A statue waiting for the impact of a feather.
Brady wound up and was about to hit Christopher again as hard as he could when a fist came out of nowhere and punched him in the jaw. Brady turned around and saw Special Ed.
“Get away from him!” Special Ed said.
Brady’s eyes turned to rage. Mike stepped out from behind the crowd with his little brother Matt, backing up Special Ed.
“Back off, Collins!” Mike said.
And within seconds, a brawl started.
Brady and Jenny’s gang had Christopher’s friends beat three to one, but it didn’t matter. Special Ed and the M&M’s stood back-to-back just like the Avengers. Brady ran at Special Ed first, fists flying. Mike took his book bag and swung it, hitting Brady in the gut. Brady fell to the ground in front of Jenny Hertzog. Jenny jumped on Mike and bit his hand. Matt grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her down on the ground. Everyone was biting and kicking and screaming.
Just like a war.
Christopher watched all of this in silence, his head throbbing with a fever that felt like their rage. After a moment, he forced himself to his feet. Then, he calmly approached the fighting. He reached out and grabbed Brady’s arm in his feverish hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly.
The heat shot through Christopher’s arm. It tickled like little needles reaching through his fingertips to Brady’s funny bone.
Until they turned to heat.
“Stop! It hurts!” Brady said.
Christopher looked Brady in the eye. The boy was terrified. Christopher let go and Brady saw little blisters form on his arm. Christopher moved to Jenny Hertzog, who was scratching Matt’s face. She got her fingers under his lazy-eye patch when Christopher grabbed her arm.
“It’s all going to get better, Jenny. You’ll see,” he assured her.
The heat shot its way through his fingertips and burrowed under her long-sleeved shirt. She grabbed her arm in pain. She rubbed the small blisters on her right arm, screaming.
Christopher reached down and helped his friends back to their feet.
“Come on, guys,” he said.
The heat from his hands moved down their arms, but it did not blister. It was soothing, like Vicks VapoRub on a sick chest. The warmth spread to their faces, making their cheeks rosy. Special Ed’s brain started to feel light and fizzy as soda pop. Mike’s arm suddenly felt stronger. Matt’s lazy eye began to tingle. Christopher’s forehead began to cook. The pain was blinding.
“What is going on?!” a voice yelled from the door.
Christopher looked up and saw Mrs. Henderson, the librarian, rushing down the hallway. The itch pushed the flash cards through Christopher’s throbbing forehead at a dizzying speed.
Mrs. Henderson is…sad.
Mr. Henderson…doesn’t love her anymore.
Mr. Henderson…always goes out at night.
Mr. Henderson…doesn’t come back until breakfast.
Christopher turned to Mrs. Henderson and smiled.
“It’ll be okay, Mrs. Henderson. I promise,” he said.
The last thing he remembered was grabbing her arm with one hand. He tried his best to hold the heat in, but it escaped like a water balloon full of pinholes. Within seconds, he felt the wet liquid kissing his fingertips. He took his fingers back in plain sight and saw it.
His nose was gushing blood.
Chapter 41
When Christopher’s mother arrived at the school, Special Ed’s mother Betty was standing outside, hoovering a last-minute cigarette to endure the unscheduled parent-teacher conference. Mrs. Henderson stood impatiently next to her.
“The other parents are already in the principal’s office,” she said.
The not-so-subtle hint was completely lost on Betty, who took in one last massive puff, and then crushed the Capri out with the heel of her Ugg boot.
“Can you believe this shit?” she said to Christopher’s mother, her breath still sweet from her lunchtime Chardonnay. “I was in the middle of a massage.”
“Where’s my son?” Christopher’s mother asked Mrs. Henderson.
“He’s in the nurse’s office with the other children, Mrs. Reese. You can see him shortly,” Mrs. Henderson said, sounding grateful to have someone who could wrangle Betty.
The two women followed Mrs. Henderson to the principal’s office and took their seats next to the other parents. Mike and Matt’s two mothers looked weary, as if Mrs. Collins had been yelling at them for the last fifteen minutes. They looked up and smiled when their reinforcements arrived.
“…then how do you explain the burn on his God damn arm?!” Mrs. Collins said.
“Mrs. Collins, I understand you’re upset,” Principal Small said.
“You don’t understand a God damn thing,” Mrs. Collins said. “When my husband’s lawyers get done with this school, you’ll understand how upset I am.”
“You’re going to sue the school because your son started a fight?” Betty groaned.
“My son didn’t start anything. It was her son,” she said, pointing at Christopher’s mother.
“Mrs. Collins,” the principal said firmly, “I already explained to you. Christopher had wet his pants, and Brady was teasing him, playing keep-away.”
“And that gives her kid the right to burn my son’s arm?” Mrs. Collins hissed.
“I was there, Mrs. Collins,” Mrs. Henderson said gently. “When Christopher held their arms, he was trying to make everyone stop fighting.”
“My son doesn’t fight, Mrs. Collins,” Christopher’s mother finally said.
The room fell silent. They could see Mrs. Collins spinning through all the options in her mind. Finally, one voice cut through the tension.
