Otherwood

by Pete Hautman

  The mall had been open since last fall. Stuey went there a few times a week, because with the woods gone, there was nothing else to do within walking distance, and it was a place he could hang out with his friends.

  “Hey, Stu! Wait up!”

  Stuey looked over his shoulder. Deshan and Alison. Alison was swinging an Old Navy shopping bag. Deshan had his Bait Bag.

  “Any bites?” Stuey asked him.

  Deshan shrugged. “Nah, man, they’re on to me. They hardly ever check it anymore. I could steal ’em blind if I wanted.”

  “What do you have in there today?” Stuey asked.

  Alison made a disgusted face. “It’s really gross.”

  “Nah it ain’t,” Deshan said. “Just some old socks.”

  “Yeah, off your stinky feet.”

  “My feet are not stinky,” Deshan said. “They’re aromatic.”

  Deshan had been bringing his Bait Bag to the mall for half the summer. Last spring the security guards at Macy’s had hauled him into their back room, questioned him for an hour, and rooted through the contents of his backpack. They didn’t find anything except some books, a water bottle, and his phone. It happened again a week later at the Hobby Stop. Deshan declared that enough was enough.

  “It’s ’cause I’m black,” he had said. “You know it is.”

  He was right. More than once, Stuey had seen Deshan get hassled by the mall cops and store security. They all got hassled a little bit because they were teenagers, but Deshan got way more than his share. A few weeks earlier he had dubbed his backpack the Bait Bag, and every time he went to the mall he filled it with things like rotten fruit, used tissues, crumpled fast-food bags, and now dirty laundry. According to Deshan, the best moment ever was when a security lady from Verona’s Closet reached in and encountered one of his dog’s poop bags. Deshan’s dog was a Saint Bernard.

  “They know me now,” Deshan said. “It’s no fun anymore.”

  “So what are you guys doing?” Stuey asked.

  “Cineplex marathon,” Alison said.

  “Yeah, one kissing movie and two where they blow things up,” Deshan said. “I won the coin flip. You in?”

  “Nah, I’m just gonna hang,” Stuey said. He didn’t want to admit that he only had four and a half dollars. Also, he’d feel like a third wheel. He was good friends with both Alison and Deshan, but when it was the three of them together he felt like an accessory.

  “Cool. Whatever. Catch you later.”

  Stuey watched them go, feeling a little left out. Maybe he’d run into somebody he knew at the food court.

  It was only 11:30. The food court was dead — just a few people who worked at the mall and a handful of middle-aged shoppers. Stuey bought a slice of pizza from Sbarro even though he wasn’t that hungry. He sat down at a table that gave him a good view of the whole court so he could watch the people passing by.

  This was once a forest, he thought. As near as he could figure out, he was sitting close to where the deadfall had been. The food court was his new Castle Rose. Instead of cherry pie, he was eating pizza.

  He examined his slice. Pepperoni, some crumbles of Italian sausage, sliced mushrooms, green pepper, olives, and some flecks that might have been basil. He picked off the mushrooms, because that’s what Elly would have done, and it was her birthday too.

  But Elly wasn’t there. It had been two years ago today that Castle Rose was destroyed. Two years since their great-grandfathers’ bodies were unearthed. He’d seen her for just a few seconds that day, and he’d gotten soaking wet, but nothing since.

  Had any of it really happened?

  Gramps had written, Is reality simply a dream we share? If so, then what reality was this? Was eating pizza in this food court as real as sitting on the slab of rock in Castle Rose?

  He pulled the compass out and turned it so the frozen needle pointed north. There had been a time when he thought it was magic. So stupid.

  He took a bite of the pizza and chewed thoughtfully. It had been four years since Elly disappeared, and he had only known her for a month or so. Just a tiny slice of his life. Why did he think about her so much? Had they really been soul mates? Was that even really a thing? Maybe they were just two lonely kids who got thrown together.

  The compass needle trembled.

  “Happy birthday!”

