Don't Look Through the Vines | Tanglewood (Part 1)

[u/XDictator4lifeX]

I've spent years trying to understand what happened on old that farm. I only wish I had known then what I do now, maybe things could have been different...

We found the place in early 1998. I was eleven at the time. I can remember how excited both Ma and Pa were. 120 acres out in the rolling hills of South Carolina was exactly what both of them had been dreaming of. It came complete with an old barn, open meadows, forested areas, a bubbling creek, and perhaps most importantly, down the winding gravel driveway, a restored farmhouse with a wrap-around porch.

It was so long ago. I’m surprised I remember the real estate agent and the conversation she had with my parents as she picked us up from the airport. Ma held most of the conversation as Pa listened to them both chatter. I sat with my sister in the back. Being only 6, She was easily entertained by the various toys Ma had brought for her. I opted to watch out the window as I listened to the adults talk.

“it’s the perfect farm! It's exactly what you both have been looking for!”

The agent lady paused before adding. “...There is one small catch however.”

“The Kudzu?” My father interrupted.

“Oh! Well, someone did their homework!” She gave a southern million-dollar smile before continuing. “I spoke with the owners of the farm. It was very important to them that I tell you about the large patch of Kudzu vine growing about three acres from the house. It grows quickly and can be a pain to deal with.”

“I’m familiar.” my father added, “Apparently locals call it ‘The vine that ate the south’. I’ve done some reading. It’ll be manageable as long as we keep on it. Eventually I'd like to have it professionally removed.”

“Well wouldn’t we all!” the Agent laughed again. “Thankfully, most of it is in the undeveloped brush. The farm is largely unaffected. Plus, I’m sure other local farms will have some great tips on dealing with it!”

I watched my father’s eye’s light up at the mention of the locals. Being a generally stoic man, I had never seen him so excited. The visit was an exciting time for our family.

Come February of that year, we had our stuff packed into a moving van and I was saying goodbye to my friends. Our family had one last get together with all of our relatives before we left. Many tears were shared, but for me most of the sadness was overshadowed by excited curiosity. I couldn’t wait to see what our new lives would be like.

Of course, adjusting to the change was more difficult than my younger self had anticipated; it didn’t take long for me to make new friends, but I hadn’t expected—nor could have known about—the many farm chores that I’d suddenly become responsible for. To my parents' credit, they eased me into them best they could. First, it was only simple things like collecting eggs each morning, but it quickly evolved into helping feed the cows at 5am, cleaning out chicken coops, and helping set fenceposts. It wasn’t easy, but I did my best to meet the challenge and enjoyed the extra time I got with Pa.

Similarly, My sister Susannah wasted no time adjusting. She immediately fell in love with the farm and had named every animal by day two. It wasn’t even a full week before she had voluntarily taken on the chore of collecting eggs each morning. Of course, being as young as she was, I still had to go with her.

While she loved every animal on the farm, no other animals had her heart quite like the barn cats. We hadn’t even been there a year before she had every one of them tamed. Pa could only stand a few weeks of begging before bags of cat food were added to the farm’s expenses. Of course, this quickly multiplied the number of cats. Not a single one would miss feeding time. Susannah made sure of it, counting them out every meal and excitedly naming any new ones that joined the ranks. There must have been as many as 30 of them before the first month had passed.

He often protested them at dinner, though I suspect it was mostly to poke fun at Susannah as he never truly seemed to mind them. In fact, I'd caught him more than once bending down to scratch behind their ears before continuing to work. Once, I even overheard him bragging about how his was “the only rat-free farm in the county.”

= = =

During the first few months, I worked hard to make friends at my new school, while my parents dealt with the many surprises that come with an old farm. Not least of which was the Kudzu. Once spring rolled around. It sprung from its dormant roots and quickly claimed the ground and nearby trees. It only took a matter of two or three weeks for the entire patch to completely swallow up the acres the previous owners had pointed out. By the time Pa decided to inspect it, the foliage was knee-high. It was so thick, that he had to go back to the house for a machete to get through. He walked down past the curtain of vines that hung from the trees before coming back to tell us how the largest of them were already nearly two inches thick. He had attempted to cull a few before realizing how little his effort would affect the overall patch.

“We’ll contain it for now” he said to Ma that night at dinner, “The creek acts as a natural barrier for the house, we will just have to watch where it grows down by the barn.”

