Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage

by Micah Sherwood

  “No boxing Friday,” Micah responded.

  Isabella reached over and kissed her brother-in-law on the forehead. Cory sat next to Micah. He leaned over and pointed to his brow. Isabella kissed him as well. After the short drive to Willow Wood, the boys made their way to Micah’s bedroom and the ‘hole.’ The room was full of Isabella’s boxes scattered around haphazardly, but there was enough room for a couple of sleeping bags on the twin bed. “Who wants to sleep in here with me?” Micah asked.

  “Fuck that, I already had my turn,” Cory was clear that he would never ever sleep in that room again. “Someone else can dance with those Shadow Monkeys, I’m not!”

  Dane and Tandy had heard about Cory’s night time experience multiple times. “I will,” Tandy volunteered.

  “Okay, Dane and Cory can sleep on the hide-a-bed in the den,” Micah said as Isabella stood at the door watching. “Let’s go play a game.”

  And they all headed to the kitchen except for Isabella, who pulled Micah aside. “Wake me up when you leave for your chores tomorrow morning. I want to get an early start, and can you come by and check the house every day; your mom doesn’t know I’m going to San Angelo.” She looked at Micah. “You are so beautiful, so much like Greg.” She studied the boy, who seemed to have grown up suddenly. She saw the stitches, the swelling and deepening black eye. “What happened?”

  “Oh, I got into a fight. Don’t worry ‘cause I won,” Micah smiled.

  “Greg’s not a fighter, so there’s one difference between you two,” and she smiled.

  “Yeah I enjoy a good fight; it makes you feel alive. I never start them, but I will always finish them. Mom says that I’m a lot like Poppi that way. And Tom Dorsey laughs at me.” He was quiet for a moment. “Want to let me know the real reason you wanted me here?”

  Isabella stared at the boy. “There’s something bad here, something that’s not sane. It does more than watch. I can feel it. And sometimes I see it. It’s obscene. I’m terrified alone and not just at night. It sounds crazy, I know.”

  “Remember when we talked at the barbeque, and I told you not to fear it. I meant it, because fear will make it stronger and so will hate. I confront it. I tell it to leave me alone. That sometimes works. You know that since I moved into the barn, I haven’t had any attacks. That’s what they are, you know. Remember when I went to the hospital with the concussion. The ‘thing’ caused it. If it gets worse, maybe you should leave, go stay with your grandma. I don’t want you to go; I would miss you, but I need you to be safe.”

  “I was already thinking about moving to San Angelo, but things have to get a lot worse before I do that. I like your family, and I would miss you.” Isabella embraced Micah and kissed his cheek, cupping his head against her neck. She backed away and went to her room before she started to cry.

  Micah went to the kitchen to play games with his friends. He pulled a couple of bags of chips from the cabinet and opened a can of peanuts. And in the icebox he found two six packs of beer. “Why not?” Micah said under his breath,” and he plopped the bottles on the table. The boys looked at one another, and then thought back to Thanksgiving and the Everclear. They smiled at one another, grabbed the beers and a bottle opener and went to the back porch to drink their first beer ever and to talk. They forgot about their Monopoly game altogether.

  After an hour or so, all of the beer was downed, and the boys were having a high time on the deck when Isabella stepped out. “You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood. You need to be quiet.” Then she noticed the dozen bottles strewn about and the silly grins on the youth’s faces. And she laughed almost uncontrollably. “Micah, your mom’s going to beat the crap out of you again if she finds out. Now we’ve got to replace the beers, and I’m not sure how we’re gonna do that. Come on, let’s get to bed, you have an early morning tomorrow,” and she guided them down the stairs. They were not drunk, only happy.

  Cory and Dane hit the hide-a-bed. Micah and Tandy rolled out their sleeping bags on the twin bed, climbed in and were instantly asleep. Micah later woke with a full bladder and a nasty taste in his mouth. He sat up in bed and noticed that Tandy was standing by the closed door to the den motionless, listening.

  “What..,” Micah started to speak.

  “Shush,” Tandy whispered.

