The Dark Woods: Chapter 1 Excerpt
A/N: New reads in The Book Club! This excerpt is from the first chapter of my middle-grade novella, The Dark Woods.
In which Monique and James move to a new house, learn to use a hammer, and save a life.
Monique Washington and James Mills gawked at their new backyard. Much more sizeable than the yard at their old house in the city, it stretched from the large covered porch to the woods’ edge. Monique estimated she could do at least fifteen cartwheels in a row before running out of room. A single fig tree stood at the center of the ankle-high green grass. Small, pear-shaped fruits sprouted from its branches. Beyond it, a modest shed squatted near the yard’s far edge filled with rusting garden implements. Its paint faded and peeling. Birdsong and the sound of the wind in the trees replaced honking car horns and jackhammers. The scents of tar and fast food swapped for fragrant flowers and freshly tilled earth. It was an unknown world, and Monique and James longed for adventure.
“What kind of tree do you think this is?” James asked, hoisting himself over a low branch of the fig tree. James, a cautious eater, rarely ventured from his mac and cheese, pizza, and hot dogs menu. The fig’s dusty bark smooth beneath his playground calloused hands.
“A climbing tree,” Monique said with authority. “I don’t see any other kinds of trees around here.” The bubbly edge of wonder lifted her voice, a broad smile pulled at her lips, and lit up her eyes. Monique, a more severe soul than James, wasn’t prone to giddy emotions. James could tell she was just as excited about exploring the woods as he was.
The pair had become quick friends two years earlier in second grade when a couple of bigger boys started bullying James. Monique had stepped in and set those boys straight. James loved her direct, no-nonsense approach to, well, everything.
At pickup that day, James and Monique filed out of class to find their parents chatting and laughing at the school gate. Since his mother’s death a year earlier, James had noticed his dad’s lack of a smile. The sight of it stopped him dead. Monique ran on, yelling ‘mommy,’ and jumped into the woman’s outstretched dark arms.
That ordinary day two years ago had been more eventful than any of them could have guessed. Now they were a family of four with a new house in a new town.
Monique hoisted herself onto the branch and perched next to James. “What do you think lives in the woods?”
James pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Rabbits for sure. Maybe foxes. Lots of birds.” It was James’s turn to be authoritative. He loved reading books and watching documentaries about wild animals.
“Wolves?” Monique asked, her expression tinged with concern, but the pregnant light remained in her eyes.
James didn’t answer but surveyed the shady trees spread before them. The thick canopy blotted out most of the sunny day. What dapple light reached the leafy floor did little to dispel the eerie mood both kids recognized. It was the same feeling one got from shadows cast by nightlights. The same tingling that bloomed in your belly when you dangle your feet off the bed. The dark of the unknown. But this carried an unmistakable contrast. The shadows in a night-darkened house might frighten children, but the woods were genuine, dangerous. One’s potential to get lost, hurt, or attacked by a wild animal loomed in the dark patches. Every city kid knows the woods aren’t safe. Otherwise, fairy tales would have nothing evil happen in them. Those stories carried a warning. James and Monique could sense that warning on the cool air drifting towards them like a dream.
They sat in the fig tree and stared at the thick woods, hypnotized, lost in thought.
“Hey, you two. Lunch is ready. Do you want to eat it out here or in the house?” their mom called from the back porch.
Monique and James shook their heads. “House,” they answered in unison. They’d had enough of the wide outdoors for now.
Join the Book Club by popping over to Patreon to read the rest of the first chapter of the Dark Woods: The Shed