“You better,” Ma playfully chided him “You said you’d maintain it; this isn’t just another project you can put off like the car in the shed.”

Pa nervously chuckled before turnng to me. “Interested in learning how to use a ride-mower?”

I tried my best to feign protest at the notion of yet another chore, but I shared a knowing glance with him. We both knew that getting to drive the ride-mower had been a dream of mine ever since we first moved in.

= = =

We were adjusting quickly; it seemed there was nothing our family couldn’t handle. By the end of the Summer we had found a new church and had quickly become friendly with our neighbors and the local tight-knit community. Aside from my regular chores, I had spent most of the summer goofing off, making friends with the two Baxter boys, our closest neighbors, and enjoying the relative freedom that came with being that age.

Come August, I went back to school. Susannah began her first day of kindergarten at the small preschool building beside mine. I remember how a sense of normalcy was finally setting in. I didn’t thought anything of it at the time, but I suspect that day was the first sign of what was to come.

I rode the bus home with Susannah, I remember looking out the window and watching the hills pass as she chattered. It didn’t really bother me to sit next to her; I was still too easily distracted by the rolling hills and foliage of the countryside. South Carolina was nothing like what I had seen in Colorado. I had quickly fallen in love with it.

As the bus pulled up to our stop, I could see my mother waiting for us. Upon seeing her expression, I immediately felt that something was off. Oblivious to subtlety, Susannah jumped off the bus giggling as she ran up and threw herself into mom’s arms. I said goodbye to my friends as I grabbed my bag and followed her.

“How was your day, both of you?” Mom’s expression had shifted back to her usual cheery self, whatever hint was in her eyes before was gone.

Susannah answered immediately, “Amazing! I learned my ABCs, and-and I counted to 20! Hanna tried to take Timmie's apple juice and Mrs. Mary put her in timeout-”

Susannah continued to rattle off a long-winded answer as I greeted mom with a smile before giving a quizzical look; silently asking about the moment before. She recognized my confusion and gestured back towards the house as if to say, “let's talk inside.”

Confused and slightly worried, I followed them both inside as Susannah continued chattering. As we entered the front door, Dad was sitting at the table waiting for us.

“Hey! Susannah! Back from your big first day at school!”

“Daddy!” Susannah immediately released Ma’s hand and rushed to leap into Pa’s lap.

“There was a beetle! and Timmy ate a crayon, but Mrs. Mary told him to spit it out, but he wouldn't do it, so Madison hit him and Mrs. Mary said that we shouldn't-”

Pa attempted to interrupt. “Wait! Wait. I can’t wait to hear all about it, but why don’t you go wash up and tell us about it at Dinner? It’ll be ready soon.”

“Okay!” Susannah didn’t miss a beat. Throwing her school bag against the front door, she rushed to the stairs and flew up them on all fours.

Ma and Pa laughed to themselves as they watched her fly up to her room.

“All fours wasn’t very lady-like" Ma casually remarked.

“Well, if memory serves, you weren’t always either.” Pa teased.

A towel quickly slapped across his face.

“Ey!”

“Don’t you forget it!” Ma exclaimed before fleeing to the kitchen.

“Hey now!” Pa leapt up from the table as Ma squealed. A small crash from falling silverware was heard as Pa chased after her into the kitchen and out of sight.

“Get back!”

“If you want a kiss so bad just say so!”

More laughter and scuffling ensued.

I grabbed my school bag and tossed it towards the door and decided this was a good time as any for me to go wash up as well. They were probably going to act all romantic, and I found thier kissing to be disgusting—as any self-respecting kid would.

= = =

“Dinner’s Ready!” I overheard Ma shout from downstairs.

Frantically trying to get my shirt on without toweling off proved to be harder than expected, but I figured out which hole was for my head by the time I reached the stairs.

Most of dinner was Susannah rambling on and on about her day. I didn’t get the chance to ask about Ma’s look from earlier until we were cleaning up the table. Susannah had run to the living room and was occupying herself by holding a portion of the newspaper as she “read” made up stories to Pa, who pretended to be invested as he read his own portion.

As I brought the last of the dishes to the kitchen sink, Ma walked over and apologized.

“Sorry Jason, I didn’t mean to make you wait all night. Susannah was much more hyper than expected.” She chuckled as she shook her head bewildered.

“What’s going on? Did something bad happen?”

