Page 31 of The Woods

“You’re right,” Alice says, gratitude softening her features.

Beverley reaches out and pats her daughter’s hand in a rare show of affection. “I can take care of the party planning. You know how good I am at it.” Alice doesn’t agree, but she remains silent. Beverley gives her a few more seconds to think it over before saying, “Party it is, then? Get some life and laughter into the place and make it our own?”

Alice looks up at her mother with a weak smile and a nod. “Sure. Party it is.” Her voice lacks enthusiasm and her gaze slides away from her mother and out the window to the trees.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

Alice

“Come in, come in.” Alice ushers her friend Libby through the front door and pulls her in for a hug. They haven’t seen each other since the day Alice moved away from the city. More than a month, when they used to see each other at least once a week. Feeling her friend’s familiar embrace, smelling her musky perfume, Alice becomes overwhelmed with emotion. “Oh my God. I could cry right now, seeing you,” she says, pulling away from her friend with a laugh.

“Me too!” Libby laughs, but her eyes are also glassy with tears.

“You two old broads are pathetic,” Libby’s husband, Ralph, says, pulling Alice in for a hug. She’s almost as excited to see him.

She tugs on his beard, which seems to have grown exponentially since the last time she saw him. “Going for the crazed-lumberjack look these days?”

“He always lets himself go when he’s off work,” Libby answers for him, and he gives her a playful swat on the ass. “Sorry we’re late. Looks like there are quite a few people here already.”

“There are,” Alice says, with a flinch. “But I don’t know any of them, so it’s a little awkward.”

“You just need to drink more.” Libby passes her a bottle of red wine.

“My God, I’ve missed you!” Alice didn’t realize how much she missed her friends from the city until this very moment. They’ve spoken on the phone a few times, but Alice had spared her stories about the dead animals and the carvings in Polly’s floor.

“That’s why you shouldn’t have moved out of the city,” Libby snaps.

“Don’t mind her,” Ralph pipes in. “She’s been in withdrawal since her best friend moved away. I’ve missed Geoff myself, but my liver is happier.”

Libby shoots her husband a death glare. “He’s only joking. He drinks just as much without Geoff around.”

“And on that note,” Ralph says, squeezing past them away from the front door, “I’m going to go find the old bastard and say hi.”

“I’m so glad you guys came,” Alice says. “The neighbors are nice and all, but a bit stuck-up.” She lowers her voice at the last part.

“Well, I’m here now,” Libby says, putting an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “Let’s play a little round of deepest dirt, shall we?”

It’s a game that she, Libby, and their close friend Kathy like to play when they meet new people. Whoever gets the most dirt on a person wins. “Kathy will be mad that we played without her,” Alice says.

“Kathy is in Spain on a beach right now, so I think she’ll get over it. But first, give me a tour of this beautiful new house. And I may have to run naked through those amazing woods of yours later, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay! I’ll join you and then Ralph and Geoff will finally have the proof they’ve always wanted that they’re married to witches.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Libby says, jutting her chin out defiantly. “Witch is just another word for a powerful woman getting shit done.” Libby always finds the feminist angle to something. “No wonder men have vilified them.”

“On that note,” Alice says. “Let’s get you a drink.”

Two hours in, and the party is still going strong. Alice hopes this means that word will spread—the house is lovely, with good people living there, not murdery at all. When guests first arrived, she saw their curious, quick glances all around, as though they might spot bloodstains on the wall, or a dead body, or a ghost floating at the end of the hall. Fortunately, her mother has distracted them with a custom-made charcuterie board from the nicest deli in town, fresh oysters from the fish market, an olive bar, and platters of butter-chicken sliders. Beverley also made sure there was a variety of wines and local craft beer on offer, along with her martini station. When Alice balked at the cost of it all, charged to her credit card, of course, her mother had reminded her that it was their one chance to overturn the murder-house reputation.

Her mother is on martini duty now and has a small crowd of people around her as she works the cocktail shaker like it’s a musical instrument. She’s wearing a simple red dress, with lips to match, her hair in a tight bun and bangles up her arm—a fairly conservative outfit for her. As far as Alice can tell, she’s being nothing but the accommodating hostess. You never knew what you were going to get with her mother. She could be gracious, engaging, and magnetic; aloof, judgmental, and antisocial; or even worse: drunk, flirtatious, and inappropriate.

Tonight she is magnetic.

Speaking of drunk and flirtatious—Geoff is both. She hasn’t seen him without a bourbon in his hand since the party started. It became his drink of choice when he started writing, claiming that it was what all the greats drank. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. It certainly didn’t seem to be helping him with his writing. A week ago, he’d left his laptop sitting open on the dining-room table, and she’d snuck a peek at what he was working on. Her heart sank the more she read. It wasn’t good. Not exactly “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” but not far from it. She’d liked his earlier writing, back when he first started, but this new stuff was confusing, self-indulgent rambling about a middle-aged man and his midlife struggles.

Staring at him now from across the kitchen as she refills the cracker bowl, she clocks all his drunk tells. Leaning in too close when speaking to people, totally unaware of personal space. Excessive hand-talking. Beard-rubbing and droopy eyes. The rage it provokes in her is unusually intense. She chalks it up to the fact that this morning she woke up with cramps in her lower belly and back and a dull headache. When she found spots of pink blood in her underwear a few hours later she almost howled. It was the first time she’d bled in months. The spotting didn’t last, but the mood swings and headache have. She looks away from Geoff in an effort to quell the rage and sees Libby moving through the crowd toward her.

“Hey, I just heard an interesting story,” she says, coming to stand so close to Alice that she can feel the heat from her body and smell the red wine on her breath. “Not sure it’s deepest-dirt worthy, but it’s intriguing.”