  Micah stood next to his friend, waiting to hear something, but for what he was unsure. “Bang,” it sounded like an encyclopedia hitting the table. “Bang,” another book hit, “Bang.” Micah immediately opened the door, and as he stepped from his bedroom, the den light flipped on by itself. Four of the hefty books were lying around the coffee table, while Cory and Dane were beneath the green sofa bed peeking out from under its fabric skirt.

  Micah laughed and went to relieve himself in the bathroom. When he came out, the boys were bivouacked in his bedroom, resting on top of their sleeping bags between the boxes.

  “I hate this house,” Dane said to Micah. “I’m never sleeping here again.”

  Micah just grinned. “See what I lived with every day. Let’s get back to sleep; we’ll need to get up soon.”

  “Leave on the light,” Dane demanded, and Micah left the bulb burning in the closet.

  Micah lay in bed keeping watch for any other disturbances. He loathed this house, everything about it and realized how comfortable his barn bedroom was, and he never had to worry about the ‘thing’ playing games with him like tonight. He was about to fall asleep when the light switched off. There were no protests from the guys, so he imagined they were slumbering. He continued staring into the darkness no longer drowsy. He closed his eyes, and then he faintly heard the voices of the Shadow Choir, the one thing that went with him everywhere. He even heard the chants while recovering at Children’s Hospital in Dallas. The voices seemed to reverberate from every corner of the room. They once frightened him but no longer. They were soothing. As Micah listened, he heard the latch on the door leading into the ‘hole’ slide against its stop. There was a series of clicking sounds, something he had never heard before. He looked toward the closet at the red eyes, the glowing globes that had visited him many times before. They stared into the room, bodiless and ethereal. He observed the specters. He felt no fear; in fact, he had no feelings at all other than a strange sense of awe. Then other phantasms appeared: dozens of small eyes all scuttling out of the darkness of the closet, all glimmering with various shades of crimson or yellow. Some were near the floor, and some seem to crawl across the ceiling. As they swarmed into the bedroom, they made the strange clacking sound.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tandy yelled as he jumped from his bag to the light switch and flicked it on. “What in hell, there’s something wrong with this fucking house. I am out of here,” and he started dressing and grabbing his stuff. All signs of the visitors disappeared with the light.

  Everyone was awake. The clock showed that it was 5:00 in the morning. So they packed up, and Micah went to awaken Isabella. As he opened his bedroom door, he found her sitting on the couch. “I smelled smoke, so I got up to check. I couldn’t find anything wrong, so I came back down to wait on you all. Did you sleep well?”

  “No we didn’t sleep well,” Tandy was grabbing his bag as he spoke. “This place is crazy. There are things here that shouldn’t even exist!”

  Micah laughed, while everyone else grimaced. “You haven’t seen anything. A book flying across the room; some red eyes watching you; you haven’t seen the dark side of Willow Wood. And you never want to see it either because it’ll take you into madness. It almost did me.” Micah was no longer laughing but was deadly serious.

  He grabbed his sleeping bag and went to Isabella’s room for her suitcase. “Let’s go.” Everyone followed Micah up the stairs to the front landing and out to Isabella’s car. “Call me tonight and let me know you got to San Angelo. Promise me.” He hugged her, and she took off; and the boys walked down the hill and stowed their stuff in the barn, then made their way into the kitchen. Tom Dorsey had a hearty breakfast prepared. The c
owboys always looked forward to his meals, but this morning, everything was focused on the disturbances of the previous night.

  “I forgot how bad it was,” Cory told Micah at the kitchen table. “I don’t see how your mom can stay there.”

  “She sees only the periphery, not the whole show. I think Elaine sees things. She’s always talking about the monsters in the closet and the eyes in the mirror. Your house has spooks. You told me so yourself. Why are you so upset?” Micah waited for a response.

  “Yeah, but my ghosts don’t come after you. They don’t throw books at you. They just watch and listen. The things in your house ARE monsters.” Tandy and Dane were shaking their heads in agreement as Cory spoke.

  “What are you guys talking about,” Tom asked. And the boys, except Micah, started telling their tale of the night at the spook house. When they finished, Tom looked at Micah waiting for his response.

  “What?” He looked at Mr. Dorsey. “I’ve got nothing to say other than thank you.” Tom looked confused. “Thank you for getting me away from that insanity,” and he said no more.

