18. Friday, October 27, 2023
Alice
Alice hadn’t planned on visiting the strange old woman, let alone unannounced.
And yet, here she is, at the end of her work day, on the other side of the woods, pulling into a driveway with a mailbox marked Crowley.
She blames the podcast. It’s made her question everything, and now she’s desperate for answers.
She needs to know what the old woman knows.
The driveway is long, narrow, and meandering, reaching well into the woods. Alice couldn’t turn around even if she wanted to. Her sense of claustrophobia grows the farther in she drives. She only fully exhales when she spies through the trees a circular driveway in front of a two-story log cabin.
She doesn’t get out of the car right away, taking a few seconds to survey the property and make sure Ruth doesn’t come out with a shotgun.
It’s a contrast to her own place with its expansive front and back lawns, swimming pool, cabins, and a larger, more updated home.
This place has a modest front yard with wild gardens leaving only strips of grass to walk through.
There are a couple of open-fronted shacks stacked with wood and a shed that leans so far to one side it’s resting up against a tree for support.
A rusty green pickup is parked in the driveway.
Alice is just getting out of her car when the front door opens and Ruth Crowley appears. She’s wearing the same long brown dress that she’d had on in the bank the day they met, and her hair is still wild. The only difference in her appearance is the owl perched on her left shoulder.
“I’m so sorry to come unannounced,” Alice says, staying in front of her car in case she’s not welcome and needs to get out of there quickly.
Ruth, frowning, waves her toward the house. “It’s fine, just hurry and get inside,” she calls out.
Alice does as she’s told, glancing up at the sky to see if it’s about to rain, but it’s a cloudless blue.
As she steps up on the porch, she’s struck by the fear that the owl on Ruth’s shoulder will swoop at her.
Drawing closer, she notices that the bird has only one wing.
It swivels its head to appraise her with wide, yellow eyes.
Ruth steps away from the door and grabs the sleeve of Alice’s coat to pull her inside the house. “Do you think anyone saw you?”
“Pull into the driveway? Ahh, no. I don’t think so.” Alice tries to remember if she saw any other cars on the road before turning in.
“Not the driveway,” Ruth snaps at her. “In the forest. Did you see anyone watching you from the forest?”
A chill runs down Alice’s spine. “I wasn’t looking closely, but nothing caught my eye.”
Ruth visibly relaxes and reaches up to stroke the feathers of the owl. “This is Anne,” she explains. “She’s intimidating but she’s harmless.”
She gestures for Alice to follow her through the cluttered entranceway and into an even more cluttered living room.
The entire place is made of exposed logs, even the low ceiling, giving Alice a claustrophobic feeling.
Every surface is piled high—with books, blankets, newspapers, magazines, and dirty dishes.
“Have a seat,” Ruth says, gesturing to a couch piled high with dusty throw cushions and old magazines. “Can I get you a cup of tea? I’ve got some chamomile on the stove, made right from the garden.”
“Please don’t go to any trouble,” Alice says, keeping her coat on and maneuvering herself into a spot on the couch to avoid the piles.
“No trouble at all,” Ruth says before disappearing into another room. Alice is overwhelmed with a desire to get up and run from the dark, dank room. She shifts in her seat, ready to stand, when movement in a corner of the room catches her eye. Something low to the ground on four legs emerges.
Alice gasps when she sees that it’s a fox, missing both eyes and part of one ear. Twitching its pointy black nose in the air, it finds Alice’s scent.
“Don’t mind him,” Ruth says, arriving back in the room with two steaming mugs.
“That’s Finn. He’s also harmless. Just likes to get to know everyone’s smells.
” She puts a large ceramic mug in front of Alice and then eases down into a chair across from the couch.
The owl is no longer on her shoulder, but the fox gracefully jumps up onto her lap, curling into a ball.
“My mother takes in rescue cats,” Alice says, attempting to connect. Ruth nods and takes a sip of her tea. “Are the owl and fox from a local rescue?”
Ruth snorts. “Yeah, the woods.”
“Oh, yes, of course. That makes sense,” Alice says, feeling stupid. “You must find all kinds of wounded animals in these woods.”
