Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire

by John August

  “Her family was camping up at Highcross,” said Wade. “Sometime in the evening, two of the kids went missing. Katie and her older brother, maybe.”

  “Her cousin. Connor.”

  “That’s right.” Wade kept splitting logs as he spoke. “I went on search parties for the first week or so. They had us in teams of four, and they would assign us a certain area to sweep. Sometimes you’d have dogs if they had some to spare. They had planes and helicopters to check from the air. But how’s a kid going to know to signal a plane? After a week, I thought they were probably dead. Maybe a mountain lion had gotten them. When they found the boy alive in Canada, I was surprised. But not too surprised.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, either they’d been kidnapped, which made sense because of how rich their family was, or they’d somehow wandered out of our forest altogether.”

  “Into the Long Woods.” Arlo said it carefully, not sure how his uncle would react.

  “You know about that?” Arlo nodded. Wade shrugged, loading another log. “Never heard the sheriffs or the state search-and-rescue guys talking about it, but everyone in town suspected that’s what might have happened, that the kids had somehow crossed into the Long Woods. I know for a fact the Cunninghams paid serious money to bring in shamans and other mystical folks to help out. But best I know they never found anything to prove that’s what happened.”

  Finished with the wood, Uncle Wade shut off the motor on the splitter. Only then did Arlo realize he’d been yelling over it. The quiet was jarring.

  “Have you ever been in the Long Woods?”

  Wade paused as he took off his work gloves. “Hard to say. Definitely found myself in some unexpected places. But I don’t know if it was the Long Woods, proper. From everything I hear, that’s a one-way trip. You find yourself in the Long Woods, you’re not coming back.”

  Arlo helped his uncle stack the firewood against the house. The pitch in the bark made his hands sticky. Only when they were nearly finished did Wade say anything more.

  “The Cunningham kids—are they in Rangers with you?”

  “Connor is my patrol leader. And Christian is the marshal.”

  “You oughta be careful around the Cunninghams,” his uncle said. “I told you they were loaded, right?”

  Arlo nodded.

  “Nothing wrong with being rich, but it’s hard to figure how they got that way. Until about twenty years ago, the Cunninghams were the same as everyone else, no better or worse off. Then suddenly they had money. I mean, a lot of money. Bought more land, built a brand-new house. No one knew how they could afford it—or why they stayed here. You got that much money, you could live in nicer places than Pine Mountain.”

  “Where do you think they got the money?” Arlo asked.

  Uncle Wade leaned his hand against the wall. “You know Pine Mountain was originally a mining town, right? There used to be gold mines all over, until they went dry. Well, some of those old mines are on Cunningham property.”

  “You think they found gold?”

  “That’s what some folks believe. But mining gold is not a quiet thing. If they were doing that, you’d know it. There would be trucks and equipment and slag in the river. No sign of any of that.”

  “So what do you think it is?”

  Wade’s voice got quieter. Arlo suspected this was the first time his uncle had shared this theory out loud. “You know how the Long Woods go everywhere? Well, it seems to me they probably go underground as well. Down into the mines. Cunninghams might be doing business with some folks who aren’t from our side of things.”

  “The eldritch,” said Arlo, remembering the word from the bestiary.

  Wade looked at Arlo, surprised and impressed. “You pick up quick.” Arlo smiled. “Let’s say it’s the eldritch. If the Cunninghams are making deals with those types, it’s less surprising that two of the Cunningham kids ended up in the Long Woods.”

  “You think they were taken.”

  Uncle Wade shrugged. “Just speculation. But all the same, in the interest of your safety, I suggest you steer clear of the Cunninghams. Best not get caught up in their trouble.”

  * * *

  Arlo scrubbed his hands in the kitchen sink, trying to get the sap off. Normal soap was useless. He had to use the green scratchy bar his uncle kept on the windowsill, the one that looked like it was made of boiled frogs and sandpaper. It barely lathered, but it cut through the stickiness.

