The Light in the Woods

by Jean Marie Pierson

  “I don’t know,” he said sternly. “I am a clockmaker. I have a wall. I need to know what time it is. You’re a smart girl. You do the math.”

  The answer satisfied Olive but Ray didn’t buy it. Ray walked to his seat and looked at the assembly line of zeppelins and airplanes that lined the long bench. Oscar made the exteriors of the two forms during the day. Ray’s job was to put together the axles and wheels to fit underneath the bodies. By the time Ray got to Oscar’s place a toy air force was lined up and ready to be fitted with its parts. Ray felt like a smaller version of his dad, which is why he started to like going to Oscar’s after school. Only it was so quiet, except for the constant clicking from the walls. He wanted to talk to Oscar but he usually grunted at the tools and hid behind some kind of odd goggle or mask. He never felt like he could ask him anything, at least not as directly as Olive.

  “Can I have a job too?” asked Olive. Ray and Oscar turned around and looked at Olive with their eyebrows raised. “I can help you,” she continued timidly. “You know, with this.” She pointed to the colorful letters from Santa strung up like sheets on a clothesline over the workbench. Oscar looked blindly around the room and patted his overalls as if searching for his wallet. Finally, he picked up a blowtorch.

  “Can you weld?” Oscar asked, holding up the small blowtorch.

  “No.” Olive’s answer was barely audible.

  “How much do you know about tools?” Oscar searched the area of the bench reserved for his clockmaking instruments. Finally, he hoisted something up that looked like a sundial with two spinning arms. “What’s this?”

  Olive’s chin sank down. “Don’t know.”

  Oscar huffed as he rifled around the workbench and picked up another tool made of wood with a hole on one end and point on the other.

  “Well, how about this one? Can you tell me what this does?”

  Olive shook her head dejected. “No, sir. I don’t know what that is.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Oscar huffed. Ray’s head sank too. If he didn’t know what any of those were then how could Olive? She would have an easier time if he asked her to read Latin. Oscar reached down aimlessly and picked up another tool. “What about this?”

  Olive’s head lifted up and a smile sprung on her face. “That’s a paintbrush!”

  Oscar did a double take to the small brush he held in his hand. “Why…huh…what do you know, I guess it is a paintbrush. Look at that. Shoot.” He shook off his indignation. “Well, do you know how to use it?”

  “Yes, sir. I paint very well,” Olive said smiling. “I paint model planes with my brother Paley all the time.”

  Ray nodded in agreement. “Olive’s draws the best in our class.”

  “Does she now?” Oscar said while scratching his beard. He looked madder than a spider caught in its own web. He picked up a plane that looked as if it were dunked in a pot of mustard. “Can you do better than that?”

  Olive walked over to and examined the plane in Oscar’s hand. “I think I can do a better “G” than that.”

  “G? G!” Oscar yelled. Ray couldn’t tell if he was serious. “That’s a number 6! You sure those glasses you’re wearing work?”

  Olive’s smile turned into a full-blown laugh. She put her hands to her mouth to push it back. Ray tried to cough back his laugh but found Oscar’s rage hilarious.

  “G, my guts,” Oscar mumbled as he motioned Olive to the other side of the room. “If you can do a better number “6” I’d like to see you try. Let’s set up you here.” Oscar cleared off a table which was made from an old board resting on the arms of a fancy dining room chair. “This is your space, Miss Missy. If you see Ray coming over here and messing with your business, you have my permission to paint a ‘G’ on his forehead. Let me get you an apron.” Oscar waddled out of the room as Olive turned to Ray and quietly clapped her hands in excitement.

  Ray leaned forward and whispered. “Told you he was…” He finished the sentence by circling his finger around his ear.

  Olive whispered back. “I like him. He’s funny.”

  “He’s as cuckoo as his clocks.”

  Oscar came back to the room with small tins of paint in one arm and a long apron draped over the other. “Here you go. It’s a bit big but you’ll grow into it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Taglieber,” Olive said as she put on apron and a sweet smile. The apron draped down to her feet. “It fits perfect.”

