23. Saturday, November 4, 2023
Alice
Alice has no idea what time it is, but weak gray light makes its way through her bedroom curtains.
Geoff is not in bed beside her, and the house is silent.
Is it early morning, late afternoon? Thanks to Ruth Crowley’s tea, she ended up sleeping so deeply she’s lost all sense of time.
After going into the kids’ rooms, Alice was shaken to the core, but she had no idea what to do about it, so went looking for the sedative samples in her work bag. They were all gone.
She took an extra-hot shower, hoping that might work.
She was so tired, her eyes were burning, but every time she closed them, the horrible things she’d seen earlier that night came rushing back in high definition.
The figure in the woods with its ashen, wrinkled face and black eyes, and Ruth Crowley lying dead on the floor surrounded by her confused, scared animals.
Alice tried to breathe through it, visualized calming places, counted backward from one hundred, but nothing worked.
Finally, she went to the kitchen to dig out the tea that Ruth Crowley had given her. She was reluctant, having no idea what was in it and remembering the state of Ruth’s kitchen, but she was also desperate to rest.
She was able to get through only half a cup of the pungent, earthy brew, but that was enough.
She went back to bed and within minutes fell into a deep sleep.
She dreamed that she was out in her backyard in the middle of the night.
She was wearing her pajamas but didn’t feel the cold.
A deer stepped out of the trees and nodded at her to follow, so she did.
The deer led her to a clearing where a table was set with a tea service and a tiered cake stand piled high with cupcakes.
Ruth Crowley sat at the head of the table looking very much alive, beautiful even, with flowers through her wild gray hair, a glow to her skin, and the one-winged owl on her shoulder.
The one-legged raven sat at the spot on her left, and the blind fox sat at the spot on her right.
Ruth motioned for Alice to sit down across from her, so she did.
“I finally figured it out,” Ruth said to Alice before biting into a purple cupcake piled high with icing.
“Figured out what?” Alice asked.
“Why my sister did it. Why she conjured the thing in the woods. All she wanted was a second chance.”
“A second chance for what?” Alice asked, looking down at a beetle crawling out of her teacup.
“A second chance to love her family. Properly this time. Without the resentment or the rage that ruined everything the first time. The gift of the woods is rebirth.” Ruth pointed at Alice. “But not for you. Or for my sister. Or for Justine Gordon.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the others went in the woods, they came back changed. They came back better. But not my sister, not Justine Gordon, and not you. Because you’re the mothers.
You hold all the memories, good and bad, of your families.
All the responsibility. Someone must hold it, and that someone is you.
That’s what mothers do. The others come back better, but the mothers stay the same. ”
The clearing that had been light when Alice stepped into it suddenly darkened. The sound of wood splintering filled the air, and from every tree surrounding the clearing a shadowy figure emerged, born from the bark.
The next thing Alice knew, she was awake in her bed feeling only slightly rested, her joints stiff from being out in the cold and rain the night before, her brain sore and mushy from the trauma of finding Ruth last night.
There’s also a cramping in her lower belly, but from what she isn’t sure.
Mostly she wants to roll over and go back to sleep, but she remembers the smell of her children last night. Did she imagine it, or…
Sitting up, she throws back the covers to get out of bed and finds the white sheets blackened with dirt.
Her feet are filthy. “What the hell?” Only then does she notice the blood at her crotch and smeared in the dirt on the sheets.
Terror grips her. She starts patting herself all over, looking for the source of blood, when the cramps in her belly intensify—meaning only one thing.
It’s her fucking period. After months of having only a little spotting, she’s got a full-blown painful period.
Of course I do, she thinks, wondering why her body hates her so much.
Inside her, all the rage and anxiety and grief start to rumble and collide. All of it bubbling and roiling, about to boil over.
Is this what happened to Justine? The thought breaks through the chaos of her mind, bringing it to an unnerving quiet.
Did she sleepwalk into the woods at night?
See shadowy figures in there when she was awake?
Is it us or them? she wonders, before realizing she just grouped herself with Justine Gordon.
They are both mothers, after all. Like Ruth’s sister.
