#so i cooked this up as a special anniversary snippet + something special you'll see in

[fiddles-ifs]

"Hey Kiddo." [GREENWARDEN ANNIVERSARY SNIPPET]

Sometimes, when Dad isn't home, Mom lets you watch cartoons at the diner in town, lets you meet other kids at the park. Always home before sunset. Always wearing a hat. Never tell Dad where you went, what you did. Never stay for too long in one place.

Sometimes people from town stop Mom in the streets and ask how she's been, their eyes all a-worried. Asking if she can stay over at theirs one of these days, catch up, and she always declines with a look your way. There's a deep sadness etched on her face. It reminds you of the rocks at the beach. You see the same face worn into their sides by the unrelenting, salted tide.

Sometimes Dad doesn’t come home, out deep in the woods somewhere. That’s when Mom takes you out for ice cream at the diner and lets you watch cartoons as much as you want, and talks in hushed voices with people you don’t know. Their faces are friendly – but they look at you like you’re a monster. Something with teeth waiting to pounce. A few even look like they hate you. You feel it in the soles of your feet, bare on the tile.

Dad is home tonight. He has you out in the woods today, watching you from a log as you scratch a big buck between the antlers, its head bowed to give your stubby arms a little more access. It snorts and takes two paces backward when Dad gets up from the log and puts his big anvil hand on the top of your head. 

You can't help the flinch. He ruffles your hair. Slowly.

That is not your father.

“What's it thinking, kiddo?”

“Uhm,” you look at the buck, watching your dad with unblinking eyes. The animals don't really have thoughts. None that you can hear, anyway — you feel their minds through the soles of your feet, up into your shoulders. The squirrels and deer, the pillbugs under the rocks. The big buck takes another step back.

“I dunno?” Dad's hand on your head stops. Your little heart starts a hammering rhythm in your ribcage.

“Try again.”

Whose memories are these?

“It's — scared?” No, not scared. You don't know the word. If it were scared, it would have run — but the big buck just stands there. Watching.

In town, there's a big church with gargoyles (like the cartoon) sitting on the edge of the roof, staring down at the sidewalks. It's like that. If there's a word for it, you don't know it. You can barely read, all your schooling spent in the woods learning how to track, hunt, and bend the woods to your chubby hand.

You stick your fingers in your mouth to chew on. They taste like game grease and fur and a little bit of grit.

Your dad hums. A stick somewhere deep in the woods snaps, and suddenly the buck runs off. You wave bye-bye to it. The pillbugs and squirrels and whippoorwills scatter at the sound. You turn to squint into the black. There's a monster in there somewhere — you feel the emptiness on the soles of your bare feet, the surface skin of your arm.

Dad pats you on the head and turns you toward the house, pushing your shoulders a little. You almost fall. You scrape up the top of your foot on a rock catching yourself, blood bubbling from the split skin.

Not yours not yours this is not yours.

“Go on — your momma's waiting.”

“Okay!” When you run off, your heart finally slows to a metered rhythm. Somewhere, deep behind you, you hear the sound of crunching and ripping flesh.