  “Thank Fluffles,” he muttered as he put the paint down and headed back to his seat. “And don’t call me Mr. Taglieber. What can she call me, Raymond?”

  Ray sat down and spun around towards the window. “Oscar.”

  “And when can she call me Mr. Taglieber?”

  “When you pay her.”

  “My guts! That’s a smart man, right there,” Oscar yelled as he smacked the workbench. All the little zeppelins and airplanes jumped and shifted, like an earthquake erupted under their little airstrip. “Now then, tell me. How did you manage to outrun Fluffles?”

  “Ray hit him with a book,” Olive said proudly. “And he ran away.”

  “Well done,” said Oscar. “I hope you used a biology book. I was horrible in biology.”

  “No,” Ray said as he studied the axle. “I mean, yes. I threw a book at the dog but there was a…a,” Ray’s voice faded out. He couldn’t decide whether to tell Oscar about the deer. After all, he was the only other person who knew about that particular buck. He also saw it that day at the Christmas tree farm. He might understand. Or think he was nuts. “I think it was my math textbook.”

  Oscar stopped working and looked over at Ray with his eyebrows raised. He sat with his hands on his knees as if he were waiting for Ray to continue. Ray saw Oscar’s look but kept his head down, faking concentration on the wheels. After a moment Oscar just exhaled, shrugged his shoulders and said, “A math book works fine in a pinch, I guess.”

  Ray said next to nothing for the rest of the evening. Each of the three sat at their respective stations and worked quietly until the clocks on the wall cried out that it was four o’clock and time for Olive and Ray to leave. Their walk home turned into a run for fear of Fluffles returning and picking up where his bark left off. They only stopped the pace when they saw Paley rocking back and forth in the front yard.

  “Hey ya, Paley,” Olive said as she patted his back. Paley stood at least a foot taller than Ray and looked like a giant next to Olive. Paley wouldn’t look down or stop his rocking. His body chugged along like a pendulum on a grandfather clock, always moving to a constant pulse but never leaving where it sat. His concentration held tight to the sky as his hands gripped the cereal box. His face contorted in concentration as if he were trying to read the evening clouds. Olive kept on with her cheery tone. “See anything today?”

  He shook his head back and forth while still staring up at the empty white sky. Today, Ray scanned around the three for any sign of the dog. He wouldn’t let his eyes travel upward. Sometimes Ray joined Paley in his search for enemy planes. He would sit in the leaves and stare up over the treetops for hours, looking for ominous black dots to appear against a blue and white backdrop. Tonight, however, the enemy felt closer to the ground.

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Ray asked, looking past Paley into the woods. The underbrush of the woods sat motionless in the background and growing darker by the second. He didn’t know if Fluffles would be a match for Paley but he had no intention of finding out. There were no dads around to fight off the dog and Oscar’s place was far out of screaming distance. “Paley, you guys should go inside. I think Fluffles might still be out.”

  “It’s getting dark anyway,” Olive chimed in as she grabbed Paley’s forearm and led him towards the house. “Ray will look out for planes in his room, right, Ray?”

  “Yeah,” Ray said, keeping his eyes on the woods. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for planes.”


  Paley’s concentration broke from the air. He stopped moving and turned towards Ray. His one hand released the cardboard box and pointed to the woods. “And soldiers,” Paley said with all the conviction of a general. “Look for soldiers.”

  “I’ll look for soldiers too,” Ray insisted, half paying attention. “I promise.”

  Paley nodded his head in agreement and left with Olive towards their home, where Mrs. Mott stood with the front door open, welcoming the two in for dinner. As soon as Ray saw the two safely step on their front porch, he ran as a fast as he could towards his own house. The house where a single light in the kitchen illuminated the whole first floor and where he knew his mother would be standing in front of a steaming stove, dropping peeled potatoes into a boiling pot. Before Ray could even reach the front door a chill ran up his spine as he remembered how his father explained war. He said that a war doesn’t happen in just one place to one person. It starts as evil. And evil is bad feelings that gets in a person’s heart and comes out their hands. Enough evil feelings get into enough hearts and enough hands, then it makes a war.

