How? I can’t see him. The corn’s too high.
So? If he gets close, jump out of the way.
Jump? I can hardly walk.
Then yell. He’ll hear you.
Over the noise?
I try to run. The more I try, the more the corn gets in my way. I force the stalks aside with both arms like I’m doing the breaststroke. It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting anywhere. I gasp for breath. Leaves and tassels hit my face, get in my nose and mouth. I’m flailing, drowning. “Help!”
It’s all right.
Jacky? Is that you?
Breathe.
The engine’s deafening.
“Mr. Sinclair! Stop!” I wave my arms.
He can’t see or hear you. Breathe.
“I can’t.”
You can. You’re almost at the woods. Look ahead to the right.
Out of nowhere, I spot a trail between the corn rows. Why didn’t I see it before? I can’t hear myself think—just the voice in my head yelling, Now! Run!
I push through to the trail. See treetops over the stalks. Break through them and race from the field, out of danger. I did it. I’m at the woods.
I drop to my knees. “Jacky, you saved my life.” He doesn’t say anything. “Jacky?” He’s gone.
I catch my breath. I can’t believe I’m alive. I get up and brush myself off. Guess I’m stuck here till Mr. Sinclair takes a break.
I look up and down the tree line. The woods run across the back of five farms, but I don’t know how deep they go. I should stay near the edge so I don’t get lost. Last thing I need is Mom calling a search party while I’m suspended.
Still, it can’t be a forest or anything. I mean there are farms all around, and Jacky and Mr. Sinclair played here. Besides, past the bushes, the trees are fairly spaced out. Some look good for climbing. That could be fun—scrambling up to the top to look back at the house or to spy on Mr. Sinclair harvesting. I think of Jacky’s drawings of the two of them in the treetops. I wonder what they saw.
Before I climb any trees though, I want to check out the clearing. It’s not far—a big swath of sunlight. Dead branches lie scattered along the way, like deer antlers. There are a few fallen trees too, rotten and covered in moss. One’s really long with big roots pointing up to the sky.
When Jacky made his drawings, a lot of these trees wouldn’t have been around. The fallen ones would’ve been healthy, and the ones that were rotting then are long gone now, with nothing to show they existed. Trees are like people. We’re alive, then we’re memories, then we’re not even that.
Mom says that kind of talk is morbid, but it’s true. I have no idea what my great-grandparents looked or sounded like, or the great-greats before them, back to caveman days. It’s weird to think they were like me once, goofing with friends, mad at their parents, brave, scared, everything. But now they’re gone and all the people and things that mattered to them are gone too, and nobody knows or cares. So why do I make myself miserable over things that years from now no one will even care about? If I knew that, maybe I could be happy.
When I hit the clearing, the gloom disappears in a blaze of sunshine. The leaves are turning orange and red, and there are patches of berry bushes. There’s an outcrop of rock too, and in the center—my heart skips—the boulders from Jacky’s pictures.
I imagine Jacky and Mr. Sinclair pretending the boulders are their fort. Then I see Jacky, alone, hiding in the treetops, pretending his father doesn’t exist.
A bird chirps. I stand still, hoping to glimpse it. Everything’s quiet. How come I don’t hear the combine? I get a creepy feeling someone’s watching me. I glance over my shoulder.
Mr. Sinclair’s at the edge of the clearing. “What are you doing crossing a field mid-harvest? You want to get yourself killed?”
“Sorry. I was already halfway before you started. How did you know I was here?”
“I saw the stalks move. Good thing too. I figured it was you; came to bring you home. Don’t want your mother getting back and me having to explain how come you’re mashed up in my corn cobs.” He snorts. “Or maybe I could just grind you up and have her think you ran away.”
I laugh like this is a joke, but he just stares at me. I think about Jacky and his mother disappearing. I stop laughing.
“Why aren’t you in school anyway?” Mr. Sinclair says.