  Chapter 11: Tandy’s Choice

  They were troubled by Willow Wood; but not Micah, who had lived under a pervasive attack for almost ten months until he moved in with Mr. Dorsey. That’s what they wanted to talk about, all that they wanted to discuss. They hung around the corral discussing the haunting while Micah did his chores.

  “I’m going to get a haircut,” Micah declared after all the work was complete, and the four walked the two miles to the barber, tossing rocks in the creek and rousing up quail on their way. It was warm out and a little foggy. The weather matched the tenor of their souls; all were a little depressed and bothered. They walked into the barbershop, and Jimmy John sat in the chair getting his Mohawk sharpened. His beater of a pick-up sat out front. He smiled as they came in.

  “Hey Dane, Micah.” His friends called him JJ, and he was a pleasant and likeable guy. “Great fight yesterday. You gave Bear a good whopping.”

  “Thanks,” Micah grinned. “You drive? How’d you get a license?”

  “Hardship case, I need to drive to help out on the ranch sometimes.” The boy paused for a moment. “Where’d you learn to fight like that? You surprised the hell out of everyone especially Bear.”

  “My cousin teaches boxing in Missouri, and we’re taking boxing lessons at Palo Duro. We got practice tonight.” We need a ride. Want to take us?”

  “Sure, got nothing else going. What times?”

  “You can pick us up at the old Dorsey ranch house at 4:45. We’ll finish by 8:00.”

  Jimmy John stepped down from the barber chair. “Okay! We can camp out at the creek afterward. I haven’t slept out in a long time?”

  “Sure.” All the boys were shaking their head in agreement.

  Jimmy John was prompt and pulled into the Dorsey driveway right at 4:40 and tossed his sleeping bag out as the boys were climbing in.

  It took 15 minutes to get to the gym, and the boys went right in to the changing room, waving at Coach Ramsey as they walked by. JJ took a seat on the bleachers to watch the workout. By the time the boys were dressed and starting their warm-up, Coach Britt had arrived and was talking to the boxing instructor.

  After stretching for 15 minutes, Micah grabbed a rope and continued his work out. He learned to skip rope in Missouri by watching Dallas put his students through their paces. Micah commenced skipping the rope: bouncing just high enough for the cord to slip between his foot and the floor; alternating between one foot and the other with every other jump; throwing the rope with his elbows; skipping with knees slightly bent; landing on the ball of the foot with each skip, and always breathing through the nose. Each boy was required to skip rope for a continuous 15 minutes. The coach was very adamant about proper technique in this exercise. And this was the one thing he wanted the boys to do every day, whether or not a practice was scheduled.

  Micah jumped rope with his eyes focused toward the floor. He found this easier and kept him more relaxed. The sound of his feet hitting the ground in a regular cadence coupled with his controlled breathing almost always sent him into euphoria, and the coach would have to yell at him to bring him back. He explained his technique to the other boys, and now they were also beginning to enter a relaxed condition during the jump rope. In fact, Coach Ramsey had Micah come to his other class to demonstrate his contemplative method.

  “Sherwood,” Coach Ramsey yelled, “Time to come down from the clouds.” Micah looked up smiling.

  The boys started shadow boxing.

  “Micah, over here!” Coach ordered and he trotted over to where his trainer was standing with Coach Britt.

  “Let’s take a look at your stitches,” and the young instructor inspected the boy’s forehead while glimpsing at his sizeable shiner. “Looks like I need to teach you some defense. You understand that we don’t solve our problems by fighting. That is always the last resort. How many fights have you been in?”

  Micah was silent for a few moments. “Four fights but I am never the aggressor. Well, once I provoked the fight, but that’s all.”

  “Fine, but I need to reinforce that fighting rarely solves a problem and usually makes it worse.” Then the coach yelled at the boys, “Ten laps around the gym then line up for calisthenics. Coach had a grueling regimen for cardio, and all but 45 minutes were dedicated to cardio and respiratory training. Today the remaining time was used in studying and practicing jabs.