  His dad was right. Ray could feel it. Something bad was in the air. That’s why his dad needed to go over and help stop it. Even under Paley’s watch, even though tanks and guns and bombs exploded an ocean away, Ray felt helpless. Maybe the wind picked it up from the battlefields of France and Germany and swept it over the ocean to the shores of his town. And like any big storm, maybe the animals were the first ones to sense that trouble was on its way. Maybe that buck knew that trouble was already here.

  Ray kept his promise to Paley. After they said their evening prayers and his mother kissed him good night, Ray looked out his window and scoured the landscape for activity. No sightings to report. No soldiers, no Fluffles and no buck. Ray crawled back into his bed again with thoughts of his buck heavy on his mind. He told his mother about the incident with Fluffles over soup but barely mentioned the experience with the deer. Ray’s mother peppered him with so many questions about Oscar, Olive, and Fluffles during dinner that Ray couldn’t tell her what happened with the deer even if he wanted. He instead brought the topic up sideways with questions like, “Do deer hit other animals?” “Do bucks ever attack people?” and “Do deer hate dogs?” hoping she would change course in her line of questioning. His mother’s response was the same for all three. “I guess. If they’re scared enough.”

  But that buck didn’t seem scared. But maybe it was. Ray couldn’t tell. His dad had a streak of grey hair on top of his head. He said it came from where he cut his head as a kid. Maybe the deer had gotten into a fight. Or maybe grazed by a hunter’s bullet. Maybe the buck knew no fear. Maybe the animal that gave it that white mark had the strength of twenty Fluffles. A bear claw maybe? Maybe a wound? Maybe a birth mark? Maybe magic?

  Raymond did not believe in magic anymore. Not after The Worst Day. But he knew his father did. More than any episode of Terry and the Pirates, more than The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve or any tale from Mick’s shop that Ray could eavesdrop on, Ray loved to hear his father retell the story of the day when he was a little boy and candy magically appeared out of thin air. The day when everything good that ever happened in his life started. He called it his Most Magical Day. A day that made him believe that if you look hard enough you can find miracles hiding in the most unlikely places and in the most unusual of people.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Most Magical Day – Southold, New York, 1919

  It started like every other day in the spring of 1919. An eight-year-old Hal Kozak walking eight feet behind his two older brothers, Tim and Christopher. His little head buried under an oversized cap one of his brothers stole from a five and ten a few towns away. On this day, they were heading to Shiller’s Penny Candy Store to read the next installment of “Detective No” in Adventure magazine. Although there were only three, the Kozak boys banged into Shiller’s Penny Candy like they were an army of twenty. Christopher pushed open the door so hard that the bell hit the high tin ceiling, causing the customers to cringe. The storeowner let out a loud growl as he sat behind the counter and glared at the boys, adding up the amount of gum and Adventure magazines that would most likely be leaving the premises without being paid for.

  Kozak is Polish for criminal. Or at least that’s what one would think in the town of Southold back in 1919. None of the boys went to school after the age of ten and all, except Hal, were considered persona non grata in every store that sold items small enough to fit into a coat pocket. The brothers were often spotted walking in a line from pool hall to pool hall and were rarely, if ever, seen with their father. Tim and Christopher spent most of their time and money hustling men at pool while Hal spent his time playing with ashtrays under the bar tables and trying not to be noticed. The only time Hal would take an interest in anything Tim and Christopher did was when they would work on an old jalopy. Then he would stick his little hand into whatever small space in the engine Tim or Christopher asked him to. Machines made sense to Hal. One wheel made another part move. If you could learn these things, then the engine works. It was all cause and effect to him. Hustling and stealing did not make sense. It required too much running and hiding for what you wound up getting. It seemed like a large price to pay for the way people looked at you. Hal didn’t like that people were happy when he and his brothers left a store. Shop owners typically waved people in and opened doors for customers. Not close them and turn the locks over when they passed by.

