The Untold by Courtney Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

the edge of the grass. Jack Brown knew Fitz’s prints, the size and weight of them in the dirt, and he knew the length and unevenness of his stride. He pressed his fingers into the indentations in the ground and he knew they were not made by Fitz. He guessed it. Jessie had worn Fitz’s boots. She had killed him and she was gone.
    Was this what he was to wait for after all?
    He mounted his horse with the grim haul and headed back towards the forest.

T he old woman got her way. She picked up my mother by the hands; still cursing her, the old man picked up my mother by the feet and they loaded her into the cart next to the dead lamb.
    It was a slow ride back to the base of the mountains. Leading on his own horse, the old man pulled Houdini along, tight-reined, punishing him with a kick to his flanks every time he turned towards Jessie. The old woman rode unevenly behind them.
    When my mother woke it was dark. She arched her neck back to see the old woman, her hair swinging from side to side as she rode, her horse pulling the weight of the cart, jolting as they moved up the slope.
    The moon was still thin but the stars were bright and lit the trees enough to make shadows. As the cart moved through the forest, the shadows passed over it. The cart canted more and more with the slope and my mother could see the path they had already traveled. On that path she could see herself standing, and then she could see that self growing distant. She turned away from it. She trained her eyes between the wooden slats of the cart and out into the forest, but there again she saw herself, or versions of herself, like children running between trees.

    I NTO THE WOODS: the game they played when the moon was full and later, when they had their courage, when the moon was dark.Their house was not far, but not visible, so the forest was all and their own.
    Jessie was a child then, too tall for her age, too wild and too tall, trying to find her father, her sister, her brothers, all of them yelling to her,
I’m here, I’m here
,
then running between the trees. She crouched low, held on to a flashlight, a new thing of light, and turned it sharply in the dark.
    I’m here!
A body would leap and weave between the trees.
    I’m here!
    She would run until she felt her heart exploding.
    One night she ran so far that the sounds of them were lost to her and she felt they were gone, and not just gone but gone forever, and the feeling was real and she could not hold back her sobbing.
    Where are you?
    Through her tears the trees were doubling and shifting like legged creatures.
    Where are you? Is that you?
    Her father stepped out from behind a tree in the distance.
    Jessie!
he yelled.
I’m here.
    She ran to him.
    You’re crying, my love.
    I thought I’d lost you.
She grabbed hold of his arm and wiped her eyes with his sleeve.
    Darling
, he said,
you can’t lose me.
    Her father took her hand and they walked along the broken path until her two brothers and her sister leapt out and said,
We’re here!
Then they all walked together, all holding hands, taking turns with the flashlight, their feet never touching the circle of light that was always ahead.

M y mother did not know what world she was in. She was in and out of feverish dreams and of course I tried to reach her. I could not reach out with hands or feet, so I bawled out,
Mother, there is life! Don’t die. Not yet!
And I willed us as one and I imagined it was us riding together hell-bent up the mountain, disappearing into its shadows. All was dark there and we were protected. But even in my dreaming, where I wanted my mother to feel peace, I could only feel her terror—and soon I realized that this was not my dream at all.
    My mother was dreaming me back.
    In her dream, we were not escaping together into the mountains. She had us in the old woman’s cart, but it was not a horse towing us, it was the old woman herself. The cart was bouncing over rocks and my