River spent most of her time outdoors. There were few indoor places that she really wanted to be. When she had to be home, she hid in her room with a book and headphones on, trying not to hear her parents fighting. She could barely remember times that they weren't fighting. The woods around her house were more her home.
She did have friends—well, primarily one friend. Alice. They would explore together on their bikes: sometimes into town, sometimes along the deer paths in the forest, sometimes up the foothills towards the mountains, sometimes down to the river. They had met when the two were thirteen, in art class at the middle school. Alice was new and River was lonely. They both enjoyed alone time, but it became evident very quickly that they preferred each other's company to anybody else's. They would visit each other's houses and make crafts or write plays that they would perform. They lived in a fantasy world, far past the age that most people do. They would make costumes out of leaves and prepare feasts of inedible wild berries.
When River was sixteen, Alice convinced her to let her dye her hair. Alice's hair was very dark, and to dye it any color would require an ocean of bleach. River's hair, however, was a light blonde that turned even lighter in the summer. They made an afternoon of it, playing records in the background while Alice rubbed dye in her hair. The color was lavender, and they both laughed when it was done, as River spun in circles, her shoulder-length hair flying, sending little droplets of purple all over her bathroom.
They let the color fade down until her hair was long and had only tips of purple. She was seventeen now.
They both excelled at school, but would play hooky sometimes if it was an exceptionally beautiful day and the earth was calling them. It was their senior year, and it was autumn, and the trees were on fire, and they could barely sit in their classrooms.
It was after a day spent quietly by the river, lying on rocks, leaves falling around them, that they got the news. Alice's family was moving again, this time to Japan. 6,600 miles away. Wordlessly, they grabbed their bikes and rode up the hills, climbing higher than they ever had before. They finally stopped, exhausted, to drink water and rest by the side of the road. Alice cried. They held each other.
A few weeks later, River helped Alice's family load their things into a moving van. They didn't promise to write or to stay in touch—it didn't need to be said. They sat on a mattress in a moving van, frozen in this afternoon. River ran her hands through Alice's hair and hummed a song they had made up.
That night, River snuck out of her house and walked to the clearing in the trees nearby. She laid down her blanket and spread out on it. She watched the stars. "Alone again," she murmured. Sleep came sooner than she expected.
For her eighteenth birthday, she blew out a candle on a cupcake and got to listen to her parents fight about her future. College seemed so far off. All she wanted was the woods. If she had to pick a career, park ranger seemed the closest to something that would actually fulfill her. But she thought seriously about just surviving somewhere—bringing some seeds and tools and foraging and living in the woods. Alone. She was meant to be alone, she supposed.
It was the dead of winter and the fact that she was an adult now meant nothing to her. Later that evening, she lay in her bed, trying to drown out the yelling with her heaviest music, but everything felt hopeless. What was the point of going to sleep? Going on in general? The only person who had ever really loved her was gone, and the possibility of seeing her again was so distant, so vague, that it didn't seem real.
This was it. She couldn't take anymore. She grabbed her backpacking gear and began to pack. Warm clothes, light clothes—she didn't know how long she'd be gone. A few books. The stuffed deer that Alice had sewed her. The necklace they had made together, one for each of them: a felted acorn on a cord. A journal. She tiptoed to the panty and took what she could—nuts, dried fruit, canned beans, granola bars, bread—enough for now. She had money from walking dogs and could buy more food when she came across it.
She sat on her bed, eyes closed. What was missing? This almost felt right. But there was something...she lay down and searched the ceiling. Then it occurred to her, and she made her way to the bathroom. Grabbing her scissors, she cut her hair back to shoulder length. Searching in her cabinet for what was left of that old dye, she followed the instructions and rested while it soaked in. She took what was probably the last shower she would have for a while, and then slept, setting her alarm for sunrise.
When the alarm went off, she jumped out of bed, feeling more rested than she had since she and Alice would sleep together, curled into a ball. She left a note in the kitchen saying that she was safe, but she had to leave. Pulling a fleece-lined hat on over her short lavender hair, she wrapped herself in warm clothes and took off into the snowy wilderness, her necklace nestled under her sweater, scarf, and coat.
She walked until the sun was high overhead. She still knew where she was—she had crossed the iced-over river, and was skirting along the edges of the nearest mountain—but if she kept going at this pace, she would be out of her depth by tomorrow. That was fine by her. She built a fire and sat by it quietly, eating baked beans from a can. She wrote in her journal, noting all the birds she had observed and musing on the silence of winter, with all the insects dead or quiet.
She slept in her tent that night, covered in long underwear, wool socks, and a fleece hat. It was peaceful.
When the sun rose in the morning, she packed up and went on her way again. This land was less familiar to her—she knew generally where she was, thanks to her map and compass, but hadn't been here before. When she came to a stream, she cracked the ice and filtered water into her bottles.
She was sitting, pumping, watching the water flow through the filter's tube, when she heard a sound in the woods behind her. She turned her head quickly to see a stag observing her. He was clearly aware of her, but also exhibited a nonchalance that made her smile. He munched on the bark from a branch, keeping a lazy eye on her. She had always wished she could talk to animals and have them be her companions, her friends. Without really knowing what she was doing, she began to walk closer to the stag, a gentle hand outreached. He didn't run away, but looked at her almost knowingly. She was close enough to touch him, but instead sank to her knees and reached out her hands, seeing if he would come to her. After a long moment, he leaned his head down and nuzzled her hands. Her laughter was quiet but full of innocent delight.
He looked into her eyes and stamped his foot gently, turning away purposefully, and looking back at her again. It seemed imaginary, the way he was so clearly indicating that she should follow him. But she had always been quick to fall to imagination. She finished pumping water while he waited, and then she trailed after him. They walked all day, her attention so fixed on the stag that she lost complete track of where they were.
Was this real? Was it getting warmer even though the sun was going down? She began to shed items of clothing, moving on as though in a trance. Like stop-motion photography of winter turning to spring, the snow melted around her, and green grew up in abundance. She had to stop to change out of her long underwear, and the stag waited patiently for her. Newly clad in brown hemp shorts and a grey tank top, she followed him into the unknown again.
This land didn't look anything like what she knew. The earth was incredibly rich, almost volcanic, and the plants were seemed more tropical, or at least temperate, compared to her hardy New England flora. This was seeming more and more like a dream by the moment. Had she gone entirely off the deep end? Did it matter?
