Blackbirch Woods

By Meredith Anne DeVoe

"At false dawn, Willis set the silent dove down among the fir branches. Then he sat back down and bowed his head to his knees, awaiting the agonizing moment when daybreak would again be denied him..."

Seven-year-old Violet Aubrey has no idea that the young man she meets in the woods at night is over two hundred years old. Years do not change him, but as Violet grows, so does her bond with him.

But Willis is trapped in the dark... will love be enough to bring them out of the woods?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meredith Anne DeVoe
• Release date: May 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458100221

Meredith Anne DeVoe

Meredith DeVoe grew up in Connecticut and spent several years vagabonding around America before settling in Vermont, where she married Robert DeVoe and had two children before moving to Upstate New York, and then Africa as a missionary. She has also been a cook, sawmill worker, paperhanger, artist’s model, homeschool mom, dogsled driver, and briefly, a professional musician. She has a Master's in Curriculum and Teaching and currently teaches school in Nigeria.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1832

The woods were in tatters after a rapacious evening. Branches and twigs lay all over the forest floor, in clusters of pine needles and rags of wilting leaves. There was a raw, green smell in the humid air, a tang of pine and birch. Now the windstorm was far away, only at the edge of awareness. Sheet lightning still flared and rumbled low. The susurrus of night insects was just beginning to return. Willis Wood wandered dazed through the moonlit tangle.

Beneath the wreck of a fallen fir tree he heard a faint scrabbling. He pulled broken branches aside and found two mourning doves. One of them had a broken back, pinned by a branch; its mate was dancing back and forth with anxiety, its dark eyes round and glistening. With his fingertips he found the feathered lining of their ruined nest, and the broken eggs, already congealing. He caught the living bird, the female, and let the branches fall back again, clutching the dove to his chest.

Through the soft gray feathers he felt the dove’s warm, skipping heartbeat next to his own. The darkness calmed the bird, and it soon ceased to struggle. Willis sat down, treasuring the fragile life of the creature, which soon slept in his gentle hands.

At false dawn, Willis set the silent dove down among the fir branches. Then he sat back down and bowed his head to his knees, awaiting the agonizing moment when daybreak would again be denied him, and knowing the unmated bird would soon cease mourning and find another.

PART 1- SHADOWS

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,

In the secret places of the cliff,

Let me see your face,

Let me hear your voice…

For love is as strong as death,

Jealousy as cruel as the grave.

-Song of Solomon

WILLIS

1999

Violet’s brother Dennis bicycled down the overgrown farm lane, standing on the pedals of the battered mountain bike while she rode the seat. There was no place to brace her feet, and she balanced both their sleeping bags on her lap clutched in her arms and holding the back of her brother’s flannel shirt with her fingers, so the ride was precarious and marked by screams of childish laughter and several spills. Each time, Dennis managed to hook an arm around her, keeping her from the quartzite boulders and raspberry brambles along the path.

Her Dad set up the tent on the campsite spot leveled for the purpose, and immediately Violet and her sisters, Greta and Jill, stripped off the t-shirts and shorts they wore over their bathing suits, tossed them into the tent, and ran to the river. Soon all six of the Aubreys were splashing in the river. Dad and Dennis hefted large stones, continually enlarging and reinforcing their swim area.

Generations ago her family had owned a thousand-acre farm here, bordered by Blackbirch River; most of it had been sold off after her grandparents passed away, but her parents had wisely held on to twenty acres by the creek as a family camping and fishing spot, with a right-of-way to the road. The old farmhouse was a quarter-mile away and occupied by a retired couple, the Cronins, who let them park their car and walk the lane through overgrown pastures and the old wood lot to the river. Dad had even built a stone fireplace with a grill that smoked a lot, but it made the place seem friendly and familiar. There once had been a picnic table too, but it had rotted and the family had burned it a couple of years back.

In the evening, the fireplace was stocked with deadfall from the woods nearby, and Mom wire-brushed the rusted grate over the hearth and cooked hot dogs over the flames. Greta whined because no one had brought ketchup, and Dennis, who would leave at summer’s end for college, teased her that only weirdoes ate hot dogs with ketchup. Dad peeled oranges for the girls, and Dennis showed them how to squeeze the orange oil from the peels near the fire to produce a fleeting burst of fragrant flame. The kids spent hours poking sticks and pine cones into the fire. Violet was the youngest, and was fed too many s’mores washed down by too much soda pop. She fell asleep leaning against her Dad.

In the night she woke, needing to relieve herself. The moonlight was brilliant, so she decided not to wake her Mom. She saw a metal flashlight glinting by the zipper to the screen flap, so she grabbed it and went out to find the little hole her father had dug for the family’s use, with a roll of toilet tissue hung on a forked stick and covered with a plastic bag.

Somehow, after, she got turned around. She could hear the river murmuring not far away, but couldn’t seem to get back to it. The moon hid its bright face behind a cloud. Then she tripped and dropped the flashlight, and the batteries fell out. She groped among the detritus, finding the smooth, heavy cylinders and assembling the flashlight by feel. But when she put them back in, the flashlight wouldn’t work. She shook it, rattling the batteries and flicking the switch repeatedly. She started crying, and just as she was about to call out for help, someone appeared.

