Chapter 11: The Woodshed's Welcome
The creak of the woodshed door was a sound Susi knew she would carry in her bones forever. It was the groan of a tomb, and she was the one being sealed inside. The air was different in here—thick with the ghost of pine resin and old, dry dust that caught in the back of her throat.
Uncle Rob’s silence was more terrifying than any lecture. He just pointed a thick, work-calloused finger at the central sawhorse, its wood stained dark with age and something else she didn’t want to think about.
“Please, Uncle Rob, I—”
“Now,” he said, the single word leaving no room for argument.
Her hands trembled as she obeyed, the rough grain of the wood biting into her palms and the tender skin of her thighs. The position was utterly exposed, her welted backside presented to the dim light filtering through the single grimy window. She heard the rustle as he selected a birch rod from the bucket, the sound like a rattlesnake’s warning.
The first stroke was a revelation of a different kind of pain. It wasn't the focused, searing line of John’s crop or the broad, blunt impact of Auntie Jill’s spatula. This was a swarm of stinging bees, a dozen sharp points landing at once, each one a tiny, individual fire. She screamed, the sound tearing through the quiet shed.
He didn’t pause. The second lash came, then the third, criss-crossing over the existing map of her punishment. She lost count after twenty, the numbers dissolving into a sea of pure sensation. Her world shrank to the whistle of the rod, the crack of its impact, and the raw, animal sounds she was making. Sobs wracked her body, shaking the sawhorse. Tears and slick sweat made the wood beneath her face slippery.
Through the blur of tears, she saw a flicker of movement at the window. A sliver of a face, a glint of light on a phone screen. Sara. Her cousin was watching, recording. The shame was a cold wave washing over the heat of her pain. It was one thing to endure this in private agony, another to be documented.
“This is for the lies, Susi,” Uncle Rob’s voice was a low, steady rumble, a counterpoint to the frantic rhythm of the birch. “And this is for sneaking off to that boy.”
The rod landed again, and she lost herself. Time stretched and snapped. It could have been a hundred strokes, it could have been two. It was an eternity. The pain was no longer a series of events but a state of being, a country she now inhabited.
When it finally stopped, the silence was a physical presence, heavy and absolute. Her entire backside felt like one massive, throbbing wound. She could barely draw breath between the hiccupping sobs.
She heard the soft click of a phone camera from the doorway. Auntie Jill stood there, her expression unreadable. She wasn’t looking at Susi’s ruined skin, but at her husband.
“That’s enough, Rob.”
He grunted, dropping the frayed birch rod back into the bucket with a final, dismissive clatter. He left without another word, his heavy footsteps receding across the yard.
“Get up, Susi,” Auntie Jill said, her voice firm but not unkind. “Get dressed and go to your room. We’ll talk about this later.”
Every movement was a fresh agony. Pulling up her jeans over the ravaged skin was a torture so exquisite she saw stars. She hobbled out of the shed, the bright afternoon sun a mockery after the dimness inside. She didn’t look back.
Sara was waiting for her in their shared bedroom, sitting cross-legged on her bed, her phone in her lap. Her face was pale, her usual daring replaced by a stark, sober awareness.
“Holy shit, Susi,” she whispered.
Susi collapsed face-first onto her own bed, a fresh wave of tears soaking into the quilt. She couldn’t form words.
“I got it,” Sara said, her voice still hushed. “I got all of it.”
“Delete it,” Susi moaned, her voice muffled by the bedding.
“Are you crazy?” Sara moved to sit on the edge of Susi’s bed, her weight making the springs creak. She didn’t touch her. “This is… this is nuclear. This is proof.”
“Proof of what? That I’m an idiot who can’t follow simple rules?”
“No,” Sara said, her voice dropping even lower. “Proof of what they’re capable of. Look, after what happened with John… and now this? This is a whole other level. We have leverage now.”
Susi finally turned her head, wincing at the pull of skin. “Leverage for what?”
A slow, calculated smile spread across Sara’s face, the daring creeping back into her eyes. “For whatever we want. No more stupid chores. No more early curfews. We want to go see John? We go see John. This…” she tapped her phone screen, “…is our get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Susi stared at her cousin, the idea so audacious it momentarily overshadowed the pain. It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was everything Sara was. And after the fire of the birch and the shame of the recording, the thought of holding that kind of power was a seductive, terrifying coolness.
She looked at the phone in Sara’s hand, a tiny black rectangle that held the echo of every sob, the image of her most abject humiliation. It wasn’t just a video. It was a weapon. And Sara was already offering her the trigger.
Susi stared at the phone, a cold dread seeping through the burning pain. That tiny device held the entire, shuddering truth of what had just happened in the woodshed. She imagined Auntie Jill’s face if she ever saw it, the profound disappointment that would eclipse even Uncle Rob’s stern silence.
“Well I don’t think that will work,” Susi finally whispered, the words raw. She pushed herself up on her elbows, a sharp hiss escaping her clenched teeth. “It would probably bite us in the butt. Literally.”
She met Sara’s determined gaze, her own eyes pleading for sense. “They made the rules clear. We’re adults, and we can leave the house if we don't want to live by their rules. But we are. And we must endure it, or just don't break rules and we would be fine.”
Sara’s triumphant expression faltered, replaced by a flicker of frustration. She opened her mouth to argue, to sell the fantasy of power again.
“For now,” Susi cut her off, her voice dropping to a pained murmur, “I could use some cream if you have some. And a pair of sweatpants. I don’t want to get into anything with a seam for a few days.”
The practical request seemed to deflate the charged atmosphere. Sara blinked, then nodded, the conspiratorial glimmer fading from her eyes. She slid off the bed and went to her duffel bag, rummaging through it.
She returned with a tube of arnica gel and a pair of soft, grey sweatpants. “Here,” she said, her voice quieter now. She tossed the pants onto the bed.
Susi accepted the tube with a trembling hand. The simple act of twisting the cap felt like a monumental effort. She squeezed a generous amount of the cool gel onto her fingers, the sharp, medicinal smell cutting through the lingering scent of sawdust in her memory.
The initial touch was a shock, a cold fire against the heated, throbbing skin. She worked the gel in as gently as she could, her breath catching with every subtle movement. Each welt from the birch, each lingering stripe from John’s crop, announced itself anew under her careful fingertips.
She managed to wriggle into the sweatpants, the soft, loose cotton a small blessing against her ravaged flesh. The simple comfort was almost profound. She lay back down on her stomach, her face turned toward the wall, exhaustion claiming her.
Sara stayed on the edge of her own bed, the phone still in her hand, its dark screen now a silent question mark between them. The recording was still there, a dormant weapon. Susi had refused to use it, but she hadn't demanded its deletion either.
The room was quiet, save for their breathing. Downstairs, a floorboard creaked, a reminder of the adults and their unwavering rules. The threat was now a shared, unspoken thing in the room, waiting for one of them to decide what to do with it.