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creativelycryptid · 4 years

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The Thing in the Woods

There have always been things in the woods. This is a fact of life up here, in the mountains. From the first moment human eyes looked out into the first dark woods, other eyes have looked back. Some eyes were friends, some were food or sought us for food, but others were something else entirely. Things, with a capital T. The woods have gotten smaller, over time. Height wise and width. Things have died off slowly. Not entirely, of course. Many adapted, became smaller, better at mimicking coyotes or owls or other things considered natural by people, or just better at hiding in general. Still, there are quite a bit fewer nowadays than there used to be. Every culture has or had their own ways of dealing with them or not dealing with them, as the Thing and situation called for. I’ve lived in the Appalachian mountains for most of my years. Not true deep woods, but deep enough to have my fair of stories about Things. Deep enough to learn a few things too, like how even though coyotes live in packs they don’t hunt in them. If you’re in the woods, being chased by something that looks and sounds like coyotes, they may not be coyotes. Climb a tree and say your prayers. There’s a wide variety of Things: Things that have names (Bigfoot, Mothman), Things that used to have names, and Things that have never had names. This story is about one particular Thing named Bibi.

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When the real estate agent brought me out here the first time, he was highly skeptical. An old woman living alone out in the woods? He was concerned for my health and safety, he said. But I’d lived out here in my younger years, and I remembered how it was. There wasn’t a force on earth short of a heart attack that could’ve kept me from buying this place. A sturdy little house, with a porch just big enough for the table and pair of rockers that sat to one side of the door. I walked through the house with the real estate agent trailing behind me, half-heartedly selling me on the place. I mostly tuned him out. I’d already made up my mind. The only things of interest in all of what he said to me that day were the price (on the high end of affordable), the distance to my nearest neighbor (too far for his comfort but too close for mine), and that it came with the furniture. We went back to his office to get the paperwork in order, and within a few weeks I was settled in.

My first night was lovely. I had a little upstairs bedroom all set up with quilts and books and a little reading lamp. The mattress was mine, of course, no telling how old the one that came with the house was, or what kinds of people the last tenants had been, but I did use their bed frame. I smiled when I lay down, already running through lists of things to unpack in the morning. An art studio across the hall, dishes for the cupboards, boxes of books and blankets for the living room, and seeds for the garden. It was too early to do much planting yet, but I could plan. Oh Lord could I plan. There would be no guest room, naturally. I slept soundly that night, with the comforting sounds of night birds and wind.

The next afternoon I was taking a break from my unpacking and was enjoying some lunch of sandwiches and hot tea on my porch. The last of winter was thawing out, though I figured we still had one good frost to come. The air was a bit nippy, and I was tightening my shawl around my shoulders when the car pulled into my driveway. It wasn’t the real estate agent’s shiny newish car, and it wasn’t a moving van, so I couldn’t see any reason for this beige Toyota something or other to be here. I was about ready to tell the driver as much, too.

Before I could finish composing an irate but mostly polite invitation to leave, the driver stepped out and started up the porch. She was a woman of about my age, with a darker complexion and wiry gray hair pulled away from her face. Her eyes had smile lines at the corners, and her expression was friendly but firm. She carried a casserole dish with her, covered over in a layer of tinfoil, and I sighed. There was really no getting out of this. I hauled myself out of the rocker.

“Well hey there! I just wanted to stop by and welcome you to the neighborhood. Lord knows the trees won’t do it.” She motioned towards the surrounding woods with the casserole dish and her face crinkled up into a smile.

“That’s mighty kind of you. Here, I’ll take that and let you get back to your day.” The casserole dish was still warm and her hands were cool where I brushed against them. The tinfoil crinkled up at the edges and the smell of warm peaches drifted out.

“Oh, now, I’m in no rush. I was hoping to sit with you a spell and get to know you. Not many people in the area, so I gotta get my conversations in where I can. I’m Ruth, I live about ten minutes that-a-ways.”

“Name’s Lottie. Lemme get some plates and such for this, we can chat while we eat. G’on, have a seat.”

