Adam's Woods (32 page)

He reached the tree where the sparrow waited patiently. Without hesitation he touched the bark, and now the boy stood with his killer, but no fear showed on his face yet. He knew him. Had to have known him.

The bird led him on, tree by tree, signpost by signpost, until the scenes indicated that the next would contain the final act.

He would have known this final tree without the bird, but was grateful for its presence and the light it created. But it didn't sing, and didn't land on the almost bare branches but lit in a bush nearby to wait in somber silence. The tree was twisted and gnarled, but not ugly; rather, beautiful in its misshapenness, a natural sculpture depicting the weight of evil bearing down on innocence, and that innocence bowed but never broken. The few leaves still populating it seemed to grow in defiance. Sean's hand trembled as he reached out, not only in fear of what he would finally see, but in reverence. On contact, he felt the current, and real pain that resided in the tree's heartwood. This time he didn't receive a burst of an image, but a record of the event.

Sean watched and wept: for the boy, for choices that allowed hands that might have built bridges and machinery or healed to instead steal the life of a child, for all of the children that the man held captive. He grieved for and pitied them, had dipped his fingers briefly into the waters of their baptism, knew their horror enough to understand he couldn't fathom it and didn't want to.

When it was over, when he could breathe again and see through the blur of his tears, Sean found himself on one knee, his hands resting on the end of the wood - the other end sunk into the ground - and with his head bowed. I'm like a knight, he thought, at first an absurd image but then he accepted the rightness of the pose. After all, there was no one else.

He stood up with his wood, more potent than any weapon of forged steel, and continued on. He didn't have far to go. Again, the scene was obvious to one that had followed the trail this far. He found the boy's bones in a shallow grave surrounded by a stand of thin white birch trees. They had a noble air to them, and he entered their sanctuary with respect, would have whispered had he something to say. Lush green grass grew within, except in one small place in the center. There, on sunken soil covered with moss, rested a rock decorated with orange and green lichen, the most striking headstone he had ever seen. He gently removed the stone, wondering how it had traveled there, but guessed that no human eyes had or would ever know.

He dug gently, finding the small bones easily and transferring them to his backpack. The sparrow began to sing from one of the birches, a sad, sweet song repeated over and over until Sean had the melody and hummed along. A dirge and a celebration all in one. The bird's light shone brighter now than before.

When the hole was empty, he took the rock and put it inside, then replaced the small pile of dirt. He drank the rest of his water, and stood up. The sky was lighter, he noticed. Like the hour before dawn. He wanted to lay down and sleep in the grass, but knew he couldn't. It had to end now. Silas was waiting, needed him. He walked quickly to the boundary of the grove before he could change his mind.

He found the small boy again, standing just outside. Sean looked beyond him and saw them all. They stared back in silence, their malice palpable, and he wasn't sure anymore if they wouldn't hurt him. Maybe they always had that ability, but the man had held them in check. No more.

"Sean...Sean...Sean..." He heard his name whispered over and over, overlapping, then all at once in a whispering roar and then subsiding, a smattering of raindrops before the storm; spoken as an obscenity, in perverse glee, in hatred as if he, and not the man, had caused all of their suffering.

He felt only ten again, felt as if he had stepped onto the playground to confront a student body comprised solely of bullies minus any teachers to intervene, bullies that intended to tear him to pieces. The grove, like the cabin, seemed to hold a sacred power that kept them out. And as with the cabin, staying here could only delay the inevitable. His only comfort was that, before he had to pull his eyes away from their unblinking, hateful stares, he didn't see Silas among them.

In desperation, he yelled,"I'm not your enemy! He did this to you! You should help me!" Confusion rippled through the crowd, in some of the children that might have been the more recent additions and less saturated by darkness, but then the small boy mimicked him.

"You should help me...You should help me..." he said in a mocking, sing-song voice.

Soon they all joined in, and the chant morphed into "We should kill you...we will kill you..."

Sean became angry. He seethed at their stupidity, even though he knew the hell of their prison, and pitied them, too. But he hadn't come so far to back down, and hated the man more for sending them instead of coming himself. The act of a coward. And an act of desperation. The image of the knight came again, this time not absurd at all. So he did what knights do. He charged. First making sure the backpack was secure, both the zipper and the straps, he shouted his best battle cry, ran forward, and thrust the wood into the space occupied by the small ghost boy.

The boy's face twisted into something only remotely human, and Sean shuddered and fell back to within the grove and its protection. The boy gnashed his teeth and reached for him, but his translucent hand hit the space between the trees and bounced back as though striking a solid barrier. Then his small wicked grin returned, and Sean despaired. If he stepped out of the tree's protective circle, they would have him. If he stayed here, his bones would replace the ones taken from the grave.

The boy's face changed. The grin remained, but the evil drained away, until it was real and not formed in a mocking parody by something with no business behind a child's smile; just the expression of a kid. The boy looked around, back at the other ghosts that had quieted with all eyes on their leader, and then back at Sean. Sean noticed that he could see less of the other children now through his form.

He said, "Thank you, Sean." and vanished.

The sparrow chirped from the trees, and then flew out over the gathering. The children watched it, fear and confusion and hatred in their expressions.

