14. Sunday, October 15, 2023
Alice
She drives home slowly, sipping the herbal tea she got at Polly’s coffee shop, wishing she’d gotten a latte instead.
You were supposed to drink herbal tea after an early-morning yoga class, she knew, not a latte, and Alice was not immune to that pressure.
Polly looked at her weirdly when she ordered it.
Before that, though, she’d been standing in line with the Sunday-morning rush of customers, watching her daughter behind the counter.
Studied the practiced, polite smile she gave to each customer, how they leaned in closer to her like she was magnetic, smiling back and dropping coins in the tip jar.
Alice marveled at how deftly Polly worked the espresso machine, steamed the milk, bagged the baked goods.
How fast her fingers flew across the screen of the little iPad thing that has replaced cash registers.
Alice felt a sense of loss that came from watching her daughter existing in the world as an independent being, with no need for her mother.
But there was pride mixed in there, too, making her want to turn to the person in line behind her and say, That’s my daughter.
Isn’t she smart and capable and beautiful?
She’d felt relaxed during the yoga class, but that didn’t last and she’s now back to her usual state of mixed emotions and unease.
She wonders if she’ll ever not be anxious.
Her therapist told her she should try to fit in at least one yoga class a week to help her learn how to relax and be more mindful.
She hadn’t gone since they moved to Merrymont—until this morning.
To a nearby studio that one of the neighbors had suggested.
It was during savasana, when she was no longer concentrating on doing the postures correctly, that her thoughts came charging in.
She knows that you’re not supposed to think about anything during that part, but her brain rarely cooperates.
It went right to Polly quizzing her on Friday night about Beverley’s sweater change in the woods and how the cat had gotten back inside the cabin.
She’d asked her mother about both things. Beverley had looked down at the sweater she was wearing and shrugged, saying, “I honestly can’t recall what I was wearing when I went into the woods.” In response to the cat mystery she’d said, “Aren’t cats amazing creatures?”
Beverley couldn’t remember anything other than following the cat in and tripping on a tree root before it all went blank.
The fall made Alice assume she’d hit her head.
Despite that, though, her mother said she felt amazing, better than she had in years.
Alice encouraged her mother to go to the hospital to get checked out, but her mother dismissed the idea with a laugh and said the bourbon would do nicely.
Alice’s next stop was the trail-cam footage.
But the camera proved absolutely useless, again.
The last thing recorded was a crow landing on a branch a few feet away at 6:26 p.m. and then the camera went to static and stayed that way for thirty minutes.
When it came back online, nothing was recorded after that, not even when they were all standing at the edge of the woods waiting for Geoff to return with Beverley.
Alice had to assume the thing had shorted out, just like Quinn’s drone.
It was all “pretty fucking suspicious,” as Polly had said, after she’d asked to see the footage from that night and Alice had explained there wasn’t any.
Another oddity she didn’t dare mention to Polly was how similar her mother’s experience was to Geoff’s—neither remembered a thing about being lost in the woods but both came out feeling better than when they’d gone in.
This had Alice thinking about the details of Geoff’s night in the woods.
She could remember what he was wearing when he came out of the woods—jeans and a red-and-black buffalo-check button-down—because she’d examined him closely for blood and bumps.
But she couldn’t remember what he was wearing when he went in.
She’d taken photos of her and Libby the night of the party, so she looked them up on her phone.
In the background of one of the photos, half of Geoff’s body was visible. He was wearing a denim button-down.
No black-and-red buffalo check in sight.
The sight of it snatched her breath away, then her brain swooped in to take care of it.
He must have changed partway through the party.
Maybe he’d spilled something on the denim shirt and had ducked away to put something else on.
She didn’t ask him, because she didn’t want to hear otherwise, but lying there in savasana pose days later, doubt crept back in.
By the time the yoga teacher told them to bring their focus back into the space by wiggling their fingers and toes, Alice’s brain hurt from all the thinking she’d done.
She’d always had the tendency toward anxiousness, but after Lucy died, after she’d surfaced from the crippling grief and set about trying to get through each day in a semi-productive way, the anxiety became a steady, low-level hum.
Alice’s therapist told her the car accident had deprived her of a feeling of control, which was the root cause of her anxiety.
She told her to assert control whenever she could by noticing her anxiety, checking if her fears were rational, correcting her thoughts if they weren’t, and taking action if they were.
That’s why, as she pulls into her driveway, Alice decides she’s going to go into the woods with some red ribbon and clearly mark the trail.
If members of her family keep getting lost in there, she’ll fix it so they can find their way out.
She will take control of the situation and see what’s in there for herself.
Geoff’s car is in the driveway, but he isn’t in the house.
Alice assumes he’s busy in his writing studio so doesn’t bother him.
Quinn texted earlier that he was going to Jason’s, and he still hates her, so he won’t be joining her either.
Alice puts on running shoes and finds some red yarn in a box filled with items from a previous junk drawer.
She slides her phone in the side pocket of her leggings and heads out.
Halfway across the yard, a tug of guilt causes her to turn back around and knock on her mother’s door.
There’s no answer when she knocks, so she pokes her head in.
“Mom?” One of the cats runs up to rub herself against Alice’s leg, but other than that, there’s no sign of life.
Alice shoos it away and shuts the door, curious where her mother could be but relieved that she doesn’t have to bring her along.
Beverley would probably make fun of her for the ribbon idea anyway.
It’s a beautiful, sunny fall day, but at least three degrees colder in the woods than on the lawn, and Alice immediately regrets the light windbreaker she’s wearing.
Walking farther in than she has before, she’s amazed at how thick the forest is around her.
The sun barely breaks through the canopy overhead, and when it does it creates only thin spears of light stretching to the forest floor.
It feels as though she’s stepped into a whole new dimension, but she’s only yards from her home.
Otherworldly, that’s the word that comes to mind.
At twenty paces into the woods, Alice ties her first ribbon. It feels like a silly, pointless task. She carries on, though, deciding that she might not go as far afield as she’d originally thought.
After about ten minutes of walking and ribbon tying, Alice notes that the path curves and slopes downward.
A wall of earth and tree roots rises over Alice’s head on one side of the path while the other side drops down into a ravine of tall ferns.
From above it looks like an ocean of green, the leaves undulating in the breeze like waves.
She can’t believe how vibrant they are, even in October.
Alice steps to the very edge of the path on the ravine side.
She wants to capture the sea of ferns with her phone, already knowing the photo won’t do it justice.
Leaning forward over the edge and holding her phone out as far as she can to get a full aerial view, she feels the dirt under her front foot begin to shift.
She tries to push back on it, but that only makes things worse, tamping the dirt lower so that she begins to slide down the ravine.
She instinctively throws her arms backward, opening her hands so that her phone flies free and disappears into the thick ferns below.
Unable to fight the pull of gravity, Alice’s whole body slides down through the soft, wet earth, picking up speed as she goes.
She somersaults two or three times before she hits the bottom.
Stunned, she lies there gasping for breath, waiting for the wind that was knocked clean out of her to return.
She’s afraid to move. Afraid she’s broken something.
When her breath finally returns, she very slowly wiggles her toes and her fingers.
Nothing hurts, so she lifts one leg and then the other.
No pain there either. Finally, she tries both arms and is flooded with relief to feel only stiffness.
It’s thanks to that yoga class she’d been at earlier.
If she’d fallen down that ravine in her usual tensed-up state, she would have shattered into a million little pieces.