By SERIN HWANG
The woods behind my old high school burned down the winter after my senior year.
They were gone within a day, leaving behind only the ash that settled on my car and the smoke that dimmed the sky, turning the sun a blazing orange. I was home from college at the time, abandoning crisp New England autumn for a dull West Coast winter, snowless but mildly chilly, until it wasn’t. California was still burning when I got back on the plane.
The strange thing was, the restoration efforts took almost no time at all. I checked the news daily, and no one seemed to notice. It was like the fires had never happened.
The woods had been there since our town was founded—at least, that’s what I was told. If you took the center path and walked straight, the trees would part like water under an oar. Then, you would reach the clearing in the middle of the woods, sunny and gentle and soft like a dream. I used to play there when I was still in school, pants rolled up to my knees so I could wade through the stream that cut across the field. I made a game of collecting snails on the moist rocks lining the shore, moss overgrown and slimy.
Hours would float by as I held them in my palms and watched the sun dry the wet tracks they left behind on my skin.
Sometimes, I could see tiny fish darting in and out of the caves formed by the rocks in the shallows, sunlight striking their scales—but there were never many at once, so it could have been a trick of the light.
I looked for the stream in the summer when I returned. My feet led me down the familiar path through the woods, my hands brushing bowed branches out of my eyes as I walked. My pant legs stayed tucked into my socks, a habit learned from trekking through swarms of ticks in Massachusetts.
When I reached the clearing I had played in all those years ago, the stream was gone. Roots dug like worms into the soil where the fish used to swim. The only evidence of the former landscape was the deep trench—now devoid of water but still damp in the humid summer air—that wound its way between the trees, smoky rocks embedded in the earth surrounding it. The stones felt hot to the touch, scorched and sunbaked.
I did not hear the man until he spoke.
“You’re new here,” came a voice like a brook, rich and enduring and deep, like the color of spongy moss, the constant whorl of a snail’s shell—but it was also not unlike the finicky path of the trench I had been gazing at, a smooth groove twisting through the earth, winding its way around me like the shadow-flicker of a fish’s tail.
I turned away from the remnants of the stream to watch the man slink out of the trees. He approached cautiously, tall but unassuming, an old-fashioned cap drawn low over the bridge of his nose. His gaze stayed fixed on my face with an uncomfortable intensity even as his hands remained tucked into the pockets of his well-worn coat.
I did not recognize him, exactly, but he felt like someone I must know—or, at least, someone who reminded me of someone I used to know. I could not describe him properly if I was asked. Through the long shadows I caught glimpses of a straight nose and smooth cheeks, but I still could not make out his eyes with full clarity, only sense the pressure of them on me.
He looked jaded. He looked young. I stayed rooted to the ground.
“When did you get here?” he asked. Branches arched behind the crown of his head, casting his face in shadow.
“Just now,” I said, wary. “Should I leave?”
“Eventually,” he said, then flashed me a crooked smile. His gums bloomed pink against the ivory of his teeth, one canine protruding at a strange angle. I flinched, then tore my eyes away from his strange, young face.
For several long moments, I watched him out of the corner of my eye from my spot by the stream. He watched me in return, his face still shadowed by the brim of his cap. The very bottom of his coat was dappled in sunlight where the canopy parted above him. My eyes followed the golden patches that bobbed on his figure when the wind combed through the trees, and I suddenly recalled the deer tracks I’d spotted in the woods by my college, pictured the pale spots on the white-tailed fawn I’d seen, shutter-quick, in a field far away. The man reminded me of the fawn, cautious and fragile and innocent and knowing. He unsettled me deeply.
The man considered me for a moment longer, then stepped closer. The crunch of damp soil beneath his boots sounded like Massachusetts snow, crisp and biting. I thought of college and white hills and my burning hometown.
“Where are you from?” I croaked, mouth ashy, and he paused. I imagined deer tracks foraging through the undergrowth around me, freezing in place like the man in the woods. I wanted him far, far away from me, and, at the same time, I wanted to hold my breath to avoid scaring him off.
“I… don’t remember,” the man replied, bright eyes flitting about like shiny-scaled fish. His next step brought him to the edge of the clearing, and the sun washed over him as he came closer, softening tawny hair and a straight nose. The tension I had not realized was coiling my muscles tight released all at once.
“That’s okay,” I said. He stopped a few feet away from me. I stared straight ahead, watching the snails crawl across the shore on the other side. The stream bubbled beneath my feet.
I had not seen my woods in years, yet to see the clearing unchanged left me off balance. Weren’t things supposed to change when you left them behind?
I pictured the deer tracks skidding, kicking up roots and soil as they fled the furnace, escaping what became of this place. Wondered if they felt guilty, too.
I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to lay by my sun-dappled stream forever.
“When did you get here?” the man asked.
“I don’t remember,” I said, realizing I didn’t.
The man grinned, his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth. I could see it peeking out from behind one misaligned canine.
“Ah, yes,” he hummed, peering at me with those unsettling eyes. “It tends to go like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “Or anything.” He dipped his head so his face fell back in shadow, his eyes disappearing under the brim of his hat. “You’ll have to forgive me, my friend. My mind tends to wander in every direction when I’m in this forest. I must be getting old.”
The unsettling feeling returned suddenly. The man raised his head slightly, the high collar of his well-kept coat framing what was still visible of his youthful face.
“I have to get home,” I choked out. My pulse hammered like a thrashing fish in my throat.
The man watched me with golden eyes from under layers of coarse hair, the air silent and heavy like his thick coat. Then he tipped his hat to me, flashing his snaggletooth once more.
“Safe travels, my friend,” he said, voice rumbling like a brook. Then, like an admission of some sort: “The woods can keep you longer than you realize.”
And then he turned and disappeared down the long path home, and I was left with the silence of the stream under my feet, an ache somewhere deep behind my eyes.
Writer | Serin Hwang ’27| shwang@amherst.edu
Editor | Gabrielle Avena ’25 | gavena25@amherst.edu