Lisa Unger: Darkness My Old Friend

There were a few huge, newer houses sitting on acres of privately owned land that backed up against the edge of the wood-the house that Willow’s mother had bought among them. “So city people can feel like they live in the country now,” Jolie had said, as if it were something she’d heard and was repeating because it sounded cool. Willow wasn’t sure if Jolie knew that she, Willow, lived in one of those houses and whether Jolie was making a dig or was just ignorant. And furthermore, Jolie had never been to the city and she didn’t know anything about city people. But Willow didn’t say so because Jolie was her only friend.

Some of the land belonged to old Hollows families, just shacks in the middle of nowhere. The roads were impassable after the first snow. Many of those folks, kids included, disappeared for the winter. All this according to her pot-smoking, suspended friend, whose family had lived in The Hollows for four generations, her German ancestors actually members of the original settlement.

Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk . Silence. Ka-thunk .

Through the trees ahead, she could see the clearing. Once she crossed that, it was just another mile or so and then she’d come out down the road from her house. But instead of walking in that direction, she found herself moving toward the sound she heard, deeper into the woods. She felt that jolt of curiosity, that itch to know something. She loved that feeling, how it took her out of herself, away from her own issues and problems. She felt a hammering of excitement, started moving a little faster. She checked again for a signal on her phone. Still nothing.

The sound grew louder, and she slowed her pace, walked more quietly through the trees. Something snagged her arm. As she drew it back to her body, she felt the smack and sting of an old black branch. Looking down, she saw that she’d ripped the flowered cotton of her Lucky Brand blouse. She put her free hand to her arm, and it came back with a smudge of blood. Her favorite shirt; she got it at the SoHo store on her last visit home. It was like having a little piece of the city with her, something none of the Barbies at school would have. Again that wash of anger with herself. Willow, if you didn’t put yourself in these positions, things like this wouldn’t happen . That’s what her mother would say. And she’d be right.

Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk .

She immediately forgot her stinging arm and started moving toward the sound again. When she saw him, she stopped in her tracks. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find when she followed the noise-some kind of animal maybe, or a swinging door at an entrance to one of those mine tunnels. But she hadn’t expected to find a man digging a hole in the ground. Ka-thunk .

He was as tall and powerful as the thick trunks around him, his long, dark hair an oil spill over the gray hooded sweatshirt he wore. He was up to the knees of his dark blue work pants in the hole and still digging. She stood frozen, suddenly breathless, but still observing. Take in the details. Everything tells a story. Zoom in .

Beside him was a large black bag that looked to be full of tools. A skein of sweat darkened his back. She heard the tinny strains of music. He was wearing headphones, listening to music, blasting loud, loud enough for her to hear at twenty yards. The sky went darker then, and the temperature dropped. Willow was suddenly cold to her core. She started to back away, aware of the sound of her own breath.

He stopped what he was doing, looked up at the sky, took the headphones from his ears, and leaned back, stretching. Willow kept moving away. Then her cell phone started to ring. A blaring Lily Allen track sliced through the natural silence. No, it exploded, ripping open the quiet. He spun, and she saw his pale white skin, his black, black eyes.

“Hey!”

Willow didn’t answer; she just turned and started to run. She fumbled for her phone, which was still ringing. It was so loud, piercing. Why did she have the ringer up so loud? But just as she got it from her pocket, it slipped from her fingers. She turned to see him standing, watching her run but not running himself, just following her with those eyes and an odd, almost mocking smile.

She didn’t stop for her phone, didn’t look back again, just ran and ran and ran, across the clearing, through more trees, until she burst out into the light and was on the road. Only then did she allow herself to stop, bent over against the horrible cramp in her side, the tight breathlessness in her chest. An athlete she was not. She couldn’t run anymore; if he was behind her, if he came bursting through the trees, she’d use the last of her strength to scream and claw at him and hope someone heard her.

But there it was again, that Hollows silence-just the singing birds and the cool wind through the leaves. She looked through the trees, and there was no one coming. She was alone-her shirt ripped, her cell phone lost, her chest painful from uncommon effort. Fear drained, leaving her feeling weak and foolish. She started toward home. She wouldn’t tell anyone what she saw. She couldn’t. No one would believe her, anyway. Because Willow Graves was a liar, and everyone knew it-even, and maybe especially, her mother.

W here was she? God, why did this keep happening?

She’d heard the house phone ringing and ignored it, determined not to be interrupted from her work by the thousand things that conspired daily to distract her. Then her cell phone started chirping, so she pushed herself up from her desk and found where she’d left it after Willow had called earlier. HOLLOWS HIGH SCHOOL, the screen read, and she answered, heart already in her throat.

“Mrs. Graves, this is Henry Ivy from Hollows High.”

She’d met him when she enrolled Willow. The newly appointed principal, he was handsome in a sweet, geeky kind of way. A nice man.

“Is something wrong?” She already felt the swell of anxiety.

“Well,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Willow’s left the school. She didn’t show up for art class, and she was spotted leaving the property about twenty minutes ago.”

Fear and anger jockeyed for position in her chest.

“She was spotted and no one went after her or stopped her?” she said.

She didn’t like the sound of shrill indignation in her own voice. She wasn’t one of those parents who blamed others for her child’s mistakes and bad behavior. Still, wasn’t it somebody’s responsibility to make sure teenagers didn’t just walk out of school in the middle of the day?

“Another student spotted her and reported it to my office,” he said.

Bethany felt an irrational wave of annoyance for that particular student. Tattletale , she thought, rubbing at the back of her head. She took a deep breath against panic and picked up a picture of a tiny Willow running with a big smile and determined eyes over a chalk drawing on the pavement in Central Park. It was so easy then, hand in hand, never more than steps from each other, fretting over nursing and bumps on the head. Now Willow was her own person, out in the world and wreaking havoc.

Bethany sank onto her bed, looked out the window into the trees that surrounded the house. “Was she alone?”

Jolie Marsh, Willow’s only new friend, was a disaster waiting to happen. Bethany could just see the two of them sneaking off into the woods to drink or smoke or whatever it was that teenage girls did when no one was looking.

“Yes, as far as I know, she was alone,” said Mr. Ivy.

She tried to think of what to say. It seemed as if she were always trying to think of what to say to some school official about Willow.

“I’ll head out to look for her.” Again , she thought but didn’t say. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d set out to hunt for Willow.