He whispered to the God who set each star, pure and clear, like jewels, in the night sky. He was praying thus when Violet appeared before him in the water. “Will, are you okay? You’re awfully quiet.”
Willis took a deep breath, and spoke haltingly. “No. I am not ‘okay’. I just realized how wrong it was of me to bring you here. The fact is, Violet, we aren’t children anymore. You are a young woman, and I am a young—a man. For us to be gadding about the woods alone at night—for your sake, mayhap it’s not such a good idea.”
Violet stared at him, and realized that in spite of himself, his eyes roamed over her shoulders as she bobbed in the water, the dark wet locks of hair painting them and bleeding like ink into the water. She bit her lip. Not knowing what to say in response, she turned and swam away quietly. Then she turned back to face him in water to her chin. Treading water, she stared at him and he at her.
She wanted to swim to him and put her arms around him. She wanted to splash water at his face. She wanted to drag him down into the depths, where the moon refracted on quartz stones and all was clear and cold and quiet. What was in her heart at his words, she could not have said.
Nor he. Had there ever been the merest fantasy that Violet Aubrey might enable his liberation, Willis was rooting out and murdering that hope with savage self-deprecation. The reality of his love for her cast such wishes in a grim light. Let her grow and change and walk in the land of the living and age and die even, rather than risk poisoning her with the curse of the night people. Even if it meant darkness forever, for himself.
As they walked, dressed again and drying, back to the campsite, Willis was quiet with a peace that comes of resolution. He could live with himself under the law he imposed. But Violet, he could see, was troubled. He could see no way of helping her that did not end with his arms around her, so he continued in silence until he stopped at the margin of the clearing where her family dreamed in the tent.
Violet turned to look at him as she reached into the tent flap. She wanted to ask him to promise to come back. But she herself could promise nothing, not even that she would remember him. She bowed her head and retreated into the tent.
MISSING PAGES
Violet spring-cleaned her room, “hoeing out” as her Mom called it. She hadn’t really gone through her things since about seventh grade. She had already gone through the stuffed animals, paring down to the few that really meant something to her. The shoes and clothes she would never wear again were in a bag destined for the Salvation Army collection bin. Now she was going through her journals and notebooks.
She laughed at the papers she had kept, the ‘i’s dotted with hearts, the notes folded into cootie-catchers and tight triangles. Notes to and from Kate and Melissa, Christine and Tasha… She sorted the “keepers” and filled an old biscuit tin with them; ruefully, but with a feeling of relief, letting the others go into the trash.
She tried to resist getting lost in reading them, page after page. She smiled at the drama, the forgotten crushes, the anecdotes.
David asked if I wanted to go to this party tonight, he said they were going to have a band and the farm was his friends’ uncle’s or something. You know how Davie boy gets so excited about stuff and idiots like me just get caught up in the excitement. Parents said ok. We got a ride with some guys he knew, the party was way out on Keller Hill Road somewhere. Anyway the thing turned out to be this redneck beer bash. It
was kind of fun for a while, we danced and stuff but then things got kind of weird—guys hitting on me, and a fight started somewhere, and David was like, let’s get out of here, these guys are leaving now and we can get a ride. The people we came with were nowhere to be seen.
So we get in this crowded car and someone shoves a guitar in my lap. I’m like, wow, what a nice guitar (an old Gibson) and I started playing a song. Next thing I know, all these guys (I was the ONLY girl) were singing “Uncle John’s Band” with me. The song ended and everyone started talking at once and I soon realized, O Lord, these guys are STONED. They talked louder and louder and it turned into an argument. The driver of the car (some guy I never saw before) was determined to win the war of words and was willing to half climb into the back seat to prove his point. Meanwhile Keller Hill Road is writhing in front of the car and I can just see us going off a cliff and down the mountainside for sure. I was afraid and I started singing “Amazing Grace.” Next thing you know, the argument is forgotten and all the guys are singing, the driver’s eyes are on the road and his hands on the wheel and everything is calm. As soon as I finished the song, the same thing started happening all over again, they were arguing and the driver is shouting at the back seat, not looking at the road at all. I sang another song, everyone’s happy, the driver is focused on the road, but when I stopped, the same thing. I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t stop singing and playing that guitar until they let us out at the head of my street and drove off, already arguing about God knows what.
David actually thought the whole thing was hilarious and after I got over being kind of mad, by the time he had walked me home, I was laughing about it. Of course, then I got home and had to tell Mom and Dad all about it… I thought they’d kill me but I think they’ll let me live after all.
Maybe I’ll get a cell phone out of the deal even… although I’m not even sure that was worth the risk… Note to self: No more spontaneous parties in mysterious locations with David!!!!
Violet smiled at the memory. David had moved to the West Coast with his family a few months later and she hadn’t seen him since. And she had gotten a cell phone a few weeks later so if she had ended up at any weird parties she could call for a ride, but Violet had learned her lesson.
She flipped forward a few pages and frowned at a page of scrawl that angled across the printed lines of the journal page. What she could make out read:
He is not a dream.
