We Went to the Woods

by Caite Dolan-Leach

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Fuck.” Louisa yawned broadly, and I felt a surge of frustration that I wasn’t being taken seriously. Everyone here thought I was nothing, just some meek, mousy extra pair of hands. With a truck.

  “What’s going on?” Chloe called from her stoop. She wore nothing but a delicate kimono, belted round her waist with a silk scarf.

  “Mack has an infestation,” Louisa answered. “We should get our pitchforks, I guess.” She waved a sleepy arm.

  “No Beau, right? I’ll wake Jack!” Chloe scampered barefoot from her cabin to pound on Jack’s door. Louisa ducked back inside to grab a thick sweater. I thought it might be Beau’s. She also carried a walking stick that Beau had brought her from one of his surveying expeditions deep into the woods. Jack joined us, dressed in his skivvies and a ratty T-shirt, holding a shovel. We four advanced on my little home.

  On the stoop, we paused to listen. For one chilling instant, I heard nothing, and began to feel the crippling humiliation of a little girl who has summoned her parents for the monster under her bed, said creature having conveniently vanished at the appearance of others. But then there came the clicking of toenails, and the distinct sound of something growling softly in the back of its throat.

  “Fuck,” Louisa said. “I thought you meant, like, a squirrel or something.”

  “Maybe it’s a raccoon?” Chloe offered.

  “Or a possum?” countered Jack. I shuddered. I hated possums. Everyone did. They were fantastically creepy. The idea of it in my bed, or pacing the boards that I had so happily trod these past weeks, gave me a frisson of the willies. The growl intensified.

  “Where the fuck is Beau?” asked Jack, expressing the thought we were all too proud to make explicit. This was a job for him.

  “Not here,” Louisa answered. “Right, it could be a coyote, I guess. Which means it likely won’t want to have much to do with us. I bet once we open this door, it just takes off.”

  “Right,” I answered. “But then why did it come inside in the first place?” No one answered. Instead, Louisa purposefully hopped up the steps, flung the door open, and leapt back, walking stick held comically aloft, preparing to brain whatever creature wandered out.

  Nothing did, immediately, and we all stared anxiously at my darkened door. Then inside we could see a shape, moving and massive. Chloe let out a small whimper. I concurred. A giant, toothy head emerged from my cabin, and we all stepped back in alarm.

  Out onto my stoop came a giant, shaggy wolf. Or at least that’s what he appeared to be. He was nearly as tall as I was, a hirsute primordial critter panting casually on my porch. His eyes were reddish brown, and followed each of us as we instinctively tried to protect ourselves.

  “Bloody fucking hell,” said Louisa, breathless. I was trying to decide whether to turn and run (was I faster than Louisa? Jack would certainly outpace us all, Jesus, I was the smallest and would definitely be the easiest prey oh God) when the hound yawned conspicuously and lowered himself into a downward dog. His tail wagged, and he loped easily off the stoop. None of us moved, and I fought panic as he came over and sniffed each of us, tail still flapping.

  “You know, I think he’s friendly,” Chloe said finally. I extended my hand, palm outstretched, the way I had always greeted my uncle’s rottweiler, and the dog good-naturedly sniffed at it before delicately taking my fingers in his mouth. His rump wiggled in pleasure, and I ran my hand up the side of his face, giving his hairy ears a scratch. He panted and rolled his head into my armpit. It was a strange feeling, like giving a pony a rub, but the dog seemed perfectly happy with my efforts.

  “Do we have any sausage left?” I asked.

  “You’re going to give that—thing—sausage?” Louisa asked incredulously.

  “I think he’s hungry. He must have smelled food in my cabin.”

  “Yeah. He smelled you.”

  “Look, if he wanted to eat any of us, he probably would have tried already,” I explained. “He’s definitely been domesticated. Probably some kind of wolfhound.”

  “Well, maybe he should go back to whoever domesticated him,” Louisa suggested. She glanced nervously around. “Seriously, could his people be out here in the woods?”

  This gave me a jolt—were the dog’s owners skulking about, just out of sight, watching us? I felt around his neck, searching for a collar, but encountered only a burr tangled in his fur. Surely someone wouldn’t allow their pet to romp around the wilderness unidentified. I began to relax. He trusted me, I felt it.

