Page 13 of Into the Woods

Winnie

ten years old

I dragged my feet,doing everything I could to delay going home. Every other kid I knew was celebrating the last day of the school year. I was dreading the loss of my sanctuary.

During the school year, I knew I’d get fed at least once on any given weekday; real food, not just crap from the gas station near my parents’ club. I knew I’d be safe for the entire day, with no one passed out drunk or shooting up drugs in the bathroom. I knew that someone gave a shit that I was okay, even if it was just a handful of hours.

Someone cared. Someone wanted me to learn, to succeed. To become somethingmore.

The only time I felt any of that outside of school was in the couple of weeks toward the end of each summer, when Christophe would show up in the woods. Meeting him at our treeas the July heat rolled into August was the one thing I looked forward to once that final school bell rang in the spring.

I hated the time in between.

Most of the kids in town spent their summer vacations traveling with their families, visiting the beach, hiking in the mountains, spending weeks at summer camps, or hanging out with their cousins at their grandparents’ house.

Even my best friend, Tru, left. Her parents were divorced, and her mom lived hours away. Tru spent the school year living with her father, but holidays and summers she was always with her mom. I think the arrangement was easier on them, but something about it made Tru nervous. Each time she left for her mom’s house she was happy, carefree aside from telling me how much she was going to miss me and how she wished she could take me with her.

She wasn’t alone in that; I wished I could go with her too, at least for the bulk of the summer. I didn’t ever want to miss out on the time that Christophe was here. That time was special.

But within a few days of being back in town with her dad, she changed. Tru grew quieter again, keeping mostly to herself with me as her only real friend.

I loved Tru like she was my sister. If I was never going to have a real sister, there was no one else I’d rather pick than Tru. I didn’t get an allowance, heck, there were a lot of things I didn’t get that other kids did, but I found beads scattered across the floor of my bedroom last time my mama had her friends over. I gathered them up and strung them together on some thread and made special bracelets for me and Tru—friendship bracelets.

The other kids in school made fun of us. Called us names and always found ways to keep us at a distance. But we had each other and that was all that mattered. Except when she left…

I walked as slowly as I could, took the long way home, but there was no avoiding it anymore. It was hot out and I wasthirsty. If I was lucky, I might only have an hour or two until Mama had to leave to meet my dad at their club.

When I was littler, I got scared when they left me home alone at night. Now that I was older, being alone was a relief. I could lock the doors and turn out all the lights, make sure none of their friends thought anyone was there. I could hide. Curl up in my bed with a flashlight and the new book my teacher gave me. She said it was for my summer reading assignment, but I don’t know.

Sometimes when things were really bad over the long break from school, things showed up at my house. Stuff that was just for me. Usually it was food, healthy snacks and the most amazing honey cookies. Those only came rarely and almost always late enough in the summer so I made sure to save some and share them with Christophe. Though maybe he didn’t like the cookies; he never ate more than a half and that was only when I insisted. I loved those cookies.

I crept up the stairs to the back of the house, toeing off my beat-up sneakers and tucking them into the coat closet. The house was quiet, but that didn’t necessarily mean that I was alone, that it was safe.

Nothing seemed out of place, no one sprawled on the sofa as I made my way through the living room, but whatever false hope I’d had that I might be alone, was dashed as my foot hit the landing of the stairs.

A man loomed at the top of the staircase. He wasn’t anyone I knew, and as I watched him adjust the leather straps around his shoulder, a chill skated down my spine. The glint of polished steel tucked in the holster had me retreating until my back hit the wall.

Black, greasy hair was slicked straight back from his face, a mustache that was so thin it looked drawn in place accented the lift of his lip as he stared at me. He started down the steps, oneby one, as he tucked his barely buttoned shirt into shiny silver-gray dress pants.

“What do we have here?” he asked.

I didn’t know if he was addressing me, but my words stuck in my throat as I trembled. There were three steps to my right that would take me back down to the living room, but I was frozen in place.

“Cormac? Who’re you talking to?” my mother slurred. She pulled a flimsy robe around her, securing the sash at her waist as she got to the top of the stairs. “Why you leaving already, baby? Thought you could last longer than that, didn’t even get to come.”

She didn’t look at me or acknowledge that I was there and maybe that was a gift from God himself, because the man stopped halfway down the stairs and turned toward her.

I shook off what I could of the ice that had frozen in my veins and inched to the right. I was one of the fastest runners in my P.E. class at school, but I didn’t think I could outrun a full-grown man. Whatever head start I could manage was literally going to be the difference between life and death.

“The fuck you talking about, Claudette, huh? Whores don’t get to come. Shut your fucking mouth and?—”

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. With a burst of adrenaline fueled fear, I threw myself down the short set of steps and flung myself through the house and right back out the door I’d just come in. I hadn’t spared time to grab my shoes or anything for that matter, I just ran.

Rocks and twigs and forest debris pricked at the bottoms of my feet as I ran as if my life depended on it into the woods. And somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I was pretty sure it did.

I wound my way through the trees, hiding periodically to see if that man, Cormac, was following me. When it was clear thathe didn’t, or at least didn’t long enough to make a difference, I snuck through the shaded woods to my tree.

It could have been minutes that I sat there, it was definitely more like hours. When the sun went down and the evening chill swept into the evening, I tucked myself against the bark of the fallen log and closed my eyes.

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