Our Benedoodle Bernie is a gentle soul, we call him our indoor cat. He doesn’t like to be in the yard without a trusted adult, even when the other dogs are out there. I was out with him, busying myself by rinsing the layer of yellow green pollen off the patio table when I just had this feeling, you know the one. That ping of intuition when things are a little too quiet and a subtle alarm bell begins to sound. I spotted him in a muddy corner of the yard, sniffing at something, jumping back startled when whatever the hell it was moved. Initially I thought he’d found a half dead squirrel or something. No. It was three baby bunnies tucked into a shallow nest. They were really cute, but goddamnit, I wasn’t in the mood. Two weeks of protecting the bunnies from the dogs ensued. We made a makeshift fence around them, even rigging up an umbrella over the nest when it rained. Ivy and Bernie were only slightly interested, but little Westie Wallace is one persistent motherfucker. He chased them out of the hole twice. So I had to run around like an idiot to collect the babies. The internet said the bunny mom will return as long as you put the babies back and replace as much of their little nesting material around them as possible. But I couldn’t be certain and I didn’t sleep those nights worrying about them.
In fact, I worried about those fucking baby bunnies constantly. It was a major relief when I went to check one morning and they were all gone.
Then a chipmunk got into the house. It’s my own damn fault because we leave the back door open all the time so it’s no surprise that it found its way in. Again, Bernie was the one to find it. I noticed him noticing something and then saw the damn thing run across the living room floor. I screamed for Chris. I had to scream again and then he came downstairs. I’d seen it go over by the window near the dog’s toy bin, Chris kicked at the bin and the fucking thing flew through the air right past his face. It had climbed the goddamn curtain to get away from the dogs. I didn’t think Chris would ever stop screaming. You’d think the dogs would be beside themselves with excitement but they internalized all the yelling and processed it as being in trouble. We somehow managed to corral the chipmunk through the back door without their help.
Bernie rolled in a slug and mashed its slimy orange guts into his beard. Tucked in for the night peacefully reading my book, with the dogs lounging alongside us, Chris was petting Ivy and found a tick on her leg. Wallace sprained his ankle tear-assing across the yard after a squirrel. It has to be wrapped for an indefinite amount of time which means we have to put a plastic bootie on him every time he goes outside. It’s not just the dogs. Nonsense abounds everywhere. The pool we belong to is cloudy and peppered with errant bandaids. All the girls have nasty blisters from the cheap flip flops I thought I could get away with buying them. I thought it would be cool to have a couple unstructured weeks for the kids after school let out. I was wrong. I’m about ready to steal some of the chill out pills they prescribed Wallace for his convalescence.
All of this to say, I hate summer. I’m a gray skies and sunset at four p.m. person. A fireplace person. Scarves and mittens. Socks. Hot coffee and extra blankets. Much like Bernie, I am an indoor cat.
I know, no one cares. And given the depraved horrors taking place across the world it is utterly absurd, cruel to feel even the least bit put out by anything at all. But everyone has a pet dislike to stew upon, something to curmudgeon about, and summertime is mine. I also know that we have it super easy up here in the Northeast. It’s June as I write this and it’s been well over one hundred degrees in so many places already. Hurricane season looms. The ocean is damn near boiling. The sharks and sea creatures are swarming the shallows. And my God, the flooding. It’s everywhere. And I know I’m not the only one who fears there is worse on the horizon. It’s coming, is on a constant loop in my mind. It’s coming.
Well, a neighbor told me a real dozy and it’s such a summer story that it didn’t feel right to keep it to myself until fall. And honestly, I know I won’t want to spoil cozy autumn vibes with summer stuff. So here we are.
“It is truly bizarre to run into you here,” Maria said, touching my arm.
I smiled my friendliest smile even though it felt more inconvenient than bizarre to me. I was dropping off a stack of library books, intending to hole up at one of the study tables on the second floor to work on the godforsaken book.
“I mean it,” Maria enthused. “Utter kismet.”
“What are you guys doing this summer?” I asked.
“We leave for the lake this weekend. We won’t be back until the day before school starts.”
