The Little Woods (11 page)

I opened the door and crept down the stairs. I thought I could hear noise coming from the kitchen, but it was faint. It could be the television, though I didn’t think the Slaters had one. I’d just reached the first-floor landing when I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. A flash in the dark outside. But then it was gone. I moved into the loggia and crept along the thick houseplant jungle, pressing through the dark foliage toward the window. I put my hands to the glass and tried to see outside, but nothing was there. I turned, and only seconds after noticing a cool breeze on the back of my neck, I felt firm hands clamp around my throat, sharp nails digging into me. I was wrenched back and I landed on the hard, cold tile. Suddenly there were people laughing. I looked up to find Pigeon chortling at her own excellent sense of humor. Tanner stood beside her, and a moment later, Alex Reese, Brody, and Shane Derwitz strode up. As foolish as I felt, the smile Alex gave me more than made up for it.

“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Wood, you really got scared,” Pigeon said with her annoying lisp. “You need to see a therapist or something. Am I right?” she asked of no one in particular, and then she laughed loudly, her pointy chin tilted to the heavens as if to make certain that God had seen her fantastic joke.

Brody pulled me to my feet. “You didn’t know everyone was coming, did you?”

“No. Why are you all here?”

“Party,” Tanner sneered. “The Slaters’ parties are epic.”

So that was why Helen had laughed when I’d assumed her parents would be there, and that was why everyone had needed to take naps. Last check in the dorms was 11:00 p.m., so just like Alex and Brody had done on that first weekend, everyone had sneaked out at 11:02 and stolen through the little woods over to Helen’s for a raucous night of drinking and discombobulated sex.

More people arrived, and I began to get lost in the crowd of them. Grumbling to myself like an old crank, I started back up to my room, but then I remembered how Alex Reese had smiled at me, and I went to find Helen to ask if she could dress me up to look like a girl. Ten minutes later, I was swimming in a jade peasant dress, and she was applying mascara and lipstick to my flinching face. When she’d finished, I looked like a cat in a tutu, but she seemed pleased.

I didn’t think I could reuse the antibiotics excuse, so I grabbed a beer from the cooler, took a few sips so my breath would smell hopsy, spilled some more pretending to stumble on the patio, and then carried it around with me for the rest of the night.

I was talking to Drucy about drosophila when I noticed Alex Reese across the patio talking to Tanner. As I watched him smile, his dimples caving in on either side of his perfectly pouting lips, it became increasingly difficult to pay attention to Drucy. Finally she turned to see what was distracting me.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” was all she said. She rolled her eyes and walked away. I moved to follow her, hoping she wouldn’t think I was an idiot, but then I saw Alex approaching me.

“Wood! What’s up?” He smelled faintly of cinnamon. “Wow, you look really beautiful.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said. “I’m wearing a dress.” I held my arms away from my body as if to confirm the veracity of my statement.

“Yeah, I see that.” He laughed, and for some reason I started laughing too. Gently, he slipped his hand into mine, and we were walking, the cool night air buoying me up, making me feel invincible.

We were down toward the lake, away from the others, when I looked up at him and grinned. I was too happy to worry about looking stupid.

“You’re kind of great,” I said.

Abruptly, he stopped walking and stared at me with something approaching surprise.

“You’re kind of great too,” he said. Then he touched my cheek with the back of his hand and leaned down to kiss me.

We had stood there a good ten minutes just kissing, drowning in cinnamon and oxytocin, when a Nerf football bounced against the side of my head and I looked over to see Tanner, his hands clasped over his mouth. His shirt, the same ugly yellow as his hair, stood out against the night.

“Keep it safe, you guys,” he said, snickering, his voice high and nasal.

I straightened my dress and looked up at Alex. He shrugged. I hadn’t done much with boys before. I hadn’t wanted to. In my experience, the boys who were the cutest were usually also the most annoying, so I tended to bail out before much could happen. But Alex was different. I began to think maybe I did want
to fool around with him, but I was too exhausted to know for sure.

“Maybe we should go hang out with those guys,” I said.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “Rain check?”

“Rain check,” I said, and slowly we walked back to the rest of the group, still holding hands.

