The Killing Woods

by Lucy Christopher

  ‘Because he could be dangerous. Because he killed someone. Because he needs help.’

  ‘But he . . .’

  ‘Emily!’ There’s that warning tone to her voice. ‘Even if your father didn’t mean to – even if he was out of his head and didn’t have a clue what was happening – he still did it. That’s not what’s being argued any more.’

  ‘But how can anyone know? For certain?’

  Mum starts reeling off things she’s told me before. About the fact Dad admits it. About how Ashlee Parker’s DNA was on his clothes. About the psychological profiling the police have done, the flashback he was in, his trauma from combat. She looks away from the quiz show long enough for me to find her eyes. ‘He was living that flashback, Emily,’ she says, ‘. . . exactly like the psychiatrist said . . . killing, just like he did in combat.’

  ‘It could have been anyone!’

  ‘You haven’t read the reports – his army discharge papers, the psych notes . . .’

  ‘Because you never let me!’

  Mum takes another gulp of wine. ‘You know his flashbacks got worse when he didn’t take his meds. And he hadn’t taken those pills properly for weeks before that night.’ She sounds so calm she could be reading out the news. I hate it.

  ‘You weren’t there,’ I repeat. ‘Neither of us was.’

  She looks at me so sadly that I think she’s going to suggest I see a counsellor or take pills like Dad did. This is how this conversation usually goes. She won’t listen to my theories, won’t talk this through. Right from when Dad was arrested she thought he’d done it, just accepted it then. She’s never said this to me outright, but I know.

  ‘Wives are supposed to care!’ I blurt out. ‘You’re supposed to care.’

  ‘Sometimes caring isn’t enough!’ She stands quickly – too quickly – and her hand shoots out to grab the edge of the couch. ‘Sometimes circumstance goes beyond it.’ She tries to move past me. ‘The sooner you realise your dad’s not the same dad you remember from childhood, the better. Then we can move on with our lives, and we need to do that.’

  ‘You talk like he’s dead.’

  She breathes in sharply. ‘The man we both want to remember is.’

  Her voice is a thousand sharp fingers, jabbing me back into the bookshelf. I jam my spine against it and let her pass. My hands go in fists – just for a second – then I grab the nearest book and hurl it across the room, watch it splay open as it smashes against the far wall. It’s a Thomas Hardy book, one of Dad’s. I’m surprised Mum didn’t get rid of that too. Now it lies broken on the carpet, pages wonky and sticking out at odd angles. I wish it were Mum instead.

  I hear her in the kitchen, pouring more wine. I can’t stay here, listening to her calm explanations, watching the facade on her face. I take the stairs quickly, grab a towel from the cupboard on the landing. But I stop before going into the bathroom. She just said it, didn’t she? That I haven’t read the reports? And I helped Mum package up some of Dad’s things, so I think I know where those reports could be. I wrap the towel around my damp hair and pull open the trap door to the loft, climb the ladder. Last time we were up here was another day when I’d hated Mum, been angry.

  The boards feel unsteady, so I move slowly to crouch near the boxes of Dad’s things, reading what Mum has scrawled on their sides: Bank Statements, Jon’s College Stuff, Army . . . I still don’t understand how Mum can package Dad’s life up so easily. I pull the box called Army towards me. Some of Dad’s old combat fatigues are in this box, but there are papers underneath too. I take out one of his shirts and hold it on my lap. It feels cold and soft, doesn’t smell like Dad any more. I’m still so shivery from being in the woods that I almost put it on, right over my hoodie.

  At last I find Dad’s letter of honourable discharge and the notes that go with it: all this stuff I’ve never been allowed to read. The police and Dad’s lawyers must have got their copies from somewhere else, because these are the originals. I scan them quickly, nervously. There is a lot of stuff that doesn’t make much sense to me, stuff about procedures and army equipment to be given back, but I see the report written by the army psychiatrist: the report Mum must have been talking about earlier. I read it fast, my eyes catching on sentences:

  . . . It is my opinion that Rifleman Shepherd suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder . . . a result of an incident involving the shooting of a civilian during a firefight near . . .

