The suburb was called Deer Meadows, and it was a truer name than most developments. Finn Foulbec had grown up with the deer, could always spot the shape and silhouette of the small herd watching from someone’s backyard or the treeline between two properties. If Finn woke up fussing before dawn, Mr. Foulbec strapped him into his car seat and hit the road, making turns at random through the neighborhood until Finn quieted down and slept. Finn, unbidden, often still rose at the same time as his father, and together they took an early-morning drive around the neighborhood. The smell of Mr. Foulbec’s coffee filled the interior of the car, and they listened to classic country music turned low, songs that invoked the kind of loneliness that can only happen under wide-open Western skies or secretive Appalachian hollers. Nobody sang country songs about suburbs, where the sky was circumspect and you could see in everybody’s windows at night.
Then again, the neighborhood looked strange during those early morning drives, especially in the winter; alien and hard to recognize. The engine, the heat, the music, the smells of coffee and his father’s aftershave provided only a provisional safety. Finn was never more aware of it than when the car came to a slow halt as the herd of deer crossed the street, eyes glowing in the headlights. When it was cold like this, in the barren weeks of January, steam rose from the deer’s flanks, curling into the icy air. Sometimes the deer would stop and stare at the car; Mr. Foulbec said that some prey animals couldn’t help but be entranced by headlights, even as they’re speeding down on them. It hypnotizes them. When that happened, Mr. Foulbec would blast the horn at the animals, startling them into an inelegant dash to the other side of the road.
He’d gone for a drive with his father earlier in the week, but the whole encounter had been off from the start. Finn had woken up a few minutes early and stumbled to the bathroom to pee, not noticing the light pooling beneath it. His father had been in the bathroom, already undressed and waiting for the water to heat up. It was like opening the door to a stranger, hairy and flushed, the smell of him musty from sleep, a monster half-obscured by the steam. His face was blotchy red beneath the stubble, and there were pink creases tucked beneath the wide swell of pale belly, where the elastic of his underwear had pinched the skin. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Finn stumbled back out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him.
Later, when they encountered the herd, one of the stags had been shedding the velvet from his antlers. It had hung in strips nearly to the stag’s eyes, and the sight of them had made Finn shudder in revulsion. The drive had been ruined.
Finn got out of bed and crossed to the window. They never decided beforehand that they would take a sunrise shift drive. It either happened or it didn’t; today, he woke up just a little too late. Outside, Mr. Foulbec went through a routine so habitual Finn could shut his eyes and envision every step: unlock the doors, set the thermos on the roof, toss his bag in the back seat, put the thermos in the drink holder, sit down, turn on the car, switch the radio from news to the country station, back down the driveway with one big hand braced on the passenger side headrest. Finn blinked his eyes open as the sounds of the engine faded, and was left with a view of the woods beyond their front yard. Mrs. Foulbec never had to tell Finn not to go into the woods—he avoided them on his own. Now their profile carved out a more solid darkness into the surrounding night; dark like an absence, like a hole in the world. It held Finn’s eyes for a while until he was able to turn away, let the curtain fall, and get back into bed.
When Finn found himself in the woods, he assumed it was a dream. He stood barefoot on the cold, hard ground, with the grass crunching frost beneath him. The icy wind cut right through the thin cloth of his pajamas, but the cold felt strangely good, even as his skin broke out in gooseflesh.
A stag stood only a dozen feet away from him. Its rack of antlers carried bloody strips of velvet, a dangling ruin of shredded flesh. The stag took no notice of Finn and stepped closer to one of the nearby pines, rubbing its antlers against the bark. The dull clacking of it made Finn think of bones rattling together. What kind of dream was this, where he could so clearly feel the cold, could smell the wild musk rising from the deer’s haunches? Something uneasy stirred in Finn’s stomach, and he took a dazed step forward. The stag froze, turning until it caught Finn full in its glare.
Finn took another step back, ducking behind a tree. He uttered a soft, disgusted cry as something wet brushed his hand and wrist; there was a strip of bloody velvet clinging to his skin.
The stag huffed and stamped a foot, and Finn pressed his face against the tree.
Wake up, he thought. Wake up in your warm room to Mom calling your name. Wake up to the smell of her milky tea and toast, with the ghost of Dad’s coffee still lingering in the air. Wake up to a real morning.
Finn didn’t wake up, not then and not at the eerie, guttural bawl coming from another corner of the woods. The cry caught the stag’s attention, and it wandered off, huffing aggressively. Finn waited until he was sure it had gone, and then limped home on feet gone numb from the cold. He could barely turn the handle of the front door to his house; his fingers were pale blue.
Finn was so cold that all he could think to do was get in the shower. The hot water hit his filthy feet like a rain of knives, peeling off his skin. He muffled his cries until the heat finally soaked into him. He was washing the dirt and pine pitch from his feet when he saw it; the long strip of velvet had stuck to him back in the woods. It seemed diminished here in his house, with most of the blood washed away, the flesh clean and sterile. He picked the strip up off the shower floor—it was slippery at first, he had to pinch it between his fingernails. He stayed in the hot water for another twenty minutes, running the velvet between his fingers, against the skin of his inner wrist, his chin, his cheeks, and finally, stringing it around his neck. When he finally got out of the shower, he wiped the condensation off the mirror to look at himself, at the pink-and-gray strip of velvet and blood vessels that he’d knotted tight against his throat.
Finn stared until the mirror fogged over again, hiding him from sight.
