“I’d love some,” she said, sitting down on the front steps of the new house beside her new friend. Riley produced a joint and a lighter from her bag, lit the joint, took a hit, and handed it to Helen. Helen inhaled the smoke, let it seep into her lungs. She looked out across the yard to the tree line, to the path that led down to the bog. She was sure she could smell the bog, the dampness and earthy scent of peat, when the wind blew in their direction. It was as if the wind from the bog was telling her:You are meant to be here.
And:I chose you.
She hadn’t smoked pot since college, but it seemed like the right thing to do—part of who the new Vermont Helen was. She felt loose and relaxed for the first time in days.
She imagined the shit she’d get if her friend Jenny back in Connecticut could see her now—Embracing your hippie self, Helen? First step weed, second step unshaven armpits, then you’re commune-bound for sure.And if Jenny had any idea Helen believed she’d seen a ghost—her old friend would be up here in four hours, shoving Helen into her Land Rover to go back to the safe predictability of life in Connecticut.An intervention,she’d call it.
Helen imagined having a dinner party with Jenny and Riley—pictured Jenny staring at Riley’s tattoos, piercings, and blue bangs. Helen got a little thrill out of the idea of introducing them, showing off Riley like an exotic pet—look at my new friend, look at my new life.
Riley’s skin seemed almost alive to her. “I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” Helen found herself saying.
“Awesome! I can hook you up with someone. There’s this guy, Skyler, I apprenticed with him once upon a time when I thought maybe I wanted to be a tattoo artist. He’s amazing. Most of this is his work.” She held out her arms and Helen saw things she hadn’t noticed before: images and faces within the designs.
“Do you know what you want?” Riley asked.
What did she want? Her mind drifted, spun. She stared into the empty black eye socket of the crow skull on Riley’s forearm. Nate would like that one, Helen decided. It was like something he might draw in his nature journal.
“Do you have a design in mind?” Riley asked.
Nate came back with a six-pack of beer.
“What are we designing?” he asked.
“Helen’s tattoo,” Riley said as Nate passed her a beer.
“Is that right?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral, but he shot Helen a look of concern—or was it derision? He pulled up a folding camp chair and sat facing them on the lawn in front of the house. Helen felt a twinge of guilt, like she had betrayed him somehow. The weed was making her paranoid, surely.
“Nate,” Helen said, as he settled into his chair and cracked open a beer. “You should tell Riley about the deer you saw this morning.”
Nate had a good swig of beer, then told Riley the story of the albino deer.
Riley smiled and nodded, happy for him, but not seeming the least surprised.
“Wait,” Nate said. “You know about the white deer?”
“That was Hattie you saw,” Riley said.
Helen’s stomach clenched.
“What?” Nate laughed.
Riley laughed, too, but comfortably.
“Oh yeah! There are tons of stories that go back for decades about a white doe in these woods. A couple of hunters back in the late sixties swear they found a naked woman out here by the bog. She ran, and while they chased her—they say to help her—she transformed into a white doe.” Riley’s leg was pressed against Helen’s as they sat side by side on the steps.
Nate laughed so hard he snorted beer out his nose. “And how much had they had to drink?” Nate asked, once he’d pulled himself together. “Or maybe it was something stronger—nothing goes with a hunting trip like a little LSD, some magic mushrooms maybe. I’ve heard how Vermont was in the late sixties and seventies.”
Riley shrugged her shoulders. “I guess you never know. However, as I said, there are dozens of stories going back years and years. People seeing her, following her deep into the woods.”
Nate took a long sip of his beer and looked at Riley, his eyes moving from her face to her tattoos. “Interesting. I mean, albinism has always been linked with mystical stuff. In folklore, the ‘pure white animals’ often have magical abilities. In some cultures, albinos are considered cursed and are shunned. But really, it’s just a genetic mutation—an accident that causes melanin to be improperly produced or distributed. Beautiful, unique, sure…but just genes.”
“It’s weird, though,” Helen said. “Don’t you think? That there are so many stories about a white doe in these woods going back years and years? I mean, if hunters were seeing her in the sixties, it can’t be the same deer, right? How long can one deer live?”
Nate scooted his chair a little closer to Helen, put a hand on her knee. “I’d have to look it up, but I doubt more than ten years, probably less,” he said. Helen reached down, took Nate’s hand, gave it a squeeze, then removed it from her knee.
“I’m telling you, it’s Hattie,” Riley said, rolling another joint. “Got to be.”
“Maybe it’s not just one,” Nate said, pushing his chair back again. “Maybe it’s hereditary. Maybe there’s a whole population of them out there. A colony of albino deer! Like the black squirrels in Toronto!”