  I skim over the details of the fighting on the day that changed everything for Dad – I read about how it was close contact, about the injuries suffered on both sides, how civilians and soldiers and insurgents were hard to tell apart in the dust storm.

  . . . the civilian was running towards Rifleman Shepherd when Shepherd opened fire . . .

  In flashbacks, Dad would often scream answers to an imaginary soldier – to the one who’d told him he’d killed the civilian that day. Dad would say over and over how he didn’t mean to do it.

  I read on. There are notes about how Dad couldn’t cope, how he withdrew into himself, how his commanding officer had to send him back to base. There are other paragraphs detailing how Dad had behaved after he’d returned home too, a whole page talking about his ‘adjustment to civilian life’.

  . . . Shepherd replays the incident over in his mind, aggravating his fragile mental state. The symptoms suffered are of a nature and severity that there is a distinct possibility that Rifleman Shepherd will act out the flashbacks . . . re-living of which could place him and others at risk . . . I recommend immediate termination of all active service for the safety of Rifleman Shepherd, his fellow army personnel and civilians.

  It’s all there in bold letters – a distinct possibility that Rifleman Shepherd will act out the flashbacks. Reading this, I can see why Dad pleaded guilty to manslaughter. When Dad’s lawyers read this it must have shaped their whole case. For a moment my brain just whirls with a kind of panic-noise and I can’t think clearly. These reports are written so matter-of-factly, as if everything they say happened is true and as if everything they say will happen again is true too.

  But I know this stuff, don’t I? I know Dad was discharged for accidentally killing a civilian; I know he was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result. So why am I shocked? It’s because there are things here that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that civilian’s age. And I didn’t know she was a girl. But there, in small print, are the details.

  Local girl from K Compound, aged sixteen years, suspected as running to Rifleman Shepherd for assistance.

  This girl was my age when she died – with her life in front of her and with a family and friends, with hobbies and pets maybe, and with places she liked to go when she was sad. Her death must have torn someone’s whole world up. Many people’s worlds.

  Is this why no one’s let me read this stuff? Because they knew I’d be upset? Because they didn’t want me to know that this girl had been running to Dad for help? Because Dad was so ashamed of it? How is it possible I never knew? How did this information never get reported in the news either? It’s like so many things out there in the world that get covered up, hidden. Secrets are made. It’s too much to think of all at once.

  Shutting the loft hatch quietly I go into my room, dump Dad’s shirt and these papers on my desk. But my skin is gooseflesh now and I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling. I’m pacing my room and trying to get warm. Eventually, I go into the bathroom and force the lock across the door, peel off my clothes and fling them anywhere, go straight under the shower. I think about the words the army psychiatrist wrote – Distinct possibility . . . act out the flashbacks. Mum believes Dad’s done it all again, exactly all again. Dad’s killed another girl, it’s another accident. Was Ashlee just another girl running to Dad for help?

  The water is hot and I haven’t turned on the fan, so soon there’s steam everywhere. I point my face up and let the water scald my cheeks. I want it to flush me clean, get rid of these gurgling horrible feelin
gs inside. I think of how Mum had looked at me just now, that sadness in her eyes. Maybe she’d like it if this shower washed away the parts of me that came from Dad. Maybe she’d be happy that Dad was gone entirely then: out of this house, out of my body, removed like the photographs. Would I be any different like that, without the half of me that came from Dad? Would I still get so angry and snap into these weird moods? Do stupid things like pushing Kirsty or wanting to kiss Damon Hilary?

  I’m half-sobbing, half-choking, on the shower water but I turn it hotter. I want it to be so hot that it makes me numb, outside and in. I pull the showerhead lower, force the water into my face. Perhaps it can burn me. Or dilute me so I disappear down the plughole. Then I won’t have to work out what any of the stuff I’ve just read really means. I know why Mum finds it hard to look at me now. It’s because, whatever I do, I’ll always be Jon Shepherd’s daughter: I’ll always look like Dad. I’m branded for life, can’t wash it away. But what else from Dad am I branded with? What other feelings or parts of his personality have I got?