“I got suspended. It wasn’t my fault.”
“If I had a dollar for every time something wasn’t someone’s fault…” Mr. Sinclair’s voice trails off. “So you thought you’d check out the woods. What did you think you’d find?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to see where you and Jacky played.”
“Who says we played here?”
“I guessed.”
“So you’re a guesser, are you? What kind of guesser? A guesser who guesses he knows, or a guesser who knows he guesses?”
“I guess I don’t know.”
Mr. Sinclair cracks a smile. “You’re not as stupid as you look.” He nods at the boulders. “I used to leave things there for Jacky to find. A magnifying glass. A bag of marbles. Things I didn’t want anymore. I told him elves left them. He knew it was me, but it was more fun to pretend.” Mr. Sinclair’s eyes soften.
“Do you ever wonder what happened to him?”
His eyes narrow. “Why would I?”
“I don’t know; you were friends. I think about my friends, the ones I’ve left behind. I hope they think about me.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Nobody thinks about anybody these days. By the time you’re my age, you can’t even remember how many friends have disappeared.”
“Like Jacky?”
Mr. Sinclair grunts. “He was like you. Disappeared with his mother.”
Not according to Jacky.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Nobody thinks nothing.”
“Okay… I was just wondering if Jacky ever talked about his father.”
“Why would he do that? Do you talk about yours?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Mr. Sinclair watches me squirm. “You’re not the only guesser around here. Everybody has secrets. It’s best to leave them alone. Come along now. I’ll drive you back to the house. I have work to do.”
20
Everyone has secrets, like Mr. Sinclair said. Mom, Dad, me. What are Mr. Sinclair’s secrets? And Jacky’s? Back at the house I ask Jacky, “Why didn’t your mother take you with her like Mom took me?”
I know he’s listening. I can feel him all around, peeking at me from behind furniture, hiding in closets, under the bed, but he won’t come out. Is he playing a game? What’s his story?
I take out his drawings and look for clues I might have missed the first time. There’s a black shape in some of the drawings. Is it a hole or a cave or the coal room? Maybe it’s just a scribble. And what about the picture of his mother on the ground? Is she sleeping? Dead? There are things in the drawings that could give me nightmares too—ordinary things like his father’s shovel, ax, and pitchfork.
As I stare at the pictures, the room disappears. I feel the present in the past, the past in the present. Jacky walked on these floorboards, touched these doorknobs and handrails like I do. He used the same sink, bathtub, and desk. Jacky’s everywhere. He’s in the air I breathe.
I imagine him moving around up here and find myself in the big room over the kitchen, staring up at the trapdoor to the attic. Why is it sealed shut? I could chisel away the caked paint and claw out the nails, but I’d make a mess. Mom would freak. What’s in the attic, Jacky? What’s its secret?
“Cameron?” Mom’s voice is coming from the kitchen.
“I’m upstairs,” I call down in a super cheery voice. How long has Mom been home? Did she hear me talking to myself
?
“I’ve got us pizza,” Mom calls back, in a super cheery voice of her own. “Double cheese, pepperoni, and mushroom. It just needs a minute in the microwave.”
If Mom heard me, she’s pretending she didn’t. Good. Let’s pretend together.
“Great. Thanks. I’ll be right down.”
Mom smiles as I sit down at the table. “How was your day?” You’d never guess we had a fight last night. Mom doesn’t forget fights, but she’s good at packing them away. They’re like Christmas decorations—hidden from view but easily pulled from storage.
“My day? Pretty good.” I pick up a slice of pizza. “I did a lot of homework.”
“Good.” Mom pauses. “Would you like to come into town with me tomorrow?”
“Huh?”
“After two days here alone, you must be getting a bit stir-crazy.”
“What would I do?”
“There’s a library, a recreation center. Or don’t come. Stay here and be bored. It’s up to you.”
“No, it could be good.” It could be too.
