by Jon Cohen
The staff paused to glance at each other, then swamped Harry again, starting a peripheral IV, attaching O₂ sat and BP monitors, EKG leads.
“Are you barking, Harry?” Dr. Kroner said amiably. Amanda would usually join in the banter, ease the patient with casual talk, divert them from their injuries.
“Wolf’s here,” Harry said.
“Wolf’s his brother,” Amanda said.
“You two know each other?” Dr. Kroner said.
“We’re neighbors,” Amanda said. She did not return EMT Bill’s look.
Dr. Kroner assessed Harry’s neuro status. Vision, strength, sensation, reflexes, cognitive—Harry was intact. “This is good, Harry, you’re giving me all the right answers. Wiggle your fingers and toes for me again.”
Amanda lasered in on Harry’s responses. Harry was intact, but she would not believe it.
“Harry,” Dr. Kroner said, “we’re going to keep that neck brace on you for the next hour, and keep asking you the same boring questions.”
Harry tried to sit up. “I need to go.”
Amanda put her hands on his shoulders. She felt the warmth of him, and still would not believe it. She would not believe the good news. Harry was warm and alive.
“Actually, you need to stay,” Dr. Kroner said. “We need to stitch you up and keep you under observation. Amanda will get things set up, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Amanda said, “What about a CT scan?” For the hematoma that was certainly blossoming in Harry’s brain.
“He’s neurologically intact.” Dr. Kroner looked at Amanda. “Unless you see something I don’t see.”
What she saw was Harry on the morgue table. She took a deep breath and worked to absorb a new possibility. That Harry would be okay. “No, he’s intact.”
Dr. Kroner nodded and pushed through the curtain.
Harry couldn’t turn his head. Suddenly, from behind, Amanda leaned into view and kissed him on the forehead. She whispered, “I don’t care if I’m not supposed to kiss you. Damn you, Harry.”
Tears fell onto Harry’s face. “Hey,” he said. “Come where I can see you.”
She came to the side of the stretcher, brushing tears away.
He reached up to touch her cheek.
“I’m kind of overreacting,” she said. “The call came in. You in an ambulance. Been down that road before.”
And then Harry understood what had scared her. “I’m sorry. But you know I’m fine. Right?”
“I overreacted,” she said again.
Harry looked at Amanda. He had been sure before, but now he was absolutely certain of the painful gift he would give her when the gold was over. Neither of us want to do this, or risk this, ever again, he thought. Look how vulnerable we are. The day you thought I’d fallen from the beech tree. And now this. When the gold is over, I’ll leave the forest and Oriana and you. A wave of pain swept through him.
Amanda saw his look. “I can’t give you any pain meds yet, not for another hour. Not until we rule out a concussion.”
And Harry remembered. He didn’t have an hour. Wolf was here. “Wolf found me. Or not found me, but he’s looking for me. About to find me. He’s here.”
He told her what he’d seen, what it meant, how there was no stopping Wolf once he caught a scent. Everything he had not told her before, tumbled out of him. Wolf was onto Harry and the gold.
Amanda spoke to Harry with her calm ER nurse voice. Her voice a whisper, because they were only behind a curtain. “Harry. Harry, stop. Listen to me. Wolf. Urgent, but not an emergency. You don’t have to move the gold this second.”
“He’ll find it.”
“Impossible. He’s looking for you. That’s what you said. He wants to pressure you. You’re his only way to the gold.”
“I’m telling you. I need to go.”
“No. I’m telling you. You need stitches. And observation,” she said. “And when it’s time to leave, we leave together.”
Harry understood. When the siren had delivered heartbreak a year ago, Amanda had endured it, and returned home, utterly alone.
Dr. Kroner drew the curtain aside and smiled at Harry. “You in the mood for some stitches?”
And Harry thought, Yes. It was a day when things were coming apart, and he would very much like to be put back together.
33
Stu sat in Mr. Bromler’s big leather chair. He’d come bustling into Mr. Bromler’s office just to grab the car keys to the Dodge Durango, but then the chair beckoned, and once he sat in that glorious commanding chair the desk beckoned, so Stu leaned back and put his feet up.