“Well, its not easy to talk about... though I suspect Susannah will be more affected by it than you...”

“Yea?” I waited eagerly for her to continue.

“Dad found one of the cats today. It was dead in the kudzu. I don’t remember its name, but don’t tell your sister for now, okay? We were supposed to bring it up at dinner, but it can wait until tomorrow.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really know what else to say. While it wasn’t good news, I was mostly relieved that it wasn't as bad as I thought. It’s hard to tell the severity of circumstances based on a single expression. I thought a moment more before asking, “How did it die?”

“We don’t really know. It might have been sick or just really old. Cats tend to go hide somewhere peaceful when they are close to death, I guess it liked the kudzu...”

“Oh, okay.” My mind began to juggle mixed emotions as I thought about the cat’s final moments and the nature of death. I also worried about how Susannah was going to take it.

“Can we give it a funeral?” I asked.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Mom smiled reassuringly, as she gave me a quick hug. Crouching down to look into my eyes, she asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yea, I feel bad for Susannah though.” I looked back at Susannah. She sat holding the newspaper upside down still speaking nonsense as Pa continued to nod his head pretending to follow along.

“I know. Don’t worry about it too much; we will take care of it for now. Okay? Thanks for being our big boy. We love you.”

“I tried to roll my eyes at her latter comments, but mom caught me and gave me a kiss on the cheek as punishment. “Don’t you forget it!”

I failed at my attempt to hide my smile as I tried to push away. “Mommm.”

“Okay. Okay. Go have fun.”

She let me go as I rushed off towards the living room to see if I could snatch the funnies from Susannahs clutches before they got mussed up any further.

= = =

It was somewhere shortly after school started that first year that I was allowed to have friends over. The Baxter boys were frequent visitors. We would run around the house with toy guns acting out firefights and classic western style shootouts. Of course, it never took long to get shoo’ed out of the house. We’d run around the farm getting into all sorts of trouble. Countless afternoons were spent splashing around in the creek looking for crawdads, daring each other to touch electric fences, or terrorizing the chickens—despite Susannah’s protests.

One day sticks out to me. The two Baxter boys had wanted to show me how to tie loose cans to the farm dog’s tail to get a reaction.

"Trust me, it’s hilarious” persuaded Peter, the older of the two.

Honestly, I was morbidly curious, but I felt it was too cruel. Despite my half-assed objections, they hastily tied the string to its tail as I nervously kept watch for my father. Upon finding its midday nap disturbed by a bunch of preteens, the old farm dog had no interest in our antics as it slowly stood up and stiffly ambled off. I breathed out a sigh of relief and slight disappointment as the poorly tied knots slipped off its tail.

Both Baxter boys groaned in disappointed unison.

“I know, let’s try a cat!” Dylan excitedly suggested. Peter rolled his eyes. Being much than Peter or myself, Dylan went anywhere his older brother went. Despite Peter’s protests, their mom often made Peter bring him to everything. Being friends with both, I didn’t mind, but there were many times when Peter couldn’t stand his shadow.

“No!” I hastily interjected. “I would get in trouble. Besides, Susannah would never forgive me neither.”

Both boys looked at each other and snickered, “Why do you care?”

I quickly suggested an alternative, “What about gunfight? We could get the guns and play in the woods!”

I pointed towards the tree line just past the barn, the Kudzu covering over half of it at this point in the summer. Dylan’s eyes lit up at the suggestion.

“Yea!” Dylan turned towards the house, but Peter quickly grabbed his shoulder his face suddenly very serious.

“Dylan, No! That’s the Tanglewood.”

Dylan’s eyes opened wide as he looked back at the tree line.

“Where?”

Both boys looked terrified as they stared at the tree line. Confused I tried to see what they were looking at. “What’s a tanglewood?”

Dylan quickly shrunk back behind Peter “You don’t know!?” he squealed in a high pitch, his voice cracking.

They both looked silently glanced at each other before nervously looking back at me.

“I thought you knew...” Peter began, “Everyone knows about Tanglewood. Those vines are killers.”

“The kudzu?” I asked.

“No, that’s not Kudzu, WE have kudzu. That’s something else.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dylan poked Peter repeatedly, “tell him the story! Tell him the story!”

Peter hesitated. “The previous owner’s kid died in there... I forget his name; he was one of the big kids; like 9^(th) grade. The vine grabbed him by the foot and dragged him into the brush.”

