Halley didn’t speak.
“Like I said, I didn’t know what had happened. I saw the bandage on my arm, all clean and white, but I couldn’t remember how I’d hurt myself. Isn’t that ridiculous?” She looked up at Halley. “Stupid weak mind! If only I’d remembered then, I could’ve…”
Halley shook her head. “Your mind couldn’t handle what had happened. It did what it had to do, so you would survive.”
“I guess.”
Hope had picked up the honeysuckle vine again. She dug her fingernails through its stem, cutting off several inches at the end.
She threw it down the steps.
“So you didn’t know what had happened. But Nick knew. He knew he’d done it.”
Hope rubbed her face with her hands, as if wiping something away she couldn’t bear. She lifted her gaze to the lightening area of the dawn sky. “He told me I’d done it to myself,” she repeated. She got up and began to pace again. “But I’ve told you that part already. There’s no point in talking about it anymore.” She looked like she might kick down the rest of the porch railing, but she didn’t. Instead, she rubbed at the scars on her right arm, hard, as if she could erase them.
“Maybe there is.”
Hope shook her head, but spoke just the same. “He said…he said I’d brought my pocketknife with me, the one I always carry.”
Halley put her hand into her pocket and fingered the knife.
“He said I told him…I told him I thought he was going to break up with me. That I was crying, saying I couldn’t live without him, kept repeating it, like I was in a trance or something. I scared him, he said. The bastard!” She kicked the porch railing again and another piece of splintered wood flew into the air. “He tried to stop me, he said, but it happened too fast. I cut myself with my knife. I tried to kill myself.”
“It wasn’t true. You didn’t try to kill yourself.”
Hope’s face showed her doubt. “How do you know? For sure? Maybe I just invented that story about Nick doing it, to make me feel better.” She’d stopped kicking at the railing and stood very still. “I don’t know what’s true anymore. I don’t know what to believe.” She closed her eyes.
Halley drew her hand from her pocket. She was holding the pocketknife. With a practiced motion, she flipped it open and held up the blade.
Hope opened her eyes at the sound of the click, and took a quick step backwards.
“Don’t be afraid. I just want to show you…” Halley held out the knife, but Hope didn’t move closer. “Look. This blade is smooth – it would never make those scars you have on your arm…” To demonstrate, she drew the blade along one of the flooring boards of the porch.
Hope stepped forward cautiously, and looked at the fine straight line the blade had made, and, turning her arm over, compared it to her own serpentine scars. Bending down, she ran her finger along the straight line – her hand was shaking. “You’re right,” Hope said. She sat down heavily and let her arm fall into her lap. “But…”
“But what?”
“I believed him. Halley, I truly believed him…until just now… until you came and helped me remember the truth. Until you proved it to me. Oh my God. Believing him has shaped every moment of my life since that day. I thought…I thought I had decided I was worthless, that my life wasn’t worth living.”
“Why did you believe him?” Halley asked.
Hope sat absolutely still, and closed her eyes. When she spoke, it was like someone in the confessional asking for forgiveness.
“What he said made sense. Things weren’t right between us – I kept thinking we were going to break up, that I’d done something to make him stop loving me. It was easy to believe what he said. That I’d hurt myself.” Hope was silent for a long time, just rubbing the honeysuckle flower between her fingertips, looking down at the porch steps as if there were something of great interest lying at her feet.
“Why was it easy to believe you’d hurt yourself?”
“I’d tried once before…when things were bad between us. We’d had this huge fight…he said it was my fault, that if only I could behave better…then he could love me…” She swallowed. “He went out, slammed the door. There was this black hole right here, right in the center of my chest. I just wanted it to stop. For the pain to stop. I got my knife out. It looked dull. I didn’t know if it would be sharp enough. I meant to…I planned to cut myself…but I didn’t…I thought if I just waited…eventually, I just went to bed.” Hope’s eyes filled with tears and she held her fist to her mouth.
Halley put a hand on top of hers.
“You thought about it. But you didn’t do it.”
“No…so…”
“So that’s what’s important.”
Hope looked at her.
“What do you mean?” Hope sat up straighter.
“You didn’t do it. You never tried to kill yourself.”
“You know, you’re right. I never did. That is what’s important. I never tried to kill myself.”
“And even if you had, you are alive now. You have chosen life.” Halley paused. “So…what did Nick do next?”
“He was kind to me, from that morning on. He took care of me.” Hope placed her foot on the discarded flower and ground it into the porch. “He said he’d never tell anyone what I’d done.”
“No one noticed the bandages? What about Dad? Surely he’d have noticed?”
Hope deflated. “It happened six months after Dad died.”
Halley’s eyes moved back and forth: she knew this.
Hope continued. “We didn’t see any of our friends until the bandages came off. After that, I always wore long sleeves. That was his idea. By then, he had stopped being so nice – he told me our friends would think I was nuts if they knew. He said we should keep it ‘our secret’.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence as the sky lightened.
Halley shook her head, and slid the bracelet back and forth on her arm. “Son of a bitch,” she repeated. She took a deep breath. “When did you meet Andy?”