Ah, the trappings of wealth, he thought. When I have my millions, I will replicate this office in my McMansion, right down to the last paper clip. He looked at the framed photo of Mama Bromler enshrined on the right-hand corner of the desk.
“I’m not taking orders from your boy anymore. Comprendo?”
He scooted forward in the chair, extended the toe of his shoe and tipped Mama over. What a lovely, powerful feeling, toppling the mighty. Yes, he would have framed photos of all the people who had maligned him over the years, and each day the butler would line them up like dominoes on the floor of the game room, and then Stu would come in, dressed in his royal blue satin pajamas, and he would nudge the first one and watch them all topple.
Stu snickered, then he looked puzzled. Why am I idling at Mr. Bromler’s desk? I need to go get the gold. Like, right this second. But I feel weird, he thought. And I itch. He scratched his leg, extended before him on the desk. I really itch. He pulled up his trouser leg.
“Ack!”
His ankle and shin were bright red and welty. Poison ivy! He lurched his feet off the desk, knocking Mama Bromler onto the floor. Glass shattered. He went around the desk to see. Mama stared up at him, like in a horror movie where the death-ghoul is glaring at you through the splintered glass of your bedroom window. And then he saw something worse, in the mirror in Mr. Bromler’s personal VIP bathroom. Himself! Stu crept closer and turned on the light. Puffy crimson bee stings dotted his face and neck. He looked like he had smallpox.
That’s why he’d been dawdling. Bee stings, poison ivy—toxic shock! He began to scratch wildly. This is how he would die—face down in Mr. Bromler’s office, scratched to pieces!
Stu’s heart slammed in his chest and he started to black out. He looked into the darkening cosmos—and saw the light. He was going into the light! He squinted. Wait. It was a golden light. Without even knowing it, he’d reached into his coat pocket and removed a gold coin.
“Ha!”
He’d saved himself. As heroes do, they reach deep, into their inner selves. And my inner self, Stu thought ecstatically, is made of gold. He kissed the coin and dropped it back into his pocket. He grabbed the Durango keys and rushed out of Mr. Bromler’s office.
Just as he was hurtling past his own office door, a large arm with a large hand at the end of it dropped into view in front of him, like the barrier of a railroad crossing dropping unexpectedly. The arm stopped him cold.
Stu was too surprised to even squeak. One minute he was running, the next—
“Hi,” said Wolf, stepping out of Stu’s office into the hallway. His big hand remained centered on Stu’s chest.
Stu stared at the massive male animal before him. A heavy chin loomed above him, each individual hair as thick as a darkened cornstalk. Please don’t smile, Stu thought. Don’t show the teeth.
Wolf smiled.
Stu squeaked. “We’re closed.”
Wolf regarded Stu. Yes, this was Stu Giptner, the nasal voice unmistakable.
“Closed?” Wolf said. He pointed. “The front door’s wide open. And I spoke to you on the phone. We arranged to meet, did we not?” Yes, my squirmy little friend, we definitely need to meet, because this morning the fourth bag of gold has landed onl
y two miles from here on that nurse’s front porch.
“Oh, right, right, yes,” Stu breathed. This monster was the Big Fish. “But sorry, the property is gone. The one I was going to show you. So. We’re closed. Please?”
Wolf studied Stu. Looked into Stu’s office, at the Susquehanna County map taped to the wall, the red pushpins dotting around Wilderness Tract A803. The red of the pushpins looked like the blood offering of a true devotee.
“I don’t believe I told you my name on the phone. That was rude. My name’s Wolf.”
Stu’s bones turned to jelly. Of course your name is Wolf, he thought. Of course.
“And this is your office.” Stu’s name was on the door.
Stu’s eyes flicked to the map on the far wall.
Wolf watched him. “You’re a very disheveled realtor.”
“What?” Stu said.
“Your suit—it’s filthy. Your shoes. And your face, what are those...bee stings?” Wolf extended his index finger and tapped a welt in the center of Stu’s forehead.
