Page 72 of The Woods

“You need to go in there and stop it!” he shouts. “Now!”

“What? Why don’t you just come inside with me? Meet my brother. See for yourself.” Polly hopes they might have a normal night hanging out with other people, indoors.

He starts backing up toward the trees. “I’m not coming inside with you. You’ve ruined everything.”

“Wait,” she calls out. “Just tell me what the big deal is.”

His face is so pale it’s ghostlike, and the wind lifts his dark curls in a wild dance. “It’s too late. You’re way too late.”

A gust of wind blows her hair across her face. By the time she’s gathered it up and tucked it back, Gray has disappeared.

She stands at the edge of the trees calling his name, hoping he’ll come back, even though his visit has made the fear inside her grow even larger, crowding her organs, pushing against her bones.

When she’s sure that Gray is not coming back, she turns to go back inside the house but is stopped dead. Hovering inches from the ground, only a few feet away from her, is a figure—fully cloaked in shadow and unnaturally tall.

She screams—loud and piercing, rising above the wail of the wind and tearing at her throat on its way out. Before she has a chance to turn and run, the figure flies at her. The impact is hard, like running full-speed into a tree, and she’s knocked off her feet. Her head hits the ground and she sees actual stars. The breath leaves her body, making the whole world disappear for several seconds.

“Holy shit, Polly! What happened?” She opens her eyes, gasps in a breath, and looks up to find Quinn leaning over her.

She lies there, unable to speak, still in shock. Sierra and Ethan arrive and peer around Quinn, looking almost as concerned as he does. Quinn finally reaches down and helps her to her feet.

“Did you see it?” Polly asks once she can finally speak. “The tall, shadowy thing?” Quinn, Sierra, and Ethan share a look between them but then they all shake their heads.

“We didn’t see anything,” Quinn says. “We heard you scream, and I came running and found you lying on the ground.”

“It knocked me down,” Polly explains. “It was tall, like maybe seven feet.”

“Are you high?” Quinn whispers, as though their parents are standing behind them instead of Sierra and Ethan.

“No, I thought it would make me too paranoid. And anyway, I know what I saw.”

Sierra moves closer to Polly. “Do you think it was a ghost? Should we move the séance out here?”

Polly pushes her out of the way and on trembling legs heads for the front door. “The séance is over,” she says over her shoulder.

“We can’t stop now. As soon as you left there was a knocking sound in Quinn’s closet, and the EMF went crazy.”

“Listen, Sierra, it’s time to call it a night. You got some good stuff for your application, now it’s time to go.” Polly is just about to reach for the front door when Sierra puts out a hand to stop her.

“But there’s one family member left to do. It’s the most interesting part of the case. The older brother, whose body was never found. Let’s contact him and find out what happened.”

“How long?” Polly asks through gritted teeth.

“Fifteen minutes, tops,” Sierra says, already guiding Polly back inside. Ethan and Quinn follow close behind and Polly is pretty sure that she hears Quinn mutter, “Fuck.”

Sierra orchestrates the move from Quinn’s room to Polly’s without lifting a finger. The candles have all been set up and the equipment is ready to go when Sierra realizes she’s left the folder of photos in the living room.

“Is it really that necessary?” Quinn asks, his knee vibrating with impatience.

“It certainly is,” Sierra snaps.

“I’ll go get it,” Polly offers, only because she wants to get this thing over with. She needs to figure out what she’s going to do about Gray, and she’s got to talk to him about the strange figures she’s seen twice now.

On her way to the living room, the pain in her stomach intensifies and she leans forward slightly to ease it. The folder is there on the coffee table where Sierra said it would be. Flipping it open to grab what she needs, she finds a familiar face staring back at her. She looks down at it in confusion, thinking there must be a mistake. The boy in the photo is the same one who’s been coming to her bedroom window for weeks, the one she had sex with, the one who just scolded her for having a séance. Snatching up the photo to get a closer look, she reads the caption under the photo: Grayson Gordon, 18 years old.

Polly is plunged into literal darkness—the electricity goes out—just as her brain begins the process of recontextualizing everything Gray has ever told her—like why he has no cell phone, no social media—and everything he ever did to her. Like enter her, while others watched, in a cave in the woods. A searing pain suddenly rips through Polly’s gut, bringing her to her knees. She’s not sure she can stand up, and she’s scared. She can’t see anything, and everything is suddenly so wrong. Nothing makes sense—not the pain in her abdomen, nor the photo she just saw of Justine Gordon’s older son.

The son they never found.