  Words Damon said are back in my mind: Show me you got killer’s blood like your dad. He’d said that maybe I didn’t know my dad at all.

  Sixteen years . . .

  Running for assistance . . .

  Local girl . . .

  I feel like fainting but I don’t want to get out, not until something feels different. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything to get out for anyway: not for some overcooked pizza, or for a mum who can’t even look at me, not even for Florence. But I do get out eventually. And when I do, I see that Joe is waiting in my room.

  14

  Damon

  I’m almost home when my feet hit a puddle, smashing the water sideways. In tiny drops, it spreads. That’s when the image comes. Dad on a routine patrol. Heat haze. Rifle across his chest and he’s laughing with the guys in his unit, his head turned and looking over his shoulder. He’s in front; it was always his job to look for the devices. But he doesn’t concentrate, turns to laugh at a joke – some stupid joke – his detector goes sideways. He takes one step off the road.

  The puddle explodes as I kick it with the other foot, the water spraying to my thighs and soaking my trainers.

  I’m thinking that Dad’s body must’ve shattered like this, turned into a human firework. Legs and ribs and bits of brain became gunk. His blood sprayed out, melted into desert air. Dad became red mist.

  And it should’ve been Jon Shepherd.

  Should’ve been anyone but my old man. ’Cause he never did nothing wrong.

  I see drops of water land on my shoes. On the pavement. I see it spray out towards the entrance of our flat. And I know that Dad’s smashed up for always now, and Ashlee’s gone.

  15

  Emily

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Your mum let me in.’

  Joe looks all elbows and limbs sitting on my bed; he’s been waiting for me to finish. But I feel red and hot, my veins boiling from the scalding shower, and I can’t be bothered to talk.

  ‘What happened with Damon?’ he says.

  I remember the figure I thought I’d seen in the trees ahead of me earlier. ‘Don’t you know already?’

  Joe’s cheeks go the colour of my scalded skin. He shrugs. ‘I only followed you a little way, OK! Then I took photos for my project. I’m serious!’

  I glare at him. ‘I knew it was you!’

  I tilt my head to the door, trying to indicate that he should leave now. I want to read Dad’s psych reports again, in private. And besides, I’m still in my towel! But Joe’s not going anywhere. He spins around on the bed to face the wall, like we used to do when we were little kids and had sleepovers. But we’re older now and I have to get changed.

  ‘Wait outside if you have to be here,’ I snap.

  My eyes dart to the floor as he stomps past: it’s Mum I’m meant to be angry with, not Joe. Joe’s just come around to check how my detention went; he’s trying to be a friend. Even if he is annoying and over-protective sometimes he’s only worried about me, and not many people are that any more. But still, he shouldn’t have followed me into Darkwood. I shut the door on him and look in the mirror. I’m as pink as if I’d been sitting in the sun all day, my hair as scraggly as rats’ tails. I throw on some tracksuit bottoms and one of the camouflage T-shirts Dad got me once, run my fingers through my hair and try to straighten it.

  ‘I look like crap,’ I say, as I let him back in.

  ‘You don’t.’

  But he doesn’t look at me when he says this so how would he know? He slouches back on to my bed, pretends to be interested in the photos I’ve tacked on to my wall that he’s seen a million times. He pushes a hand through his longish, curlyish brown hair and tries to calm it down. I remember his shape in the trees, how when I’d looked back a second time he hadn’t been there at all.

  ‘I wasn’t following you,’ he says again, knowing this is what I’m thinking. Then he starts digging about in his schoolbag until he pulls out his camera. He turns it on, switches it to playback mode and holds it out. ‘Here, take a look.’

  I’m not sure I believe him but I slouch down beside him anyway. He pushes his camera into my hands, leans over and starts moving the photos on. He shows me how he’s captured the woods in shot after shot. ‘I’m trying to reveal cracks of light,’ he explains. ‘That’s my art project. The one I’ve been working on for months, you know?’

