What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

Or whatever. We could seriously make up the most outlandish circumstance and say, ‘That’s how they do it in the Amazon jungle,’ and nobody would blink an eye. Or we’d say something like, ‘We stayed until they insisted we drink our own pee to prove our purity. I mean, I support anyone’s right to their own culture, but I’m not drinking my own pee.’

  And everyone bought it – all of our outlier friends, all of our teachers, our parents, everyone. At the centre of it all was Ali Bhatti, our alibi. She was the invisible sixth member of our group and the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card.

  ‘Dad, I’m sorry, but it’s Maha Shivaratri. I have to go to Ali’s and stay up all night to celebrate the god Shiva.’

  ‘Mom, I can’t. They’re trying to marry Ali off to this savage. We’re staying with her all weekend and barricading her in her room so her parents can’t do it.’

  We got hounded by other students who followed my Cultural Outreach blog and wanted to join. We got barraged with emails from kids in other schools who wanted to set up satellite clubs. But that’s not when the trouble started. In fact, that’s when the real fun began. We were the most popular girls pretty much ever, and we had more power over the student body than the Dean.

  I got creative with the blog. I did research into oppressed cultures and wrote scathing posts about fear and genocide and the importance of celebrating our differences. I ‘learned’ some deep moral truth every week from some fake refugee I had ‘met’. Shit, I used to make Jinka cry with some of the horrific backstories I fabricated. My un-journal was a hit.

  All that praise made me bold. I wrote a five-part series following one imaginary immigrant boy from Guatemala up through Mexico and into Texas. Jinka was hooked on that story. She had me print out hard copies of it so she could put her head in my lap as she read. She devoured the heartbreaking finale with the lights low and a bottle of pilfered wine split between us. That night, the line that separates friends from more than friends blurred a little. The next day, it was forgotten. Most girls experiment eventually, we told ourselves, and nothing really happened anyway.

  Then our club got nominated for a humanitarian award. An actual adult humanitarian award that some people spend a lifetime trying to win. So we did the only thing we could. We stuck together and went along with it.

  This is how I know I’m a sick person: Even though I was exploiting every culture I could read about on Wikipedia and telling lie after lie to glorify myself, from my rich, white, privileged point of view, I was convinced I was doing good because I was ‘raising awareness’.

  I actually believed I deserved to win that award.

  26 JULY. AFTERNOON

  We arrive at Bo’s home after a very long hike almost completely uphill. I’m exhausted. This is, hands down, the most effort I’ve ever put into a guy.

  The woods turn into something like a trail, which suddenly crests and opens into a bowl-shaped clearing. I look around the open space. The ground is kept free of brush, and a large fire pit dominates the centre. There are seven canvas teepees set around the fire pit in a circle. Where there is the most light piercing through the canopy above, there is a fifteen-foot-long greenhouse that arches over the ground in a half-cylinder of plastic and metal ribbing.

  ‘We make our medicines in there,’ Bo says, gesturing to the teepees. ‘But we live up there.’ Bo points up into the trees. I follow his gesture.

  ‘Oh my God. You live in a tree house,’ I say, staring up.

  There are several structures spanning across the largest trees that ring the outside of the clearing. Wooden-slatted rope bridges connect the different structures, and more ropes hang down to the ground, weighted on one end by rocks. I swear I saw something almost exactly like this in the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood, so I know that those ropes with rocks at one end are a kind of pulley system to help raise and lower heavy objects to the ground with less effort.

  ‘Wow,’ I say, because that’s the first thing I think. The second thing I think is, Where do they go to the bathroom? but I don’t want to ask yet, even if I really need to use the bathroom.

  I notice that Bo has gone silent while I’m staring, so I look over at him and see him watching me nervously.

  ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve seen outside of a movie theatre,’ I say honestly, and his face breaks with relief. We’re interrupted before we can speak any further.

  ‘I don’t care whose turn it is,’ a shrill boy’s voice screams. ‘I made it; it’s mine!’

  Two mostly naked, dirty bodies erupt from one of the teepees and tumble across the ground in a tangle of skinny arms and boney knees. Nearest I can tell, two boys – both of them about ten – are fighting desperately over something clasped in the slightly larger boy’s right hand.

