Watcher in the Woods

by Robert Liparulo

  “You’ve never seen him before?

  David thought about it. “I don’t think so.”

  “Long, dark hair? How old?”

  “His face was in shadows, but I think he was old . . . older than you.”

  “Wow, he must’ve been ancient.”

  David smiled. “Sorry.”

  Dad stroked David’s head again. He said nothing.

  David looked up at him. “What does it mean, someone seeing us like that? I mean . . . it can’t be good, right?”

  Dad frowned. “I don’t know.” He leaned closer to whisper. “David, you’re sure he wasn’t the same man who . . . the one who took Mom?”

  David shook his head. “No way. The guy who took Mom was bald and big. The guy in the woods was a lot skinnier. The one who . . . who . . .”

  As soon as Dad had mentioned Mom, David felt his chest tighten. His eyes stung with unreleased tears. Getting hurt bad enough to go to the emergency room was just the kind of thing that brought out the best in his mother. She would be here comforting him, assuring him that everything would be all right. Dad had been there for him, saying the right things, coming to his rescue. But he wasn’t Mom.

  When he’d fallen, and all the way to the clinic, David had yelled and groaned. He had gritted his teeth and essentially handled the scariness of the fall, the pain of his arm, and his concern over having been seen. Now, with the thought of Mom thrown into the mix, it was more than he could bear. His father’s face swam out of focus as tears filled David’s eyes. He lowered his head, and fat drops fell onto the hospital gown covering his lap.

  Dad pulled him close and hugged him. The paper under him crinkled again. It reminded him that he was in a strange place—not just the hospital, but Pinedale and the house itself. They were away from everything and everyone they knew, and bad things had happened. He wanted to go home, to his bedroom in Pasadena, to the familiar walls and smells and faces that would come to smile at him and wish him well.

  He hitched in a breath. “I . . . I . . .” He let the tears come. Then he caught his breath and tried again: “I don’t like it here. I want to go home.”

  “I know,” his father said, pulling him closer. David took some comfort from Dad’s big hand on his head.

  He sniffed. “I want Mom!”

  “Me too,” Dad said. “We’ll get her, Dae. We’ll—”

  “Mr. King?”

  Shiny black shoes came back into David’s view. David didn’t want to look up at the doctor, not with his face all wet and his nose running. He sniffed again and told himself to stop with the waterworks.

  “Is he still in pain?” the doctor asked.

  Dad rubbed David’s back. He said, “I think the scare of falling out of the tree caught up with him.”

  “Are you all right, David?” the doctor asked.

  His voice was smooth and calm. David wondered how many times a day he used those words. David nodded, then sniffed again. He wiped at his face with his fingers.

  The doctor stepped away. He returned, holding a handful of tissues where David could see them.

  “Mr. King, could we speak in private a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  The doctor’s shoes clicked against the tiles as they left the room.

  Dad leaned close to David, gave him another squeeze. He whispered, “I’ll be right back.”

  He wiped his face and looked up to watch his father step into the hallway, look both directions, then step off to the right.

  He wondered what the doctor needed to say in private?

  David slid off the table, cringing at the crinkling paper, ignoring the throbbing of his arm. The nurse had helped him remove his shirt—taking extra care to slip it off his injured arm—and given him the gown. He still wore his own pants and sneakers, which was a good thing now: he knew how to walk quietly in them. He crept to the open door and listened. Dad and the doctor were talking in the hall. Their voices were hushed, but David could make out the words.

  Doctor: “ . . . just asking if everything is okay at home.”

  Dad: “And I’m asking what that has to do with my son falling out of a tree.”

  Doctor: “I know that’s what you said happened, but—”

  Dad, his voice getting louder: “What do you mean, I said ?”

  Doctor: “The boy has other injuries, older, not consistent—”

  Dad: “What injuries?”

  Doctor: “Mr. King . . . he has a scabbed-over cut on his shoulder.”

