Forest of Fear

       My childhood could be measured in Murder, She Wrote reruns. The whole family—minus my eldest sister who was replaced with our cousin—was gathered, as we often were, around the television in that twilight hour between supper and bedtime to be swept up in one mystery writer’s chase for truth. Was fresh from a bath and clean as a whistle, dressed in my favorite pajamas—an old ALF t-shirt and gold checkered shorts—and tucked in the comer of the couch underneath a ratty brown blanket M-Maggie had quilted when my aunt was born some thirty-odd years ago. The episode for the night was one I would never see the end of—never see again period, as if it knew it would never be able to top the events of that evening, even if it were only a recollection.

             Just as Jessica had manipulated a man into telling her the exact events of a years-old hanging, my sister and two cousins burst through the kitchen door, all yelling at once in what appeared to be wide-eyed excitement. This wasn’t unusual. That bunch was forever doing something together, and, after catching a few forbidden episodes of Sex and the City, they firmly believed each event in their lives was Channel 8 News-worthy and needed to be recounted to an adoring public. Since they lacked the latter, it was usually my other sister and me who were forced to pretend to be awestruck. That night, it turned out, Denee and I wouldn’t be pretending, and we wouldn’t be the only audience.

             My dad turned off the television as they descended on the living room with huffy exclamations and gasping breaths. “Y’all just hold your horses,” Dad said when it became clear they weren’t simply going to take a pit stop in the kitchen on the way to Diana’s room. “I can’t understand a word y’all are sayin’.”

             They finally simmered down, and my sister, Diana, told the story—with frequent interjections from Carlie and Brandi. They had been out riding their bikes with Shay, another cousin, down Beulah Road from the church to Highway 84 and back again. Carlie had stopped to tie her shoe, waving the others on with a promise to catch up. Once she took off again, she was able to ride without being distracted by the chattering of her cousins or their efforts to reenact a scene from Now & Then. She caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye, and when she took a longer look, she started peddling as if her life depended on it, screaming until she finally made it back to her cousins. She told them what she’d seen, but they didn’t believe her—until Brandi saw the same thing and showed Diana and Shay.

             They all took off and went to Brandi’s house because it was closest, but her parents didn’t believe them. Next, they went to Shay’s, whose parents weren’t only skeptical, but disappointed by the influence Diana, Brandi, and Carlie were having on Shay that caused her to tell such a lie. Finally, they—with the exception of Shay who wasn’t allowed back out again—peddled down the gravel that led to 242 Doc Scott Road: our house.

             “I still can’t believe it!” Carlie exclaimed.

             “I always new something freaky went on in them woods,” Brandi declared.

             By this time, we—my father, mother, brother, cousin, and sister—were thoroughly confused. And frustrated. Finally, Carlie’s bother, Clay, asked what exactly it was they had seen that had them so spooked.

             Diana took a deep breath, as if preparing to impart some magnificent information, and said, “A body—a naked body—a naked woman’s body. In the woods.”

             Damon and Clay were outraged at their elaborate joke. Mom was dozing off where she sat. Denee looked longingly at the blank television screen. Dad just laughed. I thought it was wonderful. I spent hours during the summer in those woods, picturing a tea party with the fairies I was certain lived at the top of the pines and wondering how the troll that stayed beneath the bridge managed to keep the creek out of his house. Months before I had read a poem—which I would later find again and identify as Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”—that perfectly articulated my feelings toward that forest which surrounded our house. I was never again able to stand in the yard and look across the dirt road at those trees without the woods are lovely, dark and deep whispering in my mind. I knew those girls spoked the truth. I knew—as surely as I knew the “B” in J.B. Fletcher stood for “Beatrice”—that there was body right off Beulah Road somewhere between the church and 84.

             Brandi was about to lay into Clay and Damon. She was standing with her hip cocked to the side and one hand already in the air, all set to punctuate her words when Dad broke in with a reasonable suggestion: why don’t we just go check it out?

             Diana and her friends loaded up in her Contour, prepared to lead the way to what Clay was starting to call the “Dump Site.” As Clay and Damon rooted around for flashlights in the tool drawer of the buffet, I approached Dad. “Dad, can I go too?”

             When he sighed and gave me a pointed look, I didn’t back down, even though I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering those weeks after seeing the Murder, She Wrote that took place in Ireland and involved a local banshee legend when I couldn’t quite convince myself the distance moaning I heard at night was the train going through Georgetown and not Nan’s ghost. He was remembering my certainty that a witch had spent all night outside my bedroom window, casting curses upon me, when, in actuality, it had been the silhouette of a tree limb swaying in the wind and not the spindly hand of a powerful hag. I begged some more, promising I wouldn’t speak, I wouldn’t scream, I wouldn’t even breathe—and then held my breath to demonstrate my determination—if I could just tag along.

             He pinched my nose, causing me to open my mouth in response, and said, “Get in the truck.”

             Not willing to risk him changing his mind, I flew out the door and into the backseat of a black Dodge Ram 4x4 with gray interior. Dad herded Damon and Clay into the bed of the truck and then we were being led into the dark of the night by a pair of glowing red taillights. The anticipation, the burst of glee with an edge of trepidation, of what we might find stole the words from my mouth, and the cab of the truck remained completely silent until the Contour came to a stop in front of us. The girls jumped out of the car and began pointing to the left side of the road. Damon and Clay turned their flashlights on the forest.

             There was a beat of dead quiet when the woman’s body was illuminated, quickly followed by shouts of unholy terror from all of us. The screams become manic when we realized the woman must have been sawed in half, because only her body from the waist down remained. I turned my face to hide it in Denee’s flannel nightgown, hoping the material that smelled slightly of the bacon Mom had fried earlier with green beans and potatoes would cloud the image in my mind.

             I only felt secure enough to look again when the screaming stopped and the truck rocked with movement. Damon and Clay had hopped out of the backend and were running to the woods. For the first time in my life, I heard Dad swear. He left the truck yelling at the boys to get back over here and to not touch anything. But it was too late. Clay and Damon were already at the tree against which the body was leaning and had knocked the woman’s legs to the ground. I wrenched open the door and tore away from Denee’s grip. I was scared out of my mind, but morbidly fascinated at the same time, and I needed to see the body up close. For a moment, Dad, the boys, and I just stood, staring down, not quite believing our eyes.

             “Well, I guess she was Asian,” Clay said, noting the Made in China stamp on the mannequin’s exposed backside.

             That was the moment I learned that perception is reality, fear is man-made, and adventure is priceless.

             We took her home, and Diana put a pair of cut-off blue jeans on her. We called her J.B., figuring half a mannequin didn’t need anything but initials. For about two years, she stayed in a corner of Diana’s room, until I came home from school one day and discovered she was gone—without any of the drama with which she had appeared.