“Nice,” I replied, feeling insanely jealous.
“Yeah, that’s why it’s so weird that I ran into you, the timing couldn’t be better. What are you doing right now?” She asked.
“I was going to head up to write, but-”
“Can you talk for like ten minutes?”
“Sure,” I replied, hiding my frustration. It is difficult to find time for myself in the summertime to work on my writing. I only had two hours before I picked up the girls from summer school. Besides that, I wasn’t really a fan of Maria’s. I’d known her here and there since the girls were very little and I’d always found her to be the type of person who scans the room for a bigger better deal the whole time you talk to her.
So if she wanted to talk, then she wanted something.
“Great!” Maria enthused. “Let’s sit in that new little cafe area.”
I followed her into the room, which held its usual handful of nannies and their toddler charges.
We sat down at a table near the front of the building, before a window with a view of Wellesley’s medieval looking town hall.
“Are you working on your blog?”
“No, I’m re-writing a cursed novel.”
She smiled vaguely. I’d forgotten that she didn’t have much of a sense of humor.
“I’ve been struggling to finish it for a couple years,” I clarified. “Fingers crossed to get it done this summer.”
“That’s right, you’ve self-published a book about your blog, right?”
“Two,” I replied.
She looked confused. “You have two blogs?”
“No, I’ve published two books.”
“Are you going to self publish this next one?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed.
“Oh, well good luck. Is it about ghosts?”
“Kind of,” I replied.
I noticed that her leg was bouncing up and down furiously.
“I haven’t really read any of your work.”
“It’s not really for everyone,” I said, losing patience. I was down to one hour and forty five minutes before I had to get the girls.
“I just mean, I’m not really familiar with many,” she waved her hands towards me, “paranormal topics. Not until recently.”
“Oh!” I said, as realization hit. I’d been expecting her to want to discuss something PTO related. The past school year had left me completely burnt out and I didn’t think I had it in me to decline a school related request politely. A ghost story I could handle. “What’s going on? Is your house haunted?”
She laughed in a distinctly condescending way. “Not exactly. Well, not at all, in fact. We’re having a problem in our yard.”
“What kind of a problem?”
Maria pursed her lips, eyeing me as if sizing me up. “Are you going to share what I tell you?”
I shrugged and decided to be brutally honest. “This is eating into my writing time, so if you’re going to tell me a scary story, then yes, I might like to share it.”
“Do many people read your blog? Besides your family or people, like here in town?”
I shrugged. “Not really.”
And that was true, not many people did read the blog, it was the podcast that had the real audience. But I didn’t feel like explaining that to her. She’s the type who probably only listens to podcasts produced by NPR so she can tell people she heard an interesting thing on NPR. Sorry. I know I’m being a bitch. But as public as my writing is, I am a private person and I don’t like talking to people I don’t like about it as though I have to justify whether it’s legitimate or not. As far as I’m concerned, if one person reads one of these stories and it takes their mind off something stressful, then it’s fucking legitimate. If no one reads any of this but it takes my mind off the defenseless baby rabbits in the back yard for ten minutes then it’s just as legitimate.
“Well, if it’s only read by a few people locally then I suppose it’s fine to share this as long as you change my name.”
“It depends on the story,” I replied.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll only write about it if it’s interesting.”
She blinked. I could almost see the thought, “Of course I’m interesting,” flit through her mind.
“What’s happening in your backyard?” I pressed, getting to the point.
“Okay, so, it’s not a ghost. The thing is, like, a little… creature.”
I hesitated, wondering if she was putting me on. She just looked at me expectantly.
“What does it look like?”
“It’s about the size of a kindergartener. It’s skin is sort of gray, it’s skinny, and it has a small head, like it looks too small for its body. Oh, and there are spikes that come out of its back. But they’re kind of moss-y.”
My mouth dropped open. “How long has it been in your backyard?”
“About two weeks. We usually head to the lake right after school lets out but I didn’t feel right leaving the house… I’m worried it might do some real damage if we leave.”
“Why do you think it would do that?”
