“We’ll need supplies,” Linda said, shoving her hands in the pockets. “To get the fuck out of here.”
“Where can we even go?” Sabrina grimaced. “It’s a ghost town down there. The nearest town is what? An hour away by car? And it’s a tiny two-building place, at that.”
“Where there’s a town, there’s got to be cell reception.” Charity steepled her hands. “Once we get there, we can call for help!”
“Right, it’s not the dark ages.” Linda nodded, allowing hope inside for the first time in days.
“Or, you know, maybe they have a landline.” Charity managed a little jump, flinching as her twisted ankle landed hard. When Sabrina scowled at the expression, Charity waved away her concern. “I can walk on it. I just shouldn’t jump around. I forgot.”
Sabrina picked at the cuticle around her nail, wincing as she tore a strip of skin. “But we’re bringing a lot of supplies, okay? This could be a several-day hike.”
“And Tatum?” Linda said. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve to get left behind.” Charity nodded. But they were limited in their time, and their cursory search of the manor turned up neither Tatum nor Marion, so the three women stuffed backpacks full of energy bars, peanut butter, spoons, a first aid kit, plastic water bottles, tins of beans, and a can opener. They rolled up one blanket each, grabbed a single roll of toilet paper and a small blade, and changed into tennis shoes. Linda slipped on a jacket. Once their bags were stuffed, they made their way outside.
They scanned the yard for any signs of Deja or other trouble, but she was nowhere to be seen. Tristan’s body was missing from his resting place as they strolled through the yard to the orchard, playing it casual in case Deja caught sight of them and guessed that they were running.
“Neither of you have been here before, have you?” Linda asked as they crossed into the bizarre grove. The trees were bursting with fruit, their pungent ripeness filling the air. Linda stepped onto one as they marched down the center path. When she bent to examine it, it didn’t feel as abnormal in her grasp as it had that first night. Linda breathed in the orchard’s aroma, reaching into her pocket and fingering the acorn she kept there.
They continued, silent in the presence of the grove’s flowering beauty. It was beautiful, the same way a shock of scum in a pond was beautiful: unexpected, a new sight for eyes fatigued with concrete and metal. Finally, Charity gripped her hand. “Keep up,” she said. Linda realized she’d been lagging.
After that, she met Charity step for step. At the end of the orchard, the path faded into dirt. The three women stepped from the crushed granite to the dry earth, and Linda breathed out what felt like a lifetime of anxious wonder.
“It is a gorgeous orchard.” Charity squeezed Linda’s hand, her fingers trembling so lightly it was almost unnoticeable.
“I wish Tristan would have gotten the chance to walk me through.” Sabrina kicked at some dirt.
“I wish I would have gotten the chance to tell him I was gay for one of his girls,” said Charity. She laughed, and Linda blushed. “Sucks, too, cause it would have done killer ratings.”
They reached the hulking gate. Linda wrapped her hand around one of the bars, built tightly against the others. There was no place for people to walk through, only the swinging entrance through which vehicles might pass, which was closed. She pulled at it. It didn’t budge.
But Linda remembered seeing a trail that seemed to lead up the mountain and through the trees. They could hike in the opposite direction and meet road. When she squinted into the woods, all she could make out was a confusion of growth: branches and trunks blending into each other for eternity.
“We have to go through.” She would have crossed herself if she’d been religious. As it was, she focused on the warmth of Charity’s palm against hers, a religion of her making.
“Fuck that. I’m climbing,” said Charity. She let go, leaving Linda to cradle her own hand. She grabbed hold of a horizontal bar, stuck one foot on a vertical, and craned back her head to peer at the top, her destination, ornamented with pointed black diamonds. The whole barrier stretched for at least ten feet over the top of her head.
“How are you going to climb straight-ass poles?” Sabrina crossed her arms. “We’re wasting time here.”
“I’ve danced a pole before. Filled in for women at the club where I worked.” She grabbed one of the bars; it was thin, and she grunted as she struggled to lift herself. She tried to jump upwards, scrambling for purchase, but she fell back onto her ass, dirt clouding around her like an aura. Still on the ground, she kicked the fence, hollering and sweating, but all it did was rattle. Charity clenched her fists. “Through the woods it is.”
• • •
Linda inhaled at the edge of the woods, then with a deliberate exhale, stepped into the curious expanse of green light. Her companions followed. Guided by the compass app on Deja’s phone, Linda crept on her tip-toes until her calves burned, forcing her to press her feet flat into the forest floor. As an old leaf crunched, she winced. The thicket was silent, eerily so, as though the breeze had taken a vacation. Linda repeated to herself, like a girl on a movie date chewing popcorn in the quiet part, please be silent, please be silent.
