“The Woods”
by Olivia Lieby
Growing up, Barbara Ann Thomas was warned not to go into the woods on the edge of their property after nightfall. “The Woods are hungry,” her mama had said, pointing out the dark trees from the step of the porch. “They’ll eat a child like you right up. And they’re not keen on giving something back once they’ve taken it.” And back when Barbara Ann was seven, or eight, or nine, she’d looked up at her mama, the moths flitting around her head like a halo in the glow of the porch light, and she’d believed her.
Now, of course, Barbara Ann had realized that was just a story she’d been told to scare her out of the woods as a kid. The woods are dangerous for a child – but not because of any spooky ghost story. She could have gotten lost out there and died of exposure, or bitten by a snake or a spider she didn’t know to avoid, or carried off by a predator because she was small enough to make for an easy dinner.
She was older, now, and not scared of the woods anymore, so when Harvey, the family dog, had bolted off into the trees a little after 11:30, Barbara Ann didn’t hesitate to follow.
Harvey was a Jack Russel terrier mix, best anyone could figure, and was about as spontaneous as you’d expect of his breed. They’d found him in a cardboard box along with three littermates outside the post office a few years back, and Barbara Ann and her family had taken the responsibility of bringing them all to the vet and getting them adopted out, but her brother, Michael, had grown pretty attached to Harvey. Next thing they knew, he’d had a collar and a place at the foot of each of their beds.
That night, Barbara Ann had let him out for his last walk of the night before going to bed. As usual, he’d trotted quick little circles of the yard before picking a spot to do his business, and Barbara Ann expected him to come scampering right back up the porch steps to go jump into Michael’s bed. Instead, though, Harvey had picked his head up to look toward that dark shadow of the trees, his little ears pricked to hear something outside of Barbara Ann’s range, his nose twitching and sniffing. And then, before she could open her mouth to tell him “No,” and call him inside, Harvey had barked furiously and torn off through the grass and into the trees.
“Harvey! Harvey! God damn it.” She’d sworn, and then ducked inside to grab her jacket and a flashlight – a big heavy-duty thing that really could double as a blunt force weapon in a pinch, and which her father insisted be kept on a table by the back door just in case. For this exact purpose, if she had to guess. Then she’d quickly jogged across the grass to the thin trail cut between the trees and into the woods.
Now, she cut her beam across dense shrubbery and low-hanging branches, leaves flashing in the artificial light. Crickets chirped and cicadas buzzed – a loud, breathing thrum of nature. Somewhere ahead of her, out of range of the flashlight, she heard rustling and the jingling of Harvey’s collar. “Harvey!” She called to him. “Harvey, c’mere. C’mere, boy! Harvey, come!”
She heard his collar stop, and held her breath, waiting to dart out a hand to grab him if he came running to greet her. But Harvey was a stubborn dog, and clearly found the smells of the forest much more interesting than the promise of a warm bed back home. There was a rustling, and more jingling further away this time. Barbara Ann swore under her breath.
Under her feet, the packed-down dirt crunched. A pebble skittered away from her toe. Back the way she came, the porchlight glowed, a warm beacon to find her way back to once she’d grabbed Harvey. Somewhere in the bushes, Harvey snuffled and rustled the underbrush. She still couldn’t see him; her flashlight cast hard shadows behind the trees, so no matter how she squinted, she could only barely make out the faint shapes of foliage past the trunks.
The rustling grew more distant and further apart. Nervousness itched at her belly. She’s not scared of the Woods anymore – she’s not. But there are still things that live in these woods. Bears, maybe. Or the coyote that broke into the neighbor’s chicken coop a few weeks ago. Barbara Ann peered into the darkness, widening her eyes to try to let in more light, but it was useless. Her throat felt tight. Surely if something was out there – was nearby – Harvey would start barking, right?
Unless it’d already got him.
She couldn’t hear him at all anymore – not him tramping through the leaves, not the ringing of his collar. She opened her mouth to call out for him again. Shut it. Swallowed thickly. She hadn’t heard him yelp. If something had got him, Harvey would have gone down screaming. Even their neighbors would have heard it. There was no way she could have missed it. So, if something was nearby, Harvey would be barking.
She tried again, “Harvey!” It came out breathy and quiet, nearly lost under the cicadas. Her second attempt wasn’t much better. “Harvey!”
Nothing.
She turned around to glance back at the house, wondering if she should get her dad, or maybe a handful of treats to tempt Harvey out of the woods, and froze.
Her father had just replaced the porchlight bulb two weeks ago. Without a couple of years’ worth of dead moth wings plastering the light, it glowed warm and bright enough to reach every corner of their yard, including the mouth of the little trail Harvey had bolted down. Barbara Ann had only followed him a few yards into the woods, nowhere near far enough for that trailhead to be out of sight. She should still be able to see the house and that porch light just fine from where she was.