  Boy, these guys catch everything, David thought. He had completely forgotten that the tribesmen had shot arrows at him when he’d gone into the jungle world. The three tigers that had wanted him for dinner had made the armed men seem like nothing big. But one of their arrows had cut his shoulder.

  Doctor: “He has a black eye, a bruise on his cheek. It looks like—”

  Dad: “Like what? What are you saying?”

  Doctor: “I just want to make sure David is safe.”

  Dad: “From what? From whom? Are you suggesting that someone at home is hurting him? That I’m hurting him?”

  Doctor: “I’m simply—”

  David stormed into the hallway. The doctor’s eyes grew big at something he saw in David’s face, and he tried to smile.

  “You think what you want,” David said, his voice loud against the tiles and smooth walls. “My dad loves me and has never hurt me!”

  He stopped beside his father, who put his hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Dae.”

  “No, it’s not,” David said. He never took his eyes off the doctor. “We came here for help, and you just accuse my dad of something . . . something . . . horrible.” Folding his cast close to his body, he pointed at his bruised cheek with his other hand. “For your information, my brother did this. We were playing, and it got a little rough, okay?” David threw a glance up and down the hallway, but Toria and Xander had wandered somewhere else. “He’s around here somewhere. You should see his head.”

  Dad stepped between him and the doctor. He gave David a look that was both stern and compassionate. He said, “That’s enough, David, I can handle this.”

  “But—”

  “I got it,” Dad said. “Really.”

  David opened his mouth to continue, then pressed his lips together, sealing his words inside.

  Dad smiled at him—the same smile that had comforted David many times: when David had not made the top-ranked soccer team, whenever nightmares had awakened him. He realized that he had been wrong before. They had not left everything familiar behind. They still had each other.

  Dad turned back to the doctor. “Are we done here?”

  “I just . . .” The doctor seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. “The nurse will get David a sling, and you’ll be all set. We’ll need to see him back here in a week.”

  Like everything is normal, David thought. Like you didn’t just accuse Dad of beating his kids.

  “Thank you,” Dad said, playing the game as well. He turned David’s shoulder to lead him back to the room.

  David gave the doctor his fiercest scowl.

  He hoped the man felt ashamed, but he just nodded at David and turned away.

  CHAPTER fifteen

  SUNDAY, 6 : 20 P . M .

  In the car on the way home, David was still brooding. He was in the front passenger seat. Toria sat in the back with Xander, complaining that all Xander had done at the hospital was sit in the waiting room and text his friends. Even now, he was clicking away on his cell phone.

  Dad moved the rearview mirror to see his elder son. He asked, “Is that Dean you’re text messaging, Xander? How is he?”

  Xander shook his head. “It’s Danielle.”

  “So how is she?”

  Xander’s thumbs tapped out a message. He let out a disgusted sigh, flipped the phone closed, and dropped it onto the seat beside him.

  “Problem?” Dad asked.

  “Girls,” Xander said. He crossed his arms and glare
d out the window.

  When he didn’t continue, Dad said, “Is she giving you a hard time for moving?”

  “It’s not that. Just . . . I don’t know. She’s being nice, I guess.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But she’s acting like we didn’t spend almost every minute together this summer. She says the weather’s been nice. She saw the new Matt Damon movie last weekend. Chitchat.”

  Dad nodded. He caught David’s eye and raised his eyebrows in a what’s-a-guy-to-do? way.

  The sling the nurse had given David was blue and took the weight of the cast off his arm. The white plaster extended from his elbow to his hand, where it covered his palm and ran between his thumb and forefinger. He doubted he was ever going to get used to it.

  “Can I sign your cast?” Toria chimed from behind him.

  “I didn’t like that guy,” David told his father.

  Dad gave him a puzzled look. “Who?”

  “That doctor, what he was saying.”

  “What’d he say?” Xander asked. He sounded glad to shift his thoughts away from his ex-girlfriend.