To tell the full truth, I had planned to serve up the cobbler, make as little conversation as I could get away with, and then say my goodbyes. Maybe make a few empty promises to stop round her place one of these days and few even emptier invitations for her to come calling again. If I’d had my way, I’d have been a hermit in the old mountain tradition. I suppose, in the long run, it’s a good thing I didn’t get my way.

I stepped back out onto the porch with two plates of peach cobbler and an extra blanket for Ruth. She accepted her plate with a smile, and our fingers brushed again. To her credit, the cobbler tasted amazing, and I told her as much.

“Secret family recipe” she told me, “plus I canned the peaches myself. I think it adds a little something. Where’d you move from? You sound local enough.”

“Most recently just down the hill, in State Road. I grew up further up the mountain, though, and a little to the west. Lived there from the time I was born till I was, oh, about 35. Surface mining got too close for comfort.” Ruth was nodding the whole time I was talking.

“Yeah that sounds about right. ‘Bout the same for me. Moved down the mountain, got hitched, moved back up the mountain. It’s the circle of life or something pretty close to it.”

“Sure seems that way. Never got married, though. Never struck me as something I ought to do. I like the quiet too much to have some man foolin’ around gettin’ in my way. That’s why I came back up here.”

“Well, there’s plenty of quiet up here, that’s for sure. I’m glad of it myself, but it does get a little lonesome. Ed’s been gone a good - let’s see, what’s it been? - ten years now. He was an alright husband, God rest his soul, but never much of a talker either. The kids have little ‘uns, but they mostly come up in the summer.” Ruth looked off into the trees for a minute, before turning to me. Her face was softer, and her skin didn’t seem as much crinkled as it did folded. Less like paper, more like fabric.

“So I’m glad to have a neighbor now.” She finished, and reached over to pat my hand.

We talked for a while longer, mostly about gardening, before we decided that it was about time to go back to our own businesses. And then, of course, we talked for a little longer, standing next to her car, then through the car window. I waved her off, then went back to unpacking. I tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t think about my visitor, but that can only last for so long.

That night, after dinner was eaten and the dishes were cleaned and put away, I settled down on the couch with a glass of whiskey and a crossword puzzle that I just couldn’t focus on. I kept going back and forth in my head about Ruth. It had started off perfectly normal, to be sure. Introducing yourself to your new neighbor with a baked good was the neighborly standard. Hadn’t the conversation gotten a little too familiar too quickly, though? On the other hand, what we’d discussed technically fell into the category of family history, which was well within the range of typical. Although, family history usually ranged to how long your grandparents had lived in the area or which of your relatives had run shine. It wasn’t so much that the visit was strange in general, but it was strange for me. I hadn’t gotten so friendly so quick with someone in decades. And such a long conversation! I hadn’t had a willing conversation longer than 15 minutes in God knows how long. I could’ve gone back and forth for the rest of the night, or at least until I’d finished my whiskey, if I hadn’t had my second, much stranger visitor.

There was a noise in the yard, though I’m hard pressed to say now exactly what it was. A stick snapping or the sound of hurried steps over the gravel in the driveway. I reached for my shotgun and went to take a peek out the front window, running through a list of possible culprits. A bear would be making more noise, it was still too far from spring for a bear to be moving gracefully. It was too big to be an opossum or a racoon. Maybe a deer, maybe a person. I stared out into the darkness.

I couldn’t quite make out where she stood at first, but my eyes adjusted enough to see her, standing towards the middle of my yard. Definitely not a deer, the shadow in my yard moved on two feet, but sort of crouched into herself. It was hard to see her exact shape, but I could tell that she was a little smaller than me, tall and around, even hunched like she was. She looked to be made of shadows, but the parts of her that I figured were her arms and legs stood starkly pale against the night. I tried to angle myself against the window to see her better, and the tip of the shotgun knocked against it, just lightly. I watched her tense, back arching so that now, instead of hunching over, she looked more coiled for a spring. Her head whipped around to face me and we locked eyes.

Good God those eyes. They shone bright in the night, a piercing green that seemed to drill into me. I remember thinking that they were so bright it seemed like they should be casing spotlights in front of her. And that it seemed like she was waiting for something. I held my breath and tried to stay still. I didn’t want to spook her, or incur her wrath. There was no telling, from just this first meeting, what kind of Thing this was in my yard. Some Things are dangerous. I was mostly just hoping she wasn’t one of those.

