Watcher in the Woods

by Robert Liparulo

  “We’ve already been through this, Xander,” Dad said.

  Dad stayed on the landing until David, Xander, and Toria were at the bottom of the stairs. He took a last look into the hallway, flipped off the lights, and came down. His hand had soaked his T-shirt, making it look to David like he was holding together a hideous wound in his abdomen.

  CHAPTER twenty - three

  MONDAY, 12 : 0 1 A . M .

  Together they washed and dressed Dad’s hand in the master bathroom. When Dad stuck his hand under the faucet, David wanted to turn away. He expected torn muscles, veins, and bones. But Dad had been right. It wasn’t as awful as it had looked. A deep, long gash, lots of bruising.

  David and Xander were almost back to their bedroom when their father called to them. Dad was on the other end of the second-floor hallway, in front of his own bedroom. Toria stood with him, holding his hand.

  “What?” Xander said.

  “Let’s stay together tonight,” Dad said.

  “Sleep together?”

  “Sounds good to me,” David said.

  Dad said, “We’ll make beds for you in here.” He gestured toward his bedroom. “Come on, Xander.”

  Xander shook his head. “Hold on.”

  The boys went into their bedroom to gather their pillows and blankets.

  “This is nuts,” Xander grumbled.

  “Why?” David said. “You know what they say: safety in numbers.”

  Xander scowled at him and stormed out of the room. David hurried to catch up, and the two of them, laden with bedding, marched down to the master bedroom.

  Toria was already under the covers in the big bed. David dropped his pillow and blankets beside the bed, on Dad’s side. Xander kept hold of his stuff, as though setting it down would mean he was cool with their all staying together, which he obviously wasn’t. Dad pushed a bit of blanket under Toria and came around to help David set up his sleeping area.

  “How long are we going to have to sleep in the same room?” Xander asked.

  “We’ve got to watch out for each other,” Dad said.

  “Can’t you and Toria stay in here, and David and I sleep in our own room?”

  Dad positioned David’s pillow, sat on the floor beside it, and crossed his legs. He sighed. “It’s better this way, Xander.”

  “How is it better?”

  Dad said, “Safety in numbers.”

  Xander rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I heard. So what, are we going to stay together all the time?”

  “As much as possible,” Dad said. “At least at night.”

  “So who’s gonna go to the bathroom with me?”

  “Xander,” Dad warned.

  “No, really.” Xander dropped his bedding on the floor. “We’re going to be like prisoners!”

  “Shhh,” Toria said and rolled over. She flipped her pillow, covering her head with it.

  Dad closed his eyes, opened them again. “I was thinking more like the buddy system.”

  “Okay,” Xander said. “The buddy system means two people together, right, Dae? Isn’t that what they told you in your scuba classes?”

  “Yeah,” David said quietly. He didn’t want to get in the middle of this argument.

  Dad just looked at him.

  “See?” Xander continued. “Two people. David and me. You and Toria.”

  Dad leaned back, propping himself up with his undamaged hand. He rolled his head in a complete circle. He looked as tired as David felt.

  “I don’t know, Xander. The guy who took Mom. This new person, Taksidian. The locks not helping one bit!”

  David could tell it was all getting to him. He wanted to tell Xander that they should just do what Dad said. Give the man a break. But Xander was as stressed as Dad was. And he did have a point. In the end, David bit his tongue and busied himself with ensuring his makeshift bed was laid out just right.

  “Dad,” Xander said, “I just don’t think it’s practical. You said that thing about safety in numbers, but there’s also something about getting more done in teams, isn’t there? When we’re here, when we’re not out pretending everything’s okay, we have a lot to do.”

  Dad groaned and got to his feet. He put his hands at the small of his back and bent backward. “All right,” he said. “If I had my way, we’d lash ourselves to each other and never be separated again.” He stepped closer to Xander. “I can’t stand the thought of something happening to one of you. Overprotective, I guess.”