  “I wanna sign it,” Toria repeated, louder.

  “He didn’t mean anything by it,” Dad said. “It’s his job to look out for his patients, especially children.”

  “You didn’t seem too happy about it.”

  Dad shrugged. “He caught me off guard.”

  Xander said, “What? What’d he say?”

  David twisted in the seat, bumping his injured arm and sending a bolt of pain into his shoulder. His words came out sounding angrier than he intended. “The doctor practically accused Dad of beating me.”

  “He said Dad broke your arm?” Xander’s eyes grew wide in disbelief.

  David said, “We told him I fell out of a tree, and he said, ‘So you say.’ He asked if everything was okay at home and how I got this bruise on my face.”

  Xander was leaning forward as far as the seat belt would let him. “What did you say?”

  David smiled. “That you did it.”

  “Well,” Xander said, sizing up the bruise, “it is in the shape of a fist.”

  Now David’s cheek was starting to ache, just thinking about how the man who had taken Mom had punched him. He touched his fingers gently to his face. He said, “Yeah, but about twice the size of your fist.”

  “Okay, then,” Dad said, “can you blame the doctor for asking?”

  David scrunched his face at him. “But, Dad, come on! You beating us?”

  Dad frowned. “It happens, guys. Not everyone should be a parent.”

  They rode in silence for a minute.

  Finally Dad said, “This is the kind of thing we have to anticipate. We’ve got injuries we can’t explain . . . your mother’s absence . . .”

  “Flying!” David said, dramatically.

  “We can’t do much about what people actually see,” Dad said. “But, David, when we told the doctor you fell out of a tree and you said Xander had caused the bruise on your face, those were lies.”

  “What else was I supposed to say?”

  Dad held up his hand. “I know, I know. What I’m saying is . . .” He paused, struggling with his words. “It’s just that . . . I think we’re going to have to get used to lying for a while.”

  Toria gasped. “Daddy!”

  “Just for a while,” Dad said. “If we tell the truth about Mom and everything else, they’ll either think we’re crazy and lock us up, or think that we’re hiding something and start an investigation.”

  “We are hiding something,” Toria said.

  Dad glanced back at her. “They’ll think we hurt Mom.”

  “Like they think you hurt me,” David said.

  Dad nodded. “The truth is too weird.”

  “We can show them,” Toria suggested.

  “Oh, yeah!” Xander said. “The government would move in and take the house. Then we’d never find Mom.”

  Dad turned the SUV onto the narrow dirt road that ended at their property. He said, “We have a secret. Sometimes you have to lie to keep secrets safe.”

  “You know all about that,” Xander said.

  “Xander!” David snapped. It would be a long time before his brother forgave Dad for bringing all of them to the house in the first place. He was about to say something else, something about letting it go, when Dad spoke up.

  “You’re right, Xander, I do. And I regret it. But until we get Mom back, we’re going to have to make up a story about where she is. I’m thinking we should say she’s back in Pasadena, wrapping things up—you know, with the house sale and stuff. How’s that sound?”

  None of them replied.

  To David, coming up with an explanation for Mom’s absence felt like turning a page and leaving her behind. He knew Dad was right and they had to do it, but he didn’t have to like it.

  Dad stopped at the end of the road. In the woods, the house seemed to be waiting for them. It was barely visible in the shadows, with its green paint now weathered to a dull gray. David felt it, though. It was like waking up at night and knowing someone was in the room with you, even when you couldn’t see him. You just knew.

  Dad killed the engine and turned to look at each of them. He said, “Well? Can we keep what happened to Mom a secret?”

  Xander looked like he’d been asked to swallow a slug. He nodded.

  “Toria?” Dad said.

  “For how long?”

  “Till we get her back.”

  “What if they make me tell? What if they torture me?”

  Dad thought about it. “If they torture you, you can tell them the truth.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. “Okay.”

  Dad smiled at David. He said, “I know you can do it, Mr.