  I nod, because I vaguely remember him talking about this. But I’m wondering if taking photos is only an excuse – did he see all the things I just did with Damon? Did he see me push him over, how I’d held my face so close? I feel my cheeks go hotter.

  ‘Illuminations,’ Joe adds, still flicking on the images. ‘That’s the name of it. Remember? I’m trying to find the light in the dark and the dark in the light.’

  He’s got photos of sunlight falling through trees, dark holes inside pine trunks, cracks in bare earth.

  He holds my gaze, wanting me to understand something. Then he gets up from the bed and goes across to my window that looks out over the woods, only it’s dark now and he looks out at black. I see his long, thin face reflected in the glass.

  ‘Remember when we used to go in?’ he says, meaning the woods that are out there somewhere. ‘Those games we played?’

  ‘Sure, when Dad was away.’ And I get it then, what Joe wants me to understand. ‘When you started your game, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah – Cracks.’

  I remember Joe’s face as he’d bent to look into a crevice in one of Darkwood’s cave walls, a day so long ago.

  ‘I wonder what’s in this crack?’ he’d said.

  That’s when he’d started the imagining game.

  Joe had heard there were ancient fault lines, or ley lines, in the earth that ran through Darkwood. He’d read stories that these were powerful places, where energy shot up through the ground and changed people, maybe even sucked them into other worlds. They were just stories, and we knew that, but for a time Joe had got carried away.

  ‘Maybe there’s a whole other world through the cracks?’ he’d said. ‘A parallel universe? Maybe it’s a world where animals are in charge instead of humans, where bats are the boss of us all?’ His nose had been centimetres from the gap: when he’d breathed out, dust flew into his face. ‘You try next, Emily!’

  I’d run my fingers over a crumbling crack that stretched all the way from the cave floor to the ceiling but when I’d peered inside all I could see was darkness. No other worlds. When I’d told Joe this, his mouth curved to a grin.

  ‘You have to look harder to find the other worlds!’

  I’d seen ancient cobwebs, hanging down like ropes. Two spiders clinging there.

  ‘You have to imagine it!’

  I’d laughed and told him that he was the one who was cracked, not the cave walls, and Joe had made a face like he was crazy.

  But now it’s not him, or even the cave walls that are cracked, it’s me. Or Dad.
Or both of us. I look over to my desk, to where I’d left Dad’s stuff from the loft, and the panic-noise starts again in my head.

  ‘We’re too old for Cracks now, Joe,’ I say. ‘It’s a kid’s game.’

  Joe is still staring at the darkness through my window, as if he can actually see the trees and caves inside the woods, as if he’s looking into a crack right now. He’s thinking hard.

  ‘So Damon was OK today, then?’ he says eventually.

  I hesitate. I should tell Joe what really happened: how it’d felt as if Damon had wanted to punish me up there on the Leap. I should say about Damon getting angry. But I’m scared that if I do start telling Joe these things I’ll slip into telling him everything. And the words Damon called me still sting: Freak. Psycho. What if Joe starts thinking these things about me too?

  ‘We . . . we ran,’ I start. ‘It was some sort of running game, I guess – maybe like how Damon does cross-country training?’

  Joe’s face switches to a scowl. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  I guess he’s still bitter about being dropped from the team last term.

  ‘He shouldn’t have given you detention in there,’ Joe says again. ‘You could have gone to the Head instead you know, another prefect . . .’

  ‘Anyone else would have given me a proper punishment.’

  ‘So why didn’t he do that? You were fighting Kirsty!’

  ‘Pushing, not fighting,’ I correct, as if it makes a difference.

  ‘What did he want from you anyway?

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘It wasn’t just a detention, was it?’

  Joe has a point: Damon did want more from me. I think I’m beginning to understand what it was, too. ‘He wanted me to say Dad did it – everything he’s accused of. He wanted answers.’

  ‘Weird.’

  I shrug. It’s not that weird. We all want those answers. We all want to know what happened that night. I pick up Joe’s camera again, flick through the photos. I pause on one of a raven clinging to a branch, its feathers iridescent.