  Scraping with his fingernails, he picked the last bits clean.

  That’s when he spotted Jaycee outside. She was walking away from the house, up the slope into the forest.

  Arlo thought this was strange, because his sister hated nature and exercise. Shaking his hands dry, he decided to follow her.

  It was late afternoon, and a cold wind had started to rise. Arlo could hear it in the trees, pine branches swaying overhead. He stayed way back, just barely keeping Jaycee in his sight as she made her way up the slope.

  As best he could tell, she was not following any set path, yet she seemed to know where she was going. Arlo wondered if he should duck behind trees and rocks for cover like they did in adventure movies, but there seemed to be no point. Jaycee had no idea he was there.

  After a few minutes, Jaycee stopped. Arlo froze, looking for a place to hide. But she didn’t look back. Instead, she carefully ducked under a barbed-wire fence and kept walking.

  Arlo’s heart was beating fast, and it wasn’t just from climbing the hill. His sister was crossing onto someone else’s property. She was trespassing. Breaking the law.

  His first instinct was to run back to the house and tell his mom or Uncle Wade. Jaycee would be in trouble, no doubt. She might get grounded. She would be angry with Arlo for weeks. Still—You did the right thing, telling me, his mother would say. He would be protecting the family.

  Arlo’s second instinct was to follow Jaycee. Wherever his sister was going, she had a purpose. There was something interesting on the other side of the fence. This might be Arlo’s only opportunity to see it. And even if he got caught, Jaycee would take most of the blame—after all, he was just following her.

  If he followed her. He had to decide.

  He thought back to what his mom had said before the first Ranger meeting, how most of the things in life she regretted were things she didn’t do, chances she didn’t take. Arlo felt a little strange using his mother’s advice to justify trespassing, but everything since they’d arrived in Pine Mountain had been a little strange.

  Reaching the fence, he carefully slipped between the second and third lines of wire.

  As he stood, he felt himself yanked back. Something had grabbed him, choking him.

  He gasped with panic. He was about to yell for help, hoping Jaycee would hear him—until he realized that his hood had simply snagged on one of the barbs.

  Working blindly with his fingers behind his head, he tried to get himself free. But the barb was like a fishhook caught deep in the fabric. The more he wriggled, the more stuck he became.

  Arlo forced himself to stop and think. He silently counted to three. And then he figured out what to do.

  He slid out of his sweatshirt, leaving it stuck on the line.

  Once he was free, it was simple to get it unsnagged. There were a few small holes, but no serious damage.

  He spotted Jaycee just as she was disappearing over the next rise. He scrambled after her.

  Once he reached the top, Arlo found his sister standing at the edge of a cliff, wind blowing back her hair. She was preparing to leap to her death.

  12

  SIGNAL ROCK

  “JAYCEE! DON’T!” ARLO YELLED, running across the clearing.

  His sister turned around, surprised and annoyed. She had her phone in her hands, typing something.

  “Did you follow me!?” she yell-asked, knowing the answer before she finished the question. “You’re such a little narc.” She hit send on the message she was typing. Her phone bleeped.

&n
bsp; As Arlo got closer, he realized the “cliff” was actually just a massive wedge of rock embedded in the hillside. At most it was ten feet above the ground. It looked much higher because the mountain sloped away from it, revealing the whole valley.

  Climbing up beside his sister, Arlo could see the town of Pine Mountain below: the flat roof of the school, the church steeples, the gas station sign. Everything looked tiny, like the buildings of a model train set.

  “This is the only place I can get a signal,” she said, going back to her phone. It bleeped as she got a new message.

  “Who are you texting with?” he asked. “People back in Chicago?”

  “No. Some girls in marching band.”

  “Didn’t you just see them, like an hour ago?”

