What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

  Though, now that I consider it, I think Bo’s way is more caring than mine. It seems gentler to me to kill something myself than to have a dead animal passed to me through a fast food window. Bo’s way is cleaner, somehow. I want to be clean again.

  ‘Do you eat what you hunt?’ I ask as nonchalantly as I can, although this is the first time those words have ever crossed my lips.

  Bo gives me an odd look. ‘Of course,’ he replies. ‘My family uses every part of the animals we take from the forest.’

  I nod, and then something occurs to me. ‘You don’t expect me to hunt anything right now, do you?’ I ask.

  He tries not to laugh. ‘Let’s just work on learning how to shoot for today.’

  Bo slips the quiver off his back and puts it at my feet. ‘OK. First thing is holding the bow,’ he says. ‘Oh, wait. You’re going to need my arm-guard.’

  He unties the thick piece of leather covering the inside of his right forearm and starts to tie it around my right arm, then he stops, like he’s realized something.

  ‘Are you right-handed?’ he asks, looking at me.

  He smells faintly of – not a perfume, exactly, but some blend of natural oils like lavender and sage mixed with cedar and sandalwood. It’s feminine and masculine at the same time. Under that, he smells like a guy who’s been walking around in a forest, but that doesn’t smell bad to me. He notices me leaning towards him, and he freezes, terrified.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, but he’s forgotten the question. ‘I’m right-handed.’

  He takes a long time to recover, and that’s when I realize he must have thought I was going to kiss him. He’s blushing and shaking so badly, it makes me wonder if he’s ever been kissed before. I don’t think so. And I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone more.

  But he’s done tying the guard to my left forearm and he’s handed me the bow already and taken a step back from me. And now he looks mortified again. And I remember my first date. I was thirteen and he was fourteen, and Jinka set us up. I didn’t really know him or particularly want to go on a date with him, but Jinka liked his friend, and she chose me to double date with her. Of course, I was so thrilled to share this bonding moment with Jinka that it didn’t matter what boys were with us. We had our first dates together. We had our first kisses together in the back of the same movie theatre. We’d be best friends forever.

  I didn’t choose the first boy I made out with. In fact, I didn’t really choose any of the boys I’ve dated, because since then I’ve only dated boys that made sense within our group of friends, and that’s more political than it is romantic. Either that, or I’ve dated guys like Rob, who chased me so spectacularly that saying no to them would have been, well . . . rude.

  I’ve never kissed a boy I’ve actually wanted to kiss. But I want to kiss Bo very much. And now I’m the one who’s blushing and shaking. I take a mental step back, and I see us – Bo and I – two idiots standing in a forest thinking about first kisses. I start laughing.

  ‘So, where’s the safety on this thing?’ I ask.

  Bo laughs with me, and all the awkwardness is gone.

  ‘Right,’ he says, a teacher now, ‘let’s see you plant your feet.’

  I had no idea how hard it was to stand. Definitely a skill I’ve taken for granted since I was about a year old. Bo keeps sticking two fingers into different points of my body, and with almost no effort at all, he’s able to tip me over.

  ‘Enough!’ I say, after about fifteen minutes of this. I turn and nudge him to give him a taste of his own medicine, but he doesn’t budge an inch. ‘Oh. That’s annoying. You didn’t tip over at all.’

  ‘I’m not doing this to annoy you,’ he tells me levelly. ‘You’ll see when you draw the arrow back. Go ahead. Give it a try standing just like that without your weight distributed.’

  I try. ‘Ouch,’ I say. I shake out my fingers. ‘That’s really hard.’

  ‘Yeah. You have to pull from between your shoulder blades. Like this.’

  He turns his back to me, plants his feet, nocks an arrow, raises his bow, and draws. His whole back ripples under his worn T-shirt.

  ‘Brace your shoulders and back with your legs or you’ll hurt yourself after two or three pulls. It’s all in your legs. You see?’ He turns to face me.

  ‘I see, but I don’t have . . . what you’ve got going on under there,’ I say, gesturing to his shoulder-chest area. I hold out one of my skinny arms as proof.

  ‘My sister Raven isn’t that much thicker than you, and she’s a better shot than me,’ he says, and then he sees something. He takes my arm and turns it gently. ‘You’re all bruised.’