  Hal loved his brothers, although he did not look up to them. Protectors do not always need to be heroes. Hugs and hand-holding never came from Tim and Christopher. They showed love in harder ways. Like the last night he ate dinner alone with his father. His father’s drinking didn’t get better after his mother left the house but the aim of his drunken fists did. One night while Christopher and Tim were out at the Broken Down Valise Pub, Hal felt sick and couldn’t finish his supper. For some reason beyond Hal’s young mind his father flew into a rage and threw his dinner plate at Hal’s head. When his brothers walked into the house they found Hal crouched in the corner trying to stop the blood spilling out from a cut on his forehead, with their father eating at the table and reading the local paper as if nothing had happened. After that night, Tim and Christopher made sure Hal never spent a moment alone with their father. They also made sure their father could never use his right arm again.

  “You aiming to buy anything, boys?” hollered Mr. Shiller from behind the counter.

  Christopher let out a sly chuckle and blew air through his teeth. “Nah, just looking, Fatso,” he said as they headed towards the pulp and dime novel section of the store, pushing kids out of the way who didn’t immediately scurry at the sight of them. The two lanky teens perched on the shelves with their feet up and rifled through the color magazines as if they were relaxing in their bunks.

  Mr. Shiller’s eyes narrowed as he grabbed the counter’s edge, shifting his three hundred-pound frame back and forth on the stool. If he weren’t so fat he could get out from behind the counter and chase away the Kozak boys. But he couldn’t. All his rage allowed him to do was watch the crime and yell. “I got my eyes peeled on you fellows.”

  “And some bananas too, I’m sure,” Tim chimed in with a laugh. The two kept to their reading and ignored the threats. Hal made his way past the front counter, avoiding the glare of Mr. Shiller. Mr. Shiller couldn’t be bothered with Hal. He just sat there steamed, mad enough to melt all the caramels that lined the counter.

  Hal put his hands in his pant pockets and shuffled the thin material through his tiny fingers, hoping to turn it into penny for some candy. Hal looked around the store at all the kids running to open big jars of the pink, brown, and red confections. Each one would reach in and emerge with tiny fistfuls of gold. The only one in the mob not interested in the candy was a girl roughly the same age as he, corralling smaller kids. Her shiny black hair and round face looked pretty agains
t her purple coat. She was too busy directing their hands into bags or getting them to stop crying to find anything for herself. Her bright hazel eyes glanced up at Hal for only a moment, causing Hal to jump. He didn’t know that he stopped to look at her and could feel the heat rush to his cheeks. He pushed the rim of his dirty cap down and made his way back through the aisles.

  Hal walked down the rows, passing the Orange Slices, peppermints, Tootsie Rolls, and colorful Necco Wafers to the big glass jar that held his favorite chocolate candies. He only ate them a couple of times in his short life when his mother gave them to him for his birthday but he never forgot the taste. Since he had no pennies he propped his feet up on the shelf, opened the lid, stuck his head as far as it would go into the jar and inhaled the scent as deeply as he could. The rich chocolate smell luxuriated in the back of his nose and throat. He thought if he breathed it in hard enough then one would materialize on his tongue. But the more he huffed, the more he couldn’t get the taste of cigarette smoke from the pub out of his nostrils.

  He stepped down and stared in the jar filled with the individually wrapped chocolate treats. There were so many. He reached his arm in and pulled one out. Then a thought came to him. Mr. Shiller’s attention was on his brothers. All the other kids were busy running about the store buying bags of candy. Would anyone even know if one candy disappeared? Would it even matter to Mr. Shiller? Hal held the wrapped treat up in thought. Kozak is Polish for criminal, after all.

  Then another thought popped into his mind. What if he got caught? What if his father found out? It wasn’t the thought of his father’s punishment that was frightening. He knew all too well the weight of his father’s hand on him. It was the thought of his brothers’ hands on his father. A punishment for Hal meant an even larger one for his dad. A small row of chocolates would translate into a row of bruises that would take a much longer time to fade than the taste of sweets on his lips. The chocolate treat no longer tasted so good. He returned the candy to the jar with its mates and slowly closed the lid. When Hal turned around he noticed the little girl in the purple coat standing at the end of the next aisle. She looked at him curiously. Hal just smiled and turned towards a jar of gumballs tracing the tiny circles on the outside of the glass.