I'm going to post fragments of the story I'm currently working on, and when I finish writing and revising the story I will re-post the edited fragments in another blog post. This way I can see in print (and not on my MS Word document) how much I've changed and how far I've come with the story. Why don't I just use Word's built in features, such as 'Track Changes'? Because I hate these special features, that's why. As much as I love looking over my handwritten notes done in four different inks on crumpled paper, there's something about seeing every little alteration highlighted, boxed, and colored in that frankly freaks me out. It's a little overwhelming for me, so I'm doing this instead.
How did I select what passages to post? It's partly random and partly decided by what I feel may have to change. There are a few passages posted because I want to challenge myself to revise something I initially like. There are a few passages posted because I know I really, really, really need to find a better way.
The children have been playing in the woods again.
I can smell the fragrance of pine needles on Katie’s jacket, and Jon has a stash of smoothed river stones in his closet beside his rain boots. I’ve found autumn wildflowers in the fridge twice this week. I may have to teach one or both of them how to press flowers and leaves, or I’ll have a bouquet of the mountain’s finest next to the eggs.
And to think Eugene and I were concerned that the kids wouldn’t like it here. Katie more so than Jon; he’s too young to really remember traffic-jammed city streets and overcrowded classrooms, and anyway he likes being Daddy’s little Indian. Before this summer his favorite weekends were those he spent playing with his cousins on the Reservation, gathering shells and pebbles and an assortment of gross slimy things so easy to come by on a lakeshore. Here he loves the colors of the changing trees and the sound of the slow river tumbling over rocks. He’s probably the culprit behind the flowers in the fridge. Katie, though, is a city girl like me and was something of a socialite in her fourth grade class. By the end of the last school year her grades began to slip and words like “disruptive” and “unfocused” appeared on her report cards. She begged for a cell phone and a computer and her own bedroom, far away from her little brother, and wouldn’t have picked up a frond of algae if her life depended on it.I think they may have found a dog out there.
I noticed a package of corned beef went missing out of the fridge this afternoon, and I found the empty wrapper on the ground behind the tent. I only buy it for Eugene; Katie hates corned beef, and Jon almost never eats foods his sister disapproves of.
I also saw Katie cut another length of twine from the ball she used to string up the tent. She tied one end into a loop and walked into the shade, beyond my line of sight.
If they have found a dog, it’s likely they’re hiding it. I told them when we moved in we weren’t getting a dog, not yet, not until Jon is older. They may be trying to keep it from me so I won’t say they can’t keep it.
I wonder what kind of dog it could be, that it could have survived out here among the bears and the mountain lions and the frost-fanged mountain winters? Maybe it’s a stray, an Indian mongrel wandered up from the Res?
To be honest I’m kind of regretting not having a dog around here. I think I’d feel better, knowing there was an extra set of protective eyes to watch the kids. And this house is really meant for a dog, these woods are meant for long roving walks under the trees and for chasing summer-fat squirrels. Maybe I’ll say something to Eugene when he gets home tonight. A pet wouldn’t be so bad, and the children would love it.“My apologies, ma’am. The roads are a bit sharp and the light’s a bit dim, and my eyes aren’t what they use to be. My name’s Wallace,” he took his hand off his gun, satisfied that the madwoman wasn’t violent. “You’re Eugene Whitefeather’s wife, I take it?”
I nodded and fidgeted with the metal flashlight. On, off, on, off.
“Is he inside, ma’am?”
I nodded again.
He walked past me and I felt my rage focus and sharpen, targeting this old, useless man dressed in a uniform he should have left long ago.
Where was he going? What did he think he was doing? Don’t talk to my husband, raise the hounds, find my daughter!
“I didn’t want to go back out there but Katie made me. I told her you’d be mad, but she wanted to make sure he was still tied. He was ugly and he didn’t have fur, but she wanted him, even though he was mean.”
He started crying again and pushed his face against my chest, soaking my shirt with tears and snot and the grief that is also a kind of fear. I clutched him tighter and bared my teeth at the darkness around us.
It took him a few minutes to calm down again. He shook and choked and sputtered and I held him close to me while he cried, trying to take his fear away.
“He chewed through the leash. Katie got to him first, before she saw he’d eaten the rope, and he got up and bit her. He let go, though, because she was hitting him and he couldn’t stand on two good paws and keep biting her. They fell, and Katie got up first and grabbed me. She dragged me back toward the house, and we could see him trying to follow us. Katie pushed me up a tree and kept running.”
Jon pushed away and looked up at my face. His eyes were wide and owlish and tired and bloodshot like no child’s eyes should be. “She’s faster than me,” he continued. “She was going to lead him away and come back for me. He stopped at the bottom of the tree and looked at me with his big red eyes. Just like the Big Bad Wolf. He just looked at me. Then he kept going, following her. I wouldn’t have come out of the tree, but I could hear you.”
4
Eugene and Dennis were in the trees somewhere behind me calling my name. I wanted to call out for Katie but I didn’t dare raise my voice. Eugene and Dennis might not have been the only things hunting in the woods, and it would have been terrible enough if one of them had caught up with me. For the moment, silence was safety.
Trees come alive in the dark in a way they never do in sunlight. Roots arched out of the ground as the oaks and birches sought to mingle and migrate, to trade places in rhythm to a moonlight score only they could hear. Branches swept low, contributing to the darkness of the multitude of shadows that lay moon-soaked and drunken on the earth.
More than once I saw, or thought I saw, a moving shadow flitting between the clumps of dry brush alongside my path. The closer I came to the river the less frequently I saw it, until my feet splashed into the cold, slow snow-melt in the riverbed and the shadow was gone.
The water soaked into my shoes and socks and chilled me from the toes up. Icy prickles dug into my skin as I splashed through the shallow water to the far shore.
Had there always been so many pine trees on this side of the river? The pines enveloped me, hid me from the overcast sky and my husband’s searching light beam. They welcomed me into the evergreen scent of bitter cold winters and warm, well-tended hearths. A thick blanket of long dead needles softened my footfalls until I could no longer hear them, except for the faint squelch of cold water seeping from my soles. Here and there among the pines a bleached birch tree gleamed like old bone, but otherwise there was no color, no break in the wall of dark green that surrounded me.I apologize if there's anything funny with the formatting. Word doesn't like to cooperate with Blogger sometimes. There, four short fragments of a short story. That there are a few flaws should be obvious, and these flaws are why I'm doing this in the first place. Maybe I should put the entire thing up. I may yet, but I'll wait until I've finished the body of the story before I do.
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