The front door swung open with a long squeal, and Mike stood in the entryway with a frown. "Winston, it appeared again."
"Another old woman's bra in your locker?" I joked and grinned. "You should wear your wedding ring to work."
Mike didn't even crack a smile like he usually did when I teased him. Instead, he shook his head and brushed his mop of shaggy, brown hair out of his eyes. I set my knife on the cutting board and tried to read his gaze which flickered from me to the kitchen and den windows. He shut the door and set his messenger bag on a tidy wooden bench.
"It was that statue. The one that looks like an eye ripped out of someone's socket."
Not him too. People in this town were losing their minds about the rumour of a haunted statue bringing bad luck. I returned to cutting up kale for my smoothie, although my hands hesitated like they were punishing me for avoiding sugar all week.
"That's just teenagers looking to go viral with a creepy-ass stunt. Though whoever made it should stick to sculpting or carving. It'd make a decent horror movie set piece." The students I coached after school considered social media fame their ticket out of this place, and everyone snapped photos of that statue for the likes.
Before this hype, no one understood why I'd chosen quiet Corbeau Woods over the city when Mike and I had met and fallen in love. I craved that bland, predictable atmosphere. It screamed normal and uneventful, which made it the perfect place to one day raise a family if we could ever get a coveted adoption approval.
Mike sighed, traipsed over, and hugged me from the side. The hairs sticking up from the top of his head tickled my nose as the odour of sanitizer and seniors hit me. "It could be more serious than that. Remember how it showed up at Mrs. Crawford's home a few weeks ago?"
"And?"
According to the handful of clients I trained, Corbeau Woods hadn't seen a scandal in over five years, so everyone and their dog were spreading this gossip like the stomach flu. I didn't want to get caught up in it. I needed to be clear-headed if I wanted potential clients and possibly employers to respect and consider me. As boring as the local job openings sounded, my personal training career in this town was as lucrative as a grandmother's hustle knitting baby booties.
Mike stepped away and straightened his black and orange pumpkin scrubs. I still found it adorable he used his wardrobe to brighten the residents' days at the care home.
"No one has seen her all week. Maybe for the past two weeks."
"You've watched too many terrible crime shows. Everyone knows Mrs. Crawford goes 'missing' a few times a year along with her cat. She'll reappear for the pumpkin pie competition like she always does."
I put the kale into the blender alongside chopped cucumber. The elderly woman often trekked into the woods for days or weeks to harvest different herbs and plants which she shared when she caught us walking past her place. Her habits and occasional mutterings brought old memories to mind, but I pushed them away. Keep your head clear, Winston.
"It's different this time. Folks are worried, and the statue appeared at other places too." Keys rattled as Mike dug his hands into his pockets.
I measured the protein powder. "It's a prank, Mike. No need to worry."
"What if it's not, and someone is targeting people? Mrs. Crawford is just down the road from us. We're outsiders to the town and..." Mike adjusted his thick, black glasses and swallowed.
I set down the measuring cup and ran my palms along his tense shoulders. His muscles relaxed as my hands and thumbs kneaded his back. Once he'd let out a groan of contentment, I lightened my touch.
"We looked at plenty of towns before choosing Corbeau Woods. The crime rate is low, the town is rustically charming, and most people aren't prejudiced assholes." I kept the exceptions to myself to avoid getting Mike involved in more conflicts that would only worsen the problem. Some would be mouthy pricks for life. The community was better than my hometown and didn't have any weird paranormal folktales, the eye fad excluded.
"Until we know what's happening, we should be careful. I bought motion sensor lights from the hardware store."
I raised an eyebrow and stopped massaging his back. "And you pulled out the statue story to convince me to install them tonight?" I teased.
He crossed his arms. "You are the only person who isn't concerned about it!"
"That's because you spend your days with superstitious oldies with nothing better to do than speculate. But if it reassures you, I'll install them." I added the last ingredients to the smoothie and blended it.
Mike scrunched his nose. "I don't know how you drink that stuff. I'd lose my mind." He dug around the freezer for the microwavable 'emergency' work meals that disappeared quickly when I didn't cook.
I poured my drink into a cup. "It's loaded with nutrients. Unlike those things." He gave me a skeptical look as I grabbed the keys to the shed. After four days, I was sick of the taste but wasn't about to admit it. "Are the lights in the SUV?"