Hope smiled. “A few months later. My cuts had healed. It was my best friend’s birthday – it was the first time I went out with her in ages. I remember we were dancing on this picnic table – it was an outdoor party – Andy just scooped me off and started dancing with me. I was so drawn to him. He seemed so… so light. I didn’t mean to kiss him. I really didn’t. Especially not after Nick…”
“After Nick had saved your life,” Halley finished flatly.
Hope nodded. “I’d never felt so guilty. I still loved Nick. But I couldn’t give up Andy. I kept reading Nick’s love poems, but I couldn’t feel anything at all. I cried all the time. I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time in my life I couldn’t hear the voice inside me. You know, the voice that always knew the right thing to do.”
“You couldn’t talk to your friends about it. So you took Sampson out.” Halley shifted her seat on the porch step; the boards were hard underneath her.
“I thought a ride would clear my head, help me think. Help me decide what to do.” Hope picked up the discarded honeysuckle vine.
“But you couldn’t get clear, because your mind had built that thing, that ‘fortress’ you drew in the notebook, to hide the truth. To keep the lie safe. To keep you sane.”
“That’s right,” Hope said, as if finally making the connection between her indecision and the repressed memory of Nick’s actions. “I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t make up my mind. I just kept hearing the same thoughts over and over and over again, and it made me feel so weak, and so stupid. I love Nick; I want Andy; I love Nick; I want Andy. I was disgusted with myself. When that tree appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the path, it was like it’d been put there on purpose to punish me, for my stupidity, for not being able to make up my mind, for betraying Nick. For everything. When Sampson jumped, I could’ve stayed on – of course I could have. I was a great rider. But I just let
go. I let myself fall off. I didn’t know how badly I’d get hurt.”
Halley rubbed the small of her back. “And you didn’t think there was much left to lose. When did you start checking the doors and windows?”
Hope was surprised. “Just recently. I’ve never told anyone about it. I was sure if I did, something dreadful would happen. Like it would make it not work. Isn’t that funny?”
Halley shook her head. “I do it too.”
“You do? But why?”
Halley didn’t answer.
Hope continued. “That man from the basement…at first, I just had nightmares about him. But now he’s started coming up the stairs, even when I’m awake. I can really see him. I must be crazy.”
“I saw him too,” Halley reminded her.
“I know.”
They looked at each other.
“Maybe Nick hurt you too.”
Halley turned to stare at Hope. Her eyes moved to Hope’s thin, white arms; her own were muscular, possessing life and vitality. She wore them like armor. Her gaze ran to her forearm, the back of her hand. The silver bracelet: Halley stared at it, and in that moment she could see it on the wrist of her own much younger self. She was once again riding Sampson, flying through the woods, innocent and free. She remembered the taste of freedom, the smell of dirt and leaves, the ringing of hooves on gravel.
It was the time before; she could finally remember the time before.
Without looking up, Halley turned her palm to face the sky, and rested her arm in her lap. She gently pushed the bracelet higher up her arm, and stared at the long red scars. They were identical to Hope’s. She ran two fingers up her arm, between the lengths of the scars.
Then she dropped her head into her hands and cried as if the world was ending.
Hope put her arms around Halley and held her tightly.
* * *
When the tears were finished, Halley looked up. The sun was high in the sky; the day was light.
“The man in the basement…the man that looked like Nick…” Halley’s voice was thick and heavy.
“Yes?” Hope said.
“He wasn’t Nick.”
Hope looked startled.
“I think he was you. And me. Us…”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“He was a part of us that knew, that was warning us. The same part that made you draw the sketch of the fortress, that made you leave the notebook out for me to see. That man in the basement was your intuition, telling you to beware. He had to keep coming back, until you faced the truth. Until you decided to leave Nick.”
Hope was silent for some time, rocking forward and backward. She turned to stare uneasily at the house. Suddenly, she stood up.
“Come with me,” she said.
Together, they walked across the porch, and through the front door. The living room was light now. They walked into the kitchen, letting the door swing freely behind them. Hope went straight to the glossy black basement door. She opened the door wide. Nothing happened. Hope’s body relaxed and she sighed. It was a full, lifting sigh. Halley had a sense that this was to be the last sigh. Hope’s careworn face lightened and she said, “You’re right. I know the truth. I’m leaving Nick.”
“What about Andy?”
“It never had anything to do with Andy.”
* * *
Halley walked out of the back door. It was still cool on this side of the house. Athena watched her with big grey wet eyes.
“What happened?” Eden said, running up to Halley at once. “Where’s Hope? Did you fix her, or is she still crazy?”
Halley smiled. “She was never crazy, and yes, I think I fixed her.”
The back door opened a second time, and Hope stepped out. She must have showered; her hair was still damp, and she had pushed it back behind her ears, which gave her an elfish appearance. “Do you two have anything to eat?” she asked. “I’m starving!” She jumped down the back steps and landed on two feet. “Don’t look so surprised, Eden – I bet you’re hungry too.”
Halley reached into her bamboo backpack, and pulled out three ripe bananas. “Eat these. They’ll give you strength.”