I’m not so sure of how long we sat there, but eventually she backed up a pace or two and then darted back into the woods. She moved a little like a human, but mostly like a catamount. Which is to say, she had her back up and her head down and moved quick and graceful, but she stayed on two legs. I stayed where I was, watching the darkness. I didn’t sleep quite as well that night.

But the sun came up, as it is wont to do, and there were things that needed doing. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen Things before, there was even a time in my life where it was downright normal to wake up midway through the night and see flashing eyes in the dark, or hear an almost-human voice calling from the woods. I was a little out of practice, that’s all. And maybe I was a little unsettled that I couldn’t quite tell what she was. I was certain I’d feel better after a little breakfast.

I did not feel better after a little breakfast. In fact, as I unloaded more books into the bookshelf I started to wonder if she would be back. While I was deciding where to hang my few pictures and paintings, I thought anxiously about teeth and claws. By the time I was trying to set up my tv I was remembering how she had moved, with a darting swiftness, and wondering if I could shoot her if I had to, and my hands shook so badly I couldn’t get the cables right. It was time for a break.

I hesitated in the doorway for a moment before stepping onto the porch. In the end, though, I decided that this was my home and I wasn’t going to be afraid in it. If that were the case, I might as well move out now. Besides, I reasoned, most Things didn’t come out in the daylight, at least not this close to people. As long as I didn’t go for a walk in the woods, I would be fine.

I sat in the rocker for a few minutes, watching the woods. All was calm. Bird song drifted on the wind, and clouds passed by overhead. Feeling emboldened by the quiet, I decided I should look to see if there were any tracks in the yard. The ground was still fairly hard from the cold, and the Thing had moved lightly, so I doubted there would be, but I looked anyway.

I stood in the middle of my yard, bent over the ground and staring holes into the grass, so focused that I didn’t hear the approaching sound of tires crunching gravel until I heard a voice call to me.

“Lottie? Y’alright?” It was Ruth, leaning out her window with a softly furrowed brow and pursed lips. I straightened and felt a flush creep up my neck, knowing how I must look. I hadn’t even put my hair up yet, and thin wispy strands of silver fell all about my face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. Just saw something out in the yard last night, was checking to see if it left a mark.” The flush crept a little higher as I watched Ruth back her car up a bit and turn into my driveway.

“I’ll help you look. I’m an amateur woodsman of sorts.” She chuckled, climbing out of her car. Despite the chill, my palms were starting to sweat. I wiped them on my jeans and decided it must have been from how I was using them to brace myself as I searched the ground. That was all.

“It’s not a whole lotta use. The ground’s still too hard for any real tracks.” I mumbled, pushing a hand through my hair and wishing she would just leave.

“Well, no harm in having a look around.” She was still smiling, but her voice was so matter of fact that I gave up and just accepted it. Ruth had wandered over to where I was standing and began inspecting the ground. I stood blushing for another minute before I bent over next to her.

Over the next 15 or so minutes we made our way across the yard, walking slowly and inspecting each step. At one point our shoulders brushed, and when I looked up there she was, so close I could feel her breath on my cheek. My heart beat so fast, I had to move away from her or I feared I would faint.

Eventually, we neared the edge of the woods. I stopped a few feet out and wouldn’t have gone any closer if not for Ruth. She kept going and called out to me that she’d found something just inside the tree line. Hesitant but unwilling to be both a fool and a coward, I followed. She’d found a place where recent snowmelt had turned the dirt into mud, and there were just a few footprints. They weren’t what I’d been expecting, though. I’d thought they’d be closer to cat paws, or taloned like a bird, but they were just human. The first couple were just the balls of her feet, but the other three were full prints of slender feet, undeniably human. Ruth turned to me.

