Big Woods

by May Cobb

  “What’s your problem, Scott? Just take me home,” I snap, sounding more annoyed than I intended.

  He just sits there with one arm dangling off the wheel, his face in a pout, sulking, so I open the door and get out, slamming it shut behind me. I decide to walk home. Scott idles for a few angry moments before peeling off. It’s dark out, the streetlights casting puddles of light on the road, but when I get to the darkest spots I pump my legs as fast as they can go. I’m still just a few blocks from home and mad at myself for not letting him drive me. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck as I race home. Between pools of streetlight, I race in the dark, running faster.

  Is this what you felt, Lucy?

  I hear a car door shut. I whip my head around, but I can’t make out anything. My calves are on fire, but I run as quickly as I can down my street and up my long driveway. Mom has left the porch light on, thank God, and I race toward it and fumble with the key in my pocket. My hands are shaking but I jam the key in the lock and open the door. Safely inside, I lock the door behind me and collapse in the entryway.

  24

  Sylvia

  Hattie lived in the small farming community of Easton, ten miles south of town. On Saturdays, she’d invite me out there and the drive was luscious—the pine trees thinned and the flat highway started to undulate over vivid green hills that rolled out like an emerald quilt. I would crank the windows down and breathe in the tangy air of the thick vegetation. Wild bushes, their tendrils waving in the wind, stood next to native fruit trees and vines. Orange persimmons, fat as baseballs, would roll into the road.

  Hat’s place was neat and tidy—a small, cream-colored wooden house with red shutters. A spray of metal butterflies hung by her front door and her house was set on twenty acres, far off the highway on a blacktop road that curled around like a half smile.

  Her husband, Teddy, was gone most weekends long-haul truck driving, so it was usually just us and her granddaughter, Cynthia, who she kept on Saturdays. Hattie needed the company, too.

  We would mostly talk about her gardens. Like me, she had a flower garden, but also, in the back of the property, she had a massive vegetable garden and we’d walk the rows and fill baskets full of turnip greens that she’d fix for our lunch.

  We’d sit on the back porch while the greens soaked in her white enamel sink and drink iced tea and pass the time, watching Cynthia spin cartwheels in the backyard, the red and white beads at the end of her neat braids click-clacking together as she spun. Honeysuckle vines, thick as ropes, strangled the chain link that fenced in the yard.

  Easton was an all-black community and her great-grandfather’s church—which he built as a newly freed slave—sat in the middle of town. It had been burned to the ground twice by the KKK. She told me about the prayer circles, how the congregation would ring around the burned church and pray, pitching in double their tithes and some their entire paychecks to rebuild. She talked about how the insurance company would cover the cost of reconstruction, but how that check always fell short and how they would have to raise additional funds to rebuild the children’s center, to order new hymnals, etc. And she told me how the police offered little solace from the terror that struck their hearts. But, she said, with a smile spreading across her face, “The Lord always rebuilds, every time, our house of worship and our spirits.”

  Farther afield, an ancient pecan orchard stood and when it was in season and the pecans dropped to the ground, we’d spend the day gathering them up in woven baskets and later cracking them on the porch so Hattie could make us her aunt’s recipe for pecan tassies—little discs of the most buttery, delicious dessert that ever passed my lips.

  At the very back of the property, as the hill dipped down, there was a large stocked catfish pond. Sometimes we’d walk down there with Cynthia and watch as she’d scatter feed over the water and squeal with delight when the fish would light the surface. Teddy loved to fish and one Sunday while he was home, he caught a bathtub’s worth and invited me out for a fish fry. They became like family to me during those first few years.

  I loved the thick warmth of springtime on her back porch and I was never ready to leave, but as the sun would begin to set, turning the sky into orange sherbet, I’d give little Cynthia a kiss goodbye and climb into the station wagon and head for home, a sinking feeling spreading over me as I drove back to my cold, lonely house.

