Beyond the Wild Wood Read online

  There were songs about sleeping and songs about spit-up. Claire’s favorite was her husband’s song about diaper-changing.

  “Butt up, butt down,” Laney would hear Michael murmur. “He shakes his booty all around. Butt up, butt down. Liam shakes his booty—” Claire supplied the chorus, “Booty, booty,” and Liam giggled and giggled at that silly song.

  They seemed like decent people.

  They kept his name.

  Liam Gerrick. It fit, Laney decided. She ignored that crushing sensation in her gut, the ache in her arms to hold her son. She pressed it all down inside herself, built a mental wall, brick by brick, against the thought of ever being close to him. He wasn’t hers to have.

  And yet he was hers. He had her eyes. In those brief glimpses, she saw it, and she knew. Yes, those were her eyes. Her eyes from before. He was Corey’s, too. In the shape of his face, it became more apparent every day. That was her lover’s face, those were his features. Liam was this tiny, perfect mashup of the two of them. In life, eternity had escaped Laney and Corey, but in Liam, they would truly last forever.

  Tonight was one of those nights when Claire worked. Michael had already put Liam to bed in his crib—he had just started sleeping in his own room—and now the strains of his favorite television station leaked from around the closed windows onto the grounds that surrounded the tiny house.

  The foliage was dying. It would be autumn soon, Laney could feel it in the still air, but that’s not what caused the foliage to dry up like it had. It was simply that it had been hot heading from July into August in New England, and there hadn’t been much rain. Beyond any normal human perception, the scent of death grew daily. It was both exciting and calming. Autumn brought with it a joyful celebration—another ending, and, of course, a beginning. Life began in darkness, and so too did the years, the endless years that stretched before Laney. Each would begin with a celebration of fire and light and warmth. The last of the apples would be devoured from trees raised in grottos, even as the scent of death grew in concentration. The life leeched from the trees, each one fading from this world a fraction every day. Slumber, peace, rest; it came for all. It came for Laney. She would awaken in the springtime, fresh and alert and joyous.

  At least, she hoped for joyous. She had awoken that way this spring, though she had been wrapped in Corey’s arms throughout the winter, blanketed in moss and earth and a cold, snow covering. Yet she awoke warm, refreshed, and more in love than she could ever remember being. Every part of her ached for that feeling again.

  Winter slumber would be good for her. As the years went on, she wouldn’t need it so desperately. Aidan had no need to sleep through the wintertime; he took rest in bits and pieces. Corey could have done the same, Laney knew, but he chose to stay by her side, lovingly cradling her on her first journey through the season. This winter she would be alone, and she knew the thoughts that would plague her wouldn’t only be the loss of Corey’s arms but also the growth she was missing. Her son would grow by leaps and bounds; she’d barely recognize him when she woke.

  She scaled the side of the house, clinging delicately to the clapboard siding. Liam’s room was a study of green, which Laney liked. Subtle stripes adorned the walls, and the toys were mostly stuffed animals. They were funny, too—not just a cliché teddy bear, but woodland creatures. Laney had already seen a raccoon peeking from a bookcase, a stuffed bunny perched on the rocking chair in the corner. There was also a set of squirrels, one holding a tiny, stuffed acorn. Liam liked those the best, Laney knew, because he watched them as he drifted to sleep.

  The ivy by his bedroom window was still lush and green. The Gerricks had speculated about it, blaming it on the northern exposure from that side of the house. They figured the ivy was spared the hot August sun, so that was why it flourished as it did. Laney knew better. Her very touch, consistent and gentle, had encouraged this growth to flourish well past its time. She lovingly petted a waxy leaf, smiling.

  It would die soon enough.

  Liam was already asleep, even though Michael had just put him down. The infant’s pale eyelids were shut, his skin painted in a myriad of colors from the rotating rainbow nightlight that made a soft disco out of his tiny room. He snuffled and then sighed, a contented baby sigh.

  The window frame shook in Laney’s hand as her grip tightened.

  “Okay, you,” she murmured to herself. “Time to leave.”

  It took her longer than she’d ever admit to let that window frame go.

