In A Dark Dark Wood

The harder Nora tries to remember, the more she fears her brain is making things up: “But I don’t know if I’m remembering what happened—or what I want to have happened” (188).

The narrative shifts from the present to the night at the house. Nora remembers waking up again to the sound of footsteps on the landing. She opens the door and sees Flo and Clare. Flo has the gun. Tom also peeks outside of his bedroom door. They hear someone coming up the stairs. The group huddles together, with Flo in the middle, gun raised. Flo is shaking, so Nora puts her hand on the muzzle of the gun to steady it. Nora sees a man come halfway up the stairs, but she can’t see his face. Flo shouts, and the gun goes off.

Nora sees the window on the landing shatter, with glass everywhere. The man falls in a heap. Someone turns on the lights, and Nora sees the man slide down the stairs in a trail of blood. Flo whimpers, “Oh my God. The gun […] the gun was loaded!” (191).

The narrative switches back to the present. The nurse has brought a doctor to see Nora. Nora asks the doctor who is dead and why the police are outside her door, but he tells her not to worry. Nora shouts back, refusing to let him patronize her. The doctor sympathizes with her distressed state but explains that he must examine her for now. Nora answers his questions about her name, age, and symptoms. The doctor says it is normal to have memory loss about events just prior to her car accident, but he is a little concerned that her loss extends beyond the collision. He suggests that her memory loss may be stress related.

Nora asks to see the police, so she can find out what has happened. The doctor is reluctant but agrees. Nora takes a bath first, grudgingly accepting help from the nurse. There are cuts and scratches all over her body. Nora sees her face in the mirror, and the severity of her injuries shocks her. She gets back into bed, and Detective Constable Lamarr enters. Detective Lamarr asks about the events leading up to the accident as Nora recounts the hen weekend. Nora asks if she is a suspect, but the detective says they are still gathering information. Detective Lamarr asks what Nora remembers from the night before. Nora tries to ask who died but can’t speak. She begins to cry uncontrollably, and the detective steps out of the room to let her calm herself.

The story switches back to the night at the house. Nora rushes down the stairs, yelling for Nina to call for help, but there is no reception. The injured man whispers “Leo” to Nora, and she realizes it is James: “I remember that moment with heart-stopping clarity” (201). Nina is the first to say James’s name, as she rushes down and checks for his pulse. Nina sees that James has a punctured lung and thinks he is bleeding internally. She instructs Nora to put pressure on the gunshot wound.

James tries to speak to Nora again, calling her “Leo.” Flo comes down and faints at the sight of James’s blood. Nina yells to Tom to come take Flo to her room. James tries to speak to Nora and says Clare’s name. Nora shouts for Clare and wonders where she is. James manages to say faintly, “Clare…text…did she say?” (203). When James closes his eyes, Nora begs Nina to do something. Nina runs to get towels from the kitchen and questions Clare’s whereabouts. Nora pleads with James to stay with her and presses harder on his wound. James softly tells her that he is sorry. Once again, he calls her Leo: “Only James ever called me that. Only him. Always him” (204).

The narrative then continues in the present. Nora, now able to recall James’s injuries, cries. There is a knock on the door, and Detective Lamarr enters. Nora asks her if James is dead. Lamarr simply says that she is sorry, so Nora knows that it is true. She struggles to speak but can’t.

Lamarr hands Nora a cup of coffee and after a time, Nora finds her voice and thanks her. Lamarr says that she is sorry Nora had to find out this way, that they needed to hear her version of what happened, without influence from anyone else. Lamarr asks Nora to tell her what she can remember of the previous night. Nora answers that she remembers the shooting and seeing James. She recounts the eerie Ouija board message and how they later found the kitchen door open. Nora tells Lamarr that Flo thought the gun contained blanks. Lamarr says, “And you were holding it, is that right?” (206). Taken aback, Nora explains that Flo was holding the gun. Lamarr comments that Nora’s fingerprints were on the barrel. Nora explains that she steadied the gun so that Flo would not point it at anyone.

Lamarr asks Nora about her relationship with James, and Nora replies that they were romantically together at school. Nora becomes increasingly nervous as Lamarr questions her, wondering why James’s accidental death warrants such an inquiry. Nora wants to ask if she is a suspect, but she does not want to appear suspicious. Lamarr asks Nora to walk her through what occurred after the gun went off.

The narrative resumes on the previous night. Nina binds James’s injured leg with a sheet and says that their best hope is to stabilize James and get him to a hospital. Nina says that Clare should drive, Nora will direct her, and Nina will ride in the backseat with James. Nora asks for Clare, and Nina tells her that she was in the garden trying to get a phone signal.

Clare enters, looking pale. Nina instructs Tom to get a board to carry James to the car, and he improvises with a door. Tom says that Flo is still unconscious. Clare brings her car to the front door, and they manage to get James into the backseat. Nina realizes that there is no room for her in the back as well, so Nora offers to stay behind.

The narrative returns to Nora in the hospital, trying to continue her recollections to Lamarr. Nora says, “There was a misunderstanding. I’m not sure what happened” (211). Although the events blur together, Nora recalls that Clare suddenly drove away before Nina could get in the car. Nora remembers picking up Clare’s coat, which was hanging over the porch railing. Confused, Nora wonders if it was really Flo’s coat.

Nora’s recollections fragment: She remembers running through the woods but can’t remember what prompted her to start running. Nora cups her fingers as she tries to remember holding an object in her hand. Lamarr tells Nora that Tom’s statement says that Nora was looking at something in her palm before she suddenly took off running. Nora, feeling desperate, says she can’t remember what the object was.

The nurse comes in and tells Lamarr that she is upsetting Nora and must leave. Once alone, Nora wonders how Nina and Clare are doing. Nora thinks about James and realizes that all the bitterness she felt towards him is now gone. She thinks back to how they first became a couple. Clare had pursued James, but when she became ill and Nora took over her role in the school play, Nora and James fell in love. Nora is bereft that just as her anger about the past is gone, so is James.