  “That was at school. A lot happens between four and midnight.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, stuff. Jokes. Plans. There are a bunch of conversations, and if you’re not part of them, you get way behind. You’re the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  Her phone bleeped again. Arlo looked over Jaycee’s shoulder as she typed back an answer.

  “What’s wrong with mustard?” Arlo asked, confused.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why did you say, ‘It’s the worst’?”

  “I was just agreeing with her.”

  “But you love mustard.” Arlo had seen his sister put mustard on things that definitely didn’t need it, like potato chips.

  “It’s not about the mustard! It’s not about anything. You just have to keep the thread going. If you don’t answer back, it dies.” Her phone bleeped with various emoji. “You don’t understand because you’re twelve and you’re a boy.”

  Arlo suspected he did understand, at least to some degree. He thought back to the campfire in Ram’s Meadow. Once it was going, it didn’t take much supervision. You simply added a log every now and then. The tricky part was getting the fire built in the first place. He remembered how careful Wu was when he lit the tinder, adding sticks of kindling one by one as the flames grew. Wu was methodical and patient, never rushing, never looking away.

  Jaycee’s new friendships were like a just-started campfire. They needed constant tending or they would die.

  “We should call this place Signal Rock,” Arlo said. It sounded important and official.

  “Fine,” she said. “But you can’t tell Mom I’m out here, ever.”

  “I won’t.” Arlo meant it. In fact, he liked having a secret to share with his sister, something only the two of them knew. But then he added quietly, “I think it’s trespassing, though.”

  “It’s fine. This kid in band, I told him where I lived, and he’s like, ‘Oh, we own the property next to you.’ But they don’t live here. His family owns, like, half the valley.”

  Arlo felt a sinking feeling. “Is his last name Cunningham?”

  Jaycee was surprised he knew the name. “Yeah, Christian. He’s first-chair trumpet.”

  Arlo didn’t explain how he knew the name. Instead, he asked, “Can I use your phone? I want to look something up.”

  Jaycee glared at him with side-eyes—she had never allowed Arlo to touch her phone. But then she softened, perhaps realizing she needed him to keep the secret of Signal Rock. She handed over the phone. “Two minutes. And don’t read any of my messages.”

  Arlo pulled up the search bar and typed Katie Cunningham Pine Mountain.

  The results page listed more than eight hundred news stories. He clicked on the top headline, “Local Kids, 4 and 6, Missing Near Highcross.” The text loaded first. He skimmed it as quickly as he could.

  The article from the Pine Mountain Gazette was eight years old. Everything seemed to match up with what he had learned around the campfire and from his uncle: Connor and his younger cousin Katie had wandered away from a family picnic. Rescue patrols from Pine Mountain and across the state were searching the woods.

  Arlo clicked another headline, “Missing Colorado Boy Found Alive in Canada.” This article from the Denver Post described how Connor was found in the Alberta woods a month after he disappeared. Connor’s father was quoted, calling it “a miracle” and saying that they held out hope Katie might still be found.

  As Arlo was reading, the final image loaded. It was a photo of Katie Cunningham, age four. She was a preschooler with chubby cheeks and a bow in her hair. Arlo stared at the photo, trying to decide if this could be the same girl he had seen in the window’s reflection. That girl was around twelve—which is how old Katie Cunningham would be now, he thought.

  “Who is that?” asked Jaycee, looking over his shoulder.

  “She’s Connor’s cousin. Christian’s too, I guess,” he said. “She disappeared.”

  Jaycee took the phone from him, suddenly intrigued. She skimmed the article, then went back to the search results, scrolling through the headlines. Arlo wanted to keep reading, but knew better than to push his luck.

  He saw Jaycee’s eyes crinkle. She let out a small “whoa.”

  “What?” asked Arlo.

  Jaycee read aloud from a different article. “‘Detectives leading the investigation into the disappearance of Connor and Katie Cunningham have arrested Wade Bellman…’”

  “Is that Uncle Wade?”

