What Lies in the Woods

by Kate Alice Marshall

There is a wilderness in little girls. We could not contain it. It made magic of the rain and a temple of the forest.

Beneath a canopy of moss-wreathed branches, we joined hands and pledged ourselves to one another forever—a kind of forever that burns only in the hearts of those young enough not to know better.

the years after, she’d sprouted up and slimmed down, and then she just kept vanishing by degrees, melting away until you could count the vertebrae through her shirt. She made sure there wasn’t enough of herself left to get recognized.

I hadn’t turned out a tragedy, and it left me feeling like an impostor in the annals of victimhood.

I couldn’t hurt them like that, I told myself, and what I really meant was that I couldn’t bear the guilt.

The meaning of belief has changed over the ages. We tend to think of it as a matter of fact. I believe this thing is true; I hold it to be factual. But once, it meant something different, a meaning that lingers when we say I believe in you. It is not a statement of factual existence, but one of faith and loyalty. To believe is to hold dear, to cherish, to claim as a truth more fundamental than fact. I believed in magic. We all did.

He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know—I hadn’t told him. But it seemed impossible. The world had changed. He should have noticed.

“You should get yourself cleaned up,” Ethan was saying. “You look—” I held up a warning finger. “If you ever want me to ill-advisedly hop into bed with you again, you will stop talking,” I said. “Stunning. Truly stunning,” he course-corrected. I rolled my eyes. “Very convincing.”

But I wouldn’t feel safe feeling anything for him until I knew what was wrong with him.