They Walked Into The Woods

The radiator in Maya’s station wagon died three miles before the county line, sending a thin, greasy plume of white smoke into the overarching canopy of Blackwood Valley.She rolled down the window. The air didn't smell like the pine or fresh rain of the upper state. It smelled of turned mud, stagnant bog water, and a faint, metallic tang that coated the back of her throat like copper."Great," she muttered, tapping the dead signal bars on her phone dashboard.The valley didn't have a welcoming committee. It had a wall of trees so dense that the afternoon sun barely pierced the floor. Maya crept the limping car into the village square—a cluster of slate-roofed cottages built from dark river stone. There were no power lines. No satellite dishes.She parked outside a building with a hand-painted sign: The Warden's Office.When she stepped out, the silence hit her. There was no birdsong. No hum of insects. Just the wet crunch of her boots on the gravel.An old man sat on a porch across the dirt road, whittling a piece of gray wood. He didn't look up when her car door slammed, but his knife stopped moving. Maya walked toward him, her clipboard tucked under her arm."Excuse me," Maya said, keeping her voice polite. "I'm Maya Lin. The botanical researcher from the university? I’m looking for Mr. Vance."The man didn't answer. He slowly lifted his head. His eyes were milky with cataracts, but it was his skin that made Maya take a half-step back. It was greyish-brown, dry, and cracked deeply along his cheekbones, looking less like flesh and more like parched clay.He didn't speak. He just pointed a gnarled, dirt-caked finger toward the edge of the square, where the dirt road dissolved into a narrow footway leading straight into the dense forest."He's in the woods?" Maya asked.The old man finally spoke. His voice sounded like two flat stones scraping together. "He went to tend the ditch.""Right. When will he be back?"The old man went back to whittling. "Vance is done with back, girl. The soil called. He walked."Maya frowned, a cold prickle of unease rising on her arms. "Walked where?"The old man didn’t look up again. He just carved a deep, clean crescent shape into the gray wood. "Into the woods."