  Stuey jerked his head up. Elly was sitting across from him, smiling.

  Elly had changed. Her face wasn’t so thin. Her hair was down past her shoulders, with a corkscrew streak of bright blue from her forehead all the way to the ends of her curls. She had a nose ring.

  “It’s not real,” she said.

  “You’re not really here?”

  “The nose ring. It’s fake. You should’ve seen my mom’s face when I came home with it. It was hilarious.”

  “I like your hair.”

  “That freaked her out too. You look good. You’re taller. Where are you?”

  “In the food court at the mall.”

  “They really built it then?”

  “Yeah. It’s huge. There are, like, fifty stores here. There’s a store that sells nothing but refrigerator magnets. Where are you?”

  “I’m on Westdale Lake.”

  “Lake?”

  “Yeah, they flooded part of the woods two years ago. I’m in my kayak. Can you feel it?”

  He could feel it, as if his chair was gently rising, falling, rocking on the water.

  “You’re sitting on the end,” she said. “Your feet are in the water. Don’t make any sudden moves or you’ll tip us over. We’re floating over Castle Rose. I’m holding on to a branch that’s sticking up out of the water. Hey, I can smell your pizza!”

  “My feet are wet,” Stuey said, looking under the table.

  “Can I have some?”

  He passed the slice to her and watched her take a bite. It was weird how they had just started talking like they always had, as if they’d never been apart.

  “Thanks for taking off the mushrooms,” she said.

  “That’s okay. It’s your birthday.”

  “So what’s new? I mean, I know you have a mall instead of a lake, but do you have a girlfriend?”

  Stuey thought about Alison. “I have a friend who’s a girl, but she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Alison.”

  “Alison Quist?”

  Stuey gaped at her. “How did you know?”

  “There’s only one Alison our age in school.”

  “She’s more like Deshan’s girlfriend.”

  “I know Deshan. He’s friends with Heck Hellman.”

  “Same here.”

  “Heck got kicked out of school for smoking.”

  “Really?” Stuey had never seen Heck smoke. Apparently some things besides the mall and the lake were different in their worlds. “I thought your parents sent you to Atlanta.”

  “Just one year. I kicked up a fuss and now I go to school here.”

  Stuey shook his head. “It’s not fair. There gets to be two each of Alison and Heck and Deshan but only one of each of us.”

  “It’s totally unacceptable.” They looked across the table at each other, both of them grinning. “I wish I could come hang out with you at the mall.”

  “That’s kind of what we’re doing.”

  “Except I’m on a boat, and you’re sitting at a table with wet feet.” She ate another bite of pizza.

  “You can have the rest of it,” Stuey said. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “I bet I’m the first person ever to eat hot pizza in a kayak in the middle of a lake.”

  “And I’m the first person to sit on a kayak in the middle of a food court.”

  “My mom thinks I’m insane,” Elly said. “I used to wonder that myself.”

  “But you don’t now?”

  She shrugged. “You have to admit, if this is real, it’s kind of . . . unreal.”

  “My grandpa said that reality is just all of
us having the same dream. We have a two-person reality.”

  “I wish we could agree on a reality where we could live in the same world.”

  “Me too.”

  She noticed the compass. “You still have it! Do you wear it all the time?”

  “I think it’s broken. I don’t really need it because there’s no woods to get lost in anymore.”

  “Maybe it’s what keeps us connected.”

  “Maybe,” Stuey said. “But I think it’s mostly because we’re like two pieces of a puzzle that fit together. Except the connection broke because of secrets.”

  “What secrets?”

  “My grandfather’s secrets.”

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  “In your world the Castle Rose is under a lake, but in my world they tore it down. They lifted up the rock where we used to sit. You remember how it would move, and we could hear voices sometimes?”

  Elly nodded.

  “There were bones under the rock. At first they thought they were your bones, but there were two skeletons, and they were really old.”

  Elly was breathing fast, the way she had the day he told her about their great-grandfathers.

