Watcher in the Woods (18 page)

“No such thing,” Xander told him.

“I'm not sure about anything anymore,” David said. “What's real, what's not . . . this house has confused everything.”

When Xander didn't say anything, David realized he had been hoping his brother would laugh at his words, say they were crazy. He wanted somebody to tell him the world was essentially the same as he thought it was before coming to Pinedale, but it wasn't. Their mom was gone, and they lived in a house that messed with time and space. The past was supposed to be the past—unreachable, unchangeable. Here, however, things that belonged in history books were as easy to get to as the bathroom.

See?
he thought.
Thinking again. Why can't I let it all go, at least
until morning?

Xander said, “I've been thinking.”

“Join the club. I can't turn it off.”

“No, listen.” Xander shifted from his bed to David's. “They're trying to take our house or kick us out or something.”

“I know,” David said. “It's that Taksidian guy.”

“It doesn't even matter who's behind it. If they kick us out, who knows what will happen? They'll probably chain the doors, board up all the windows. Maybe even tear the whole place down.”

David sat up and scooted back against the headboard. “They can't do that. It's our house.”

“Dad Googled Taksidian. He's some rich bigwig. Owns all these companies. People like that can do anything they want.”

“Not
anything,
” David said. This was another way the world was not as David had always imagined. Maybe it didn't involve ripples in time or monsters, but it was equally scary.

“Just about,” Xander said. “Don't you think a man like that can take any house he wants?”

David thought about it. With enough money and lawyers, dishonesty and meanness, of course he could. David's chest felt tight.

“What—” he started to say, then realized how close he was to crying. He took a deep breath and tried again. “What's going to happen to Mom?”

“That's what I've been thinking about,” Xander said. “The MCC is cool, but Dad's taking too long. He's so concerned about appearances and keeping people off our backs so we have all the time in the world to find Mom . . .” He shook his head. “But we don't
have
all the time in the world. We may not even have a few days.”

“There's nothing we can do about that, Xander.”

“We can start looking for Mom
now
. Forget playing it safe. Forget debriefings and motivational seminars. We gotta just do it, Dae. We gotta find Mom.”

“What are you saying?”

Xander leaned closer. He squeezed David's leg. “Come with me! Now!”

“What, just . . .
go over
?”

“Between the two of us, we can cover the same ground in half the time.”

“Xander, I don't know. I promised Dad I wouldn't.“

“Come on, David, what do we have to lose?”

“Our
lives
?”

“Think about it. The faster we go, the more worlds we see, the better chance we have to find Mom.”

This is it,
David thought. As much as he wanted to find Mom, as much as he'd gone along with setting up the control room and making plans for searching through the various worlds, somewhere inside he had hoped it would not be necessary. Maybe Mom would just show up. Or Dad would decide that he was too young.

The first time he went over, he had almost been killed by tigers and tribesmen with spears. The second time, he had almost been killed by Nazis. Two times through, two close calls. He didn't like those odds. They had cured him of his desire for that kind of adventure.

He looked at the clock again. It was exactly midnight. With far less enthusiasm than usual, he said, “Let's do it.”

CHAPTER thirty - five

“Why are they shooting at me?” David screamed.

There was a
crack!
in the distance, and the earth beside him erupted in a mini-geyser of dirt. They had stepped into a nightmare battlefield where bodies littered the ground, the injured howled in pain, and David had become a target before drawing his third breath. Though Xander and he were near each other, it was clear the shooters wanted David. One man who had aimed a rifle at him lowered it when Xander darted into the line of fire. That did not stop others from plugging away at him.

“Get down! Get down!” Xander said, waving his arms at David. Xander was sidestepping in circles around his brother, trying to spot and dissuade the next would-be shooter. It seemed every time he circled around one way, a shot rang out from the opposite direction, and a bullet would sail past so closely they could hear it, or it would hit the ground at their feet.

A thick plume of smoke drifted past, hiding Xander from David's view. David panicked. “Xander! Xander!”

“I'm here, Dae, stay down.”

David felt warm wetness on his cheeks and thought for sure he had been hit. He wiped at it. Only tears, and they were flowing as heavily as blood would have from a head wound. He dropped to his hands and knees and yelled again, “Why are they shooting at me?”

The smoke cleared. Xander was standing ten feet away. “Your uniform!” he said. “David, your uniform.”

David looked at the jacket he had put on in the antechamber. One side was draped over his cast. It was gray, like the kepi he wore on his head. To gain passage into this world, he had also carried a rifle. Xander had recognized it from
Glory
,
The Patriot,
and other Civil War movies: it was a Harper's Ferry rifle, single shot and muzzle loaded. He had confirmed that it was unloaded, with the gunpowder and musket ball nowhere in the antechamber.

“All the better,” Xander had said. “You'd end up shooting your foot off, or worse, shooting me.”

David had forgotten all about it as soon as the first bullet zinged past his head.

He looked up from the gray wool of his uniform to see that Xander was wearing dark blue. In his hand, he held a sword—the only other weapon in the room after David had gotten dibs on the rifle.

“They think you're a Confederate soldier, David!” Xander yelled. He glanced around. “We're on the Union side of the battle.” He looked back at David and saw something that made his eyes grow even wider. “And you've got that rifle! Throw it away! David, throw the rifle away!”

David heaved it off to the side.

A shot rang out, then another. Dirt kicked up into his face. Another round passed so closely over his head he thought for sure it had taken off his kepi, if not his scalp. He reached up and felt the soft cloth of the worn hat. He spat dirt out of his mouth. “
Xander
!” he screamed with everything he had in him.

“Lie down! Lie down!” Xander yelled, running to him.

David did, and Xander lay down on top of him. Xander's breaths were loud and quick in his ear. David couldn't help it: his weeping became full-out crying.