“What exactly kind of Thing did you say you saw?” Ruth asked, and I described what I’d seen the best I could. When I’d finished, she smiled and shook her head just a little. “It’s a little far for them to travel, but I’d wager it was just a kid pulling some kinda prank. Probably won’t be back, either way.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t particularly want to say anything. It seemed to me that Ruth was treating me a bit like a tourist who doesn’t know a racoon from a cat, and I was a bit put off by that. Besides, there was something in Ruth’s expression that I couldn’t quite place. A distance in her eyes and a downward tilt to her eyebrows. It looked almost like concern, but then it was gone, and, as cliche as it sounds, I was left to wonder if it had been there at all.

“Well, I suppose you have things to be getting to. Don’t let me keep you any longer.” I may have been a tad sharper than necessary, but she’d bruised my ego, implying I didn’t know the difference between a teenager in a costume and a genuine Thing. She seemed to realize what I was upset about, though, and hurried to sooth me.

“Oh, dear, no, I didn’t mean that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I just meant, well, the footprints are certainly human, so there’s no cause for concern.” She smiled at me.

“I’d hardly say I’m concerned. I can handle myself just fine.” I said. Oh sure, I’d been worrying all morning about whether or not I could defend myself, but that was hardly the point. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was embarrassed to admit it. Good thing I knew better.

“I’m sure you can. Well, I do need to get going, but I’ll stop by later, if that’s alright with you.” Ruth was still smiling at me, and I couldn’t quite decide if it was genuine or placating. I nodded, and she was on her way. I plodded back inside and finished setting up the tv. It didn’t seem nearly so hard now.

Time crept on, and I found myself eyeing the clock more and more. Ruth hadn’t said when exactly she’d be back, but I had assumed it would be sometime near lunch. So as noon rolled around, I was disappointed to be eating alone. After lunch I found myself restless. I paced, not quickly but aimlessly, looking for things to do. The second I started in on a task, though, I was overwhelmed by the need to do something else and returned to pacing. Finally, there was a knock on the door. I hurried to answer, but stopped a foot short of answering and took a breath, chiding myself silently for acting like an excitable schoolgirl. Then I answered.

It was Ruth, of course. This time I invited her in, and we sat on the faded couch that had come with the house, sipping tea. The tv was on from where I’d been using it for background noise earlier, playing some nature documentary about elephants, but Ruth didn’t seem to mind.

“I wanted to apologize for offending you earlier. It’s a little too soon to be picking fights with my new neighbor.” Ruth smiled while she spoke, a little apologetic, a little hopeful.

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. I was a bit oversensitive about it, that’s all.” I smiled back, trying to match her levels of apology and hope, though I’ve no doubt mine was a sight more awkward than hers. After a brief pause, Ruth cleared her throat.

“Earlier, I got the idea that you knew what you were talking about, that maybe you had experience with Things. I was just wondering what sorts of Things you’d seen before.” Ruth waited patiently while I thought about the best way to answer. Of course I’d had the usual experiences that anyone has if they stay too deep in the woods for too long, but that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, I was sure. Really, there was only one story to tell.

“When I was a girl, I would hear something in the woods calling my name. It was almost always at night, and only from the woods. It never crossed into the open space between the woods and my house. My mother told me that that was just something that happened sometimes, and to just ignore it. Well, one day I’m outside, broad daylight, and I hear it. It sounds close too, closer than normal, and I know I shouldn’t but I look over my shoulder towards it. There it is, standing right at the edge of the woods, and it looks almost exactly like me. Except the proportions are just a little off, like someone tried to draw me from memory but hadn’t seen me in a while. Well, I ran back inside, but it didn’t chase me. I never heard it call my name again.” Well, to be truthful I’d heard it call my name twice more after that, but that didn’t make for a terribly good ending. Ruth let that sit for a minute, and we listened to the narrator describe how intelligent elephants are.

“That’s pretty interesting. I’ve heard of people having their names called, but nothing’s ever called mine. I did hear whistling, though. It definitely wasn’t a bird, but it didn’t seem to be from a person, either. I never saw the source, though. It always raised the hairs on the back of my neck.” Ruth stayed until nearly sunset, talking with me about Things, before heading back to her own house. I invited her to stay for dinner, of course, but she declined, saying that she couldn’t drive well at night and needed to leave before it got dark. As we said our goodbyes on the front porch, though, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. As much as it embarrasses me to admit it, it made me giddier than I’d been in a long while.