  I twist the underside of my right arm up so I can see what Bo’s looking at. The crook of my armpit is purple. And now Bo looks angry.

  ‘What moron taught you to shoot?’ he asks, eyes blazing with protective indignation.

  ‘No, it’s my fault,’ I say. ‘I should have used a different calibre, but I was feeling stubborn.’ That’s not the right word, so I shake my head and rethink it. ‘I guess I was feeling like I needed something.’ I’m struggling. Why did I do that? And why did I say it wasn’t that hard afterwards? It was hard. ‘I think I did it because I wanted to set myself apart from the other people I was with. I wanted to prove . . .’ I break off, completely at a loss. ‘Something,’ I finish lamely.

  Bo watches me for a moment, but I can’t read his face. ‘We’ll do this in a few days,’ he says. He picks up his quiver and slings his bow behind his back.

  ‘What?’ I say, stunned. And a bit hurt, actually. ‘Why won’t you teach me now?’

  ‘Heal first,’ he says.

  I’m just standing here, staring at him, because even though what he said makes perfect sense, I just told him something real and not very flattering about myself, and he tells me to go home. Why do people bail on me when I tell them what I’m really thinking? He starts to get uncomfortable. He looks like a little boy when he’s uncomfortable.

  ‘Fine. Whatever,’ I say, turning away from him and heading back to where I left my stuff.

  Bo follows me quietly. I can feel words jamming up his throat.

  It starts to rain. The soothing staccato of water hitting leaves does nothing to calm my anger. I eventually find my blanket and start rolling it up. Bo stands behind me, shifting from foot to foot. He looks miserable.

  ‘Bye,’ I say, purposely not making any plans to see him again.

  I’m wading through the river when he shouts, ‘Because you wanted them to know you were more.’ I stop and turn to face him with the water halfway up my legs and freezing cold. ‘You wanted them to know that they’re underestimating you.’

  I nod and start to wade back. ‘Yeah,’ I say, but I doubt he can hear me over the rush of water.

  ‘I’m the same with my dad,’ he admits. He laughs at himself and pulls up his shirt, so I can see a huge bruise on his ribs that goes all the way down to his hip.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I gasp. I close the distance between us and reach out towards the contusion before I catch how inappropriate it would be to touch him and pull my hand back. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were rappelling, and I fell. I told him I was fine because he was expecting me to say I wasn’t.’ Bo gives me a wry smile. ‘He always turns moments like that into a series of questions. You know – asking me what I’m going to do to get out of it. How would I get back to camp with a broken rib? How would I solve this problem to survive?’

  And from just the look on his face, I can see the whole scene – Bo, injured, and needing a father, but only being given a lesson. ‘What a dick.’

  Bo shakes his head, suppressing a laugh. ‘No.’ He looks past me, almost wistfully. ‘He’s just worried about us. I’m the eldest. If I can’t survive out here, then he made a mistake.’

  I watch Bo for a while in case he wants to continue. When he doesn’t, I ask, ‘Why do you live out here in the woods?’

  Bo shrugs. ‘Well, now, for a lot of reasons. But or
iginally my parents wanted us to be free from the prison of capitalist consumerism that perpetuates the institutionalized torture of both the body and the soul.’

  He’s not joking. If he had a zealot’s gleam in his eyes, or if he were trying to convert me in any way, I would be running. But he doesn’t. So I nod, because who am I to judge?

  ‘OK,’ I say.

  ‘OK?’ he asks, like he knows what he just said is off the pale.

  ‘I grew up Protestant. We worship a guy who said you have to give away everything you own in order to follow him and find peace. Nobody I know has actually done that, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard of people chucking everything and living off the land for spiritual growth. It’s supposed to be the ideal.’

  He narrows his eyes at me. ‘You don’t think it’s strange?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ I say with a smile. ‘But lately I’ve been thinking maybe strange is more normal than I once thought it was.’

  Silence builds, and he starts to look uncomfortable again. He takes a deep breath. ‘Can I see you soon?’ he asks a little too quickly, like he’s ripping off a bandaid.

  ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘You still have to teach me how to use that.’ I gesture to his bow.