But the house was gone.
And not like her dad hadn’t realized she was out here and shut the light off on her, no. Where her house should be, instead the packed-earth path stretched outward, dark and gleaming with her echoed light. A night-bird cried out in the blackness. The cicadas screamed.
Barbara Ann whirled around, her flashlight meeting the pale grey wall of trees. Towering spires stretched up, curved over and around her – like cartilage, like ribs. She couldn’t see past them. She couldn’t hear Harvey. All there was was the path, and the dark shadows of leaves shivering in her periphery.
Her breath snagged in her throat. She darted down the path a few frantic steps, shouting “Harvey? Harvey! Harvey, come!” She needed her dog. She needed the path. She needed–
She stopped.
She was getting further from home, and if she kept going, she could get lost. And she really, really needed to not get lost right now. She turned around. The path was still there. Still stretched endlessly in front of her; so toward as it is away.
She scurried back the way she came until she found the scuff marks in the dirt from where she was before, her flashlight beam pooling in the little gouges of dirt and disturbed leaves. Had it always looked that way? Had something crossed through – messed up her mark? She took a few steps past it, toward where home should be – nothing, nothing, nothing. She shook and backed up again.
“The Woods are hungry,” her mama had said, and when she was nine, she’d believed her. Barbara Ann shook and shook and shook. She should have never stopped believing her.
A bird called out again, long and sharp and swooping. Then again, and again. The notes hung in the air like it was sounding something out. Like it was listening. She turned her flashlight upwards, but she couldn’t catch the bird, the rustling leaves and rustling feathers just a black shape ghosting the edge of the beam of light.
The trees creaked and groaned, leaning in and flexing out. Her chest stuttered. Her eyes burned. She tracked the beam of light down, down, down, following the gnarled grey bark and creeping moss and lichen cradling the trunks. The leaves and branches twisted and beckoned, and that bird cried out again, again, again. It did not sound like the calls she heard at night from the porch. It sounded impossibly big and impossibly small and impossibly like it was looking at her. It chirruped in the dark, prodding. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“They’ll eat a child like you right up,” She could hear her mama say, and she whimpered as the cicadas screamed and the Woods coiled tight around her, and the path stretched on forever into the dark.
She looked up, through the trees, into the dark of the Woods behind and was suddenly very aware that the blackness was not dark and empty. The blackness had shape. Tears welled in her eyes as the dark of the Woods rose up and moved, a coiled steady slide behind her eyes, a shivering mass in the leaves, and the crickets, and the birds.
The bushes rustled, but there was no jingling to indicate Harvey’s collar. The trees bent in a soft wind, leaning tighter around her, and then swayed back, and then bent in again. Contract and release, contract and release. A heart. Lungs. A throat, pushing food down into the stomach.
“And they’re not keen on giving something back once they’ve taken it.”
Her hand shook on the flashlight. A big, heavy thing, it’s beam bright enough to light a circle on the clouds when her dad pointed it straight up at the night sky. Heavy enough to knock a man out if you hit him in the head with it hard enough. And yet, Barbara Ann thought, gripping it so tight her fingers were going numb, not good enough to save her from this.
The leaves dipped as the bird cried out again and Barbara Ann got the distinct sense of an animal tilting its head. Considering her. The air went thick. She stopped breathing. She just gripped her flashlight, and shut her eyes, and shook. Back home, the covers on her bed lay spilled open, her book waiting for her on the nightstand. She was just letting Harvey out. She was only letting Harvey out. She should have left him out here, or, better yet, just gone to bed and let Harvey wait until morning to go out again. If she had, she would be safe and warm and reading in her bed, but instead she was here, and the Woods encircled her.
A breeze tickled her face, hot and stifling. The brush rustled like cruel laughter. There was a long, heavy silence, the dark sitting thick on her shoulders, and Barbara Ann felt cold tears drip down her face.
And then, all at once–
Harvey’s collar jingled, and the weight lifted away. Barbara Ann snapped her eyes open and gasped for air, just as the dog jumped out of the bushes, barking loudly with teeth flashing and tail wagging. The endless path was gone. The porch light glowed warm and bright on the edges of the leaves.
She scooped Harvey up without a thought, smearing mud and leaf-litter and god-knows-what on her jacket and pajama shirt, but Barbara Ann didn’t pause to adjust him – she just ran. She tore down the few yards of packed dirt, into the open sky of night, through the overgrown grass of the yard, and thundered up the porch steps, disturbing a cloud of anxious moths. She didn’t stop until she’d slammed and latched the door behind her.
The she slid to the floor, clutched Harvey to her chest, and cried.
