by Shawn Jolley
"I don't know. It's possible, but that's pretty far-fetched," said Dustin. Eden heard footsteps in the hallway and turned around to see who it was. His heart sank as he peered through the dusty door window to see his mom walking into Ms. Kozi’s room.
"Is that your mom?" asked Dustin.
Eden cringed for the second time that day. "Yeah. That’s the long story from this morning in a nutshell. She works here now." He sounded less than enthusiastic.
Dustin looked amused. "Is she like the secretary or something?"
"I think so. I know she’s working in the office."
"Better not let Tony find out or you're in for it." Dustin laughed and Eden shushed him.
"You don’t have to tell me twice." He could see his mom's shadow stretching into the hallway, and it looked like she was talking.
"Open the door so we can listen," said Dustin.
"What?"
Dustin leaned in closer and grabbed the door handle. "Be quiet," he said. Eden nodded. Dustin pushed the door open and they tried to listen. Eden's mom was the one talking, and her shadow’s head bobbed along as she spoke.
"...deserve this job. The past is the past, and you can forget about bringing his family into this."
Ms. Kozi’s voice followed. "Alright. But, you're already in this. Remember that."
Eden heard footsteps and his mom's shadow stretched even farther into the hall. Dustin closed the door and they ducked down as she came out of the classroom and walked past.
"What was that all about?" asked Dustin.
"Don’t know." Eden was trying to piece together what he had heard.
The bell to end lunch rang and they went back to the classroom as though nothing had happened. Eden’s stomach growled but he ignored it and they took their seats. Ms. Kozi seemed bright and cheery. She smiled and said, "Did you like the cookies?"
Everyone nodded even though nobody had touched the cookies since Eden had put them back on her desk. Ms. Kozi passed worksheets down the rows, but she didn’t give Eden's row enough for him to get a copy so he raised his hand.
"Yes, Eden?"
"I need a worksheet."
"Why?"
Eden thought the question was odd but he said, "Because I didn’t get one."
"Are you saying I don’t know how to count?"
The question caught him off guard so he sat there with his mouth hanging open. He looked over at Dustin when Ms. Kozi didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t come to Eden’s defense. Instead, he simply looked from Eden to Ms. Kozi and then stared at his desk.
Ms. Kozi began walking toward Eden which made him feel uncomfortable, but he refused to look away. He kept eye contact with her until she stopped in front of him. "Go to the office," she said.
"But—"
"Now!"
Bewildered, and a little sick in the stomach, Eden walked to the office. He would have stopped in the hallway and pretended to go, but Ms. Kozi watched him from the doorway. He thought about lying to Principal Bolt about why he was there, but that would eventually bite him in the butt. Eden knocked on the wood doorframe.
"Just a second," said his mom from somewhere near the back of the office. She came out of the small copy room to his left and shut the door, smoothing out her blouse and skirt before sitting down at the front desk. She looked up. "Eden! Why are you here? Are you okay?"
Eden shrugged his shoulders and looked away. Going to the principal’s office was bad enough, but having his mom there to greet him was even worse. "Is Principal Bolt here?" Eden mumbled like he wasn’t talking to his mother.
"He’s… gone into town. Can I help you, sweetie?"
"I don’t think so. I was sent to the principal."
"Why on Earth? Oh, that woman…"
"What?" asked Eden.
She stood up and walked around the front table. Grabbing his shoulders without a response, she pulled him down the hall. He couldn’t tell if he was in trouble, or not. When they walked out of the front entrance, he wondered if he would ever make it back to school; he suspected she was going to kill him for getting in trouble, or worse, ground him for life.
The parking lot was almost empty, and Eden tripped over a crack in the sidewalk as they made their way down the steps. The sun had been covered by clouds, and the day looked darker than it should have.
"Get in the car," was all she said.
Eden obeyed, not knowing what else to do. It was one thing to question his mom when she was wrong, but it was another thing entirely to question her when he didn't know what he'd done wrong. His safest bet was to go along with her plan without knowing what it was.