  ‘OK,’ he says. He turns away abruptly, like he has no idea how to say goodbye.

  ‘I can’t tomorrow,’ I shout. ‘How about the day after?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and we both go.

  I look back once and catch him watching me.

  21 JULY

  Mila picks me up in her Mini. She looks me over thoroughly, almost as if she expects to have to tell me to go change.

  Despite the heat, I’m wearing long jeans, close-toed shoes, and a T-shirt (not a tank top). My hair is pulled back, I’m not wearing any kind of jewellery, and I’m not carrying a purse.

  ‘Did Aura-Blue tell you how to dress?’ she asks me.

  ‘I’ve volunteered before,’ I admit

  ‘I should have figured,’ Mila says as I settle in.

  I smile, but not too much, because I can’t really read if she meant it as a compliment or a jab. Her tone teeters somewhere just in between, and her face gives away nothing. Just like Jinka, Mila likes to keep you off balance. But that’s OK. And because it’s OK, I can look out the window and sigh contentedly. It feels good to not crave approval from someone who won’t fully give it so she can stay a few steps ahead.

  ‘I know, right?’ Mila says in response to my sigh as she takes the turn to Aura-Blue’s house. She completely misinterprets it, though. ‘Volunteering is the best job there is.’

  Only if you don’t need money, I think, but I don’t need to say that to Mila. She’s trying to be a good person. And at least she didn’t say something ridiculous like, ‘Everyone should do it.’ The Five of us used to say ridiculous stuff like that all the time.

  The truth is, before I created something that got us out of it, all Five of us volunteered regularly. Our mothers were big on charity, or more accurately, charity parties. Socially, you aren’t someone unless you have a cause and throw a star-studded ball to raise money for it.

  I think about Bo and what he would say about us rich girls volunteering. Probably, ‘I’ll help.’ For some reason, I don’t think Bo judges anyone, including rich girls.

  ‘Thinking about Rob?’ Mila asks teasingly.

  I’m so thrown I actually sputter. ‘What? I don’t . . . What are you talking about?’

  Mila laughs. ‘You’re love-struck, honey.’ She slaps the side of my leg as she pulls up in front of Aura-Blue’s house. ‘I get it.’ She pulls the handbrake and faces me. ‘Listen, before anyone else tells you, I want you to hear it from me.’ Her lovely heart-shaped face is solemn. ‘Rob and I used to date. Long time ago, though. I’ve been with Liam for half a year now.’

  I recall the tension that brewed between Liam and Rob at the barbecue at the first mention of Liam’s girlfriend. ‘Ooohhh,’ I say, like I just got a joke. ‘That’s what that was.’

  Just then Aura-Blue shouts to us from the house, ‘Do you guys want some of my mom’s fakeon and egg-substitute wraps?’

  I roll down my window and shout back, ‘I’m fine!’ I look at Mila. ‘Did you want some . . . kind of vegan breakfast wrap?’

  ‘No,’ she says, thrown. She intended her confession to create more turmoil in me. Rookie. I can’t remember the last time I dated a guy that hasn’t dated one of my friends first, or the other way around.

  ‘We’re both fine,’ I shout to Aura-Blue, who nods and starts towards the car biting into her wrap. Damn. That actually looks delicious. I should have accepted.

  ‘Wait,’ Mila says, pinching her eyes shut to give her brain a chance to pan back to our pre-Aura-Blue conversation. ‘What what was?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, waving it away because it would take me too long to explain. ‘Full disclosure, I used to date Liam.’

  Oops. From the look on her face, I guess Liam didn’t tell her. But Mila doesn’t get a chance to reply because Aura-Blue bustles into the back seat of the car in a flurry of tie-dyed clothes and coconut-oil-scented hair.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Aura-Blue asks breathlessly.

  ‘What?’ I say, twisting in my seat to give her my full attention. I’m done playing this stupid power game with Mila. Hopefully forever.

  ‘The police don’t think that woman – you know, the one who got mauled?’ she asks, and I nod my head to keep her talking. ‘They think everything the bear . . . you know . . . did to her . . .’ She glances at me in the rear-view mirror, trying to not say anything too graphic. ‘Anyway, the bear’s bites happened hours after she was already dead. So the cause of death wasn’t the bear. He just happened upon her body in the woods, and . . .’