Stu yelped and jumped. The coins jingled in his pockets. Wolf cocked his head.
Stu grinned in terror and reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the Durango. Jingled them loudly. “Noisy keys!”
Wolf sniffed the air around Stu. “The reason I’m here, Stu—because it’s time to drop all semblance of bullshit—the reason I dropped by this afternoon is I’m looking for someone by the name of Harry Crane.”
“Are you a cop?” Stu bleated. “Is this because I punched him?”
Wolf blinked. You punched Harry? No one had ever punched his brother. Not on Wolf’s watch. And yet this homunculus had dared. What had transpired between them? Was this little fool Susquehanna Santa’s helper-elf? Millions in gold—of course Harry would need help. And it had gone bad. They’d fought.
Again, Wolf looked at the map. The red pushpins. No. No helper-elf, not even the stupidest helper-elf on earth, would plant a map on the wall of his office.
“I’m not a cop, and I’m not a priest,” Wolf said. “But Stu, I do love confessions.”
Stu would confess anything to this wolf. “He lives in a tree. Harry Crane lives in a tree house.” Please let that be enough info, thought Stu. Please let me get to Mr. Bromler’s Dodge Durango.
Wolf stared down at Stu in wonder. Endless Dreams Realty. Let us make your dream come true! That’s what the sign on the front of the building said. Harry’s dream...come true. Harry living in a tree house. Out of his mind. Delirious, overwhelmed, reverting to childhood.
“You rent...tree houses,” Wolf said.
“Oh, no, sir, no, no. Not me.” Stu suddenly seeing a way to get this colossus out of here, to sic him on someone else. “He rents it from Amanda Jeffers.”
When Amanda’s name left his mouth, Stu looked stunned.
Wolf, knowing Amanda Jeffers was the name of this morning’s golden nurse, having seen it online, watched the light come on in Stu’s eyes as the dots connected: Amanda Jeffers. Gold. Harry Crane. Susquehanna Santa. Which suggested that Stu hadn’t realized it before—but realizing it now was enough to turn him white as a ghost. What the hell, Wolf thought, is going on with this guy? How is he involved?
“Stu. Is the tree house in the forest?”
Stu nodded weakly.
Wolf reached out a big hand. Stu flinched. Wolf patted the dirt off the shoulder of Stu’s suit coat. “Stu. Were you just in the forest?”
Stu nodded. Weakly. “We’re closed,” he whispered hoarsely. “The office is closed. We’re in mourning, you see. For Mama Bromler.”
All Wolf wanted from Stu was the location of the tree house. So he could find Harry. But even Wolf could not guess the level of treasure he had found in Stu.
“Stu. Could you, perhaps, take me to Harry’s tree house?”
Stu was having difficulty breathing. “I don’t know where it is,” he whispered.
“Of course you do. You’re a realtor. You know how to find houses.”
“I don’t. Know. Anything.”
“Of course you do. You know everything. Your brain, all swollen with endless dreams.”
Stu shook his head.
“Would it help if I relieved some of the pressure?” Wolf said. “From your whirling, swirling brain?”
No, Stu’s brain whimpered. It would not help.
Wolf’s index finger headed straight for the welt in the center of Stu’s forehead.
Tap.
Stu gasped and went up on his toes. From his coat pockets, a soft jingling sound.
Wolf cocked his head.
Tap.
This time, gasping, Stu jumped several inches into the air.
Jingle, jangle.
Stu raised the SUV keys into view. Jangled them feebly.
Wolf eased them out of his hand. And began to tap, one by one, the three largest welts on Stu’s forehead.
Red, rocketing pain. Stu bounced up and down, up and down. Gold coins began to spray from his coat pockets.
Wolf lurched back from him, trying to process the sight of Stu hemorrhaging gold.
Stu continued to jump up and down like a kangaroo, as if once he had started the confession of his golden secret, he couldn’t stop.
Dumbfounded, Wolf turned his head right and left, watching coins splatter onto the hallway carpet.
It was Stu who found his voice first. When the last coin settled and Wolf turned to look at him, Stu offered a sickly grin and croaked, “Fifty-fifty?”
