Wildwood Whispers

by Willa Reece

  When Charm crawled out to sit on the arm of my chair, I tried to act as if I always fed a pet mouse at the table while a big fat cat stared and stared. No one else seemed to mark Charm’s sudden ease with a handsome dinner companion he’d previously greeted with only growls and teeth.

  The cab of the turquoise Chevy smelled like oil and gasoline and maybe a hint of squirrel cache. But someone—Joseph or Jacob—had hung a tree-shaped air freshener on the rearview mirror that attempted to dispel the less pleasant odors with a touch of fake pine. Someone had also washed down the console and the vinyl seat cushions and vacuumed out the floorboards, where only a little of the passing road showed through rusted-out places.

  Jacob gave me the driver’s seat with a show of confidence I didn’t feel myself. I knew how to drive a manual transmission, but I’d learned in a cheap little hatchback that had been my and Sarah’s first car. It hadn’t been nearly as high off the ground and its gearshift had been easy to manipulate.

  I learned the stubborn shifting required of the old Chevy with Jacob’s help by the light of the setting sun. The knob of the shifter vibrated under my hand and I tried not to notice how warm and strong Jacob’s hand was over mine as he demonstrated how to manhandle the truck into gear. Depressing the clutch took the remainder of my strength and the steering wheel was so loose and crazy that the ride back to the cabin was too much of an exhilarating jounce for conversation. Not because of Jacob’s hand. His touch was impersonal and instructive. Nothing more. But I was more than ready to jump down and get out of the truck when we finally arrived.

  “… wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

  I’d left the porch light on to welcome me home. It currently illuminated Jacob’s Jeep in the driveway and a veritable flock of moths attracted by the glowing halo in the mountain dark.

  “Come in and get a jar or two of jam before you leave,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to clear out as soon as possible or linger for a while. Charm was asleep in my pocket and didn’t get a vote.

  “I’d like that,” Jacob said.

  I unlocked the front door and reached for the switch.

  Nineteen

  On the counter that had been empty, a cardboard box sat. It was the box filled with photographs in frames that had been in the bottom of the hall closet. I’d planned to go through it eventually, but I’d been conveniently too busy since the day I’d moved in. Sarah would be in that box. The Sarah I’d dreamed about. The Sarah of the cheerful school art in the upstairs room. That Sarah made me nervous because she wasn’t the Sarah I had loved and the difference made me wonder what other information from the past I was missing.

  “What’s wrong?” Jacob asked. I’d paused inside the front door and my frozen body kept him from entering.

  “That box wasn’t there when I left this morning,” I said. I forced myself forward so Jacob could see the box and the frames set up all around it in a jumbled tableau. “I must have left the back door unlocked.”

  “Or someone has a key,” Jacob said.

  My spine tingled as adrenaline spiked at his suggestion. A faceless intruder had come into the place I had claimed as my summer home and been so bold as to rummage through closets without putting things back the way she or he had found them. This was way more intrusive than the natural gas company’s flyers left on my front door.

  Jacob went quickly past me and over to the back door. The knob turned easily when he tried and he opened the door to the darkness of the backyard. Beyond the yard, the forest was even darker. The sun had fully set. Early autumn crickets sounded in a chorus that was too cozy to be the backdrop of a break-in.

  “Why would someone come in uninvited to look through old photographs?” I wondered. I went to the counter so I could look at the pictures that had been taken from the box and propped on the stands of their frames. They had been arranged facing the door as if someone was trying to show them to me when I came home. “Not only looked through them. Left them out for me to see.”

  “I guess it could have been any of Granny’s friends. They might have keys in order to come in and clean,” Jacob suggested. He closed the door and reengaged the lock. He also slid the dead bolt home. Then he came over to look at the photographs too. There were snapshots of a younger Sarah. The lighter, happier one I’d never known. She smiled from the photographs with a rambunctious twinkle in her eyes to go with a wide-open grin. There were also several photographs of Lu as a young girl. I’d seen her like that in my dreams. More serious than Sarah, but still lighter and easier than the woman I knew today. I couldn’t separate Sarah’s love for her best friend from my own heart. I’d loved Lu right away because of those dreams and now I saw her exactly as she’d been in those days. My dreams were accurate right down to the gap between her two upper front teeth.