“We’ve had trouble in the basement since it turned up.”
“I thought it wasn’t in the house.”
“It’s not, but I think it diverted the creek in the woods behind our house towards our yard. That and I’ve woken up every morning for the past week to find the hose running full blast. It’s trying to flood the pool. So you can see why I have qualms about just leaving.”
“Sure.”
“So, what do you think it is?” She asked.
“Sounds like some kind of cryptid, or fae.”
“Fae?”
“Fairy.”
“No, I told you, it’s ugly,” she snipped.
I started to explain but thought better of it. “Do you have any idea how it ended up in your backyard?”
“It certainly wasn’t intentional,” Maria said defensively.
“Ooo, what did she do?” Claire giggled beside me, making me jump a little. She hadn’t been around as much lately. Things had been so busy that I hadn’t really had a moment to consider why. But I felt reassured by her sudden presence.
“What did you unintentionally do?” I asked Maria.
“Well, you know how Benjamin is into science?”
I didn’t know that about her sixth grader – honestly, how in the hell would I? But I nodded anyway.
“He’s the most inquisitive kid,” she chuckled. “He had this wonderful idea for end of year extra credit. Not that he needed it, it was more of an enrichment activity for him really.” She paused, I assumed to allow me the opportunity to affirm that her child was a genius and a go-getter at that.
I just motioned for her to go on.
“Well, as you know, the curriculum requires students to analyze and interpret rock layers and index fossils to determine the relative age of rock formations that result from processes occurring over long periods of time?”
I pursed my lips and gave a little head shake. I did have a sixth grader, but I did not know that the sixth grade curriculum called for that. Actually, I didn’t know extra credit was a thing either, or enrichment for that matter. My God, this woman triggered me on too many levels.
“You’re so funny,” she said, which I took to mean, “You’re so out of touch with your child’s education.” She continued, “We are working our way through all of the Massachusetts trails as a family this year, we go every Saturday morning, and Benjamin chose Hockomock Swamp back in May. Finnick [that’s Maria’s youngest] is an avid bird watcher and-”
“Hold on,” I said, “Hockamock Swamp? Maria, no.”
She nodded, obviously annoyed either that I’d interrupted her or that I hadn’t acknowledged the fact that her eight year old was an avid bird watcher.
“If you’re thinking of the mosquitos, I worried about that at first as well, but West Nile hasn’t been-”
“I wasn’t thinking of the mosquitoes. That place is in the Bridgewater Triangle.”
She eyed me. “I think it’s actually located in West Bridgewater.”
“Right, but I mean, the swamp is located in a place that’s like the Bermuda Triangle, only here in Massachusetts.”
Cue a condescending chuckle. “Okay, this is fascinating. I’ve always wondered, is she for real or is this just something she writes about? But you really are knowledgeable about this topic.”
“You think that the thing in your yard followed you home from Hockomock Swamp?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
Before we hear anything more from Maria, let’s talk about Hockomock Swamp. And in order to do that we need to talk about the Bridgewater Triangle. How is it possible that we’ve never touched on this topic? At least, I don’t think we’ve ever discussed this particularly haunted corner of Massachusetts. I feel like we must have encountered it at some point in the past eight years, but you know how things fall out of my head so I’m not certain one way or the other. Regardless, here we go.
There are books and documentaries and articles galore written about the Bridgewater Triangle, but in my opinion, the Bridgewater Public Library’s page titled “Bridgewater Triangle and Hockomock Swamp” is simply the best jumping off point if you want to know more about the topic. It’s where I found the following info. So, the Bridgewater Triangle is an area of about 200 square miles in southeast Massachusetts. Its name was coined by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman (side note, I had to look this guy up because he’s mentioned in damn near every article about the Bridgewater Triangle. He’s a writer with over 40 books under his belt and he also works as an editor for Skeptical Inquirer. I got sidetracked in the Criticism section of his Wikipedia page wherein Justin Mullis – no explanation as to who he is or what his credentials are – but he “criticized Coleman’s assumption about a 1955 incident in which an Indiana woman was pulled underwater by something she did not see. Coleman claimed it was caused by a half human, half fish creature called a “merbeing”. Justin Mullis pointed to Coleman’s reference to The Creature from the Black Lagoon as an example of “how cryptozoologists think about science fiction and its relationship to the natural world”. To which I say, shut up Justin. The woman said something pulled her under the water, a merbeing is just as feasible as anything else. Stop being such a killjoy. Let us have some goddamn fun).
