Chapter 5: The Woods

“Are you all right, Ev?” Jim asked as he set the bags of groceries and cleaning supplies down on the kitchen counter. “You’ve been acting a little strange since the cleaning aisle.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Everly assured him, even though it wasn’t quite true. Something about that guy at the grocery store had completely thrown her for a loop, and it wasn’t just hitting her head on his chest. There was something different about him, something… weird.

“Do you want to eat first or start cleaning?” Jim held up the two deli sandwiches they’d stopped to get on the way out of town at the little shop on the corner of the main street. They’d also noted a coffee shop, a donut store, and a restaurant that looked like a pretty popular place, judging by the number of people going in and out. It was a Saturday afternoon, though. It might not be that busy on a weekday.

Everly looked around. The house was a mess. She didn’t think she could eat anything with all of the dust and dirt they were standing amidst. “I’ll clean a little first,” she said.

“Suit yourself.” Jim took his sandwich and headed outside. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to eat inside. There wasn’t even anywhere to sit.

Toby wanted to go with him so badly. He stood by the back door and barked for at least five minutes while Everly unpacked cleaning supplies and got started on the kitchen counters. Jim yelled at the dog to stop, but Toby was persistent. The next time Everly glanced out the back window, her dad was much closer to the woods, likely trying to escape the barking.

She blew out a deep breath and turned back to what she was doing. Her father would be working in those woods starting Monday, so there was no point in her being nervous about him being so close to them now. It was silly, really. He was a grown man. A trained forest ranger. He would be fine.

Her mother hadn’t been a forest ranger, but she had been a nature enthusiast. From what she’d been told, Chelsea Harrison was a skilled hiker and had spent more time in the woods than most people. She had grown up in another town that bordered Yellowstone, in Idaho, and since her father was also a park ranger, she’d gone out with him all of the time. Grandpa Arthur had passed away before Everly was born, and she’d only met her grandmother, Agnus, a few times. Her dad said that Grandma Agnus never recovered from what happened to Everly’s mom, and losing two members of her family only a few years apart had put a strain on her she couldn’t handle.

Her mother had a brother, Uncle Cristian, but he never stained in touch with Everly or her father. Last she heard, he had moved to Europe or something. Jim said that he was always the sort of man who would run from his problems, and that included his family.

Everly sprayed the counters down with the cleaner they’d bought just for that purpose, and the strong scent of bleach and ammonia hit her lungs. She would rather smell that than the musty, mildew smell that had been filling her nose with every breath since she walked into the room. She used a cloth from the set of three they’d bought to wipe it off and then moved to the stove. She wished she knew whether or not it would work before she decided to clean it, but she had nothing better to do.

Nothing but to wonder about her mom.

If she really concentrated, sometimes Everly thought she could remember what she’d looked like. Sure, she’d seen the few pictures of her that her dad had in his room, but that wasn’t the same. She wanted to remember what her face looked like animated. What had her smile been like? How did she laugh? Was her skin soft and smooth? Everly had a feeling it was. In the one memory in her mind, whether it was dredged up or imaginary, her mom was standing with the sun behind her, smiling down at Everly, laughing, her dark hair in a ponytail. The sky was the same brilliant shade of blue as her mom’s eyes—as Everly’s eyes—and everything was right in the world.

Sighing, she scrubbed the stove and then washed the cloth out before she decided to move on to sweeping the floor. She noted that her dad had gone with the cloth mop. She would’ve picked the sponge, but then, she didn’t stick around to help with that choice. She’d been too busy running away from… Mr. October.

She’d only chosen that month because it happened to be October. Most of the trees around their house were conifers, so they would stay green all year long, but when she looked up at the mountains, she could see some deciduous trees in beautiful shades of fiery red, sunbeam yellow, and citrus orange. It really was a beautiful place.

But she didn’t want to live there.

She hadn’t wanted to come back here. Her dad had made all of these decisions without her, thinking she’d like it for some reason. She hadn’t yelled or cried—not in front of him anyway. But when he told her he’d applied for the park ranger job, the one he used to have when she was a little girl, she secretly prayed he wouldn’t get it.

God either hadn’t been listening or liked to pull a prank now and again, because only a few weeks after Jim Harrison had sent in his application, he got the call. He had gotten the job. They were moving back to Montana. They were moving back to Cook.

Everly had promised her friends back home she’d stay in touch, but the further out into nowhere they’d gone, the more she’d begun to realize that would be nearly impossible. Unless her father was able to get some pretty damn good Wi-Fi—or a satellite phone.

He’d talked about getting them both satellite phones. He didn’t want her to ever be in a position where she couldn’t get in touch with him, which made perfect sense.

And how many times had he told her not to go into the woods? Not for anything—not ever.

Why move someone to a house on the edge of the woods and forbid them from going into them? Especially when he would be going into those same woods every single day.

She hadn’t asked him about his reasoning because she already knew why he was giving her the warning. Arguing with him about it just seemed rude. What she didn’t understand was how he could go in there. He had basically told her without her asking why it was different for him. He was a trained park ranger. He’d always be with a partner. He wore a firearm when he was on patrol…. All good reasons why he probably wouldn’t die in the woods.

She, on the other hand, was a frail woman-child, prone to accidents and getting lost. She had no means of defending herself against anyone or anything. If she went into the woods, there was a chance she might never come back.

Sometimes people went into those woods and never came back.