  A woman (inference tells me this is Bo’s mom) bursts out of the greenhouse and sprints at an enviable pace to the brawling boys. And it’s a good thing, too. These two aren’t pulling their punches. They both know how to fight, close-fisted, grown-man-style fighting, and they are truly beating the snot out of each other.

  Their fleet-footed mom is a lean, greying woman with long limbs and a deep alto voice. From her first words, I know this isn’t the kind of woman you screw around with.

  ‘Karl! Drop it now!’ she orders. She doesn’t raise her voice – not in the way most women do when they get angry. Her pitch lowers, actually, and it takes on this rumbling quality that isn’t loud, but can’t be unheard.

  The bigger one – Karl, I’m assuming – lets go of whatever he’s holding in his right hand, and the littler one snatches it up tearfully.

  ‘Aspen. Give it to me,’ their mother says.

  Aspen shuffles from foot to foot in the same way Bo does when he’s feeling tortured, and rubs at his streaked face. One look at his mother’s dark, piercing eyes and he knows he’s not going to win this. He gives her whatever it is he fought so hard for.

  She balls it into her hand and puts both fists on her hips. ‘Go upstairs. Both of you,’ she says in a quiet, almost tender voice.

  They run away in step, and their mother calls after them, ‘Not together! One of you go to Ariel, and the other to Roost.’ They both pause. Then, reluctantly, they split up, and one of them goes to a structure on one end of the circle. It has a sign painted in red over the door that says Ariel. The other boy goes to a treehouse structure that is as far away from it as possible. Above this door in purple is painted the name Roost. A quick glance around, and I see that all of the dormitories have different names painted above them, each in a different colour of the rainbow.

  Bo’s mother faces me. And I almost pee a little.

  ‘You’re late,’ she informs me.

  ‘I am,’ I agree. ‘I’m slower than Bo.’ Honesty is best, I figure.

  She gives me a little smile. ‘Most people are.’ She turns away from me. ‘Raven, make sure you shut the greenhouse before the crows get in there again,’ she calls calmly to a sullen-looking girl, who scurries to shut the door. There are some cock-headed crows hopping in their sidling way to the unguarded treasure trove of food. Raven scatters them with a few well-placed kicks as Bo’s mom turns back to face me.

  ‘Do you like vegetable stir-fry?’ she asks.

  ‘Love it,’ I reply.

  ‘Good.’ She turns away from me again, making something of a show of how little attention she needs to afford me, but I know she’s already studied me closely. She’s seen my hiking sandals, and they’re the best. She’s ticked her eyes over my designer jean shorts and artfully distressed T-shirt and knows how much they must have cost. Sizing someone up on the sly is an art. I’ve been once-overed by a master.

  And then it hits me. She used to have money. Probably a lot.

  ‘You can help me cook it, then,’ she says. ‘Come with me.’

  Bo gives me a panicked look, but I smile at him and say quietly, ‘I’ll be fine,’ as I move to follow her. He’s reluctant to let me go with his mom, but I’m not. I’ve been hazed by the best of them, and
I know it’s better if she and I get this out of the way in private.

  She takes me into the greenhouse, and I see right away that this is a bold move. Half of the growing things are edible – tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, peppers, and the like. The other half of the growing things are cannabis plants.

  ‘Hydroponic,’ I say absently, admiring the set-up. The rows of tables are actually tanks with water circulating in a pump system. I can faintly hear the generator, but it’s very quiet.

  ‘Solar-powered,’ she says, nodding. ‘The panels are dispersed across the different dormitories. That’s why we live in the trees in a circular pattern. To give the panels a little light every day, every season.’

  I admire the rich growth. ‘My grandmother would kill for this kind of yield,’ I mumble, touching the swollen bellies on a vine of cherry tomatoes. I see something at the bottom of the tank flash pale and then disappear. ‘Are those fish?’ I ask.

  ‘Uh-huh. Catfish,’ she says. ‘They’re bottom feeders. They clean the water. They were Rain’s idea. He caught a few wild, raised them, and proved that they could create their own ecosystem. And now we eat fish once a week without having to work for it.’

