Page 2 of The Woods

“Anyway,” she says, with forced gusto, working to pull herself together in front of Ms. Perfect, “tell me why it hasn’t sold yet at this price.”

Sabrina nods, pressing her lips in a long line. “Are you a superstitious person?”

Alice knows her sun sign. Does that count? She shakes her head. “No. Not really.”

“Well, that’s good,” the realtor says, but still purses her glossed lips as though she’s about to say something she doesn’t want to. “The house has a history,” she continues. “Have you ever heard of the Justine Gordon case?”

The name sounds slightly familiar, but Alice isn’t sure why, so she shakes her head again.

The realtor reaches into her pocket, takes out her business card, and passes it to Alice. “Google it. If you still want to make an offer on the house, call me. I’ll be honest, most people lose my number after they find out what happened here.”

Alice straightens up, pushes her shoulders back. “Well, I don’t think I’m most people.”

Sabrina clears her throat. “A woman killed her family here. Husband and two sons. Four years ago.”

Alice is floored. “I thought only men did that.” She’d read an article online about family annihilators, as they were called. She remembered that most killed themselves after. “Murder-suicide?”

“No. Justine Gordon is alive and well. She’s locked up.”

Alice looks away from the realtor and out at the woods. “Jesus. How did I all miss that?”

Sabrina sighs. “So are you still interested in the house?”

The tops of the enormous white pines sway in the breeze and Alice watches them intently until she’s surprised to hear her own voice: “I’ll be honest, my family needs this. Our current house has a history too. It’s full of sad reminders and we need a refuge, like the ad said. Besides, who could walk away from a deal this good?” Alice is talking herself into this house; she wants it beyond reason and knows another family’s misfortune isn’t going to change her mind. She gestures at the trees. “I mean, look at those woods.”

Alice notices Sabrina’s eyes appraising her, feels like she’s working to convince this woman to sell them the house and not the other way around.

A crow lands on a high bough and caws. The sound echoes around the clearing at the exact moment that a shiver runs through Alice, cooling her flaming skin, and finally, blessedly, giving her relief.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2023

Alice

She had no idea how calming it was to watch trees blowing in the wind. A wall of them, tall ones, with bushy plumes of bright-green leaves, are within view from her chair on the back deck. Even the loop of tinny pop songs playing in her ear while she’s on hold with the phone company isn’t getting to her. She can feel the rev of anxiety lessen as she watches the dance of foliage against the sharp-blue sky.

The internet was supposed to be set up today at nine a.m. Alice had specifically chosen the first available time slot on the morning after moving day, knowing her kids could not go long without it. When nobody had shown up for the installation, the kids had used her as their verbal punching bag.

Teenage tech-withdrawal rage was no joke.

She’s the one who found the house, put in an offer—one even lower than the asking price—and when it was accepted, convinced everyone to move there, sight-unseen. This means she’s going to be blamed for every issue, lack, and mishap that might arise from now until eternity. It doesn’t matter that her husband, Geoff, signed the paperwork too; that he eventually conceded that the family needed a change. Even though all he really seems to care about is the fact that he has his own writing studio now.

He’s out there unpacking as Alice sits on the back deck on hold. At least the view is good. She’s never owned so much property. There’s an acre at least of sprawling lawn with a beautiful, undulating patch of wildflowers and ornamental grasses in the center and thick ground cover surrounding ancient trees that tower over the house. All of it reaching out to a border of deep woods. Over one hundred acres in total, apparently, although only fifty came with the house.

The realtor had explained that the other half belongs to the sister of the original owner. A few generations ago, a local family had owned the entire hundred acres together. Two sisters each inherited half the woods and a couple of cabins that had been built on the property years before. The realtor explained that one sister was still alive and living on the far side of the woods, but the other, the one who’d owned the house that was now Alice’s, had died about seven years back. The Gordon family bought it two years after she died and, before moving in, completely renovated it, erecting the outbuildings and installing the pool.

Alice calculates in her head that the Gordon family lived in their renovated house for only one year before the horrible—

“Yes, hello? How can I help you?”

The voice on the other end of the line startles Alice out of her tree trance and she shifts into business mode, determined to get the Wi-Fi up and running by the end of the day, for fear of her children’s wrath.

Polly

If her mom doesn’t get the Wi-Fi working today, she’s going to lose her fucking mind. Nothing on her phone is loading, probably because there are so many goddamn trees everywhere. She’s been staring at the bare wood walls of her room for hours. Of course she and Quinn got the side of the house that looks like a cottage that hasn’t been renovated since 1982, and her parents have the white walls, carpet, and high ceilings.

All Polly’s unpacked is her toothbrush, deodorant, and some makeup. She’s not sure she can bring herself to put things on the walls, or clothes in the closet, or string up her LED lights, or find a proper hiding place for her weed. Doing those things would mean settling in, and she can’t seem to do that anymore. Not since her sister died. Her therapist told her she has survivor’s guilt because they were in the car accident together. She hadn’t needed a therapist to tell her that. Her therapist also said that she has PTSD from the accident itself—again, not revelatory information. She still wakes up most nights covered in sweat, her dreams a ramped-up replay of the car accident and her screams at the sight of her dead sister. What her therapist doesn’t know, what nobody knows, is that Polly also shoulders the weight of a secret from the night of that accident, one that she’s sure she’ll buckle under.

There’s a knock at the door, and she rolls away from the wall and sits up on the bed. Her mother comes in and glances around the room, taking in the unpacked boxes and duffel bags still full of clothes. That look on her face is one Polly knows well. She has a weird set to her mouth that makes her look like she’s holding something under her tongue, which she is—her opinion—and she can’t look Polly in the eye.