Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  “Did he eat it?” Zinnia asked.

  “No, but he seemed really taken with it. He looked at it like he had never seen one before, even though he was the one who had asked for it. He whispered something, and I think it was, ‘Flesh and blood. Perfect.’ Then, just like he had produced the soda, he put the pizza behind the tree and it was gone. He tilted his head, looked at the soda, and then at me. I knew what Mrs. Bisson said about food from the guy, so there was no way I was going to consume it. I just backed away from him.”

  “What did you do with it? Did you throw it away?” Eric asked.

  “I meant to. That’s the weird thing. I was already starting to lose details of the interaction as I walked home. I thought about Mrs. Bisson’s story and about how people would forget about the Trader. I didn’t want that to happen so I told myself the details over and over as I walked home. I grabbed a piece of paper and sat down in the kitchen to write everything I could remember. It was like trying to remember a dream. It seemed like some of the particulars would shift and twist the more I tried to get them straight. I didn’t even notice when my brother came in. I looked up to see him looking over my shoulder. Of course, he was drinking the Dr Pepper. I asked him where he got it, hoping that it was a different one, but he said that he had found it in the fridge. I realized that I must have absentmindedly put it in there instead of throwing it away. That’s how I tricked myself into doing what the Trader must have wanted. I was so focused on writing everything down that I didn’t dispose of the soda. I told him not to drink it and he smacked me on the back of the head and went to his room. I felt bad that I didn’t feel bad, you know?”

  “Wait,” Eric said. He thought carefully, trying to remember if he had seen Alex since he had been back. “Is your brother okay?”

  “As far as I know,” Nicky said with a shrug. “He moved up to Lewiston with his girlfriend and he works at a metal warehouse. I saw him at Christmas. He knocked up his girlfriend, but I got the feeling that it was intentional. So, yeah, I think he’s fine.”

  Zinnia was looking down at the table and her lips were moving, like she was doing math in her head but it was leaking out.

  “He won’t trade with any of us,” Zinnia whispered. “We have to find someone new—someone who hasn’t done a trade yet.”

  “Aunt Zinnia?” Eric asked.

  She ignored him.

  “Have to find something that he can’t…”

  “Aunt Zinnia, this is a bad idea. She just told us that Mrs. Bisson said it was a bad idea.”

  His aunt’s eyes were hard when she looked up and stared into his.

  “You have a better idea?”

  JESSIE

  HOLDTY PUT DOWN HIS egg salad sandwich and wiped his hands off on his shirt. He looked like he didn’t even want to finish the bite that he had been chewing on. Just the idea of cutting class had upset his stomach. Fish didn’t look much better. He kept eating though. There was nothing that would keep Fish from eating his lunch.

  “I don’t know, man, I mean, I guess?” Fish said.

  “I can’t,” Holdty said.

  “Fine, then,” Jessie said. He was disgusted with his friends. They should realize that it took a lot for him to ask for their help. It was unthinkable that they would leave him hanging like this. He pushed back from the table, but didn’t know where else to go. Until the bell rang, he couldn’t leave the cafeteria without a note. If he tried, he would just be inviting the scrutiny of the vice principal, and that would mess up his plans for the afternoon.

  “You know I would,” Holdty said, “but if I get one more mark I’m suspended. If that happens, my dad will actually kill me, you know? He said as much.”

  “Yeah, okay, fuck it,” Fish said. “I’ll go. We’re going to steal your tools though, Holdty.”

  Holdty rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine. You know where they are. Don’t let my mom see you though. I’ll get shit for that too.”

  “When are you going?” Fish asked.

  Jessie looked up at the clock and tried to figure it. They would only need twenty minutes or so to get the parts, but it was going to take forever to tromp through the snow just to get to the thing. Plus, they had to go all the way to Holdty’s house for the tools they would need.

  “I think we have to leave right after lunch,” Jessie said.

