The Pricker Boy (5 page)

That’s new too, and I see Robin flinch at the thought of the woman locked up and beaten like an animal. I hope she’s thinking that the Cricket should have gone to bed like
I said. But through the flames I can see the look on the Cricket’s face, and he’s not scared. He and I have watched a lot of old horror movies together, so spooky stories don’t easily scare him. He’s just happy to be up past bedtime, sitting by the fire with the big kids.

“The boy ran off into the woods. Near the Hawthorn Trees that stand beyond the Widow’s Stone, he found his father. Hoping that his father would eventually lead him to his mother, the boy crawled through the brush and followed his father as he moved from trap to trap. Unaware that he was being watched, the father went about his work and returned home at the end of the day.

“But the boy didn’t come home that night. The father became worried, and he asked in town after his son. The teacher said that the boy had once again not shown up for school. The father got angry and returned home, thinking, ‘Fine, let him spend the night alone in the woods. It will serve him right.’ None of the schoolchildren said a word, afraid of what might happen to them.”

Robin shifts in her chair. I can see her eyeing the height of the fire, but she won’t say anything. She wanted the Cricket to stay up with her, and he’s staying up. She’s chosen her battle for the night and won. She isn’t about to challenge me again.

Somewhere far away I hear thunder roll. Ronnie loves the thunder. He smiles a bit, like he thinks that God Himself is sending the storm to be the sound track to his masterpiece.

“That night was bitter, bitter cold. When morning came, the father became frightened and asked the local constables for help. The children in town still said nothing, fearing that they would get into trouble. The father did not go into the woods that day, but stayed at home waiting for the boy. Any animal that had gotten caught in his traps the night before would have to suffer for another day.”

“Watch those flames,” Emily warns, though she isn’t even looking at the fire. She has almost stripped the bark completely off her branch.

“It’s cool,” I say.

“I’m feeling like a rack of ribs over here,” Vivek says, waving his hand at the fire.

I don’t know why, but I grab another log and throw it on. I see Robin shake her head, but she says nothing. Ronnie looks ticked off at being interrupted, and before we can say more he starts in again. “The next night was so cold that by morning a thin layer of ice had covered the pond. Still the boy did not return. The third night was colder yet, and several farmers in town lost livestock in the freeze. That night, the father had a terrifying nightmare of his boy caught in a trap and struggling to free himself as he slowly froze to death. He awoke in the morning and took off into the woods, desperate to check each and every trap before nightfall.”

Robin pulls the Cricket closer to her, probably more for her sake than for his. She glances nervously out through the pines. I adjust a few of the lower logs, and more oxygen
pours through the heart of the fire. “The trapper did not find his son. But he did find something, and he never enjoyed a decent night’s sleep again.”

More thunder, and then before it dies away, a second sound. Something groans in the darkness behind me. I see Ronnie’s eyes flash wide. Robin jumps up. Even Vivek looks startled. Emily just turns her head toward the noise and furrows her brow.

“What the hell is that?” Vivek asks. Robin wraps her arms tightly around the Cricket, though he doesn’t seem worried in the least. Something moves in the woods. I can hear its feet shuffling in the leaves. I recognize the sound.

Boris steps out of the shadows. He walks up to me and bumps into my chair. “Good boy,” I say. “You know how to time your entrance.” Boris drops down next to my chair, and I rub his ears.

“Great timing,” Ronnie admits as everyone settles back in. He goes back to the story before the mood lightens. “Near the Widow’s Stone, underneath the thorns of a pricker bush, the trapper discovered one of his larger traps, the kind that a full-grown man could barely open using both arms and all his strength. It had been sprung by something. The teeth of the trap were bloody, and bits of fur had been left behind. But the bits of fur had been dried, treated, and sewn together—sewn together by the father’s own hand.

“It wasn’t the fur that scared him most of all. It was the thorns. The thick branches of the thornbush wove in and
out of the bloodied teeth of the trap as if they had been growing over the metal for decades.”

In the distance something flashes. It is a good five seconds before the thunder rolls behind it. There’s plenty of time for Ronnie to finish his story before the rain gets to us.

Emily looks up briefly, and our eyes meet. She smiles quickly but turns back to her task before I can smile back. I feel stupid, though I don’t know why.

“The boy was never found. Local people began to tell stories. They said that he had simply faded into the woods, and that the woods had decided to protect him. His skin hardened like bark, and he grew thorns over every inch of his body.

“Children started disappearing into the woods by Tanner Pond. Even the adults began to fear that he was still out there, waiting in the thornbushes to take his revenge on them. The thorns were his friends. They could wrap their branches around an intruder and wait for the Pricker Boy to come. Then with prickly arms he would pull his prey deeper into the brush, leaving the sliced bodies behind, but leaching the soul and dragging it back to a stone pit deep in the woods, past a nest of boulders even larger than Whale’s Jaw. Those twisted, suffering souls down in that cold, awful pit are the trinkets that tally his revenge … the pennies that mark his treasure … and the minions that pledge him worship.”

I clear my throat. Ronnie stops, stares at me, and waits.
I shrug and ask, “What?” Then I remember. It was at this point in the story last year that Pete had started laughing at Ronnie. “
You still believe that crap?”
he had laughed. “
Okay, Scooby Doo, I’m really scared
.” That night, Ronnie had refused to finish the story.

I throw Ronnie an apologetic wave, and he leans back in his chair to continue. As he backs away from the flame, his face is filled in with black shadows deep enough to hide even his buggy eyes. “There are people who would laugh at this story,” Ronnie admits. “There are people who would say that it’s not true. But I know for a fact that he has killed at least two kids. The first was Amanda Yearling, a young girl about seven years old.”