That night, and every night after for the next week and a half I stayed up late, waiting for any sign that the Thing might have come back. I didn’t mean to, at first. I would go to bed at a reasonable hour and then stare up at the ceiling for hours, thinking about Ruth (how her hair had looked in the sun, how her hand had been cool and burning at the same time when she lay it on my arm) at first, and then slowly spiraling back to the Thing (how she had seemed too big and too small at the same time, how bright her eyes had shone in the dark). I started staying up in the living room later and later each night. Ruth noticed how tired I was when she visited, and I saw more of that concern I’d seen at the end of our monster hunt. Ruth visited often. Not every day, but most days she’d at least stop in for a hello, sometimes staying for lunch, almost always departing with a kiss on the cheek. I waited for Ruth during the day, and, at night, I waited for the Thing. Finally, I got tired of waiting.

One evening, after Ruth had come and gone and I could be reasonably assured I wouldn’t be caught, I started setting out some food in the yard. A little fruit, some carrots, a potato, some scraps of chicken, and a little bit of old biscuit, since there was no way to be sure what she ate. I set it all out on a tarp, the plastic kind that crinkles when it moves, far enough into the middle that anything with regular sized limbs would have to step on the tarp to get at it. Then I went back inside and began waiting for one last time.

I had almost dozed off when I heard the tarp crinkle. I thought that perhaps I’d dreamed it, but after a pause there were a few more crinkles. I shot out of my chair and stumbled to the door, shaking off sleep as I went. I didn’t even pause to consider that there were plenty of other things it could have been. I just threw the door open, light spilling out onto the front yard, and there she was.

Her face was definitely human, the face of a young woman with dark hair and green eyes. Her eyes didn’t look so much brighter than normal now that she was lit up. She was petite, maybe 5’5” at most, and shaped like a track star. From her neck down to her elbows she was dripping in feathers, black as a raven and thickly layered. Antlers grew out of her tangled hair, ridged in a spiral like gazelle horns, but branching like a deer, too. Those were the first things I noticed, as we stood there, staring at each other. Then she shifted backwards and I noticed two more things. Firstly, that she stood on just the balls of her feet and kept her legs at an awkward bend. And secondly that, where her fingers should have been, were long, tapering, black claws, roughly the same size as fingers. She seemed to know where I was looking and curled her finger-claws in as much as she could, though it was clear that they weren’t as flexible as fingers. She shifted another step backwards, and I knew that she was about to high tail it out of there.

“Wait!” I yelled, and she paused, tipping her head to the right. She looked a little confused, a little startled, but also like she understood, so I kept talking. “It’s for you. The food. You can eat it here or take it with you, but don’t let me run you off. I won’t hurt you. There’s no need for fear.”

I watched as she slowly, ever so slowly, bent down. Her eyes never left mine, half wary and half curious. She picked up a pear in one hand, holding it so delicately that her claws didn’t even graze the peel, and in the other she picked up a piece of chicken and one of the biscuits. She straightened back up mostly and nodded at me just as slowly, before darting off back into the woods. I stood there, watching after her, for God only knows how long. Then the chill brought me back to my senses, and I went back inside.

After that it became something of a nightly routine. After that first night, I opened the door much calmer and greeted her quietly. I took note of what she ate and what she left, figuring out her favorites. I also noticed that she started coming earlier each night, just by a bit. I started waiting on the porch for her, and would chat quietly to her while she ate. It was almost like feeding a stray cat, if I didn’t think too hard about it. And I didn’t. Think too hard about it, that is, though I probably should have.

Of course, life went on during the day. Ruth would stop by and chat about anything and everything. We talked about her children (two, fraternal twins), and grandkids (three, all from her son), and my past (retired elementary school teacher, no family left to speak of), and everything in between. I was getting quite comfortable with her. I’d almost forgotten how much I didn’t like company.

Then, one afternoon as Ruth and I were sitting on the porch, enjoying the slowly warming weather, a vaguely familiar car pulled up into my driveway, behind Ruth’s Toyota and my beat up old Subaru. Out stepped that real estate agent, young and shiny, and he picked his way over to the porch, where he stopped in front of us and leaned against the railing like he was just visiting some friends. I was glad that there were only two chairs, hopefully he would get tired of standing and leave sooner rather than later. Ruth smiled at him.

