Elena’s husband had been missing for two months.
She led the detectives through the house and out onto the back patio, though they had asked to speak to her in the kitchen, said the kitchen would be just fine for a talk, what a nice place for a talk, and she had only said, “This way.”
Out into the backyard.
The white wood patio.
The flowers everywhere.
The chairs not too comfortable but immune to weather.
Unbreakable chairs and a bright yellow umbrella, 70s yellow, in honor of her mother’s house, what she could remember of her parents.
She pointed up at the loblolly pine trees, shooting high above them.
“There,” she said.
The trees flew high into the sky, only sprouting branches and pines nearest the top. Sentinels in the sky. Sometimes the woman thought the trees protected her and sometimes she thought the trees would kill her. Sometimes, too, she could hear them talking, hear them calling to her.
Elena was tired, sick being stuck as she was, trapped and stuck, stuck without answers and feeling like a nothing person, trapped in a sort of death chamber.
Still no word on her husband, and these detectives looked useless.
Elena was in her fifties, with a stern face that had gotten used to stress. She wore patterned dresses she bought at a local boutique. She cared little for the dresses but they took the thought out of dressing. They offered variety when she didn’t. The wedged sandals took the thought out of dressing. They were comfortable, and people thought she was fun when she wore them, and she was dying a little inside.
Getting dressed was a futile act.
And those were just some of her more neutral musings.
Elena looked at the two detectives then back at the loblolly pines. She said again, “There.”
She waited but the detectives didn’t say anything. All they did was shift uncomfortably. The detectives who looked so out of place underneath the bright yellow umbrella, but the sun was brutal so what choice did they have?
They looked up at the loblolly pines, trees they had seen every day of their lives but had never paid attention to. It never mattered which trees were in all of their backyards, only that there were trees in all of their backyards, a semblance of nature, of rightness. Trees in the backyard made news on the television less horrific. Trees in the backyard made them better than people who lived in apartment complexes, people who lived with dumpsters in back parking lots, with freeways in place of gardens. Us and them.
“The trees,” she said. She was exasperated already. “The trees took my husband.”
“What you told the first officer,” said Reynolds, gruff and predictable Reynolds.
“We’re not here for that,” said Horry.
Horry was more delicate, tentative, not yet impervious.
“By the time I got to him outside,” she continued, “the woods consumed his body and he couldn’t hear me, or else he chose not to and all I could see was the back of the shirt I bought him.”
Come and find me, came a thought in her head, a thought in Leon’s voice.
Elena lost Leon to the woods.
The police said he could be anywhere. The police said there was no trace of him in the woods. The police said he probably left her.
“And a good thing too,” Horry said. “Not guilty my ass.”
“They’re not very deep,” said Reynolds.
“The woods?” asked Elena.
“They cleared too much for these new houses.”
“He’s still in there. I can feel it.”
“Woods not big enough to get lost in,” said Horry with some derision.
“Then why can’t you find him?” Elena snapped.
My husband the scandal, she thought, why can’t you find him?
Leon had been accused of murdering his first wife several years ago, in what he claimed was a suicide. He said she hung herself with a green garden hose. Hung herself in the backyard, not this backyard, the old house. The first time Elena saw Leon was in the newspaper, before the trial ended in a hung jury and she followed it every day, even going to wait outside the courthouse for glimpses of Leon, and eventually he saw her and they started dating. The second trial found him not guilty, a relief for both, because by the end of the retrial, Elena and Leon were married.
“You see how the trees sway in the wind,” she said to the detectives.
She spoke with reverence, almost meditatively.
“I used to see them wave to him. Waving him inside.”
She turned away from the trees to face her detectives.
“You’ll have to look again,” she said.
Horry laughed but Reynolds said, “Okay.”
“You’ll have to look one more time,” said Elena.
But when the detectives did not come back, she knew the woods got them.
*
The loblolly pines watched her from what was left of the woods — what hadn’t been replaced with Venture Forth. That small promise of peace and quiet was just an aspiration so far, as the developing never stopped, not even on weekends, and the construction was loud and distracting. Now there were eight hundred homes with another hundred in development. Elena and Leon had been among the original fifty, when Venture Forth was meant to be exclusive, at least that’s how she told it. Elena could say, “We’ve been here since the beginning,” straight-faced, daring anyone to laugh, and most didn’t. They had lived in Venture Forth for five years. It was still called a new development.
It was still called a new development because the community center had yet to open. The promise of a pool bar, pickle ball, and a private function room were still only a promise under construction. A drawing on a map called You Are Here. Leon speculated it would always be a new development, that the building would never end, not until the woods were cleared away for good and Elena would shush him, as if the trees could hear, which she speculated they could, as if they weren’t on protected land, those trees, which she feared they were not.
Still, the homes were beautiful and the community was tasteful.
Elena liked to say, “We were here first and they built all around us.”