  She nodded and continued reading: “‘… of Pine Mountain on charges of tampering with evidence.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did he tamper with?”

  “It doesn’t say.” She went back to reading: “‘According to officials, Bellman is not considered a suspect in the children’s disappearance. The Cunningham cousins went missing seven days ago from a family picnic near Highcross.’”

  “So this was before they found Connor in Canada,” said Arlo.

  “I guess. It doesn’t say what happened, though. A lot of times, people get arrested by mistake. It doesn’t mean they did anything wrong.”

  “Like dad.”

  “Exactly.”

  Arlo looked back to their side of the mountain, as if he could see their house. “Do you think Mom knows?”

  “She has to, right? I mean, she would know. It’s her brother.” Jaycee sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “Mom wouldn’t bring us here if she didn’t think it was safe.”

  Arlo knew it wasn’t safe. There were strange creatures in the woods, and hidden pits with spikes. But this didn’t feel like the right moment to bring that up.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Arlo and Jaycee stood on the rock in silence. The sun was just touching the tops of the trees. It would be dark soon.

  Jaycee finally spoke. “We shouldn’t say anything. Whatever happened, it was years ago. There’s nothing we need to worry about now.”

  Arlo nodded. His sister was right.

  Unless she was wrong.

  “Can I see one more thing on your phone?” he asked. “Just thirty seconds.”

  She handed it to him.

  He went back to the first article. It had the best photo of Katie Cunningham. He stared at it, trying to mentally add eight years of age to her face, like the missing kids on the backs of milk cartons.

  That’s when he noticed something.

  He turned the phone sideways, zooming in on the photo until the girl’s eyes filled the screen.

  Like Arlo, young Katie Cunningham had one green eye and one brown eye. It’s just how things are, his mom always said. Some people have green eyes and some have brown. You have one of each.

  So did Katie Cunningham.

  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  * * *

  Arlo knew many impossible things.

  He knew about wisps and ghost dogs. He had experienced them firsthand.

  He also knew about wards and witches—and worse-than-witches—who lived in the Long Woods. It wasn’t the same kind of knowing, though. It was secondhand, borrowed. He only knew about them be
cause Indra and Wu had told him. He believed wards and witches were real because he trusted his friends were telling him the truth. But it wasn’t the same as seeing them.

  Sitting cross-legged on the washing machine, Arlo started sorting through all the facts in his head, tossing them in one of two buckets: I Saw It or Someone Told Me.

  In the I Saw It bucket, he put all his memories of growing up: the time he broke his wrist roller-skating, the giant lightning storm in Chicago, finishing the thousand-piece puzzle with his mom. He included the things he had discovered himself, like how mixing one part orange soda with two parts root beer was unexpectedly delicious. He added Signal Rock, snaplights, thunderclaps, and the purple goo on Wu’s face. He was certain all of these things existed because he had experienced them himself.

  In the Someone Told Me bucket, Arlo put most of what he had been taught in school: the state capitals, long division, and how to spell tomatoes. It’s not that he doubted Boise was the capital of Idaho, but he had never been there to check for himself.

  He thought about the disappearance of his sister’s jacket, his mom losing her job, and the events that took his father to China. In all three cases, there was no way to know for certain what really happened. He couldn’t travel back in time to see for himself. The answers, if there were answers, were not going to come easily.

  He looked at the list written on the dusty window. Just hours earlier, he had crossed out the first item (Wisps?), but had he really answered the question? Culman’s Bestiary listed facts about wisps, but couldn’t answer why they’d come after him in the first place.

  The second item on the list (Cousin?) was even less answered. He now knew Katie Cunningham’s name and what she looked like, but was she the same girl he had seen reflected in the window? Was her warning (“Be careful, Arlo Finch.”) just general advice, like “Don’t stick paper clips in electrical sockets,” or was it specific to him? How were they even talking? What was their connection? Why did she have the same mismatched eyes as him?

  The final item on the list was: Why me?