The House in North Woods
The House in North Woods
A Short Story by
Tennessee Kaplan
The soft padding of the grass and dirt was a familiar rhythm for Dan Blevins. His shoes stomped and trudged through the well-worn path in the North Woods, with every step he felt his worries ebb and the connection to the land pulled him further into communion with his surroundings. The stillness of the forest quieted the tempest in his mind, but it was still there – just farther away. His life in Atlanta was nice. His apartment was big, he made more than enough money for a young guy like him. His friends were a solid bunch and up until the past 3 months, he had a solid relationship to boot. That was of course until he had broken things off with Adeline Maddox, his girlfriend of about 3 years. He still walked around with the ring he had bought for her in his pocket. This walk was no different, the shiny rock and band of metal were his only company as he traversed the misty path on a crisp April morning in the North Woods of Florida.
Since the breakup, he hadn’t felt like himself. So, he had come back home to stay with his parents for a week. It was a nice change of pace to readjust to life without the woman he had thought he would marry. He marched through the winding forest path. The birds chirped and sang tunes that once again filled him with the same wonder he felt as a much younger boy going through the same woods. When he thought about her, he felt a deep pang of guilt and regret. He loved her. “What have I done? Why did this have to happen?” He thought to himself as the visions of his life, or rather lack of vision for his life swirled about his head. Did he even like Atlanta? He didn’t know. But he did love Adeline, and then he threw it away because love was hard and he didn’t think he could do it. Something was wrong. She was wrong, he didn’t know it but he felt it alright. “I just can’t do it.” He gripped the pocket in his jeans where the ring was and sighed. He didn’t know who he was without her, but he felt that he especially didn’t know who he was with her. So he broke it off right before he made the ultimate commitment. Now he lived in his sorrow until he could forget about it enough to return to Atlanta and face the life he had made for himself.
He stopped for a moment in a clearing before the lake. He took a deep breath and let it out. The air was still crisp, the oppressive heat of summer had yet to blow in. The clouds broke and a hint of sunlight reached him. For a second, he breathed in the warm air and thought about chucking the ring in the lake in a fit of rage. But he didn’t. He loosened his grasp on his pocket and looked out again across the lake and saw a small brick house on the far bank of the lake. He stared at it in amusement. He had never seen it before but he had walked this path since he was a young boy. It looked old, like it had always been there. Mossy oaks and tall pines surrounded the structure. It was picturesque. As he gazed, he heard rustling in the distance and an old man appeared from the scrub. The plain old man was walking towards Dan and waved. “Hey, how are you doing young man!”
Dan was disarmed but replied kindly. “Doing well old-timer. Nice day, not too hot yet.”
“What is a young man like you doing out in these woods at this time? I'm just gathering some wood for a fire.” Not 20 feet from the man was a wheelbarrow filled with sticks. Dan looked at the nice old man and back to the house on the far side of the lake.
Dan asked, “Is that your house over there?”
The old man sensed his confusion and quickly replied, “Sure is. Been there for a long time. The best firewood is here by the magnolia. The wood on my side of the lake is always wet. Need some real dry wood for the fire. Anyways, you have a good day alright.” He turned to walk back to his wheelbarrow but walked slowly, waiting for Dan’s offer.
“Hey I could take that for you. It’s a long haul,” Dan offered. The old man smiled and protested but accepted his help. They walked together as Dan wheeled the logs towards the earthy brick structure on the far side of the lake. Dan told the old man that he was in a rut as he carried the load, hoping that the old man had seen enough in his years to offer some solace. The old man chided him that love was indeed a difficult thing and shouldn’t be taken lightly. They arrived in the yard of the old House in North Woods and Dan dropped the wood. As Dan was about to say goodbye and take his leave, the old man presented him with an offer.
The old man started, “you know, I understand you are in a bad way young man. When I was your age I had a similar thing happen to myself if you believe it. You know, I just put on a pot of coffee inside. Maybe I could tell you more about it if you'll accompany this old man?” Dan turned, and thought about his offer. Feeling lost and thinking that this was as good a way to spend his morning, he obliged and followed the old man inside. They creaked up the wooden steps and cracked the door. Dan stepped into the quaint house and was seated in the living room as the old man went to grab the coffee from the kitchen. The old man stopped in the entryway to the kitchen and looked serious. He spoke to Dan in a much slower and deliberate way, “you know. You’re not gonna believe what happens next, but I’d encourage you to stay.” Then he ambled away into the kitchen. Dan was gripped with unease and reconsidered his entire morning, he clutched the arms of his chair and was poised to flee, but then was met with a surprise that kept his glued to his seat.