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, Coleman was back at it drawing more parallels between science fiction and the real world, this time between the Bermuda Triangle and all the stuff happening in the triangular area in southeast Mass because of the countless claims of high strangeness occurring there. Looking at the map, I don’t know why he didn’t call it the Taunton Triangle, but who am I to question? There are tons of reports of UFO sightings, floating orbs, bigfoot-like sightings, giant snakes, and thunderbirds. FYI, thunderbirds are giant birds or pterodactyl-like flying creatures with wingspans up to 12 feet. And people have seen those things in Hockomock Swamp which is, of course, located within the Bridgewater Triangle.
Now, Hockomock Swamp, is a 16,950 acre wetland considered the largest freshwater swamp in the Massachusetts, and a lot of weird stuff happens there. Poltergeist activity (of which I couldn’t find any details, but my mind conjured images of unseen forces slinging mud around) and ghost sightings but also cult activity, namely, animal mutilations.
God, I love this shit. Ten year old me is taking out her wide ruled notebook to take notes. Dreaming of visiting and capturing a photo of that freaky bird on my disposable camera. Or getting chased by the bigfoot-like creature. Or stumbling upon a new clue that breaks everything wide open, a secret lair, a cabin in the woods, a curious formation of stones by the water’s edge.
Sigh. Back to Maria.
“Wow, I wonder why the thing followed you guys home,” I said, more to myself and Claire than to Maria.
“I bet they brought home a souvenir,” Claire guessed.
“I think I might know why it followed us,” Maria said, sounding a touch guilty.
“Told you,” Claire laughed.
“You brought something back with you?”
“Well, as I was saying about the extra credit effort Benjamin initiated, he didn’t go on the hike planning to find anything of interest but he found a beautiful example of rock strata that he felt his teacher would appreciate.”
“Got it.”
“The teacher was quite impressed.”
“I’m sure.”
“He offered to let her keep it, but she declined, so he brought it home and placed it in our garden.”
“And that’s when your pool started flooding?” I guessed.
“Not right away. There were other aggravations first. We found the towels we’d put out to dry thrown into the pool one morning, two of our lounge chairs just up and disappeared, another one collapsed when Enzo sat down. And it’s not like it’s cheap patio furniture, they’re Serena and Lily, I just bought them this past fall.”
“It’s a trickster!” Claire declared.
“Oh!” I said, “Of course!” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it finally hit me what she might be dealing with.
Maria glanced around the room, I assume wondering if anyone had noticed how loud I’d been.
“Hold on,” I told her, taking out my phone. “I know what this is. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Shoot… What are they called? They have the coolest name, it’s like a gremlin and it’s really mischievous… ugh.” I rambled as I Googled trickster in Hockomock Swamp. “Got it! Pukwudgie!”
Maria blinked.
“That’s what it is, that’s what you brought home with you,” I enthused.
“I don’t know what that is,” she said impatiently.
“It’s a trickster spirit, Hockomock Swamp is known for them,” I looked down at my phone screen and scanned the Wikipedia page, relaying the pertinent information. “Um, okay it’s a human-like creature of Wampanoag folklore, found in… a couple places including Massachusetts… they’re said to be two to three feet tall. According to legend, can appear and disappear at will, shapeshift, and – holy cow, listen to this,” I enthused, “the most common form is a creature that looks like a porcupine from the back and a half-troll, half-human from the front and walks upright.” I looked up at Maria, she looked horrified. “Right, well, it says Native Americans believed that Pukwudgies were once friendly to humans, but then turned against them, and are best left alone. According to lore, a person who annoyed a Pukwudgie would be subject to nasty tricks by it, or subject to being followed by the Pukwudgie, who would cause trouble for them. They are known to kidnap people, push them off cliffs, attack their victims with short knives and spears, and to use sand to blind their victims. Um, they’re known for their mischievous behavior, which ranges from simple tricks to more harmful interactions.”