  “I found Gramps’s Book of Secrets,” he said, speaking quickly because he was afraid she’d disappear again. “My mom hid it in the pocket of his golf bag. It tells what happened. You have to read it.”

  “Can’t you just tell me?” Her voice sounded small and distant, and she was looking blurry.

  “Go to my house.” His voice rose to a shout. “It’s in Gramps’s room! In the pocket of his golf bag! Go!”

  A hand clapped down on his shoulder, and she was gone.

  “Elly!” he shouted. “Elly!”

  “Son!”

  Stuey looked up into the broad, mustached face of a mall security guard.

  “Who are you yelling at?” the mall cop asked.

  Stuey was breathing hard.

  “Are you on drugs, son?”

  Stuey shook his head.

  “You better calm down and move on, son,” the mall cop said.

  “I’m fine. I was just —”

  “Move along, son.”

  One moment Stuey was sitting on the end of her kayak, and then he wasn’t. The bow popped up as his weight left it. There was no splash, no falling into the lake — he simply evaporated. The kayak bobbed on the water’s surface. Elly sat for a time, trying to make sense of it. She could still taste the pizza.

  Go to my house, he had told her.

  Elly didn’t want to. She was afraid. The last time she’d gone there Stuey’s mom had been so scary. But she had to go.

  She dipped one end of the paddle into the water and stroked. The kayak moved away from the deadhead. She paddled toward Stuey’s side of the lake. The stand of poplars that had once surrounded the fairy circle stood naked near the shore, water lapping at their pale trunks. She guided the kayak through the poplars and wedged it into a thicket of honeysuckle and climbed out.

  She crossed the meadow to the orchard. The trees were loaded with tiny green apples. Buckthorn and nettles filled the spaces between the trees. The orchard was becoming part of the woods.

  She weaved her way through the trees. The house came into view. The lawn was nearly as overgrown as the orchard. Mrs. Becker’s car, parked in the weedy, crumbling asphalt driveway, had two flat tires. Elly took a deep breath and approached the front door.

  Now what? Knock? Excuse me, Mrs. Becker? I was wondering if I could see your father’s old bedroom so I can steal his notebook?

  She didn’t think that would work.

  Elly continued around the house and peered through a window looking into the kitchen. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes. She went to the next window, a sitting room that looked like no one had sat in it in years. Another window looked in on Mrs. Becker’s studio. A half-finished painting of a robin sat propped on an easel. The table beside it was covered with dried-up paints and brushes.

  Elly moved from window to window but saw no sign that anyone was home.

  The back door was unlocked. She pulled it open slowly, wincing at the groan of rusting hinges. The small mudroom was full of dusty old flowerpots, gardening tools, and stale air. She listened. Nothing.

  The mudroom led into the kitchen, which was even messier than it had looked from outside and reeked of old garbage. On the table was an open jar of peanut butter, a box of Ritz crackers, and a teacup with a drying tea bag next to it. She crept through the kitchen to the hallway leading to the living room. A curving staircase led to the upper floors.

  Again, she stopped and listened. If Stuey’s mom was home she was being very quiet. Maybe she was sleeping.

  Elly knew that Stuey’s grandfather’s old room was on the second floor at the end of the hall, right under Stuey’s bedroom. She climbed the stairs slowly, keeping to the outside of the steps to avoid creaking. At the landing she looked each way. To her left there was a short hallway with a door on each side. On her right was a longer hallway, with four doors. One of the doors stood open. She edged up to the open door and peeked inside. It was a bedroom. The covers were thrown back and lay in a tangle at the foot of the bed. Clothes were strewn on the floor. Glasses and plates were piled on the nightstand.

  Elly moved past the room and approached the door at the end of the hall. She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  Inside, the room was a blur. At first she didn’t know what she was looking at, then she realized the room was filled with spiderwebs from floor to ceiling. It looked like stringy fog.

  Clunk-ka-clunk. Clunk-ka-clunk. Clunk-ka-clunk.