  ‘Ate part of her,’ Mila finishes for her.

  ‘Yeah.’ Aura-Blue is holding her breath, waiting for us to beg her to continue.

  I comply. ‘Do they know what killed her, then?’ I ask.

  Aura-Blue goes back and gives us a little exposition to build the tension. ‘My grandpa was the old sheriff, and he’s still really close with the new sheriff. You know, they have a student– sensei relationship. It’s really cool,’ she adds. Too much exposition in my opinion, but she gets back on track. ‘Anyway, and the new sheriff, Sheriff Whitehall, told my pappy last night that the FBI is launching a murder investigation.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Mila says.

  ‘The FBI?’ I ask. ‘Why not just the sheriff station?’

  ‘She was from out of state, so the FBI has to get involved,’ Aura-Blue explains. ‘The coroner said that her injuries weren’t consistent with a mauling, but he did find something that might be a stab wound.’

  Mila glances back in the rear-view mirror at Aura-Blue. ‘So you’re saying there’s a murderer somewhere in the woods just outside our town?’ she asks in a too-calm way.

  ‘Yeah,’ Aura-Blue replies, deflating. On that realization, she’s not so happy to be the bearer of all this information. She shakes herself, brightening. ‘But my grandpa always thinks there’s a mass murderer lying in wait somewhere in the woods. It’s kind of his hobby.’

  I laugh weakly at Aura-Blue’s attempt at a joke, but I notice that Mila does not. She’s staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched.

  I’m suddenly relieved that I’ve never mentioned Bo and his family to any of the people in town. The radicalized family living in the woods and hunting deer would be the first suspects.

  We drive the rest of the way to the women’s shelter in silence. It’s not far from our town to Longridge, but the difference is noticeable. Everything is a bit shabbier, less geared towards the adventurous type’s picture-perfect seaside vacation. There are more strip malls and gas stations. The spaces between traffic lights have some houses with overgrown lots – a sure sign of foreclosure.

  It’s still a middle-class town, and a few cheerful mom-and-pop shops in the centre are clinging to the tourist appeal of the town’s original architecture and its pl
acement on a states-long nature trial, but something’s happening to this place. Some kind of rot has set in, crumbling the framework.

  When we get to the shelter, I find out what it is. Many of the women sitting out front smoking cigarettes and trying to swallow coffee have pockmarked faces and too-early rotting teeth. Meth. The others are just as skinny as the meth users, but have hollowed-out eyes and wear dark, long-sleeved shirts favoured by heroin users everywhere.

  Meth and heroin have swallowed this town whole. It’s like a plague. So that’s why my grandparents are thinking of selling. There was always a line between the summer people and the year-rounders, but I can’t imagine any tourist town keeping its appeal with this many addicts. Crime must be insane here.

  As we get out of Mila’s shiny Mini and walk in the back door of the women’s shelter, Aura-Blue slips her hand into mine and rests her head on my shoulder for a brief moment.

  ‘It’s so hard,’ she whispers.

  I put my arm around her and give the tender-hearted girl a quick squeeze. ‘Let’s find the coordinator,’ I say brightly. No whining allowed. Mila knows that. She’s already marching in the back door with a smile held rigidly on her face.

  We show up just as the full-time staff is standing in a circle, holding hands, and saying a prayer to each of their individual higher powers. They end with the chant, ‘Keep Coming’.

  Since I’m new, the coordinator, Maria, puts me in the back of the kitchen chopping vegetables. They don’t want a newbie out front staring at the women’s destroyed faces or bursting into tears when they see one of the blank and starving children that some of these women have with them.

  I’ve chopped before, so I put on my hairnet, apron and gloves, and get to work. The only rule is to go as fast as you can without slicing off your fingers. I chop. And if it weren’t for the onions, I’d love this job. But there are always onions. I’m so blinded by the fumes that my fingers are in danger. I’m relieved when Maria tells me I’m done chopping for the day, and it’s time for me to move on to pots and pans. Lunch is over, and the time just flew. I was busy. There are a lot of people at this shelter. Too many for such a small town.