Maria calmly tucked her hair behind her ears. She looked like she was holding back tears.
“What else has the thing done to you guys?” I asked gently.
Maria blew out a breath and wiped her eyes. “It’s been, relentless is the only word I can use to describe it. It seems to know the exact wrong time to insert itself in our lives. When one of the boys is having a problem, I mean, the boys don’t have many problems of course, they are exceptional problem solvers, but every child has a moment. And that’s when the, what did you call it?”
“A pukwudgie.”
She sighed. “Thorns were strewn across the sport court in our side yard, and I know that thing was responsible. Finnick and Benjamin occasionally choose to spend their pre-dinner free time there and one evening shortly after we returned from the swamp the boys went out and not a moment later Benjamin was back inside yelling that Finnick was hurt. He’d been barefoot and stepped onto the thorns. One lodged so deeply between his big and middle toes we had no choice but to bring him to the emergency room to have it removed. It was horrific, the thorns were vicious.”
“Poor kid, where did they come from?”
“Enzo is an avid gardener, he did some research and believes they were from a plant called Aralia spinosa, it isn’t typically seen above southeast Mass. Oh, you’ll love this actually, it’s nickname is the devil’s walkingstick.”
I laughed nervously.
“Since that incident, I believe the creature has been systematically blanketing our property with those thorns. Thank God we don’t have any pets. As it is, the kids have to wear their Tevas in the pool so they don’t accidentally step on them.”
“You’re still letting them go in the pool?”
“We were.”
I made a face.
“It’s such a waste, we only have use of the pool in June and September because we spend the summer at the lake so it feels wasteful to not to-”
“I guess,” I glanced down at my watch. “Anything else?”
“I think it bites.”
“Jesus.”
“One of the landscapers was trimming back some hedges and, I’m not entirely sure what happened, but he looked terrified. He must have seen it.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know, I was in the middle of going over our primary bath reno, so I… I don’t know. The thing hisses at me this morning when I went out to my car, it taps on the windows at night so we can’t sit in peace in the sunroom in the evening. I’m certain that it’s trying to get into the house.”
“I wonder why it hasn’t been able to,” I mused.
“Me too,” Claire agreed.
I pulled out my phone and Googled the question. “Oh! You mentioned hedges, are they boxwood?”
Maria’s eyebrows raised. “Actually, they are.”
“Lucky,” I commented.
“I suppose. We stopped letting the kids swim in the pool because two mornings ago Enzo went out to turn off that damn hose again and the water was all green and murky. But once he got the hose off he realized that water was still streaming into the pool. At first he thought one of the sprinkler heads had malfunctioned and the irrigation system was to blame. But as he followed the water to find the source, he realized it was coming into the yard from the woods. There’s a small creak about twenty or so feet from the back line of our property. It had been dammed to divert the stream into our yard.”
“Holy shit.”
“It’s an absolute mess. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, but I am certain that’s why we have water in the basement. Not to mention the fact that once everything dries out we’ll need to have a good portion of the yard re-sodded.”
“Enzo is sure the pukwudgie did that, not some neighborhood kids?”
“He said the dam was intricate, not something a beaver or any animal would or could create. He said he wished he could blame the boys or some kids screwing around, but the design was above anything they would be capable of. It took effort to pull it apart.
“When he was dismantling the dam, he said he felt like he was being watched. He heard laughing and at one point he heard someone yell his name from further back in the woods. When he got back he told the boys they were not allowed in the yard, indefinitely.”
“You described what it looked like though, who saw it?”
“Both Benjamin and I have seen it. I was out watering the pots down by our mailbox early one morning last week when I heard this, like, clicking noise. Have you been to our home?”
I told her I hadn’t but I kept the fact that I had no intention of ever visiting to myself.
