The Paper Garden by Caitlin Vance

Author:Caitlin Vance
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 7.13 Books
Published: 2021-06-09T12:53:37+00:00

Peter and I leave our shoes under a tree and wade through the creek. We do this often. The further along we go, away from all the houses, the deeper the creek gets, the more wild the surroundings. Stranger and louder noises from animals, thicker trees, colder. There are more and more blackberry bushes growing along the sides of the stream, covered in thorns. They grow in towards the stream and above our heads, crowd us in like a tunnel. We continue until the blackberry bushes from the left and the right come together in a wall in front of us, keeping us out of whatever lies beyond. The only way to get past the wall would be to swim underneath, and even if we did that we’d still get scratched.

On our walks through the creek we always find interesting items: ripped pages with the words smudged out, beer cans and cigarette buts, a tire, and once even a doll’s head.

“Peter,” I say, “did you see the two moons in the sky last night?”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. How could I miss them?”

“Nobody else saw them,” I said.

“Hmm.”

“Maybe they’re imaginary.”

“Or,” he said, “maybe they’re real, but only we can see them.”

“Maybe,” I say, to be polite, even though that is ridiculous. “Why do you think there are two?”

“Maybe the regular moon found a friend. Or she had a baby.”

I shrug. We are almost to the end. “Peter,” I say, “Should I swim under today?”

“Your Grandma will get mad,” he says. “You’ll get your sweater wet, not just your pants.”

“I don’t care,” I say.

He says nothing.

“What’s back there?” I ask. But, of course, he doesn’t know. Even if he does live there, he’s not even real. He only knows what I know.

The blackberry bushes become transparent, and I think I see a woman’s face peeking out from behind a distant tree again, her hair like moss. She looks like Mom. She sees me and pulls her face back all the way behind the tree. But her arm sticks out and points right at me, then points towards the place where the blackberry bushes meet.

I take a deep breath and dive in.

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