  My-Brother-Punched-Me-in-the-Face.”

  David said, “If it will help get Mom back.”

  “It will.”

  “All right then.” He had the feeling that this was an important moment, a decision they would always remember. He hoped it was the start of a successful rescue and not something he would have to talk about in court someday. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to push from his mind all the courtroom dramas he had seen on TV. There seemed to always be a time when someone made the decision to start lying, and everything went downhill from there. This had better not be that moment for them.

  Moving on—because his heart had to move on—he said, “What are we gonna do about dinner? I’m starving.” He opened the car door and hopped out.

  On the way to the house, Xander moved in close to him. “Ever see Spy Kids?” he asked.

  “You know I have,” David said. “We have it on DVD.”

  “So you know the story. Some kids save their parents from a bad guy who imprisoned them.”

  David stopped walking. “What’s your point?”

  Xander shrugged. “The kids weren’t always up-front about what they were doing. If they were, someone would have stopped them from rescuing their parents.”

  David rolled his eyes. “Xander, I hate to break this to you, but that was a movie. This is real life.”

  Xander chuckled. “What’s the difference, Dae?”

  CHAPTER sixteen

  SUNDAY, 7 : 07 P . M .

  While Xander helped Toria start dinner, David and Dad put locks on all the third-floor doors. David kept the screws in the sling with his broken arm, along with a snack-sized bag of Fritos. When Dad needed a screw, David would pull it out and hold it in place. As soon as Dad’s power screwdriver drove it into the wall, David released it and watched it shrink shorter and shorter until it was all the way in. They had been working in the third-floor hallway for about a half hour. Six doors were now padlocked shut. Fourteen to go.

  At the first door, David had cracked it open and peered in. A fishing rod and thigh-high waders rested on the bench. From the hooks hung a tackle box; a vest with pockets everywhere and fishing flies hooked into a patch of thick, yellow wool where ribbons went on a military shirt; and a flopp
y, wide-brimmed hat.

  David had said, “Fishing stuff.”

  “Shut the door, David. Let’s stay on task.” When David hesitated, he added, “These rooms have a way of drawing you in. We’ve got to be careful.”

  “Draw you in? Like how?” He popped the last of the Fritos in his mouth.

  His father dug around in the shopping bag of hardware. “Haven’t you noticed? You kind of want to go over?”

  David thought about when he had gone into the jungle world. He had threatened to go with or without Xander’s help—he wanted to go that bad. And hadn’t he decided a little too quickly to go into the World War II village in search of Mom?

  “If that’s true,” he said, “it’s scary.”

  “Like a shark posting signs on the beach saying the water’s fine,” Dad agreed. He snapped a lock through a ring in the hasp and gave it a couple of quick yanks to make sure it was secure. They moved to the next door.

  “What’s with these wall lights?” David said.

  They stopped in front of one that depicted two warriors in combat. One was thrusting a spear through the other’s chest. The figures stuck out slightly from the surface of the shade, which seemed to be made of stone—a relief, his father had called it.

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. His hand reached out toward it but stopped short. He held his fingers inches from the warring figures, as though he was resisting a temptation. “I think they show things from the worlds beyond the doors.”

  “There’s one down there with metal leaves and eyes peering through them,” David said. “It could be a tiger.”

  “And you saw the one with the gladiator?”

  David nodded, then something occurred to him. He said, “You know how the items in the antechambers change, and then the worlds beyond change too?”

  Dad nodded.

  David asked, “So do these wall lamps change?”

  Dad raised his eyebrows and looked up the hallway at the lights. “Now that you mention it . . . I don’t know. Most of the time I’ve been here, it’s been pretty chaotic. A lot of the lights appear the same until you look closer.” He put his hand on David’s shoulder and nodded. “Good question.”

  While he was holding a screw for the next hasp, and Dad was positioning the screwdriver over it, David thought of another one: “What if Mom tries to come back and the door’s locked?”