Page 50 of When the Woods Go Silent

“It was actually like this ghost story I heard about, in a local legends book. There was some woman, or whatever, they called ‘Sweet Dreamer’ and a lot of people went missing in the woods trying to find her, like a decade or two ago. She was singing, or calling my name. Something. Shit, I’m not telling this right.”

“Take your time, girl. Drink that coffee instead of spilling it.”

Rose pauses to take a long drink, and I can almost see the relief filtering through her as the caffeine goes down. She mouths a silent “thank you” and takes a deep breath.

“Okay. So, I found a book on local ghost stories in the shop. Most of it was trash, but there was this one story called ‘Sweet Dreamer.’ And I dreamed about the story last night, that I was walking in the woods, following the lure of this ghost or whatever. But... when I woke up, there was mud in my bed. Leaves. My feet are fucking filthy, Ru.”

Rose pokes her toes out from under the sheet to show me, and I frown. Yeah, there’s no getting around it. She was outside.

“Wow. Sleepwalking. Not to um, freak you out even more, but I was just downstairs and I think you left the door open. Like wide open,” I admit, and she blanches.

“What the hell,” she moans, gulping the rest of the hot coffee and wincing as it goes down.

I need to take charge here before she really freaks out. “It’s okay. I mean, I think it’s okay. I checked the cameras and there weren’t any uninvited visitors. I didn’t get a chance to look around before I heard you, though. Go get some more coffee, wash your dirty ass, and I’ll check for any trash pandas that might have sneaked in.”

Rose looks like she might throw up, but she shuffles back into our kitchen, and I zip down the stairs. A quick check of all the rooms shows nothing else out of place, and I’m breathing a little easier when Rose pads down the stairs in her sweats and slippers.

“All clean. Just some dirt from you, I guess.” I gesture to the mat by the door, but Rose is staring at her phone, looking even greener than before.

“Ru, I was fuckingnaked.” She turns the screen to me, and I watch the security camera’s video of my bestie’s bare ass - just a tiny thong between her and the night air - unlocking the back door and heading into the pitch-black woods.

“Whoa,” I manage. “I mean, you look hot, at least.”

“Fuck off,” she says, but it’s followed by a little smile, and I think she’s starting to relax. The whole thing is weird, yeah, but I don’t want Rose all stressed out and anxious over it. “If I do this again, we’re going to need a different kind of security system.”

“I’ll put a lock on the outside of your bedroom. My prisoner forever.” I cackle, rubbing my hands together as she shakes her head at me. She’s smiling bigger, though.

“I wonder what makes someone just sleepwalk out of the blue like that. Ugh,” she says, shuddering a little.

“Stress?” I shrug. “Maybe you were trying to find Arlo again?” My teasing falls flat as her face shutters, and I bite my lip. “Uh oh. What happened?”

“What a night. Goddamn,” Rose says, shoving her phone in her pocket. “I hope Torrence turned out okay, because Arlo is a fucking douche canoe. He bit me. Like, actually bit me hard enough to bleed.”

“Love bites?” I ask cautiously. Rose shakes her head, glaring.

“He went down on me. Good times were had. And then, like it was a normal thing, he sank his teeth right through my skin.There was blood, Ruby! And then the dumbass looked surprised when I shoved him away and left.”

“And I take it you hadn’t talked about the possibility of biting?” I ask lightly.

“No consent was given.”

I sigh. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you along. Your gut was good on him the first time around.”

Rose’s expression softens and she wraps me in a hug. “No, this isn’t on you. Don’t worry about it. I could have left after dinner, but I chose to drop trou, right? I’m a big girl.”

“Hey, no victim blaming. I give you permission to put him in the Hall of Shame file.”

Rose laughs at that, and I can tell she actually feels better when she starts tapping on her phone, updating the shared notes file we’ve kept for years, detailing every horrible date we’ve each been on. Maybe one day, I’ll publish them into a tell-all memoir, but for now, it serves to remind us that men come and go, but Rose and I are forever.

“Everything good?” I ask when I realize she’s stopped typing again and is just staring blankly down at her phone.

“That’s weird,” Rose murmurs, pinching at the screen. “Why is the camera feed all blurry here? When I come back in.”

I peer over her shoulder at the video that shows her returning from the woods, zoomed in on my naked bestie. “It looks fine to me.”

Rose wipes her screen with her sleeve and watches the video again, muttering under her breath. “I need some more sleep, I guess. Or coffee.”

“Coffee is always the answer, you know that.”

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