenora.”

  “You are not my father.”

  “I am many things.” And the voice changed. It was the voice of many—men, women, children. How could it contain so many?

  Lenora stared at the man—living or dead?—for a moment longer, and then she ran.

  She did not pay attention to where she was going. She heard Bela behind her, but she did not stop. She rain straight into the vines, which wrapped rapidly around her wrists and ankles and neck. She screamed and struggled and tried her best to break free, but they only tightened around her, cutting off her breath. “I want to go home!” she choked. “I don’t want to be here!”

  The ground shook, and the vines released her. Lenora gasped and stumbled away from them. She ran as fast as she could. She did not know if she could outrun what chased her.

  Without Bela, Lenora had no sense of direction and not enough light. Everything looked the same—the trees, the flowers, the butterflies. She tried to ask some flowers for directions, but they had all closed up like fists. She tried to beg the trees to point the way, but they had all shut their eyes. She tried to find the Waters of Aevum and ask them for help, regardless of the consequences, but she found only blackened, dried-up trenches.

  Had the woods lost its magic?

  “Bela!” she cried. She would not be able to make it out of these woods without Bela.

  A light glowed ahead—a fantastically golden light—and she nearly cried out with relief. But when she came to the clearing from which the light seemed to emanate, the glow disappeared. There was another, farther away, and she chased it as well, all the while calling out for him. He never showed himself, but soon she found herself in the familiar grove of sitting trees.

  She sat on one of them, waiting, her hands shaking. She could not be sure whose side he was on, but she was close enough to the boundary. She would escape if he was not her friend.

  Bela emerged some minutes later, his pink paler now.

 
; “You left me in the woods,” she said. Her chest blazed with a fire she had not felt in a long time. It almost felt good.

  “I did not leave you,” Bela said. “I gave you my light.”

  She could not argue; the golden light is what led her here, to safety.

  “Tell me,” Bela said. His voice was colder, angrier than it had ever been. “Why do you wish to return home, when Bobby was waiting in the tree?”

  “Was he waiting?” Lenora glared at Bela.

  “You doubt my word.”

  Lenora shook her head, but, yes, she did. She doubted these woods. Bobby had, too. And Bobby had disappeared.

  Was it his choice, or was it someone else’s? And how would she know?

  Lenora paced.

  “He spoke with the voice of my father,” she said.

  “To comfort you. He knows he does not have a pleasant face or form.”

  “He is not a man at all, is he?”

  Bela tilted his head. “Does it matter what he is?”

  Did it?

  Bela gestured around him. “He created these woods.” He paused, his eyes taking in the trees, the grass, the sky that could hardly be seen through the leaf cover. “Do you really think someone who created something so beautiful would harm you?”

  She didn’t know. She was so confused. Here, away from the man with bottomless eyes, the woods didn’t seem so harmful. Why was she afraid?

  Lenora looked down at her feet. “He frightened me. That is all.”

  “Bobby was frightened at first, too,” Bela said. “It is nothing to be ashamed of. The bravest often have the most fears.”

  Lenora said nothing.

  “Bobby trusted the Master.” Bela’s voice seemed to weave around her, threading through her doubts and turning them to golden ashes. Lenora shook her head, trying to clear away the confusion. “You could, too.”

  Lenora swiped at her eyes.

  “Lenora.” The trees rustled. “You will come back, won’t you?”

  Lenora nodded.

  What else could she do?

  Lenora strode toward the boundary to the woods, still unsure about everything she had seen and heard and felt.

  “Beware of your uncle,” Bela called. “We will need your help to survive.”

  Lenora turned back, her throat tight. But she nodded; let him think what he wanted to think, until she figured out what was true and what was false.

  She was almost out of the woods when Bela said, “I will always find you, Lenora. You will never be alone.”

  The words were a magical salve.

  Lenora looked up at the sky. Clouds gathered in gray puffs, as if the sun were forbidden to shine today on the weary walls of Stonewall Manor. She only glanced back once at the woods.

  It was glowing golden, like a promise.

  57

  Mrs. Jones sat in the rocking chair on the front porch of Stonewall Manor. Upon seeing Lenora, she gasped.

  “Oh, love.” Her words twisted in Lenora’s stomach. “Come with me, Lenora.”

  Lenora did as she was told. She followed Mrs. Jones through the front door and into the kitchen. “You must be hungry,” Mrs. Jones said, busying herself with a plate, on which she placed a sandwich and some red grapes. When she turned, her face had creased in worry.

  “What is it?” Lenora said. Perhaps news about her family had finally come.

  Mrs. Jones stared at Lenora for a moment, her eyes sparkling. “It’s your hair, love,” she finally said. “It’s turned completely white.”

  Lenora touched her hair, which was pulled tight into a long braid. She swung the tail of it over her shoulder. It was, indeed, completely white. Not a trace of the brown remained.

  She felt a tug in her belly.

  “Why?” Lenora said.

  Mrs. Jones shook her head.

  “It is the woods,” Lenora said. “They have marked me.”

  Mrs. Jones raised her eyebrows. “Now you are talking like your uncle, love.” The words cradled a gentle reproach. But her eyes looked troubled, as though she, too, knew.

  Had she seen what Lenora had seen? The names in Bobby’s book. The children in the pictures. The white hair.

  “My father had white hair,” she said. “You said he went into the woods.”