  “We’d hear them, if they were nearby,” I said, giving him a solid scritch.

  “Unless they were trying not to be heard,” Louisa countered, scanning the tree line for glowing human eyes. “Hello? Has anyone out there lost their wolf?” she called into the woods. We heard only the swoop of pine boughs in the wind.

  “He doesn’t have a collar, and he’s grubby as hell. I think he’s a stray. Come, pup. I’ll get you something to eat.” I patted the side of my leg, though this seemed like an inappropriate gesture for a dog of his size; I should have patted my shoulder. When I strode towards the big cabin, the huge creature followed, tongue out. The three humans trailed behind, Jack and Chloe amused, Louisa still uncertain, and they watched as I fixed up a bowl of lentils and sausage from the scraps of dinner that had been left sitting on the stove. The dog waited patiently at the door, clearly trying to demonstrate his good-boy status. I put the bowl down in front of him, and he happily fell on it, devouring it within seconds before returning to a sit and looking at me expectantly.

  I let him sleep in my cabin that night. For the first time since arriving at the Homestead, I didn’t watch for any candles from my window.

  * * *

  Beau returned home to a frosty welcome and an equally frosty bowl of oatmeal. He seemed not to notice the temperature of either greeting or meal, and nuzzled Louisa fondly on the side of her neck as we sat around the picnic table in the middle of our cluster of cabins. We’d agreed to give up coffee, since it wasn’t local, and were instead sipping hot water laced with honey. The doggo had disappeared after I’d let him out this morning, and we were all waiting to see if he would return. Chloe had regaled Beau with the tale of the nighttime intruder, and he had chuckled in delight at the picture she painted.

  “And where is this mystery hound?” he asked. We all shrugged, and then he startled us by erupting into a long, wolfish howl that first Chloe, then Jack, and finally Louisa and I joined, until we were all cackling foolishly around the table.

  The mystery hound returned late that afternoon, as we were all collapsing sweatily near the garden, ready to call it a day. From his jaws limply dangled a rabbit, whose ears flopped from side to side as the dog trotted powerfully towards us. He dropped the bunny near me before sitting back on his huge haunches. Chloe made a little mew of distress, but Beau looked impressed.

  “You. You are a good mutt,” he said approvingly, patting the dog on the head.

  “Sweet dog,” I concurred. “What a sweet boy.” I gave him the tiny nub of carrot I had just tugged from the garden in order to gauge its growth, and the dog chomped it happily. I glanced over at Louisa, who was eyeing the rabbit. “Well, chef? What’s for dinner?” I asked teasingly. She stood, considering.

  “Rabbit stew,” she answered finally. “I don’t think I’ll kill us all with tularemia as long as I cook the shit out of it. But one of you is cleaning that damn animal.”

  “Dog or rabbit?” Beau asked.

  “Both,” she said, heading towards the big cabin.

  Chapter 10

  Beau threw the party without telling us. We’d been planning a shindig since April, when the unremitting gray and gloom of the winter had begun to lift off the Homestead and our living arrangements began to look less ramshackle and more charming and rustic, at least to our eyes. I desperately wanted to reassure my
parents that I was not in a cult, not addicted to drugs, and not starving to death in the wilderness. My handful of visits home had not entirely convinced them; always thin, I now had the wiry springiness of an acrobat or a jockey, and my hair had grown out unevenly and ragged. I hoped they could see the happy glow of my unusually tanned skin or appreciate the pride I felt in displaying the calluses on my hands, but my mother merely pursed her lips and encouraged me to eat another plate of baked ziti. My father, uncharacteristically, had given me a hundred dollars when I had climbed back into the cab of my truck after my first visit, no doubt urged out onto the icy driveway by my mother, who’d watched from the kitchen window. Their disappointment had been so palpable that I’d wanted to race around the lake and towards the next one, home.

  We’d all discussed having an open house to show off the Homestead—to parents, friends, and Beau and Chloe’s coworkers from the café. We wanted everyone to see the tidy cabins, our fortress-like chicken coop, the garden that promised infinite cucumbers. Chloe had even gone as far as making another long table (from little more than salvaged wood, nails, and a stack of sandpaper) for guests to dine on outside, and Jack had hauled in a dozen stumps left from the wood splitting to provide seating around it. We’d said May, but here May was, and we had yet to organize anything.