  At the end of the workout, Coach Britt spoke with the track boys. “Men, Hornsby is out for the season. He broke his arm, so he’s off the roster. Which means Micah will be running with the 9th Grade Track Team, and he will need to practice with the Camino del Rio runners a couple days a week. It also may make it difficult for him to run with the 4th grade Track Team.”

  “Jimmy John, you and Micah stay here, you others can go to the showers.” Coach Britt pulled the boys closer. “I’m glad you boys hit it off. JJ, you don’t mind mentoring Micah do you? This is a tricky situation for us. I checked with the referees, and they said we could run ‘up grades’ but not ‘down grades.’ That means we can run Micah in 9th Grade, but we couldn’t run JJ at 4th grade. That seems obvious doesn’t it? But the problem might be running Micah in both the 4th and 9th Grade meets. I have to think about what’s best for Micah and the teams.”

  “Micah, now that I’ve seen your cardio training for boxing, I’m a little concerned about the amount of work you’re doing. I know about your medical history. Is it okay for me to talk with your doctor to make sure we are not pushing you too hard? I think you have an incredible future as an athlete, but I don’t want to kill you.”

  “The doctor says I’m fine, but sure go ahead. Talk to Mr. Dorsey about it.” Micah thought for a moment. “Coach, I need to run with my friends. I want to run for Camino del Rio, but I have to run with my buddies…” Then Micah was interrupted by Cory, who had just come out of the showers.

  “We will always be friends, Bucky. You need to do this. I know you want to,” Cory smiled. “Just do it, and I’m sure Coach Britt will help us find a way to watch you run at the meets. Isn’t that what’s important, brothers together. Plus that would give me a chance to run the 5K in your place for Tierra Verde.”

  “I guess. I’ll do whatever the coach says.”

  Later, as the boys lay under the budding trees by the creek, the talk continued about the haunting at Willow Wood, and the presence of JJ gave them a reason to retell the story again. Micah did not want to hear it; he had heard it 20 times that day.

  “You all need to shut up for God’s sake. You’re just making it worse. You’re calling it, you know. Do you want it living at your house, ‘cause that’s what will happen?” Micah spoke with authority, and the boys listened, becoming still and quiet.

  “You don’t have to get all bent up. We can take a hint,” Cory spoke in a humorous voice.

  “Can I see the ‘hole’?” JJ requested.

  “Knew you’d ask. Let�
�s get it over with, come on.” Micah rose from his sleeping bag. “I need to check things out anyway.” And the two boys walked to the pipeline and under the barbed wire.

  As the boys started up the alley that led to the garden area of Willow Wood, the lights in the kitchen flipped on and off; the lights blinked in Elaine’s bedroom then again in the kitchen. Micah stopped. “Did you see that?” he asked Jimmy John.

  “The lights, yeah, so?”

  “There’s no one home.” Micah looked at the boy. JJ’s eyes got big.

  They went through the garage and upstairs to the kitchen. The house was once again dark, noiseless, the atmosphere rancid. Micah checked the suite of bedrooms. Nothing was out of place, and then they went downstairs. Again the air was permeated with the death smell.

  “God this place stinks.” JJ commented. “You need to open some windows.”

  Micah did not reply as he flipped on the overhead light in his old room. The boxes were piled to the ceiling and jammed against the north wall. The twin bed’s mattress was upright and leaning against the dresser; the bedframe was on its side.

  “Jeeze, must be pissed off,” Micah mumbled. “This morning the boxes were scattered around and the bed was under the window.”

  Micah took Jimmy John into the closet. The wooden door to the ‘hole’ was lying flat on the floor, and the six screws that held it to the frame were neatly placed in a circle on its surface. “This is the ‘hole,’” and he reached into the dark space and turned on the lonely light.

  In the center of the room, placed neatly on the floor, was a dark blue bandanna with his arrowheads and mano resting on top. “Well fuck!” Micah was furious. Then he felt a blistering sensation on his back. “Let’s get out of here,” and he collected his handkerchief and relics and left for the bathroom.

  He took off his shirt and looked at himself in the mirror. He had three deep scratches down the center of his back in a place he could not reach; blood dribbled from the claw marks. JJ helped apply mercurochrome to the wounds.