9

Adelaide spends the afternoon trying to coax the children from the kitchen hutch, but no amount of pleading, cooing, or tempting with small bits of cooked potato make any progress.

It is only once she leaves the cabin for some fresh air, locking the door behind her, that the children relinquish their post.

When Adelaide returns from the river, she is filled with renewed determination, but as she steps inside, she notices the children are no longer in the kitchen. Adelaide shuts the door immediately as though they may scurry past her feet like shifty little mice. She begins to call out to the children but thinks better of it.

Adelaide knows they are here. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she senses it—she is not alone in her cabin.

Adelaide steps on something small and sharp. A sunflower seed. The remaining sunflower heads have been pulled from their rope above the kitchen sink, and a small trail of dried leaves and debris traces a path across the living room. Highlighted in the last rays of the setting sun are little specks and kernels, leading directly under her bed. And there, barely visible in the shadows, the sole of a small foot, toes curling and wriggling. Adelaide can’t help but smile.

She fills a bowl with water and walks into her bedroom. A floorboard groans under her weight, and the little foot disappears beneath the bed. Adelaide tucks the bowl just under the bed frame, and then sits on the edge of the mattress.

Inch by inch, she wedges herself farther onto the bed, and nestles her head between her pillows. She is quiet for a long while, listening to the ticking clock, and watching the familiar stains on her ceiling.

She hears the children resume their feast, the tiny crunches of sunflower seeds amplified in the stillness of the evening. She lies awake, listening to each bite, each nibble. The water bowl slides across the floor.

Shadows fill every corner of her home. Somewhere far away, tucked deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains, a coyote howls. Adelaide shudders and steals a glimpse at the darkening window. She wishes the children would climb into bed with her and allow her to pet their heads, wipe their faces, kiss their foreheads. She wants to comfort their fear, and also her own. But it is not the night for such things. There may never be a night for such things. But still, she can’t stem the fantasy.

Adelaide should acclimate the children to her voice, even if they can’t understand her words, and she decides to tell them a story. She tries to remember the fairy tales of her youth, of her daughter’s youth. What was the one with the two children in the woods with the bread crumbs? Adelaide thinks it would be quite fitting, and she almost laughs. But then she remembers the part about the witch in the cabin, trying to cook the children in the oven, and thinks that perhaps she should recite something else. Ah yes, the boy who loses his parents in the wild and is raised by the monkeys and the tigers and the snakes. That’s the one.

Adelaide clears her throat as quietly as possible and makes her voice small and soft.

“Once upon a time, deep in the woods . . .”

Adelaide wakes in the middle of the night to barking hounds and beams of light careening through her cabin. At first she is confused, and thinks it only a dream. But here it is again—a light so rigid, it is nearly steel. She covers her eyes to shield them from the onslaught. Dogs clamor at her window, and there are other noises as well—jostling feet and hushed whispers.

She thinks of the two young men at her door, mere days ago. And the old man, watching her cabin from the driveway.

We.

Adelaide bolts upright and lowers her feet to the floor. She mustn’t wake the children; they’d be scared. Flashlight beams pour into her cabin, and she lunges for the curtains, wrestling them closed.

A silhouette appears at her bedroom window and taps a slow knock against the glass.

Adelaide looks around for something to grab, some kind of weapon. She thinks of the paring knife in the sink, and although every cell in her body screams at her to stay put and stay quiet, she bolts to the kitchen (hips go left to avoid the corner stool, footsteps wide to dodge the floorboard that pulls away from the nails).

Adelaide hopes she won’t have to use it, but the knife feels good in her hand. She tiptoes back into her bedroom, toward the window, and the silhouette.

Adelaide whispers against the glass, “What do you want this time of night?”

His full voice answers her. “What time of night would that be?”

She must admit she does not know.

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Our dogs are alertin’ all over your property. We think you know what’s goin’ on in these woods.”

“I don’t.” Her breath tides in and out of her lungs.

“I think you answered too fast, witch. You wanna try again?”

“I want you off my property. Now.” Her voice cracks.

“Nothin’ but God’s property out here in the mountains.”

Adelaide slumps against the wall and slides to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. Who does she think she is? She is no mother bear, and these scared babies are not her cubs, no matter how much she wishes it so. How many men are circling her cabin right now? And what can she possibly do to protect these children—an old woman with a three-inch paring knife—against formidable men with flashlights and fists?

She feels like crying, but the tears won’t come. And then she sees—nearly occluded by blankets and hidden by shadow, two small bodies beneath her bed. They are on all fours, their bodies still, their eyes trained upon the glass like the hunting dogs whining outside.

A tap-tap-tap on the glass.

“We ain’t leavin’ till we get answers. If there’s no sleep for us, there’s damn sure no sleep for you, witch.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Witch don’t like to be called witch,” he calls over his shoulder. Another man laughs.

The children grunt, a sound of defiance. So they are brave little savages.

Shapes moves beyond the curtain. One of the men spits against the window, and the shadow of it trickles down the glass.

The children emerge from beneath the bed, shoulders tensed, eyes trained on the figures outside. They raise their faces to the window and begin to growl.

