Watcher in the Woods

by Robert Liparulo

  “Save the world?”

  “I know how it sounds.”

  It was Keal’s turn to sigh. He said, “Who is it you think you have to see?”

  “I don’t know who, exactly.” Jesse shook his head. “I mean, I do . . . but . . . but it’s been so long. It could be almost anyone. No, not anyone . . .”

  Keal gave his knee a gentle squeeze. “Calm down, Jesse. It’s okay. So this guy—whoever he is—he’s going to save the world?”

  “Yes, yes, but he doesn’t know it yet. I have to tell him.” He squeezed his eyes closed again. His lungs didn’t work the way they used to. He had to pull hard just to get enough air. “His father, or his father’s father, was supposed to show him, but I know he didn’t. It’s been too long. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He left his post.”

  “Post? Jesse, I have to say, man, you might as well be ranting about dragons and surfing on the tables, for all the sense you’re making.”

  Jesse gripped Keal’s hand in both of his. He squeezed, but knew Keal hardly felt it. “His post,” he repeated. “The house. They left the house . . . for years they left the house.” He squinted at the whites of Keal’s eyes. “It’s not a house you want to leave. It’s too special, it’s too important.”

  “A house, Jesse?” Keal said. “You’re talking about a house?”

  “Like no other house, like no other place.”

  “And that’s where you want to go? To this house? In California?”

  Jesse pulled in air. He wasn’t getting enough. He nodded.

  “How do you know about this house, Jesse? Did you live there?”

  Jessie smiled at a memory. Then other memories flooded into his head, wiping the smile away. He said, “I more than lived there.” He glanced around and leaned closer. Then he whispered, “I built it.”

  CHAPTER thirty - one

  MONDAY, 7 : 11 P . M .

  Xander King had walked completely around the outside of the house. He had to plow through bushes and scale trees to do it, but he finally managed to film the entire exterior. He planned to upload the footage to their computer and print still pictures of every angle. He imagined a wall of house photos in the war room, David’s “MCC.”

  He stood midway between the house and the dirt road, where their 4Runner was parked. He squinted up at the second-floor windows above the porch roof and wondered if he should try to get a few close-ups of them. But it was early evening, and he was losing his light. The sun was already gone from the sky, leaving only a reddish-purple glow. Even that was fading fast.

  The term “false twilight” came to him. It was when darkness came earlier than it should have, usually from a solar eclipse or because the shadows in a canyon grew dark with the slightest dropping of the sun. The woods around the house were like that, near-black despite the sky’s luminance.

  He didn’t want to be outside much longer. Besides, they’d gotten up early and had to go to school again tomorrow. Dad would want them all to go to bed before too long.

  A clatter came from the house. Xander’s heart jumped as the front door burst open. Then he recognized David bounding off the porch without touching a single step.

  “Xander!” David called.

  “What?”

  “Dad wants you.”

  Xander pushed a black cap over the camcorder’s lens.

  “Now!” David said, insistent.

  “Hold your—” He registered the urgency on David’s face. He brushed past him, heading for the door. “What is it? Is he all right?”

  “He went through,” David said. “He’s in a world!”

  Xander stopped to look at his brother. “What? Why? Did he see Mom?”

  “No. We were cleaning up the locks upstairs. He looked in one of the rooms and laughed. He said he remembered it from when he was a kid and wanted to show it to you. He said he was going on ahead and told me to come get you.”

  “Why me? Why not you?”

  “He said I can go later.”

  David pushed him, and Xander hurried up the porch steps.

  David continued: “He said he’d been wanting to talk to you, and this was the perfect place.”

  “He went on alone?” Xander couldn’t believe it. “Without anyone even in the antechamber?”

  “What holds the room in place, he said, was being in the world, not the antechamber.” David added: “I propped the door open with a picnic basket. Just in case.”

  They went through the door, and Xander pushed it closed.

  “Lock it,” David said. “Dad wants to keep the house battened down.” He smiled. “That’s what he said: battened down.”