“Let me translate this for you, Mrs. Collins,” Betty said. “Your son is a little sociopath who started a fight and ruined my deep tissue massage.”
Thank God Christopher’s mother was able to stifle her laugh, or she would have been out of a job instantly. But the M&M’s mothers had no such trouble. Both let out a laugh so loud that it doubled back to Special Ed’s mom, and soon, the three women filled the office with their cackles. Mrs. Collins’ face became flush, but her eyes told the real story. The Collins family was used to getting its way. There was not a problem they couldn’t get rid of with a stack of money or the right friend. But having a “problem child” was another matter entirely. And the silence that followed their laughter was deafening.
“Then I owe Mrs. Reese an apology,” Mrs. Collins said. “We’ll talk more about it tonight at work.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Collins, but it’s not necessary.”
“No, it is. We’ll talk after your shift is over,” Mrs. Collins said pleasantly.
“I’ll get my shift covered. I want to stay home with my son tonight.”
“I’m afraid my mother has been having a difficult time. She really needs the best attendant on the floor tonight. And you are the best.”
“But my son has a fever.”
“And my mother has Alzheimer’s.”
The silence returned to the room as the others realized that they had laughed Christopher’s mother right into the worst holiday-season detail at Shady Pines.
“Come on, Kathleen. Don’t be a bitch. I made the joke. Punish me,” Betty said.
“This isn’t a punishment. We just can’t all have time off when our children get the sniffles,” she said.
Mrs. Collins waited to see if Kate Reese would say something and give her grounds to fire her. But Christopher’s mother said nothing. Because the lottery paid off the past, not the future. She still had a mortgage. She still needed the job. She still had to provide for her son.
“Kathleen,” Betty said. “How the hell do you sit in the front row of church and not hear a God damn thing?”
“I hear more than you think,” Mrs. Collins said.
After another tense minute of “she said, she said,” all the mothers were led to the nurse’s o
ffice to collect their young and take them home. When Kate saw Mrs. Collins drag her son Brady out to the parking lot, her insides tightened. She was used to hating little snot-nose kids who picked on Christopher, but this was a different feeling. What she saw was a violent, angry kid being shoved into his mother’s Mercedes by an exasperated, angry woman.
“You get in there, God dammit,” Mrs. Collins said.
“Mom…they started it. I swear to God,” Brady said.
And by God, if Kate didn’t know better, she would have believed him. Of course, she knew that Brady was too small and Sunday-school charming to do any real damage now. But God help the deli line of cute girls who would climb into the backseat of Brady Collins’ car in high school. Girls like Jenny Hertzog in her stepbrother’s pickup truck. Girls who see something worth saving and never stop to notice that the boy doesn’t want to be saved. Girls who never admit that some boys are perfectly happy treating them like shit because they seem to be perfectly happy taking it. She once saw Jerry’s picture when he was little. Jerry had a cute innocent-boy look. And that cute little boy grew up and just had this thing for punching things that were smaller than him. Kate Reese shivered when she realized the sad truth: Even monsters are adorable when they’re little.
Kate turned back to Christopher, who covered his corduroy pants with her jacket and his bandaged neck with his turtleneck like he did when he was little and afraid of vampires. They told her he had fallen asleep after the state exam and had such a terrible nightmare, he had wet his pants and tore up his own neck with his fingernails.
Just like he did after his father died.
Back then, it wasn’t just his neck. It was a bruise on the arm. Or sleepwalking into a wall and sending himself to the ER. Kate managed to scrape together enough money to take him to a few different psychologists. The doctors had different approaches, but the bottom line was that Christopher needed time to work through the trauma of his father’s death.
After all, Christopher found the body.
It took a while, but eventually, the nightmares had stopped. And with them, the self-harm. She had no idea why it was all coming back now. And every attempt she made to get a straight answer from him was met by a monosyllabic answer. Occasionally, she would get three syllables:
“I don’t know.”
Kate Reese had a million questions, but she had to work. And her son didn’t look like he could handle the third degree right now. So, she made the strategic decision to give him space and ask him the only question she knew he wanted to answer.
“Hey…before I go back to work…you want to get some ice cream?”
His smile almost broke her heart.
Christopher didn’t know it, but his mother had already done many things to try to figure out what was happening to him. Including some things she’d promised herself she would never do. She’d snooped around his room for clues. A drawing. A letter. A diary. Anything. But all she found was the picture of his father on the bookshelf with duck wallpaper and the books that looked like her son had already read several times over.
When everything in his room proved fruitless, Kate Reese threw on a jacket and went outside. She walked through the backyard and stood on the edge of the Mission Street Woods. She stared at the trees. Watching the breeze kiss the branches.
Kate Reese walked into the woods. She did not stumble. She knew exactly where she was going. She wasn’t sure why it had taken her this long to do it. Maybe fear. Maybe focus. After all, the sheriff assured her the woods were safe. He said what happened to Ambrose’s brother was an unspeakable tragedy, but it happened a long time ago.
But that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen again.
It didn’t take long for her feet to find the path. She passed the billy goat bridge and the hollow log until she found herself in the heart of the woods.
The clearing.
The tree.
The tree house.