Adeline Dixon, his ex-girlfriend, rounded the corner from the kitchen and came out with a cup of coffee. “Hello Dan. It’s so good to see you,” spoke the beautiful woman in a yellow sundress. Dan sunk into his chair, stupefied. He grasped for words but none came. Adeline approached him with the cup. “It’s fine baby, don’t worry, I’m happy to see you. I miss you.” She stood next to him and placed her hand on his. It was at this moment that the old man returned from the kitchen, smiling and blowing over the top of his hot cup of coffee.
The old man spoke, “Dan, I need you to calm down. I told you that you wouldn’t believe what happened next. You can choose to stay if you want. I’d encourage you to.” Dan relaxed into his chair but still couldn’t manage to speak. He tried but no words could be formed, only sounds. Finally, the old man spoke again, “Young Dan, I will reveal to you something else that you may not believe. You haven’t seen this house before even though as you said, you have been walking this path your whole life. This house has always been here, that’s true, but it also hasn’t. It’s a bit of an in-between place that I decided to show you. And this woman is Adeline in the sense that she walks, talks, looks, and feels like the woman you say you love. But she isn’t the same Adeline that you would meet if you found her outside of this house. I knew you were in a bad way son, so I wanted to give you a chance to fix that pain in your heart.” Dan recoiled at the old man’s revelation.
Dan finally spoke, “This isn’t real! None of this is real. You aren’t, she isn’t!” He pointed to Adeline. He continued, “I want out. This is crazy. I broke up with her – I don’t even want to be with her!” Dan was gripping the arms of his chair again and breathed deeply.
The old man sniggered, “Then why haven’t you left yet Dan? Door is right there, you’re free to leave.”
Adeline gripped Dan’s hand. She smiled softly. Her beauty was real, and very real to Dan. He felt that hand and the jolt of love and fulfillment it brought him. Adeline spoke softly, “I know it didn’t work Dan. I’m sorry. I love you and I don’t want this to end! Please. This is the version of me that can make it work for you, I can fix that hole that I made in your heart.” Dan felt intoxicated. He knew that whatever she said was true. Maybe part of it was the shock of the situation, but he felt the sincerity in the voice and touch of this Adeline. His heart was stilled. The uncertainty was gone. He did love the woman in front of him. He closed his eyes and gripped her hand. It was ecstasy.
Dan stood up, “I do love Adeline. I have to leave.” He turned around and walked out the door. Adeline began to cry softly and that familiar noise sent a pain through Dan as he continued out the door of the House in North Woods. The old man ambled calmly towards the door as Dan left the house. He smiled slyly and sipped his coffee. He thought about his words carefully.
The old man yelled at Dan as he left through the yard, “You can come back anytime Dan. I’ll be here, and so will she!”
Dan didn’t stop until he made it back to his car. He sat down and huffed a sigh of anguish. He punched the steering wheel and yelled. He gripped the ring in his pocket and breathed out slowly, calming himself and talking through what just happened. He decided this was weighing heavier on him than he knew and that none of what happened was real. Dan pulled out his phone and thought about texting Adeline, but he decided against it. He threw his phone into the passenger seat and started his drive home in silence.
After a scenic drive through canopy trees with breaking sunlight through the midday clearing of the clouds, Dan arrived back at his family home. No one else was home yet, both his parents were still at work. He felt panic and wanted to yell. He wanted to reach out, he wanted to tell someone what was going on. He paced the empty kitchen in the faint dark, only illuminated by the daylight streaming through the windows. He gripped the kitchen table and felt pulled between wanting to run away to forget about Adeline entirely and the feeling of wanting to run to her right this instant and beg her pardon. But he couldn’t do either. He was stuck in that same place. He loved her, but something in him was wrong. Going back to her wasn’t going to fix that. Unable to face himself, he went to his room, crawled into bed, and pulled the covers over himself. He spoke to himself, “I can’t do it.” When his mind had tired of running laps between these two points of despair and despondency, he fell asleep.
The familiar sound of the garage door opening and shoes on the wooden floor woke him up. It was night. His parents were home and soon enough his mother would be yelling for Dan to join them at the table. He felt calmer and was ready to face the world again, his mind at bay. The ring in his pocket poked his leg as he rolled out from his bed to head to the dinner table. Mr. Blevins was already seated; the TV was on and he was focused on the news. He greeted his son half-heartedly as he came to the table. Soon enough Mrs. Blevins came and placed dinner on the table. She scolded Mr. Blevins for having the TV on. They began to fight. Dan served himself some chicken casserole and began to eat. It was nice to be home, the food tasted like he remembered and it brought him back to a simpler time. The Blevins’s argument fizzled into a stalemate and Mrs. Blevins asked Dan how it was to be home.