  I turn and look at her. ‘Who’s Rain?’ I ask. Bo never mentioned a Rain. ‘Bo’s dad?’

  His mom gives me a strange look. ‘Bo. He never told you his full name is Rainbow?’

  I turn away from her and gesture to the cannabis. ‘Bo told me you make herbal remedies,’ I say, purposely using the version of his name I have known, without answering her question.

  ‘The cannabis is used in several salves. It’s a powerful analgesic.’

  She looks at me, waiting for a comment. I don’t fall for it. There aren’t enough plants in here for them to be real drug dealers. And honestly? So what if they sell a little pot on the side? It’ll be legal everywhere in a few more years.

  ‘I’ve heard it has many medicinal uses,’ I say casually.

  ‘You’ve heard?’

  ‘Yeah. But I’ve only ever smoked it to get high.’

  She laughs, and I feel like I’m getting somewhere with her. She respects honesty, and she can smell bullshit from a mile away. Good. She hands me a basket and tells me to pick the vegetables I like to eat. But she’s a pro. Now that I’m relaxed because I think she’s relaxed, she drops the bomb on me.

  ‘What are you doing with my son, rich girl?’ she asks.

  What am I doing with her son? I pause and really think about it.

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘I guess I’d have to tell you about me, or it wouldn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ she says. And she really is.

  ‘It isn’t pretty,’ I warn.

  ‘OK,’ she says, and there’s no judgement in her eyes. She wipes her hands, leans up against the potting table and crosses her arms, waiting. ‘You’d better start at the beginning.’

  Do I want to do this? I look her in the eye, and I already know two things. The first is I’m here because she wanted me here. The second is if I don’t come clean to her right here, right now, I’ll never see Bo again. She’ll make sure of it.

  So I tell her. Like a reporter, I tell her everything. I tell her about the Five of us. I tell her about Ali Bhatti. I tell her about the Cultural Outreach Club and how far it went. Without feeling, I tell her about how it all fell apart – Rachel’s bat mitzvah – and how my friends turned on me. I tell her about my breakdown, the hospital, and the drugs they put me on. I even tell her some of the things I did while I was at the hospital. Didn’t think I was going to do that, but I do. I haven’t even said Rachel’s name in my own head since it happened.

  It helps that I stick to the facts. I’m not actually going through it again. I’m not reliving it, or faking feelings about it that I don’t feel yet. I’m just giving her the facts.

  She never flinches. Never backs away from me in horror. Never grimaces with disgust, though what I’m saying is disgusting, and the way I’m saying it is so unfeeling and inhuman. She just looks at me with patience and a little bit of sadness. So I keep going, because a part of me is scared that if I don’t recount everything, I might forget it.

  I don’t want to forget it. I don’t deserve to forget it.

  I tell her the whole truth. It’s too much to dump on someone, and too soon to do it. I know that. But here’s the thing. By the time I am ready to tell her this stuff, it will be too late. That’s always the way it works. You wait until you trust someone to reveal your darkest bullshit, but by then that person feels betrayed that you didn’t come clean right from the start.

  If she’s going to hate me and forbid me to see Bo again, I want her to do it now, not when I’ve grown to trust her. Because by then, it would hurt too much. Like it’s going to hurt when I tell Bo. I just want a little bit longer with him. And then I’ll tell him.

  When I’m finally done talking, she stares at me for a long time.

  ‘Stop taking the clozapine. It can cause thrombocytopaenia – fatal blood loss, from even a minor wound,’ she tells me.

  ‘Among other things,’ I reply, nodding. ‘Every two weeks I have to get my blood tested.’

  ‘It’s excessive,’ she says, shaking her head as if she can’t understand it. ‘I mean – clozapine.’

  Clozapine is the nuclear option when it comes to antipsychotics, and I’m on the highest dosage my doctors at the hospital were willing to risk. A paper cut wouldn’t make me bleed to death, though the clean-up might require a mop. It is dangerous for a dozen different reasons, but it works.