  “So how was it?” The question was out of Lucy Michaels’s mouth before Cassie had even taken her seat. Cassie couldn’t help the smile that bloomed.

  “It was wonderful,” Cassie answered, setting her bag next to the light blue, upholstered chair she now sat in. It was strange, carrying a purse; after only a week, Cassie was already used to a much heavier bag. She had made this appointment with Lucy on purpose, the very first day she was back from the trail, early in the morning. She had barely seen her own parents yet. She and Ryan had taken their time on that last day, walking slowly, holding hands. Other than Lawrence, they hadn’t seen another soul in the woods. The air felt clean and clear and hot. But Cassie hadn’t noticed the heat, not with Ryan’s hand gripped so firmly around hers, and not when he spun them off the trail every hour or so, pinning her to tree trunks and picking up where they had left off that morning. She felt permanently flushed all day, and it had nothing to do with the weather. Once they made it to the section of trail that wove through their town, she had begged him not to call for their parents to pick them up right away. In truth, it was so close to Cassie’s house that they could have deviated off the trail and just walked. Cassie knew that route intimately. But neither had wanted to.

  In the end, pausing hadn’t helped to calm the flush from Cassie’s cheeks, because Ryan had other ideas anyway. When they finally called for his mother, she arrived to find two exhilarated, breathless teenagers unable to contain their giggles.

  “How are your parents?” Lucy asked, and Cassie came back to the warm, cozy office. She breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of soft vanilla with a hint of coffee bean. She smiled.

  “Still a bit freaked, I think,” she answered, shrugging. “But you were right. This was a good thing.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Tell me why.” Lucy leaned back in the chair across from Cassie, crossing her legs.

  Cassie had a fleeting urge to laugh. It’d be hard to explain to Lucy the thrills of living outdoors without plumbing for any length of time. Lucy was a tall, stately blond with large, wondering brown eyes and the faintest impression of a cleft-lip repair that must have occurred when she was younger. She dressed well, did her makeup impeccably, and always wore heels. Cassie doubted any of the trail information would interest her, and a little ripple in her gut told her that Lucy wasn’t asking for any of that in the first place. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit gently.

  “Well,” she began, releasing her lip, “it was exhilarating.” She didn’t immediately elaborate, and Lucy waited patiently. “I mean, not just the hiking. Not just the physical part, you know? It was the challenge of the thing.

  “I was afraid. Every night I was afraid to go to sleep. And I still had the nightmares. But I woke up just fine every morning.”

  “And last night?” Lucy asked softly. Cassie blinked and looked up. She pictured her bed at home, soft and inviting and still a reminder of the nights Laney used to visit, leaving the scent of lavender in her wake. That was the bed that Aidan watched as she slept, the pillow he left roses on, the comforter where he left his etchings.

  “I slept okay last night, too.”

  “That’s good, Cassie,” Lucy said. A smile crept onto Cassie’s lips, and Lucy nodded. “I know that man—”

  “Aidan,” Cassie interrupted, wanting him to be named. He wouldn’t be a loathsome shadow in her life any longer.

  “Yes, Aidan,” Lucy said. “I know you feel he took something from
you, but he didn’t.” Cassie flinched, and Lucy noticed. “He didn’t,” she repeated. “No one can take anything from you. Because you, just as you are, are already whole and complete. What he did was show you something you didn’t realize existed. He showed you another side to this world—a darker, crueler side—and it’s up to you now to decide what to do with this knowledge.”

  Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. If only Lucy knew just how right she was.

  “We met a man on the trail,” Cassie said, deviating from the harsh truths Lucy confronted her with. “His name was Lawrence.”

  “Was he friendly?” Lucy asked, allowing the diversion with a knowing smile.

  Cassie nodded. “He said something to me, though, something I didn’t completely understand. He said, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.’”

  “That’s from the Bible, isn’t it?” Lucy asked, cocking her head to the side.

  Cassie shrugged. “He said it was Solomon, so maybe? What do you think it means?”

  “What do you think it means?” Lucy countered, grinning. Cassie rolled her eyes. It was such a shrink answer. “Okay, fine,” Lucy relented. “How about this instead: why do you think it affected you so much?”

