21. Friday, November 3, 2023 #6
Alice is relieved to see that Polly is home, but the rest of Quinn’s texts seem frantic. She looks at her location and realizes that she’s on the other side of the woods, not far from Ruth Crowley’s. This well-used path must be hers, she thinks. She texts Quinn back.
I’m okay. Got lost and am on the other side of the woods. As soon as I have a pickup spot will call dad to get me. Stay inside until I get back. Do not go into the woods!
The back of Ruth Crowley’s little log house comes into sight and Alice can’t believe what a comfort it is.
There are lights on, which means she’s home.
A sob of relief clogs her throat, which she works hard to push back down.
She’ll scare the woman to death showing up sobbing, soaked through, and covered in dirt.
Alice hurries around to the front of the house, desperate for a friendly face, to be inside, out of the rain, away from the woods.
She knocks loudly on the front door. While she waits, she goes over what she’ll tell Ruth about the thing in the woods.
No matter how she explains it, the whole thing will sound ridiculous.
Like the ramblings of a madwoman. Even her reason for going in there in the first place sounds dramatic, since Polly is now home safe and sound.
Alice will come across like a neurotic, overprotective mother who tells scary stories for attention.
She tells herself that if anyone will believe her, Ruth will, and knocks again loudly.
When there’s no answer with the second knock, or any sounds from inside, Alice tries the door handle. It turns and she pushes the door open just a few inches, calling out a hello. A terrible smell hits, and she puts a hand over her mouth and nose.
“Ruth?” she calls. “It’s Alice. I got lost in the woods.” A loud squawk comes in response as the one-legged crow swoops past her into the living room. Alice waits for a minute and follows, staying low in case the bird decides to dive-bomb her again. “Ruth?”
There’s the shuffling of paws and a small yip from the other side of the couch.
Alice knows in her gut that something is not right because the smell is even worse in here.
With an arm across her nose, Alice braces herself and steps around the couch.
There in the middle of the living-room floor, on a homespun rug, is Ruth Crowley.
Or what’s left of her.
The old woman is missing both eyes. Her upper torso is exposed and split right down the middle, the flaps of skin hanging open to reveal her internal organs. Not like the bodies Alice thought she saw in the forest belonging to Geoff and her mother. Those ones had been cleaned out.
The one-legged raven stands beside Ruth’s head and every few seconds pecks the woman’s gouged-out eye socket.
The blind fox sits at Ruth’s feet, sniffing the air and letting out protective yips.
Alice can see several bite marks on Ruth’s bare arms and cheeks.
Only the owl keeps its distance, perched on the arm of the chair that Ruth had been sitting in the last time Alice was there.
Alice’s gut convulses, and she barely has time to get out of the cottage before a hot, thick stream of vomit rockets from her body and onto the front lawn.
She fights the urge to run. What if she’s hallucinating again like she did in the woods that first time?
Then she thinks of the smell and the old woman’s ashen, bloated face, blackened fingertips, and bitten flesh.
Much more real than the pale, waxlike bodies she’d seen in the forest.
Alice pulls out her phone to dial 911. She tries to explain what she’s found through tears and a throat still constricted in fear. The woman on the other end says that emergency services have been dispatched and tells Alice not to leave the scene.
She waits on the front lawn, wiping the snot and vomit from her face with the back of her hand, taking deep breaths.
The rustling of wings causes her to glance back at the front door, which hangs open from her quick exit.
The crow is there, flapping its wings, hopping on its one foot at the threshold to the cottage.
Only then does she notice the symbols. Just like the ones carved into Polly’s bedroom floor, just like the ones from the book that Ruth’s sister had.
They’re painted in a rust color and sit right inside the front door.
Underneath them are the words Donum Silvis.
Gift of the woods.
Alice feels lightheaded, and the tightness in her chest is making it hard to breathe.
She crouches down on the ground, afraid she might pass out, working hard to process it all.
Did this happen to Ruth because of the day that Alice came to visit, because of what Ruth told her, because Ruth had given her the box of her sister’s things?
She remembers Ruth quoting her sister’s warning:
Don’t ever try and stop it, don’t ever get in its way, and don’t tell anyone what you know, and you will be safe.
Ruth did tell somebody. She told Alice, and now she’s dead.