  25

  Leah

  Wednesday, October 25th, 1989

  Lucy missing 3 weeks, 5 days

  The first person to get a black rose in their locker was Brandi Miles. It happened on my first day back to school, the Wednesday before Halloween. Ali told me in the girl’s bathroom just after fourth period, her eyes darting around underneath the sickly fluorescent light.

  “They say she screamed when she saw it! Can you imagine?” Ali was talking fast and chomping ferociously on her gum. “Everyone is saying it’s from devil worshippers! I’m SO scared, Leah! I mean, what if it happens to me? I’ve got blond hair and blue eyes, too!” she said, flipping her hand through her sheets of golden hair.

  We had all heard the rumors that if a girl finds a black rose in her locker, then she will soon disappear. This had never happened to anyone we actually knew, of course, but the rumors still persisted. The cloying smell of Lysol mixed with hairspray was making me feel claustrophobic and I wanted to get out of there.

  “She brought it straight to Principal Davis, of course,” she continued. Ali would’ve kept talking but the school bell buzzed, cutting through her monologue. “Oh! Gotta run to English!” She turned in the mirror and primped her hair, smiling at her reflection before sprinting off.

  Brandi was a senior and captain of the drill team. She had thick, bleached-blond hair that she teased up into a mountain every morning before school. Her eyes were pale-blue and she was tall and thin and would glide down the halls with model-perfect posture.

  Because she found the black rose so close to Halloween, everybody thought it was just a Halloween prank, but one week later, at night, when Brandi came out of drill team practice, she went to her teal-colored Suzuki Samurai and all of the tires were slashed. Someone had picked the passenger’s side lock and there was a note on the seat, scribbled in red marker that read:

  Heat and power

  This dead flower

  By this curse,

  I make it worse

  The police came to the parking lot to dust the car for fingerprints and take photos, and after that night, her parents escorted her to and from practice.

  26

  Sylvia

  They say that God is most present where he is most needed, so I guess that’s why there are so many churches in this town. I thought it was strange at first: all the churches crammed into such a small place. They are seemingly on every corner, sprouting from the earth—both monolithic churches with chalk-white steeples that shoot to the sky and also the smaller, homier churches.

  But it’s not these churches that bother me, it’s the splinter groups around here—what I call the basement churches, some of them formed in secret—that bother me the most. I’m leery of anyone who feels the need to shut off from society and make up their own rules.

  27

  Leah

  Friday, October 27th, 1989

  Lucy missing 4 weeks

  Dad hasn’t slept at home all week. Mom made some lame excuse about him working late for a deadline, but I know he’s just passed out drunk on his couch at work. He comes home in the mornings to shower—all rumpled hair and bleary-eyed—and gives me long, tight hugs that leave me feeling both anxious and drained.

  Mom has become closed in on herself, dragging paperwork home from school and sitting at the dinner table hidden behind mountains of manila folders, a pen jammed behind one ear, deep in thought. I can tell she’s half waiting to hear if Dad’s truck will pull up in the driveway, and half just trying to distract herself.
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  It’s Friday night tonight and Ali invited me to the football game earlier today at school. I said no, I didn’t want to go; I didn’t want to leave Mom all by herself.

  “Scott really wants you to be there,” she said, her jaw squared, clutching a pile of books to her chest.

  “Well, then why doesn’t he ask me himself? He’s barely looked at me all week,” I said, my voice coming out whinier than I meant it to.

  “Oh, Leah, you know how guys are. Just come, it’ll—”

  But I cut her off by fake-coughing into my arm and squinting my eyes up at her. “I’m really just not feeling all that well, okay?” I said. Ali is a sucker when someone is in need.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” Her eyes spread wide with concern. “Well, you just take care of yourself, sweetie. I’ll call you tomorrow to check on you,” she said, blowing me a kiss before turning to leave.

  The sun set hours ago, outside it’s so dark, the night sky is a purple bruise. My stomach grumbles and I’m just beginning to wonder about dinner when Mom comes downstairs.

  “I’m ordering us a pizza. Sound good?”

  “Definitely!” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss her china doll cheek.