It is low at first, barely audible, but Adelaide hears. She is fascinated.

The children bend low to the floor, backs arched, feet readied behind them, as if preparing to rocket through the glass at any moment. The growls grow louder, merging into one collective sound of the earth.

The growl becomes a howl and the howl becomes a bark, and now the children are baying like goddamned coyotes, heads rising to the ceiling.

Picture frames rattle and the walls seem to sway. Every hair on Adelaide’s body stands on end.

“What in the hell,” a man says. “Wolves?”

“Ain’t no wolf,” answers another.

The men fall away from the window, their silhouettes blurring and quickly disappearing. The hounds follow.

The room spins around Adelaide. She may vomit. Faint. She could blame it on trepidation, or awe, but she knows in her gut and soul that it’s because of the sound. A bizarre frequency strums the room, and her body has no defense against it. She struggles to stand. She fights to keep her eyes open, because the sight—oh, the glorious sight!—of these children transforming into beasts is the most beautiful thing she’s seen in all her life.

Outside the window, men shout at one another, fear evident in their voices. Skidding footfalls. Slamming truck doors. Headlights illuminate the window and the screech of tires spinning against rock fills the empty spaces between howls as the men speed away.

The children bark a few more times before collapsing into each other and crawling back under the bed. They do not look back.

Adelaide is left alone on her bedroom floor. Two children less than five feet away, and yet she may as well be on a rock in the middle of the river. These children belong to no one but the forest, and she needs to release them. She knows this now. Adelaide brought the children into her home to protect them, not the other way around. They are wild animals, and she has jailed them. Tonight she will let them rest, but tomorrow she will set them free. Adelaide was wrong to take them in the first place. She was wrong to think they could be a family.

She stays on the floor a while longer and tries to re-create the sound in her mind. She wants to remember everything.

Adelaide ignores Henry as he scratches at her doorstep. She ignores the sound of Zelda and Moffit squabbling over a stray bug. She is too busy watching the shadows beneath her bed.

She awoke especially early this morning, unable to reconcile what would make her happy with what must be done. She paced, cleaned the outhouse, even walked along the riverside until a noise in the brush spooked her and sent her scampering to the cabin.

Adelaide now sits on the floor, her back to the door, watching, waiting, deciding. She appraises the bite wound on her calf, surprised to see no sign of a blossoming infection.

As soon as the children wake, she will prop open the cabin door, and then prepare breakfast. From the kitchen, she won’t look back, won’t steal even one more glimpse. And by the time her breakfast is ready, they will be gone. Everything will be over. Like it never even happened.

Adelaide closes her eyes and pushes her skull into the door, scolding herself for wishing everything to be meaningful. Life isn’t eloquent. It’s a big goddamned mess. There doesn’t always need to be fanfare or pageantry. Sometimes you just have to open the door and turn your back. She’s too old to be deluding herself with fantasies of family, and children, and togetherness, and knitted booties, and colorful drawings taped to her cabinets, and cuddles around the fireplace, and . . .

Adelaide forces herself to stop before she weeps, for she imagines she is too old for that, too.

A dirty little face peers out at her from beneath the bed. The little girl, she believes. They regard each other, and Adelaide tries to memorize the girl’s eyes. Eyes that are much too insightful and clever for a person so young, and oddly familiar.

Adelaide taps her fingers on the floor in an effort to stay focused, and an echo comes from the bedroom as the little girl taps her fingers in response. Adelaide knows this game. She touches her nose. The little girl touches her nose. Adelaide pulls on her ear, and the little girl pulls on her ear. Adelaide wonders how far she can push the child. She taps a pattern on her face: nose-chin-nose. The little girl smiles and repeats on herself: nose-chin-nose.

Adelaide nods her head and smiles broadly. “Very good,” she whispers. “One more time.”

She holds up one finger to make sure the girl is paying attention. Forehead-cheek-nose-clap.

The little girl regards her sternly. Either Adelaide’s just given a secret attack command, or this child has decided that Adelaide has finally lost her mind, which is not too distant a prospect.

The child crawls just outside of the bed frame and sits cross-legged on the floor. So Adelaide sits cross-legged as well. The little girl holds up one finger for a good long second—to make sure Adelaide is paying attention—and then repeats the pattern: forehead-cheek-nose-CLAP!

The noise jolts her brother from his slumber. He shrieks and inches behind his sister, sheltered by the bed. The little girl begins to laugh large belly laughs, clasping her hands to her mouth to stifle the sound.

Adelaide can’t help herself, and she collapses into a giggle on the cabin floor. She knows that when she stands her spine will be sore, and she will likely have a headache, but right now, Adelaide does not care. She grins at the little girl who grins back. No expectations. No obligations. Just two girls playing a silly game.

Once the laughter has faded, and Adelaide is left with a feeling of contentment and a curious little girl, she lifts her hand into the air and gives a very simple wave, hello.

The little girl waves back.

Adelaide knows that the front door will remain locked today. And maybe tomorrow, too. Because Adelaide knows many more games.