  They started up the stairs.

  Xander said, “Where’s Toria?”

  “Playing in her room. I’ll wait for you guys in the antechamber.”

  In the second-floor hallway, heading for the hidden stairwell, Xander stopped again. He turned to David. “Did you say picnic basket?”

  Xander’s sneakered feet stepped onto the softness of tall grass. A light breeze blew past. The air felt warm, but he saw no sun in the sky, just a uniform pinkish glow. Dawn or dusk, he couldn’t tell. Thin tendrils of clouds swooped in long arcs, as though fingers had raked across the sky. He looked over his shoulder to see the wavering image of David standing in the little room. Then the door slammed shut without a sound. The image broke apart like dandelion fluff and disappeared.

  He reached up to tug at the rim of the wool cap he’d taken from a hook in the antechamber. It was checkered, with a little pom-pom on the top, like ones he’d seen some serious golfers wear. At his hip, hanging by a strap over his shoulder, was the picnic basket David had told him about. It was empty, but that didn’t stop it from helping him unlock the portal door. In his left hand he carried a net at the end of a yard-long pole. SpongeBob used one like it to catch jellyfish; Xander had had no idea it was something people actually owned.

  Scoping out his surroundings, he started to understand the items. He was standing in a meadow at the top of a gentle hill. The grass rose as high as his knees. It swayed one way and then the other, reminding him of rolling swells in the open ocean. Wildflowers swirled among the grass: white and yellow, blue and red. Butterflies fluttered over the petals. Several flitted past him on their way from one patch of flowers to another. As far as he could see, the land around him rose and fell like a rumpled blanket. Woods occupied some of the space, covering one hill but not another.

  Movement at the edge of the meadow caught his eye. A family of deer stepped from the shadows of trees. A buck with huge antlers stepped forward, studied Xander, then stooped to chew on the grass.

  At the bottom of the gently sloping meadow, a river ran across the pristine landscape. It was about a mile away, but he could see his father sitting on a blanket near the glistening ribbon of water. He was leaning back on one arm and tossing something over the grassy bank into the river.

  Xander started down the hill. From the woods, birds chirped. He heard an eagle’s cry and looked up to see two of the majestic birds sailing in circles overhead. More animals—a fox, a couple of rabbits, a coyote—ventured from different places in the woods. They sniffed the air, looked at Xander, then went about their business. None seemed concerned by his presence.

  He filled his lungs. The air tasted fresh, like it contained more oxygen than he was used to. He wondered if he was high up. The Rockies, maybe or . . . what were the other big mountain ranges? The Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes . . . But he didn’t see any of the jagged, snowcapped peaks he would expect if he were in any of those places.

  He could hear the river now. The water rushed over rocks, poured over short drop-offs.

  His father looked relaxed. He sat with one knee cocked up, the other leg stretched out before him. While Xander watched, he turned his head, appeared to select a pebble from the ground beside the blanket, and casually tossed it into the water.

  “Hey!” Xander called.

  Dad looked back over his shoulder and
waved.

  Xander spread his arms out. “What is this?”

  “Nice, huh?”

  Xander set the net and picnic basket down. He dropped onto the blanket. His dad tossed another pebble, and Xander followed it with his eyes. He watched the water rushing by, tumbling and churning. He realized that flowing water could be as complicated and interesting to watch as flames. The two shared a kind of orderly chaos.

  He said, “I don’t get it.”

  “What don’t you get?”

  “This.” Xander looked around. “I thought all the worlds were violent and dangerous.”

  “Most are,” Dad said. “In fact, this is the only one my father found that wasn’t like that.”

  “So why’s it here? What’s it about?”

  Dad shook his head slowly. “Maybe it’s a respite from the insanity of the other worlds, a peaceful break. Grandpa thought of it that way. I think this was one of the reasons he gave up the search and took us away.”

