Page 6 of The Bleeding Woods

The highway sweeps us away from civilization in just four hours.

Now green trees cascade as far as the eye can see, a world of nothingness beside a two-lane asphalt strip.

As unpredictable as it seems, our city moves rhythmically, a monochromatic metronome.

It’s easy to put your head down and vanish like a film noir background character.

There’s a schedule, a timetable, a backbeat.

There’s a palette of gray scale all denizens must paint with.

Up here, among the forest, things are different.

Every color of the rainbow hides between ancient branches, and something wild lurks in the eyes of quickly vanishing creatures.

It’s as though the entire environment is connected through a hive mind, systematically anarchic.

Neatly senseless. There is only chaos—chaos that makes me feel at home.

On the ground, leaves long perished are conquered by the roots of other organisms, the mouths of hungry herbivores, and artfully capped fungi.

Even in death, forests are alive. They are a testament to how life persists because life simply must. It is nature, and nature operates on intuition.

Perhaps that’s why Jade’s kept on living.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve kept on living. Somewhere within us lies the belief that we are worth preserving, and moreover, worthy of rebirth.

I hope with all my heart it is a belief worth having.

“Do we have to listen to this?” Jade gestures vengefully to Grayson’s assortment of seventies hits.

She used to love them. We used to belt out our favorites in the back seat of Dad’s hideous brown van.

On warm summer days, we’d drive to the park and perch on the car roof to host parking lot concerts.

Naturally, she was a far better singer, and I’d often need a creamsicle to soothe my throat after trying to match her pitch.

Dad still assured me I’d be famous someday.

Jade told me that, worst-case scenario, I’d be her lead backup dancer.

“It’s all we’ve got. There are no stations nearby.” Gray laughs, reaching out to lower the volume. I wish I could lower the volume in my head with such ease.

“Your mixtape is making me want to blow my brains out.”

“Not in the back seat, okay?”

Jade grunts, slamming her head against her headrest in defiance.

Despite how enthusiastically he’d been tapping his leg to the beats of yesteryear, Grayson acquiesces.

He switches off the radio and cracks a window so that the wind’s whistle breaks the silence.

The smell of green petrichor captures my senses.

All of my memories in melancholy monotone blur, and suddenly, I’m back in the present.

“Gray?”

“Yes, m’lady?”

“You’re sure your mom is all right with this? I feel bad just . . . you know . . .”

His eyes flick across every inch of the picturesque landscape, the rush of Earth’s most authentic colors.

“She doesn’t go up to the lake house anymore. Don’t stress.” His hand lands on my shoulder, and he moves his thumb in small, soothing circles that create creases on the puff of my sleeve. “It’ll be a nice weekend. I promise.”

Joey pops his head out from the back seat, smiling from ear to ear.

Dusty-blond curls fall in a mischievous shower over his forehead, a few strands caught in the joints of his sunglasses.

“What better way to escape the woes of everyday life than a luxurious mountaintop getaway? I’m so happy Mom bought that house.

Best thing she ever did for the family, aside from producing me. ”

“Joey, put your seat belt on,” Grayson orders, his face now deadpan. His jaw is taut, a katana of stubble-tempted skin and bone.

Brothers by blood, Joey and Grayson have everything and nothing in common.

Both of them possess the same blond locks, but Joey’s are pale honey and Grayson’s are as ashy as a sunrise behind a storm cloud.

They also share the same striking blue eyes, Joey’s lively and bright, and Grayson’s enigmatically weary.

Even in adulthood, Jade and I prove that the cosmos has a sense of humor.

I look exactly like my sister, except if she were a goddess of the sun, I’d be a goddess of the darkness it surges against. Where she is mysteriously beautiful, I am mysteriously haunting.

Where she intimidates with bloodied fists, I intimidate with an inhuman gaze.

Her hair is espresso come alive in the form of loose curls, and her skin, though usually bruise beaten, is a warm, glowing shade of chestnut.

Her eyes are as sharp as the edge of a silver blade, but their intensity is concealed by a russet scabbard.

