After the Woods by Kim Savage
For Jackson, whose quiet bravery never makes headlines
Keep her down, boiling water.
Keep her down, what a lovely daughter.
—“Seether” by Veruca Salt
Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through.
—George Eliot
PROLOGUE
November 22, 2013
In the Woods How can something so bright be so cold?
There’s no use sharing my ironic observances about the sun. Liv’s been barely responsive today, all aimless energy and distraction. I didn’t want to run in the woods, but she insisted. Leaves crunch under my sneakers. A tingle in my earlobes warns of pain to come. We’ll run like jackrabbits, like banshees, like Diana through the trees, with only an hour left of light.
Liv will. I’ll do my best to keep up.
I finish my last quad stretch and find her staring at the trailhead. “We’re losing light. Maybe we should bag it,” I suggest.
Liv throws back her shoulders. “I need you with me.”
“Of course. I’d never let you go alone.” I bend at the waist and yank my laces tight, clumsy in gloves. “Aren’t you going to warm up? Oh right: you don’t need to.” I say it softly, tucking the envy behind a gentle chide.
“Have you ever felt like your heart is swollen inside your chest?” she asks.
I rise fast. “You are into him! You said it was just a party hook-up!” I exclaim.
“I’m not talking about Kellan MacDougall.” The low curves of her cheeks flush. “What I mean is, did you ever feel like you were on the brink of something?”
I follow her eyes past the poker-burned entrance sign, past the kiosk with maps under glass. Despite the desolation—no one runs at four p.m. in November after weeks of rain—the woods pulse. The canopy shatters fast-dropping light into glittering shards. A chipmunk skitters close to my foot and ducks into a hole. I know what Liv means. All day, I’ve felt a fullness, as though there’s something waiting for me, today, tomorrow, soon. I start to say this but my words are lost to geese barking overhead.
Liv shakes off her trance. “We should go,” she says, as she leaps up the railroad-tie steps like a deer, flashing pale calves. Speed is easy for her. We come to a puddle buzzing with damselflies and thick with icy rot. Liv jumps over and keeps going. The cold slows me, and I call for her to wait. Liv tosses a grin over her shoulder, the smile that forms her cheek into a shiny rubber ball. She’s about to leave me. While I fight to match my breathing with my pace, Liv goes from zero to ten with no effort. We meet another pocket of water. Leap over, dig deep, keep going. She sprints ahead of me as I track her powder-blue jacket, leaves crackling in her wake. We’re supposed to stay together. It’s the only way my mother allows me to run in the woods, with its overgrowth and lonely trails winding across town lines and Indian ruins. But we run on, longer and farther than we should. I fight to catch up, and I get faster. Liv makes me faster.
Before the flat Sheepfold lies the Hill, a lump of stone and shrub covered by gravel. Today, the gravel will be frozen in the earth, making an ankle-turning hobnailed path. I’m about to call out, tell her to stop, but she breaks into a full-on sprint. I dig in, watch my footing, hop, and weave. My phone falls from my jacket pocket and lands with an ominous clap.
“Wait!” I call to Liv.
I squat. My quadriceps tingle and itch. “Got it!” I raise the phone to my nose; the earbuds dangle. A spiderweb of cracks spreads across the screen. I’m screwed. We need to go home. I wrap the cord around the phone and stash it away in my jacket. No way of avoiding the Hill. I throw my weight forward, and drive myself up, up, up, mounting the crest.
“Liv!”
Sunlight flashes between trees and blinds me. I blink through the pain until I see the man on top of Liv. She writhes, kicking up gravel and leaves. The man shifts his weight rhythmically to keep her pinned.
Liv is screaming.
I am screaming.
“Let her go!” My voice is strangled.
His eyes are red-streaked aggies.
“Who are you?” he bellows. He braces Liv with his forearm and reaches up his pant leg. Metal glints near his hand.
I scream, an animal sound.
He holds a knife at Liv’s throat, eyes darting between us, but lingering on Liv. When she squirms, he pulls the knife away from her neck.
“Walk away and forget what you saw! Now, or her blood’s on your hands!” His pitch wavers.
I shake my head slowly.
“I’ll end her life, right here!”
I don’t believe him.
He has a baby face and his head is small for his body. A slice of forehead, pink and smooth, peeks from under a black knit cap, and the buckles on his camouflage jacket clang as he fights to keep Liv from escaping.
Liv sobs. “Julia, please don’t leave me!”