  “Kick ass,” Fish said. “I was really dreading geometry anyway. I swear that Mr. Southern is trying to get into my pants.”

  “He has a wife,” Holdty said. He took a sip of his milk and then pushed that away too.

  “That doesn’t mean shit,” Fish said. He crumpled his milk carton and dropped it on his tray.

  Jeff glanced up at the clock. They still had five minutes to wait. Holdty followed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, cracking his neck.

  “I don’t understand,” Holdty said. “What good will it do to take the carb back off?”

  “It doesn’t belong to us,” Jessie said. “If it came because my brother traded for it, then maybe the only way to get Wendell back is to return the carb.”

  “And the chain,” Fish said. “Don’t forget about that.”

  “But who wants a used carb?” Holdty asked. “We already ran the engine a bunch of times. Now that there has been gas through it, nobody is going to take it back like it’s new. And where are you going to send it?”

  “I’ll just take it back to the tree guy,” Jessie said. “That’s who my brother traded for it.”

  Holdty and Fish looked at each other.

  “Seriously?” Holdty asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “No reason,” Holdty said. “Okay. I guess I’m coming with you guys.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Jessie said.

  Now that he had changed his mind, Holdty rescued his sandwich and started eating again. Through a mouthful of egg salad, he said, “No, it’s good. You guys would just fuck up my tools anyway.”

  # # #

  For a variety of reasons, they split up and said they would meet at the trail to Mason’s. The main reason that tipped the scale was because Fish said that three kids walking together during a school day would draw too much attention. He was usually right about such things.

  Jessie got to the head of the trail first and began to wade through the snow down the path. Back at home, there were a bunch of sets of snowshoes that would have made the hike much easier, but Jessie couldn’t risk it. If Eric saw him, there would be questions. Eric would likely be on his side, but Eric also had a policy against lying. If Jessie’s dad started firing off questions, Eric would cave.

  Jessie was halfway to the fence when he heard Holdty and Fish behind him. Following in the tracks they caught up pretty quick.

  Holdty’s nose was bright red and his breath was puffing out in white clouds. Every time he took a step, his little toolbox banged against his leg and the tools inside rattled.

  “Hey, look at the shovel this dumbass brought,” he said, pointing at Fish.

  It was a spade—perfect for digging sand, but horrible for snow.

  “It was all I could get. The snow shovel was leaning against the front door,” Fish said.

  “Once we pull the tarp off, we shouldn’t need to dig much,” Jessie said. He hoped that it was true.

  “I don’t know that we’re even going to be able to find it,” Fish said. “We hid it pretty good.”

  Jessie got his glove caught on the fence as he vaulted over and nearly fell down. His arm was twisted behind his back and Fish laughed at him as he set him free.

  “What the shit is that?” Holdty asked.

  Jessie looked up from his glove to see. Veering off the path, Holdty was taking a direct line towards whatever he was looking at, blocking it from view.

  “What?” Fish asked. He shuffled through the deep snow to catch up.

  Jessie brought up the rear.

  “Oh, fuck a duck,” Fish said.

  “You have to be kidding,” Holdty said.

  Je
ssie realized what it was just as he approached. They had hidden the moped in the fall, back when there were still some leaves on the bushes. It looked like a different spot but the turned over tarp told a different story. Based on the tracks, sometime after the snow, someone had come out of the woods, stolen their treasure, and then disappeared back into the woods.

  “How would they even know?” Fish asked. He blew warm breath into his cupped mittens.

  “Someone must have spotted it,” Holdty said.

  “Under the snow?” Fish asked. “That’s impossible.”

  “No, I mean they spotted it before and then came back for it recently. When was that last storm, a week ago? Sometime in the past week, they came and took it.”

  “Guys, hold on,” Jessie said.

  They both looked at him. Jessie slowly rounded the crumpled tarp and leaves until he could get a better look at the tracks on the other side.

  “What?” Fish asked.