That all the houses looked the same was not something she bothered to explain to guests with consternation in their eyes, guests whose IDs were checked upon admission, guests who had to be signed in before entering Venture Forth.
“Are you coping?” came a voice.
Elena jolted forward to the present. She had been dozing, looking at her trees and nodding off. She had forgotten Next Door Madeline had come over for tea, Next Door Madeline with the better garden (something Madeline coyly denied), who had to be dragged out to the back patio with pleadings of “Isn’t the kitchen just fine” and “It’s so hot out today” but Elena was persistent. Except now it was Elena embarrassed; she couldn’t remember what they were talking about.
“You went somewhere else just now,” said Madeline.
Now it would be Elena’s turn to tell Madeline she knew her so well, but Elena didn’t want to say that. What Elena wanted to say was, “My brain: that overactive thought machine” or “My brain is trying to kill me. Do you have any advice for that?”
“You know me so well,” said Elena.
“What you need is rest,” said Madeline.
“You’re so right.”
Elena moved to the edge of the deck. She looked at the trees. She missed Leon. Now Leon was gone she saw the menace of the trees. Now Leon was gone she felt distinctly alone.
“I’m worried about you,” said Madeline.
Trees tall like soldiers. Trees looking over, looking down, watching. And then she fought back: the trees couldn’t pose a risk. Elena was absolutely safe.
“The marriage was each of our second,” she said to the trees.
“I know,” answered Madeline.
Elena turned around.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not very good company today.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be.”
“Not that you gave me much notice.”
“I should have called,” said Madeline.
That hollow response made Elena wonder if she had called, if they had made plans, if Elena had forgotten again, something she never used to do before Leon disappeared.
Elena said, trying, “We should do something with the girls. All of us. A party. Something to put the bad days away.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?”
Elena wasn’t up for anything but she carried on anyway. Elena was trying. Elena was moving through mud but she was trying.
Every day she put herself together, she fed herself, she relaxed on her deck (though relax from what was a constant question she had to strike from her mind).
Venture Forth trapped her in an ordinary paradise when she belonged somewhere dirty, somewhere frightening, somewhere she could scream.
It didn’t matter how Elena answered, “Are you sure you’re up for it?” because she knew Madeline would find some excuse not to come, as they all had done recently. The company who did come over did not want to be entertained. They wanted to console. They wanted her to wear comfortable clothes, pajamas even, and to come in from the yard. They did not want little nibbles or chilled wine.
“I’m up for it,” said Elena.
“It’s been hard to get away from…” and here Madeline did not bother to insert the rest of her lie, as she knew Elena wasn’t paying attention, and Elena, who was paying attention, didn’t care.
Her guests did not want to be entertained, and try not to scream.
Those guests who wanted to pity her, and try not to scream.
The trees looked right at her, and try not to scream.
Her helpful little exercise: it worked. Because all she wanted some afternoons was to yell and throw glass. No one was interested in finding her husband, no one believed her when she said he went into the woods, that there was something in the woods.
Elena who could get dressed and find she had nothing to do with her time, that the dishes had been washed and dried and put away, that the books had been read or tossed aside, that it was always too early for a drink, and what did she want with a drink anyway?
“There’s something in the woods,” said Elena.
Madeline looked at her. “It’s always something in the something.”
*
“I’m Nancy Eaton,” said the woman at Elena’s front door. “I’m a reporter for the Courier.”
“Won’t you come in,” said Elena, her voice automatic, her mind hopeful for good news.
She guided Nancy through her home and out into the backyard. Nancy Eaton followed, pulling out her phone.
“Do you mind if I record this?”
“All right, but I don’t see why you’d want to.”
“You’re a peach.”
“This way.”
Elena offered Nancy a seat on her bright, indestructible furniture. Nancy sat down, placing the phone on the center of the white table.
“Where did we meet before?” asked Elena.
“We haven’t.”
“Was it at Sharon’s party, the night everyone sang karaoke?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions.”
Elena shook her head, confused. She was genuinely surprised and she was genuine when she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“People want to hear from you.”
“Are you writing about boring old citizens now?”
“I hardly think you’re boring.”
“Find the officers,” Elena suggested. “They’re the ones you should interview.”
“What officers?”
“The ones who went missing in the woods.”
“Nobody went missing,” said Nancy Eaton.
Nobody went missing, and try not to scream.
But the trees want you to scream, said another voice in her head. Then: who thought that, Elena wanted to know.
“If someone went missing, I’d know about it,” said Nancy Eaton.
Elena stood up, bewildered by the empty table, empty except for Nancy’s phone.
“I’ll make us something.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I’ve been so rude.”
“Do you think people have gone missing?”
“Think,” repeated Elena with some disgust in her voice, and try not to scream.
“Are they connected to your husband? To his past?”
“I’ll make us fruit salad. I’ll make us iced tea.”
The trees want to eat you.
Stop that, Elena fought back.
