Chapter 49
Two jack-o’-lanterns sit leering on our front steps.
My hands feel frigid from the work. Carving a pumpkin is always more appealing in theory than in practice.
Today is Halloween. I don’t expect we’ll have any trick-or-treaters but it feels wrong to not mark the holiday somehow.
And perhaps it will appease Topher to see me doing something normal, something festive.
I’m about to go inside to grab some matches when I think I see a dark shape move in the woods just past the orchard.
It’s at enough of a distance that I can’t be sure.
But I swear, I swear, I saw something. Without thinking, I take off at a run, through the orchard, past the rotted apples and into the woods.
I pause momentarily, straining my ears, eyes darting in all directions. And I can see something moving through the trees, maybe twenty yards ahead. And I can hear the snapping of twigs. Someone is there.
I follow, half jogging, half walking, my body physically unsure of how far I dare go. But I keep my eyes trained on the dark shape, moving with some speed, through the forest.
“Stop!” I yell, my voice sounding too loud somehow, regret and fear that this is a mistake suddenly taking violent hold.
Then quieter. “Lydia?”
The figure has stopped, stands still, a black shape almost blending in with the trees, the late October sky already darkening everything below. I get a flash of every horror movie I’ve ever seen. The Ring. The Shining. The Blair Witch Project.
“Don’t run,” I say, keeping my voice level. And I try not to gasp, as I step cautiously on trembling legs, when I realize the figure is wearing a black hood.
* * *
When they turn, it takes me a moment to process that the face I’m seeing is that of a teenager. A girl with long brown hair and frightened-looking eyes. Behind her, I realize, is another girl, a blonde with a more confident gaze, also wearing that fucking scarf.
“What are you doing here?” Confusion has replaced the fear. These two girls are certainly not ghosts. Nor witches. I don’t think.
“We are so sorry,” says the brunette, voice trembling.
“I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” she hisses to her friend.
“We didn’t think you’d notice,” says the blonde, stepping toward me. “Honestly, I know it’s trespassing, but you’ve got so much property we figured you’d never know. I didn’t realize how close we were to the meadow.”
“But why? Why are you in these woods?” My brain feels like it’s working on overload, trying to digest and make sense of the people standing in front of me.
“Did Madeline put you up to it?” The thought suddenly occurs to me.
“What? No!” the blonde nearly shouts. “Definitely not.”
“We came to find the witch,” the brunette says sheepishly.
“It’s like a rite of passage,” explains the blonde. Up close, I can see that she’s cold and her nose is running. She pulls the scarf tighter around her neck. “You know, go into the woods of Wildwood and see if you run into the witch.”
“Do other kids do this?” I think of the times I was in the woods, hearing the crack of twigs that sounded human, the sound of laughter.
“Oh yeah,” they both say in unison.
“Please don’t call the cops,” pleads the brunette. “My parents will kill me. Our car is just on the road, we’ll leave now.”
Suddenly, I feel depleted. The adrenaline that had propelled me into the woods is completely gone, and I suddenly feel very, very tired.
“No, no I won’t call the cops. But please don’t come back here again. And please tell your friends too. People hunt in these woods. It’s dangerous.”
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you.” The girls hurry past me, two twin shapes moving through the darkening forest.
“Wait!” I call, before they are out of sight. They both turn.
“Where did that story come from? The story of the witch?”
The blonde shrugs. “Everyone knows it. It happened here once when my parents were young. The witch took a girl from her bed at night.”
I expect them to laugh, acknowledge the silliness of the lore. But they don’t.
And then they turn to go, picking their way through the woods to safety, and I make my way back home, a strange feeling turning in my stomach.
I won’t tell Topher. I know that I should, but I won’t.
He’ll see it as proof that there was an innocent explanation all along.
Just a bunch of teenagers causing trouble.
But I don’t think that’s right. After Lucy and Simon told me about the lore, I looked it up online, even though I knew it wouldn’t yield any results.
Nothing had come up before on my exhaustive Google searches.
But its absence was even more suspicious than had anything actually popped up.
Sure, there might not have been any documented witch trial, but if the lore persists, it started from something.
Certainly, some teenage sleuth or podcaster would have compiled a site dedicated to the witch of Wildwood.
But it’s as though the internet has been wiped clean of the story.
Yet the story lives on, the lore strong enough to send kids far from town down a dirt road, and into the wild woods, looking for a witch.