by Lee Thompson
He slipped his hands in his pants pockets and shrugged again. “Is he like us? Like you and Dad? Like everyone else? Normal.”
She studied him a moment and then shook her head. “He’s not normal at all.”
She looked over Red’s shoulder, out the window, and her face paled and at first Red thought the Dragonfly Man was right behind him, levitating on the other side of the glass, staring in at them, its voice building to a crescendo buzz, spilling out like the stranger’s voice…Can I see the boy?
He shivered.
His mother wiped her eyes. Her lips parted. She reached for him and said, “Come with me. Lunch is ready.”
Red didn’t look behind him, but the back of his neck tingled as he crossed the threshold.
* * *
She didn’t talk as they ate, only stared at her plate, played with her food—something else she yelled at him about when he had stuff on his mind but felt unable to talk about it. After she dumped what remained of her food in the garbage beneath the sink, she told Red that she needed to lie down.
Alone in the kitchen with the big window behind him, he took a deep breath and turned slowly as his mom shut her bedroom door at the back of the trailer. Outside, the dead lawn stretched out to a landscape of brown and green, the vegetation thick and dense, and he knew that the Dragonfly Man could be anywhere just waiting for him to step outside. Red chewed on his lip. He needed to see Amy but he didn’t know what would happen once he started the trek, what kind of risk it would put her in, even if he stuck to the road, which he planned to do.
He stood and inched quietly toward the drawer next to the fridge, not wanting to wake his mom, knowing that she wasn’t really sleeping—she was thinking, and hiding, because the man who came to visit hadn’t really been a man at all, but something else. Like Mr. Blue. Like Leonora. Like the dragonflies and the ravens that screamed with children’s voices.
Red was glad that his little sister was at their aunt’s in town. He didn’t want anything happening to Maggie. He could picture the cloud of dragonflies fascinating her, teasing her until she chased them to the edge of dark woods, then one step inside and that’d be it, she’d be gone.
Red pulled a butcher knife from the drawer. He didn’t know what good it would do him against something Otherly, but it was better than nothing, and it offered a small amount of comfort. He took the knife and snuck to his room and pulled on a hoodie, then grabbed a magazine, and hid the weapon inside, folding it in half so tightly that it hurt his fingers. Red went back to the front door and stared out the screen, convincing himself that if he didn’t get to Amy, the creature from the woods—from Glory on the Green, he thought—would get to her first.
He opened the screen just enough to slip through the gap and ease it shut behind him. The wind whispered in the trees again, a melody that made his heart ache. Red knew that some things had it in their nature to devour and destroy other things—animals did it, men did it—but he didn’t like it, and he had a hard time accepting how God could be so cruel to allow this. He thought, Life is full of Division. Full of cruelty.
He shook his head, jumped down the steps, and jogged past the large oak until he hit the dirt road. It ran an eighth of a mile up the hill with heavy growth crowding both sides. The air grew thick as if trying to hold him back as he ran up the drive, his feet pounding dirt, arms pumping at his sides, the knife nearly slipping free of the folded magazine until he gripped it tighter and ran harder.
Something rustled in the brush to his right. Red’s heart pounded harder but he fought against the panic building in his muscles, redirected the energy to move faster than he ever had before, his mind so set on getting up the hill that it never occurred to him that the creature might just watch and follow him.
Two
He followed Shays Lake Road east until it T’d onto Philips. It was another ten minutes walking north, surrounded by the hills and valleys, long stretches of tilled farmland that stretched back to the woods, before he saw the cabin on the Lalko property. Red suspected that James Lalko liked Amy and it gave him a funny pang in his stomach when the bigger kid smiled all sweetly and told her that he’d do anything for her, all she had to do was ask. It made Red want to hit him. But James wasn’t bad or mean to anyone, so the conflicting emotions about drove him crazy.
