The Little Woods

by McCormick Templeman

  “I know. I don’t want to think that Asta could ever do a thing like that, but we need to consider everything. I think Iris had found out something about her killer and was planning on blackmailing them. Asta could have been the person she was going to blackmail. And there’s no way Asta could be sure that Iris wouldn’t suddenly change her mind and go to the police, so she had to get rid of her. People will do crazy things if they think their freedom is at stake.”

  Helen shook her head and closed her eyes. “No, it doesn’t make sense. Besides, it’s too big of a coincidence that the one person Noel would confide in would just accidentally also happen to be the real murderer.”

  “What if it’s not a coincidence, though?” I said, and for a moment the air hung stale and still between us. “When did Noel start spending time with Asta?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes wide. “When she started working for her as her lab assistant.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Um … October?”

  “Which was after Iris was murdered,” I said, shivering a little, suddenly cold.

  “Oh my God,” Helen gasped, fear in her eyes.

  My voice was shaking as I continued, my theory forming as I went. “What if Asta took Noel on as her lab assistant so she could keep an eye on her, and when Noel confided in her, she saw her chance?”

  Helen bit down hard on her bottom lip. “So, what then? You honestly think Asta’s been trying to get Noel to kill herself so that she will be blamed for the murder?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “But what could Asta be hiding that Iris could have found? What terrible crime could she possibly have committed?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, suddenly cold to my core. “But I think I might have an idea.”

  My mind flitted to the image of Noel standing near the window, crying, and I wondered where she had gone. And then panic crept into my veins. “I think we need to find her,” I said, pulling back the curtain, looking out onto the empty lawn. “I think we need to find Noel right away.”

  We stared at each other a moment, the air tense and electric.

  “Yeah,” Helen said, her lips white and shaking. “We have to find Noel. Split up and find her.”

  “Okay,” I said, slightly incredulous. “Yeah.”

  “That Cryker guy, he’s usually up in the teachers’ lounge, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I’m going to grab him and head over to Asta’s house,” she said. “You start with the dining hall. If you see Cryker first, send him to Asta’s. I’ll be waiting.”

  Helen was on her feet and moving toward the door before I had time to slip on my shoes. When I emerged into the afternoon sun, she was nowhere in sight. The day was strange. Clouds moved quickly across the sky, and the atmosphere was thick with electricity, the kind that precedes a storm. I started asking people, asking anyone I passed, but no one had seen Noel. I checked in the dining hall, in the library. Nothing.

  I had to be wrong. Everything I’d said about Asta, it was all theoretical. It couldn’t actually be true. There had to be a reasonable explanation for it. I was walking faster now, and then I saw Carlos sitting on a bench, reading one of the detective novels I’d lent him. He nodded when he saw me.

  “What’s up, Calista?”

  “Have you seen Noel?” I asked, trying not to seem too frantic.

  He nodded gravely. “Went past with Asta not ten minutes ago.”

  “Asta? Where were they going?”

  “They went toward the woods. I asked if they were going on a nature walk and if I could come, but they said no. Must be a girl thing.”

  “Listen, Carlos,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I’m going after them. Go find Cryker and Helen at Asta’s house. Tell them where I’ve gone.”

  “Cally, what’s going on?”

  “Just hurry, okay?” I called over my shoulder, already jogging, then running toward the woods. I pushed my way through the fence, doing my best to choke back my fear. On the other side of these woods I might see something I didn’t want to see. I might find something I didn’t want to find.

  I plunged deeper into the woods, the forest around me silent save for the feathery wavering leaves and the whispering growth of the massive trees, but there was something else there too—a feeling of darkness, of despair. Maybe Brody was right about some places just being bad. I pressed onward, the possibilities I’d considered seeming increasingly outlandish as I went.

  A moment or so before I emerged into the clearing, I had a flash of darkness, of evil, but when I saw them sitting there at the edge of the pond, peaceful, just staring out at the water, I was finally able to exhale. I had been wrong, and that was okay. It was good to be wrong.

  The sky was growing dark now, and the wind was picking up, playing with Asta’s gossamer locks, lighting up her skull like a halo. From behind like that, they looked beautiful, as if they were having a gentle chat, student and mentor, but then I saw that Noel was shaking, her whole body trembling. My heart throbbed again as I took a step toward them, but a twig broke underfoot, and slowly Asta turned her head, her blond hair billowing around her.

  “Cally, go back to school,” she said. “You’re not allowed to be out here. You’re breaking the rules.”

  “Noel?” I said, my voice cracking. But she didn’t move. Head down, facing the lake, she was shaking. And then I saw it, blood trickling down, pooling on her bare thigh. “Noel!” I cried, and rushed to her.

  She looked up at me, her eyes sick and distant, the gray beneath them harbingers of a darkness closing in around us. Her face was blotchy and she was crying. In her hand she held a razor blade.

  I grabbed it from her, shoved it into the pocket of my jeans, and grabbed her wrists. The blood was trickling from them, oozing like crimson-black buds.

  “My God, what are you doing?” I looked for something, anything, to staunch the flow. Lamely, I wrapped my flannel around the torn flesh.

