Drabbles

Devils

     You meet her when you're six, and she pops out of the forest as if she were sprung up from the dirt. You're allowed to explore the woods, even at such a young age, and you amble up to this mysterious girl without fear. She looks about your age, but there's something off about her. You feel her strangeness pricking at you incessantly, but she's the only other little girl you've seen, aside from your siblings, venture this far out in the middle of nowhere. You try to get her to talk to you but she's clamped shut. She only stares at you through different colored eyes- one river blue, one forest green. But she's a good sport so you play hide and seek amongst the trees and brush. Not once can you find her when you're 'it'. She completely disappears into the browns and greens of the woods as if she could wrap it around her and hide underneath. She only reappears when you give up, and even then you have no idea where she comes from. When she's 'it', she finds you expertly, instantly, no matter how well hidden you are.

     The entire summer of your sixth year goes on in this fashion. You run out to the edge of woods and she's always there, waiting to play with you, her double colored eyes staring into your young soul. She never speaks. She never lets you win any of your reindeer games. When your mama asks near the end of the summer where you go to all day, you tell her of the silent girl in the forest. She chuckles at your imagination and humors you, but calls the silent girl your imaginary friend when she tells your daddy. He tells you to be careful out there in those woods. You never know what's lurking inside, he says.

     School season rolls around, and your silent friend no longer waits for you. You wonder if she was the daughter of those folks that bought that summer home up on the hill, and you think maybe they've gone back to the city. You're not sure so you holler for her to no avail, but you don't bother searching the trees because, if she's trying to fool you, you know you'll never find her hiding spot. 

     Four years pass before you encounter that silent girl again. You don't even know it's her, not until you roll your dirty jeans up and trek through the sliver of river cutting the forest in two. When you're on the other side, feet muddy as sin, you catch her eyes- one river blue, one forest green. She's grown, same as you, but you know it's her. You get closer to her and she looks up at you from her seat on a fallen log. She says nothing, just like you remember.

     Your tenth year's summer is spent in those woods just as if you were six again. You spend all day with that silent girl and play games you never win. She's still a good sport, as she was way back when, but there's something different about her. You never bring it up, no, but her strangeness is more pronounced. She makes your bones ache down to the marrow and sometimes your teeth chatter if you eye her for too long. With your age now you have a better understanding of right and wrong, your senses more honed. Every day your belly tells you to flee the woods and never return, to get away from the bad juju tainting the dirt itself. But you never do.

     When you bring up the girl in the woods one night, a complete accident, your mama gives you the funniest look. She says she hasn't a heard a lick about that girl since you were small, and whatever made you think of her now? You say you've seen her again, out in those woods, silent as ever. Your daddy doesn't take kindly to this and tells you to stop making things up for attention. You swear you're not lying, but when your siblings are asked about the girl in the woods, they say they've never seen her, ever.

     She disappears again, the silent girl, when school comes around. You're old enough now to venture up the hill where that summer house is and you do so after the first day of classes. You hope the folks are still there, or that at least some type of clue is left behind for you to find. You knock on the solid door of the home and step back. No one answers and there isn't a peep inside. You circle around the house and find a window to peek into, and find the inside years deserted. It looks as though the folks that moved in when you were six moved right back out the same year. This gives you the willies, and you run down the hill as fast as your legs can go to the little town on the main road. People know you, and they ask what in God's name has spooked you. You ask about the house on the hill and aren't surprised when you're told the folks moved out four years back and no one's bought the damned thing since.