I needed the knife.
I started climbing down, but before I made it five feet I heard a noise. I stopped, looked around, and listened.
The noise came again, branches cracking in the woods across the clearing.
Campbell came into the clearing. He hobbled to the center stump and climbed onto it, using his walking stick to help push himself up.
Campbell would know what to do. Maybe he could help me kill the Banshee. He really wasn’t a bad man, just old and aloof and dished out discipline so kids feared him.
Below me the Banshee materialized in front of Campbell.
“You’ve already had your three,” Campbell said to the Banshee.
She shook her white head back and forth. “Three souls across three nights is our agreement.” Her voice sounded soft, like a young maiden. Not at all what I expected.
“There is a boy in these woods you can take.”
What? Campbell was offering me to the Banshee?
“I cannot take him,” she said.
“What?” Campbell said. “You’re picky now about who you take? Nay. He is yours.”
She grew ten feet larger in an instant, towering over Campbell. “It is not wise to have that tone with me.” Her voice grew deep and harsh, no longer maiden-like.
Campbell turned his back to her. “I brought you the boy. Me bargain’s complete. You can’t touch me.”
“Is agreed I will not take father and son during the same reaping. At midnight, with no new soul, your agreement ends.”
He whipped back around and pointed his walking stick at her. “You took his father ten years ago.”
“Nay. I took his father two nights ago.”
What? She thinks Uncle Nolan was my dad. That’s why she said ‘you are not for me.’ Was I safe from her?
The branch I stood on cracked, not completely breaking, but alerting them.
Campbell and the Banshee—back to her original size—looked up at me.
If I could climb down fast enough I could get me knife. I whipped my belt around the tree and climbed down. After navigating past the branches I started sliding, using my belt to slow the descent. On the ground I grabbed my knife and spun to face Campbell and the Banshee.
Campbell knocked my knife away with his walking stick. Then his stick swung around and came down on my head. I tried ducking but was too slow. I saw an explosion of light and then darkness.
When I came to I was sitting back against the tree, arms backward, and hands tied with my belt. There was no slack.
Campbell hovered over me. The Banshee gone.
“I’m sorry, Sean,” Campbell said. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
I glared at him.
“I tried pleading with that stupid creature to take you. She won’t. Now I have to take care of you and find someone else to send into the woods before midnight or all is lost.”
As he spoke, I struggled to my feet, standing with my back against the tree trunk, my shoulders and arms wrenched awkwardly behind me.
“Before you kill me,” I said. “Just tell me why.”
“For our village,” he said. “You don’t know what it was like a hundred years ago. Lawlessness, thievery, rape, murder. People out of control.”
“You were alive a hundred years ago?” I asked. I saw my knife sticking out of the stump in the clearing. Too far away to be useful.
“Aye. She clouds the villager’s minds and keeps me alive. I keep the peace. The price to pay is quite small. Three men every ten years. Far more people used to die.”
I had to keep him talking and try to figure a way to escape. “When they find me body they’ll know I didn’t kill Ollie.”
Campbell laughed. “Oh lad. They were coming to release you. The elders unanimously agreed you weren’t guilty. Now, time’s wasting, let’s get this over with.”
I had an idea to escape, but didn’t know if it would work.
“Are you goan to use me own father’s knife to kill me?” I asked.
“Good idea,” he said. “Although, really it was your uncle’s knife.”
He turned and hobbled across the clearing. I waited until he was almost to the stump before moving. I wrenched my hands upward as far as I could reach, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and gripped the tree trunk between my boots. I had never tried climbing a tree this way before, but it couldn’t be much harder than climbing upside-down. I moved my hands up again, only a few inches, and took all of my weight on my arms and moved my feet up, gripping them together a few inches higher. It felt as if my shoulder would be wrenched from its socket, but I kept at it and moved up a few more inches.
“Hey,” Campbell said.
I redoubled my efforts, moving up the tree like a crazy inchworm, climbing four to six inches with each movement. I was two feet in the air now. I kept at it, not looking at Campbell, knowing at any second he could be upon me.
I felt his hand on my foot and looked down. I had made it six feet into the air. I kicked his hand free and moved a few more inches up. He swung the knife at me, it stuck in the sole of my boot, not injuring me.
As I worked my way up, the tree’s trunk narrowed and my hands became looser. I was nine feet up now, out of reach. I was safe.
I stopped climbing and tried loosening the belt from my hand. My breath came in large gulps. My legs shook from the exertion. The problem was I couldn’t touch my hands together and I couldn’t loosen myself with just one hand. If I could get the knife from my boot to my hand I’d be able to get free.
Campbell’s walking stick crashed into my shin. I yelled out and slid down a foot before my boots caught the trunk. I moved up higher as quick as I could. He hit me again on the foot, knocking the knife loose. In moments I was fifteen feet up, out his walking stick’s reach.
I stopped again to catch my breath. I was safe, but how long could I hang on? My legs were already shaking. I watched Campbell. He picked up the knife and aimed it at me. He threw it and time seemed to slow down.
