by Sandra Evans
When I researched it on my own, I found out that a long time ago people thought will-o’-the-wisps would lead you to treasure or to a secret doorway where you could get in and out of heaven and see people you loved that you had lost.
They were on to something.
I watch the ball of light skip above the water. Tonight I’ll go again to the place the will-o’-the-wisp led me a year ago, and I will feel like I am home, and I will find what I have lost.
My breath comes calm and slow like it does when I’m deep in the woods with her.
Little John looks up, his cheeks bulging and a little trickle of slime in the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t see what I see.
Then I hear Vincent shouting behind us. “You guys won’t believe what I just saw!”
The coyote! I jump up. I can see Sparrow by the lake, but where’s Bobo?
Everyone runs toward Vincent. As I hurry to catch up, I notice that they’ve all dropped their poles. Six poles are floating in the water, heading slowly toward the middle of the lake. I change the count—sixty-six poles have gone adrift. I’m about to say one of those bad words Jack is always saying, when I see a shadow by the big hemlock. It’s Sparrow. He’s got his new pole in his hand and he’s setting it on a thick bed of pine needles far from the water’s edge. He looks up and sees me. “I told you I’d take care of it,” he calls to me. Then he lopes over, and we head toward the old cedar and the straw man.
Six times he’s put his hand in mine.
The kids are all gathered around Vincent. I let out a little puff of air when I see Bobo behind him, her ears flat. Her tail is tucked as far up under her body as it can get.
“It was over there,” Vincent says, pointing to the other side of the lake, where White Deer Woods begins. On that side, the water comes right up to blackberry brambles and trees. It takes four legs to find the rabbit and deer paths in that tangle of branches, needles, and thorns.
“What?” I ask. “What did you see?” My heart pounds, keblam, keblam, keblam.
My fingertips tingle. I can feel my ears stretching the way they do when the woods magic happens.
Something tells me Vincent’s not going to say “coyote.”
“I saw a white deer with huge black antlers,” Vincent whispers.
“Did it talk to you?” I put my hand over my mouth too late. That was not a question I should have asked. Obviously.
“Did it talk to me? No, it didn’t talk to me.” Vincent’s voice sounds strange.
I clear my throat. “I said did it walk to you.” And that, kids, is called taking a play from Dean Swift’s book.
“It looked like it was going to walk across the lake toward me.”
“And nobody else saw it?” I ask.
“No. I heard a noise like a jet engine. They ran over when I shouted.” Vincent points to Beth, Maggie, Peter, and Paul. “We were all looking at the same spot there, but I was the only one who saw it. It was huge.” He hops from foot to foot.
The truth hits me.
Two times now White Deer has come to the far edge of the lake.
Three times and it’ll be science, right?
Vincent is staring at me. Bobo is staring at me. The Cubs are staring at me. Am I changing? I lick my teeth, but they feel the same. I realize that they’re probably all just surprised at my talking so much.
“My grandma’s eyes play tricks on her when she’s tired,” Sparrow says all of a sudden.
Everyone looks at him instead.
We pack up to leave pretty quick after that. As we step from the path onto the paved road, Vincent grabs my arm.
“I was lying,” he blurts. “When I said it didn’t talk.”
I had a feeling. But why?
He answers my question before I ask it. “I didn’t want everyone thinking I’m crazy. But it did. It talked to me. It kept saying the word ‘raven.’ Am I crazy?” he asks.
We hear a blaring honk.
It’s Sparrow’s grandma tearing up the road in her huge blue pickup, coming to get him for the weekend. All we can see of her as she rips by us is her curly white hair and the top rims of her enormous glasses. I’m not sure that lady should be driving.
“Trickster,” I say after the dust settles. “The raven is a sweet-talkin’ trickster.”
Vincent looks at me like I’m speaking gibberish. Maybe I am. But all of a sudden my mind fills with black feathers. Remember the murder of crows swarming over Vincent when he made his wild run for freedom? Woods magic. The crows flew to him the way the wolves once ran with me.
