What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

  I’ll have to change my name, and that’s fine with me. I’ve never been tied to the name Magdalena. Everyone in town and back home calls me Magda, and I hate it. Reminds me of magpies. I’ve never liked that bird. They’re too clever, but not clever like an animal. They’re clever like humans in that they aren’t trying to simply survive. They’re trying to win. No one likes magpies.

  I’ll be Lena, because that’s what Bo and his family call me. I’ll take Bo’s last name. What did Maeve say her last name was? Jacobson. I’ll be Lena Jacobson. Maybe I’ll even ask Bo to marry me to make it official.

  I’m laughing as I throw a few things into my pack. This is crazy. Reckless. But it may be the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done. One way or another, I’m going to save Bo. I’m going to get him as far away from this place as I can. I’ll carry him, kicking and screaming if I have to. Maeve will help me.

  Wait. I can’t find my journal.

  I take everything out and lay it on the floor in a line. It’s not here. I go into the closet where I threw the stained blanket from this afternoon, thinking maybe my journal got trapped in a corner of it while Bo was rolling it up.

  I see the pile of hidden clothes just under the blanket and hesitate. How many times have I come out of the woods covered in gore?

  I count shirts and shorts. Three times? That seems like a lot. I hold up a T-shirt and recognize it as the one I was wearing that day when I met Bo – when he and the doe fell on me, rather. Then there was the fawn that I shot in the bush without ever seeing it. Yes. These shorts were ruined while I was trying to track it. There was blood all over those leaves. And the freshest outfit to be destroyed was from when I shot and butchered the buck.

  I don’t have time for this. I open up the blanket, ignoring the rusty scent and deep wine stain of my blood. My journal isn’t here. I must have left it in the woods. I can’t believe I’d have done something like that, but I must have. Bo came and left empty-handed – I’m sure of that. I can still picture him leaving. He wasn’t carrying anything. My journal has to be there.

  I stuff everything with blood on it back in the closet and put everything I’m going to take with me back into my pack in a rush. I only take what I need, just like Bo taught me, but this time what I need has to last me forever. My ID, definitely, so I can burn it later, and lots of underwear and socks. I tie off no loose ends. I clean up no messes. I write no note.

  Maybe they’ll think I was another victim.

  I’m sad about that for my grandparents’ sake. They’ll feel terrible for a while, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s their ability to move on. They moved on just fine after they committed my mother to the same institution she committed me to.

  I set out while the dew is thick and the sky is barely blushing dawn.

  I get to our spot far too early for Bo to have come, but I’m disappointed anyway.

  I use the time to look for my journal. I scour the area. I kick through leaf litter and overturn rocks. I look places I know it won’t be.

  I find a piece of paper under a rock with my writing on it. It takes me a second to put all the pieces together, to think back to when my memory was a porous thing, and I remember. This was the note I left Bo when I thought I wasn’t going to meet him, and he’d wait here for me until he gave up.

  I can’t tomorrow. The day after?

  I see that he’s written a reply on the other side.

  And the day after that, and after that, and after that . . .

  I stare at his handwriting. Heavy and thick and a little smudged, like most lefties. I’m soft and smiling while I stuff it into a pocket of my jeans. I miss him so terribly and it’s only been a few hours. In the past, I’d feared other people’s absences, wondering how my status in the group had changed, but I’d never missed anyone before. It’s exquisitely awful.

  I sit down on the ground, hoping my journal just manifests itself. When that doesn’t happen, I decide I can’t stand being away from Bo any longer. I know the way to his camp. I’ll head in that direction and hope we cross paths before I get there. I want us to be alone when I ask if I can live with him in the woods until we leave for school. Just in case he says no.

  2 AUGUST (BEFORE) AND 3 AUGUST (AFTER)

  There really is no better feeling than knowing you’re going to be with the person you love.

  To be clear, nothing feels better than being with the person you love. That’s not a feeling, though. It’s a state of being; one that’s apart from the real world. Like entering fairyland. That’s when you become a we.