Hello, he called softly so as not to startle her. Hey there, your tent is just over this way, he had said in a reassuring voice. A young and kindly face appeared, vague in the night. He offered his hand, but she hesitated. Just so you won’t trip again, he said, as she wavered. It wasn’t that she mistrusted him, but she was seven and too old to be led by the hand. Still, she took it and was grateful because he led her confidently over the scattered rocks and fallen branches in the darkness until they came to the tent.

In the clearing, the moon reappeared, revealing the man—a young one, and he looked nice. His hair was brown, but not dark, like her own; his white shirt looked a little dressy and out-of-place in the forest. Reluctantly she let go the warm, firm hand that had guided her. Thanks for helping me. She didn’t want him to leave just yet, and said suddenly, You want a marshmallow? Without waiting for his reply, she went to the metal, raccoon-proof food chest and fished inside for the bag. She handed him one slightly squashed Sno-Puf, which he accepted, examining the white confection in the moonlight before tentatively biting into it.

My name is Violet. What’s yours?

My name is Willis. He looked at the bitten marshmallow in his hand. This is very sweet, he said, his voice slightly muffled.

Shh, talk quiet. You don’t want to wake my Dad. He’s grumpy in the night. Haven’t you ever had a marshmallow before?

He swallowed. I know a flower called ‘marsh mallow’. They bloom along the creek bank here in springtime. But I don’t think they taste like this. He smiled, and Violet smiled back.

We only eat them when we go camping. I like them a little burned from the fire. The gooey sweet part, and the crispy burned part, go together.

She sat down on the edge of the hearth, where the warmth of the embers could still be felt radiating against her back. He sat down next to her, removing a bow and quiver from his shoulder and leaning them against the hearth. We’re camping. What are you doing out in the woods in the middle of the night? she whispered.

He swallowed the last of the marshmallow. Would you believe me if I told you that this is where I live? He gestured outward, at the trees surrounding them.

In the woods? Like a hippie or something?

He smiled again, and this time she saw a flash of teeth. Not exactly. He examined his sticky fingers for a moment, then sucked the remaining marshmallow sweetness off of them.

Violet thought about that for a minute, and in the silence, held the marshmallow bag toward him, which he waved away with a no-thank-you. She set the bag down. Where is your house?

I don’t have any house. I used to. A hundred years and more ago. But I made a mistake, and I have no place to rest now. I just walk around… He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

That sounds kind of boring. Are you a hunter? She glanced curiously at the bow.

Now and again. Although, I guess you could say I am hunting for something. There is one thing I need to find, and then I can leave these woods and live in a house again.

Violet’s face scrunched in puzzlement. What thing do you need?

He seemed to debate with himself for a moment. Then he shrugged.

I really only need one thing—a bride.

Violet bit her lip. It sounded like the kind of fairy tale she was supposed to be too old for, and she checked his expression to see if he was teasing her like a little kid. But he looked wistful, and his gaze was not on her.

…She would have to be very brave, though, because there is something she would have to do for me, something hard. But if she did it, then I would be free. Violet thought that his voice almost choked on the last word. She decided he meant it, strange as it sounded, and that fairy tales weren’t so bad anyway.

It’ll be a long time before I’m old enough to be a bride, said Violet, And I’m not all that brave, as you found out.

Willis looked at her in the moonlight, and a warm smile passed over his face. He swallowed, and his hand went to his heart. Before you know it, you will be all grown. I can wait, Violet, my friend. He sighed, and reached for a hunting knife that was thrust through his belt. He picked through the few pieces of deadwood that were stacked, unburned, by the hearth, and started carving the bark from a stick the thickness of his thumb. Do you want to know how it comes about that I can’t leave these woods?

Sure.

I used to live with my family, a few miles from here.

Violet interrupted. How come your voice sounds a tiny bit English, or something?

Hmm. My Mum and Dad came from Scotland. I suppose I sound a bit like them. We had a farm, not so far from here. Working on the farm, we mostly stayed home all the time, except for school and church. But in the midsummer, aside from milking, there wasn’t so much work to do. The crops were in, the calves were born. I liked to go hunting then, he said, touching the bow, the knife in his hand flashing briefly. "I was out one night when I shouldn’t have been, because my friends and I had been drinking. Rum, you know. Terrible, wicked stuff. I wasn’t used to that because my family was strict about such things, we went to church three times a week, teetotalers… but I guess I just wanted to try it. Anyway, as I was walking in the woods, in the dark, I took a wrong path. There was a terrible wind all around, and the stars got very, very bright. I was a little afraid, but felt reckless and wild because of the drink, and the wind. I could see ghostly shapes flying around the woods, shapes like people, and like horses and deer, and many other things. I had heard the stories—the windstorms of Wentham had been rumored to be more than wind, and not the weather of this world.

"Things around me started to change, to look like something else. I saw faces in the bark of the trees and hunched forms in the boulders. I didn’t believe they were real, but it was still scary and exciting. And the muttering. The sounds of the river and the wind sounded like unhappy voices murmuring their discontent, and it had somewhat to do with me. But there was also a sweet whispering that made me strain to hear what it had to say to me.

"The shapes came closer to me, and I could see faces, people. Then I could hear voices more clearly. They swirled around me. One face came forward. It was frightening, but it was also