She is beautiful and ethereal, like a goddess fallen to Earth from somewhere deep within the sun.

If trauma hadn’t turned her violent, she’d embody this essence to its fullest potential, but because of me, her skin is never solid in hue.

Black and blue infest it in plumes of color from popped vessels below.

Her hair stays tangled in tight updos to protect it from the fights she picks to numb the pain.

I was fourteen when it happened. She was seventeen. Though they typically hovered around me, she had more time with them, and thus, more of them to mourn.

Joey lowers his window and points to an upcoming gas station abruptly enough to startle the whole car. “I want five chocolate bars, stat!”

Grayson rolls his eyes through a drive-lagged smile. He pulls up to the rusted structure and parks just beside a sign promising discount firewood and affordable lighter fluid.

A chill scales my spine.

“We needed gas anyway.” He pulls a ten from his wallet. “You’ll get as many bars as you can buy with that.”

Without another word, Joey snatches the bill and races toward the general store beside the gas pumps. He spins on his heel to face us just once, his next line politely practiced. The Warners are very serious about their manners. “Would anyone else like anything?”

“I need a bathroom break.” The words dribble out before I can stop them. The speed at which Grayson is out of his seat and opening my door is kinetic whiplash. I flash a grateful smile, then climb out of the car one leg at a time. “Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

The metallic double doors of the shop open like curtains.

Stacks of foil-wrapped food are posed beyond them, each looking more expired than the last. I consider grabbing some baked chips for Grayson and some cheese puffs for Jade, but most of them look like inedible escapees from the nineties.

Even the graphic designs on them are ancient, though none are name brands.

I pity the travelers who come this far without their snacks preprepared.

My heels click against the worn tiles until they shift into concrete.

It pours from beneath the ladies’ room door, suggesting that whoever crafted the floor lost steam at precisely this point.

Ironic. In such an isolated area, you’d assume the bathroom to be the store’s most vital asset.

Inside, the walls are a muted blue color, and the fluorescent lamps burn with a sickly greenish glow.

Every now and again, a gnat lands on their glass, causing sparks of dissonant flickers to erupt from within.

The scent of the surrounding greenery has crept through each vent, leaving wisps of woodland pine on the inert air.

It’s quiet. The shadows seem to stare back.

I do some staring of my own. The mirror is made from crackling, emerald-tinted aluminum.

Still, it is a mirror, and it does as mirrors must. It serves me well as I rake my fingers through my hair and ensure my eyes haven’t started sinking toward the back of my skull.

I’ll need another dose in the morning, but my supply is so dreadfully limited.

Here’s to hoping Jade’s grief-induced research leads to ends more alive than our parents.

The overhead lights buzz in a rhythm, creating an eerily .

. . soothing tune. At first, I figure the wave of peace is a by-product of these moments in solitude, but soon enough, the tune overtakes the whole of my hearing.

It becomes increasingly like a song too familiar to be new, but too new to be familiar.

In my reflection, I watch as the corners of my lips are pulled skyward and the russet in my eyes shifts to an inexplicable shade of . . . Is that red?

What a lovely, lovely red.

“What have we here?” a voice croons in my mind. I feel like I’ve been injected with a muscle relaxant. Suddenly, the floor feels more akin to a cashmere blanket than a slab of concrete. I want to curl up on it and sleep like a kitten for hours, days, weeks . . .

Three knocks rattle the door.

“Clara! You’ve been in there for twenty minutes!” Joey’s pubescent voice fills the room.

Twenty minutes?

“Sorry!” I panic, the electric hum silencing as I splash water onto my face and burst through the creaking door. “I—I didn’t realize it had been that long. Did you get your chocolate?”

Joey shrivels. “The guy at the counter is creepy.”

When I came in, the shop was deserted. Part of me wondered if it had been abandoned, given the forlorn patch of land we’d found it in.

The last town we passed was at least an hour back, and the sea of trees ahead suggests the next one is much farther off.

Who would take such a drive to work for minimum wage selling gas and expired candy bars on the edge of Blackstone Forest?

Eyes alert, I glance over the racks to find this creep of a clerk.