Page 54 of The Woods

“Who’s good?” she asked. “My family? Not me. I’m not good.”

Her eyes were closed but she felt him looking down at her. “I meant the mushrooms,” he said. “The mushrooms are good.”

She started laughing at her mistake. A laugh that grew until it took over her whole body, became an ache in her stomach, a pressure on her bladder, and forced tears from her eyes. She laughed so long that it eventually turned to crying. Crying felt better than laughing, and that made her sad.

“I miss my sister,” she said out loud, parting her hair to trace the scar of her surgery.

I’m right here. It was her sister’s voice, but instead of coming from inside Polly’s head, it sounded like she was somewhere in the cave. Polly struggled to open her eyes and pushed herself up on her elbows. Shadows skittered across the walls, where the light from the fire didn’t quite reach. For a split second, one of the shadows stopped moving and took on the form of a person. Polly squinted, but that made everything in the cave seem like it was underwater. She closed her eyes tight. When she opened them again the figure was gone.

“Where are you?” she called out, her voice bouncing off the walls and coming back to her muffled.

Did you tell him what you did? her sister’s voice asked from another part of the cave, farther away this time. Does he know about the accident?

Polly shook her head and the whole world shook with it. “Don’t,” she warned. “Come out. I want to see you.”

She turned to look for Gray, to ask if he was hearing the voice, too, but he was gone. “Gray?” she whispered, looking around the cave. She was alone with the fire and the pile of blankets; even the figure in the shadows had disappeared. At the thought of being alone, a shiver quaked through her, making her muscles twitch and pop. She was too high. She hadn’t wanted to admit it to Gray, but she’d never tried mushrooms before.

“Why can’t I see you?” she asked. This time her voice came out garbled, like her ears were full of cotton balls.

I’m still here.

Polly spun around at the sound of her sister’s voice behind her, but she found Gray there instead, stoking the fire. The light illuminated his face, making it look more beautiful than ever, angelic even, with its perfect skin and wise eyes. The rest of the cave blurred and distorted all around him, but his face stayed exactly as it was meant to be.

“Where did you go?”

He shook his head and smiled. “I just got up to keep the fire going.”

“Did you hear my sister? Did you hear her talking to me?”

Gray’s face suddenly changed, and it was her sister looking back at her. Sometimes things aren’t as they seem. Polly heard the voice in her head that time, not outside of herself. Ask him what’s in the other cave. Her sister’s face faded and again she was looking at Gray, who was smiling back at her.

“What’s in the other cave?” Polly asked.

Gray’s eyes widened with curiosity. “What other cave?”

Exhaustion overwhelmed her, so she lay back down on the blanket and closed her eyes. She felt Gray slide in beside her under the blanket. His breath hit the side of her cheek like a cold puff of air, smelling earthy and green.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked, tucking the blankets in closer to her. The kindness of the gesture made Polly feel like crying. She nodded, afraid to open her eyes in case tears fell out.

Then she felt his lips on hers, gentle and light but still sending currents shooting through her entire body. “I like you,” she whispered, her words vibrating against his lips, bouncing back into her mouth so that she swallowed them.

“I like you too, Lucy,” he whispered, cupping the side of her face with his hand, going in deeper with the kiss. All of it feeling as though it was happening in slow motion. The tilting of their heads, the movement of their lips, the slip and slide of their tongues. So languid that it took several seconds for Polly to realize what Gray had said.

She pulled free of the kiss. “No. Not Lucy. I’m Polly.”

“I know,” he replied. “That’s what I said.” He lowered his lips to hers again. She kept losing focus, her mind drifting away from the cave to other realms, only to arrive back again and find that Gray was mostly naked and so was she.

This was really happening.

She was sure she said it in her head, but then Gray asked, “Is it okay that this is happening?” Polly nodded, no longer sure whether her words worked better on the inside of her or the outside.

Ask him about the other cave, her sister whispered into her left ear. Polly turned her head but nobody was there. If you don’t stop this now, it’s going to get too loud to hear me. That time the whispering was in her right ear. She turned toward the voice, but again there was nobody. It was all too confusing. Where was this other cave? And where was it going to get too loud?

Gray’s hands roamed over Polly’s body, his touch as light as a feather. She tried to focus on that, but then the singing started. It was her sister singing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” again, but in stereo, coming from every shadowy corner of the cave.

“Shh,” Polly hissed.

“I didn’t say anything,” Gray replied.