  So when Beau appeared in the driveway with the colorful VW and another pickup truck, out of which spilled around ten people none of us knew, we all temporarily bristled. I didn’t want to come across as someone who needed to plan things, some uptight suburban housewife with no spontaneity, but my first thought was that he could have at least given us a heads-up. Of course, I would never open my mouth to actually disagree; I always retreated.

  I saw Fennel first; she was wearing loose harem pants and a ragged sweatshirt that was now an indiscriminate gray, whatever its previous hue had been. Her dreadlocks were twisted into a towering beehive that defied gravity, and she wore what looked like old military-issue boots. Her cohort was dressed in a mélange of Carhartt overalls, ragged jeans, Tevas with socks. They were carefully androgynous.

  At the sound of the vehicles, Louisa and Chloe emerged from the kitchen. Jack was in the second clearing, a distance away, sowing alfalfa (we wanted a goat and, eventually, a cow), and I wished for his easy social abilities. He was unfailingly friendly and welcoming to everyone, immediately interested in their story, ambitions, plans. And, of course, their vegetable gardens. The dog, whom we had named Argos, stuck close to my side—he seemed to be completely bored by the visitors—and I turned to him.

  “Go get Jack, buddy. Go find Jack!” I had no idea if this would work, but I watched Argos race off with a satisfying elegance, headed towards the woods.

  Chloe had ambled off the stoop of the big cabin and was coming to introduce herself, while Louisa lingered where she was, apron tied around the country-style dress she often changed into in the evenings. Under her arm, she carried a copy of The Settlement Cook Book, one of her favorite sources for old-time recipes.

  “Hey, you,” Beau said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek and sliding a hand around my back. I was a little sweaty, and feared that he would notice, but also couldn’t help leaning into the touch. “You remember Fennel?” I nodded, shook hands, and let myself be introduced to three or four of her friends, whose names I promptly forgot. The rest of our visitors had straggled off to inspect the orchard and cluck approvingly at our coop.

  Louisa had joined us, after giving Beau a fairly demonstrative kiss on the side of the mouth.

  “Howdy, Fennel,” she said coolly only after her possessive smooch. “Long time no see.”

  “Not because of me,” Fennel responded. “I’ve been waiting for an invitation out here for ages.”

  “You know what it takes to get things up and running. All is well at the Collective?”

  “Even better than the last time you were there,” Fennel said. Louisa pursed her lips and then tersely asked whether everyone would like to stay to dinner. Given the armfuls of food and bottles that were emerging from the VW, this seemed like a given, but Louisa made it sound like a formal invitation.

  “Well, come, let’s see what we can throw together,” she said to Fennel, who had no choice then but to follow her into the big cabin. I knew that Louisa would be happiest giving Fennel orders around the kitchen, and from Beau’s smirk, I could tell he knew it too.

  “Introduce me to some more of your friends?” I asked, hoping I sounded coy and appealing. I very much liked the idea of being introduced by him, next to him. He waved to a dark-haired girl who wore a wildly patterned caftan and cowboy boots and who, unlike most of the other women, had a deliberate smudge of black eyeliner on each eye.

  “Mack, meet Zelda,” Beau murmured, steering me towards the girl. Her gaze was intense, and I tripped a little before extending my hand. She took it with an amused smile.

  “Mack, huh?” One eyebrow quirked upward and she looked as though she was waiting for me to say something. The silence was too lengthy to not mean something, but when I didn’t respond, she just shrugged with an amused, knowing smile. “Well, fancy that. You’re the little scribbler.” I looked at Beau, puzzled. Had he noticed me with my notebook, jotting down thoughts? “Because you’re always keeping track of things, writing things down. A grand chronicler of past and present!”

  “Oh, hardly. I just don’t remember things unless I write them down. I…guess I keep a sort of almanac.”

  “But the almanac is the future, sweetheart. Do you do fortunes?” She stuck her hand out, showing me her palm. “What’s in store for me, Cassandra?” Unthinkingly, I took her hand before realizing I lacked the panache to fake my way through a faux fortune-telling.

  “Nothing good if you don’t take it easy,” Beau admonished, in the funny scolding tone he liked to use. He stroked her forearm, and I noticed the track marks that scored her skin.