  That jolted Xander. “This place? I thought it was the dangers of the other worlds that made him think he would go crazy. Or that he thought he’d die and leave you and Aunt Beth alone in the house. Or that someone would take you and—”

  Dad nodded. “Those things were the raging storms he weathered every day. This—” He took in the landscape around him, a satisfied smile on his lips. “This was his break from those horrors.”

  “So why would it drive him away?”

  Dad looked at him from the corner of his eyes. “Because he was afraid he’d come here and stay.”

  Xander thought about that. He said, “Wow.”

  “If he didn’t have other responsibilities—kids—maybe he would have done just that.”

  “And no one would ever know,” Xander said. He found a pebble and tossed it in. “It is nice.”

  “When I looked in the antechamber and saw the items—the basket and blanket—” He nodded at the cap Xander wore. “The tam-o’-shanter.”

  “So that’s what it’s called.” Xander touched the pom-pom and smiled.

  “Snazzy,” Dad said, winking. “When I saw them, I remembered the world that lay beyond. My father took me here a couple of times. I wanted you to see it.”

  “Yeah, why me? David was with you.”

  Dad watched the river. His face was expressionless. Finally he said, “Because as much as David loves Mom and misses her, he doesn’t blame himself for her being gone.”

  “What?” Xander snapped, surprised. “You think I blame myself ? If anybody, I blame—”

  “Me. I know.” Dad looked directly into his eyes. “But I think you believe you should have stopped that man.”

  “I . . .” Xander started.

  But Dad was right. Xander had never admitted it even to himself, but his inability to stop the man from taking Mom had been haunting him. He felt shame and anger at himself.

  Dad patted Xander on the knee. “You have every right to be mad at me. I don’t blame you, and I’m not going to tell you to feel otherwise. Not about me. But you did everything you could to help her. That man was twice your size and experienced at doing what he did. You can’t punish yourself for not stopping him.”

  Dad blurred in Xander’s vision, and he thought the portal was materializing right there between them. Then he realized that tears had filled his eyes. He blinked, spilling them down his cheeks.

  Dad turned to press his body to Xander and wrap his arm around his neck. Xander expected him to say again how sorry he was, but Dad simply held him. After a few moments, Xander lowered his head and cried on his father’s shoulder. He let it all come out, all the sorrow and fear he’d been trying to pretend he didn’t feel. When it was over, he straightened. He saw that he’d soaked Dad’s shoulder. He laughed a little and brushed at it.

  Dad’s eyes were red too. “I wanted . . .” he said. His voice broke, and he had to stop. He pulled in a couple deep breaths, then said, “I wanted you to see this so you’d know it isn’t all bad. Your mother could be somewhere like this.”

  “You believe that?” Xander said.

  Dad nodded thoughtfully. He studied Xander’s face. He said, “You look so much like her.”

  Xander wiped the back of his hand under his nose. “But am I like her?”

  “You mean independent, resourceful, tenacious? Oh, yeah.”

  Xander chuckled. He pushed the wetness out of his eye sockets. “This family is way too weepy,” he said.

  Dad pointed at him. “No more of that!” He sniffed and slapped Xander’s knee, then stood. “Come on. We’d better get back.”

  “I can feel it,” Xander said. “The pull.”

  “The more sensitive you are to it, the better.”

  “But I’m not feeling it this way,” Xander said. “It’s tugging me back toward where I stepped into this world.”

  “Me too,” Dad said. “I just want to do one thing first.” They headed for a big tree.

  “Dad?” Xander asked, watching his sneakers kick down the footlong blades of grass. “Why did this happen? I mean, why did God let this happen?”

  His father stopped. He gave Xander a long, serious look. “I don’t know, Son. But I trust that He has His reasons.”

  “You trust? After He let Mom get taken?”

  Dad bit his lip, thinking. Finally, he touched his chest. “It’s here. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  Xander shook his head. Whatever it was Dad felt, it wasn’t the same in Xander.

  Dad gripped his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Give it time, Xander. You’ll see.”

  “I doubt it.”

