Watcher in the Woods (10 page)

The man nodded knowingly. “Boys will be boys.”

“I didn't catch your name,” Dad said.

The man's raised palm turned so it became a hand extended in greeting. “Taksidian,” he said. “You may call me Jim.”

Dad ignored the man's gesture. “Mr. Taksidian, the door is this way. . . .”

Taksidian frowned. “I was hoping we could talk.”

“About what?”

“You are Edward King, are you not?”

“You know I am.”

“And you own this house?” While he spoke, the man's gaze drifted again to David. Slowly, the man winked at him.

David felt himself on the verge of either passing out or peeing his pants. He mumbled something that he had intended to be “Excuse me,” but it didn't come out that way at all. Forcing himself to break away from the man's stare, he walked into the kitchen. As soon as he knew he was out of sight, he put his back up against the wall and edged close to the doorway. For the second time that day, he found himself eavesdropping on his father's conversation.

“I have to confess to a bout of foolishness,” the man said.

“How's that?” his father prodded.

“This house,” the man said.

His deep voice reminded David of hypnotists he'd seen in movies. The tone of their voices alone made people want to do what they asked.

“I've admired this house for a long time. I kept telling myself to buy it, but—and here's where I've been foolish—I never thought I needed to hurry. Here you are, proving me wrong.”

“Well, Mr. Taksidian, if—”

“Jim, please.”

“Jim,” Dad said. His voice was softening.

David knew his father would give the man the benefit of the doubt. As though walking into someone else's home could ever be an accident!

Don't cut him any slack, Dad,
David thought.
This guy
meant
to
scare us. He knows more than he's letting on.

Dad went on: “If it's any consolation, this house has been in my family a long time. It was never for sale.”

“Really?” the man said. “What about now?”

“I'm sorry?” Dad said.

“I'm willing to make a most generous offer.”

David could almost hear the man smiling. He felt something touch his arm, and he jumped.

Toria stood in front of him. She whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Shhh.”

She leaned closer. “What's the matter? You don't look so good.”

“I'm okay,” he said. “Come on.” He walked back into the dining room, trying not to look at the man. He stopped at his dad's side and gripped his arm.

“I'm sorry,” his dad was saying. “This house is not for sale.”

David stared at the man's hand. It was powerful looking, veined and wrinkled. Scars marred the skin, slashing across the knuckles. A thick welt of scar tissue ran up the back of his hand and disappeared into the sleeve of his overcoat. His fingernails were longer than they should have been.
Dracula hands
, he thought.

“Is that something you and Mrs. King have discussed? Perhaps
I
should talk to her. I have a . . .
way
with women.”

David felt the muscles in Dad's arm tense up. He tightened his grip. As much as the man deserved it, he thought Dad hitting him was a very bad idea.

CHAPTER nineteen

SUNDAY, 8 : 52 P . M .

Holding onto Dad's arm as Dad spoke to Mr. Taksidian, David's heart stepped up from a gallop to a headlong run.

Was it his imagination, or had the man's voice taken on a threatening tone when he mentioned Mom? As much as he'd have rather avoided the man's piercing eyes, David looked up to his face.

Dad said, “Your
way
with women' has nothing to do with my wife, sir.”

The man was looking up toward the second-floor landing, as though expecting to see Mom standing there. He said, “I meant only that she should hear my offer. As I said, it's quite generous.”

“She's not here right now.”

Dad's voice had taken on a hard edge. David wondered if it was from the stress of having to lie about Mom or because the man's pushiness had made him angry.

“Oh? When will she return? Perhaps I can wait.”

Dad said, “She's away. Maybe a couple weeks.”

“I see,” the man said. His Dracula hand slipped inside his overcoat. It reappeared holding a small pad of paper, which he opened with a flick of a fingernail. His other hand dropped into an outside pocket and produced a pen. He said, “If you'll tell me how to reach her, I'll give her the details directly.”

“The house is not for sale,” Dad repeated. “Now, if you'll please . . .” He nodded toward the door. “We were just sitting down to dinner.”

The man didn't budge. He stood like a statue, casting his awful gaze at Dad's face. David realized that Dad had leaned closer to the man. He was staring him down, not blinking.

Way to go, Dad.

“Houses like this,” the man said, “are always more than most people can handle.”

When Dad did not respond, the man continued: “You know, not as stable as they look on the surface. A wall might collapse. Other surprises. I would hate . . .” He took the time to look at Xander, then Toria, finally coming to rest on David. “I would
hate
to see anything happen to your lovely family.”

“Good night, Mr. Taksidian,” Dad said.

The man closed his eyes. He sighed heavily. “Will you at least hear my offer?”

“No.”

His eyes opened slowly. He nodded and turned. He opened the front door but did not step through. Without looking back, he said, “Mr. King . . . I have a nasty habit of getting what I want.”

Again, Dad said, “Good night,
sir
.” The “sir” sounded as sharp as a fist striking a skull.

The man stepped out, and the door closed behind him.

The family didn't move for a long time. They just stared at the door. David wondered if anyone else expected the man to come back through.

Finally Xander went to the door and turned the knob that engaged the dead bolt. He looked at Dad. “What just happened?”

Toria said, “Who
was
that?”

Dad told her, “If you see him again, don't go near him.”

“Dad,” David said, near a whisper. He was still gripping his father's arm, tighter now. “That was the man I saw in the woods.”

“What?” Xander said. “When we were flying? When you fell?”

David looked up at his father and knew right away that Dad had suspected as much.

“But wait,” Xander continued. “If he saw David flying or hovering or whatever it was we were doing, why didn't he say anything about it? I mean, that's gotta be, like, the weirdest thing anyone has ever seen, right? You don't just ignore it.”

