The H(a)unted 

My ears were ringing and my vision was blurry. I don’t remember the moments in between from when the gun went off and when I was now standing over her. When my eyes came back into focus they gravitated towards the blood. The color was dark, much like what I was feeling inside—guilt—that took over me like dark clouds do to the sun when a storm is near. The high pitched hiss tuned out my father’s voice calling my name. 

“Silas,” a muffled voice called out to me. He gave me a good old whack on the back of the head to bring me back to reality, “Silas! You hear me boy?” The ringing came to a blatant stop. 

“Huh- what,” I replied in confusion, unable to process what I just witnessed right before my eyes. How could he do that? How could anyone with the emotional capacity to feel empathy possibly do that to a living, breathing thing. She used to have a beating heart. I like to believe my father had one once upon a time too. I turned my head to face him, “Why would you do that- I can’t even believe you did that like it was nothing.” 

He spat a fat lougie on the ground the way a man does to feel more secure within their masculinity. “They don’t feel nothin. Out like a light. Your old man ain’t ruthless.” I watched him approach the now lifeless doe to tie the legs together. “C’mon now, we gotta be back before sundown.” 

The closer I got, the more the guilt grew. It was eating away at me like maggots would have the doe if we had left her there to rot. I helped my father tie the legs while the image of watching her go down kept replaying in my head like a broken record. I never got used to watching. 

I told him to go on home without me. I wasn’t ready to go back yet. I had to clear my head on a long walk through the forestlands in the bluegrass state from the horror I just witnessed. I didn’t take note of where or how far I was going. I just kept walking. I felt like a robot programmed to do one thing and one thing only—my program was to not stop walking no matter what. 

Leaves rustled softly in the distance with crows cawing. I couldn’t quite make out what caused the rustling but I was certainly intrigued—enough to make my program crash. I didn’t move much to investigate because I didn’t want to scare it off. If I made myself still enough I’d catch a glimpse of it somewhere. 

And just like that, I watched a fawn appear out from behind the trees. My admiration for the beautiful creature was interrupted by the saddening thought that what I was looking at was the spawn of what I had just allowed my father to slaughter. My heart ached for the poor girl. I felt maternal for her now, like she was my responsibility to look after, for the sins of my father. Once I made myself visible to her she became frozen in time, hoping I didn’t notice her. I slowly and quietly reached for a handful of the closest and most appetizing looking weeds near me, then attempted to feed them to her. She stayed frozen in time, but if the woods were calm enough I could hear the drum in her chest. She eventually took the bait, hesitantly inching towards the weeds I laid out on my flattened hand. 

Her right foot began to take a step closer before my father interrupted, “Silas, let’s go, you better be back for dinner!” In sync our heads whipped back to the direction of my father’s voice. I looked back at the fawn. Screw that. I wasn’t going to eat her mother for supper. I had to hide but couldn’t leave her here all alone. I also couldn’t keep referring to her as just “her”. 

“Hey there, you’re a real pretty girl. Mind if I call you Mazzy for the time being? Cool, thanks Mazzy.” Her ears twitched and eyes glistened with curiosity as to what I was saying. Of course, she couldn’t understand a word I was saying. 

I attempted to lure her over to what looked like a good enough hideout between two boulders. “Yeah, this’ll do…” I said with uncertainty in my voice and my head inspecting the rocks being held together by another above me. 

To my own surprise, I was able to lure Mazzy in with me. I stayed facing the entrance of the boulders, guarding the vicinity, while Mazzy stood next to me. Too afraid to look her straight in the face, I kept glancing at her out of the corner of my peripheral. She was staring at me blank faced, her ears twitching every few seconds. 

I spoke aloud with the side of my eyes, “Sooo… this is weird huh? This is the longest and closest interaction I’ve ever had with an animal. This is also the most I’ve ever spoken to one. I’m not sure why I keep talking to you. Maybe it’s because I feel like you are listening despite the fact that you can’t make out a word I’m saying. There’s not much of that back home—listening.”