Halley and Eden watched as Hope devoured all three bananas without pause.
“It’s funny. I forgot how good it was to eat.” She looked thoughtful. “Hey… I’ve got something better than bananas. Give me a minute…”
Eden and Halley watched Hope enter a small shed at the back of the garden. “The freezer!” they said in unison.
“Peters Monkey Bars!” Halley added. “I’d forgotten all about Dad’s secret recipe. Didn’t he say they’d last for years in the freezer?”
Eden nodded.
Hope came back with an armful. They were individually wrapped in aluminum foil, and sealed inside zip-lock bags. Condensation had already begun to form on the plastic. Hope dropped them to the ground. “God, they’re cold!”
Eden giggled, and picked one up from the pile. “We used to eat these on those long hiking trips. They taste awful! But if I had one, I’d be full all morning.” She turned it over in her hands and studied the handmade wrapper. Halley and Hope grimaced as she tore one open, and sniffed it. “Smells just like it used to – terrible!” She took a big bite, and spoke through a full mouth. “Yuk! It tastes just like it used to, too!”
Hope and Halley opened their own bars and tasted.
Hope made a face.
“But the second bite’s better, right?” Halley said.
“No!” Hope and Eden shouted in unison.
They began to laugh.
They ate the bars quickly. Halley felt a surge of energy flow through her. Hope helped them fill the two bamboo backpacks with enough Peters Monkey Bars to keep them going for a week.
They were silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts.
Hope was the first to speak. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
Her voice reminded Halley of freely flowing water. Halley opened her arms wide and Hope stepped in for a hug.
Hope soaked up the embrace and then stepped free, gazing out at the mountains. “It’s a beautiful morning.” She stretched her arms wide, as if to take it up with her body. “I think I’ll take a walk.”
With a smile that held within it both thankfulness and farewell, she turned and walked around the house and towards the front garden. Halley and Eden followed her to the front of the house, where she stopped for a moment and then bent down. When she stood up, she was holding a ripe dandelion. She blew hard, and white dandelion seeds suddenly filled the air.
“Angel parachutes,” Eden said.
“Yes.” Halley smiled.
Hope turned to wave goodbye. In time, she became small in the distance, and finally disappeared from view entirely.
Tired from the sleepless night, Halley slept for hours.
Upon waking, she spoke decisively.
“I have to see the basement.”
Eden looked at her in disbelief. “But he’s down there!”
“No, I think he’s gone. But I need to be sure.” She stood and dusted grass from her clothing. “I know you’re frightened. It’s ok. You can wait here. I won’t be long.”
Slowly, she made her way inside. A familiar coldness washed over her as she crossed the kitchen and approached the basement door. The dark stairwell gaped.
“It’s just a basement. I’m not a child anymore.” With a shaking hand, she reached for the doorframe.
Eden’s voice startled her. “I’m coming too,” she said.
Halley turned. “You sure?”
She nodded.
“Ok.” Halley hesitated. “But listen, stay close. I’m pretty sure I’m right about that man but…”
Eden swallowed and didn’t answer.
Quickly, Halley reached into the stairwell, and flicked on the light. The small click was unnaturally loud. Tentatively, she stepped forward, resting one foot on the top stair, the other leg lifted as if it hesitated to follo
w. “It’s been years since I’ve gone down this staircase. When I was a child, that thing used to climb the stairs in the middle of the night…”
Eden shivered.
“It came into my room. I believed that if I closed my eyes, I would be invisible. If I was absolutely still, it couldn’t get me.”
“I remember,” Eden said.
The light from the bare bulb was cold and lifeless, not bright enough to illuminate the darker shadows. Halley took a few steps down the stairs, and then forced herself to take a few more. The descent felt endless. The back of her knees were sweating, her pulse racing. By the time she’d reached the bottom, she was half-blind with panic.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the stairs, and turned the corner. There, she stopped in her tracks. It was completely dark. She felt around on the closest wall, but there was no central light switch. This had not changed. Despair filled her. The lights were the very worst thing. To turn them on meant venturing into the dark. Four bare bulbs, turned on and off by pulling long hanging cords. Turning them on was bad. Turning them off was worse. Pulling one cord, leaving a dark space where anything could lurk, and then another, the darkness growing like a shadow, and then the third, so the whole basement was nearly dark but for a small, safe circle of light. To turn off the last light was terror. She would flee the darkness, racing up the stairwell, pursued, desperate to lock the door behind her. Sometimes, the lock wouldn’t catch.
When she was little, the basement had terrified her. It wasn’t just the darkness or the junk. It was the dark spaces behind it. Anything could hide behind those discarded sofas; inside her grandfather’s old war chests; between warped bookshelves. The empty armchairs, stuffing overflowing, were often peopled by figures she would see from the corner of her eye.
Biting her lip, she took two paces forward, reached up, and pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. The single bulb lit. She pulled on the remaining three bulbs. Then she stood still, stunned. The basement was empty. It was all gone. The cement floor radiated cold through her shoes. The scary things were gone.
Out of The Woods Page 20