I step closer to him. I want to ask him if he saw the will-o’-the-wisp too. If its light pulled at him so he had to follow. I want to tell him that it will take him to the lighthouse so deep in the woods only the light knows the way in and out. I’m about to tell him everything about my mom and my dad and the wolves in the woods. Then I stop myself. Because I see him shaking his head. A little at first and then a lot.
“Nah,” he says, licking his lips. “That’s just crazy. Crazy like talking to your cereal crazy. Crazy like riding your bike on the freeway crazy. I’m just tired, like Sparrow’s granny says.”
He looks confused. “But I didn’t want to lie to you. My mom says I have to stop lying before I can come back home.”
We walk the last few yards to the circle driveway, scuffing our shoes in the dirt.
I like him for telling me the truth, even if he did lie at first. I like him even more for keeping his promise to Pretty Lady. But I don’t think I’ll try to explain to him about the magic in the woods and the way it works for me. Because if White Deer couldn’t get through to him, how could I?
Chapter 7
HOW RAUL FIRST FOUND THE LIGHTHOUSE
After fishing, we all wash up and eat lunch. Two hours of class. Snack. Doors slam, dresser drawers creak open and shut, the zippers and Velcro on overnight bags zip and rip, tennis shoes squeak up and down the stairs as kids remember stuff they almost forgot. Then motors chug up the driveway, with Pretty Lady’s Harley roaring above them all. Hugs and kisses and moms asking in worried chirpy voices, How are you? Did you have a good week? and dads crabby from the long drive, grumbling, It’s time to get on the road, Let’s try to beat some of that ferry traffic, and We’re going to hit Seattle at exactly the wrong time.
Vincent jumps from the bottom step into his mother’s arms. She’s crying. That’s how happy she is to see him, and they’ve only been apart one day.
It only makes me a little sad before I remember to be happy for him.
“Look!” Mary Anne is next to me, pointing at the sky.
The crows are wheeling and tumbling, blackening the sky with their wings, swooping over the Harley. The hair on my arms stands straight up.
“His name is Vincent, isn’t it?” she asks.
I nod.
“What an amazing coincidence!” she says. “St. Vincent of Saragossa, renowned for his eloquence, is the patron saint of ravens. After he was martyred by Roman soldiers, ravens guarded his body from marauding animals. To this day the site of his tomb is famous for the multitude of ravens that flock there. And here we have these crows, such close relatives of the raven, offering a fitting farewell to our own Vincent.”
Vincent and his mom roar away.
My mouth is dry. The coincidence isn’t amazing—it’s magical. Mary Anne’s story happened a really long time ago. But White Deer called Vincent “raven” just a few hours ago. Is the woods magic everywhere and in all times?
She pats my arm to get my attention. “Your name means ‘wolf’ in Old Norse. Did you know that?”
I shake my head. My stomach wobbles like a rock rolling down a hill. No, I didn’t know names were part of the woods magic. Do our names call the animal? Or are we named for the animal we call?
“I guess we don’t really want a pack of wolves escorting you off school grounds, though, do we?” she says.
I grin. She’s funnier than she thinks. Running off with a pack of wolves for the weekend is
n’t as bad as it sounds.
Mary Anne’s parents pull up in the circle driveway and honk their horn. She gives me a little wave and runs down the steps. I watch her leave. The trunk pops open. She sets her bag in and slams the trunk.
Her parents drive away.
I’m serious. They go almost all the way around the circle before they jam on their brakes so hard the back of the car rocks up. Mary Anne walks very, very slowly to the car. Even from the window I can see that her face is bright pink. You shouldn’t be embarrassed, I want to shout. They should be.
Mean Jack brushes by me. “See you later, weirdo,” he says.
I just grin. Because as he walks away I see something black and shiny, long and reptilian, wiggling out of the half-closed zipper of his bulging overnight bag.
That’s gonna be a real fun car ride, isn’t it?