I watch the knife flip end over end, heading straight for my head. I tried moving out of the way but my body moved too slow. The knife came closer and closer. I shut my eyes and felt a sharp pain on my left ear. I opened my eyes again. The knife had stuck in the trunk next to me head, barely nicking me ear.
I moved up and sideways, inching higher, but moving myself around the trunk so I could get at the knife with my hands. I inched up again and again and felt the knife with the fingertips of my right hand. I pulled the knife free and sawed at the strap. Even though I kept the blade razor sharp, the belt strap was difficult to cut. Partly because of the angle I had on it, and partly because I couldn’t apply much pressure. I kept sawing.
Campbell threw rocks at me. He had moved around the tree so he could hit my face. A jagged rock me smashed my forehead, cutting it, and blood obscured my vision. I was almost blind with the blood when the belt strap came free. I fell from the tree and landed on Campbell.
Somehow I had kept my grip on the knife and when I landed on Campbell, I managed to thrust it into the side of his neck. He thrashed for all of two seconds and then was still.
I rolled off him and lay on my back.
The Banshee appeared. She stood above Campbell and me. I didn’t have the energy to lift a finger and my iron dagger still protruded from Campbell’s neck.
“You have killed him,” she said, her voice quiet and gentle.
“Aye.” I tried lifting my arm, pain shot through my shoulder. It was dislocated and probably broken.
“I must now offer my pact to you.”
To live forever, only having to send three men to slaughter every ten years? I didn’t even hesitate. “Nay. I don’t want it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She bend low and kissed my forehead. Then was gone.
I lay there for a long while before realizing I no longer felt each muscle screaming with pain. I stood and moved my arms around in wide circles. No injuries. She had somehow healed me.
I looked do
wn at Campbell’s body and thought of retrieving my father—my uncle’s knife, but decided to leave it there.
I trudged across the clearing, into the woods, heading toward the village. I had a lot to tell the elders.
Mad Goldilocks
The psychologist sat in the overstuffed leather chair, one leg crossed ankle to knee, notebook balanced on his thigh. I sat in the small sofa across from him. A coffee table separated us.
He scratched his chin with the back of his pen. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“I shouldn’t really be here,” I said. “My mom thinks I’m not adjusting well to the seventh grade, but she’s wrong.”
“Seventh grade, huh? That makes you how old?”
“Twelve.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. They were too intense, like he could see right through me.
He scribbled in his notebook. “Why does she think you’re not adjusting well?”
“Ask her yourself why don’t you?” I shot the answer out.
Again he wrote in his notebook. Then he looked at me, waiting.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I said. “The head-shrinking thing. We could just sit here until the hour’s up. Nobody the wiser.”
His pen touched his chin again as he watched me.
I sighed. “You’ll still get paid. Don’t worry.”
He stuck his pen in the notebook, closed it, and placed it on the coffee table. “Okay then.” He uncrossed his leg, leaned forward, and clasped his hands together across his knee. “What do you want to talk about?”
He thought he was pretty smart, but I wasn’t falling for any tricks. “I don’t care. What do you want to talk about?”
“How about the three bears?”
“That’s bullshit,” I said. Adults don’t expect cute kids like me to say words like bullshit.
He tugged at his ear, barely suppressing a smile. “What do you mean?”
“Have you even heard the story?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Well,” I said, “the story you’ve heard isn’t true. The bears were people, not animals. And there were two of them, not three.”
“And you think you’re Goldilocks?”
There it was—the big question. I didn’t expect him to ask it so quickly. I figured he’d dance around the subject a while and build up to it. But I wasn’t going to back down.
I stuck out my chin. “I don’t think. I know I am Goldilocks.”
He remained quiet; a ploy to keep me talking. I clamped my mouth shut. I could go the whole hour and not say another word. Easy.
He finally broke the silence. “Okay. How can you be the Goldilocks from the story since the story existed before you were born?”
Easy, magic. Not that I’d tell him that. I sighed. “You ever play that game called ‘Whisper’ when you were a kid?”
He made a I-don’t-know shrug with one shoulder.
“You know. You sit around in a circle and one person whispers a secret to the person next to them. Then they whisper that secret to the person next to them. And so on. It goes around the whole circle and when the secret makes it back to the person who started the game it’s not even close to the original. That’s what happened to my story.”
“So you’re saying the Goldilocks story I’ve heard isn’t the same as your story?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Can you tell me your story?”
I took a deep breath and began.
One time, when I was eight, Mom and Dad and my baby brother, Skeeter, and I were camping. Our camp was set up beside a small stream in the woods. Mom was in the tent dealing with Skeeter, or maybe taking a nap with him, I don’t remember. Dad had a fishing pole stuck in the mud bank, line in the water. He watched the line closely, expecting a fish to bite at any moment. Pretty funny. He never caught anything because he wouldn’t put a worm on the hook. What did he think? Some fish would come along and commit suicide on the hook?
Anyway, hundreds of little yellow buttercups filled the field behind our camp. I asked Dad if I could go pick some of them.
“Sure, but don’t wander too far away,” Dad said.
I skipped across the field, plucking the buttercups until I had two huge handfuls. Yeah skipping, funny huh? I was a sappy sweet kid, all unicorns and rainbows and crap like that. I thought the yellow flowers could make a pretty bouquet for Mom. So I headed back to camp with my hands full, eager to show Mom her present.