The rest of dinner is okay. We stick to safe topics, like where we’ll meet up for lunch. Luckily the high school’s on the country side of the bridge, so it’s not like any of the guys will see us.
“By the way, I didn’t forget about your project,” Mom says when we finish eating. She brings me a thick package from the counter. “The sales history of the farm.”
“Thanks.”
“Ken’s the one you should thank. He says if you need anything else, just ask.”
I give her a look. “Didn’t we talk about me and Ken?”
“I told him about your project before our conversation. He said he was going to the registry office today and could check about the farm while he was there.”
“Fine. Just so I don’t owe him anything.”
“You don’t, except a thank-you.”
“I don’t want you to owe him anything either.”
“Cameron.” Mom sighs. “Sometimes people do favors without wanting anything. It’s called being nice.”
Mom’s pretty smart, but she sure doesn’t know guys.
I take the package upstairs, sit cross-legged on my bed, and empty it. There’s tons of stuff. No way this is a “no big deal” favor. This is a “Hey, Katherine, see what a great guy I am, getting all this stuff for your son? How about dinner?” favor.
There’s a note from C.B. on company stationery that has his picture at the top. I take a pen, black out a couple of teeth, and give him a unibrow.
Hey Cameron,
Heard about your history project. Glad to help.
I asked Arlene Cooper at the registry office to print out some survey maps, the sales history, and the yearly tax statements. Most farms around here are passed down to sons, so the tax statements are actually more useful than the sales history for knowing who owned the place.
Your mother says you’re especially interested if there was ever a murder or suicide on your farm. Wish I could say yes to juice up your essay, but nothing came up. There was once a farmer who was killed by his dogs though. Maybe that’s just as good?
Let me know if you have any other questions. Also, let me know if you’d like to toss a baseball, shoot some hoops.
Ken
Toss a baseball? Shoot some hoops? Gag me.
The most important thing is, C.B. says there wasn’t a murder. So what happened to Jacky? If he didn’t leave with his mom, wouldn’t he have been found after the dogs killed his father?
I look at the maps. Interesting. The one of the county in 1825 shows the rail line that used to run through Wolf Hollow. The 1838 township survey has half the area as woods.
The sheaf of tax assessments underneath is an inch thick. I almost fall asleep just looking at it. I toss it aside and glance at the one-page summary of the farm’s sales history.
Weird. The first owner, Silas Henning, bought the farm in 1839. It stayed in his family till 1924, when it was sold to Henry McTavish. And that’s it. The farm was never sold again. That can’t be right. What about the sale to the Sinclairs?
I grab the tax assessments. The name Henry McTavish changes to Frank McTavish in 1952. That would be when Jacky’s father took over. Mr. McTavish’s name is on the assessments up to this year.
That means Mr. Sinclair doesn’t own the farm. It’s still owned by Jacky’s father. A dead man. What’s Mr. Sinclair hiding—about the farm, about Jacky, about everything?
21
I show Mom that Mr. McTavish still owns the farm.
“My, that’s curious, isn’t it?” She tries not to smile. “I’m not a real estate agent, so I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to the mystery, but I know someone who is a real estate agent, and I’m sure he’d love to clear it up for you.”
Nice one, Mom.
But she’s right. C.B. is the one I need to talk to. Damn.
Next morning, the sun has a harder time getting up than I do. As we drive to town, fog drifts across the harvested fields.
We slow down as we near the school; a couple of buses are turning into the parking lot. I slide low in my seat so no one will see me. A few seconds later, we’re driving past the motel where we stayed our first night and over the old iron bridge into town.
I look down at the river ravine running under the bridge—the hollow in Wolf Hollow. The heaviest part of the fog is settling in the gully. It’s like we’re driving over clouds. I imagine the old days, with wolves coming up through the mist.