  Xander shrugged. “I suppose you have good reason to be.”

  “Stay in here tonight,” Dad said. “Humor me. Tomorrow, you and David can go back to your own room.” He waggled a finger at Xander. “But you’re buddies, you hear? You stay together.”

  Xander smiled. “Gotcha.”

  “David, you hear?” Dad said.

  “Stick with Xander,” David confirmed. Then he watched with relief as Xander wrapped his arms around their father and hugged him.

  CHAPTER twenty - four

  MONDAY, 12 : 40 A . M .

  David came out of sleep slowly. Like rising from deep under water to the surface. It was rough seas, and the waves jostled him back and forth. Then he realized it was Xander, shaking him gently. In the glow of Toria’s night-light, he could see Xander smile.

  “What do you want?” he grumbled. “I’m tired.”

  “But, Dae, I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t you want to come?”

  “No, go yourself.”

  Dad had not really meant buddying up for bathroom trips, and Xander knew it. Even if Dad had meant for them to stay together for everything, even this, Xander would not have obeyed. He was just trying to get back at David for not supporting him in front of Dad.

  Or something . . . like that . . .

  David was going back under, into that dark deep, leaving the surface way behind.

  Then up again he went, waking once more under Xander’s shaking hand.

  “Xander! I said no. Go yourself.”

  “I did,” Xander said. “I saw something! You gotta come look.” He was whispering, but his tone was excited, maybe even scared.

  David rose up on an elbow. “What is it?”

  Xander touched his lips with a finger. “Shhh.”

  They both looked at Dad’s sleeping form on the bed. Heavy, rhythmic breathing said he was fast asleep. Xander jerked his head toward the bedroom door, rose, and crept toward it. David followed. When they were in the hallway, Xander leaned back in to pull the door closed.

  “Now what?” David said.

  “Come here.” Xander walked down the hall, then began to descend the staircase.

  “Xander, wait!”

  “It’s out front,” he said.

  “What were you doing out front?”

  “I just looked out the window. I thought I heard something.” He went the rest of the way down and peered through a window next to the door. “Yeah,” he said. “Look.”

  He moved away.

  David touched his nose to the glass. Beyond the porch, the mist swirled lazily over the forest floor, glowing slightly in the moonlight. The trunks of the trees, their branches and leaves were blacker than the shadows they cast. They made David imagine that the house was in the palm of some giant hand, and the trees were fingers.

  “Xander, I don’t see any—”

  But then he did: there was a man out there. He was standing halfway to the dirt road, the trees rising all around him. The mist glowed behind him, making his silhouette stand out.

  “He was in that exact spot when I first saw him,” Xander said. “I don’t think he’s moved at all.”

  David could not take his eyes off the figure. “Maybe he’s dead.”

  Xander stepped to the window on the other side of the door. “Dead? Standing up?”

  Just then, the figure did move. One shoulder seemed to come up as the other went down, as though the person had shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Both Xander and David pulled in a sharp breath.

 
“Do you think it’s Taksidian?” David wondered out loud.

  “I bet.”

  “Why? What does he think he’ll see?”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for us to leave so he can do something to the house,” Xander suggested. “Or he’s just trying to freak us out.”

  “It’s working,” David said.

  “This place is so weird, maybe it attracts weird people.”

  David thought about that. He said, “It attracted us.”

  Xander said nothing. The boys watched the watcher for a couple minutes. In that time, he appeared to shift or sway twice.

  David said, “Do you think he can see us?”

  Xander looked back around them, at the dark foyer and the upstairs landing. “Not unless he has cat eyes.”

  “Should we tell Dad?”

  “Let him sleep. What’s he going to do?”

  “Chase the guy away,” David said. “Call the cops.”

  “They won’t do anything.”

  “He’s on our property,” David said.

  “So they make him back up thirty feet. Would that make you happy?”

  David imagined the guy thirty feet farther away, but still out there, still watching. He said, “I guess not.” He turned away from the window to look at Xander. “So what do we do?”