He really lives here
and he’s my friend and i
think i really do love him and
he loves me. But afraid to show
it because he knows something
that would scare me.
But I am not afraid
The obscure message ended abruptly at the lower right corner of the page, and gave the overall impression that she had written with her eyes closed, or in the dark. All of her journals and notebooks contained strange entries like this. In fact Violet had once accused her sister Jill, after a camping trip at Blackbirch River, of playing a joke on her by scribbling strange messages in her diaries, but Jill had vehemently denied it and told Violet she did things in her sleep, coming and going in and out of the tent, and if she was sleepwalking then maybe she was sleep-writing as well. In the end she believed Jill had nothing to do with it.
The messages seemed to go along with dreams she had sometimes. That she wandered with a close companion along moonlit trails in the dark, and dawn always came but her shadowy friend faded back into the woods, into silence. Violet awoke strangely happy and yet heavy-hearted from these dreams. She wanted to remember, as though it would resolve something.
Once she had asked her Mom about it. “I notice you seem to sleep uneasily whenever we go camping,” she said. “But lots of people have dreams that you wake up from, and feel like something is unfinished, or you want to remember something and can’t… I have dreams like that sometimes.”
“Like what? What are you trying to remember?”
Mom shrugged and chuckled. “I can’t remember, Vi. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”
Violet had returned her smile. Now, she frowned down at the journal she held in her hands. She ran her hand over the abstruse message and turned the page, which she had written the next morning.
I’ve been dreaming again, I guess. Go figure. But it bothers me. If I could only remember something!!! Like, a face, a name, then I could put things together and be done with it. When I pray about it, I feel clear that there is something God wants me to do, but the time is not right yet. So I ask fo
r patience to just wait until He is ready for whatever it is.
So much about being a Christian is about waiting, isn’t it??
Violet turned more pages, but her teenage attention had quickly turned to momentary things, like that she forgot to wear bug repellent and had a face full of mosquito bites and her bathing suit was getting too small and her shoes were wet because it had rained in the night and she left them outside.
Violet closed the journal and reached for the next one. This one was from the year before last, she had turned sixteen the previous winter.
In this journal, there were no more mysterious entries… but at regular intervals, pages had been pulled out.
SERPENTINE
Todd and Jessica Aubrey walked for miles along the river trail, enjoying each other’s company while their teenaged kids played games at the campsite. The trail left the river where the gorge became steep and climbed to one of many ledge outcroppings along the western face of a long ridge. They planned to watch the sun set from the ledge, and then hike back and eat campfire stew that their children were preparing.
The sun fell into buttermilk and mauve over the river that unwound into the distance and caught glints here and there. Hills and valleys cradled white-clapboard villages; here a lumber mill, there a dairy farm. They held hands until the color drained from the sky and a cool evening breeze kissed their faces.
They started back down the sun-warmed rocks, descending toward the river. Todd turned back once or twice, sure he heard footsteps behind them, but seeing nothing.
Suddenly Jessica gasped. In the heartbeat it took to register that the small, distinct sound she heard was a timber rattler, and before she could react, a person jumped down from the rock ledge above, and shoved her into her husband’s arms.
The young man kicked the snake with his brogans, but Todd clearly saw it bite into his shin. He heard the
man groan with pain, but he stamped his feet to frighten away the snake, who had been enjoying the residual warmth of the west-facing serpentine boulders.
“You’ve been bit!” cried Jessica. “You should sit down. I’ll call 9-1-1.” She slung her little pack down and began to rummage. “I don’t think I have my cell with me…”
“No, Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey. It’s Willis Wood.” He began to gasp and sat down in pain.
Todd reeled at the sudden recall of that night when he had called the sheriff. Jessica, who had never found out what happened that night, stared at Willis. “You need antivenin! Those snakes are poisonous, they can be deadly, and…”
“Mr. Aubrey, you remember last year. The same thing would happen to me again. And just like last time, tomorrow night, I will be all right again.”
Jessica said, “What are you talking about? What happened that night? It’s like I forgot all about it.”
Todd stared at Willis. “So that was you. You were dead. And your body just… disintegrated before our eyes. My word, son, it’s like it was just gone from my mind—just like you told me it would be. That I’d forget you.”
“And tomorrow… when you wake up… you won’t again.” His voice was tight with pain. “And tomorrow night… here I’ll be.”
Jessica knelt by him. “You probably saved my life—Willis, is it? Todd, what…”
“Jess, I promise I’ll give you the full story later. Right now, for the love of God… Willis…” Todd sat down next to Willis. “You saved my wife from that snake. After what I did to you… Forgive me. And thank you.” He took Willis’s hand and clasped it. “I wish there was something I could do for you.”
Willis grimaced. “You have already, sir. Just by coming to the woods… bringing the life and laughter of your family… I get so lonely.”
Jessica, a nurse, pulled up his trouser leg and saw the bite site, already swelling. “All that stuff about cutting and sucking is a myth. He needs to sit quietly, and then antivenin. We can bring it to him…”
Jessica was almost beside herself. Todd looked significantly at her, shaking his head. There was nothing they could do. She got the message. Tears burst from her eyes, but she remained quiet.