“Well hello ladies! I just wanted to drop by and see how you were settling in. I was concerned, leaving you all the way out here, but I’m so glad to see you’re making friends!” He sounded like he was making a considerable effort to sound local, but I could tell he was about as local as a coconut. On top of that, he was using that gentle voice people use when they think you’re an idiot or senile, and I was neither. He gave us his most winsome smile, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Well. As you can see, I’m quite alright. So if that’s all, I’d like to get back to my afternoon, and you’re blocking the view.” I scowled just a bit, and the young man flushed slightly. Ruth eyed us both, looking terribly amused. The man recovered with a slight cough and fixed his smile back in place. He tried to hand me his business card, but when I wouldn’t take it he handed it to Ruth instead.

“Okay then. I should be heading back to work, but don’t hesitate to call if you need anything! Y’all take care now!” And with that he walked back to his car and left with barely a backwards glance. I scoffed.

“I oughta put up a no trespassing sign.” As soon as I said this, Ruth stopped holding back her laughter and started cackling up a storm.

“Lord, Lottie, there was no need to maul the poor kid, bless his heart.” She was grinning at me, and I cracked a little smile, too. She’d reached over and put her hand over mine, squeezing a little to let me know she was teasing.

“I just didn’t like his tone. People’ve been talking to me like I don’t have any sense my whole life, and now that I’m old I’m expected to sit back and take it? No sir I think not.” But I was laughing now too, and I let Ruth tease me good naturedly about being too prickly for my own good.

That night I told my little visitor all about it, and she surprised me by smiling a little at my imitation of the real estate man. I could tell she was warming up to me, and I liked that. By the end of the second week she was arriving just after sundown, and she had started eating while standing flat footed, not poised on the balls of her feet to run. I considered it a major victory. I didn’t think there was much more to it.

Until, one night, she surprised me again. She had finished eating, and I had finished talking, and I had said a soft goodnight, when she paused and lifted her chin. There was a strange tension in her jaw, and I watched her work at it for a moment before she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Th...Hank you. Good ni-ght.” Her voice was rough, almost callused , if a voice can be called such. Her whole body seemed tense, and her eyes locked onto mine, partly showing fear, partly issuing a challenge.

“Good, goodnight. You’re welcome.” I finally managed, and she nodded, running off. I sat there for a long time, before slowly making my way inside and upstairs to bed. My mind was full of nothing but a sort of buzzing static for a good long while. Then, all at once, the thoughts piled in on top of each other. It didn’t seem like feeding a stray cat anymore. If she had language, perhaps her face wasn’t the only part of her that was human. I wasn’t sure what to do about that. I decided that the first step would be telling Ruth. She could help me figure out what to do.

The morning came too soon, a drizzly mess of a day. All day I was listless, and the weather sure didn’t help. It was too wet to be outside, but not wet enough to be relaxing. There was no rain-on-a-tin-roof to soothe me, just an endless drizzle of gray. I paced from room to room, hoping that Ruth would come by, but she never did. The day ran away like the rain down the mountain, and soon I was setting out some food. After a bit of deliberation, I kept the food on the porch, to avoid getting it soggy. I had a feeling that my visitor wouldn’t mind so much, seeing how she lived outside as far as I knew, but no matter how used to the rain you are, dry food is always better than soggy. I set the food away from my chair, though, thinking she might still be a bit skittish.

I almost thought she wouldn’t come. To be fair, it was difficult to tell when the sun was setting, I may have started waiting too soon. But she arrived, and, after the briefest of hesitations, came up on the porch.

“Don’t worry about me, just c’mon and get out of the rain for a bit.” I tried not to stare at her as she ate, but I couldn’t help but look over occasionally, sneaking glances. She sat on the porch, and used her finger claws like sporks, partially skewering, partially scooping. I rocked for a while, staring out into the gloom, gathering my courage. I waited until she had finished her meal before speaking up again.

“Do you have a name?” I tried to keep my rocking steady, but surely she could tell I was nervous. She sat very still. I could see her jaw working.

