It’s a once upon a time, and if you can have that, then you can still have hope, because however a fairy tale turns out in the end, the once upon a time beginning at least sets you up with the hope of a happily ever after. In a world of angst and irony, that’s actually a precious thing. At least it is to my way of thinking.

How would my story go?

Something like:

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in an old house in the middle of the woods . . .

I realize I’ve come to a full stop at the fence between this field and the one that runs up to the back of the house. I study the windows, trying to see if there’s any movement in them. Looking for Del’s face to be staring back out at me through the dirty panes.

I don’t see anything, but that does nothing to lighten my sense of disquiet. I don’t know that there’s a single solitary thing in this place that could, but just as I’m thinking that, I’ve turned away from the house to look around myself and I see it. The tree. My old friend and confidante.

Here, it’s not a burnt down stump. Here, it’s still tall and majestic with a full canopy.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in an old house in the middle of the woods and her only friend was a big old tree . . .

So, even though I’ve left everybody behind, I’m not alone in this place. Just as I wasn’t when I was a kid. Because she was always there for me, the White Deer Woman, her tree my haven from the darkness.

Now it’s the two of us again, and I don’t have to worry about what Del might do to her. Those old spirits exist on a whole other level from the rest of us. Del going after her would be like a flea or gnat going after us. Annoying, sure, but nothing you can’t just swat and be done with.

I’d like to go over and press my face into the bark like I did before. It would be cooler under her heavy boughs. Safe.

But the sight of her’s enough to bolster my courage. I clamber over the fence and start across the last field. The house rises taller and taller in front of me, the clapboard walls stained with mold and covered, on one side, by dead kudzu pretending to be decorative vines before it all died off. I guess that says something about the evil in this place that not even a parasite like kudzu can survive in its presence.