  “There are only footprints,” Jessie said. “If someone came and took the moped, how did they get it out of here?”

  Shrugging, Holdty said, “They must have carried it.”

  “That thing weighed a hundred pounds,” Jessie said.

  “More,” Fish said.

  “How the hell did they carry it out of here through the snow?”

  Holdty, his little toolbox banging against his thigh, came to inspect the footprints.

  “You can see it,” Holdty said. “You see how much deeper these tracks are? These are from when he left. He was definitely carrying it.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Fish said. “Some of these tracks aren’t deep at all.”

  Jessie looked closely at the tracks until he was sure which ones were leading away from the scene and then he began to follow them.

  “Where are you going?” Holdty asked.

  “Where do you think?” Jessie called over his shoulder. He didn’t care if the others followed him. At that point, with logic taking a back seat, he didn’t even care that Holdty was the one carrying the tools.

  The snow drifts were deeper in the woods. Each footstep plunged down farther until he was wading through snow that was up to his thighs. Behind him, moving through the path that he cut, Fish and Holdty were following close enough that Jessie could feel the swing of the toolbox against the back of his jacket.

  Up ahead, the trail of footprints veered off to the left a little.

  “Hey, man, you notice anything funny about these tracks?” Fish asked.

  “What, that they’re leading towards the pits?” Jessie asked.

  “No. I mean, yeah, but no. I’m wondering why we’re slogging through snow up to our balls, but that guy’s tracks are only, like five or six inches deep,” Fish said.

  Jessie stopped short and Holdty crashed into his back. Leaning over, he put his gloved hand into one of the footprints and pressed down. Sure enough, the snow was barely packed at all. It was like the guy who had stolen the moped had nearly hovered over the snow. Jessie used his glove to scratch his head as he thought about it. Sometimes, when the crust melted and refroze, snow became easier to walk on. Jessie had never heard of a situation where a person could practically skate over it when it was fresh.

  “I don’t know,” Jessie said. “This is weird.”

  “We’ll ask him when we catch him,” Holdty said. “Just keep going, I’m freezing.”

  “Yeah,” Jessie said.

  Pushing deeper into the woods, the trees and snow seemed to absorb all the sound. It was like his ears were filled with cotton. The sound of his own feet crunching through the drifts sounded like it was far away.

  “Be careful,” Fish said from the rear. “Remember the drop.”

  “Oh. Right,” Jessie said.

  More than once in the summer, they had gone running through the low branches and punched through the brush to find themselves teetering on the edge of one of the quarries. That was one of the main reasons his mom had always forbidden him from playing north of the Lewiston Road. She always said that those woods were more dangerous than they looked.

  Jessie was starting to sweat inside his jacket as they climbed a hill. He was pulling himself up the slope with the trees and wanted to unzip his jacket. Behind him, he heard Holdty grunt and slip. The toolbox crashed into something and Fish told him to watch out. By the time Jessie reached the top of the hill and turned to help them up, his heartbeat was pounding in his ears.

  “Where are we?” Fish asked.

  “I have no idea. I think we veered west at some point,” Jessie said. He looked up and tried to gauge the angle of the sun. It was difficult to tell the time by the sun in winter. Sometimes it seemed like it would barely crest over the horizon before it disappeared again.

  “You take this,” Holdty said, handing Jessie the toolbox. “I’ll take the lead.”

  Jessie passed the box along to Fish.

  “Where are they?” Holdty asked.

  “What?”

  “The tracks? Where are the tracks we’re following?”

  Jessie pushed by him to show him the way. They both turned and turned, trying to find where the trail had gone. The only tracks they could find was their own fumbling trench that came up the hill.

  “We must have lost him at some point,” Fish said. “Let’s double back and see.”

  “No way,” Jessie said. “I was following them perfectly. We’re not going to find anything back there because we walked right through his trail.”

  Holdty was wandering off along the ridge.

  “I think he went this way,” he said.