One by one all the kids get picked up. And then it’s me and Dean Swift standing in the room we call the parlor, looking at the empty driveway.
“Can I drop you off at the bottom of the hill?” The dean asks me the same question he asks me every Friday afternoon.
I shake my head. I don’t want Dean Swift anywhere around when my dad picks me up, because my dad stopped coming to pick me up a year ago and nobody knows it but me and him.
Here’s how it happened, or like they say in the cop shows, here’s how it went down.
At first my dad came every weekend for a long time. We took the Mukilteo ferry and drove to his apartment in Seattle. Saturday mornings we had breakfast at the Sound View Café in the Pike Place Market. He had an omelet and I had a bagel with cream cheese and lox. Lunch was a meat bun from the hum bao stand. Dinner was a can of soup in front of the TV. Sundays we ate at the French bakery. He had coffee and a little loaf of bread. I had three cream puffs, an éclair, and orange juice. That gave me a stomachache that lasted until we got in the car and drove to the ferry to go back to school.
Usually at the ferry we’d run into one of my classmates.
“Would you mind driving Raul in?” my dad would ask. He’d shove his hands in his pockets and look at the ground like he was doing something wrong but couldn’t help it.
I don’t know if I had fun with my dad or not on those weekends. But I was glad to be with him. And I hated leaving him. I knew that when I was with him he thought about my mom more, but when I wasn’t with him, he missed her more.
Then one weekend about a year ago he didn’t show up. We waited. It got dark. The dean went to his office and made a call.
“Your dad’s car broke down on the way to the ferry, so I’m afraid he won’t be able to make it,” he said when he came back into the parlor.
I cried, right there sitting on the blue sofa.
The dean sat next to me.
When I could get the words out, I asked, “If my dad can’t come, then will my mom?” I don’t know why I asked that. I hadn’t seen her in years.
Dean Swift swallowed and shook his head.
“Is she dead?” I asked. It was the first time I asked that question out loud. Nobody ever talked to me about her.
Dean Swift’s mouth made a long line. “No,” he said. “She’s not dead. There is no evidence to indicate that. But she’s not here. I’m sure that she would be if she could.”
He looked right into my eyes. “I don’t know where she is. Nobody does.”
I don’t know why, exactly, but that made me feel better. Sad still, but better. I was glad I had asked that question. And I was glad that he didn’t lie to me. Another point for the dean.
The next weekend my dad showed up. He had presents for me and a bottle of wine for the dean.
Then it happened again. All the kids were gone. The sun went down. The night came. The dean called. That time I waited to cry until I got to my bedroom. I cried until the muscles in my throat hurt and my nose was stuffed up and I felt like I had a really bad cold.
The third time it happened, I was mad.
And what was the dean supposed to do with me? See, normally he shuts the place up for the weekend and sends the staff home. He lives in Coupeville, a tiny town a few miles from the school. But if I was stuck at school, then so was he. “I can’t leave you here all alone, now, can I?” he said to me with a big laugh the first time, like it was no big deal. We ate beans straight from the can and made sardine and peanut butter sandwiches. I think he had as much fun as I did. But the second and the third weekends? He was missing his family too.
So then Dean Swift took me home with him. He lives in a house painted pink. Victorian style is what he calls it. His wife called me poor little runt the whole time. I did not like her, and, strange thing is, I don’t think the dean does either. But he has three teenage daughters. I’m going to marry one of them one day—unless, of course, things work out with Mary Anne. But Mary Anne is a real long shot.
Dean Swift’s youngest daughter, June, is a cheerleader, and that weekend she walked around everywhere in her cheerleading uniform even though there wasn’t a game. The skirt was very short and so was the top. The Dean kept walking up to her and tugging the skirt down. This made more of her tummy show, so then he’d put his head in his hands and walk away very sadly. I thought she looked like a movie star. She let me curl her hair with the curling iron. I only got a little burned.
