Winterwood

I knock again at the door, and this time I hear the shuffling steps of old Mr. Perkins inside. Making his way slowly across the creaking wood floor—too slowly. A moment later the door swings inward, and Floyd Perkins peers out at me with the keenness of a bird, sharp eyed and watchful. “Morning,” he says, blinking as a winter wind blows through the open doorway.

“Can I come in?” I ask. My voice sounds broken, worse than I expected it to.

The wrinkles around his eyes draw together and he grumbles—not out of irritation, but rather the stiffness of old joints as he pushes the door wide. “The wolf stays on the porch,” he says, giving Fin a quick glance. Mr. Perkins has always thought Fin was too much wolf and not enough dog. He’s a wild animal, he said to me once. I don’t trust anything that could kill me in my sleep.

Fin obeys and lowers himself down to the porch—he prefers to be outside in the cold anyway, instead of in the cramped oven of Mr. Perkins’s cabin.

I step through the doorway and the roaring wave of heat is almost unbearable, the scent of smoke filling my nostrils, beads of sweat already rising across my forehead.

“Awful early to be out in the cold,” Mr. Perkins says, ambling across the living room and settling into one of the old rocking chairs beside the fireplace. “Only those looking for trouble or trying to escape it are out this early.”

I glance around his cabin, a perfect square. Barely enough space to fit a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom at the back. There is no light glowing from the tall metal floor lamps in the corners; only the fireplace casts an eerie flicking glow across the walls and ceiling. Mr. Perkins built the home when he was still young and had a strong back, after he found gold in the Black River. Unlike most miners who fled the mountains when the gold ran out or their fear of the woods grew too deep—the cold whisper of the trees always against their necks—Floyd Perkins stayed. I suppose he belongs here just as much as Walkers do.

“Is your phone working?” I ask hastily, even though I’m certain that if mine isn’t working, neither is his.

He eyes me and I know I must look panicked, my jaw clenched so tightly that a headache stabs at my temples. “Still nothing,” he answers.

I scratch my fingers up my arms and watch the flames chew apart the logs inside the stove. A soothing sight. Familiar. If you have a fire, then you have something, Grandma would say.

“Why do you need a phone? Did something happen?” Mr. Perkins’s gray eyebrows flatten.

I’ve come because I don’t know where else to go. But with Mr. Perkins looking at me with concern in his eyes, waiting for me to explain why I’m here, the reasons feel too jumbled up. My thoughts too scattered.

“I found a boy in the woods,” I say, rubbing my palms together over the flames even though sweat gathers along my spine.

His gaze narrows and he leans forward in his chair. “Which wood?”

The air feels too thick, the scent of woodsmoke sticking to the walls and in my hair. I let my gaze sway around the room, to a row of handmade picture frames along one wall—each filled with a different species of fern or wildflower or insect, the scientific name for each handwritten at the bottom. “The Wicker Woods,” I tell him.

“You found him alive?” he asks, tapping his slippered foot against the floor. Mr. Perkins has never been inside the Wicker Woods—he knows better.

“He was hypothermic,” I say, “but alive.”

He stops tapping his foot. “How long was he out there?”

“A couple weeks, I think.”

“Ah.” He nods with the slow cadence of a man with all the time in the world—to sit and ponder, to assess the strangeness of my discovery. “Perhaps the woods grew fond of him. Decided not to devour him after all.” His eyes shimmer like he’s making a joke. But I don’t laugh.

“And there’s something else,” I say, pushing my hands back into my coat pockets, watching the fire toss sparks out onto the rug, expecting one of them to ignite—to catch on the curtains and torch the whole tinderbox in seconds. “I think a boy has died.”

His jaw makes a circular motion, but he doesn’t speak.

“I found his pocket watch,” I continue, pulling out the watch and holding it by the broken chain, letting it hang in the air for Mr. Perkins to see. He squints but doesn’t make a move to touch it, to reach out for it. “Maybe he went into the woods,” I suggest. “Maybe both boys did, and only one returned.” Maybe Oliver and Max went into the Wicker Woods that night and something happened, something Oliver would like to forget. “Maybe—” I begin again, “one of them is to blame for the other’s death.”

My fingers tremble, and I worry I might drop the watch, so I place it back in my pocket. My head thuds and my vision darkens, making it hard to focus, to see anything clearly—to be sure of what I know from what I don’t.