What Lies in the Woods(22)

I contorted myself to pick up the mail. The hand-addressed letter was on top of the stack. I frowned at it. Almost certainly fan mail. I should just throw it away.

I slid my thumb under the flap. The envelope tore. I fumbled the letter out. It was a single lined page, folded into thirds, the handwriting sloppy.

Ms. Shaw or Cunningham or whatever your name is now—

I have thought a lot about what I would say to you if I got the chance, but now that I’m actually doing it I have trouble finding the words. You turned my whole reality upside down. I lost all my friends, my house, my life. My dad. The man I thought he was turned out not to be real at all. He wasn’t my loving father, he was a monster.

But the thing is, you lied. My father didn’t attack you. You lied on the stand and sent the wrong man to jail. What I want to know is: Why? Were you protecting someone? Are they still out there? Have they hurt other little girls because you covered for them?

I am trying to understand. I have been trying for years to put together the pieces of my childhood in a way that makes them make sense, to comprehend what happened to the father I loved. I can’t comprehend your part in it.

If you’re ready to tell the truth, I’d like to hear it.





—AJ


I could barely read the words, my hands were trembling so much. AJ. Alan Stahl, Jr.

I’d almost forgotten that Stahl had a son. He’d never been in court. The only image I could summon up was a snapshot, a gangly kid in a striped shirt with Stahl’s arm around him. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it.

He knows.

A wave of nausea rolled over me. I threw the letter aside, wrenched open the door, and staggered out onto the road. A cold wind sliced past me.

Alan Michael Stahl was an evil man. Liv and Cass had seen him. It was him.

Or had they seen someone who looked enough like him that the police could push traumatized children into identifying the wrong person?

The forest stood dark and deep before me. Persephone was in there, somewhere. Because she was why we’d been out there that day, because Stahl was one secret and she was the other, they’d tangled together in my mind. My monster and my goddess, their fingers always catching at my hair, trying to drag me back to that day. I’d always fought that pull.

There was a flashlight in the trunk. I’d gotten it out before I quite knew what I was doing. I stood a moment, flashlight in one hand, bottle in the other, and waited for my better judgment to arrive. There was only the wind, and the distant calling of an owl.

I crossed the road, hopped over the small ditch, and walked straight in among the trees.

I wondered what my therapist would think of me thrashing through the underbrush. Probably not the version of “reintegrating my past selves” that she’d imagined. I should probably call her. That would probably be the smart thing to do.

Thick clouds occluded the stars, leaving my flashlight the only point of light in the gloom. It swept over roots and a thick carpet of evergreen needles, toppled trunks, the occasional swift body of a mouse fleeing my intrusion. Nothing looked familiar. We’d known every twig and rock in this place, but it had grown strange in our absence.

I stopped, trying to orient myself. Where was the trickling creek where we’d scooped up cold water for our potions, the snag we had declared contained the ghost of a witch? Where were the Wolf Hollow, the Dragon Stone? The pond should be close to here, a muddy little patch our imaginations had turned into a lake where we might find a king’s sword and a secret destiny.

The shadows seethed. Something rustled to my right. I swung the light toward it but illuminated only a fragment of memory. Liv, her glasses slipping down her nose. Cass with her hands on her hips, chin tilted up in her starting-a-story pose, her golden locks tumbling about her pert little face, every inch the princess she was currently pretending to be.

“I sensed something watching me today,” she declared. “A most vile spirit. Our enemies are aware of our growing power.”

“Enemies?” Liv asked, eyes widening. “What enemies?”

“Wicked beasts who oppose the forces of light!” Cass informed her. “Horrible monsters! We have to keep ourselves safe.”

“How?” Liv asked, shivering.

“Warding spells,” Cass said, dropping the pose. “We can make magic charms.”

“Will that be enough?”

“Of course it will,” I murmured. I could picture them perfectly, but I couldn’t see myself. Couldn’t imagine the version of me before the knife. I remembered what I’d said, though. “We know exactly how to make the charms, right, Cass? And then we’ll be safe from the monsters.”

Relief in Liv’s eyes as I put my arm around her shoulders. The faint flicker of annoyance in Cass’s—this was her story, and she wasn’t ready to pass it off yet.

I recognized the tree in front of me now. It had gotten taller, but the odd crooked branch was the same, with the little pocket of hollow space where it met the trunk. It was shoulder height to me now, where I’d had to reach up above my line of sight back then.

I took one last swig, then set down the bottle. I wriggled my fingers inside the hollow. It couldn’t still be here, could it? But there—something soft. Cloth. Gingerly, I caught it between my index and middle finger and drew it out.

The cloth was a cheap old handkerchief. It had split open, and the contents tumbled out into my palm, worn into obscurity by years of rain and rot. A pair of dice, the spots rubbed away; a wadded brown lump that was completely unrecognizable; a cheap costume jewelry earring. One of our charms, to keep us safe.