  But on your way to see the person you love, you’re still you. In fact, you’re probably more you than you’ll ever be again. The quintessence of you. You’re the you who’s been granted the love of the person you think the most highly of. You – exactly as you are – are worthy of the most precious thing in the world.

  And there’s no better feeling than that.

  I should want to prolong this moment, but instead I’m running the steep trail up to Bo’s camp. Running feels good. It feels pure. I’m so much stronger now that it’s a pleasure to push myself like this. To know that I can ask, and my body will say yes. Excitement makes me run, and running makes me more excited.

  Thrill feeds thrill.

  Until . . .

  I’m just outside Bo’s camp when I hear the screaming.

  I don’t run towards it, but rather, I slow down. Legs numb, I recognize the voice of a girl. She’s screaming, but not in pain or fear. She’s screaming accusations. Like I screamed about myself once.

  ‘You can lie as much as you want, but I know you’re a murderer,’ she howls.

  ‘Calm down! You’re going to make yourself sick, Sol,’ Bo is yelling back. His voice I know, although now it sounds so harsh, it’s nearly foreign to me.

  ‘I saw it!’

  ‘You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’ His voice is low and dangerous.

  I stay in the cover of the thick brush just outside their camp and peer in.

  ‘You keep saying I don’t understand, but I saw you kill her,’ Sol screams, pointing a finger at Bo. Her voice is hoarse, like they’ve been screaming at each other for hours. ‘You killed that druggie townie girl and dumped her body in the river! I saw you do it!’

  ‘You don’t know what you saw,’ he says, with a tired shrug. He turns to his father, who is standing just behind them. ‘Dad,’ he says, fed up. ‘You should have explained this to her by now.’

  ‘Sol,’ Ray says, reaching out a tempering hand. ‘Try to understand.’

  ‘There’s nothing to understand!’ she rages. ‘I saw them struggling, but he didn’t stop until she was dead! I heard her scream! I saw the blood! I saw her die! I saw him throw her in the river!’

  Sol runs away, hysterical. She hurls herself up a ladder and into one of the dormitories, loudly slamming the door behind her.

  Bo turns to his father, and they bend their heads together. Conspiring. There’s a buddy-buddy feeling between them. I can’t hear their words, but whatever it is, they’re in it together.

  And then it hits me. Twenty years of sleep, and now blood. Because there are two of them. I can’t breathe. I can’t miss a single word, a single gesture, but my eyes are blurring with tears, and my pulse is pounding in my ears.

  Bo stresses something important to his father, and Ray looks up at the dormitory that Sol has barricaded. Bo turns and stares up at it, too. They exchange a few more words, and then Ray claps Bo on the shoulder. Like everything is peachy keen. And then Bo pulls his long knife out of a nearby stump, sheaths it in his thigh-guard, and stalks off.

  I stumble downhill for a while and then sit in the underbrush, leaves folding over me. The world is just paint, and now it’s smeared.

  There are two killers. One clean. One bloody. Ray and Bo. Dr Goodnight and his son.

  Rob stands over me. He’s offering me his hand. I stare at it until he grabs me and hauls me to my feet.

  We don’
t speak.

  It’s past sunset. I stand in the entrance of my grandparents’ house. Rob is saying something quietly to my grandparents. Then he takes me upstairs to my bedroom.

  ‘Sit here,’ he says, placing me on the edge of my bed. ‘Your grandparents said you take medication?’

  I look up at him. He’s so worried. I nod and gesture to my bathroom. I can’t speak.

  Rob disappears into my bathroom, and I hear him rummaging around in there. Opening doors and bumping around, not really knowing what he’s looking for or where to look for it. I hear him shake out a few pills, pour some tap water into the glass I keep on the sink. He comes back out and puts a pile of pills in one of my hands and the glass of water in the other.

  He stands in front of me. ‘Take them.’

  I gulp them down, not caring to look at what I’m swallowing.

  ‘When did you stop taking your medication?’ Rob asks quietly. ‘Before or after I left?’