“Once this is all sorted out we’ll have you and Chris and the girls for a swim and cookout in September.”
“We’ll see,” I hedged.
“Well, when you do come over, you’ll see that our driveway is rather long and winding. It’s quite wooded where we are, very pretty. So there I was watering the hydrangea – the irrigation system seems to be down on that part of the property. Hmm,” she paused, “I wonder if that has something to do with our creature too.”
“Probably,” I commented, unable to keep the impatience out of my voice.
“Yes, well, I heard clicking and then something tapped me on the back of my leg, right on my calf. I turned and nothing was there so I kept watering, but I had a very, uneasy feeling. I heard more of that clicking noise and then I felt a godawful poke to my left ankle. I looked over and there was nothing there. My ankle was bleeding badly so I put down the can and started walking up the driveway and there it was. Right before the first bend, standing off to the side on the pavement. Baring its teeth. I froze right there. Not sure I was seeing what I was seeing, but I was. And, you know, I don’t know how it possibly could have gotten that far in that amount of time after poking me in the leg.”
Maria wrapped her arms around herself and sort of rocked back and forth. “We stared at each other for a time and then it just darted right at me. I barely had time to scream and then, when there were only, I suppose, five feet between us? It took a sharp turn into the woods and just sprinted away.”
“Scary.”
“Yes. It was. I ran up the drive and got to the house, but I was certain the entire time it would come out of the woods and attack me.”
“So when did Benjamin see it?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “It was a few days after the creek incident, but before I saw it. Enzo had barred them from playing in the yard, but I figured he would be safe if he just rode his bike on the driveway. I was in my office at the front of the house with the window open so I thought I would hear him if there was a problem. I was reading Demon Copperhead, have you read it?”
“No. What did Benjamin see?”
“He said he was riding his bike and hopped off because the front tire began to deflate. I’m telling you those goddamn thorns are everywhere. He saw the pickwidgen-”
“Pukwudgie.”
“Right. He saw it a few steps back in the trees. But it was situated between him and the house. He didn’t know what to do. The thing was just watching him. He finally took baby step by baby step up the driveway, rolling his bike and keeping it between himself and the creature and when he felt he’d put enough distance between himself and the thing he sprinted for the house. He came through the front door screaming. Scared me nearly to death.”
“But you still walked down a couple days later to water the flowers?”
“I know it sounds like terrible judgment. But I wondered if he’d mistaken something in the woods for a creature, or, who knows, was worked up over the creek incident. I honestly didn’t believe it was possible that he’d actually seen what he described.”
“How did you put it together that it was the rock that was causing the trouble?”
“Finnick had a dream about it.”
I motioned for her to go on.
“He told us that in his dream we were on the Hockomock Swamp trail and he fell behind. He got lost and was frightened and was running and running on this never ending trail beside a dark pond and he finally saw Benjamin up ahead but when he caught up it turned out to be the creature. It had a rock in its hand and it pointed to it and then placed it into the muddy bank beside the trail. Then it grabbed Finnick’s arms and dragged him into the water, drowning him.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. The poor thing. He came down to breakfast white as a sheet. He told his father about the dream and, I mean, Liz, this is wild, but he had bruises around his forearms where the creature had been holding onto him in the dream.”
“Fuck, Maria,” I breathed. “That is, ouch!” I screeched, pushing back so I could see under the table.
“What in the world?” Maria demanded.
“Something sharp just poked me.” I rubbed my leg and winced, then pulled a small something out of my right calf. A thorn. “What the hell, Maria?”
“I’m sorry,” she said guiltily. “I didn’t think-”
“You have that rock with you, don’t you?”
“That’s why I thought it was so weird running into you, it’s like it was meant to be.”
Claire snorted.
“Why the hell are you carrying it with you?”
“I was planning to throw it in MOPO after I grabbed a stack of books here for the boys to bring on vacation. I thought if I got rid of it before we went out of town the house might be safe.”
I was about to tell her that it wasn’t that bad of an idea when Claire tsked and said, “That’s a great plan if she wants things to get a million times worse.”
