On the other side of the pond was a wide, open space at the base of a steep hill. I cried out in surprise and stumbled away, frantically shaking them off me.
I didn’t feel the nagging in my stomach-the warning that somehow this wasn’t the same forest I’d played in before-till I jerked my foot out of the hole.ĭeep in the rotten tree trunk, was a nest of pale, overstuffed, squirming things. I turned to leave, balancing along a fallen tree’s mossy, rotting trunk, and my sneaker slipped into a soft spot in the bark. I tossed in a rock and watched it stick on the slime before sinking. The surface was covered in algae, lime-colored film hiding the water. It emptied into a huge pond, entirely new. I followed a stream that I did not recall.
Sunlight bounced off twisting, young vines and waxy leaves. In my absence, everything had turned a bright, sickly green. It was late spring in Middle Tennessee, and I had been gone from the woods for some time. I would glance behind me to see if anyone saw, but I was never really afraid. I would tiptoe across the neighbor’s backyard and slip through the gap in the chain-linked fence that separated the suburban two-stories with their manicured lawns from the undergrowth and overgrown. When I was a child, I haunted the woods behind my house.
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