  I shake my head to clear it. I can’t remember. I open my mouth to speak, and nothing comes out.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to say anything right now.’

  Rob goes back into the bathroom and returns with a wet washcloth. He kneels down in front of me and takes off my hiking sandals before cleaning my feet. A few more trips to the sink to rinse off the washcloth, and he cleans my face and hands as well. Then he pulls the covers back and tucks me in. He shuts off the light and sits down at my desk.

  ‘I’ll be right here,’ he says.

  Then I feel nothing.

  I wake to low, orange light. Must be sunset.

  So. This is what a broken heart feels like. It’s unique. And now sunset is what a broken heart looks like to me, and it probably always will. Sunset is ruined.

  My head hurts, and my body is impossibly heavy. I don’t know if I’ve slept one day or two. Rob is sitting at my desk.

  I sit up. I have to push myself with my arms to do it, but I finally manage it. Rob is leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees like he’s just lifted his head out of his hands.

  ‘You’re still here,’ I say. The sound of my own voice surprises me. I was half expecting to be mute again, but I guess I’m done with that.

  Rob nods and leans back, rubbing his eyes and then scrubbing his face with his hands. I notice my journal is open on the desk next to him.

  ‘Where did you find that?’ I ask, pointing at my journal.

  Rob frowns. ‘Right here. It was on your desk,’ he says. ‘You didn’t know that, though, did you?’ He looks sad.

  I cross my legs under the blanket and curl my hands in my lap. ‘Did you read it?’ I ask. He nods. Sighs.

  ‘I went into your closet to get a blanket last night. It got pretty cold,’ he says. His eyes are darting around everywhere, unable to land. ‘I saw the bloody clothes. The picnic blanket.’ He suddenly tilts forward and drops his head in his hands. ‘There are three pairs of shorts and three T-shirts that are covered in blood.’ He looks up at me, his eyes rimmed with tears. ‘Was it you?’ he whispers.

  I stare at him, dumbstruck.

  He gestures to the journal. ‘I’m sorry I invaded your privacy, but after I found the clothes . . .’ He trails off, and tears tip down his face. He gathers himself and continues. ‘Three sets of clothes, three women. I had to know.’

  ‘Had to know what?’ I ask robotically.

  Rob stands up, suddenly agitated, and starts pacing, talking more to himself than to me.

  ‘You were off your medication. You thought you were hunting deer. But you’re on your medication again now. You’ll be OK.’ He faces me. ‘You won’t hurt anyone else, right?’

  I swing my legs out of my bed and stand. I’m wobbly, and Rob steadies me. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I say, angry now. And, to be honest – afraid.

  He narrows his eyes at me. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Magda, do you know what you’ve been writing in your journal?’ he asks calmly.

  ‘I haven’t been writing in my journal,’ I reply. ‘I haven’t written in it in months.’

  He picks up my journal and shows it to me. It’s almost completely full of my blocky, minuscule handwriting. My heart speeds up and my skin tightens. I let the pages flop closed. I don’t want to see.

  I stopped writing in it. My journal is dangerous.

  I’m dangerous.

  ‘The first time you said that to me, I thought you were kidding, because you had just been sitting right across from me moments before writing in your journal. Do you remember? We were at Taylor’s?’ He waits for me to answer. I guess I know what he’s talking about, but it’s all so vague. I shrug, and he continues. ‘Then I realized that you really didn’t know you were writing in it. Like someone who bites their nails and doesn’t realize they’re doing it.’

  I take a step back from him and hit the edge of the bed. He sits next to me and takes my hand.

  ‘You don’t know you made up a whole story about a family living in the woods, do you?’

  My eyes unfocus. It’s like falling. This is impossible.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I demand.

  ‘That guy you call Wildboy in your journal, and his family. You made them up, and you think they’re real.’

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I couldn’t have.’

  A pained look crosses Rob’s face. ‘You’ve made up people before,’ he says quietly. ‘Ali Bhatti?’