  “Go back to bed.”

  “What if he’s there in the morning?”

  “We’ll make him an omelet,” Xander said.

  “I mean it.”

  Xander pushed away from the glass, shrugged, and headed up the stairs. “Dad will be up then. He’ll figure out something.”

  That wasn’t the answer David wanted. He looked back through the window. The mist appeared to be crawling up the figure’s legs, like snakes or flames. David felt a chill streak up his spine. Getting to sleep again wasn’t going to be easy.

  He turned away and started up the stairs, thinking he could still feel the man watching.

  CHAPTER twenty - five

  MONDAY, 6 : 40 A . M .

  David couldn’t even think of the word that described the nightmare he was about to face: new school, new kids, new teachers, new town . . . his mom had just been kidnapped . . . and they were supposed to act like everything was normal. Just another day on planet Earth. Isn’t the weather lovely today?

  Dad and Toria whipped up a breakfast of French toast and sausage. They took their sister to her elementary school, and Dad went in to meet the teacher. Xander sat in the front passenger seat, looking tired and glum.

  “You all right?” David asked.

  “What do you think?” he answered.

  They arrived at Pinedale Middle and Senior High a half hour early. Dad wanted to greet the parents as they dropped off their kids. His hand was bandaged, the yellow of ointment, the red of blood barely showing through. He joked about telling the parents he’d hurt his hand disciplining one of his kids. “But nowadays,” he said, “we’d better not go there.”

  David frowned. “Especially after what the doctor said.”

  Dad looked at his hand, one side, then the other. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I hurt it fixing up the house. How about you boys join me in saying hi to everyone?”

  “Like some kind of don’t-we-make-a-cute-family thing?” Xander said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Great way to meet your classmates.”

  “Dad.” Xander rolled his eyes.

  “David?” Dad looked at him hopefully.

  “I’m with Xander,” David said. “I don’t wanna get beat up my first day.”

  “Go, then, go,” Dad said, waving them away.

  Without saying another word, the brothers walked through the front doors and turned right. There was a sign on a portable stand telling them they were heading toward the grade 6–8 classrooms. Through the windows that lined the wall on their right, they could see Dad standing on the curb, waiting for cars and students. On their left were lockers and classrooms. At the end of the hall, they could go through double doors into the cafeteria or turn left into another hallway. They turned and approached locker number 119. It didn’t look like anything special.

  Say that after portaling to and from the linen closet, David thought.

  Neither of them could believe they hadn’t told Dad about it. Between Mom’s abduction and trying to deal with it, the linen closet had slipped their minds.

  Xander said, “Maybe subconsciously we don’t want to tell him.”

  “Doesn’t he already know?”

  “He’s never said anything.”

  David nudged Xander. “Want another sausage link?”

  Xander gave him a puzzled look, then smiled. He eyed the locker. “I don’t know . . .”

  “There and back, no big deal.”

  Xander glanced toward the main hallway and its wall of big windows. “Uhh . . .” he started.

  David followed his gaze. Across the grassy courtyard, beyond the picnic benches and flagpole, was the student drop-off point. Dad was standing at the curb, grinning right at them. He raised his bandaged hand and waved.

  The boys waved back. David said, “I guess maybe later, huh?”

  When he got there, David’s homeroom was empty. A brown lunch bag sat on the teacher’s desk, next to a stack of papers and spiral notebooks, so he guessed she’d been there and gone off somewhere. Mrs. Moreau, according to the class schedule Dad had brought home. He unslung his backpack and leaned it against the side of the desk. In Pasadena, backpacks were banned from classrooms, but Dad had said they were still okay here—just more evidence that Pinedale hadn’t caught up with the rest of the world.