She was astonished. When her son had told her that he built a tree house, she pictured a ramshackle hut with more gaps in it than her great-uncle’s teeth. But this thing was extraordinary. Every detail perfect. The paint. The craftsmanship. This was the work of an obsessive mind.
Just like her husband’s.
Everything had to be right, or he would be very wrong. She was grateful that her husband was innately kind because his manic energy never turned on her.
But it had turned.
Kate stared at the tree house. The tree. The clearing.
“Is there someone there?” she said out loud.
There was silence. Still and breathing. She waited to see if something would blink.
“I don’t know if you’re there or not,” she said. “But if you are, leave him the fuck alone.”
She stood her ground for a moment more to let whatever might be on the other side of the wind know that her rage was far bigger than her fear. Then, she walked home, never once looking back over her shoulder.
When she got home, she went immediately to the internet. Two months ago, she might have dismissed it as a ridiculous phrase to search, but after putting Christopher’s tree house together with his sudden math and reading talent, she found herself typing in the letters anyway.
Spontaneous genius.
Whatever hesitation she felt evaporated quickly when she saw the results.
The search warranted almost a million hits. She studied some cases, and she almost WebMD’d herself into madness when she found a few potential reasons for this “miracle.” Tumors. Cysts. Or the one that sent her into a two-hour anxiety attack…
Psychosis.
She had already called every pediatrician in town after she went online, but they were booked. It was flu season, they all said. So, she would have to wait a couple of weeks. But as she watched her son devour his vanilla cone at 31 Flavors, she was back on that phone, demanding an earlier time. She was put on hold, and her mother’s intuition screamed in her ear.
Help him, Kate. He’s in trouble.
As she listened to the horrible Muzak version of Blue Moon, she remembered something her husband told her right after he came out of one of his worst spells.
What are the two types of people who can see things that aren’t there, Kate?
And his quiet whisper of a punch line.
Visionaries and psychopaths.
Chapter 42
When the call came in that afternoon, Mary Katherine was sitting in her bedroom, dreading her life. Christmas break was right around the corner, and she was woefully behind on her Notre Dame application essay. Not only that, but she had the late shift at the old folks home. She had already volunteered long enough to get her certificate for college. But she felt guilty that she was only volunteering for her college application, and if that was true, it wasn’t real charity work. And if it wasn’t, then God would punish her by making her not get into Notre Dame like her father and mother and grandfather and grandmother and so on and so forth did. So, she was determined to keep volunteering to help the old people to prove that she wasn’t just volunteering to get into college so that God would help her get into college. It was a perfectly reasonable plan, but there was only one problem.
She really hated the old people.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she whispered to Jesus in prayer. “There are some nice ones. Mr. Olson is sweet and funny. And Mrs. Epstein taught me how to bake snickerdoodles and make something called matzah balls. But it’s hard to focus on them when Mrs. Collins’ mother screams ‘We’re all going to die’ at the top of her lungs for four hours straight. I could manage when Doug was there, but then he quit volunteering. He’s already finished his applications to MIT and Cornell. I asked if he would ever go to Notre Dame with me, and he said he would apply to it as a ‘safety school.’ I could have killed him. I know it’s wrong to ask You for this, but I just have to get into Notre Dame. Am I going to get into Notre Dame?”
She waited, but no sign came. Just the wind blowing through the trees outside her bedroom window
. Mary Katherine thought more about her night shift at the old folks home. Her stomach churned with the guilt that she really didn’t want to go. They were just so old. And they smelled. And the demented ones frightened her. Sometimes, she would stop and look at the hall and think…“Jesus loves every one of these people. Every single soul.”
“How do You love everyone, Jesus?” she asked. “Give me a sign.”
When her cell phone rang, she let out a little scream.
“Hello?” she said, half expecting Jesus to be on the other end of the phone (hopefully with good news).
“Mary Katherine,” Mrs. Reese said. “Is there any chance you are available to babysit Christopher tonight?”
Mary Katherine weighed her options. Take care of nice Mrs. Reese’s son or listen to Mrs. Collins’ mother scream about how the “witch lady” is going to kill us all on Christmas Day.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reese, but I’m signed up to volunteer at Shady Pines,” Mary Katherine said sadly.
“I can cover your shift. I need someone to come to my house right away. Please. You’d be a lifesaver.”
“Then, of course! I’d love to babysit your son!” Mary Katherine beamed.
She wrote down the address and hung up. She knew that Jesus would notice that she chose the old folks home first. The fact that Mrs. Reese needed her to watch her son was outside of her control. And Mrs. Reese knew what the old folks home needed more than she did. So, this was a win win. Mary Katherine was respecting her elders by babysitting instead of volunteering. And she would have hours of babysitting time to work on her Notre Dame application.
She took all this as a very good sign.
As she drove over to Mrs. Reese’s house, she quickly scanned the side of the road for deer. She felt like she had made a good decision to babysit. After all, Christopher was the missing little boy that she had saved, and Father Tom said that in some cultures, once you save a life, you are responsible for it. But still, she couldn’t be too careful.
“Jesus, if I made a mistake, make me hit a deer.”
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