I try to focus on the story, but it starts drifting away. It’s here and at the same time it’s not, like the way the bugs can be close around us in the darkness while still pretending to be far away. Like how thunder seems so distant from the lightning, but really they’re together all the time.

“The constables searched the woods for days before finding her floating facedown in a shallow creek. Her body was covered from head to toe with scratches. The second victim was Willie Wilson, who disappeared about twenty years later. His scraped and bruised body was found at the base of a tall tree, his head split open like a pumpkin.

“They said that Amanda had gotten lost in the woods and had died of exposure, and that Willie had fallen through the branches from the top of the tree. But Amanda
grew up around here. She knew the woods well enough. And Willie’s friends said that they were playing together in the woods and that Willie had just stepped away for a second when he disappeared. He hadn’t been climbing any trees.”

I can hear the fire breathing, breathing and growing and moving about in the pit like a newborn calf trying to find its legs. Ronnie raises his voice to shout over it. My body is still there with my friends, but my mind is closer to the thunder and the bugs and the embers. For a moment I think that they can talk to each other, that the water in the clouds and the fire on the ground are whispering something about us to the bugs hidden under the rocks and the leaves. They’re saying something bad, and I need to know what it is.

Ronnie continues. “There is one salvation. If you hear him, if he begins to come for you—and he’ll come fast; he can move through the thorns as easily as you or I can run down the path to the pond—if he gets your scent and chases after you, you have to run back to the Widow’s Stone. He can’t follow you past the Widow’s Stone. But he won’t forget your scent. And he won’t rest until he finds you.”

I know he says those words, because I know the story and I know how it ends, but those words are nowhere near me. I’m inside the fire, I’m out at the bottom of the pond, swimming for the surface with no air left in my lungs. The flames are roaring in my ears and I can see Pete reaching down into the water for me. I’m swimming toward him,
but my feet are burning and I can’t tell if I’m moving toward the surface or heading deeper, toward the bottom. “
You claim that crap is true?
” Pete is saying to me, laughing out loud. And then I’m shouting back at him, just like I did a year ago when he laughed at Ronnie. I don’t know why I felt any sympathy for Ronnie then. Maybe I was still angry with Pete for what he had done to Ronnie’s wrist.

“
Okay, Pete,
” I scream through the water. “
If it’s all crap, why don’t you go back there right now? Go back there in the dark and leave your pocketknife in the Hawthorns. If there’s nothing to be afraid of, then you should have no problem walking alone past the Widow’s Stone, back through the prickers all the way to the Hawthorns
.”

Pete stares at me from the water’s surface. Never in his life did he expect me to take Ronnie’s side over his. I keep swimming, but I can’t tell if I’m swimming to save myself or to get the chance to take a swing at him. Pete reaches into his pocket and pulls out his knife. He points it at me through the water, just like he pointed it at me across the flames last summer.

Ronnie holds up his arm, now golden in the firelight, and points his skinny finger up toward the Widow’s Stone and the woods beyond. “One thing’s for sure,” he says, concluding the story the same way he has for years, “anyone who knows anything stays out of the woods beyond the Widow’s Stone.”

S
omething clicks in my head, the tugging at my memory stops, and I am back with my friends. I realize just how high the fire has risen. Suddenly the wind shifts, and the flames flap higher. I jump up and pull some of the larger logs to the side of the pit. The flames start to subside.

Robin stands up, pulling the Cricket up with her. “I’m going to take him to bed. I’ll be right back.” The Cricket offers no protest; he’s already half-asleep.

Emily places a hand on Ronnie’s arm. “Nice job, Ronnie. I was almost frightened this time.”

“You didn’t seem to be listening,” Ronnie complains.

She looks her cleaned branch over from top to bottom. “‘They said that he beat her and fed her raw meat every day.’ That was brand new. You never used that line before tonight.”

Emily’s blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she is wearing no makeup. Simple clothes, just jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Nothing frilly. Nothing fancy. Nothing painted or primped. She reaches into the pouch of her sweatshirt, pulls out a marshmallow, and puts it on the end of the stick she has stripped the bark from. How long that marshmallow has been in her pocket is anybody’s guess.

Vivek watches the marshmallow longingly, but he knows better. We long ago gave up waiting for Emily to offer us snacks from her pouches and pockets.

“You always claim that it’s true,” she says, positioning her marshmallow near the flames. “Is it, Ronnie? Tell me the truth. Finally now. Is it true?”

Ronnie gives her his best poker face, but behind that face he is savoring the power that comes with having a secret to hide. “You ask me that every year,” Ronnie says, “and every year I tell you the same thing.”

Vivek rubs his chin and, mimicking his father’s thoughtful pose and thick Indian accent, says, “I think this will require some analysis.” We all burst out laughing. We always do when Vivek imitates his father.

Vivek continues, still imitating his father’s clinical, scientist’s voice. “Every year, the text of the story changes a little here and there. It’s strange for a
true
story to evolve so. It’s very … um … pupatory.”

“Pupatory?” Emily asks.

“You know, like a butterfly. It pupates. Goes from a butter fly to a caterpillar.”

“You mean from a caterpillar to a butterfly,” Emily laughs. “But there’s no such word as ‘pupatory.’”

“There should be!” Vivek says. “If there were, I wouldn’t sound so stupid right now, would I?”

Ronnie laughs, but I find it less funny. “What I don’t understand,” I say, looking directly at Ronnie, “is why you always leave one part out.” Ronnie squints curiously at me across the fire. “His color, Ronnie. You’re a great storyteller, but you never mention what color he is.”

Ronnie shrugs. “I guess I never really thought about it. I’m not sure what color he—”

“He’s gray,” I say, deliberately challenging him. “His skin is gray like the bark of trees in winter. And thorns cover every inch of him. Everywhere. His face, his hands, his ears … everything.”