“I’d know if someone disappeared, trust me,” Nancy said. “But if there’s something you know…”
She must think you’re batshit, thought Elena.
Send her into the woods.
Great. Talking to yourself again.
Give her to the trees.
No, I can’t do that.
“Have you ever received psychiatric care?”
That question sounds miles away, almost tinny in its distance.
“Does mental illness run in your family?”
Farther still.
“Am I right in understanding you have Borderline Personality Disorder?”
“I’m not fucking crazy!” said Elena, but by then the reporter’s chair was empty, and Elena certainly felt like she was crazy, felt she might be absolutely nuts, off the rocker, with no shortage of mad phrases at her disposal.
She got lost in looking at the trees again, directed her thoughts and her words to the trees instead of this intruder Nancy Eaton, oh why did she let her in, why did she think it was just a friendly face from Venture Forth, when even the woman had introduced herself as a reporter? Elena knew better, but still she invited the woman in, the woman who didn’t want a bite to eat or something to drink, and who let herself out, maybe not even bothering to go through the main house, maybe frightened into using the gate around the side of the yard instead. Maybe Elena was scaring people away.
Elena looked at the loblolly pines and the loblolly pines looked back at her, swaying something evil in the light summer breeze.
*
She was sitting underneath the yellow umbrella when a man came running out the back door. He stood furious on the patio deck, the antithesis of backyard leisure.
“I don’t need this shit,” said Leon.
She ran to him. She threw herself into his chest.
“But the woods,” she said through blurry tears. “But the trees. I saw you.”
He pushed her away.
“You’re sick,” he said.
Oh, thought Elena, we’re doing that.
Elena said, “That’s cheap, that’s lazy.”
I don’t want to fight with my husband. So why is he fighting with me?
“Don’t you want to say hello?” she said.
She pointed him to the trees in the yard. They would explain. They would make him see.
“Have you been drinking?” he said.
“Cheap, lazy, and unoriginal.”
Were the trees smiling at her, laughing at her, laughing up at the sky?
“You need to stop with these reports,” he spat. “These stupid missing persons reports. You hear me?”
The trees waved their jibes, their mocking stance, laughing tall from above.
The trees she wanted to love her, like Leon loved her.
No, not that way.
She turned away from him, to Leon with his face full of hate, back to the trees, the could-they-be-trusted trees.
She stepped forward, stepped off the deck and onto the grass.
He called out to her, shouting expletives into the night. She didn’t stay to listen. Instead she kept walking. Even as she heard the door slam, then the front door, softer, she kept going, kept moving on the ground that was hard and slightly wet.
Elena went to see the trees. They would know what to do.
The mucky brown earth tried to trap her. She slipped and reached around for roots to help pull her up. She lost her shoes and didn’t care. Elena stood at the base of the trees, looking up, and this time, this time she could see faces in the trees, scowling at her.
“Why?” asked Elena. “This whole time he hasn’t been here in the woods.”
“We gave him back,” said the trees.
“His soul wasn’t pure,” said the trees.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Daughter of the woods, we have longed for you.”
“Not these cheap imitations.”
“Not these ignoble impostors.”
“You are what we seek.”
“Feed us,” they said.
“And we shall feed you.”
Elena held up her hands and the trees embraced her.
*
“I was so happy to get your call as soon as I got back,” Elena would say to Next Door Madeline.
“Where were you?”
And here she would say, without shame, “I’ve been to see the trees.”
Rather than judge her Madeline would only remark, “And you’re looking lovelier for it.”
No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t betray the secret of the loblolly pines. And it had to be a secret, the trees convinced Elena, unless she wanted the whisperings about her to get worse. So, it would be, and when Madeline did get around to calling, and asked where Elena disappeared to for three days, Elena answered, “I’ve been to my sister’s,” hoping Madeline wouldn’t ask anything else, as Elena did not have a sister, did not readily have a fake home for her fake sister, either, and didn’t want to talk about that anyway.
Madeline didn’t press the matter.
“I’m just glad you’re back,” said Madeline. “You won’t believe what you missed.”
“Tell me,” said Elena.
“They arrested Leon. New evidence. DNA on the hose.”
Elena just laughed.
Madeline kept going, “I don’t know how they missed it the first time, but you know how lazy they can be…”
But Elena was laughing too robustly to hear. She couldn’t help herself, she burst forth full of life and vigor and glee. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to be alive.
“Did you know?” asked Madeline. “Did you always know?”
She would wait until Madeline left, until the sun went all the way down, before going deep into the woods, and thanking the trees.
Justin McDevitt’s plays Haunt Me and Honey Fitz have been presented for readings and workshop productions in New York City. His writing has appeared in Rue Morgue, Fangoria, Cobalt Review, Mania Magazine, The Hemlock Journal, Life in Limbo, Gargoyle Magazine, and Blood and Thunder. Stream his six-part monologue series Severed Heads on Youtube or follow him on Instagram at @justinwritesplays.