The Dark Dark Woods

Life in the Woods: Chapter Six

Pa had recently returned home from a bad trip to the towns. 

His expression was dark and the circles under his eyes showed many nights unslept. There were no cuts on him this time, but Credence saw something worse when she first spotted him in the distance: His left arm hanging limp in a muddied sling.

Credence was desperate to ask Pa what happened but knew better of it. When the family ran to greet him, however, Ma did not disguise her worry and immediately demanded to look at Pa's arm. She shooed the children out of the house to "play before supper", and locked the door behind her, sealing the children outside.

"Is Pa all right?" Josiah asked.

"I know as much as you do. Ma will fix it, though. Just don't ask Pa about it."

"I wouldn't!"

"Would too."

"Would not!" 

Josiah wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out at his sister, who began to chase him around the yard. Soon they were laughing and wrestling in the barn, forgetting briefly about the alarming state of Pa. 

But as they took a moment to catch their breath, Josiah offered a perplexing question:

"Are we fools?"

Credence raised an eyebrow at him. "What makes you ask such a thing?"

"Well..." Josiah's eyes dropped to the ground, and the next words gave him difficulty. "It's just...Pa...got hurt in the towns."

"That happens sometimes."

"Never as bad as that." Josiah mimicked an arm in a sling. "I think Pa got into a fight, and I think he might have lost the fight." Josiah's face wrenched in shame.

"Why would that make us fools?" 

"I don't know." Josiah paused, trying to decide if he could trust Credence with his concerns. "Sometimes I feel bad for not asking questions. For not getting answers. It's like...it's like Pa and Ma never want to tell us anything. And we accept it. We just come out here and play, or when Ma says she'll tell us things tomorrow—we never ask her tomorrow. And Pa and Ma seem happy that we don't ask questions. But it doesn't make me feel happy at all. It just...makes me feel...foolish." 

Josiah couldn't get the right words out, and he wasn't even sure he fully understood what he wanted to say. The confusion angered him, so he balled his fists up to temper it. He wanted to hit something. 

"I don't want to think Pa lost a fight. I don't want to think that at all. But how can I not think something when they tell us nothing?"

Rebellious, their parents would have called it, and with a good amount of disdain. Credence wanted to think that of her brother too, but now she didn't know if it was because Josiah was being rebellious, or if the voice of her parents drove her to it. 

Josiah's admission stirred complex emotions and questions within her, and she was afraid to admit she often had that very same thought herself, and it had begun to fester into bitterness. Josiah was still very much a child, but Credence felt that she was old enough to know some things. 

Calm him, Ma's voice urged inside her mind, don't let your brother be upset.

But Credence felt it was right for Josiah to be upset. After all, weren't they supposed to tell everything to their parents? Weren't they allowed no secrets from their elders, as a rule? Why was it fair then, that Ma and Pa got to hold a world of mysteries from them?

"It's not right," Credence agreed. "There should be no secrets in a family." 

Josiah's fists relaxed. He looked at his sister, and she saw a dam in his eyes, holding back a flood of tears.

"Then why do they lie to us all the time?" 

It was the most grownup thing Josiah had ever said. Credence felt a small pride for her brother—and relief in knowing she wasn't the only one struggling. 

Pa and Ma were not bad people. Not once had they ever hurt or said an unkind word to their children.

But they kept so much from them, and in a way it bothered the children more than any spanking or reprimand.

It felt like a betrayal.