I continued to awkwardly ramble on, “Yeah, Ma pretty much takes orders from Dad so she’s a busy bee. And Dad? Well, he pretty much does whatever he wants which doesn’t ever involve me. Today was actually supposed to be his idea of quality father-son bonding time. That sure lasted long. Pfft, I know right, bright idea Dad! I got no siblings. It gets kinda lonely, ya know? Yeah, you must know. Especially now. Man, I am so sorry about my Dad. I don’t know why he hunts. Don’t worry though, I’m not a monster like him, I won’t hurt cha. Okay, I’m going to stop rambling now.”

Assuming his eyes stopped searching for any sight of my hair or Noah Kahan t-shirt, I stepped outside to take a peak at the area. I turned around to see Mazzy following behind me. Does she actually trust me…? I walked a bit further just for Mazzy to follow along behind me again. Holy shit. Whatta ya know? Now knowing she would follow, I headed for the small pond just up the ridge. The one Dad showed me years ago when he first started dragging me along on these trips—back when I was too young to understand what we were really doing out here. 

The water was motionless, effortlessly reflecting the orange and pink of the setting sun. I sat on a mossy log and Mazzy stood by my side, her head swiveling to take in the dragonflies skimming the surface of the water. She was so alert, so alive. The complete opposite of what I’d just seen hours ago. 

“Ya thirsty?” I asked her, gesturing to the water. She just blinked those beautiful brown doe eyes at me. I scooped water into my palm and held it out to her. She sniffed, her wet nose tickled my skin and so did her tongue. A laugh escaped me—the first genuine one in way too long. “There you go. Attagirl.” She butted her head against my hand, asking for more. So I gave it to her—I’d give her anything, I realized. I’d give her everything if it meant keeping her safe from the bastard I call my father. The sky was deepening now, purple creeping in at the edges, framing the vibrant sunset. I should go home; supper, my mother’s worried face, the gutted doe hanging in the shed. These thoughts clouded my mind. I couldn’t go.

“Okay Mazzy,” I said standing up, dusting off my jeans. “I think we must part ways for today, but I’ll come find you again tomorrow, yeah?” I walked deeper into the trees. She followed. I walked faster, toward the human-made pathway that led home. Her tiny hooves pattered behind me like rain on dry leaves. I stopped. She stopped. I turned back to her. She tilted her head. “What am I gonna do with you, huh? You can’t come home with me. He’d—” The words were stuck in my throat like forbidden fruit. I couldn’t finish that sentence. Wouldn’t.

“I gotta go, Mazzy,” looking at her long-faced. “You stay here, okay? Stay away from the road. Stay away from—” I couldn’t say it. Stay away from men with guns. “Just stay safe.” I started walking home, watching her. She watched me, her ears swiveling forward, confused. Again, she followed. “No, Mazzy. Stay.” I pointed at the ground like she was a dog. She wasn’t a dog. She was a wild animal who had decided, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, that I was trustworthy. 

We played this game for ten minutes. Me walking, her following. Me stopping, her stopping. Me pointing, her tilting her head like I was speaking a different language—which I was, I guess. Finally, I gave up and let her follow me up until the edge of our cabin. The lights were on in the kitchen. I could see Ma moving around through the window, setting the table. The shed door was cracked open, enough to only see the dried blood on the concrete floor.

I crouched down to Mazzy’s level, gently cupping her soft face in my hands. Her fur was impossibly soft and her breath warm. “You cannot come past this fence. Do you understand me? He will hurt you.” My voice cracked. “I can’t let him hurt you.” I don’t know if she understood. But when I slipped through the fence, she stayed put.

Supper was fairly quiet. Typical. Dad was in a good mood though—the kill, the success of it sat well with him. He talked about the weight of it, how he’s itching to butcher it tomorrow evening. I pushed potatoes around my plate, unable to get down the stew Mom had so kindly put together from last week’s kill. I don’t think she actually supports the way we get food on the table—but at the end of the day, it’s food on the table and that’s all that matters to them. 

“You okay, honey?” She asked with the utmost concern in her voice. 

I responded in short, “Fine, yeah. Long walk.”

Dad snorted after inhaling another bite. “Boy walked more today than he has all year. Did you good, son. Made a man out of you yet.”

I rolled my eyes and excused myself as soon as the opportunity presented itself; went to my room and pressed my face to the window that looked out at the woods. She was still there. A tiny shape just at the edge of the yard, waiting. I pressed my hand against the cold glass, sighing. “Stay,” I whispered. “I’ll come back. I promise.”

