Daniel had no proof that Karis and the Woman in the Woods were one and the same. He just knew it to be so, the same way you knew the voice coming out of the ventriloquist’s dummy was really just that of the man or woman holding it, no matter how still the person’s lips stayed. But he wanted Karis to go away. He didn’t know why she’d chosen him. He didn’t understand why she claimed to have been waiting so long to speak to him. He wasn’t important. He was just a boy.
And talking to Karis wasn’t like talking to an ordinary adult. It was more like talking to Jordan Ansell, the eldest son of Mr Floyd Ansell, who owned the laundry in town. Something bad had happened to Jordan Ansell while he was in his mom’s tummy, and now one eye was smaller than the other, and he couldn’t use his withered left arm to lift stuff. Jordan Ansell was all grown up, but he still lived at home with his parents and got paid to iron laundry. Jordan Ansell would ask a question, and seem to listen to the answer, but the next thing that came out of Jordan Ansell’s mouth would be completely unconnected to what was said before, so a conversation that might have started with Jordan Ansell commenting on the weather would quickly jump from rain to stones to dog hair and eventually finish up with shoes, Jordan Ansell having a particular fascination with what folks did or did not wear on their feet. Jordan Ansell didn’t really listen to what anyone said. He heard, but he didn’t listen.
Karis was like that. Karis would ask a question, and say yes yes yes
as the answer came, and sound as though she were fascinated by what she was hearing, but her tone never varied, and even Daniel recognized that not everything he said was interesting. Then, once Karis had exhausted her store of yes yes yes, she would cut to the chase, like Jordan Ansell focusing on sneakers and cowboy boots, and ask Daniel: when will you visit me?
when will you come?
The first time she said this, Daniel asked her where she lived, and Karis giggled as though Daniel had accidentally made a joke, but one only she could understand.
in the woods
‘Where? In a house?’
not a house
That laugh again. It made Daniel’s scalp itch.
‘Then where?’
among the trees
‘Like a witch?’
maybe a good witch ‘How will I find you?’
start walking and i’ll find you ‘But where?’
north
‘Which way is north?’
you wait until sun starts to go down, and then you keep it to your left ‘I can’t do that.’
why?
‘Because the woods are dangerous.’
i’ll protect you
‘Why can’t you just come here?’
i like the woods
you’ll like them too i can show you the secret places and then we’ll sleep Karis kept asking him to go into the woods, and sometimes she’d get mad at Daniel for not understanding why it was so important that he should. She’d begin to talk faster, so fast that Daniel couldn’t pick up all the words because they flowed into one another until at last they became just a stream of noise that turned to static before exploding into silence. And when Karis called back again – an hour later, a day later – it would be as if their previous conversation had never occurred, and they would start the dialogue afresh.
when will you visit me?
when will you come?
But that was before Daniel realized who Karis was. Now Daniel really didn’t want to join Karis in her secret places, and he didn’t wish to find out where she slept, because when he tried to imagine it he saw worms and bugs, and felt cold, damp earth around him.
He knew he should tell someone – his mom, his grandpa – but Karis had made it clear that he wasn’t to do this. She was his friend, not theirs. If he told, they’d be angry with him, and she would be angry with him too. That was when her voice would change, and it made Daniel feel very afraid, because he understood that, deep down, Karis was always angry.
Sad, but mostly angry.
But all this had to stop. Daniel was afraid to sleep. He saw the phone in his dreams, and its ringing woke him, even when it wasn’t making any sound at all. The stupid smile under the dial gave him the creeps, and the little black eyes that moved in their plastic sockets reminded him of a dying dog he and his grandpa had found by the side of the road a few months back. The dog had been run over by a car. Its skull was all messed up, its fur torn and bloodied, and its eyes were rolling in its head. Grandpa Owen told Daniel to go stand behind a tree while he went to find a big stone.
And the dog hadn’t made a sound, not even at the end.
Daniel knew he had to get rid of the phone, but he was afraid to put it in the trash because his mom and grandpa were compulsive sorters, and if they found the phone Daniel would have to explain why he was throwing it away instead of putting it in the box for the charity store. Daniel didn’t think that would be a good idea. He didn’t want some other kid getting calls from Karis. Neither could he burn the phone because matches alone wouldn’t do the trick, even if he could find a way to get to them.
So Daniel decided to bury it.
He waited until his mom was at work, and his grandpa was napping. Grandpa Owen usually nodded off between four and five in order to recharge his batteries before Rob Caldwell – and later, Lester Holt – came on WCSH. Grandpa Owen said Rob Caldwell looked trustworthy, which was why he liked watching him co-anchor News Center. Grandpa Owen said Lester Holt also looked trustworthy, but Rob Caldwell was local, and Grandpa Owen said it was more important to be able to trust the local guy. Daniel wasn’t sure why this was, unless Grandpa Owen was planning to leave Rob Caldwell with the keys to his truck, or ask him to look after his wallet.
So while Grandpa Owen snored in an armchair, and Willona was turning down a wedding proposal on Good Times, Daniel went to the tree line at the end of the yard shared by the two properties, and dug a hole using a small trowel that he’d removed from the woodshed for this purpose. The ground was harder than Daniel had anticipated, so the hole took a while to dig, and his hands and clothes got messy, but eventually he had a hollow before him that would take the phone. Daniel would have preferred if the hole were deeper – in an ideal world, the hole would have gone halfway to China – but he was afraid Grandpa Owen might wake up and start wondering where he was, so he dropped the phone in the hole and commenced covering it up. He kept his face turned away at first because those plastic eyes were looking up at him like those of some living creature, and they made him feel bad; but eventually he could no longer see them, and finally he could no longer see the phone either. He tramped the dirt down so it was level with the rest of the ground. He thought it still looked a little different, but not so much that anyone would really notice, not unless they searched really hard.