  They stood like that for a while, then continued their trek to the big tree. Dad produced a pocketknife and unfolded it. He began scraping the point against the bark.

  “What are you doing?” Xander asked.

  “You know when we were talking about your mother leaving notes in our lunches?”

  The mark on the tree started taking on a shape Xander recognized. “Sure.”

  Without pausing the blade, Dad said, “That got me thinking. I’m leaving a note for her.”

  It was “Bob,” the cartoon face both parents often doodled on notes and cards to each other and the kids. Xander sometimes found the face on a scrap of paper among his homework paper or stuck in his shoe. It told him someone was thinking about him. Dad said it had started with Grandpa Hank, and Dad had scribbled it since he was a kid.

  Xander said, “Bob?”

  “Bob,” Dad confirmed, starting on the bulbous, heavily lidded eyes. “It’ll let her know we’re looking for her, that we’ve been here.”

  “But no one else will know it’s from us or to her,” Xander concluded.

  “Exactly,” Dad said. “You never know when a message could cause problems. If no one else recognizes it as a message, it won’t stir anything up.”

  “Except in Mom.”

  Dad stepped back to appraise his handiwork: one goofy face carved in a tree trunk.

  “Will it stay?” Xander asked.

  “Stay?”

  “I mean after we’re gone. Does time get weird here? Will it suddenly be the past and Bob will never have been here, or will it become the future and Bob will be long gone?”

  Dad scowled at him. “I never thought of that.” He looked at Bob. “I don’t know.”

  “I hope he stays,” Xander said. “I want her to know we’re looking for her.”

  Dad folded up the knife and dropped it into his pocket. He put his arm around Xander’s shoulder and steered him toward the portal, according to the pull of the antechamber items. “She knows we are, Xander. Even without Bob, she knows.”

  CHAPTER thirty - two

  MONDAY, 8 : 05 P . M .

  David sat on the bench in the antechamber, backstroking with one arm. His right hand rose up and descended, palm down as though pushing water past his body. His left elbow rose as far as the sling would allow. In his mind, he finished the stroke. Then the process started all over again with his right han
d rising above his head.

  He watched the door Dad and Xander had gone through. His eyes flicked to the other door, the one that led to the hallway and the rest of the house. He’d been hearing noises for some time now: creaking floorboards, thuds. Once he thought he heard a door slam. It was nearby, one of the other doors on that floor. Then there was the telephone downstairs. Every few minutes, it would ring and ring and ring. Why didn’t Toria answer it?

  His mouth was dry, and his stomach hurt from rolling over on itself every time he heard a noise or imagined something creeping around in the hallway.

  He heard a loud drawing of breath, like someone sucking air in through his teeth. He jumped, staring at the hallway door. Then he realized it was coming from the other door, the portal door. Air hissed through the gap underneath it. He couldn’t tell if it was blowing into the little room or being sucked out of it. The last thing he wanted to do was get close enough to feel for the wind’s direction.

  Dim light appeared under the door and quickly grew in intensity until it was blindingly bright. Squinting at it, he saw the light trace a line around the entire door. Shadows flickered through the light as though something was moving past the door on the other side. The handle began to turn. David stood and backed into the hallway door.

  The portal door burst open. Wind whooshed in, carrying leaves and grass and a meadowy fragrance. The portal itself looked like a churning cauldron of dry ice, backlit by flood lamps. The smoky air swirled around and around. It thinned and blew away, off to either side of the door. In its place was an out-of-focus image of greens and browns. The colors shifted and came together, forming a human figure.

  Xander stepped into the room, coming down hard on his feet as though stepping off a foot-high platform. He fell to the floor, grunting.

  David fell to his knees beside him. “Xander! You all right?”

  Xander raised his head. His hair was a mess. There was a leaf stuck in it. “Yeah,” he said. “Gotta remember to watch that first step. It’s a doozy.”

  “Where’s Dad?” David said. He looked through the portal just as another figure formed out of the colors.