  Mrs. Becker was coming down from the third floor, her clogs clunking on the steps. Elly didn’t want to face her — she could never explain what she was doing there. She took a deep breath, stepped into the webbing, and quietly closed the door.

  Clunk-ka-clunk-ka-clunk-ka-clunk . . . The sound got louder, then faded as Stuey’s mom descended to the first floor.

  Elly breathed shallowly through her nose. Her arms and face tickled unpleasantly from the hundreds of fine strands of sticky webbing. She waved her arms, making a space for herself. Wispy strands hung from her hands and forearms. She didn’t see any spiders, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  The center of the room wasn’t so bad — most of the cobwebs were along the walls. She looked around at the things Stuey’s grandfather had left behind: the sword, the books, the photos, and a wooden stand holding several oddly carved pipes. There was a cardboard box full of moldy yellow papers on the bed. Leaning against the wall in the corner was an old leather golf bag. She brushed away the cobwebs and unzipped the side pocket.

  There it was. The notebook. Just as Stuey had said it would be. She opened it and read a few lines.

  Clunk-ka-clunk, clunk-ka-clunk . . .

  Mrs. Becker was coming back up the stairs.

  Clunk-ka-clunk, clunk-ka-clunk . . .

  The sound lessened — she was going up to the third floor. Elly opened the door and peeked out. The hallway was empty.

  Carrying the notebook, she crept down the stairway to the kitchen and let herself out the back door. She ran across the yard. As she entered the orchard she tripped and fell headlong. The notebook flew from her hands. She climbed to her feet and looked back at what had tripped her. Stuey’s grandfather’s gravestone. The notebook had landed a few yards away in the tall grasses. Elly grabbed it and glanced back at the house.

  From the third-floor window — Stuey’s bedroom — Mrs. Becker was staring out at her, haggard and ghostly pale.

  Elly ran. She ran through the orchard and the meadow to where her kayak waited. She jumped in and paddled out onto the lake, not stopping or looking back until she reached the deadhead.

  “Stuey?” Her voice seemed small. There was no response. She stared at the bow of the kayak, willing him to appear as he had before.

  Nothing.

  She looked back toward shore, half expecting Mrs. Bec
ker to be standing there, but saw only the ring of dead poplar trees. After a time, she opened the notebook and began to read.

  Elly closed the notebook. Her stomach was a knot. Her brain felt as if it wanted to burst out of her skull. She shuddered at the thought of the hours she had spent in Castle Rose, of the voices she and Stuey had heard, of the day the slab had grabbed her and tried to pull her down into the earth. She thought about the angry scarecrow man in the suit. Had that been her great-grandfather? He had looked a bit like her uncle Rob.

  She imagined the two dead men twined together for decades, still arguing, still hating each other.

  And now? They were still down there, directly beneath her, under the water, under the slab. Were they still fighting?

  She pushed away from the deadhead with her paddle. Strange — the deadhead was sticking up higher than she remembered. She started to turn the kayak, then stopped. Her mouth fell open. Something was wrong. The shoreline had gotten closer. The poplar grove was now on dry land. She spun the kayak. The wooded hillside to the east looked bigger — the water didn’t rise up quite so high. The lake had shrunk. Were they draining it? She looked to the north, toward the Barnett Creek inlet.

  A long, low building, like a small shopping center, stood between the lake and the highway.

  But that was wrong. That land was part of Westdale Wood. The building hadn’t been there this morning. It hadn’t been there an hour ago.

  It was impossible.

  Stuey wandered through the mall, not really looking at anything, just thinking about Elly, trying to understand what had happened. She’d said that in her world there was no mall, and the woods had been flooded to make a lake. In Elly’s world, Castle Rose was underwater.

  Was there a copy of Gramps’s notebook in her world? Would she find it? What would happen when she read it? Would anything change?

  He walked past the food court. The mall cop was still there. Stuey wanted to get back to his table in case Elly came back, but he knew if the security guy saw him he’d be asked to leave again. Especially since he didn’t have enough money left to buy anything.