May, the middle daughter, took me for a ride on her moped. “You don’t need a helmet,” she said. “Like, that’s totally for sissies.” That made the dean upset too, when he saw us come riding back with my hair all wild from the wind, but it was the best hour of my life.
Then April, the oldest, took me to the movies with her. The dean about exploded on Sunday morning when he found out which one we saw. I guess that movie was not for children. There were a lot of parts I didn’t understand, but I really thought the party scene was funny. Maybe the actors and actresses should have had on more clothes.
One thing I know is that when I get my license, I’ll drive like May taught me—speed up into the corners and turn your headlights off when you’re going down hills on country roads at night. The goal, she told me, is to leave part of your tires on the road. Burning out, she called it. Totally an adrenaline rush, she said.
Anyway. The dean apologized to me all the way back to the school Sunday afternoon. It was the greatest weekend of my life, so I don’t know what he was so sorry about, but I could tell I wouldn’t be going home with him again. Which was too bad, since April told me she’d teach me how to use her rifle next time, and May said there was a beach party with a bonfire and she’d let me use her lighter and some gasoline to get the fire going.
The next Friday, when the dean took me into his office and said my dad couldn’t make it because the car was at the garage, I had some hard thoughts. They don’t want to talk about the one thing that matters the most to me? I thought. Fine, then. I’m not talking about it anymore either. I was done waiting for the grown-ups to decide what to do with me.
Later that afternoon I called the dean from the phone in the hallway of the top floor. I pretended to be my dad.
“Oliver,” I said, because that’s the name the parents call him, “the car is running good. It can’t make it up that big hill to the front door, though. Please have Raul wait for me at the bottom of the hill, by the turnoff from Highway Twenty.” Then I hung up.
I knew the dean would be easy to fool. I knew he’d be too tired to walk the two miles down the hill to the highway. Plus, people are happy to be tricked if they’re getting what they really want from it. And the dean really wanted to spend the weekend with his family.
So when the other kids were jumping into their cars to go home, I went to the dean and shook his hand and thanked him for watching out for me the last few weekends. “I think my dad has figured some things out,” I said, then swung my backpack over my shoulder and headed down that hill.
Really, I was the one who had figured it out. I decided right then and there, as my feet hit the asphalt and I looked up at the thin strip of blue sky above t
he tops of the cedars and pines that lined the road, I was on my own. One day I’d find my mom, and maybe one day my dad would come back with an excuse better than one the dean could think of. But until then, I’d take care of myself.
I had a plan. First, walk to the highway. From there, take the footpath Tuffman makes us run through the woods. Then wait near the lake, and when everyone was gone, climb up the madrona and into my room through my unlocked window.
As I walked down the hill, cars zoomed by me in both directions. Parents coming and going with their kids. The road twists and turns pretty good, and at some point I got worried the drivers might not see me. Becoming roadkill was not part of my plan.
So I cut into the woods sooner. There was no path. The dirt was squishy and dark and covered with pine needles and cones. The woods smelled alive. I was happy to be me, to be there, to have a weekend to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
Then my skin prickled. My ears stretched like they do when you’re in bed alone in a pitch-black room and you hear a sound that only something alive could make. Something alive that’s not you. I looked behind me and saw a flash of white fur. Maybe it was just a ray of sunlight streaming down through the cedars. I stuck my chin out. I squinted. Eyes stared back at me through the low, bending branches of the cedar.
Animal eyes. I was so scared, my stomach tumbled and my mind lost every thought.
I stood very still. When I looked again, the eyes were gone but the branches were swaying. I started to step away. I sensed it watching me. I walked more quickly. I didn’t know which direction to go to get out of the woods. I couldn’t think.
I heard a snuffle and a hard crack.
I ran. I ran so hard my lungs burned. I ran so hard I didn’t see where I was going.
Branches slapped my face, and blackberry brambles scraped my arms. Whatever it was, it was running on the other side of the trees beside me. I couldn’t tell if there was one or more than one. I couldn’t tell if it was chasing me or running with me. Was I part of a hunting pack or was I being hunted?