  “Based on what?” Fish asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, he was barely making dents in the snow before, maybe he just, you know, stayed on top of the crust.”

  “Is there a crust?” Jessie asked. He was close to shouting now. “There’s a crust? You tell me that there’s a crust.”

  They watched as Holdty leaned down and put his glove against the snow. They all saw how easily he made an imprint.

  “Maybe the crust went away.”

  “Have you ever heard of that happening?” Jessie asked.

  “It could happen,” Holdty said.

  “The snow just un-melted?” Fish asked.

  Holdty only shrugged.

  # # #

  After consulting the sky and drawing a map in the snow, they decided that Holdty had chosen the right direction. There was still no sign of the person they had been following, but that direction had to lead towards a road. By then, Jessie could tell that his friends had given up on finding the moped. They would be satisfied in just getting home so they could thaw out their feet and dry their pants.

  It was a captivating idea—Jessie had to admit. He could put his pants and socks in the dryer for about ten minutes while he cooked some toast and let the butter melt. Then, with little circular burns on his legs from the rivets on his pants, he could sit on the window seat in the kitchen and look out over the snow, safe from its intense chill.

  “Hey,” Fish said, nudging him with the toolbox. “Keep moving.”

  Jessie realized that he had stopped in his tracks, paralyzed by the fantasy.

  The sun was disappearing through the trees. Soon it would set. Jessie wondered how long they had been walking through the woods.

  “Guys,” Jessie said. “We have to get back on the road. If it gets dark, we’re done for.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” Holdty said. “What do you think we’re trying to do?”

  “There are roads on all sides of us,” Jessie said. “How have we not hit one of them yet?”

  “Because Holdty is taking us around in fucking circles,” Fish said.

  Jessie stopped again and made a slow turn while Fish waited. They were still on top of a ridge, but it wasn’t very high compared to the woods around them. On either side of their trail, the ground sloped down gently, dotted by thick trunks of tall trees. Usually, he had a pretty good sense of what part of the woods they were in, just by the height of th
e trees. Over near the river, the brush was thick and crowded. Behind the shopping center, there were towering pines. He couldn’t picture a place where big maple and oak trees were spaced out and tall, each sheltering their own domain. Then again, he had never explored around the quarry in the middle of winter before. There was no telling how different things would look under a thick blanket of snow.

  “Why don’t you take the lead then, Fish?” Holdty asked. “It’s no picnic trying to slog through this damn snow.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Fish pushed the toolbox into Jessie’s hands as he worked his way to the front of the line.

  “Where’s the shovel?” Jessie asked.

  “I left it back near Mason’s,” Fish said. “What good was it doing?”

  Jessie shrugged.

  “Hey, dumbass, what about these tracks?” Fish asked.

  Holdty forged a new path through the drift on their left and came up even with Fish on his left side. Jessie worked his way up on the right.

  “Oh,” Holdty said.

  Fish was pointing at a light set of prints that were barely visible on top of the loose powder. It was impossible to believe that those tracks could be made by a person. How little would someone have to weigh to just disturb the top layer of snow like that?

  Fish responded even though Jessie hadn’t even asked his question aloud.

  “I bet the tracks were deeper but they blew away, you know? They were, like, filled in by drifts.”

  “Does it look like that to you?” Holdty asked.

  “How about this—who the fuck cares? Wherever the guy went, he might have the moped, but I can almost guarantee it’s going to be on a road and we can use that road to get home,” Fish said.

  They all nodded.

  Fish set off at a fresh pace, crashing through the snow with bursts of speed. He stopped every few seconds to pant and spit and make sure they were still following the tracks. He only slowed when they had to push through a stand of fir trees. The low branches were thick with needles and difficult to see through.

  Holdty’s hand flew out and grabbed the hood of Fish’s jacket.

  They both fell backwards into Jessie. When he fell, he saw why. The darkening sky was visible through those trees. They had found the lip of the quarry.