Dan told them everything was going okay. He had gone for a walk in the morning and spent the rest of the day around the house. Mr. Blevins told him it was good that he was getting back on his feet because he didn’t care much for Adeline anyway, Dan could do better. Mr. Blevins said that at such a young age in his finance career, it was better not to be distracted until he got more established. Dan smiled and nodded at his parents’ comments but felt that pain coming back to him, but he fell quiet. It made it worse. Mrs. Blevins was so happy to see her boy back home and wanted to know more about his situation, but she kept telling him about all the things that had happened in North Woods while he was away. When she was finally done, Dan didn’t feel much like talking. He felt for the ring in his pocket and thought about finally telling them that he had bought a ring for Adeline before he broke up with her. Mrs. Blevins started to clear the table, and Mr. Blevins moved to the couch. Dan thought that dinner had gone well, so he went back up to his room.
Dan sat on the edge of his bed, running between two places in his mind. Thinking of the real memory of Adeline and thinking of the Adeline he had met at the House in North Woods earlier that day. That was it for him, he grabbed his phone and called Adeline. The phone rang and he knew it was going to voicemail. But at the last ring, she answered.
Adeline’s voice came through, “Dan?” It was her voice, the voice of the real woman that Dan knew. He panicked. He felt the love that he experienced in the woods but he also felt the anxiety of dealing with a real human. He sputtered out words and told her hello. He told her that he did miss her and that the past several weeks without her had felt worse than the end of his time with her. She didn’t sound amused at all of his words but she was still happy to hear from him. Dan began to feel better, and the anxiety ebbed, though it was still there. He asked how she had been, and she began to tell him all about how she felt about the breakup. How her life was changing, how her idea for the future was changing. She might leave Atlanta, she might move out west, she might change careers and go back to school, she was hanging out with her friends that Dan didn’t like, and she was making the same jokes that made him cringe. She was real, alright. She was a good woman, she wasn’t perfect.
But he loved her still, and that was what created the tension. She kept talking and he kept listening. He laughed and smiled hearing about her life and how she was. She even commented on the trip they took to Iceland over a year ago and how she still uses the same backpack today. They talked about the trip. Dan said that seeing the northern lights together is still the greatest thing he ever did in his whole life. Adeline said she could never forget the smell of the car they drove around that whole country. They laughed together and then they were quiet.
Adeline broke the silence, “So how’s work?” Just like that the dread and anxiety and anguish rushed back to him.
Why did she have to say that? Dan thought to himself. Their conversation continued, and his love for her was still there but less so than the bad feelings that were now running through his mind. Eventually, they finished talking and Adeline said it was wonderful to chat after not speaking for so long. Dan said he agreed. They said bye, and he hung up. Dan was back in his bed now. Staring at the ceiling in the darkness of his room. He was too tired to think, but not too tired to feel. He felt stuck. And then one thought ambled to the front of his mind as he fell asleep, “I have to go back to the House in North Woods.”
The next morning followed similarly to the last one. Dan got up and got ready to take a walk in the woods to clear his mind, albeit this time he was both more hesitant and more excited to go back on that trail. He got in his car and made that same drive through canopy roads in the early morning twilight. Once again, he kept the ring in his jeans pocket. The only thing stronger than his hesitancy to go out to the House in North Woods was his revulsion to his actual life. He began to experience a kind of single minded hope in this mythical house he had entered that he was also not even sure was real. “I have to go back. I have to see if it’s real. I have to see if she is there.” He coached himself through his enveloping mania.
The SUV pulled into a dusty lot and parked under the shade of a massive live oak tree. Dan had arrived at the North Woods Greenway, and now he set out on the path towards the House in North Woods. He followed the winding trail between the longleaf pines and shrubs. He moved faster and faster as he thought more about what he was doing. “This is good, this is good!” He kept repeating to himself as he walked farther away from the parking lot. Birds sang happy songs in the crisp spring air, but their nostalgic tunes weren’t reaching Dan. He marched farther along the trail toward the lake. He didn’t stop to admire the lichens growing on the trees, or the deer creeping in the distance. A bobcat rustled in the tall grass, and he paid no mind. “She has to be there.” He existed almost as a passenger in his own head, carried by the machinery of his body. Dan came to the clearing and saw the lake. He ran to the water’s edge and scanned for the house on the other side. He saw it! It was real after all!
“I knew it was real all along!” Dan shouted. He quickly began to trudge through the scrub on the banks of the lake to reach the house on the opposing shore. Finally, he began to doubt as he continued moving towards the house. Why this house, why Adeline, why this old man? Dan thought to himself. But the answers didn’t matter. He also knew how he had felt when he was inside, and he knew how he felt when he was back home. This place was crazy alright, but it beat the anguish he continually lived in when he was outside. He had felt peace with what felt like the best version of the woman he loved. The real Adeline Dixon couldn’t hold a candle to her, he knew. And if he could feel good about Adeline, he could feel good about himself, so he kept walking towards that feeling that he had only felt inside that House in North Woods. Now, he had reached the door. Dan knocked.