  ‘You had a true response to a traumatic situation, and no one helped you. Not the doctors at the hospital. Not your parents,’ she says, like parents would be the last to abandon a child. Which they would, I suppose, if they weren’t mine.

  ‘They were too embarrassed,’ I say. Schizophrenia runs like wildfire in my family. It’s the dirty little secret creeping stealthily up the ladder of our otherwise pristine DNA. ‘My parents can’t even look at each other any more, let alone me. I can’t really blame them. I did a lot of shit that’s just wrong.’ I look off, shaking my head. ‘I don’t know why, really. I guess I was angry.’

  She nods gravely. ‘You did plenty of wrong things. But did anyone ever take the time to teach you how to do the right thing with your anger?’

  I smile ruefully. ‘In my family? We don’t feel ugly emotions like anger. We drink Long Island Iced Tea and pop pills instead.’

  Her brow creases in sympathy and she hugs me. She smells like Bo, but in a softer way. I melt into her. I’m not crying. I still can’t feel deeply enough to cry with the piles of Prozac gurgling away in my stomach, but the melting feels good.

  We pick and chop vegetables and talk some more about how I’m going to move forward with my life.

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ she says. ‘If you go off these drugs, it’s going to feel like you got hit by a bus. But it’s your bus, you know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, nodding. ‘I’ve been waiting to feel something. When I’m not around Bo, that is.’ I laugh at myself. ‘So, to answer your original question – the reason I’m with your son is because he’s the only person who makes me feel. It isn’t always good, especially when I’m waiting for him, and I don’t know if he’s going to show or not. But I feel. He’s managed to switch on a corpse. He’s gotta be magic.’

  ‘Oh, he is,’ she says softly. Our eyes meet, and I realize we will always be able to agree on one thing: her son.

  We’re going to get along really well, I think.

  At first I wondered why anyone would have so many kids. Somewhere in the back of my head, I assumed she’d have to be some kind of Earth Mother crazy person, but that’s not it. She just has a lot of love and a lot of patience, and the good sense to give both to as many children as she can. It dawns on me I don’t know her name, so I ask for it.

  ‘Maeve,’ she replies. ‘Maeve Jacobson.’ She holds out her hand, and I shake it a little self-consciou
sly. In her way, I know she’s telling me that from this point on she’s going to be treating me like an adult. And she doesn’t disappoint. ‘You are beautiful,’ she says regretfully. ‘I hope you’re on birth control.’

  I’d be embarrassed, but – you know – clozapine, Ativan and Prozac, just to name a few. Puny emotions like humiliation don’t stand a chance. Instead I give a little rueful smile.

  ‘My mother’s idea of being maternal was to put me on the pill as soon as I got my first period.’ I try to laugh, but it’s not funny. ‘She didn’t even ask me if I liked boys.’

  Maeve is quiet for a while. She frowns at her hands as they pick courgettes. ‘Mothers try to do what wasn’t done for them but should have been. We think we’re correcting some horrible wrong, but sometimes we’re just inflicting a different kind of wound.’ She looks up at me and glances around at the general state of her present life with a fair dose of self-doubt in her eyes. ‘Ask yourself why she did that. And then ask her.’

  ‘If she ever speaks to me again, I will,’ I promise. And I promise myself to ask Maeve the same question someday. But not yet.

  I don’t have to tell Maeve not to tell any of this to Bo. She knows telling him is my responsibility. And now that I’ve told her, the clock is ticking. Maybe that’s another reason I told Maeve. Her knowing will force me to be honest with Bo sooner rather than later.

  When we finally come out of the greenhouse, everyone is casually/not so casually hanging around the fire pit. Bo is standing next to a man he resembles so strongly, there’s no need to wonder if it’s his father.

  Bo’s father is one of those people whose brain processes so much information so quickly that they blink their eyes really hard and fast when those inner gears start turning. Almost like a twitch. A kid in my elementary school did it, and he got transferred to genius school in the third grade. Even through the genius twitch, I can tell Bo’s father isn’t happy to have me here.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, forcing a smile. He shuffles his feet and screws his face up at the ground in lieu of a smile, his eyes blinking rapidly.