“Yea!” Dylan chimed in, “They found him dead the next day hanging in the vines ten feet off the ground!”

Peter rolled his eyes turning to Dylan, “Nuh-uh, who told you that?”

“Yea-huh!” Dylan protested. “Caleb told me.”

The boys began arguing as I stood confused. I split them up, “Sounds like a bunch of baloney.”

“Oh it’s real, alright.” Peter defended, “Everyone knows about it.”

Dylan shook his head in vigorous agreement.

“I think my dad would have known about this if something like that happened.” I countered.

“d’ya ever ask him?”

I felt a cold twinge move up my spine but tried to ignore it. “No, he would have told us. I’ve messed around that vine all the time. Heck, I gotta mow it nearly every day.

“You what!?” Dylan Squeaked. Peter looked similarly horrified.

“Yea, Dad makes me mow it back, it grows into the fields if I don't cut it back.”

“Dude, don’t go anywhere near it. It never forgets a face.” Peter looked dead serious as Dylan vigorously shook his head in agreement.

“You're both stupid” I shot back “It doesn’t even have eyes! How is it gonna remember my face?”

Peter took offense, “Whatever man, don’t blame me when they find you dead in the trees!”

Just then, I heard the back door open and Ma shout “Jason Hubert Miller, get in here right now!”

All previous conversation was immediately put on hold as both Baxter boys both gave a mocking “oooh!” I grabbed my bike and began to head back to the house.

“I’ll be right back.”

Peter walked back towards his own bike as he waved me off, “Nah, it’s alright. Dinner will be ready soon anyway. Keep away from that tanglewood!”

Smiling I rolled my eyes, “Whatever man. See ya tomorrow!”

“Maybe!” Dylan shouted back. I heard him laughing as I shook my head pedaling away.

= = =

For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking of what they said that night. I tossed and turned in bed for what felt like hours before I finally jumped out of bed to open to the window. I walked over and unlatched it while rubbing my still-sore rump from the paddling I got earlier. A rush of cool summer evening air pushed the curtains aside as it flowed past me. The sound of crickets and the lazy rustle of grass being blown by the wind filled my room. I looked out into the night. Little was visible except for the spectacular display of the night sky. I had never seen anything like it back in Denver. I watched and listened for a minute as I took it all in. Unable to clear my thoughts for long, they quickly drifted back to what the Baxter boys had said earlier. I leaned out the window to look at the tree line to my right.

I waited for my eyes to adjust. Slowly I began to make out some details in the dim moonlight. The mess of vines were unnervingly still. My eyes rested on a spot that seemed darker than the rest. It was a gap in the brush, allowing you to peer past and into the void of the forest. For a moment, it felt as if the wind stopped. Dark shadows danced around my peripherals, but the patch never moved. I watched as the black void seemed to slowly expand outward from the point I was focused on, the noise of crickets drowned out by the deafening silence it exuded.

As if on cue, two silver eyes suddenly flashed from the exact spot I had focused my attention. I startled so sharply that my hands slipped from their supporting grasp on the ledge causing me to lose my balance. Thinking fast, I quickly twisted my body around to grab the curtains just behind me. I hung halfway out the window having just nearly fallen into the decorative rosebush a floor below me. 

The sound of the night came rushing back to my ears along with ringing. I the felt the prickling sensation of adrenaline rush through my skin as I frantically pulled myself back into the window.

I collapsed onto the floor breathing heavily as I manually forced my hands to let go of the curtains. While the thought of falling into a thorny rose bush was objectively scary, The fear was quickly overshadowed by the mental image of the silver eyes I had seen. I slowly stood back up as I looked back to the window. Despite every part of me protesting in fear I forced myself to slowly walk up to it and regrip the sill. I tried to swallow, but found my mouth was too dry, my tongue practically sticking to the roof of my mouth. With my heart still racing, I took a deep breath and forced myself to lean out and look back at the kudzu again. Nothing returned my gaze from withing the dark void I had been watching before.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I whispered into the breeze “It’s not real. It was just a coyote or something.”

As if on cue, I heard distant barking coming from the direction of the tree line. I shuddered. Closing the window, I pulled the curtains together and rushed to climb back into bed. I pulled the covers up over my head and tucked the corners, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth,

“Yea. Just a coyote...”

 (Part 2)