The days that followed became a ritual. Every morning before school, every afternoon after my chores, I slipped into the woods to find Mazzy. She was always waiting near the same spot, as if she knew the exact minute I’d appear. I brought her apples, lettuce, leaves from the backyard and clover I’d picked from the lawn. She’d nibble them from my palm, her wet nose and soft lips tickling my skin. She’d follow me to the pond where we’d sit for hours.

I talked to her about everything. About how much high school sucked and the way I was practically crawling to the finish line to graduate this year. About Ma and how gentle she is with me. About Dad and the distance between us. Mazzy listened with those big beautiful brown doe eyes I mentioned before, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly heard.

Fall bled into winter. Ma knows now. It was a late night. I was saying goodnight to Mazzy. I walked up the porch steps obliviously keeping my head down to see two slippers come into my field of view. There she was. Sitting on the porch swing in the dark. I paused my next step, tranquilized. We both had that look on our faces some would refer to as a “100 yard stare”. Neither of us said a word to each other that night, I continued up the steps, up to my room. Laying awake, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and praying to God—even though I’m not even sure I believe there is one—she doesn’t tell Dad what she saw. We never spoke of that night since—not since our eyes said all that needed to be said. 

Mazzy began to grow, her spots fading, her legs lengthening. She was becoming a young doe—a beautiful one. But she was still my curious little girl at heart. Still followed me through the woods like a shadow. Still slept curled against the boulders where we’d first hidden together. She was beginning to fill the part of me I felt was missing my whole life. 

I thought I was careful. I couldn’t have been more far off. How could I let this happen? 

It was a Saturday in early December. The first snow had dusted the ground. They left Friday afternoon to take a trip upstate to grab firewood. Mazzy and I were running through the woods headed to the cabin. I took her to the backyard where I had built her a snowbank earlier this morning before bringing her back here. I watched her prance around and kick up snow with her hooves. She inspected the snowbank before leaping into it. She was playing, actually playing, and I was laughing so hard my sides ached. I heard the crunch of boots on snow behind me. My blood now resembled the ice that surrounded us.

“The hell is this?” I spun around. Dad stood twenty feet away, rifle slung over his shoulder, his expression shifting from confusion to something else. Something hungry. Ma sat in the car, too afraid to leave. Too afraid to witness what was about to happen.

Instinct took over. I stepped in front of Mazzy, spreading my arms wide. “Nothing. Just—just a deer. Go away, Dad. Please.”

He took a step closer, squinting. “That’s the one that’s been hanging around, ain’t it? I’ve seen her tracks.” 

“She’s not hurting anything,” I fired back.

Dad scoffed in amusement, but there was no humor in it. “She’s a deer, Silas. They’re all the same. Food on the table.” He unslung the rifle, and the click of the safety releasing was the loudest sound I’d ever heard.

“No.” The word came out strong, stronger than I felt. My whole body was shaking. “No, Dad. You can’t.” Not realizing in the moment, the minute the word “can’t” left my mouth is the minute he took that as a challenge. 

“Can’t? Watch me.” He raised the rifle, aiming past me, at Mazzy.

I didn’t think. I just moved. “NO.”

The gun went off and all of a sudden I was standing over myself. Except I wasn’t myself—I was dead. That body on the ground, blood spreading across my Noah Kahan t-shirt—that was me. My hands. My muddy black converse that once had life in them. My face frozen. I watched my father take me in his arms. He was crying—something I never got to see him do in my lifetime. 

“You stupid, stupid kid,” he said to my now lifeless body. “Why would you do that?” 

Ma ran out the car, leaving the door open and rushing over to see why her husband was on the ground. The tears fell from her eyes like a broken faucet, dripping onto the wound, mixing with my blood.

Mazzy stood bleating out. She walked toward us—toward me—and pressed her nose to my cheek. A small sound came out of her. Like crying, if deer could cry. Then she looked up. Right at me. Standing above her, watching. Our eyes met but she didn’t know it. She held my gaze for a long moment, then turned and disappeared into the trees. He allowed her to get away.

She left but I stayed. Through the ambulance, the police, and my mother’s screams. Through my father being led away. Through the empty house and the cold dawn. I drifted to the boulders. She was there. Waiting. The sun crested the oaks. Light spilled through the trees, through me.