  “I don’t think any of them would come without letting me know. Besides, I saw most of them in town today,” I said. “What about Tom? He might have a key.”

  One of the photographs was of Tom and a curly-haired woman I recognized as well. Sarah’s mother. Alive and even more twinkling than her daughter. She looked at the camera boldly, as though inviting the photographer to join her on an adventure. And Tom looked at her, his eyes gentled by admiration, his face undamaged and handsome although it had already been made craggy by the sun.

  His look made me blush. It was open and honest and raw about his feelings for Melody Ross. No wonder he still took care of the garden so long after her death. This photograph revealed his love for the young wisewoman. A love I suspected lasted to this day.

  “Tom keeps to the woods mostly. You won’t find him in town or near houses very often if he can help it. He’s shy,” Jacob said. “From the looks of his face, he has reason to be. No one knows exactly how or when he was hurt.”

  The other photographs were all of Sect women.

  Dozens of them. The homespun dresses and kerchiefs on their hair were exactly the same as the ones I’d seen on the women in town with Reverend Moon. But their expressions were not the same. These women smiled and laughed. Many showed the signs of pregnancy, but unlike the women I’d seen, they didn’t seem afraid.

  The difference between those women in town and the women in these photographs was Melody Ross. She was in many of them. Hugging the Sect women. Holding them. Touching a shoulder here. Or laying a hand on the top of one’s head there.

  No wonder Reverend Moon had come through the wildwood to see what or who was luring his flock away. These photographs lent credence to my dream. The Sect women—some of them little more than girls—had come here for Melody’s help and she had given it. I shivered in admiration when I remembered Sarah’s mother facing the wildwood and sending Sarah and Lu back to the house. I’d met Reverend Moon now. I’d confronted him in real life.

  These photographs of the Sect women with Melody Ross told a story of courage—on their part and hers. Sarah had always thought I was brave. Her mother had been more courageous than I had ever been.

  One photograph had been placed in front of all the others. The woman in the photograph seemed to be wearing a Sect dress, but she’d removed her head covering. She had a curly chestnut mane. Similar to my own. But the photograph didn’t show her face. She was looking down at a tiny swaddled infant in her arms. I picked up the frame and opened the back, but there was no writing on the back of the photograph. The woman was a mystery.

  Someone had wanted me to see these photographs and that someone had placed this one in front.

  “Until you figure it out, keep the dead bolt locked. Especially when you’re sleeping,” Jacob suggested. “I don’t like the idea of someone coming and going without your permission.”

  “I like it less than you do,” I said. I placed the photographs of the Sect women back in the box. But I decided to keep the one of Sarah and Lu out, as well as the one of Tom and Melody. These were happy photographs. They belonged on display. I carried the two frames over to the sofa table and arranged them. But the
action gave me time to have an extremely uncomfortable thought.

  “… wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

  Granny hadn’t tried to stop me from taking Jacob with me to the cabin to retrieve his vehicle. Jacob’s Jeep was in the driveway outside. He’d been down at the barn to get the old Chevy, but at some point he’d been here at the cabin alone.

  Was he the one who had come inside, poking around? He picked up the box while my mind raced… and he carried it back to the hall closet. The door was slightly ajar. He kicked it the rest of the way open with his foot and placed the box exactly back in the place where it had been. Had the slightly open door clued him in to where the box belonged? Or had he been the one who found it there, so he knew where it should be returned? The idea he would pretend ignorance made me slightly sick. I’d warmed to him more than I should. The two of us had enjoyed a relatively easy camaraderie all evening in spite of Granny’s awkwardness. So much so I hadn’t even thought twice about us being out here all alone.