Halfway back across the field I saw a big thistle plant with purple flowers. On top the thistle sat the prettiest butterfly I had ever seen. It was huge, with multi-colored wings as large as my hands.
I dropped the buttercups and leaned down closer to the butterfly. Its wings slowly opened and closed. I reached out to touch it—I just had an urge to feel it. The butterfly seemed magical, like a butterfly princess. Don’t laugh. That’s actually what I thought. I told you I was sappy.
My fingers almost touched the butterfly before it flew away, moving in large swoops and arcs across the field.
I became totally convinced it truly was a butterfly princess. Maybe it was going home. I followed it, hoping it would lead me to its castle.
Mom and Dad used to tell me that I was easily distracted. That I had to learn to focus. But they had it backwards. I had no problem focusing. When something caught my interest I focused on it to the exclusion of everything else. Such was the case with the butterfly. I followed the butterfly through the woods, building up an elaborate fantasy, imagining what its castle would look like and how the butterfly royalty would greet me. I was so caught up in this grand adventure I lost track of time and place, just following the butterfly along, getting farther and farther away from camp. Eventually the butterfly flew up high into the sky and out of sight.
For several moments I stared after it, waiting for it to reappear. Tears welled up in my eyes. I plopped down on the ground and put my head into my hands.
Now, before you think I was a little baby let me explain. I truly believed I was on the way to the butterfly’s castle. Maybe this sounds crazy—oops, sorry, I know I’m not supposed to use that word. But when the butterfly flitted away it pained me. How would you feel if you were denied such a special adventure?
Gradually I became aware of my surroundings and realized I was lost.
I jumped to my feet and spun around, looking in all directions. The woods appeared the same no matter which direction I looked.
“Dad! Mom!”
No response.
“Dad!” I yelled louder.
Nothing.
I started running and screaming for my parents, dodging trees, and leaping over dead fall. I ran full-speed into a low hanging branch and was knocked off my feet. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried running in the woods, but it’s hard. Rocks and holes and branches and things to scratch and trip you are everywhere. Anyway, after I fell I rolled over, jumped to my feet and sprinted off in a different direction. I don’t know how long I ran, or how often I fell down, or how many times I yelled for my parents. I continued this panicked behavior until I collapsed on the forest floor, exhausted, throat raw from screaming.
Obviously, running around and bouncing off trees like a crazy pinball wasn’t helping me find my way back to my parents. I needed to travel in one direction and eventually I’d find a road or a stream.
I saw the sun through the canopy of tree branches above me. If I walked, keeping the sun in front of me, I’d be moving in one direction. I stood slowly, brushed myself off, and walked toward the sun. Having a plan made me fell better.
I walked for maybe two hours, almost losing my resolve several times before arriving at a meadow with a small log cabin in the center. The cabin had that grayish color wood gets when it’s been out in the weather for years. Beside the cabin were several tools—a shovel, an axe, a pick—and a stack of firewood. A wheelbarrow leaned against the firewood. A large black pipe jutted up from the cabin’s roof. White smoke whirled lazily out of the pipe.
&
nbsp; I ran toward the cabin, but stopped halfway there. What if some psycho or pervert lived in the cabin? After all, what type of people lived deep in the woods? Crazy people, that’s who. I retreated from the meadow back to the trees and examined the cabin from a distance.
Pretty sharp thinking for an eight year old kid, don’t you think? Especially after the day I was having.
Anyway, as I hid in the woods trying to figure out what to do next, the door to the cabin opened and out trudged two massive people dressed in denim and flannel. Lumberjacks! The man had a thick, black beard covering his entire face. He picked up the large axe and laid it against his shoulder, carrying it by the handle with the axe’s top resting beside his head. He walked toward the woods away from me. The other person was a woman. She appeared to have a beard.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Yes, she also had a beard. Light brown in color and not as thick as the man’s. It covered just the tip of her chin. She grabbed the wheelbarrow, pushing it in front of her, and followed the man.
I chewed on my lip. Should I try to go into their cabin? These people were frightening to look at. Would they harm me in some way if I got caught?
What finally helped me decide was the need to go to the bathroom. I didn’t have any toilet paper and what if a spider or other creepy-crawly got on my butt. Yuck! I crossed the clearing to the cabin, keeping an eye the direction the lumberjacks had left.
Above the cabin’s door hung a wood plaque with the words “The Baers” burned into it. Notice the spelling? B-A-E-R-S, not B-E-A-R-S. They weren’t bears like grizzly bears, just people named Baer. I went to the side of the cabin and looked through the small window.
The cabin’s inside was tiny, nothing more than a single room with a table and two chairs. On one side was a wood stove and the opposite side had a jumble of blankets and pillows piled on the floor. Under the window was a small cabinet.
No bathroom. Apparently the Baers poop in the woods.
I moved from the window, glancing at the woods, and noticed a primitive road that hadn’t been visible from my earlier vantage point. I grinned. At least checking the cabin allowed me to discover the road.
Strange Perceptions Page 14