What We Become in the Woods

Anna

‘All the girls go to the woods…’

The haunting melody pulls me from sleep with a gasp. I shiver, goosebumps on my arms despite the stifling heat of the car. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and blink at the unfamiliar scenery rushing by. Fields and trees everywhere. We’re not in London anymore.

‘Did you say something?’ I mumble, still groggy. My breath is stale, a bad taste lingering on my tongue.

‘Afternoon, sleepyhead.’

Mum smiles at me in the rearview mirror, the skin under her eyes dark and thin. I feel a twinge of guilt at her obvious tiredness. I’ve basically slept the whole journey.

‘Were you singing?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Mum says with the too bright smile she’s been wearing since she told us we’re staying at Grandma’s for a week. ‘You must have been dreaming.’

Maybe she’s right. It didn’t sound like Mum: the voice was cold and threatening and whispered its creepy nursery rhyme right by my ear. But the memory is already fading as I drain the last few drops of lukewarm water from my bottle. It does nothing to remove the unpleasant taste.

‘How long was I asleep?’ I ask Laura but she has her headphones on. I mime taking them off and she does with an eye roll as I ask again. They’re a permanent fixture on her head, the dark band lost in the tangle of curly brown hair I’ve always been jealous of. Why did she have to get Dad’s hair? Mine is like Mum’s, mousey and thin, hanging limp at my shoulders and refusing to grow any further.

‘How should I know?’

Laura’s eyes are wide, no sign of sleep at all, the headphones around her neck blaring some heavy metal music Mum refused to put on the tinny car speakers. She’s two years older than me but it might as well be twenty for the distance between us lately. 

‘Are we nearly there, Mum?’

‘Almost.’

I go back to staring out the window. I started the journey off like that, watching the familiar roads give way to the bleak, never-ending motorway until I gave in and closed my eyes. It’s only for a week but driving away felt like finishing a chapter and closing the book on that part of our life. It’s forever since we’ve been anywhere but home.

‘Why didn’t you sleep?’ I ask Laura. ‘It’s been ages.’

‘I wanted to see where we were going.’

And mourn where we were leaving. She acted like it was the end of the world when Mum said we were going to Wales. As if it would kill her to leave her stupid friends behind and spend some time with me for once. Not that I said that to her.

A Welcome to the Village sign flashes past. I imagine it thanking Mum for driving carefully as she speeds by too fast to read the name. I’m about to remind her the speed limit but she slams the brakes as the roads get twistier and narrower. I don’t think she’s driven them before. Dad never talked about where he grew up and why he left. I always thought he’d tell us when he was ready. 

The stink of manure fills the car. Glimpses of grazing sheep through gaps in the bushes gives me a thrill of excitement, like a little kid. It’s not something we see in London every day.

‘What’s that?’ Laura asks, too loud with her headphones back on.

Mum slows even more as we drive by the statue. It’s a man, life sized and made of weathered stone, coloured in places with dark green moss and splatters of bird poop. His features are so worn there are only pits where the eyes should be and smoothed mounds suggesting nose and lips. One arm is raised and points behind us, as if he’s telling us to turn back.

‘Your Dad used to talk about the statues,’ Mum murmurs.

A shiver runs down my spine as I stare into those blank eyes. I imagine the stone lips protruding from the face and mouthing the words ‘Get out’. It’s so real I have to blink and make sure it hasn’t happened, but Mum’s already driving past, the moment gone. I look at Laura. Did she feel something too? Her face is blank, a closed book to me.

The fields are replaced by neat rows of houses that look thrown together, leaning against each other for support, each the mirror of its neighbour. They’re smaller than the grand old house we’re leaving behind, though in true London style ours is made up of several tiny apartments. Mum promised there’d be plenty of room in Grandma’s cottage.

Grandma’s cottage. It sounds like a fairytale. Ivy creeping up the walls, a low thatched roof and a smiling old lady, the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting from the kitchen. It’s all fantasy, of course: I’ve only seen Grandma in Dad’s photos and there aren’t many of them. The severe lady in the pictures, with her pursed lips and frowning eyes, doesn’t look like the cookie baking type. But a girl can dream.

‘Here we are.’

Mum slams her foot on the brake as if she’s forgotten which one to stop at. I close my eyes and picture the perfect cottage of my daydreams, holding the image in my mind and trying to will it into existence.

My shoulders sag when I open my eyes. I was right about it being old. This cottage looks like it’s stood longer than the village itself, the bricks faded and chipped in places, the windows dark and shrouded with net curtains, little white veils hiding the inside from prying eyes. The roof isn’t thatched but tiled and sloping, missing tiles at odd intervals like a gap-toothed grin. There’s no graceful ivy climbing the walls, but the front garden is so overgrown we’ll need to battle our way to the front door.