  While we wait for the pizza to be delivered, I go into the kitchen and pull out some Tupperware. I grab a box of lime Jell-O from the pantry (Mom’s favorite) and tear open the bag and shake the emerald crystals into the bowl before mixing it up with water and putting it in the fridge to set. Mom steps into the kitchen and smiles when she sees the ripped-open Jell-O box. She pours herself a short glass of sherry and studies me for a second, her eyes smiling.

  We nearly eat the whole pizza. Afterwards, she stays seated at the table and begins sifting through more paperwork. I don’t want to move an inch so I keep picking at the pizza, lifting up brick-red discs of pepperoni and pouring the grease out and eating more. I’ve guzzled nearly half the two-liter bottle of Coke that came with the pizza when Mom starts rubbing her temples and says she’s going upstairs to bed.

  I clear the table, dump everything into the trash, and sweep the powdery crumbs off the table with my hands. When I’m sure she’s upstairs with the TV on, I step into the kitchen and call Dad at the office. He doesn’t answer. I hope for just a moment that this means he’s on his way home, but after a while, when I don’t hear his truck rumble into the driveway, I go upstairs. I pause at Mom’s door. She’s fallen asleep with the TV on, the remote still clutched in her hand. Her bedside lamp is on and the ashtray is in the middle of the bed, pinning down the TV Guide. I go over to her, click off the lamp, shut off the TV, and move the ashtray before climbing into bed and snuggling into her warmth.

  28

  Leah

  Sunday, October 29th, 1989

  Lucy missing 1 month

  Dad hasn’t come home all weekend. Mom and I don’t discuss this, but we both stay coiled, waiting for the back door to open, waiting for him to come strolling in. We sit at the breakfast table and I crunch through a bowl of sugary cornflakes while Mom opens the Sunday paper.

  She flips through the sections briskly, barely skimming the stories, but then pauses on something, furrowing her brow. She refolds the newspaper, pushes back from the table, and pitches it in the trash before I have a chance to read the comics. I trail behind her and am about to fish it out of the trash but it’s landed on a layer of wet coffee grounds, so I leave it.

  “I’m going to take a bath,” Mom says, clearing the table and taking my cereal bowl to the sink.

  I cross the room and twist the knob on the dining room television set. I’m trying to find something interesting to watch, but it’s just live broadcasts from local churches. Religious stuff has always made me squirm. Grandma and Grandpa used to take me to church with them sometimes, but Mom and Dad aren’t very religious. We’re members of the Episcopal Church because Mom is principal of the school, but we only go for the holidays.

  Once when I was eight, I asked Mom if she believed in God. We were out for a walk, it was a fall afternoon and we were strolling down a wide street. I remember the way the sunlight played tricks on the leaves shimmering in the trees—it felt like we were walking through a bowl of Fruity Pebbles—and I looked up at Mom and asked her if she believed in God. She went quiet for a moment and wouldn’t meet my eyes. She was still staring off when she answered me.

  “I believe we evolved from soup of the earth.” And the way she said it, I knew it was the end of the conversation. The thing about Mom that I and all the other kids at her school respect is this: she doesn’t bullshit you. I’m not sure what I believe yet, but I do believe in a higher power, a force of good.

  I turn the TV off and climb the stairs. I can hear Mom’s voice, so I step into her room. She’s in the bathroom with the door closed; it smells like she’s smoked a hundred cigarettes. The olive green phone cord is pinched in the door, pulled tautly like it’s about to snap.

  “No, YOU listen to ME,” she says, her voice sputtering in anger. She must be talking to Dad. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you—” The floor creaks underneath my feet; she can hear me so she shifts away from the door so I can’t listen to their conversation. I can imagine her in there with the receiver cupped to her mouth, the open window rustling the pages of the neat pile of magazines, and smoke streaming from her nostrils.

  I go to my room to lie down. A while later, I hear a car in the drive so I jump up and run to the window, thinking it’s Dad. It’s the sheriff. My stomach churns. I see the front door swing wide open. Mom is already downstairs, and I hear her ushering him inside.