The old man from the previous day opened the door eagerly, “I knew I would see you again young man. Come on in and take a load off.” Dan entered the house and sat down in the same chair he had used yesterday. The old man started again, “She’s here don’t worry Dan. I bet you had quite a day, what changed your mind?”
Dan relaxed into the chair as he answered the old man, “It’s like I said yesterday, I do love Adeline. I called her last night and that made me realize it even more. I do love Adeline and I love the one that I met here the most. She’s perfect. She doesn’t make me have to worry about anything. She’s easy to love. She doesn’t have baggage or bore me or bother me. It’s like I just felt such peace when I was with the Adeline who lives here that I just didn’t feel with the real one. I just want that. Like I told you it’s been hard for me, life has been tough trying to figure it out now.”
The old man gave him a fatherly glance and began, “Well you don’t have to worry about it anymore son. You’ll be okay here with her.” Adeline came from the kitchen in the same sundress she wore the day before. She looked even more beautiful to Dan than she did yesterday. Dan hopped out of his chair to embrace her. The old man smiled, “Dan I am so glad to see you are happy again. I’d like to make you an offer.”
Dan held the New Adeline in his arms and turned to the old man with the largest smile he had in months, “What is it? You’ve already done so much for me?” He embraced his New Adeline again.
The old man paced the room and spoke, “Well. How about I let you stay here with this Adeline and you don’t have to worry about any of that nonsense going on out there?”
Dan felt a resounding peace in his mind as he was nestled into this quaint house in the woods. He had the perfect version of the perfect girl and his psyche didn’t feel enflamed. Dan turned, “You’d do that? But this is your house! Yes! Please, let me be with her forever!”
The old man laughed, “Sure thing kid.” With that, the old man began walking to the door. At that moment, the unease returned to Dan. Something felt wrong inside. The old man walked out the door. Dan grabbed his own torso trying to grab this feeling of panic but couldn’t find it. Dan tried to run towards the door but felt weak. He ambled to the entryway. He grabbed the cane that the old man had left and used it to support himself as he tried to follow the old man out the door. Dan made it to the porch and was almost out of breath. He could barely see the figure that had left the doorway not a moment earlier.
Dan called out with the strength he could muster but his voice was weak. He continued walking through the yard after the figure. The figure stopped and waited for Dan to catch up to him. Dan’s blood ran cold as he became close enough to make out the figure he was chasing. “It can’t be!” Dan spoke to himself, “What is this!” Dan was staring at what appeared to be himself. He looked down at his own body and saw his hands. They were wrinkled and marked with liver spots. Dan whispered, “What have you done?”
Dan looked in horror to see that the old man he had chased out of the house, was no longer the old man, he was a young man that looked exactly like himself. The young man replied with a familiar voice but with vigor restored by his new youth, “I gave you what you wanted Dan. You can stay in the House in North Woods with Adeline forever – which also means that I can leave. And if you’re staying here, then you won’t be needing this.” The young man gestured to Dan’s body that he now engendered. The young man continued to walk away, “Thanks again, you’ve helped me work through a tough spot, I’m glad we could help each other out.”
Dan struggled to chase the young man and cried, “Wait! Please don’t leave me here! Who even are you? I don’t want to be left here! I was wrong, I was young and stupid!” Dan had now reached the spot in the clearing where he had originally met the old man yesterday. As hard as he tried to continue moving, he was stuck and couldn’t go beyond the bank of the lake. The young man kept walking, now uninhibited by the boundary thanks to his new body.
The young man spoke, “Who am I? I think I’m gonna go by Dan Blevins from now on.” He continued to walk away and grabbed the car keys and ring from his pockets. He spoke again, “I’ll leave you with this Dan. As I told you, this is a bit of an in-between place, and now you are caught in between. This house has always been there for those who can see it. I saw it one day too. The house doesn’t like to be alone and the only way you can ever get unstuck, is if you find someone else to take your place.” He strolled away, “Anyways – enjoy the house and enjoy Adeline. She sounds like a nice girl. I might go find her myself.” The young man walked down the dirt path back towards the parking lot while the real Dan, now old and broken, fell to his knees by the lake and began to wail. If he could go back, he would trade whatever the effort would have been to fix his situation for the nightmare he now lived. He stepped to the edge of the lake and looked at his reflection. His youth was gone. He looked into the eyes of an unfamiliar old man whose hopes and dreams had died long ago without ever being born.
Dan Blevins returned to the House in North Woods and waited for some other pitiable soul to have the misfortune of gazing upon his quant house.