After the bridge, the highway turns into the main drag, a.k.a. Main Street. There’s only maybe ten streets that cut across and seven or eight that run parallel on either side. We pass a soft ice-cream drive-through that’s closed till spring, a tiny strip mall with a burger joint, 7-Eleven, a gas station, and the post office. After that, a bunch of two-story buildings, with stores and restaurants on the main floor and people living above: the Knotty Pine Inn; Mindy’s Fine Dining; Walker’s Ladies’ and Men’s Apparel, with clothes for people who apparently lived a century ago; the Shamrock Bar, with shuttered windows; Lucille’s Nail Emporium; Lucky Laundromat; two drugstores; and Wolf Hollow’s one and only movie theater, the Capital, which only has two screens.
In the middle of Main Street, things get respectable again with the town hall, the registry office, the police station, the library, and the Weekly Bugle offices. Then there’s a house covered in shingles with painted wooden butterflies nailed on the walls and a homemade sign that says Kelly’s Krafts; Huntley Memorials with a front yard covered in tombstones; and another small strip mall, home to a dollar store, Minnie’s Mini-Mart, and Ken Armstrong Realty. Finally, a gas station for anyone who forgot to fill up at the other end of town, and then back to farms.
We pull up in front of the agency at eight thirty. C.B. hasn’t arrived.
“Not to worry, he’ll be here any minute,” Mom says. “Then you can solve your mystery, have your swim at the rec center, and meet me here at noon for lunch. The Knotty Pine Inn has great fries. And homemade fruit pies. You’ll love it.”
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and follow Mom inside, where I leave C.B.’s package on her desk. Then I go back out and pass the time looking at the pictures of homes for sale in the front window, all of them better than our place.
I hear an electric drill at Huntley Memorials. Through the fog I see a stumpy, middle-aged man in overalls, work boots, goggles, and a baseball cap engraving a granite stone resting on a picnic table. A long, orange extension cord runs from his chisel into a cinder-block garage.
I walk over for a look-see. The guy has the roughest hands I’ve ever seen. Scraggy hair sticks out from under his cap and runs down the back of his neck. He turns off his chisel and looks up. “Can I help you?”
“Not really. I’m just waiting for Mr. Armstrong. Uh, Ken Armstrong Realty? My mom works for him.
I saw you working and, well, I’ve never seen anybody carving a gravestone.”
“Oh.”
The way he says it, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to leave or say something else. I nod at the stone. “Did that guy just die?”
“Month ago.”
“Oh.” Awkward pause. “Was he a friend?” Did I just say that? What’s wrong with me?
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” Leave. Leave now. “So, like, what happens if you spell a name wrong?”
“I don’t. Anything else?”
Suddenly I have a brainstorm. Mr. McTavish got his dogs right after his wife disappeared; they killed him a few months after. If I know when he died, I can figure the in-between time when Cody’s great-grandmother accused him of murder and check what she said at the Bugle.
I clear my throat. “Does your family do all the gravestones around here?”
“Pretty much.” He tosses his chin at his sign: Huntley Memorials. Established 1926.
“So your family would’ve done the stone for Frank McTavish?”
The man pauses. “Who?”
“He was the farmer who got ripped apart by his dogs, sometime in the sixties.”
“Oh, that guy.”
“Yeah. I need the date he died. It’d be on his stone, right?”
“Sure, but you’re talking fifty years ago. We don’t keep records back that far. And we sure don’t keep track of inscriptions.”
Why not? What’s the matter with you?
The guy leans over the stone and gets back to work. “If you really want to know, try the cemetery. Two blocks over, turn right, end of the road, just before the lake. They’ll have a map of who’s buried where. Check his grave.”
The cemetery. I’m on my way.
22
Before I can take off, C.B. wheels up in his car and leaps out like the buddy sidekick on some cop show. “Cameron, my man, what’s up?” He raises his hand like he actually expects me to high-five him.
I give him a half-assed wave and put my hands in my pockets. “It’s about the package you sent me, the stuff about the farm. There’s something weird. Mom said you might be able to explain it.”
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