Page 69 of The Woods

She types in the words under one of the symbols, a triangle with another smaller triangle inside of it—protection of one child. She remembers Ruth mentioning that her sister’s husband had convinced their only daughter to stay away from her mother. Alice wonders if this symbol was for her, and she’s suddenly filled not with fear but sadness. She continues typing in the words under each symbol and finds that one means familial, another means to return, and another means earth.

Alice has to flip through several pages of the book before she finds the biggest symbol on the floor. The translation comes back as conjuration.

She notices that a line is carved from the conjuration symbol to a smaller one just above it. She flips through the book until she finds the smaller symbol and types the Latin words under it into her phone. The words that come back flood her with unease—sign of the witch. Could Ruth’s sister have conjured a witch in the woods? The question swims through Alice’s mind like a slippery eel. Before she has a chance to convince herself otherwise, the side door to the garage bangs open, sending shudders through the whole building. Alice screams and jumps up from the chair, knocking the book to the floor and almost tipping over the cardboard box.

“For heaven’s sake, Alice,” her mother scolds. “What’s with the dramatics?”

“You scared me,” Alice shouts, relieved to see that it’s only her mother. For a split second she’d honestly thought the witch had come for her. Now, staring into her mother’s sharp blue eyes as she stands at the garage door, a paintbrush in her hand, she feels ridiculous.

“What on earth are you doing in here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Alice responds, flinching at how defensive she sounds.

“I’m looking for some turpentine for my brushes,” her mother explains without a beat. Then looks at Alice expectantly.

“I was just looking at some boxes we forgot to unpack.” She gestures to the box sitting on the bench. “Making sure there was nothing important in them.”

Her mother inches forward. “Anything of interest in there?”

Alice grabs the box off the bench, drops it to the floor, and then kicks it behind the armchair. “No. That one is just full of junk.”

“Are you all right, dear?” her mother asks, narrowing her eyes. “You seem jumpier than usual.”

Alice shakes her head. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about at all. Do you want me to help you find the turpentine?”

Her mother says something, but Alice doesn’t hear her because at the very same moment an inky black shadow floods her mother’s eyes and then disappears. “Mom, your eyes. Did you feel that?”

Her mother smiles warily and shakes her head. “Feel what, dear?”

“A black shadow just went right across both your eyes and then disappeared. The same thing happened to Geoff’s eyes this morning, but he said he didn’t feel it.” Alice’s face is only inches from her mother’s, but she can’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Her mother takes a step away from Alice. “You’re the only one who’s seen this black-shadow-in-the-eyes thing?” Alice nods, her stare fixed in case it happens again. “Well then, it sounds like maybe it’s a ‘you’ problem. I mean, since neither Geoff nor I have experienced anything out of the ordinary.”

“But why would I see it in your eyes if my eyes were the problem?”

“Migraines can cause people to see some very strange things,” her mother explains. “Maybe you should go lie down for a little while in case something is coming on.” She takes Alice’s hand and leads her out of the garage. “You know, my mother suffered terribly from migraines when she stopped menstruating. And those kinds of things run in the family.”

Alice allows herself to be led from the garage by her mother and even to be convinced to lie down on the couch with a cold cloth across her forehead. After an hour of waiting for this hereditary, menopausal, hallucination-inducing migraine to arrive, she tosses the cloth aside and gets up. Feeling like she may be on the brink of finally figuring some things out, she goes back out to the garage to resume her inspection of the box that Ruth Crowley gave her.

The box is gone.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2023

Quinn

Quinn can’t believe he let Polly talk him into this stupid séance with her weird work friends. The girl, Sierra, with her orange hair and pentagram necklace, is extremely lame. Every time she moves, the whole room is filled with the sound of all her protective shit clanging, and she won’t shut up about the energy of the place.

He can tell that she listened to the Killing Their Own podcast because she’s already quoted it a few times. When she first got there, she launched into a soliloquy about how cool it was to be in the murder house and to live in a town where such an infamous crime took place. Quinn told her that was a pretty messed-up thing to be excited about. She glared at him but stopped talking.

His parents are out, and he was going to go trick-or-treating with Jason, possibly egg some houses at the same time, but Polly said she’d give him four joints if he stayed for the séance. Someone else was supposed to be there but backed out, and they need an even number, or something. He agreed, but hopes it’s done in time to take one of those joints over to Jason’s to hang out. Maybe watch a horror movie or something. He’s never been a big fan of Halloween, and he hates dressing up, but he likes scary movies and candy.

Sierra and her friends have pushed back some of the living-room furniture to make space for a circle of tea lights in the middle of the room and some other shit he doesn’t recognize that “helps summon the spirits.” In the center of the circle, she’s put a picture she downloaded online of the man who was murdered in this room: John Gordon.

“Let’s everyone take a seat and join hands,” Sierra says in a voice so cringey it makes Quinn scowl. He can’t believe Polly is friends with this weirdo. She used to hang out with the coolest kids at her school.

Despite his annoyance, Quinn sits down beside Polly and some guy she works with. Ethan drinks straight from a wine bottle and Quinn is pretty sure he’s wearing makeup, but he’s barely said three words. They all join hands, and Quinn recoils at the clamminess of Ethan’s.

“Thank you all for coming,” Sierra says, as though it’s her house. “Thank you to Quinn for filling in for Polly’s boyfriend, who couldn’t make it.”