Ruth purses her lips and glances out the window before answering. “They find me.” As though on cue, a one-legged crow swoops into the room to land on the wide mantel over the stone fireplace. This time Alice screams and puts her hands over head. The crow squawks in response.
“That’s Peter,” Ruth says. “He’ll only come at you if you look him right in the eye.”
Alice takes her hands away from her head and shifts in her seat so that there’s no possible way she could make eye contact with the crow.
She’s trembling, so she clasps her hands in her lap to try to conceal it.
“When we first moved here, we found mutilated animals on our lawn one morning. Do you know—”
“Have a sip of the tea,” Ruth interrupts. “It’ll calm those nerves.”
Alice hadn’t planned on drinking the tea, but she doesn’t want to be rude so she takes a sip. It’s warm and sweet, rather than the scalding, bitter taste she’d expected. She takes another sip and notices a calming sensation move through her, quelling the tremble.
“That’s delicious,” Alice says, with sincerity.
“Teas are my specialty,” Ruth says, holding her mug up. “I grow the herbs in my garden. Sell them at the farmers’ market.” She puts the mug down on the cluttered table beside her and strokes the fox’s red-golden fur. Alice has an unexpected desire to pet it too.
“How are you settling in over there?”
Alice pauses. Perhaps Ruth has forgotten about the other day when she told her things were not okay. “We’re all settled in, but there have been some incidents. The other day at the bank I tried to tell you about the strange carvings on my daughter’s bedroom floor.”
“Shhhhh.” Ruth puts a finger to her lips and shakes her head. She scoots the fox off her lap and gets up, leaves the room, then returns a few seconds later with a pad and pen. She hands both to Alice and mouths, “Write it.”
Alice stares back at her incredulously but obeys. Resting the pad on her lap she makes some bullet-point notes:
We found dismembered animals all over our lawn one morning in September. Including a decapitated bird and a skunk turned inside out.
Our family dog won’t go into the woods. She growls and whines all day.
There are weird symbols carved on my daughter’s bedroom floor and the words “donum silvis.” Same symbols as the cave??
I fell down a hill in the woods one day and found the eviscerated bodies of my mother and husband. When I went back home, they were there, alive and unharmed.
Her hand trembles as she writes the last point. Putting it down on paper makes it too real. She hands back the pad of paper to Ruth, who reads what Alice wrote, nods gently, and starts writing. She hands the pad back to Alice.
In shaky chicken scratch, Ruth has written a short explanation for each of Alice’s points.
dismembered animals are part of the ritual
animals sense things and your dog is no different
never go in that cave!
Ruth hasn’t responded to Alice’s admission about her mother and her husband. There is no annotation. She circles the last statement and thrusts the pad back to Ruth.
Ruth scrawls in full caps: STAY OUT OF THE WOODS
Alice shakes her head and moves to stand up. She’s had about enough of this old woman’s games.
Ruth shakes her head and motions for her to stay seated. “Have some of your tea,” she says in a normal voice. “I’ll be back in a minute with something to show you.”
Compared to her strong urge to leave, Alice’s need for answers is stronger.
She takes a sip of her tea and stays on the couch.
She can hear Ruth rummaging around upstairs.
The fox is now sitting up, looking like he’s staring right at Alice through his carved-out eye sockets.
She gives a sideways glance at the crow on the mantel.
It’s staring at her too. Alice’s eyes dart down to her lap.
She has only a few seconds to ponder the strangeness of her situation when Ruth comes back into the room carrying a cardboard box.
She brings it over to the couch and plops down beside Alice, bringing with her a waft of musty body odor.
Putting the box on the floor, she bends down and pulls a black leather-bound book from it.
“It was my sister’s.” She whispers so quietly Alice is forced to read her lips. “The one who owned your house.” Ruth opens the book and flips through it for a few seconds before holding it up for Alice to see. The page is covered with the same symbols carved on Polly’s bedroom floor.
