After the bitter chill of Winter, the snow and ice of February, Spring couldn't come soon enough for Kaitlyn and Madison. Throughout the drab lockdown, the vibrant forest had sustained them, freeing them from its suffocating constraints: online studies, incarceration with their frightened parents, to explore a fantasy world of adventure, life without masks.
Their return to school re-established daily rituals for the girls. They hardly saw each other during schooltime. Every morning Kait would meet Maddie off the school bus at the stop in front of the charity shop. After school they would kiss before Madison boarded the bus, and Kait watched her tired pale face, her veined hands, waving goodbye from a rear seat.
Except for when they walked-and-talked in the forest.
The forest was bordered by Pouting Hill, a busy country lane which wound its way from the traffic lights by The Stag and Hounds, past the Golf Club, to the junction with Forest Road, opposite the village green. Kait, oldest and tallest of the girls, held Maddie's hand as they crossed the road, entering the forest discreetly, out of view, beyond a sharp bend in the road. Then they were free to roam, to wander, wherever, however they wished. The hilly path stretched for three miles as far as the woodland car park, the starting point for organised walks, cycle rides. There, the path veered left, before making its steep, winding descent past Lover's Common to a narrow opening in the hedgerow, the Tennis Club, and the murder house.
March was chilly, frost-free, wrap-up-well weather: rainy, gusting winds, falling trees, in mid-month. It was unsafe for the girls to walk through the woods so Maddie took the bus.
Spring arrived with a flourish of cherry and hawthorn blossom in the hedgerows. On the sunniest, warmest, driest day of the month, with sunbeams highlighting the virgin leaves in the trees, Kait led Maddie deep into the forest, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, open collars, swaying, polyester skirts, holding hands.
'Where are we going?' asked Madison keenly, her pale face flushing, starting to perspire.
The birdsong ceased. Leaves rustled, in the trees. She felt the grip on her wrist intensify, her lover's lilting, dulcet tones.
'Somewhere where they'll never find us.'
They trod her path of mystery alone.
After a while, Kait halted in her tracks, turned to face her girlfriend, and grinned.
'Take off your shoes and socks.'
Maddie's eyes lit up, sparkling sapphires, her face stretched, cheeks risen, high, just like her rib cage when she breathed in sharply, indenting her mouth with such happy dimples.
'Why?'
'You'll get muddy feet otherwise.'
Muddy feet! The thought of it! Us, two girls! Playing together! In the mud! Muddy legs!
Maddie was a child at heart.
The eastern spur of the leafy avenue: beech and oak, the forest's thoroughfare, changed. Narrowing to a soft-mud path bordered by budding hawthorns, cruel brambles, and hazel. There were uncommon surprises dotted here, there, gaps in the thicket, wild cherry trees straining to burst into bloom. Remnants of some ancient orchard? Shooting bluebells yet to flower, straining for the sun. There was a bend in the path ahead. Kait smiled at Maddie, cherishing her childish happiness, loving the influence she exerted over her mate. Her girl would walk the plank for her, shin the tallest tree, scale the highest peak, swim the iciest stream. There was nothing in the world she wouldn't do for Kait - when she was a child.
Today, Maddie was her child. She watched, excited, as her adorable lover, her sole reason to live, got down on bended knee, and took off her sandal, her anklet, revealing her slender thigh, her skirt hitched. Kait had model's legs, smooth round knees. Unlike her knobbly knees, her pallid creamy skin, her sinewy calves, and thighs. Chick's legs she called them. Kait's chick. The socks and sandals were her idea, being childish, fun in the forest! Doting on her every word, Maddie followed suit. The sight of eighteen-year-old girls dressed in socks and sandals at school had raised their teacher's brows, given the other girls a laugh that morning!
They would never understand these two girls.
Standing very still, Madison bent her left knee, raising her calf behind her, reached back, prised off her sandal, and peeled off her sock. One of Kait's model's legs was bare, she noticed. She was bending, on her other knee, working off her sandal, the sock, standing. Mud, she had mud on her knee. Maddie watched her brush it off. She wanted to lick it off her smooth, round knee. While she bent her right knee and raised her calf, picking at her buckle, pulling off her sock. Kait's legs were bare. Her legs were bare! Fun! In the forest! Kaitlyn's jaw kept moving, saying something odd, shoes and socks, held, in both hands...
Wipe the wisp of hair off your face, Kait. So that I can see you. So that I can be your child.
She wiped the wisp of copper hair off her face, grinning -- fully - at Madison, and said, 'Shall we get our legs all wet and muddy?'
Breathless with excitement, fretting - nice frets, dreaming - wet dreams, fun-filled-panic attacks, Maddie could barely speak, 'Yes, lets! Hurry, Kait! Let's, yes! Kait, hurry!'
Please! I want to know your secret!
Kaitlyn Hart. Madison Hendricks.
Two Girls.
Went around the bend.
In the shady, narrow, muddy path.
Cleft watched the girls undress. The short girl with the bronze-tinted shoulder length hair, parted down the middle, grey eyes, big nose, thin lips, slightly jagged teeth, was the sexier of the two girls, more self-conscious. She stood to take off her shoes and socks, refusing to go down on bended knee, to bare her thighs, in case a voyeur saw them, naked. It was the tall girl who intrigued Cleft. She appeared to exert an unhealthy influence over her mate. The childish girl couldn't take her eyes off her. And yet she bore such a shy smile on those melancholy, cracked lips of hers, a sadness in her eyes of midnight blue, and, on her lower lip, a prominent, ugly, brown scar.
From Cleft's hidey-hole, the gap in the thicket, she could almost reach out and touch the girl with the thick drape of copper hair brushing, scratching her eyelids, the bridge of her nose.
She wondered what would happen if she did.
It had to happen.
Madison felt the goosebumps rise on her bare calves and thighs as she slid, first one leg, then the other, incrementally into the stagnant pondwater. The fermenting broth, a rotting stew of decaying leaf mulch, dead rats, and birds, lumbricids, and snails, was deeper than she expected, wetting the hem of her skirt. She wondered if there were eels in the pond, leeches, bloodsucker lampreys, imagining them all attaching themselves to her arms, legs, and body. Kaitlyn, come to rescue her, biting them off, chewing them off, with her jagged, incisive teeth. Sucking them off Maddie's wet breasts with her mouth. She felt herself go.
Didn't mean to! Oh, no! What will mummy say when she sees me like this? All covered in sticky-clingy pondweed, pond slime, algae, sloppy-stink mud. Take off my clothes, Kait, wash me, cleanse me... touch me!
Slip! Trip! Fall! Headfirst! Into the murky water. Mads plunged, headfirst, into the filthy mire, digging her toes in deep, smearing herself, her crisp cotton shirt, her polyester skirt, in thick grey gunge, bobbing her head upward, sputtering froth and bubbles, weed, crying.
'Help me, girl!'
Kait, being the taller of the two girls, kept her hem dry as she waded through the disturbed swell of mud and mulch, swirling around, engulfing her best friend. Grabbing her by both arms, she dragged her to the far bank, appreciating Maddie's crocodile tears, her plaintive cry.