Some kids called her trailer trash behind her back, afraid to say it to her face because they thought she was a little off and her dad sold drugs while he drew unemployment and there were rumors that he used to live in Chicago and be a much darker person, involved in all kinds of seedy activity. Whenever Red tried to coax details from Amy she always shut him down.
As he crested the last hill and stepped off the dirt road and into the field, Amy stood at the corner of the cabin—nothing more than a galvanized sheet metal shack, it had a small wood stove, cordwood stacked under a lean-to, and a small fridge where James’s father and uncle kept their beer mid-November when the deer were first running because the hunters were driving them ragged.
She lifted her arm and waved, wearing a smile and jeans, a blue sweater, and black combat boots. Her hair was darker than it used to be, or maybe it was just how the shadows fell beneath the roof, thrown over her and the chunk of land, but she seemed mystical, wiser and far older than most of the other girls in the ninth grade.
He sped up without realizing it, his legs taking such long strides that he nearly tipped over, and he knew he looked like a goon, but she always said that he was Her Goon. He liked that. She kept smiling as he approached and when they were no more than ten feet apart, she laughed. Red closed the distance and laughed too. He hugged her and said, “I walk like a retard whenever you’re around.”
“You might walk like a retard all the time but you’re only conscious of it when I’m around.” She poked his ribs.
“Maybe,” he chuckled.
He glanced at her eyes, those deep, penetrating eyes, and though he wasn’t a fan of romance novels, he could see how women could get lost in the books, living out fantasies of fictional characters, or simply remembering what it felt like when they’d experienced those butterflies in their stomach, that hope, maybe a month ago, maybe years.
He took Amy’s hand and pulled her around the back of the shed, wanting to kiss her but always hoping she’d make the first move.
Sometimes she asked him why he didn’t kiss her. It made him tongue-tied, because it was a mixture of emotions—fear, and excitement, and some that were combinations he didn’t have labels for—so he just shrugged and let her touch his face and tell him that he was beautiful. Whenever she said it he always thought he should feel ridiculous, but he didn’t. It made his heart swell with joy, made him want to tell her that he loved her.
Amy squeezed his hand and they sat and leaned against the building as the sun warmed their skin, the structure behind them blocking a sudden gust of wind, the air filled with the scents of rotting wood, her shampoo, and earth.
She said, “What happened?”
At first he didn’t know what she was talking about because he was so happy sitting next to her, grinning like some simpleton, but dread sank its claws in his back and released a cool breath against his neck as he looked away from her and out at the woods, a mere football field from where they hunched together. Red blinked as the shadows spun in circles beneath a weeping willow sitting at the forest’s edge. He kept his eyes on the tree and the shadows deep beneath it as told her about the stranger who showed up in the crappy old rust bucket, the wounded raven, and Dragonfly Man.
Amy shifted, scratched her back against a ridge in the metal sheeting behind them and said, “Do you think it’s all connected?”
He wasn’t sure, but it seemed that most things were—the older he got, the harder it was to ignore that the energies we can’t see all weaved together into the multicolored tapestry we called life. Everyone lived in their own bubble, but every bubble was coupled to more. He wiped his hands on his pants and said, “I think they are.”
&nb
sp; Amy nodded. “Well, we know it’s not normal, so it must have come from Glory on the Green. The Dragonfly Man, I mean.”
“I know.” Red’s skin itched, unease rippling across his body as if it were water and someone had skipped a rock across what he thought had finally become a calm surface. “I don’t like being able to see stuff we’re not supposed to see.”
“It’s for a reason.” She took his hand again and pulled it into her lap. “Do you think he’s in the forest right now, watching us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it didn’t see you. You said the raven had a boy’s voice?”
Red shook his head. He stood and pulled her up. They both scanned the forest but didn’t see anything abnormal. They walked around the front of the shack and Red looked at Philips Road as an old maroon Impala kicked up dust and then slowed as it neared the hill bordering the field. Red pulled Amy to his side. “That’s the guy!”
“Is he stopping?”