  The windows at the back of the classroom looked out onto an athletic field. Three older boys were on the track that circled a large grassy area. Two were jogging; the other was either in the middle of some extreme stretching exercise or was hoping to replace a contortionist next time the circus came through town. The room was smaller than the ones David was used to. He counted the desks: four rows of five desks each. In Pasadena, only private schools limited their class size to twenty. He supposed Pinedale was too puny to have big classrooms.

  He walked around the teacher’s desk to a bulletin board on the far wall. There were notices about the hot-lunch program; chess and computer club meetings; a list of fund-raisers—entertainment books, popcorn sales, cake walk: it was enough to make David wonder if they were supposed to be students or salespeople. Sports announcements—once again, it grated on him that the school didn’t sponsor an eighth-grade soccer team. Supply lists. Emergency exit procedures. Where to park. How to drive. When to eat. If David had to read all this, if he had to know it, he would go out of his mind.

  Walking past the teacher’s desk again, something caught his eye: his father’s name on a piece of paper. Not unusual, given his position at the school. But this wasn’t a memo from him or about him. Someone had handwritten his name—Edward King—in the margin of a newspaper. Next to it was a drawing of a face with mean eyes under a V-shaped brow. Horns poked through the hair, and the mouth was full of fangs. A balloon speech box started at his mouth and disappeared under a stack of papers.

  He reached to move the stack away so he could read the words. Before his fingers touched the stack, a voice startled him.

  “You must be David.”

  He spun to see a woman pressing a sheath of papers to her chest with both hands, glaring at him. She was in her forties and birdlike—not in the dainty way, but angular and severe. She was thin and tall and slightly stooped, reminding David of a vulture. Adding to the image was the fuzzy gray sweater draped over her shoulders. The dress underneath was bright red.

  Her frown disappeared so quickly, David wasn’t positive he had seen it at all. In fact, her whole countenance seemed to change in a heartbeat from cruel to kind, but maybe it had been a trick of the light. He wasn’t sure her grin was any better than the scowl he thought he’d first seen. It reminded him of a T-shirt Xander had once owned: a wicked, beady-eyed troll rubbing his scaly-clawed
hands together. The slogan under it read Trust me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, thinking he sounded pretty together. Her eyes flicked to the desktop, compelling him to add: “I was just . . . um . . .”

  Think!

  “ . . . looking for information about . . . the chess club.”

  Her eyebrows went up. They were bushy things more suited to Russian presidents. “Oh, do you play?”

  “I try.”

  “What’s your favorite opening move?”

  “Pawn . . . to . . .” He felt himself smile. “I’m just starting, really.”

  “Well,” she said, striding toward him. He took a step back. She set the sheath of papers down, covering the cartoon figure of his father. “Mr. Campbell runs the chess club. He’d love to have you. I can introduce you, if you’d like.”

  “I’ll find him when I have more time, thank you.”

  She held out a long, bony talon. “I’m Mrs. Moreau. Nice to meet you.”

  David didn’t think the hesitation he felt showed as he reached for her hand. It was cold, and he could feel the bones through paper-thin flesh. “David King, ma’am.”

  He went to withdraw his hand, but she wouldn’t give it back. Instead, she put her other hand over his as well.

  She said, “I met your father. Such a nice man. How are you liking our little slice of heaven?”

  All kinds of images went through David’s mind. First, he thought of the piece of Boston Cream pie at the diner last week. Hadn’t the waitress called it a slice of heaven? Then he guessed she was talking about the school, but who in their right mind would use the word heaven to describe a school?

  His confusion must have shown, for she added, “Pinedale. Don’t you just love it?”

  David brightened. “Ah, yes. It’s . . .”

  Far from Pasadena. Isolated. Smaller than the mall I’m used to. Creepy. “ . . . lovely!”

  She leaned toward him, as if sizing up the meal he’d make. She said, “I can’t wait to meet Mrs. King.”

  David opened his mouth and shut it again. “Uh . . . that would be nice,” he said lamely.

  She released her grip on his hand, and he pulled it back quickly. She said, “Whatever happened to your arm?”