They drove home in silence, and when she put the car in park he had to quickly get out to follow her into the garage before the automatic door closed. He almost didn’t make it inside before the house door slammed behind him. She rushed to her room. His room seemed like the appropriate place to go, so he went there.
A few hours later, he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to find pictures in the plastered design, when he heard a knock at the door. He got up and opened it. His mom had her head down, but her puffy red eyes looked out from under her disheveled hair.
"I’m sorry," she managed to say before bursting into tears. Eden was confused, but he hugged her tightly, letting her cry until she pushed him away. She sniffled a little, the tears were gone, and she asked, "Are you hungry?"
Eden nodded his head and followed her to the kitchen. All the plates were stacked haphazardly and dirty in the sink, so he got some paper ones out of the pantry. His mom made toast, and even though Eden knew it would be burnt, he was far too hungry to complain. He ate it so fast he didn’t taste anything anyway. He said thanks after eating the last bite and awkwardly waited for her to say something.
She chewed slowly, and with each movement of her jaw Eden willed himself not to say something rude. Chewing with no background noise had to be the most annoying sound in the entire world.
Someone knocked at the front door and his mom jumped up to answer it. Eden remembered the night that the sheriff came over and just like before Eden got up and peeked around the corner. His mom opened the door. He saw Dustin standing there, dumbly shifting his body from side to side.
"Hi, is Eden here?" asked Dustin.
"Come in." She shut the door and turned back toward the kitchen. "Have a seat," she said gesturing to the loveseat in front of the window. It was the only place to sit in the room.
Eden quietly rushed back to the table before his mom made it back into the kitchen. She came in with her hands on her hips. He looked up, not knowing if he was in trouble, and she dropped her hands to her sides.
"Your friend is here," she said.
Eden stared at her, not knowing what to say. This felt like a trap. He still didn’t know why they had left school so quickly. He glanced out the window expecting the sun to be setting, but it was still high above the mountains. Time seemed to be playing tricks on him since his school day was cut short. His attention snapped back to his mom as she moved.
"Don’t be rude," she hissed. "Go play."
Usually, he would tell her he didn’t play anymore, and that he would go hang out now, but he decided not to say anything. He left the table and walked into the living room.
Dustin was sitting on the edge of the loveseat. When he saw Eden, he stood up awkwardly. He looked like he wanted to talk, but Eden knew he wouldn’t with his mom right around the corner.
Eden motioned to the front door and Dustin opened it. They stepped onto the porch and Eden closed the door behind them. Dustin looked in through the front window, then he leaned over. "What was that all about with Ms. Kozi? And why didn’t you come back to class? She acted normal the rest of the day, but I think everyone noticed how weird she was with you."
Eden sat down on the front steps and said, "I don’t know. Something is wrong, that’s for sure. I told my mom I'd been sent to the office, and the next thing I knew, we were going home. She hasn't said anything about why
we left. I'm afraid to ask."
Dustin peered into the house again. "She did look mad, and she looked like she'd been crying. Do you know what that earlier conversation between her and Ms. Kozi was all about?"
"No. I don’t know what’s wrong with her or what's going on with Ms. Kozi, but I’m going to find out." Eden felt like he was preparing himself for a coming storm.
"How?" asked Dustin.
"We just need to pay closer attention to Ms. Kozi. We need to pay closer attention to everyone. Don't you think?"
The house shadow crept along the front lawn toward the road. Dustin sat down next to him and said, "Yeah, I guess. What do we do now?"
6
Eden walked to school the following morning expecting Ms. Kozi to make another scene with him in the classroom, but when he arrived she acted as though nothing had ever happened between them. He found this both odd and relieving. Her smile was as large as ever, and she wore another long-sleeved sweater.