It was hard to tell, but the car had slowed considerably, the man inside just a smudge of blackness behind the wheel, but Red felt the stranger’s appraising eyes, as if rooting around inside him, overturning old memories and newer fears. He thought, Keep going. But he feared that the man might turn around, or park up the road, knowing that Red would have to cross paths with him on his way home. The car crawled over the hill and Red let out a stale breath that felt like he’d held it too long in his lungs.
Amy said, “What do you think he wants?”
“I don’t know. But he knows my mom. I wish she would have told me who he was at lunch.”
“Maybe she can’t because she doesn’t want to scare you.”
Red cocked his head, wondering if his mother ever had an experience like he and Amy had earlier in the summer, if she had lost her own Mr. Blue, and her own imaginary friend to a world that strived for an existence as solid as ours, and the only way they could have it was to take it from us. “We’ll need to find a way to close the doorway.”
“What if there’s not a way, Red?”
“There must be something. Maybe there’s someone else like Mr. Blue, someone to protect everyone even if it kills him to do it.”
Amy’s brow scrunched and she folded her arms across her chest, for a moment reminding him of his mother, but the impression faded as the Impala flew back over the hill and Red resisted the urge to pull Amy to the ground, hoping they could hide before the Stick Man saw them. But it was too late for that; the car slowed and pulled over onto the edge of the field. The man didn’t make any move to get out. The impala growled and spat smoke that hung like shadows slowly stretching. Red had to force himself to look away from the car for a moment so that he could make sure Amy was still there, that the Dragonfly Man hadn’t snuck up behind them and snatched her away while Red’s attention was elsewhere.
Elsewhere…The stranger’s ragged, reedy voice whispered in his head. I’ll show it to you.
He blinked and pulled the knife from the folded magazine, held the blade down by his thigh, waiting for the man to exit the car and start across the field.
Amy said, “He’s creepy.”
“You can’t even see him yet.” Remembering how the man had looked like some broken-down hobo, or circus misfit, assuming his psyche was as bent as his body, his mother’s words—I don’t want your crooked foot on my doorstep—or something similar, he couldn’t remember exactly, other than that feeling of unease he’d had and that his mother had projected along with her anger.
Amy shifted next to him, bent over and picked a long, thick stick off the ground. She said, “Well, he’ll know we’re willing to put up a fight if he comes closer.”
Red nodded, but he worried for her, because he didn’t want to lose her again, or lose time, realizing how valuable it was after what had happened with Leonora, how the rules changed when dealing with things that were beyond our normal perceptions.
Sweat filled his palm.
The car door opened.
Red raised the knife.
The Stick Man jumbled from the Impala’s dark interior, left the door open, and leaned his scrawny behind against the driver’s-side front fender. He crossed his arms and stared at them, a bit of a smile playing at his lips, his right hand dipping into the pocket of his tattered jacket and staying there for a moment.
Red said, “I think I’m going to have to walk you home. I don’t trust him.”
Amy said, “He’s moving.”
At first Red didn’t understand what she meant because the man still leaned against the crappy car, his hand stuffed in his jacket pocket, but then a blur moved across the field and there was the man against the Impala and the man’s image hunched against the wind, striding toward them across the open field, hands swaying at his side and something dark glinting between his fingers.
Red grabbed Amy’s hand and said, “Go! Get out of here!” He pulled her behind him and started running forward, hoping to be enough of a distraction to allow Amy a head start.
The man was halfway to them, though he was also still at the edge of the road, his face like pale stone, lips moving silently as if whispering an incantation under his breath, and Red yelled, “Who are you? How do you know my mother?”
The stranger straightened and moved back to the door of the car, lacing his fingers together as he draped his arms over it, observing Red and Amy with so much interest the fire in his eyes flared and his face seemed to melt like wax.
The ghastly image drew closer, filling the air with the smell of rot.
Red yelled at Amy, “Go!”
She shook her head, her forehead lined and eyes set, even though she looked like she wanted to cry. She clenched the stick, the muscles in her arms trembling.