  “Helen?” she asked, looking up at me with pupils dilated like saucers.

  “No, it’s Cally. What are you on? What did you take?” Beside her on the ground was a handwritten note—a suicide note. My focus turned to Asta. She stared straight ahead at the pond, her body perfectly still.

  “I did it, Cally,” Noel managed to say, her voice shaking. “I killed her. I killed Iris.”

  “You didn’t. I know you didn’t. And even if you had, this isn’t the way, Noel.”

  She shut her eyes and shook her head. “It’s better this way.”

  I was applying pressure to the wounds, but it didn’t seem to be working, and as soon as I’d make headway with one wrist, the other would streak forth unexpectedly.

  “Asta!” I screamed. “Do something. Will you fucking do something?”

  But she didn’t say a word. She just stared ahead into that still water. That was when I realized how quickly I needed to act. I leaned down to Noel, pretending to adjust my makeshift bandages. She peered up at me, the light seeming to cause her pain.

  “Noel,” I whispered. “I need you to trust me. I need you to run. I’m going to help you to your feet and when I say run, you run as fast as you can back to campus, and you get help.”

  She squinted up at me, screwed her eyes up a bit, then nodded.

  “Okay,” I said aloud. “Now, let’s get you to your feet.”

  But as soon as I pulled her up, Asta stood and dusted off her skirt.

  “Cally,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking of doing, and I want to advise you against it. We can work this out all together. You don’t have to create a drama.”

  She moved toward me, and I could see something off in her eyes. And every instinct in my body told me to run, but instead I screamed, “Run, Noel! Now!”

  As soon as Noel took off, loping like a wounded antelope, Asta sprang to terrible life—an ancient goddess, her hair twisting about her, lunging after Noel—and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself barrel
ing into her, putting my full weight into her chest. She was screaming, trying to get Noel to stop, unwilling still to relinquish control. And my world was a mass of white hair and fury, rage and chiffon. Soon I had her on the ground, a knee to her chest. Fingers darted up, clawing my eyes, tearing at my cheek, heat and fire rising there, something wet and salty trickling down, and then I was holding her off with one arm while my other hand searched my pocket for the razor. In a moment I had it, and then she was biting my arm and I slashed at her, slicing her cheek, blood flowing. I sliced at her hand for something like good measure, and then she was weeping, crying like a child, and I held the razor flush against her throat.

  And just like that everything stopped, all the frenzy, the raging, the screams. Suddenly she was perfectly still, glaring up at me with ice-blue eyes, the sockets of which were now pooling with blood from her cheek. And I stared at the tip of the blade resting flush against the pulsating beat of her carotid artery.

  “Cally,” she gasped. “What in the name of God are you doing?”

  “I know you killed her,” I said, a primal rage throbbing within me. “I know you killed Iris. Why? Why did you do it?”

  “Cally,” she said, her voice calm despite her labored breathing. “Cally, it’s me. It’s Asta. Please, think about what you’re doing. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Why did you kill her?” I yelled. “You argued that day. It wasn’t the phone call that spooked her, because there was no phone call. It was you she was afraid of.”

  “Please, Cally, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You argued that day in the bio lab. She found something out about you, and whatever it was scared her. What was it? Tell me.”

  “Cally, it’s me. It’s Asta. Let me sit up and we’ll talk about this like adults.”

  “I’m not a fucking adult. Tell me what it was. She confronted you about it in bio lab. Alex saw you arguing. She was going to blackmail you, wasn’t she? You couldn’t let her do that, and you had to get to her before she told anyone else. You had to act quickly, that same day, didn’t you? You followed her up here and you killed her because no one could find out what she knew. What was it? What did she find?”

  “Cally, I want you to close your eyes. I want you to breathe. Imagine air coming in at the base of your spine.”

  I was crying now, faltering. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was crazy.

  “Good,” she said in that smooth, calm voice, and part of me still wanted to please her, wanted to trust her. I looked at her, and seeing the fear in her eyes, I suddenly felt like a lunatic. I released my grip.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, I’m going to sit up. Put that silly blade away like a good girl. That’s right. That’s a good girl. Now let me sit up and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you about Clare.”

  Her name pierced me. My breath caught, and I let go of Asta. She pulled herself up and wiped the blood from her eye with the edge of her sleeve as if she were removing a gnat from a glass of champagne. She steadied herself and stared out at the pond. I noticed I was shaking.

  “Cally,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking, probably more than you do. I need to make you understand what happened. I’m a person, Cally, just like you, and I make mistakes. We all make mistakes.”

  I stared at her, my mind numb, Clare’s name still pulsing inside me like the steady drip of a faucet. Asta focused her gaze on me, the emptiness in her pellucid eyes the only sign that something was wrong.

  I shook my head and stared out at the lotus flowers lounging in that pond as if nothing had ever gone wrong. “Tell me what happened,” I said slowly. “I know they didn’t die the night of the fire—Clare and Laurel. Tell me what really happened. What happened to my sister?”

  She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “I think … I think she drowned. They both drowned.”

  “They drowned? How is that possible?”