  “It didn’t!” Cassie rushed to say. One delicate, blond eyebrow raised over a calm brown eye as her therapist looked at her. “Okay, okay; it did.”

  The words hadn’t left her mind, not all evening. It wasn’t the friend bit that was getting to her; it was the iron. Did the man know about the iron tucked against her skin? Did he carry it, too? Could he sense the looming disaster that was the Fae? Cassie could. She hadn’t noticed it out on the far trail, yet as they had drawn near, uneasiness grew. As soon as she set foot in town, she could feel it. They were still there. She knew it. They hadn’t left.

  It wasn’t that it felt dangerous—it didn’t, not yet. But there was that thick stillness in the air, the kind that rests heavy on your shoulders when you walk out your front door. It was a subtle knowing, the barometer drop that the elderly felt in their joints. It was the pressure in your eardrums, the waiting for them to pop. They were coming, change was coming, and Cassie had to decide how to get ready for it.

  The time of hiding on empty forest trails was over. There would be no sheltering behind parents, no school classrooms to huddle inside, no running into cities. They were coming—he was coming.

  For her.

  “Cassie?” Lucy prompted gently.

  Cassie blinked again and looked up. Her therapist’s kind face was watching her in concern. “Where did you just go?”

  “To the forest,” Cassie murmured. “Always back to the trees.”

  Lucy’s brow knit, but she nodded. “How about we make this homework, then? Research the quote, see what you find, and consider how it makes you feel. How about that?”

  Cassie swallowed hard and nodded.

  It wasn’t the first time Cassie had been given homework from her therapist. Audiobooks, YouTube series, actual books, worksheets, and talks with her parents were all considered homework. Cassie was done with high school now, a legal adult, but the homework continued. Lucy had reminded her that for well-adjusted adults, there was always homework, always some piece of our life that could use enlightenment. Cassie supposed that was true, but she had also been looking forward to a summer off.

  “Tell us everything!” Samantha Reynolds squealed, throwing her bag under the picnic table and sitting next to Cassie. Her father had waved and honked from the parking lot after he dropped her and Rebecca off in front of the local pizza place, much like Cassie’s father had. Instead of sitting inside the small restaurant with the blazing heat of the pizza ovens (no matter how many fans Kate, the waitress, turned on, nothing helped), they sat at one of the picnic tables on the grassy patch of land that sat adjacent to the town plaza. Ryan and Jon were already inside the restaurant, ordering pizzas to go. Rebecca sat across from Cassie, eyeing her. There was something in that expression that made Cassie feel guilty, as though she was being blamed for something.

  “It was great,” Cassie said. She cleared her throat and looked to the purse at her feet. It still felt so small to her. It was odd being back. She woke this morning swathed in her warm comforters. The air conditioning in the house felt foreign and wrong. It even smelled funny. Breakfast with her parents was wonderful. They’d seemed delighted to have her back, her mom taking the day off work to celebrate her daughter coming home with a huge Sunday-morning-style breakfast, even though it was Tuesday. The eggs were runny and perfect, the bacon crisp, the coffee hot (and not instant, thank goodness). But she missed Ryan’s touch when she startled from sleep. She missed the soft cadence of the forest, the gentle rustlings that hushed her to sleep. Yanking her window open at night, despite the fit she knew her dad would throw with the air conditioning on, helped only a little. She’d get used to it again in time, of course, but it amused her how wrong life outside the forest felt.

  She thought it would amuse Laney, too.

  Her gut didn’t cave in at the thought of her best friend any longer. It had once. Now there was a soft ache there, but a glow as well. She grieved for her friend, lost in her ways out in the woods; but she loved her, too. It was freeing to admit this. She wondered about her day-to-day life. What did she fill her time with? Did Aidan help, or was he as cold and deranged to her as he was to Cassie? Could his affections shift? Could he learn to love Laney in the absence of his brother?

  Samantha snapped her fingers in front of Cassie’s nose. She jumped on the wooden bench, blinking at her friends. Samantha peered at her in concern; Rebecca seemed confused.