He knew he couldn’t argue with her, there wasn’t time for that.
The Stick Man stomped forward, fingers rubbing the shiny black item in his hand.
Red took a step back, raised the knife higher, pointing the tip of the blade at the projection’s neck. The stench of something dead rose from the earth and the shadows beneath the trees jerked back and forth as if something huge tore at it from the other side. Red didn’t know where to look, sensing the oxygen being sucked from his lungs, the fight going out of his muscles, his bones like lead weights as the figure stopped right in front of him, just this tall thin man, but his eyes full of storms the way Mr. Blue’s had been full of exhaustion.
Red squeaked out, “What do you want?”
The Stick Man slapped the knife from his hand and Amy pushed Red to the side and swung the broken branch but it only cut through the image. Red landed on his side, glanced toward the road, and could have sworn he saw the man at the car fold in on himself for the slightest second.
The projection grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pain flared across Red’s shoulders. Amy screamed as Red dug at the ground with his feet, trying to get his footing, but the shadows that fell from him were heavy, as if he’d pulled Red underwater, and the wind stilled, the way it does after a storm has passed and left things changed in its place.
He clawed at the Stick Man’s hands but there was no substance there to dig into, no flesh to part, no blood to dot the weeds, only nothingness holding him, complete and absolute.
He pulled Red toward the car and Red screamed, “Tell my mom!” because he had no idea where they were taking him, or what they’d do once they arrived there.
His heels hit the hard-packed road. The Stick Man threw him inside the open driver’s side and slammed the door and walked into the man who pushed himself from the fender. Their bodies, both ethereal and what seemed real, melded with the clap of thunder, and rain dotted the windshield.
He pushed himself up on the bench seat as the man rounded the passenger side and slid in next to him. Red’s heart hammered. He glanced out the window and saw Amy in the middle of the field, a metal hut behind her, the trees beyond it filling with light. Amy’s shoulders slumped and she dropped the broken stick and wrapped her arms around herself
.
Red grabbed the door handle and tried to pull it open but it wouldn’t budge.
Sweat dotted his forehead.
Slowly, he straightened behind the steering wheel, part of him wishing he was selfish enough that he’d have Amy come with him to wherever this man planned to take him because then he wouldn’t feel so alone. He pushed the thought away. The smell of rot faded. The man said, “Turn the key. Start the car.”
Red looked out the window again, hoping to offer her a weak smile at least, but Amy was gone, and he thought—Yes, run. Get help. But part of him feared that she hadn’t fled, but that the Dragonfly Man had come for her just as the Stick Man had come for him.
Red said, “I don’t know how to drive.” He glanced at the figure in the passenger seat, the car crawling with a dim buzz and restless shadows. The Stick Man slid his feet up under the dash and leaned back. He smiled a sad smile. He said, “Do you know your mother’s history?”
Red shook his head, hoping that if he said nothing the man would keep talking, that they wouldn’t have to go wherever it was the strange creature had planned. He folded his hands in his lap. The car moved forward. Red panicked and grabbed the steering wheel, trying to control it but the wheel fought him, and won, and his palms stung as he slammed them in his lap and felt like crying though he knew that never solved anything.
The Stick Man said, “It has a mind of its own, just like you.” He pulled a pocket of shadows from beneath the seat and shaped them into something but Red couldn’t make it out through the tears in his eyes. “Me, I don’t get a choice in the matter. Do you think that’s fair?”
He thought of Mr. Blue and how he’d said the same thing, that he didn’t get a choice either, he was bound by his duty, expected to complete it without question. But this guy wasn’t any angel. This guy wasn’t good. Red tried to relax but his chest tightened as the car gained speed and dust bloomed in the rearview mirror. They were headed away from his new home but Kingston was only a mile and a half away, and he thought if the man took him there—if the man took him to Mr. Blue’s old house, just down the road from Amy’s—he could get away before the creature dragged him through the hidden doorway that led into Glory on the Green.
