The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld

is going, she gets up and follows him out the back door. The old pasture is littered with broken-down wheelbarrows. She feels peaceful walking behind him, like a woods daughter behind her father. She developed a finely tuned sense of fear as a child—she knows when there is any danger. Her body tells her there is no danger in this man, at least now, so she can traipse after him through the sunny meadow and into the shady woods.
    The sweet smell gets stronger as they zigzag down circuitous paths and scramble over logs set across dry creek beds. He lifts branches for her to pass under and, more than once, a string across the path—a poor man’s booby trap, to see if others are spying.
    â€œMy grandpa left this land to me. When I left Sawmill,I came here. It took a lot of healing, I guess. I got into that hippie shit for a while, then some other stuff I won’t mention. Mostly finding the bottom of the bottle. Looking for answers.”
    A spiderweb hits her in the face. She nonchalantly claws at her face and sees a huge orb spider hanging inches from her hand. Without a moment’s hesitation, she claps both hands together and kills the spider, then wipes her messy hands on some ivy on a tree.
    He grins with admiration. “Ain’t afraid of bugs, is you.”
    â€œGrew up with too many.”
    â€œHuman or fly?”
    They come to an open clearing where the smell is intense. Dozens of huge pot plants stand at attention, reeking with the perfume of their potency. He breaks off a bud and rubs it between his fingers. “Pretty babies.”
    She waits. The smell is so strong, so female; she wonders if she can get high just from breathing.
    He holds the tightly furled bud in his open palm. “I never got the whole thing, you know.”
    â€œWith Shirley.”
    â€œWith the whole town. It was like—something happened to us. Something wrong. And it was in me, too.”
    The smell is overpowering, but there is also the sky above, and the calm woods around, and she can see even in the fabric of his shirt that he does not want to hurt her. Like most of the people she sees, he has been waiting his whole life for someone to listen. “You said you left.”
    He nods. “I left because—I felt bad. I wanted to help Shirley. I moved in with her for a time, don’t know if you heard that. Didn’t just take from her like most of the men. But the other men, they had gotten used to it. They didn’t want to back off.”
    â€œAnd York?”
    â€œOh. Oh boy. He was ’bout nine at that time, I suppose. He had these eyes—I can’t explain. I tried to help.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œI brought stuff—food, mostly. I’d make them supper, feed that little boy. York’s legs would hurt him something fierce, and I got this lotion to rub on them. But none of it . . . oh well.”
    She waits. The smell is dizzying, and Troy is framed in his pot plants.
    â€œNone of it worked,” the lady says.
    â€œNo, ma’am. None of it worked. They kept coming even though they knew I was there—that she had a man now. They didn’t care. They’d come when I was at work, and I’d get home and she’d be sitting on her bed, her legs all wet and that smile on her face. You got to see, ma’am, she was daft, okay? She was daft, and the men all knew it. They all took advantage of her, and oh my Lord, it was like something bad in all of us. I did it, too. I admit it, okay? But I—I cared about her. I wanted to help. She had some nice parts, ma’am. Did you know she had a pretty voice? She could sing like an angel.” He is breathing heavily.
    â€œYork.”
    â€œThat poor boy. Sometimes I’d get home and she would be just sitting on the bed, no pants, wearing nothing but an old blouse with flowers on it, with those wet naked legs. And York would be crouching in the corner. There wasn’t no place, you