  “Where did you just go?” Samantha asked gently. Cassie looked from her friends to the tree line across the field, always there, always present.

  “Sorry,” Cassie murmured. “I keep doing that.”

  “It’s okay,” Samantha said kindly. She reached for and grasped Cassie’s hand. Her skin warmed Cassie and rooted her to the table. She smiled in thanks. “So how was it, really? Did you and Ryan … ”

  Samantha trailed off with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. Her expression was so comical, Cassie couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no,” she said through her giggles. “Not even close.”

  “Not even close?” Rebecca asked, speaking for the first time since they sat down, both eyebrows raised.

  “I mean, I get that,” Samantha rambled. “There’s no bathrooms, right? Did you shave your legs at all? I bet you didn’t even brush your teeth!”

  “Ew!” Rebecca groaned as Cassie said, “Gross! Of course I brushed my teeth!”

  “But you didn’t shower,” Samantha pressed.

  “It was just camping, Samantha,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. Her family had been camping on weekends ever since Cassie met her. “You still wash yourself! But, Cass, c’mon, not even close?”

  Cassie laughed. “Okay, fine, maybe a little bit close. But it was more about … about just being together, you know? Out there, there was nothing else. No distractions, no interruptions, we ran our day however we wanted to. The weather was perfect. The air smelled so good. It was wonderful. Difficult in some ways, but really perfect in others. I’m glad Lucy—”

  She broke off, looking back to the ground. Samantha’s hand reached across the table for her.

  “We’re glad Lucy pushed it, too,” she said. Her smile hitched up in an encouraging sort of way, one side of her mouth pulling more than the other. Cassie peeked up and nodded. It was still weird to be talking about her therapist. It was weird having to admit to needing one. Cassie knew it should be no big deal, that lots of people saw therapists. Still, a wash of embarrassment rose inside her whenever she mentioned Lucy’s name around her friends.

  “What about here?” Cassie asked. “Anything exciting going on?”

  Rebecca and Samantha looked at each other quickly and then back at the table. Samantha cleared her throat. The raw beginnings of panic flared in Cassie’s
chest, and it must have shown on her face, because Rebecca spoke quickly.

  “Nothing like that!” she said, the words blurring in her rush. “Just, people are on edge still.”

  Cassie sucked a deep breath through pursed lips and let it out slowly. She noticed Samantha’s brow crinkle, the muscle in her jaw twitching. “Sam?” Cassie asked.

  Rebecca sighed, such a soft sound it was almost inaudible.

  “No, Becca’s right, it’s been … fine,” Samantha answered, shrugging.

  “There was another town hall meeting,” Rebecca continued. “My parents went. They’ve been a bit riled up since the fair. Mrs. Evans was on a rampage, insisting forest-dwelling gang members had been stalking you. Your dad was there, too. He repeated what you told the police, gave descriptions as best he could. I think it helped to settle people. You know, at least a little bit.”

  “The police are still looking, you know,” Samantha added.

  “Yeah, they’ve questioned all of us again,” Rebecca said, nodding.

  “Guys, I didn’t know,” Cassie murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Samantha said reassuringly. “We get it.”

  The understanding shone plain and clear from Samantha’s eyes, but Rebecca looked back to the table. Cassie’s shoulders slumped.

  “So, what’s next?” Samantha asked, looking toward the building as Jon and Ryan exited the restaurant, Jon carrying two white pizza boxes in front of him. Ryan trailed behind with a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and a stack of plastic cups.

  “Next?” asked Cassie. She watched as Ryan crossed the grassy lot and strode toward her. His confidence had strengthened as steadily as his muscles this summer. His smile broadened as he caught her eye. He winked subtly. He put the bottle and cups down in the center of the table and swung his legs over the bench, settling in next to Cassie. His arm wrapped around her waist, and he squeezed briefly. Cassie had an urge to sink into his side and close her eyes, let the rest of the world fade away. But she was no longer in her woods, and there were eyes that could see her now—human eyes. She settled for a brief squeeze of his thigh as he started pouring soda for the table.