Without the ersatz energy that alcohol provided my peers, I just didn’t have the staying power and soon realized I was in desperate need of sleep. Alex walked me up to my room. We stood there too long, staring at each other, both of us unsure what to do. Awkwardly, he leaned in, and I leaned in at the same time. He ended up kissing the top of my head.

“Good night, Cally,” he said.

“Good night,” I said, and closed the door.

The party was still going strong when I turned out the light. I fell asleep to the discordant sounds of Pigeon singing “Stairway to Heaven” beneath my window.

I WAS AWAKENED TO HARSH
morning light by pounding on the front door. Loud, vigorous blows that seemed like they’d never stop. Presumably, I was the only person in the house who wasn’t hungover, so I figured I should see who it was.

All the bedroom doors were closed, and there were a few bodies nestled into couches or curled up in corners. The whole place reeked of old beer and fancy cheese. People began stirring as the pounding grew more insistent. I opened the door and, to my horror, found Mr. Reilly, looking haggard and worried.

“Wood, listen, I know there are a lot of people here who shouldn’t be, but the administration will turn a blind eye if you all get in the van here with me now and head back up to school.”

“But my weekend was approved. I’m supposed to be here.”

“Well, good for you,” he said, clearly unable to keep that bitchy tone from his voice. Apparently my distaste for him was reciprocal. “But I’m still going to need everyone back on campus stat. There’s been an incident, and Dr. Harrison’s going to call an emergency assembly. Anyone within a reasonable distance from the school needs to come back, and that means you, Wood, so gather everyone up. I’ll wait in the van.”

He snapped around on his heel, in danger of twisting an ankle in his requisite Birkenstocks, and I was left to round up the troops. It wasn’t easy. At first, no one would believe me. I had to drag Drucy to the window and show her the van with the St. Bede’s insignia on it to create a stir.

Exhausted and disoriented, we straggled out the door. Helen looked wrecked, her feline eyes circumscribed with swollen red skin. With a twist and a clip, she affixed her tangled hair so that she looked like a glamorous drug addict.

“Do you think they know?” she asked as we climbed into the van.

It hadn’t occurred to me until then, but surely there was no way. Maybe someone else had found the body, but there was no way that person could know about us. On the short ride back to campus, Reilly put some Grateful Dead on the stereo. Noel promptly fell asleep on Freddy’s lap and Freddy stuck her head out the window, her pale skin variegated with splotches of bluish green.

“Freddy got busy last night,” Helen whispered to me. I looked at her wide mischievous eyes, suddenly the eyes of a child. “With Tanner.”

“Why would I possibly want to know something like that?” I grimaced.

“Because he’s been going out with Cara Svitt for years,” she whispered, raising her eyebrows. “It’s craziness, I tell you—utter craziness.”

I decided it was best to ignore her, so I leaned my head against the window and tried to block out “Casey Jones.”

School was a madhouse. We arrived just as assembly was starting, and the whole room was infused with a violent energy. Everyone was talking too loudly and too quickly and no one was in his or her assigned seat. Freshman boys ran up and down the aisles, and senior girls looked intensely put out. I took a seat in my usual row next to Carlos, who was asking Asta if he could go up front to sign up for an announcement. She looked out of sorts, her hair held back by barrettes, her face pale and drawn.

“No. No announcements this morning. Carlos, just sit down, okay, this is serious. Cally,” she said, pointing in my direction but barely seeing me, “keep track of the boys, will you? I need to talk to Dr. Harrison.”

I watched as she waded through the confusion up to the front. Dr. Harrison looked horrible. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he’d been crying. He leaned down to hear what Asta had to say, and I could tell it wasn’t pleasant.

From across the auditorium, I saw Sophie looking at me. I raised my eyebrows at her as if to ask if she knew what was up, but she just shook her head and mouthed, “No idea.”

And then I noticed the cops. They were plainclothes, but they were definitely cops. They hung back by the doors of the
east entrance, which no one ever used. Something horrible was happening, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I put my head in my hands, massaging my temples to try to stave off the incipient headache. How could I have let this happen, me of all people? I’d never met the girl, but somehow I’d known it was her out in those woods, and I’d just left her there.