“Beebeeee”

“Bibi?”

She nodded and looked up at me. She hadn’t left yet, and I stopped rocking to look at her. She was definitely younger than I’d thought, from this close up. Early 20s, at the latest. She was dirty, too, and heavily freckled so that I could hardly tell what was dirt and what was a sunkiss. Her feathers, which I had took to maybe be a shawl she was wearing but could now see were certainly growing out of her, were stuck together with some sort of oily mud. Her hair was what my mother would’ve called a rats nest, though her antlers seemed well cared for. Her claws, too, were shiny and clean.

“Bibi? I wonder if I might...if you’d like, I could get you clean. Run you up a bath, maybe?” I tried to make my voice gentle as I reached a hand out to her. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I left my hand hanging in the air for a minute and, slowly, Bibi placed her claws gently in my hand. I smiled at her, trying hard not to be unnerved by the texture, which was not unlike a bird’s talon.

I didn’t quite get her into a bath, but I did manage a brush through her hair. There were a few rough spots, when the brush hit a snag and she hissed in pain I worried that she would bolt. I took to shushing her like you might a horse in a thunderstorm. Just a bit surprising, it seemed to work. She sat at the foot of my rocker, and I told quiet, old stories to her. While I worked on her hair, I gave her a damp washcloth to take to her face. She tried very hard to hold it gently, but by the time I was done with her hair the washcloth was shredded. She looked up at me, panicked.

“It’s alright. I have plenty of washcloths, no need to fuss over one.” I tried not to use that voice the real estate agent had used on me, the one I hated so much. She stared back at me.

“Iiih-ts alriitght” she repeated with some difficulty. She did seem to be getting better at speaking, but I couldn’t help wondering how long she’d gone without talking. I nodded and smiled reassuringly.

“Bibi, would it be alright if Ruth met you, too?” I’d been telling her about Ruth, of course, but if I was going to tell Ruth about Bibi, it was only fair that Bibi have some say in it.

She tipped her head to the side, considering. Finally, she nodded.

“It’s alllriight.” She said, a little clearer this time.

She left after that. I wanted to invite her inside, to stay somewhere warm and dry for the night, but I thought that might be too much too quickly. I was starting to reconsider my policy on guest rooms. As I lay down, I tried not to think about Bibi, in the woods, alone all night in the cold and rain. I certainly didn’t think about what may have led her to be there, and at such a young age, too. Or how long she must have been there, for her voice to be so scratchy from disuse. I fell asleep, not thinking of any of these things.

The next day was cloudy, but dryer. I was almost prepared for Ruth’s visit, when it came. I made sandwiches and tea, and we sat on the porch, having a nice lunch while I tried to bring the words from my throat into my mouth. Finally I was out of time.

“Ruth, do you remember, a few weeks ago, when I told you about what I saw in my yard?” I watched her stiffen just a bit.

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen her, more’n a few times.” Ruth stiffened more, then sighed.

“I thought you might, but I’d hoped you wouldn’t. The last few people who lived here saw her, just once or twice, but it scared them something awful and they left. I didn’t want...well I just enjoy your company so much. I worried you might leave too.” She looked away, a faint flush creeping up her neck and dusting over her cheek bones. I reached out and took her hand in mine, squeezing gently until she looked back at me.

“Come back later this evening, or stay with me here until then. I want to introduce you to her.” Her eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but notice the blush darken on her cheeks as she squeezed my hand back.

“Introduce me to her? What d’you mean? Things can’t talk, Lottie.”

“This one can. Her name is Bibi, and she’s actually a sweetheart.”

Ruth ended up spending the rest of the day with me as I told her all about Bibi, and what to expect. As evening approached, I could tell Ruth was a bit nervous. Maybe a bit more than a bit. I took both her hands in mine, and they were shaking just a little. I smiled, trying to be reassuring, and then leaned in a kissed her, just gently.

“Don’t worry about a thing. It’s all okay. And if you’re really too nervous, you can always say no. You can stay in here if you’d like, or go home if you’d rather. But it would mean a lot for you to come out with me.”