Willis began to whisper, and Todd realized momentarily that he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Todd joined him, glad of something to say that might help ease Willis’s pain. Jessica began to sniffle the words along with him. She took Willis’s other hand and held it in both her own.
While the night deepened and the moon rose, Todd related the events of the night when they had met Willis. Jessica looked in disbelief mixed with pity on Willis.
After a while, Jessica suggested that the cold water of the river might help soothe the swelling and aching. Todd helped him to limp down the trail to where it met the river and Willis sat on a boulder with his leg in the water, his trousers rolled up to the knee. Jessica shook her head impotently.
“Tomorrow, sir, ma’am, I promise you I’ll be well again. Tonight will hurt terribly, I am sure. But there is nothing you two can do for me, and your family is waiting. Go on.”
The Aubreys stood reluctantly, thanking Willis again. They hesitated awkwardly before turning away and walking silently into the dark woods. Jessica had brought her flashlight and they hurried, because the kids surely expected them back at the campsite.
Before sleeping, Todd wrote himself a note to look into the matter of Willis Wood. He tucked it in his jeans pocket so he would find it in the morning. But in the morning it was hot, and he chose a pair of shorts instead. The note later dissolved in the washing machine.
FAR-FETCHED
1982
Reverend Peterson set out at 3:30 in the morning to his hunting spot. Now that he knew the trail after many years of frequent hikes, he didn’t worry about falling and half killing himself like he did the first time out here. He chuckled at his own idiocy remembered. His familiar twelve-gauge was over his shoulder and his flashlight held firmly in his hand.
He hardly needed it, the moon was so bright. Where it swerved close to the creek and the moonlight blared from the open sky, he switched it off. In the blue light he almost ran into a young man, who was standing looking into the moving water.
He stopped. The young man turned to face him. Something was vaguely familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it until he said, “I am Willis.”
“I know you! The fellow that helped me when I broke my ankle. Haven’t seen you since. I always wanted to thank you for helping me.”
“It was my pleasure, Reverend. I’ve been out of this area for some time, but wandered back here. It’s good to see you, sir.”
“You were hunting too, as I recall. Bow hunting, a lost art! A simple bow at that.” Willis pulled the bow
from his shoulder, standing the point on the toe of his boot and fingering it fondly. “Did you get a deer that day, I hope?”
“No, Reverend. Nor any day. I am a night hunter.”
The minister had no reply to that.
“Well, Willis, Willis Wood as I recall? I’d like to chat again. I enjoyed talking with you. Can I stop by someday soon?”
“You are always welcome, Reverend. But I’m afraid it will have to be in the nighttime.”
Reverend Peterson hesitated, then plunged ahead. “All right, nighttime it is. Whereabouts do you live?”
Willis heaved a sigh, leaning his head toward the head of the bow. “Do you recall the story I told you, the last time we met?”
“Hmm… vaguely. It was twenty years ago. But I do recall that it sounded a little far-fetched.”
“But look at me, sir. Do I look any different to you? Any older? Have I changed at all?”
Reverend Peterson regarded him as well as he could in the night. Twenty-one years seemed to have left no mark on the young man, even if it was more by his voice and demeanor that showed it than his appearance in the moonlight. He felt the skin on his neck prickle.
“Reverend, what I told you, it is all true.”
1817
Willis Wood had been drinking. He and his friends had left the publ
ic house and walked along Blackbirch River Road, singing bawdily.
Molly, make me oyster stew, oyster stew, oyster stew,
If ye want to keep me true! Molly O my girl, oh!
One by one, they parted company. George Wilcomb, Jack Frederick, Oliver Stedford and all the Widmer brothers, Cyrus, Jesse and Obed. It was just Willis walking along the road. He had been hunting in the afternoon before he wound up at the inn, and he had hidden his bow and arrows in a cranny of a huge white pine that dominated a knoll where the river swung away from the road into old-growth forest of hickory and oak.
He retrieved the bow and quiver. The river glinted below in the moonlight. Autumn rains had set it to laughing and it seemed to call him along the path into the forest. He went.
The wind picked up and the last leaves were flying from the boughs above. Soon the trees were sighing loudly. In fact, Willis realized soon that if he was not inebriated he would be somewhat alarmed. The wind was hot for October, and wild. He heard the branches scraping above him and the stars seemed to grow unnaturally bright. The wildness of the night was answered with something in his heart that made him run along the path, laughing, flinging off his brown hunting coat.
He stopped suddenly at a bend in the path that brought him to the river’s edge. The shimmering water seemed to whisper to him, although it was barely audible over the soughing of the wind. He bent closer to hear and seemed to see a face in the water. “It is a glamour, an illusion,” he thought. “A trick of the eye,” he said out loud. The face strained toward him and he staggered away.
A tree creaked behind him. He turned to look and staggered again, for more faces lurked in the creases of the bark, and slender limbs seemed to reach from the stands of saplings behind. He shook his head and kept walking.
Blackbirch Woods Page 5