Dr. Harrison broke off from Asta, looked at his watch, and approached the microphone.

“I apologize for calling you all back here this morning, but I’m afraid a terrible incident has occurred. I’m sorry to inform you that your classmate Iris Liang has been found dead. Her body was located in the woods behind school by some passing hikers.”

A wave of crazy swept through the auditorium. It moved like wildfire, hitting each person at a different time. The awful thing was that despite the genuine horror in the auditorium that morning, an overwhelming atmosphere of excitement accompanied it. A few girls started crying, but it was immediately clear that they were not supposed to, and they worked to staunch the flow. There was danger in such unrestrained outbursts of emotion. If some people started crying, then everyone would cry, and we couldn’t let that happen, so the girls swallowed their tears, and their friends kept their distance.

Dr. Harrison patted the air with his hands, indicating that we needed to calm down. He cleared his throat. “Obviously this is horrible news. I know that many of you were friends with Iris. We will make grief counselors available to those of you who need them. Just talk to Nurse Raben and we can set something up. In the meantime, we’re going to need a lot of
cooperation from you guys. Things may be kind of strange here for the next few days while we try to get our bearings, and I’m asking that you be extra vigilant about following the rules. Obviously, I don’t need to tell you that the little woods are now, and always have been, strictly off-limits.” His eyes grew wide, and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but then a wave of sorrow seemed to engulf him, and shaking his head, he changed tack. “We’re going to need a lot of help from you to find out what happened to Iris. I’m going to turn the assembly over to Detectives Cryker and Levy now.”

The cops I’d seen earlier moved up to the front of the room and took the podium. The one who started speaking was small and hirsute. He had a goatee and a disconcerting twinkle to his eye. He smoothed his hands. The woman who stood beside him was tall and blond with an unfortunate jaw. She fiddled with her sleeve as the small man spoke into the microphone.

“I’m Detective Cryker,” he said, a not-unpleasant crackle to his voice. He had that kind of extreme toughness that is often found in tiny men. You could picture him killing a man twice his size with his bare hands and then casually eating a jelly doughnut. “Some of you may remember me from October when I spoke with a number of you regarding Iris Liang’s disappearance.

“Let me begin by saying that I’m sorry for your loss. I know this is tough, but we’re gonna need to ask you guys to remember anything you can about the last time you saw Iris Liang. Right now we have her last sighting at six p.m. on October third. That was the first night of your fall break. We spoke with a lot of you back in October, but the case has taken on
a different light. We’re going to speak to each and every one of you, but if you think you have valuable information, please come forward right away. Try your best to remember what you can. We’re going to start with people who were the closest to her. The rest of you are temporarily excused. Go eat breakfast and then come back here. And once we’ve talked to you, Dr. Harrison wants you to proceed to your normal afternoon sport. There will be impromptu practices. Okay, right.” He cleared his throat. “Drucilla Keller. Let’s go.”

Drucy looked completely bewildered, and I was fairly certain from her reaction that she had not, in fact, been friends with Iris. I watched her disappear into a back area with Cryker as the rest of us stood up and started milling about like misplaced cattle.

Helen, Noel, Freddy, and I found each other in the crowd and started up to breakfast in silence. Helen looked as if her mind was trying to unravel a puzzle far beyond her capabilities, and Noel looked ill. We had sequestered ourselves, taking a circuitous route along a brick path through the poplars and avoiding the rest of the students, who were bubbling and buzzing in a herd up to the dining hall.

The rhythm of patent leather Mary Janes slapping against the brick caused me to bristle at the sound of impending Pigeon. Her cheeks were red, her dark eyes were sparkling, and she was slightly out of breath when she caught up with us.

“Oh my God, you guys, can you even believe it?”

“Mmm,” Helen mumbled.

“I cannot believe it. Like, she was in my advisor group. It could have been any of us. It could have been me. Oh my God,
Helen, what if she was kidnapped from your room and then she was killed? What if you hadn’t been away already? I bet he would have taken you instead. I mean, you are way prettier.”