I looked over at Claire, then back to Maria. I’d already spent so much time on this I decided to just get to the point.
“How does she get rid of it?” I asked.
Maria looked beside her and then at me. “Who are you talking to?”
“My guide.”
“Oh dear,” she drawled, looking skeptical, embarrassed and frightened all at once.
I ignored her.
“I’m pretty sure the boy has to return the rock,” Claire replied. “As close to where he found it as possible.”
“Does Benjamin remember exactly where he found the rock?” I asked Maria.
“I don’t know, I mean, he has an excellent memory and a great sense of direction so I assume-”
I held up my hand. “Anything else?” I directed the question to Claire.
“He’d better apologize. He should say he’s sorry and bring some kind of offering,” she looked beneath the table, then at me. “Berries, he wants berries.”
I looked under the table, but couldn’t see anything. Maria followed my gaze.
“Can you see it?” She whispered.
“No,” I replied. “But you need to bring that rock back to where Benjamin found it and he should apologize and bring some berries as an offering.”
“Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries? What exactly?”
I looked at Claire.
“He’s just nodding, bring them all,” she replied.
I relayed the information.
Maria nodded. “Would you ever,” she paused. “I only ask because I’m in such a time crunch, there’s so much to do before we leave for the lake and you’re just here for the summer, right? And you are so knowledgeable about this. Would you ever consider bringing it back there for me?”
“Ha! No,” I replied, genuinely laughing at the idea. “Sorry, but you got yourself into this, you’ve got to get yourself out of it.”
Summer is a never ending slog of finding things to entertain everyone and curiosity got the best of me. Against all sorts of better judgment, I dragged Chris and the girls down to do the 1.7 mile loop trail around Hockomock Swamp. I was willing to go alone but Chris nixed the idea and then thought it probably wasn’t great if I brought the girls by myself so forced family fun it was. Claire refused to tag along. She wasn’t in the mood to run into whatever cryptids stalked the area.
It was pretty… boring actually. And the mosquitos were fucking brutal. It had more of a nondescript field vibe than a swamp vibe. I was expecting, you know, like a swamp. On the plus side the trip killed a couple hours. I double checked that no one had taken a souvenir before we got back into the car and we got Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast sandwiches and munchkins on the way home. Overall, it was a thoroughly Masshole family outing.
And it’s good to keep everyone out of the house. I mean, the house itself is fine, really. But I don’t like the kids to be outside without me or Chris. Which is a shame because they can entertain themselves pretty well now at this little paved area in the backyard where we have a basketball net and we all got tennis racquets as a family Father’s Day present. It’s about a quarter of the size of a tennis court, but you know how kids are, they figure it out. As a whole we aren’t a very sporty bunch, but we try.
I’m really only half annoyed that Bernie won’t go outside without a human keeping watch. I wouldn’t let the dogs go out there alone now anyways. Not after what happened this past weekend. I had that intuition again. The kids had been out drawing with sidewalk chalk and I peeked out the kitchen window and didn’t see them on the patio. I went out and saw them at the far corner of the yard, looking over the fence down the driveway towards our cute little shed.
I watched Cat yell to someone that they would go get their shoes and would be there in a minute, her older sisters looked annoyed.
“Who are you talking to?” I called out, immediately on edge. You have to walk up our curved driveway to get to our house. It’s short but awkward, so whoever they were talking to was well onto our property, not like on the road or anything.
They all turned to look at me, then looked back towards the shed, then back at me, obviously confused.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
I rushed over to look and caught a glimpse of a disturbingly familiar woman walking behind the shed, heading down a slope of trees towards the street.
“Mom,” Cat cautioned.
“Inside, now,” I demanded. “and bring the dogs with you.”
I unhitched the gate and rushed down the stone steps to our driveway wondering where the hell Claire was, praying she was inside with the girls.
Things had been quiet lately, but I’d sensed, I mean I’d just known something was off, but I really thought the protections I’d put in place would hold.
But no. The mimic that had been lurking around our old house had followed us. And it had found its way past the boundary.
So why hadn’t Claire warned me?