  ‘How did you . . .?’

  ‘I’ve been getting all your posts since we were thirteen,’ he says, like it’s obvious. ‘I know all about the Cultural Outreach Club, and about the mental hospital. Your New York friends couldn’t shut up about how you went crazy. I was waiting for you to talk to me about it when you were ready.’

  All I can do is stare at him.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone here any of that stuff,’ he assures me defensively.

  I stand up. ‘I didn’t make Wildboy up,’ I say. I start pacing. Thinking back. ‘You were there,’ I insist. ‘You came and got me in the woods. You must have seen his camp.’

  Rob’s face falls with compassion, and it only makes me angrier.

  ‘Last night!’ I yell. ‘You came and got me right outside their camp and brought me back here and gave me my pills and sat down at my desk. You were there, in the woods!’

  ‘Me? In the woods?’ he asks carefully.

  Rob hates the woods. He never goes in them. I sink back down on to the bed. I’m scared to breathe. Scared to move.

  ‘I was here with your grandparents, waiting for you, as usual, when you came back. You couldn’t speak. You looked traumatized, and your grandparents told me that schizophrenia runs in the family and that you take antipsychotics for it. I brought you upstairs to give you your medication. When I saw that the dates on the bottles were from over a month ago, but still almost full, I knew you hadn’t been taking them.’

  ‘No. You found me,’ I say weakly. I look up at him. He’s shaking his head.

  ‘I just appeared out of nowhere and found you in the middle of the woods?’ he asks doubtfully. ‘How could I know where you were?’

  ‘You followed me,’ I accuse, but we both know I’m grasping at straws.

  ‘Magda? Have you ever seen things that weren’t there?’ he asks. ‘Have you ever seen people who weren’t there?’

  I freeze and nod slowly, thinking of Rachel. ‘Dead people. People who’ve died because of me.’

  He smiles at me, like this admission means I’m getting somewhere. ‘If you’ve seen that, then why is it so hard to accept that – off your medication – you’ve imagined seeing living people?’

  I open my mouth to answer him, but I have no answer. There’s only one answer. I never hallucinated dead bodies when I was with Bo. Because I was hallucinating him. I look down at my journal, and now I can really see it. It’s filled up. I can remember writing in it now. I wrote in it every day. If I c
an repress that, what else have I done without knowing it?

  ‘Oh my God,’ I breathe. ‘What did I do?’

  I run to the closet and open it. My clothes are in a rumpled heap. So much blood. How could I have ever thought that was normal?

  ‘But, it wasn’t really you, right? It couldn’t have been you,’ he says, his voice trailing off into a whisper. But he knows. I look over my shoulder at him.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I whisper back. ‘I don’t know.’

  Rob takes my hands and guides me back to the bed. He sits next to me and turns my hands over in his, noticing them. We both see the scratches and bruises peppering my forearms. Like I’ve been in a fight.

  ‘There has to be another reason for all of these cuts, right?’ he asks. He’s begging me for some kind of explanation, but I don’t have one.

  ‘Hiking?’ I say uncertainly. But I’m shaking my head because I know that doesn’t explain this. Hiking doesn’t explain the soreness in my back and arms.

  Rob just looks at me.

  ‘What did I do?’ I say again, my voice sliding up. I’m becoming hysterical, I know it, but I can’t seem to stop. I press my hands against my mouth, trying to stuff the crazy back inside.

  ‘Shh,’ Rob says, pulling me into a hug. He holds me for a long time, rocking me back and forth. ‘You would never hurt anyone.’

  Wrong. I’ve hurt lots of people. But murder? ‘I don’t remember.’ My voice gets high and thin again.

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ he whispers, easing me back into bed. ‘You need to rest. You’ll have an explanation for all this after you rest. I know you will.’

  He goes into my bathroom and comes back a moment later with another handful of pills and a glass full of water.

  ‘It’ll be OK. I promise,’ he whispers. ‘You inherited a condition, and you went off your medication, but it won’t happen again. You’ll be OK.’