Alice gets out of bed.
“I will not be Justine Gordon,” Alice repeats on a loop while she strips her bed of the soiled sheets and remakes it.
She stops the mantra only when she’s standing in the shower and another thought occurs to her: Beverley is a mother too.
Her mother. But she went into the woods and came out different just like Geoff.
If what Alice learned in her dream is true, then why did Beverley get to be reborn?
Because she cared more about escaping her own suffering than protecting her daughter, a deeper part of Alice answers.
The clock in the kitchen reads 3 p.m., which means she slept almost the entire day away. There’s a note on the counter from Geoff:
I thought you needed to sleep so didn’t wake you.
Text me when you’re up and I’ll come in.
She’s grateful that he let her sleep but wonders why the soiled sheets didn’t alarm him enough to wake her up and see if she was okay.
He may cook dinner and help around the house more now, but in this moment, she’d rather have the deeply flawed version of her husband back.
The one who would most definitely find everything that’s happening not okay.
The one who would be trying to figure out what the hell is in those woods right alongside her.
Alice hears the front door opening, and within seconds Polly arrives in the kitchen, rosy-cheeked from being out in the November air, her hair shiny and hanging in two French braids.
Just like Lucy used to wear hers. Her daughter is clearly doing better, but the sight of her, looking just like her dead sister, is a knife through Alice’s heart.
“Mom,” Polly says, rushing over to give her a tight hug. “I heard what happened last night. Are you okay?” She pulls out of the embrace to scan Alice’s face, her brow furrowed with worry. “It must have been awful finding that woman dead.”
Alice opens her mouth to reassure her daughter but stops short as a black shadow crosses over Polly’s eyes.
She reaches out and takes hold of Polly, bringing her in closer. “Are you okay?” she asks. “What happened to you out in the woods yesterday? Did you see anything? A witchy-looking thing?”
Polly tips her head back and laughs. “A witch? What are you talking about?”
Before Alice can explain, the back door opens and Geoff comes into the kitchen. He goes right to Alice and puts a hand on her back, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.
“How are you doing?” he asks, his voice full of concern.
She wants to lean into him, be comforted after her horrible ordeal in the woods and at Ruth’s, but instead her body tightens and she shifts away.
Suspicious of everyone and everything. “I’m okay,” she says, even though she’s not.
“It was pretty awful but I’m glad I found her.
They think she was dead for a few days, so imagine if I hadn’t come along. ”
Geoff shudders. “Awful.” He pulls her back in, oblivious to her efforts to keep distance between them. “I’m just glad you’re home now, safe and sound, with your family.”
“Me too,” Alice says. “Although…” She thinks about her sleepwalking again, how she could have ended up at the bottom of that ravine, or worse. “I sleepwalked last night. Did you notice me get in bed and then get out again?”
Geoff considers and then shakes his head.
“No. To be honest, I didn’t even notice when you got home.
I was dead to the world.” He cringes. “Sorry, poor choice of words. But sleepwalking, eh? That doesn’t sound safe.
We may need to strap you down at night. Hey,” Geoff says, turning to Polly, “how did the job hunt go?”
“Pretty good,” Polly replies. “I handed in my résumé to a few places downtown, filled out some applications online.”
“You don’t want to work at the coffee shop anymore?” Alice asks.
Polly shakes her head, and her braids go swinging. “I don’t want to go back there. The employees aren’t very good people.”
Alice thinks of Halloween night and how Polly acted afterward. “I think that’s a good idea,” she says.
She wants to ask Polly what brought about the rapid change in her, but she’s afraid she won’t get a straight answer, that she’ll be accused of being paranoid about the woods again. The front door opens, and she hears Quinn drop his backpack on the floor before he arrives in the kitchen.
“Mom!” he says, rushing over to hug her, just as Polly had. “You’re back.”
She holds him tight against her. She can’t remember the last time he gave her a hug.
But something is off. They’re all too happy to have her back.
Quinn moves over to the sink to wash an apple while Polly stands with the fridge open, listing off items that could be used for tonight’s dinner to Geoff, who’s sitting at the island. The perfect family scene—too perfect.