The trees, colossal and ancient, must have borne hundreds of rings inside them. Beneath, their roots stretched for miles, tangles of ropes. If reality were really as broken as it seemed, they were worthy adversaries. The kind of monsters capable of taking Linda and the others out one by one—or all at once, like they’d done to the fleeing throuple.
A branch brushed Linda’s shoulder. She jumped, screamed. Charity rushed forward, but Linda caught her breath before Charity’s arms wrapped around her.
“I just brushed it. I’m fine.”
They continued. When a creature leapt into their path, Sabrina threw both her hands across their bodies to push them away, but it was a baby raccoon that didn’t seem afflicted with disease.
Linda eyed the near distance with confusion. In the limbs, a swaying maze suspended by ropes ran parallel to them, blurred into the background. “What is that?” she whispered.
Charity squinted then let out the slightest sigh. “Ropes course. Probably installed for a show challenge.”
“Thank God we missed out on that.” Linda forced a small laugh.
Deeper in, the foliage darkened and the trees closed their gaps. The ropes course continued, integrated into the crowded mass of pine. They threaded themselves among the dense clusters, careful not to touch. Finally, they arrived at a clearing in the middle of it all, but their relief was brief. Stumps formed a circle around a circle of rusty red dirt, cleared of leaves. Someone had been there, and not so long ago.
No one said a word. For Linda, the experience, the journey, shifted around this silent half-belief. If she spoke of the things they encountered, those phenomena would cement themselves in reality. Perhaps some cascading effect would begin, like the push of an arranged domino. But she was confident the other women noticed the space, that they, too, had diagnosed its purpose. It looked like the kind of place where someone once performed sacrifice. Linda shuddered as they resumed their path.
Now and again, they hiked through a patch of poison ivy to avoid a tangle of roots. Linda kept her fear of allergy to herself, but as the toxic chemical brushed against her jeans, she uttered little prayers to no one that the oils would not seep through. From experience, she understood the result of a trespass: a gnarly rash that would coat her tender skin. But the plant wouldn’t kill her. Not unless she swallowed it.
Peering through the density, Linda sought a glimpse of sky. When the first hint of blue appeared on her horizon, a shift of light like hope before them, she waved to her friends, too wary to speak aloud now that they seemed so close to the end. She ran toward the exit, despite her screaming thighs.
Linda’s heart sped as she neared the exit, soft on her feet as she bounded forward. As she broke into the open air, she let out a whoop of relief. Sabrina laughed beside her, a welcome noise after the strained silence. Linda turned, ready to bring Charity into her embrace, when the shriek rang out. A root reached from the woods like a hand from hell, wrapped around Charity’s weakened ankle, and jerked her to the ground.
Charity landed on her face, her nails digging into the dirt as the snare dragged her back inside. For an instant, as Linda bounded to her, she disappeared into some blacked-out place. Her fingers finished their resistance as her eyes dulled, then closed. But when Linda flung herself beside Charity and grabbed at the root that held her, Charity came to. She kicked her leg, trying to dislodge the tree’s grip, but the grip tightened, like a snake around a throat.
Linda dropped her bag. She dumped the contents free and rooted through them as the tree pulled Charity inch by crawling inch. Her hands closed around the blade. She surged forward again. Charity’s fingers clawed at the inside of the root as she whimpered, her body twisted into thrashing. Then Sabrina was there, too, root-side and holding the only sharp thing she’d carried: the can opener with its small, circular blade. Linda and Sabrina stabbed and sliced at the root. Chips of wood flew into Linda’s eyes, but she kept chopping, imagining some other face—a man’s, maybe—and, finally, the root unwrapped Charity and slithered back into the murky mass.
Linda sighed from the back of her throat, a guttural, primal sound that made her feel alive.
“What the fuck just happened?” Sabrina panted.
“I stepped on a goddamn root.” Sprawled in the dirt, Charity pulled her leg to her chest. Tears gathered in her eyes as she inspected her torn pants. “I—it’s—something’s wrong.”
Sabrina’s thin work-lip returned. “Let go of it.” She grabbed Linda’s blade. Swiftly, she sliced off the bottom of Charity’s pant and frowned at what she uncovered. The root had squeezed so hard it had broken the bone, which now peeked through the skin in a mess of blood and torn sinew. “It’s broken,” she said. “We’ll have to carry her back.”
