The Voice at the Edge of the Woods

That night, your mother was calling you from the woods.

You were ten. The campsite by the lake, the summer one, with the washrooms at the end of the path and the smell of barbecue hanging around until midnight. The tent smelled of warm plastic and bug spray. Your sleeping bag kept sliding on the ground mat. On the other side of the tent, your mother was already asleep, rolled up in hers.

You were listening to the crickets. Thousands of them, everywhere in the grass, a sound so constant you stop hearing it.

Then the crickets stopped. All at once.

Not one by one. All together, like a light switching off. And the silence after was so thick it hummed in your ears.

· · ·

And right outside, you heard your mother's voice.

"Come and see. Come see what I found."

Her voice. Exactly her voice, the way she dragged out the "come," the same as when she'd call you out to see a shooting star or a hedgehog in the yard.

You unzipped the tent. Just a little. The metal teeth sounded enormous. Your flashlight caught the wet grass, the pegs of the other tents, then the edge of the trees, where the pines began.

She was out there. Between the trunks.

A shape, waving you over. Slowly. One big sweep of the arm, always the same, as if it only knew that one.

"Come on. Don't wake the others."

· · ·

You put one foot outside. The grass was cold through your sock.

Then a hand grabbed your ankle.

A warm hand. Behind you. Inside the tent.

Your mother. In her sleeping bag. Half asleep, eyes wide open on you. She didn't scream. She just whispered, without letting go of your ankle:

"Get back inside. That isn't me."

You got back inside. She zipped the tent shut. Neither of you slept until the crickets started up again, a little before dawn.

· · ·

You never talked about it again. Not once. Not the next day, not years later.

But some nights, even now, in your apartment in the city, when everything outside goes quiet at once, the cars, the wind, the neighbors…

you hear it under your window.

"Come and see."