  I creep downstairs sock-footed and eavesdrop on the other side of the thin door.

  “How’ve you been holding up, Roz?” the sheriff asks.

  “Same,” Mom says, her voice blank.

  “Carl still gone?”

  “Yep, ’fraid so.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry you had to read about it in the paper this morning before I got to you—I don’t know who spoke to the press. I came here straight after church so we could talk about it,” Sheriff Greene says.

  “Just tell me everything, Tommy, shoot it to me straight.”

  “Look. Lucy has been missing for over a month. I didn’t think her case was connected to the others, but now …” He’s stumbling around for the words. “Now I do. There has been suspicious activity in the area recently, more signs of Satanism and such, and—” He starts stammering again.

  “Jesus, Tommy, just spit it out! What kinds of signs?” Mom says, exasperated.

  He blows out a heavy breath. “We have been taking reports of dismembered pets, cats bagged up and nailed to trees. And it’s not just in Big Woods this time; it’s been happening here in Longview, too. There’s been other signs as well. We’ve seen more spray-painted markings around town, upside-down crosses and pentagrams. Just like before.”

  “So what does any of this have to do with Lucy?”

  “Forensics indicated that all of the other children whose bodies we found had been murdered within a month of their disappearance. So if it’s the same people or same cult we’re dealing with who took Lucy, I’m afraid, Roz, that it’s time to start preparing for the worst.”

  I hear the sound of my Mom’s back slide down the wall. I hear her stifle a sob that comes out anyway, as an ugly snort. I stifle my own cry—a white-hot piercing pain that tears the back of my throat—so I won’t be heard. And finally, I hear the strike of a match as Sheriff Greene lights Mom’s Virginia Slim.

  They are quiet for a few moments before Tommy says goodbye and opens the front door.

  I run around to the bottom of the stairs and sit there. Mom walks over to me.

  “What did Sheriff Greene want?” I ask.

  She studies me for a second before answering, and swallows hard. “Honey, the sheriff thinks it’s time we start saying goodbye.”

  My eyes burn with tears. She doesn�
��t tell me about the devil worshipers, or go into details, and I don’t have the strength to press her. I sit there limp, the breath sucked out of me. Mom slumps down next to me on the stairs and hugs my shoulder hard. The sun has splashed warm light across the stairway and we sit there in its warm glow.

  29

  Sylvia

  Sunday, October 29th, 1989

  The local newspaper hits my front door this morning with a thud, jostling me out of sleep. No matter how many times I’ve called the paper to complain, the paper boy still sails it up toward the front door, rattling it with a whack, never failing to pry me from my dreams. I stopped taking the daily paper years ago—it’s useless—but I do read the circulars in Sunday’s paper, and the local food writer who has a Sunday column is actually decent.

  It’s been raining all night, so by the time I climb downstairs to get the paper, it’s swollen, thick with rain, the sleeve half on. I bring it inside to the kitchen table and set it on the tablecloth to let it dry. I walk over to the stove, turn on the teakettle, and drop a slice of bread in the toaster. As I’m waiting for my toast to be ready and the water to boil, I sit down to read the paper.

  I unroll it and my stomach churns: her face is bloated with the rain water so that her features are blurry, but the image is not so smeared that I don’t recognize her immediately. Lucy. Her picture is underneath the headline that screams out at me: Missing Girl’s Case May Be Linked to Area’s Previously Unsolved Murders.

  Of course it’s connected, I think to myself, I already know that, but I read through the rest of the article.

  It talks about recent activity in and around Big Woods, signs of “definite cult activity, possibly Satanic rituals,” but doesn’t go into much detail other than that. Sheriff Greene has declined to comment, but an unnamed source from the police department says, “Activity has ramped up in the Big Woods area, just like before. We have evidence of ritualistic-type ceremonies being held out there, it appears to be the working of a cult—same signs and symbols as before. They will strike again—it’s what we’re most worried about.”