Read Gone to the Forest: A Novel for Free Online

It is the food. She cannot find the food
     that she is used to here. She smiles at him and shrugs. He does not know what to say. It
     is true that her color is feverish. They are alone for the first time since they have
     been engaged.
    Cautiously, she puts her hand on his arm. She is still smiling. He stares
     down at her and doesn’t move. She tightens her grip. She begins to angle his body
     closer to hers. He thinksthat is what she is doing—he
     isn’t entirely sure. He feels panic. What does the girl want from him? What is it
     she expects? The panic grows and abruptly he shakes her hand off.
    The girl does not look especially surprised. She smiles and looks away.
     With one hand she smooths the front of her dress. He watches her hand flutter down its
     surface. Up and then down again. Tom longs for his father, who would know what to do.
     The girl continues to brush at her lap, now frowning a little. She removes an invisible
     hair, dangles it from her fingers, drops it to the ground.
    He says to her that he will go find his father. She is silent for a moment
     and then as he turns to go, she tells him not to. Her voice rises and then falters. She
     is asking him not to go. They stare at each other. She walks forward a little and then
     she places her hand on his chest. He stares down at the hand. Which is small and not
     particularly clean. Abruptly, he steps away.
    “Can I get you something to drink?”
    “Fine. Yes.”
    “What would you like?”
    “Gin.”
    He nods and walks to the drinks trolley. Gin, for the first time gin. When
     before it was juice and water. Suddenly he cannot wait to be away from her. The air on
     the veranda is thick with the smell of the girl. Her translucent touch. He cannot think
     straight. He picks up a glass.
    “How do you take it?”
    “On the rocks.”
    He nods. He pours in the gin. The girl is sitting now.
     He gives her the drink. She takes it from his hand while averting her gaze. He sits down
     across from her and crosses his legs at the ankles. He is aware that he has failed. The
     girl will not even look at him. So there it is. Two weeks ago his father asked did he
     not think the girl pretty. Now she is here in the house and he is half wondering how to
     make her leave.
    He says that he will go to find his father and this time she lets him go.
     She drops her hand through the air to show him just how little she cares. He can go hang
     himself for all she cares, that is what she is saying. Concealment not being part of the
     game at present, whatever game it is they are playing. She adjusts her legs, slyly, silk
     brushing against silk, and does not watch him as he goes.
    He finds his father at the front of the house. He has just returned from
     examining the pools in the river. He is wearing his work clothes and his shirt is open
     to expose his barrel-chested girth. Tom tells him that the girl is here. He nods and
     then asks Tom why he is not with her. Before Tom responds he strides through the hall,
     his boots leaving long streaks of mud on the floor.
    Tom makes a note to himself to tell Jose to clean the marks up. Now,
     immediately. While they are easy to wipe away. He turns to look for Jose. He walks the
     house in a hurry, looking for him. He finds him at last, out back, and he whispers the
     instructions. About the mud. In the hall. Then he returns to the veranda.
    The girl stands, back against a pillar, dress lifting
     on the wind, and she does not turn at the sound of Tom’s footsteps. He stops at
     the door. His father is at the liquor trolley. He pours with a steady hand. He picks the
     girl’s drink up from the table and hands it to her. She takes it with a nod. The
     old man does not look at her. He stands beside her and takes in her view. He takes of
     her space. Eventually, she turns to him.
    Tom watches, from the doorway. He stares, from the darkness. And then he
     leaves them. He goes to see that Jose has wiped away the mud and that dinner is