Page 16 of Wildwood

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I am sitting in darkness. There’s a sharpness in the air. It smells of smoke and metal. I inhale and exhale slowly, though I can still hear the stuttering of my breath. Something in my gut tells me to run, that this is the time. And so I do it. I push through a door and am met with more darkness, faintly illuminated by the pale light of the moon. It is nighttime, and for a few moments, I stand disoriented, leaning against the doorframe. But I know there’s no time to lose. And so, I run. The grass is cool beneath my feet. I look down and discover they are indeed bare, and filthy. But they are swift and carry me quickly across the meadow. Then I’m in the woods and that’s when everything inexplicably becomes much harder. The forest floor is rough and seems to crumble beneath my feet. Branches whip at my face and with each step, they seem to be thicker, more weblike. They reach and stretch toward me, and they don’t look real. They look painted, as though each branch was lashed down by angry bristles. I put my hands in front of my face for protection as I push on, but it’s no use. My hands are bloody, and it feels as though I’m weighted down with tar. One branch seems to reach for me and then wraps around my neck. It’s hard to breathe. I know there’s not much time left so I open my mouth and scream, using every fiber of my body, but no sound comes out.

* * *

I gasp and draw in a huge breath of air. I still feel the branches holding me, so I shake my body violently, to get out of their grip, and find myself on all fours. The ground is still unstable beneath me, though I slowly realize it is soft, but not crumbling. Blood is pounding in my ears as things come into focus. The ground beneath me is white. In front of me, I can make out the warped curvature of branches. But they aren’t real. They are painted.

“El! Elinor!” Topher’s voice is urgent.

I collapse onto my stomach. My heart feels as though it will thud out of my chest.

It was a dream. “Oh my god,” I say, forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths, squeezing my eyes shut.

I’m aware of Topher rubbing my back, kneeling beside me.

“It’s okay, El. You were having a bad dream.”

There’s a presence, suddenly, by the side of the bed and I gasp, scrambling to my knees.

“It’s Hugo!” Topher says emphatically. Then softer, “It’s just Hugo.”

The German shepherd is sitting attentively, head cocked to one side in concern.

“Hugo,” I whisper. It’s too much; I need a moment to process.

“Just give me a sec,” I say, burying my face in my palms.

Topher stops rubbing my back but keeps his hand there. I am drenched in cold sweat. The sheets too. I climb out of bed, peel off my nightgown, and then stumble over to my dresser. I put on a sweatshirt and climb back into bed, pulling up the sheets to my chin. I stare up at the ceiling, still taking deliberate breaths.

“What was the dream?” he asks finally.

“I was running through the woods. At night. The branches were hitting me on the face. I was trying to run quickly, but it felt like I was in quicksand or like my legs were bound together. Was I making noise?” I suddenly realize that I didn’t wake up on my own, that Topher pulled me from the dream.

“Yeah, you were thrashing and almost growling.”

I’m shaking my head to myself. “It was just so real.”

“Well, it was just a dream.” He begins rubbing my back again. “Those nightmares are so common. Feeling like things are moving in slow motion when something is chasing you.”

Was something chasing me? I can’t remember. It’s slipping away already.

“I’m sorry for waking you.” I attempt to smile. “Go back to sleep.”

He holds my gaze a moment longer and then lies back down. He’ll be asleep in seconds, I know it. He has that uncanny ability to fall asleep almost on command. I suppose it’s a side effect of his medical school days. The grueling schedule, the torturously short hours of sleep to be milked for every ounce of rest.

I lie back too. First, I lie on my side, but the painted trees do little to calm my frayed nerves, so I roll onto my back and squeeze my eyes shut. To put a pleasing image in my head, I replay scenes I now remember from my childhood. I picture the river. Jumping from the embankment into the plunge pool, goose-pimpled skin on scrawny little kid limbs. Catching the crayfish that poke out from the rocks, often with nets, sometimes with bare hands. Tubing down the river, gazing up at the verdant green tree cover. I picture Tom and Anna, and their curling dark hair. In the summer, when Tom let his go long, they looked almost like twins. We were inseparable, moving through the meadow like a flock of birds or a herd of horses. We’d raid the vegetable fields, wandering in barefoot. I can feel the cool crumbliness of the soil beneath my feet, feel the minuscule prickles of the cucumbers on my fingers. It was a world away from suburban New Jersey, with its developments and strip malls.

Summers here had felt magical. Perhaps partially because the trips felt like a trip back in time, not simply a trip to another location. At least in my memories, we lived the life of Tom Sawyer, unsupervised and untroubled.

It helps, putting this imagery in my mind. Gradually, I feel the heaviness of sleep take over and the last coherent thought I have is that tomorrow I will buy paint samples, and that whether Topher likes it or not, we are going to paint over that damn mural. A nice serene blue. I mean, come on. Who could sleep well in The Forest of the Dead?

Chapter 14

I awake to the sun streaming through the bedroom window, warming my cheeks. I can hear the soft cooing of a mourning dove. The sound reminds me of my grandmother. A mourning dove lived in a tree behind my grandmother’s small house. When I stayed with her as a child, I’d hear that familiar cooing every morning in the summer. It makes me think of the smell of fresh-cut grass, of the old lace curtains in the bedroom I’d sleep in that would flutter in the morning breeze, and of the sounds of my grandmother puttering around in the kitchen below. I open my eyes slowly. In the warmth of the sun and the precious memories of my grandmother in her younger years, the nightmare from last night immediately loses its power, recoiling back to the shadows like a rat.

I stand and slowly walk around the perimeter of the room. The mural is primarily trees, of varying size and type. Deciduous trees with thin, lanky trunks that look like they could topple over. There are evergreens, standing together, huddled in clusters. In some places, I realize for the first time, the painter had added other details. On a tree by the window, a raccoon peers out from a hole. Birds take flight among the trees, wings spread in looping V’s. On the wall opposite the bed, where the wardrobe is, a deer is grazing, and another small flock of black birds appear to dart behind the furniture. It all has the potential to be beautiful and relaxing. If the colors were more vibrant, perhaps. But everything, whether from age or intent, seems to be covered in a wash of muddy gray. And the animals look sinister, claws visible, eyes blank. But still, maybe I’m being overly dramatic, thinking we need to paint over it already. I can get used to it.

It was a stress dream, I tell myself, no different from the dreams I still have about discovering it’s the last day of school and realizing I never turned in a single assignment, or the disturbing and recurring dream I have that all my teeth have fallen out.