  Charm stirred in my pocket, no doubt woken up by my sudden fear. My hands had closed into fists and my back had gone stiff. Jacob was no slouch. He wasn’t muscle-bound, but if he wanted to harm me he probably could no matter what I did to defend myself.

  Damn the nightmares that allowed me to easily call up the vision of Sarah’s mother hanging in the black locust tree.

  I had allowed myself to be caught completely isolated with a stranger. He’d helped plant the bergamot, and later, he’d tended it, but that didn’t mean that I knew him. I thought the accident that killed Sarah had been caused intentionally and I knew for certain that Melody Ross had been murdered. Maybe even in this very room.

  “I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation. No one around here bothers much with locked doors. Crime is low and people generally look out for each other,” Jacob said. He headed toward the door as he spoke. I wasn’t sure if he noticed my unease, but I didn’t care. I edged back from him as he passed, completely uncomfortable with the rapid rise of suspicion tightening my chest.

  “Crime is low except for the occasional murder,” I corrected.

  Jacob paused parallel to my position. He looked down at me and I was pretty sure he noticed my clenched fists and my stiff posture. My eyes were narrowed and there was the distinct sound of a growl coming from my pocket.

  “I didn’t notice anything earlier today when I came for the truck,” he said. “But, of course, I didn’t come inside.”

  “Of course,” I said, not at all sure he was telling the truth.

  “You’re right to be careful, Mel. I’ll get that jam another time,” Jacob said. “Lock the door behind me. Dead bolt and all.”

  I walked to the door on leaden feet to turn the lock and slide the bolt above it home behind him. The bolt wiggled in its slot, not nearly as sturdy as I would have liked it. I would fix that tomorrow. I wouldn’t allow the fog of fear currently threatening to cloud my mind to stop me from taking practical actions. Jacob or not, someone had intruded. Now that I had a vehicle, I could easily run into town for a better bolt. Sarah and I had lived in Richmond apartments with lazy supers where we’d had to install a half dozen locks because of dangerous neighborhoods. The hardware store wouldn’t be open tonight, but I would be there when the doors opened tomorrow morning.

  The photographs on the sofa table mocked me when I left the downstairs lights on before climbing up to my bedroom.

  Jacob Walker’s Jeep rolled to a stop near the barn where the turquoise Chevy used to sit. Headlights went black. There was no moon and the stars didn’t illuminate much when the Jeep’s door opened to allow a graceful silhouette to exit. Several doe in the field opposite the barn were spooked when the silhouette paused and mimicked the exact sound of a screech owl, once, then twice, before it made its way back up the road toward the cabin. The deer flashed the whites of their tails and then took flight, disappearing into the forest as if pursued by a dangerous predator. But the silhouette didn’t give chase. It had another job to do.

  Sarah had a willow basket full of blackberry jelly hooked over her left arm. Her right arm was hooked at the elbow with Lu and they skipped together up the sidewalk of Main Street, dodging pedestrians and avoiding cracks with the absolute certainty of eleven-year-olds that their mothers’ backs were depending on the careful placement of their feet.

  Her mother had dropped them off to deliver the jars she’d canned the day before.

  “Fresh is best, but canned will do very well in winter,” Melody Ross always said.

  Apparently, lots of folks agreed, because they had jars for almost every woman in town. While they delivered jam, her mother was to visit Granny, an old midwife who had agreed to give Melody lessons in the art of delivering babies.

  More and more Sect girls were making their way through the wildwood to the cabin, and her mother had told Sarah they couldn’t turn them away.

  “They’re desperate. Too scared to run away. Too traumatized to want their daughters to face the same fate. We have to help them, Sarah. As women. As human beings. The wildwood has led them to us, and now it’s up to us to do the rest,” her mother had said.

  It was a secret. One they kept as they kept the exact date of Gathering and all the knowledge in the remedy book. To themselves and a select few of like-minded individuals. Lu and her mother knew. Granny and her friends knew. Tom knew. Mad Tom they called him. Because he lived way out in the woods, moving from caves to hollowed-out trees and dugouts he cut into the hills himself. Melody Ross didn’t call him Mad. Never. And so Sarah didn’t either. He was their friend and always had been.