Toria said, “Maybe he didn't really see David.”

“He did,” David said, remembering the eyes watching him in the forest. They were the same eyes that had stared him down just now.

Xander stepped closer. “This can't be a coincidence. We move in, Mom gets taken, this guy shows up wanting to buy the place? What's going on?”

Dad didn't answer right away. When he did, his words came slowly. “I don't know who he is or what he wants with this house. But you're right, his showing up isn't a coincidence. He's here because we're here, and he doesn't want us to be. We've got to watch out for him.”

“Like we don't have enough going on?” Xander said. “We've gotta find Mom while pretending everything's all right, we gotta watch out for the guy who
took
Mom, and now we have to watch for
this guy
?!”

“What else are we gonna do?” David said.

It was too much for one day. Stepping into some French village during a Nazi attack. The flying—or
whatever
it was they had done in the clearing. Breaking his arm. The doctor's accusation. And now this guy: his sudden appearance, his low measured way of talking, his
eyes
.

David didn't want to let go of his dad. And his other arm was in a sling. But in his mind he did the backstroke. Just trying to be calm when he had every reason to go crazy.

“I'm not going to pretend this doesn't change things,” Dad said. “We'll have to be more careful, we may have to work faster, and we've got to keep our eyes open for dangers coming at us from outside the house.”

“Taksidian,” Xander said.

Dad nodded. “But in some ways, nothing's changed. We still have to do everything we can to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Maybe that's more important than ever now.”

David said, “Is that your way of saying we still have to go to school tomorrow?”

“No!” Xander said.

Dad smiled. “First day of school. I'm the principal. I think we have to, don't you?”

Xander said, “I say we do nothing but look for Mom. Eat when we have to, sleep when we can. Get Mom, get out of here, and leave this house for Taksidian or whoever else wants it.”

Man, that sounded good to David.

But then Dad said, “That would be fine if we knew for sure we could find Mom quickly. My dad spent weeks looking for my mother and never found her.”

“That was one person,” Xander said. “With all of us working together—”

“And that's why we're going to find her,” Dad interrupted. “But I don't think it will be easy . . . or quick.”

“If it takes a year, ten years,” David said, “I'm in.”

“Me too,” Toria said.

Xander frowned, but he was nodding. He said, “Okay, we pretend everything is great, and that buys us the time we need to find Mom.”

“School tomorrow, then,” Dad said. “So let's get to bed early. Toria, how about the two of us rounding up something else for dinner?”

Toria headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Xander,” Dad said, “would you and David mind cleanup duty?” He nodded his head toward the mess on the floor.

“Awww,” David said. “The meat loaf smelled good. We can't have any of it?”

Dad laughed and gave him a push, then went to join Toria in the kitchen.

David touched his arm to stop him. “What about the man? Taksidian?”

Dad squeezed David's shoulder reassuringly. “He's going to do what he's going to do, Dae. Right now all we can do is wait and see what that is.”

“He said he was in the house. Do you think he knows about the third floor, the portals?”

Dad thought about it. “There's a reason he wants this place. I imagine it has something to do with this place being special—and what makes it special are the portals.”

David bit his lip. “But . . .” He didn't know how to put his feelings into words. It was like having the messiest room in the world: he didn't know where to start to sort it out in his head.

Dad touched his cheek. “Don't worry about it, son. Together, we'll get through whatever we have to. Okay?”

David nodded.

Dad walked down the hall and disappeared into the kitchen.

David stood watching, thinking.
He's going to do what he's going to
do.
David didn't like the sound of that.

CHAPTER twenty

SUNDAY, 9 : 00 P . M .

Mr. James Taksidian—he was used to the name now—stood in front of the house among the trees. Moonlight played against the clapboards, stirred by the shadows of countless leaves. He could still see the oldest boy in the foyer, his back to one of the narrow, leaded windows that flanked the front doors. Absently, he rubbed at the heavy scar on the back of his right hand.

The meeting had not gone as well as he had hoped. A few more weeks without their wife and mother, a few more encounters with household intruders, and they would have jumped at the opportunity to abandon the house. Ah, but Taksidian was growing older, and less patient. He had fewer years left to do all the things he wanted to do. He didn't have time for pests like the King family.

He had hoped to find more despair and disillusionment. When he started to push them—frightening the boy, implying knowledge of what had happened to the woman—he had witnessed more anger and determination than the fear he had hoped to instill.

One important fact had come from the meeting: he had verified that they were not some random family who had somehow weaseled their way into the house. They belonged. This meant they would not scare so easily. But he had no doubt that he could get them out. If one method did not work, another would. Seeing the resolve in their faces, hearing it in their voices, had convinced him that he had to step up his efforts. The pressure he would apply could crush a . . . He searched for the right metaphor and laughed when he found it. The pressure he would apply could crush a king.

He spun away from the house and headed toward the car he had parked down the road. He laughed again, sure that he knew the outcome of this latest little adventure with the house.

They would run or they would die—he didn't care which.

The last one had fled, and for almost thirty years had left Taksidian alone to do as he pleased. It had been a time of great prosperity.

And he would have his time with the house once again.

CHAPTER twenty - one

TUESDAY, 11 : 2 8 P . M .

Something woke David from a sound sleep. He saw that Xander was sitting up in bed and thought that his brother had called to him.

“What?” he said to Xander's dark profile.

“Shhh.”

Bam!

David jumped. “Was that a gunshot?” The noise seemed to come from the hallway, but who really knew?

Bam!

“Xander!” David had
felt
the noise that time, coming up through the floor into his bed.

“Daaaaad!” It was Toria. David and Xander threw back their blankets at the same time and hit the floor running.

Bam! Bam!