At lunch, Dustin assured Eden that Ms. Kozi's mood swings were weird, and told him not to read too much into it. As long as she didn't continue acting crazy, there was nothing to get upset about. Nobody talked about where her bruises and cuts came from.
Eden's mom returned to her job in the office without mentioning why she had been so emotional the day before. Eden knew there was no point in asking her; she never talked about the past. From what he could gather about his mom's conversations with Ms. Kozi, there was a history between them that he knew nothing about. The only way he was going to find out more was to avoid asking about it.
Dustin came over every day after school that week and the following two weeks to work on the treehouse, which they finally finished on the last Friday in October. Eden tried to hide how pleased he was with how the structure had turned out.
When Dustin asked him what he thought, he pretended he had known it was going to be amazing from the start. They put their hammers back in the garage, and Eden grabbed the card table leaning against the metal ladder in the corner.
They hoisted the table to the top of the treehouse using a rope pulley system, then they brought over a red cooler from Dustin’s place. The two lawn chairs they had used during construction were placed around the table, and their small fort was complete. The two of them sat back and Dustin opened the cooler to reveal a stash of board and card games.
"Isn't there supposed to be food in there?" asked Eden.
"Yeah, I guess. We'll just have to make due with feeding ourselves with fun. What do you want to play? We have a few card decks, Yahtzee… it's missing some of the dice. Look, Monopoly."
The sun dipped low in the sky and turned everything orange. They still hadn't finished their first play-through when Eden heard his mom's voice from down below. "Hey, get down here so we can go!" They had almost forgotten about the town Halloween party.
Eden got up first (he was happy to leave since he was losing) and opened the trapdoor in the corner of the treehouse. Dustin shuffled his piles of fake money around the game board and stood up. The rope ladder they had installed swayed from side to side, gently knocking up against the tree.
Eden climbed down first and Dustin followed him; they were afraid having two people on the ladder at once would cause it to break. When Eden got to the bottom he ran across the front yard to the garage where his mom was waiting in the car with the engine running and headlights turned on.
Eden climbed into the back seat and slid over so Dustin could get in. The door closed and the car lurched backward out of the driveway. Dustin put on his seatbelt and closed his eyes because he was convinced that that helped with motion sickness. Eden didn’t bother putting on his seatbelt because there was nobody else on the roads, and his mom never made him.
She turned the radio to a country oldies station (the only music on the radio without static) and they made their way across town to the church.
"Do they do this corn maze every year?" Eden asked Dustin.
Dustin turned his head even though his eyes were closed. "Yeah, ever since I remember. Fracture is funny like that. The town always celebrates holidays together."
Eden stared at the back of the headrest in front of him and asked himself why he was friends with this strange kid, but then he remembered the dead woman’s face in the garbage bag and it somehow all made sense.
"Sounds strange to me," said Eden. "Is there a party-planning committee or something?"
"I think so, but I’m not really sure. I just go to whatever party when I get the chance."
The car stopped with a jolt and Eden glanced at his mom to see if she had thrown her driving skills out of the window a mile back down the road.
"Bye," was all she said.
"Thanks," said Dustin. He stepped out of the car and opened his eyes.
Eden climbed out and shut the door. His mom hit the accelerator and was gone before he even had a chance to take a step. He wondered why her moods swings seemed to be getting much worse.
Dustin gave him a questioning look, but Eden pretended not to notice. He had no clue what his mom's problem was, and he didn’t want to talk about it. She had seemed normal since her manic episode the first week of October, but he realized he hadn’t been around her much since then. She had driven to and from school; Eden had walked with Dustin. Eden sat in Ms. Kozi’s room all day; his mom worked in the office all day.
"Wow, this place looks creepy," said Dustin.
"Yeah, a visitor might actually notice Fracture if they passed by. Of course, they would already have to be lost if they did, but you know what I mean."
Orange and yellow lights had been strung across the church steps and lawn, and about thirty jack o' lanterns sat around the edge of the fence. Half the town must have been present and they were dressed up in costumes. Eden tried to but didn’t recognize anybody. Behind the church was the corn maze entrance. It was difficult to see from where they stood.