The introduction could have been smoother, but it could’ve been rougher, too. Bibi had said it was alright for Ruth to come, but I still didn’t know what to expect from her. She didn’t bolt off into the woods, though, and eventually I was able to coax her onto the porch and introduce her properly. Ruth, though she was startled at first, handled it well, and once Bibi got close enough for her to really have a look at, her eyes softened.

“Oh, poor dear.” Ruth said, reaching out a hand to smooth Bibi’s feathers, feeling of the oily mud that I’d yet to get rid of. “We’ll have to do something about that. Some warm vinegar water, maybe. That’ll clear up most things.” Bibi, after sitting a spell, was even able to relax into Ruth’s touch while she ate.

Ruth stayed late into the night, making plans with me about Bibi. The first thing we should do, according to Ruth, was figure out if Bibi had a history as a human, or if she’d always been this way. Tomorrow, we decided, we would drive down into town and take a look at old missing persons reports and newspapers to look for clues. After that it was just a matter of cleaning her up and settling her in to live with me. By that point it was too late for Ruth to be driving home, but I was glad to have her stay the night.

I hadn’t had company for breakfast in quite a while, but it wasn’t nearly so awkward as I thought it might be. We fit well together. And it certainly made going into town together easier. The police station was not terribly helpful, but the library had plenty of old newspapers. After a good couple hours of clicking through slides and flipping through physical copies, I finally landed on a report that seemed promising. I waved Ruth over and showed her the article.

It was a short piece, just a single column with a small photograph at the bottom. It listed an Abigail Waters, age 5, as missing following what appeared to be a domestic dispute turned tragedy. Though there weren’t many details in the paper and no follow-up article, Ruth and I concluded that after whatever awful thing happened, Bibi had fled into the woods and simply stayed there. The paper was dated to nearly 20 years ago. The picture showed a tiny little thing with long dark hair and unusually bright green eyes.

“I wonder when she grew her feathers and her antlers and her claws, before or after the tragedy, all at once or piece by piece.” I whispered, half because we were in a library, half because this was just the sort of thing I felt should be whispered about. Ruth looked contemplative.

“When bad things happen to people,” she began slowly, also whispering, “sometimes they grow claws or fangs or spikes. Usually they’re on the inside, they just happened to be on the outside for Bibi.” Her eyes still scanned the clipping while I thought about that. I guessed that it made sense. Wasn’t my prickliness, as Ruth put it, just claws on the inside? Ruth tapped me on the arm and pointed to a detail I’d overlooked before. There was a smaller picture, off to the side a bit so I’d assumed it went with the article next to it, showing the area Bibi had gone missing in.

“The road isn’t named, but that’s right about where your house sits, Lottie.” I nodded and swallowed hard.

“You said the other people who’d lived in that house saw her, too. How many times did she try to go home?” I looked up at Ruth and found her already looking back at me. We didn’t have to speak to know that from now on, there’d be no more trying. Bibi was coming home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was some two years ago, now. I sit in my rocker, Ruth sits in hers, and Bibi sits on the steps. Her claws clink against the glass in her hands as she takes a sip of lemonade, feathers shining deep purple in the sunlight. She’s keeping an eye on the older two grandkids as they run around the yard. The youngest one sits by my feet, her knees pulled up to her chest, her dark brown eyes staring up at me.

“Of course, it took your parents more time to adjust. Your mother worried over Bibi’s claws, thought she might hurt one of you. But she never has, even accidentally, and Bibi won her and your father over in the end.” I reach down and pat the little dear on the head.

“That’s my favorite story.” She says, smiling up at me. There’s no trace of tears now, the scrape on her knee that brought her over to my chair in the first place all but forgotten. She hops up and scampers back out into the yard to play with her big brothers, giving Bibi a quick hug as she passes by.

Bibi comes over to take her place by my feet, and I make a mental note to ask her once again later if she’s sure she doesn’t want her own rocking chair. She leans her head against my knee. I can feel her working her jaw slightly, a tic she never quite lost, but her voice isn’t nearly so rusty anymore.

“It’s my favorite story, too. Thanks for bringing me home.”

#writing #short story #original work #this one's a little longer #cryptid

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