  “Fiddle-dee-dee! Tomorrow is another day, Beauregard Hull. Come, help me fetch the wine. I took it from the familial cellars!” She grabbed Beau and tugged him towards the VW, and he complied quite happily.

  “Her family runs a vineyard,” Chloe said, having appeared next to me. “Actually, I guess she runs the vineyard, technically. She and her twin used to come to the café pretty often. I think that’s where Beau met her, but I’m not sure.”

  “She has a twin?”

  “Uptight pain in the ass. Took off to Europe, what, two years ago? Zelda’s been something of a loose cannon ever since.”

  “Is the wine any good?” I asked.

  “Not very. But it’s local, so Jack won’t be able to complain.” She smiled at me, her cornflower eyes full of fun and her wispy hair blown across her face. Looking at Chloe could be almost painful. “And at least they didn’t come empty-handed. Beau once brought Fennel over to my co-op in Ithaca, and not only did she bring absolutely nothing, she sat giving me instructions on what she could and couldn’t eat while I cooked her dinner.”

  “I’ve no doubt Louisa is returning the favor right now,” I answered, and she grinned happily.

  “Come, it’s a party! Let’s find Jack!” she said. Jack, as it turned out, had returned from the future alfalfa field, whether because Argos had successfully fetched him or because he had heard the ruckus from the crew’s arrival. He was very contentedly showing someone his mead-making operation, a process that was supposedly nearing completion, and that he fussed over neurotically every day.

  “Don’t you get annoyed, obsessing over it like that?” Louisa had asked one day. “I mean, Jesus, come on already, let’s just drink it.”

  “I think I get a lot of the satisfaction out of thinking and overthinking,” he had mused. “Part of the pleasure, for me, is to obsess.”

  “You do do that with everything.”

  “I process things with my head. I like to think about things, analyze.”

  “Yes, every
one knows how charming overthinking is as a personality trait,” Louisa had said.

  “Well, you process everything with your mouth,” Jack had sniped back, an observation that was apt enough to silence the barbed round of mutual criticism. Louisa did process with her mouth: eating, drinking, tasting, kissing, talking. It was how she interpreted the world.

  I watched Beau and Zelda muscle a case of wine out of the van and felt a giddy pleasure at the sight. We’d been careful not to consume too much of our bartered booze; at first, it had seemed so bountiful, but we’d realized that between the five of us, it wouldn’t last nearly as long as we wanted it to. Tonight, at least, we would feast and raise our cups.

  After delivering all the food to Louisa in the kitchen, Beau offered to lead everyone on a tour of the Homestead, whereupon Fennel was able to escape Louisa’s reign and join the expedition. She met us outside, and Argos bounded up to her. Drawing back from the beast, she looked at him distastefully.

  “Oh, this dog,” she said. “Um, hi.” She patted his giant head awkwardly.

  “Do you know him?” I asked, both worried and curious. I did want to know where my buddy had come from, but I feared having to return him if he did indeed already have a family.

  Fennel gave me a quick glance. “He hung around the Collective for a while. I think whoever owned him is long gone, though.”

  “Do you know who owned him? Where they are?”

  “No, I can’t really remember. We had a bunch of early initiates who didn’t work out, some visitors. I’m not sure if he belonged to one of them.” This struck me as odd—surely the presence of such a sizable domesticated animal in your home would be memorable. But Fennel was a strange bird. And she seemed unwilling to discuss it further with me; she struck out ahead to join Beau at the head of our tour.

  I knew that the West Hill Collective was a pretty well-established farm—there had been a group of people living there and developing the property for at least five years, possibly longer—and I was sure that these newcomers would snort at our pathetic efforts. Instead, everyone cooed over our work, pointed out potential spots for cultivating mushrooms or adding another root cellar. They gave us tips on how to keep the bugs down in the garden and what sort of feed we could use for the chickens (basically anything, as it turned out—Louisa would be annoyed that we’d spent money buying chicken feed). Someone lengthily expounded on the benefits of raising pigs, and Chloe’s mouth rumpled in faint disgust when he described butchering them in the autumn. Beau looked elated, the country gentleman playing host at his rural seat. He beamed with satisfaction.