Page 2 of When the Woods Go Silent

The woods and the owl beyond? Silent, but in a watchful, guarded way, like a mouse crouched low and still to hide from a hawk.

Only the sound of my heartbeat reaches my ears. As adrenaline filters deeper into my veins, I step boldly forward into the empty room, tightening my grip on the makeshift bat as I superstitiously avoid looking at my own reflection in the black windows.

“You better get the fuck out of my store,” I call into the quiet, wearing my tough city-girl persona like a security blanket. “I’ve already called the police.” A bold lie, and a stupid realization that I should have done that before arming myself with nothing better than a vacuum cleaner tube.

But there’s no answer. No sound at all. Several minutes pass, and I eventually have to admit that the silence doesn’t feel thick or full anymore, like it might if somebody else were here,motionless and hidden. It just feels empty again. As I finally run my eyes across the expanse of sparkling new windows, I frown at my reflection.

None of the glass is broken.

Everything is completely as I left it, and then I realize that the alarm isn’t going off, either. A broken window would definitely have triggered it. All clear, taunts the silence.

I’m suddenly not sure whether I should be relieved or even more concerned. The sound of glass breaking still echoes in my mind. IknowI heard it. I’m not the kind of person to see and imagine things that aren’t there - Ruby does enough of that for both of us. I’m the practical one, always grounded in mundane reality while she indulges the what ifs of life.

“These stupid woods have me spooked,” I mutter out loud, as if I owe the universe an explanation. Then a leaning stack of books topples with a thud, and I give a yelp, my hand flying to my throat.

There’s still nothing there.

Sighing, I wiggle my hips and shake out my hands to help clear the adrenaline from my bloodstream. I havegotto get it together. Forcing my breathing to steady, I slowly walk the interior of the old home, peering out of each window into the shadows beyond the deep front porch.

I do love the forest that surrounds Clearwater, but not the way Ruby does. I enjoy it more like a mural, a still-life backdrop that stays safely on the other side of our windows.

Our shop is part of a quaint street of old buildings in a gentrifying tourist town, deep in upstate New York. There are plenty of sleek new hotels and fancy restaurants a few streets away, but the shops on this street are each tucked into beautifully restored older homes.

We do have neighbors on either side - an expensive local art shop and a realty office for million-dollar vacation homes, andmore stores beyond that. But I haven’t met most of the owners yet, and I don’t think any of them live above their shops like we do. There are no cars parked in the slanted parking spaces across the street, and no buildings to buffer the deep woods that border the sidewalk.

I’m very much alone out here.

I circle to the rooms in the back, replacing my vacuum tube and peeking out of the heavy velvet curtains that really need to be taken down and washed. Twenty feet out the back door is the woods again. Quiet and still, except for a light breeze rocking the branches.

I appreciate nature, but I never grew up around its wildness. My dad kept our tiny trailer park lot bare and mowed to within an inch of its life. Not a shrub or tree in sight. Then there were concrete lots and college dorms, and my job in the city, on the fourth floor of a ten-story building, with windows that were sealed shut.

Shadows and strange noises have always just been people to me, not red-eyed animals or unexplainable shapes in the twilight.

My mind insists that I’ve missed something, though, so I make another round up to the front of the store. The alarm light is still green. The rooms are as empty as before. But then, as I near the large bay window that will make a perfect reading nook, my sneakers crunch on something.

I freeze, looking down. A claw of dread trails up my spine, lifting every baby hair on my neck.

I’ve stepped on broken glass. Not a window’s worth, but a few fragments.

Scanning the windows quickly, I press my lips together, working to hold back a scream. The glass is completely whole, and I vacuumed this very spot only an hour ago. Am I losing my fucking mind?

My fingers trail up, trembling as they press against the cool glass. Solid. Real. I’m going insane. I breathe out, the warmth of my air fogging the glass. I move to wipe it away, and a pinch of pain has me snatching my fingers away from the glass.

A breath and a scream tangle together in my throat as I stare down at the lines of blood welling from two of my fingertips. My vision tilts, and I steady myself against a bookshelf.

It’s impossible. I look blankly at the window, still intact. Still whole. But smeared now with my blood.

I feel my feet backing away slowly, creating the movement my thinking brain still can’t manage. I suck my fingers into my mouth, tasting the reality of iron and salt. There are bandages in the upstairs apartment rooms. I should go get one, but I can’t stop staring at the darkened woods through the blood-stained window.

Is there an extra shadow there?

Something moving between the trees?

Another crash breaks apart the silence - this time from the back of the shop, where I just was - and this time I give in to the scream. The rooms echo with a soft papery distress, as I hear more books tumbling from their stacks and shelves, landing with broken spines. What are the chances that they’re all giving in to gravity at the same time?

Gripping the nearby shelf, I debate hard. I still haven’t called the police.

And there’s no way a woman alone needs to be trapped in a back room of an empty store on a dark, deserted street near the woods. I was certainly raised with more caution than this.

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