After Mike nodded, I snagged the smoothie and left to get my tools. The wind had picked up since I'd coached the soccer team after school. The tall pine trees that shaded our yard swayed against the yellowish sky, that hazy colour that preceded a nasty storm. I brought the motion-sensor lights inside to check out the instructions in hopes they were simple. He had bought enough for the front and back porches. He must have believed we were in danger. I should have been more reassuring.
"The lights are a good call."
My words put a smile on his lips until rustling and clang at the back of the house made us tense.
I grabbed my phone and knife from the block.
"Not worried, eh?" Mike grinned, though I knew him well enough to sense he was masking his fear with jokes.
I left the kitchen and walked into the den whose large windows revealed no threats, just the surrounding forest. To soften my footsteps, I crossed the shaggy rug and arrived at the back door. Leaves crunched and rustled below the nearby open window. Maybe a fox or a raccoon? I carried the knife in case it was something bigger. After I turned on the porch light, I crept outside to find nothing but our deck furniture and barbecue.
I descended the crooked stairs I'd been meaning to fix all summer which groaned under my weight and paused at the bottom. Only the wind roared, rocking the surrounding mature pine trees and rustling the leaves. No attacker or statue appeared from the brush. Then, the bushes along the side of the house shook.
"Hello?"
As I approached, my foot collided with something firm and warm that vanished. My grip on the knife tightened until my brain calculated the size into something medium and pet-sized. When I searched the ground, I found nothing. A few meows and a hiss echoed as a furry orange body slinked forward. The cat's matted fur was filled with burrs, yet I recognized those uneasy green eyes. My shoulders relaxed. That statue prank was getting in my head too.
"Easy there, Milo," I said. "Where's your momma?"
I swivelled around the darkening forest, hoping to glimpse Mrs. Crawford's silhouette. Perhaps she was back from a forest harvest and had everyone worried for nothing. The cat scowled at me as a person might.
"Mrs. Crawford?"
The wind howled through the treetops. A crash echoed in the dried leaves nearby, making Milo scamper off. A dead tree branch, curved like an elbow joint, lay two metres from me. I waited another minute to check what else was lurking, but the cat seemed to have been the noisy culprit. As he yowled and stared into my eyes, I knew I couldn't leave him outside to become bear food. This wasn't the first time he'd come into our yard. Mrs. Crawford had attributed it to his wandering spirit.
A brass object gleamed just past him on the forest floor, I knelt and picked up the candelabra my father had dropped off last month when he visited. We'd had it on the deck last night, and I could have sworn I put it inside. The thing made me uneasy, bringing back too many memories of my mother, but if I hinted at that, Mike would read into it and force a conversation I'd successfully avoided for our eight years of marriage. My mother died when I was a kid, and that's all there was to it.
"Milo. Come and we'll get you some supper." I lured the reluctant cat up the stairs by pulling out a tall piece of grass and waving it as I climbed the steps. He swatted at it as we ascended.
The door creaked as I slid it open and let in the mangy cat. A gasp echoed from the kitchen a few seconds later. "Winston, you're letting in strays!"
"Don't you recognize him? It's Milo. He's the one making all the noise."
Mike bent down and inspected the feline. "He has no collar and looks like he's all matted. How do you know it's him?"
"How many green-eyed ginger tom cats live in this town and wander out this far?"
Mike filled an old margarine tub with water and left it on a mat on the hardwood floor. Milo dived into it. "What is it with you and eyes?"
"They can tell you a lot about a person," I said.
Mike's honey eyes darted between Milo and me behind his glasses like they did when he was intimidated. It was cute. I wished I could protect him from the world. Not that he needed me to, he could hold his own in a fight, which was another reason I loved him.
As the wind swayed the trees again, Mike asked, "Are you sure that's all it was?"
"That and a little percussion." I held up the candle holder.
Mike frowned and reached out for the object before inspecting it for scratches. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me as the metal seemed to glow for a second. "How did this get out there?"
I shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine." Milo stared at Mike and yowled loudly. "I'll stop by Mrs. Crawford's in the morning to bring him home."
"If you can find her."
"She'll be there or back soon. I'm sure of it."
My mother had acted the same way. Except she'd been running from 'monsters' who'd burned their images into her mind, only for her to slip back into our lives days later. When the world quieted, I could still hear her whispering, "They're coming, Winnie. Hide with me, they're coming!"
***
Image credit: Florian Haun from Unsplash
Thank you for reading! If you spot anything that needs fixing, please let me know as I'm always open to constructive feedback to make this the best story it can be.