THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
Alice
“It’s too nice a night to sit inside,” Geoff had said to Alice after dinner, proposing instead that they have a glass of wine on the back deck while the sun sets.
She nodded, told him she was going to take the recycling out and would meet him there.
She hoped he’d offer to do it for her, but he was too busy pouring the remainder of the bottle into his glass.
Leaving none for her. She grabbed the recycling and headed outside, hoping by the time she got to the back deck she would have walked off her irritation.
Going around the side of the house, she notices what looks like a path into the woods, just outside of Polly’s room.
Stopping to get a better look, she finds footprints in the soft dirt.
Footprints that lead away from the house and are far too big to be Polly’s.
Without thinking, her mind already imagining a million scenarios of serial killers, rapists, and serial-killing rapists stalking her daughter, she knocks hard on Polly’s window.
Polly’s there within seconds, yanking the curtain back, a wide smile on her face, which immediately disappears as soon as she clocks Alice. “What the hell?” she says through the screen. Ugly irritation all over her pretty face.
Alice points at the small path into the woods. “There are footprints leading into the woods,” she says loudly, so that Polly fully understands her concern. “Big ones. Man-size.”
Polly shrugs, her eyes narrowing. “So?”
“Have you seen anyone out here?”
Polly’s eyes widen and then roll back so only the whites are visible. “Jesus, Mom. You’re such a paranoid freak sometimes. It’s probably an old path from the people who lived here before.” She closes her curtains on Alice, ending the conversation.
Alice’s fear quickly drains away. Nothing can make you feel like a fool faster than your teenage daughter, she thinks.
Looking back at the path, her paranoia is replaced with suspicion.
Polly doesn’t seem concerned at all about male footprints right outside her bedroom window, which makes Alice think that she probably knows who they belong to.
A boy. Could Polly already have some boy traipsing through the woods for secret visits? If anyone could, it’s Polly.
Stepping onto the path, Alice parts branches to make her way deeper into the trees to follow the footprints.
They lead about thirty feet into the woods and then suddenly stop.
Alice glances around to see if they pick up anywhere else, but all she sees is undisturbed ground and fallen leaves.
Turning to go back, thinking that maybe Polly was right, it’s an old path that’s just slowly being covered over, she spots a tree a few feet away with a symbol carved into its base.
Moving closer, she knows right away that she’s seen it before.
It’s one of the symbols carved into Polly’s floor—an upside-down triangle with a spiral in the middle of it and an X on the inverted tip.
She searched it on the internet but could only find meanings of the individual parts: the spiral meant rebirth and the inverted triangle was feminine energy.
Something is carved in the upper-left corner of the triangle.
It’s tiny, so Alice has to lean down to get a better look.
The sun has started its slow descent and shadows have crept in, darkening the carving so that no matter how close she gets, she just can’t quite make it out. Putting a finger to it, she traces the lines of it, like reading braille—P. She gasps, pulling her hand away.
P for Polly.
Stumbling out of the woods she races around the corner of the house to where Geoff is sitting in a deck chair, halfway through his large glass of wine, scrolling on his phone.
“There you are,” he says, not even looking up from his screen to see the panic on her face.
“There’s a tree,” she hisses at him, not wanting anyone else to hear.
“Outside Polly’s window. With one of those weird carvings on it.
” He finally looks up. “And the initial P is carved right in the symbol.” He gives his head a little shake, the wine slowing down his processing skills.
“P for Polly,” she rasps so loud spit flies from her mouth.
“Are you sure?” he asks, putting his phone and glass of wine down on the deck. She nods and he pushes himself out of the chair. “Show me.”
Alice leads him around the house, putting a finger to his lips and pointing at Polly’s window, not wanting to alert her to what they’re doing.
She motions him into the trees, following the footprints until they stop.
She does a half turn, just like she had when she’d first gone in there, but she can’t find the tree with the carving.
She turns the other way, thinking maybe she got her directions mixed up, but every tree around them is the same, no carving.
“Where is it?” he whispers.
She looks down at the ground and sees where she disturbed the leaves moments ago. “It was right here,” she says, pointing at the tree where the carving should be, her voice full of uncertainty.
“I don’t see anything, Alice.”
“Neither do I. But…” She doesn’t even know what to say.
“It’s dark in here,” Geoff says, already turning to go back. “You probably just thought you saw it because it’s on your mind.”
“I felt it,” she says to his receding figure. He keeps moving but glances back over his shoulder at her, his eyes full of wary concern. “I’m not crazy,” she spits at him, in response to the look, making her sound even crazier.
He stops and turns back toward her. “I never said you were.” The defensive edge to his voice clearly indicates that he hadn’t said it but had thought it. “Come on.” He motions to her, his voice softer, kinder, like he’s talking to a confused child. “Let’s go finish our wine.”
She doesn’t bother reminding him that he’s the only one drinking.
She just nods, letting him turn and walk out of the woods without her.
Only once he’s gone does she move over to the tree that she’s sure had the carving on it, to put her hand against the bark.
It’s not rough like the first time she touched it, but soft, like skin, and warm.
Keeping her hand there, pressed hard against it, she’s sure she feels a pulse.