Eden mechanically followed Dustin across the dying lawn. "Hey let’s get some apple cider," said Dustin.
They went to the side of the church where some old men dressed up as scarecrows were handing out free apple cider. They handed them two large foam cups and Eden took a sip and immediately regretted it. It felt like his tongue was burning off. Dustin led the way to some empty chairs in the corner of the yard next to the road.
For the next ten minutes, they admired all of the costumes while blowing air on their cider, chancing a sip every few seconds. Abraham Lincoln and Marilyn Monroe walked and laughed alongside Einstein and Zeus. The standard ghosts, zombies, and vampires were there as well.
Dustin finished his cup and threw it away in a black trash can that was standing next to him. Halfway through his own cider, Eden decided it wasn’t worth finishing and he threw his away too.
Eden loved getting scared, so he got up and walked over to the corn maze entrance, but he stopped and looked back when he realized Dustin wasn’t behind him. Instead, Dustin was sitting and staring at Eden from the chair in the corner. Eden motioned for him to get up. Dustin reluctantly stood and walked over slowly. Eden ended up meeting him halfway.
"What're you doing just sitting here? Let’s go through the maze before it's too late."
"Don’t you want to carve a pumpkin? That sounds like fun to me. We'll still have time if we hurry," said Dustin, smiling.
"You’re scared," said Eden, smiling back.
Dustin frowned. "I’m not scared. I just need to digest this cider." He grabbed at his stomach and shook it a little. His eyes were downcast and he was rocking from side to side.
"Whatever. You’re scared."
Dustin took a deep breath and walked over to the maze entrance without another word. Eden continued to smile and followed him, trying not to laugh at his lousy display of bravery. He was just happy to have a pushover for a friend.
A man dressed as a zombie farmer waved his rake at them as they entered the maze, and Dustin let Eden walk in front of him. Eden laughed all the way through the maze at the fake bl
ood and spider webs, but mostly at Dustin’s scared reactions to everything. He jumped whenever something moved, his face was constantly pale, and he bit his lip when he wasn't screaming.
Ten minutes passed, and they still hadn’t found the exit; in fact, they had passed the same ghost three times. Every time they walked near where the ghost was hiding he jumped out of the same spot and Dustin clenched his fists and yelped. The third time Eden and Dustin went through the ghost area, Eden noticed a narrow opening in the corn he hadn’t seen before to the left of the ghost, so he went through it.
A long, straight path extended in front of him with a light at the end which he assumed to be the exit. On a whim, he started running, thinking it would be fun to lose Dustin and scare him up ahead, but he tripped, and Dustin (who had been running as well) fell on top of him. The weight of someone else on top of him pressed his face into the mowed-over cornstalks and dirt, and he felt something crawl into his mouth, which he spat out.
Dustin rolled over and Eden tried to get up but just as he moved a hand shot out from inside the cornfield and dragged him out of the maze. For a second, he thought this was part of the fun, but he let the thought go when he felt a rough, wet rag smother his face.
Eden shook his head from side to side trying to get air into his lungs, but no matter how hard he turned or how fast, the rag followed clinging to his mouth and nose. He pulled at the large hand holding the rag but his fingers slid over the smooth surface of a glove.
Eden’s elbow slammed into the person’s rib cage and they grunted in his ear, but this only caused them to force the rag into his mouth. The cornstalks appeared to swirl as his throat constricted, spasming around the rag’s gritty texture.
Eden’s arms went limp, and his legs simply stopped working. He felt slow and heavy as he fell to the ground.
His assailant moved to stand over him and Eden glanced up to see a person dressed like the grim reaper holding a long hunting knife in their free hand. The rag forced itself deeper into his mouth and the swirling cornstalks became a dark-green vortex. Eden thought maybe this was Death himself, and that his time had come early.