“I told you . . . I told you,” he repeated. It was all he could say, over and over.

“Shhh,” Xander whispered into his ear. “It's going to be okay.”

Nearby, the ground exploded. Hurled into the air was a thousand times more dirt than the musket balls had kicked up.

“What . . . what . . . what . . .” David screamed, pulling in a short breath between each word.

“Cannonball,” Xander said. “I think the Confederates are advancing. We can't stay here.”

When David had awakened that morning with the first day of school on his mind, it had never occurred to him that he would die that same night in the dirt by a Union soldier's musket ball. He squeezed his eyes closed. He tried not to think about the rifle fire and the screams, the smoke that stung his nostrils and scorched his throat.

He forced himself to think of home. He would have liked to have tasted Toria's meat loaf, to have kicked the mayor of Pinedale in the shin, to have used their mission control center at least once. That got him thinking about something he wanted to write on Dad's flip chart:
What is it about these
worlds and WAR?
In his mind, he underlined
WAR
three times. WWII. The Civil War. He would even say Xander's battle with the gladiator was a form of war. What else would you call it when people tried to kill you—whether it was a single person or many—and other people approved.

The chorus of gunfire they had been hearing in the distance grew louder, closer. Another cannonball slammed down, too close for comfort.

“We can't stay here,” Xander repeated.

“What are we supposed to do?” David gasped. “As soon as I stand up, they'll shoot me.”

Xander was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Finally he said, “I'm sorry I got you into this, Dae.”

“I don't want to hear it, Xander,” David said. “Don't apologize; just get me home.”

Xander squirmed above him, apparently looking for something that would save them.

“Xander, Xander,” David said. “Listen, you go. I'll stay here and play dead.”

“I can't do that,” Xander said loudly into his ear. “Anything could happen.” He paused. Then: “Wait, wait, wait.” He rolled off of David and vanished into a wall of drifting smoke.

“Xander!” David rose up onto his elbow. “Xander!” The barrel of a rifle jutted straight toward his face. He screamed and dropped his head into the dirt. He covered himself with his good arm as if it could protect him from a musket load. He wondered if he would hear the gunfire, or if the next thing he heard would be angels welcoming him into heaven.

When neither an explosion nor heavenly voices reached his ears, he lowered his arm and looked up. The opening of the barrel was big and black and six inches in front of his eyes. At the other end stood Xander, staring off to the side. Xander swung his attention back to David.

“Come on!” Xander said, “Didn't you hear me? Get up.”

“Xander, what—“

Xander's eyes flicked around, then he said, “Don't say my name. You're my prisoner, understand? That's how we're getting out of here. Let's go.”

David fought back a smile. He wiped the sleeve of his troublesome jacket under his nose, leaving a streak of snot and dirt. He rose and noticed that the other soldiers in blue were moving backwards, firing in the opposite direction. He turned to head the same way, raised his good hand, and began walking.

Behind him Xander said, “Take off your hat so they can see you're just a boy.”

David pulled it off and held it above him in his hand.

“Don't hold it up like that,” Xander said. “Let's not give anybody a gray target to shoot at.”

“Don't we need it to find the portal?”

“Stick it in your belt,” Xander instructed.

David lowered his hand to do that. He thought that having his arm down out of a surrender position made him fair game for anyone who wanted to shoot. He got his hand back in the air as fast as he could. He said, “Xander . . . ?”

“Don't use my name!”

“What if the portal home is on the Confederate side? I'm not feeling the items pull me yet.”

Xander said, “Back when I was lying on you, I thought I felt my jacket pulling in this direction. But it might have been the wind . . . or you. Wherever it is, David, we'll get to it. I promise.”

David believed his brother. On a list of character traits, Xander's top two would be determination and stubbornness.

David said, “Don't use my name.”

CHAPTER thirty - six

They marched for a long time. They went over one, two, three hills, past the slow-moving injured and those who would never move again. Some soldiers ran by on their way to the front lines. They frowned at David. The anger in their eyes seemed to change to sadness when they registered his age. One man nodded at Xander and said, “Good job, private.”

Dutifully, Xander replied, “Thank you, sir.”

Finally, tents and groups of scurrying soldiers came into view. As they drew closer, an older man with a closely cropped black beard broke away from a small group of soldiers to walk toward them. His jacket had a high collar and two rows of brass buttons running down his chest. Patches embroidered with stars were sewn to the top of each shoulder. He stepped in front of David. His eyes roamed down to David's feet, then back to his face.

“How old are you, son?” the man said.

David pulled his jacket closed in front, making sure his cast was hidden. He said, “Twelve, sir.”

“And those cur dogs got you fighting?”

David thought fast. He figured an officer wouldn't take kindly to an enemy combatant regardless of age. He said, “No, sir. I'm only a drummer boy.”

The officer narrowed his eyes at David. “Caught without your drum?”

David said, “Taken from me, sir.”

The man said, “You know what I hear about young recruits?”

“Sir?”

“If they want to fight, they scrawl the number 18 on a piece of paper and put it in their shoe. When enlistment officers ask them if they're ‘over eighteen,' they can honestly answer, ‘Yes, sir, I am.' Those dogs are so desperate for soldiers, they take them at their word even when they know they're putting a child on the battlefield.” The man stepped closer. “What concerns me are all the Southern children who do that in order to put musket balls in my men. You didn't do that, son, did you?”

Every organ in David's body felt shriveled to the size of a pea. It was all he could do to keep from passing out. He said, “No, sir. Just a drummer boy.”

The man squinted down at David's sneakers. He said, “Son, those are the strangest shoes I've ever seen.”

“Sneak—” David started, then backed up. “I mean, sir, my mother made them.”

“No offense to your mama, but I think she could use some lessons.”

“Yes, sir.”