  “Perhaps the white is passed down through the generations,” Mrs. Jones said. She bit her lip. She did not even believe her words; Lenora could tell.

  “I was looking for Bobby,” Lenora said. “I went deeper than I have ever been. I met . . .” She wondered if she should say.

  Mrs. Jones said, “Bobby is gone.”

  “But you said—”

  “I did not mean for you to endanger yourself.”

  And there they were, the words of admission. Mrs. Jones did believe her.

  Mrs. Jones covered her face with her hands. “Bobby’s hair looked like that the day before he disappeared.”

  “I won’t disappear.” She put a hand on Mrs. Jones’s shoulder. Mrs. Jones folded her hand around Lenora’s.

  “Your uncle would not survive another lost child,” Mrs. Jones said. “Don’t make him have to try.”

  “But I don’t mean anything to him,” Lenora said. The words felt sharp and stiff, like bits of splintered wood. Had they come from the tree? Did she really believe them?

  And why wouldn’t she?

  “Is that what you think?” Mrs. Jones said. “Even still?”

  Lenora looked at the table.

  “Then you are more foolish than I thought.” Mrs. Jones let out a heavy breath that could have been mistaken for a choke. After a minute she said, “You mean everything to him.”

  “But he’s never around,” Lenora said. “He doesn’t even know me. He never talks to me, never looks at me, never seems to care what’s—”

  “You look with the wrong eyes.” Mrs. Jones’s voice was loud, harsh, brittle. Lenora’s throat tightened.

  Silence shifted around them. Lenora said, “I know where Bobby is.”

  Mrs. Jones’s eyes snapped to her face so fast Lenora could almost hear them. Her mouth dropped open.

  “He’s in the tree, in the woods,” Lenora said.

  Mrs. Jones shook her head. “No.” The whisper wrapped around Lenora’s chest and squeezed.

  “He is. I’m going to find him. I’m going to bring him home.”

  Mrs. Jones closed her eyes. “No, Lenora.” Louder now.

  “He’s still alive.”

  “Stop!” Lenora had never heard Mrs. Jones raise her voice like this. She looked into Mrs. Jones’s eyes. They flashed and glinted. “You talk the same foolishness Bobby did.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “He spoke of a child, too. Gladys. A child who disappeared many years ago, a child who had lived in this house, a child he never knew, a child who . . .” Mrs. Jones’s shoulders shook. Lenora could do nothing else but take her hand.

  She had seen the name in Bobby’s journal, along with the date. 1912. She almost opened her mouth, but Mrs. Jones looked up and said, “I watched Gladys’s hair turn white. I watched her walk into the woods. Just like I did with Bobby.” Her hand pressed around Lenora’s, her eyes clearer now than they had been before. “I will not let you do the same.”

  “What if she didn’t die?” Lenora said, so quiet she could almost imagine she had not said the words aloud at all.

  But Mrs. Jones hissed. She said, “I didn’t believe them about the woods. Spirits and demons and invisible things. It’s not logical.” She seemed to be talking to herself, working it out. “But now . . .” She didn’t finish, only changed her direction. “Death is a part of life, Lenora. We all see it at one time or another. It does no good to dwell on what might have been. Bobby couldn’t understand that. But you must.” Her eyes softened, along with her voice. “You must.”

  Lenora dropped her eyes to their entwined hands. Mrs. Jones stood up and shuffled to the other side of the kitchen. She came back with a newspaper.

  She slid it towa
rd Lenora.

  Lenora looked at the date: June 1, 1947. Today’s paper. The front-page picture showed a line of sheets, raised in places as though something lay beneath them.

  “It’s time you saw this,” Mrs. Jones said. “Your uncle wanted to spare you, but I fear you will never move on if you don’t know.”

  Lenora skimmed the article, which told of the multitude of bodies found in Texas City that were missing body parts or so mangled they could not be identified. Lenora stared at the line of sheets, under which she now knew were the dead bodies to which the article referred. She swallowed something large and jagged and shoved away the paper. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she managed to say, though she could not feel her lips moving.

  Mrs. Jones’s voice was low when she said, “It means you may never know. Will you wait for them forever, since you do not know for sure?”

  Lenora could not answer. She did not want to think about it—not at all. Why had no word come by now if they were alive?

  Would she keep waiting forever?

  For what?

  “It’s a process of elimination,” Mrs. Jones said. “Those who are alive have already notified their families.”

  Lenora shook her head. She wanted to say, They will come, as she always did, but the words tangled in her throat.

  She did not believe them anymore.

  58

  Mrs. Jones didn’t say anything for a very long time. And when she did, the words were not what Lenora wanted to hear, but perhaps they were what she most needed to hear. “Four hundred and five people died and were identified,” she said. “Sixty-three bodies have not been identified. As hard as it is to consider, I believe your parents and your sister and brothers are among the unidentified. It is why no word has come in all these months.”

  “No.” Lenora’s throat pinched. Her nose burned. Her arms shook.

  No.

  “This is your home now,” Mrs. Jones said. “We are your family.”

  Tears streamed down Lenora’s face. “This will never be my home.” The words had no conviction. They were shards in her mouth.

  If not, then where?

  “It’s not an easy place, I know,” Mrs. Jones said. “But we’ll make it a home again. We’ll start a new life.”