* * *
When her mother did not show up after school as planned, Oriana was only a little surprised. After all, with bag four landing unexpectedly on their front porch this morning, the day had started all wrong. Oriana had read enough stories to know that when things begin to go wrong, they often go very wrong. The important thing was to keep your head. And persevere.
Mom wasn’t there, and she wasn’t answering her phone, and across the parking lot was the school bus that Oriana usually took, kids piling in. It was time to make an executive decision. When she arrived home, there might be a crowd of people. That’s what Mom had wanted to avoid, why she was going to pick Oriana up after school.
“We’ll go out to supper somewhere,” she’d said this morning. “Maybe even down to Scranton. Maybe we’ll even get a hotel room.” Which was an exciting idea since Oriana had never stayed in a hotel room. But she knew they wouldn’t. Mom wouldn’t leave Harry.
Oriana chewed her lip. The bus. She ran for it.
Litty Stewart, the bus driver, smiled at Oriana as she clambered aboard. “Well, look who’s here. The celebrity.”
Oriana scooted by. “Hi, Miss Stewart.”
A few of the boys whispered and poked the back of Oriana’s seat, but they weren’t a real bother. Oriana knew from experience that when big things happen to you—like when your father dies—the other kids leave you alone. The bag of gold was a big thing. Big things made you special. And special makes people a little scared of you.
Oriana was tired of being special.
She wanted to become unspecial. She’d spent the day thinking about her own story. Oriana’s Story. She knew you had to survive the big things in order to reach the best part of your story.
She whispered softly to herself. “And they lived happily-ever-after.”
When they hugged this morning, the three of them tight in a warm circle, Oriana wanted it to go on forever. She didn’t want a mountain of gold, and she didn’t want to be a princess in a castle or turn into an eagle and soar the skies of the Endless Mountains. She just wanted to come down for breakfast and have Harry there. Harry at breakfast and at dinner and at bedtime. On Saturday mornings and after school. Every day, always and ever after, Harry and Oriana and her mother.
Oriana knew this would happen. It had to happen. The way Mom looked at Harry. A
nd Harry looked at Mom. Oriana traced a figure in the dust of the school bus window...
...then quickly wiped it clean.
The bus slowed to a stop at the top of Maple Road.
“Guess things have died down,” said Litty. There was only one car, approaching in a plume of dust. “You going to be okay?” she said to Oriana as she opened the bus door.
“Sure. Mom said it’s just a normal day.”
Litty started to say something, but then the car honked.
Who honks at a school bus? Litty squinted through the windshield at the driver of the Buick. “Of course, who else?” Litty gave him the finger, then sped off.
Stu Giptner never looked in Oriana’s direction. But Oriana looked at him. She stood in shock on the side of the road. The expression on his face—Oriana had never seen anything like it before on a real flesh-and-blood person. The eyes bugged out, the sick grin of pleasure beyond excitement. Smaug had that look, King Midas had it, Rumplestiltskin had it. The book illustrations of these beings—men, women, dragons, trolls—tormented into ecstasy by the presence of gold, were so frightening that Oriana never lingered on them.
Oriana instantly knew—in this day that had started wrong—Stu Giptner was the most wrong thing of all. She tore off her backpack and ran into the forest, curving behind her house, bee-lining it to the quarry. It was an awful feeling, knowing exactly what was happening. She was the lone child running through the forest. Her father gone. Her mother beyond reach. Her protector absent from his magic tree house. The treasure threatened by a greedy ogre. All of the things that were supposed to go wrong, were going wrong. And she knew from her year-long education, her immersion in all the possible tales that ever were—that only half of them ended in happily-ever-after. In the other half children died, evil prevailed, knights in shining armor succumbed to poisoned arrows, the forest turned impenetrable.
Oriana ran for her life. She ran for her life and her mother’s life and Harry’s. The branches of the pine trees scratched at her, and the dark forest undergrowth closed in. In her ear she heard the terrible lost sigh of the grum: This is not the way the story goes.