  Lu started singing. Sarah was glad it was a hymn everyone knew. She loved Lu’s special songs she made up all in her own head. But people always took notice when she and Lu sang along to a new tune. One folks had never heard before. They couldn’t know Sarah learned it instantly right from Lu’s mind, but they seemed to suspect.

  They skipped and sang about flying away from shop to shop and house to house. There was no payment exchanged for the blackberry jam. Every year, the supplies to can it up just arrived—bags of sugar from Mrs. Fields, lemon juice from Granny’s friend Sadie, new seals from Granny herself. Like the bread at Gathering, the blackberry preserves were a sharing between the wildwood, Melody Ross and the women of the town.

  Some of the women were no longer practicing the old ways, but their grandmothers and great-grandmothers had, and maybe, Melody said, their daughters would carry on the tradition again. The connection needed to be kept and preserved for later use like the blackberries themselves.

  Jessica Morgan was like that. An elderly maiden aunt from the founding family of the town, Jessica had accepted a jar of blackberry preserves from the wildwood every autumn for as long as Sarah could remember. She lived in a tiny cottage behind the courthouse on Main Street. And this year Sarah and Lu approached it with no trepidation. Miss Morgan taught Sunday school at the Presbyterian church, and both Lu and Sarah had attended Bible school there on occasions when there was a fun theme during a rainy summer day.

  Sarah didn’t pay much mind to the shiny convertible sports car in the bricked drive when they walked up to the door. All the Morgans were rich and it wouldn’t be a big deal to see Jessica Morgan’s brother or nephew come to call. But Lu slowed and stopped, tugging on Sarah’s free arm to make her pause.

  “Maybe we should bring the jam back when Miss Morgan is alone,” Lu said.

  Sarah might have agreed if she’d been delivering some of her mother’s other wares. She’d seen townspeople become outright ugly about love potions or sleeping tisanes.

  “I don’t guess there’s any harm in blackberries, Lu. Even rich people like biscuits and jam,” she argued.

  Lu didn’t seem convinced, but she let Sarah loose and followed after her to the side door.

  “Always go the back or to the side doors, girls. Back-porch friends are best,” Sarah’s mother had taught them.

  But, this time, instead of the d
oor being answered by the familiar stooped form of Miss Jessica Morgan and the walker she used to get around now that her joints were stiffened by arthritis, the door was flung wide by Hartwell Morgan, a teenager just mean enough for both girls to fear.

  “Little bitches come to call,” Hartwell sneered. “Or is it witches? I’ve heard that might be the truth of it. Don’t you know Halloween is a month away?”

  Hartwell was older than them. He’d left the elementary school two years before and now attended the combination middle and high school that was situated over Sugarloaf Mountain and halfway down the other side to be shared with the next town over. He stepped through the open doorway and loomed over Sarah as if he dared her to back away. She refused. Acting like her feet were glued to the ground even though his expensive leather loafers had toed up to her cotton sneakers and she didn’t like his nearness, not at all.

  “We aren’t trick-or-treating. We’ve brought Miss Morgan her jam,” Sarah said. There was no reason for her heart to pound and sweat to break out on her upper lip. There was no reason for Lu to grab ahold of her arm like she was going to haul her away. Hartwell wasn’t kind. That was true. He was a bully for sure. But they were standing in front of God and everybody in the middle of town and, Morgan or not, Hartwell wouldn’t actually hurt them.

  “My aunt isn’t feeling well today. Maybe she’s been eating too much hippy trash. Your mom even have a business license for the junk she sells out of the back of her car, little girl?” Hartwell asked. Sarah didn’t like the way he sidled closer or the way he leaned down to press his face near hers or the way little girl caused his hot breath to flow over her cheek.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Lu insisted. This time she didn’t wait for Sarah to argue. Not that Sarah would have anyway. She allowed herself to be pulled back down the footpath to the public sidewalk, glad that Lu forced the retreat before she humiliated herself by running away.