  “If I could just make you understand … I saw what was happening, but I couldn’t save them.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Make me understand.”

  “It wasn’t the night of the fire. They were already gone by then. It was the night before, and what a beautiful night it was,” she said, her voice trembling. “It was filled with stars and strange winds, winds that would eventually lead to the fire,” she continued. “And it was hot. None of us could sleep, it was so hot. I’d recently discovered jimsonweed, and I’d been experimenting with dosages, purely for personal use. I took quite a lot that night. And you see, it’s hard to remember a lot of what happened. Around midnight we all gave up on sleeping because of the heat, and I told the girls to get their bathing suits on. We were going to the pond. They were thrilled, of course. How fun, you know.” She smiled brightly, her eyes even farther away. “I was always doing things like that. I was a very fun mom. We headed out, and I was reacting strangely to the herb. I’d never taken that much of it before. And when we reached the pond, I lay down on my back and watched the stars. And you know, I spoke with a goddess that night. I did. I can’t tell you which one, but she came to me and she whispered important things in my ear. Things about the world, about how it really works. Did you know that there is no such thing as a soul?” She shook her head, her brow suddenly creased with pain. “I must have dozed off. At some point I awoke, and I saw them there, bobbing in the water—that’s what happens when you drown, you know. You don’t flail about. You can’t. Your arms become fastened to your sides. It’s like the water nymphs are grasping at you, pulling you down to their depths, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. They were probably still alive at that point, but I was powerless to save them. It was as if I were watching them in a film. There was no way of breaking through the wall. At some point, things changed. I could move, I could act, but by that point, it was too late.”

  I stared on in horror. She clutched her wounded hand to her chest, smearing blood across the mint chiffon.

  Her face crumpled. “I can’t explain to you what any of this was like for me. I pulled them from the water. I wept over them. I buried them out here and then, when it was safe, brought them inside with me. I prepared them. I honored them. You have to understand.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe what happened to me, that the gods would be so cruel.”

  My mind spun. I knew I should leave it there, that pressing her further could have disastrous consequences, but I’d been waiting ten years for this. I had to know. “No. That’s not true. At least one of them was strangled,” I said. “One of them didn’t drown. She was strangled.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and that horrible fire leapt into them again. “You don’t know what it was like,” she growled. “To hate your own daughter. She ruined my life. She gave me nothing in return. She was a monster, a wraith. What was I supposed to do? She was screaming in my face, saying I’d let Clare drown. What was I supposed to do? I had to stop her.”

  “So you strangled her.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. Fighting off tears. “They both drowned. I told you. They drowned.” In an instant she sprang to her feet and started walking, clenching and unclenching her fists, rage burning in her eyes. I sprang up too and tried to assume a casually defensive position.

  “Have some respect for a mother,” she hissed. “You’re, all of you, you’re just like her—just like Iris. As if changing one grade was going to save her whole miserable existence.”

  My breath caught. So that was what Iris had been blackmailing her for—a grade? Iris had risked her life for something as trivial as a grade? That was possibly the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard. But of course, to Iris, the grade would have been more than a grade; it would have been assurance that she could stay at St. Bede’s, that she could be near the man she loved.

  “That’s what Iris found, didn’t she? That’s what she was using as leverage, the bones you’d been hiding for ten years.”
r />   She nodded, her eyes somewhere very far away.

  “She was supposed to be helping me organize my home office. She was supposed to stay in the office. I left her for fifteen minutes, and she went to my bedroom. She found the bones. I tried to explain to her, just like I’m trying to explain to you, but Iris … she didn’t understand.”

  As I watched Asta try to hold herself together, her body clenching itself in abnormal ways, I wondered if Noel had made it back to campus. I wondered if Carlos had found Cryker. Was someone going to come save me, or was I going to have to save myself?

  I needed to shift the dynamic. I needed to calm her. There was something wrong with her. She’d gone over some edge—an edge she’d been walking for some time. The Asta I’d known was gone, and it didn’t look like she’d be back anytime soon. Given her fragile mental state, it was possible, if I kept my wits together, that I could manipulate the situation. It was also possible that I couldn’t. But I was uniquely equipped to handle dangerous emotional oscillation. It was as if my whole dysfunctional life had simply been in preparation for this moment.

  “Asta.” I laughed, trying to keep my voice even and pleasant. “It’s okay. I believe you. It wasn’t your fault. They drowned.”

  She stared at me a moment, something frightened in her eyes, and then she nodded. “They did,” she whispered.

  “And I know you didn’t kill Iris.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “No.” I smiled and let out a huge sigh. “You couldn’t do something like that.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said, and looked at her hands as if they weren’t attached to her body.

  “Of course not. Now, why don’t we head back and check on Noel, okay? We’ll sort it all out, okay?”

  Despite her height, she looked small and weak standing there, her bloody hand clutched to her chest, her eyes disk-like with fright. A wind kicked up and I thought I heard a rustling in the trees behind us, but I turned to find nothing. Dark clouds were rolling in now, and a chill bit at the back of my neck.

  She reached out and gripped my hand, blood smearing hot and sticky between our palms.