“Those are the ones!” Alice exclaims. Ruth shakes her head and puts a finger to her lips. Alice whispers, “Is your sister here in this house right now?” Ruth shakes her head. “Then why can’t we talk normally?”
“My sister lost everything when she went through the change. She died in an institution.”
Alice’s heart starts racing. “Institutionalized for menopause?”
Ruth nods and puts a finger to her lips again.
“Her husband claimed she became a different person almost overnight. Couldn’t sleep, grew paranoid.
She became irritable, frustrated, tired.
She started saying what she really thought of him instead of holding back to keep the peace.
Let herself go, he said. But I think he was afraid of her rage.
He left her soon after. Left her in that house all alone and even convinced their daughter not to see her.
He started dating a younger woman from work. ”
“How horrible,” Alice whispers in response, recognizing parts of herself in Ruth’s story.
Ruth nods, frowning deeply. “She wanted them back. I don’t think she quite knew who she was without them.
She started spending too much time alone.
Too much time trying to see the future, control outcomes.
She got into all that stuff. Tarot, crystals, herbs, witchcraft.
She started doing spells and rituals to call her family back.
” She pauses to give a sideways nod to the fox.
“Using animal parts and sometimes full sacrifices.” The last word hisses through Alice’s ear and she shudders.
“Her husband came back to get her to sign some documents and found her naked and raving.
“She explained that her body was on fire and she couldn’t stand wearing clothes anymore, but he was disgusted by the sight. He said the house was a disaster, full of animal parts, bones, herbs. This.” She taps the book.
Alice wants to shift away from Ruth and this horrible story, but Ruth is holding on to her coat sleeve. She can feel the rough fabric of the woman’s dress against her hand, and wisps of her wild gray hair tickle Alice’s cheeks.
“He called the police,” she continues, her whisper dropping lower with anger. “They took her away. Put her in an institution—”
Spittle lands on her ear, but Alice does not wipe it away. Instead she leans in. “If your sister didn’t mutilate those animals on my lawn, who did?”
Suddenly there’s a loud bang on one of the windows and a bird ricochets off the pane. Ruth jumps up to go see and Alice follows. In the grass lies a small brown sparrow, one wing tucked tight against its body, the other jutting out at an awkward angle. Ruth pulls Alice away from the window.
“You need to go,” she whispers. “They don’t like when I talk about them.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Alice asks, more confused than ever.
“The woods,” Ruth hisses.
“I don’t understand,” Alice says, fighting against Ruth, who is now pulling her toward the door.
“The last time I saw my sister alive, she told me, ‘Don’t ever try and stop it, don’t ever get in its way, and don’t tell anyone what you know.’ ”
“But what is it exactly?” Alice says through gritted teeth.
“Whatever my sister conjured,” Ruth whispers.
She puts the leather-bound book into the cardboard box and then picks the whole thing up and shoves it into Alice’s arms. “Maybe you can find some answers in here.” She pushes Alice toward the front door again but then stops suddenly. “Hold on.” She rushes out of the room.
When she returns a minute later, she’s carrying a small brown paper bag and talking normally.
“Some of my tea for you.” She drops it into the box.
“It’s like the one you just had but with something a little extra.
For those nights you can’t sleep. Women reach a certain age, and the nights become long.
” Alice nods, unsure if she can talk freely yet.
“Use a tea ball and steep for at least five minutes,” Ruth adds before guiding Alice toward the front door again.
“Come see me at the farmers’ market if you want more of it and we’ll talk there.
” She opens the front door and practically pushes Alice out.
Alice hurries to her car, feeling like a million eyes are on her.
She gets the box in the back as quickly as she can and is just pulling the driver’s-side door open when she detects movement in her peripheral vision.
A doe steps free of the trees, then two smaller deer follow.
The three animals stand in a line, staring intensely at Alice.
She glances back at the house, wondering if Ruth sees the deer too. Are they part of her animal family or are they a threat? Ruth stands at the window, but she’s not looking at the deer, she’s watching Alice.
Driving down the narrow dirt road, Alice catches glimpses of the deer as they move through the trees alongside her car. Only once she’s pulled free of the driveway and out onto the road does she exhale.