Sean read its command and stepped out of the grove. He swung the wood in a wide arc. A group came in a rush, and he braced himself for the contact. They stopped short of him, but within range of his weapon and waited expectantly, had come to fall on his sword and its offered freedom. He swung his scrap of wood, the contact rewarded with with sweet smiles, childrens’ laughter, whispered thank you's and his name spoken again, but with near adoration and he laughed with them, this killing a thing of beauty and wonder.

And then he faced the remnant, a group like the first boy, that could never be enticed to come on their own accord, had lived in the dark too long, light and its remembrance leached from their souls. At least thirty of them, boys and girls of all ages. One appeared to have been only four or so when the man took him. Sean went for him first out of pity, felt the first of their blows as they closed around him, attacked and shouted until he was hoarse to drown out their ceaseless jabbering. The sparrow flew through them, breaking up their attacks as they swatted at it like he had at the wasps, its distractions allowing him to single them out.

He felt a tug at the backpack and a strap fell from from his shoulder. He turned and skewered another child with the wood who writhed in agony and then ecstasy on the ground. But still they came. Several more got behind him and pulled fiercely on the pack. He hit a small girl, but her partner wrenched it free and flung it to the rest, a final group of a dozen or more. Sean ran at them, his arm and head aching, bleeding real blood from their phantom scratches, but in renewed desperation. If he lost the bones, he lost everything.

But they had it open before he could get there, was confronted with what must have been a farm boy in life who meant to stand his ground, and stopped. He had failed. Even the sparrow had disappeared. A girl with dirty brown hair but a pretty face that he would have been shy around in another time and place turned it upside down and dumped out the remains. They laughed, all except the girl. She reached down and lifted the skull, looked into the eye sockets and then touched her own face. The others, aware of her silence, stopped their noise and watched.

Then slowly, she walked towards Sean. She held out the skull and said in broken English, "This...I was. This you...Sean...are. Be Sean. Kill him." She rushed forward, onto the wood he had held out in defense, and shrieked. Her momentum had carried her close, her face only inches from his. He caught the skull with one hand before it could fall to the ground and shatter. She relaxed, the ancient lines around her eyes smoothing to taut, youthful skin, and she smiled. Life bloomed in her sky blue eyes. She leaned forward slightly and kissed him on the mouth. A light, innocent kiss from one who would never know another, a kiss he would remember to the end of his life. She vanished, and he closed his eyes to take in the smell of lilacs and springtime left behind.

The remaining children came to him, carrying the backpack. They had replaced its contents, and Sean added the skull and once more threaded his arms through the straps. He didn't have the heart to attack them. The fight was done. He held up the wood, and one by one they came and grasped it. The power it held did its work, and he stood alone in the forest again.

He no longer felt tired. The sparrow flew overhead and back the way they came. To the cabin and the man. And to Silas, the last ghost to be set free.

He expected the man to try and stop him, but the return journey was easy. He made out the shape of the cabin as they approached, and thought that by destroying the evil within the children, maybe he had destroyed the man. That Silas hadn't known everything.

Only ten paces away. The bird had stopped leading and sat on a branch behind him, but it didn't matter now. He just had to step through the door with the bones, and it should be over, maybe an empty gesture but he would follow it through to the end. He began to feel the heavy weight of this experience lift, and stirring beneath the grief for all that had been lost.

The man stepped out from behind the cabin. In one hand he held a knife, long and cruel. With his other arm he encircled the neck of a boy. Not a ghost boy. A real boy. Jake, his brother.

Jake was two years older than him, looked more like their mother, a tall, quiet boy that loved the woods and streams, fishing and camping. They were brothers and friends. The joy he felt at seeing Jake alive was overshadowed by fear that made his stomach clench.

"Let him go! Jake, are you okay? Let my brother go!"

"Give me the bones, Sean, and you can have your brother back. I don't want to hurt him. I killed all of the others, but not him. I just couldn't. He's too much like you."

He looked for a sign from Jake, to tell him what to do. Jake shook his head quickly. The man sensed the movement and tightened his grip. Jake grimaced.

"Give them to me, boy. Or I'll slit his throat while you watch."

"Okay, here. Take them." Sean said, and shook off the backpack. He set it on the ground at his feet.

"No, pick it up and bring it here. But throw the wood away first."

Sean tossed the wood into the brush without hesitation, then picked up the backpack and took a step towards him.

He heard Silas speak from within the cabin.

"Sean, don't do it." "He'll kill your brother anyway, and you too. He'll take us all and start again. You have to bring the bones in here."

"No, Silas. I can't. He's my brother. He's Jake," Sean said, beginning to cry. He took another step, and the man smiled. He couldn't see the features, but he knew he smiled. "Promise me! Promise you'll let him go!”

"Yes ,Sean. I promise.” The man smiled, and Sean felt a warmth and sweetness emanate from it, and despite all he knew wanted to believe.

"He lies, Sean. You know he lies. I told you he always holds one back. Just for this. You can't stop. Jake will die, but so will he. Your brother won't suffer like we did."

He hated Silas, then. Hated him because he knew he told the truth. His brother would die. He knew this but took another step. Three more and it would be over. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the man's touch. How Jake stood up against it, he didn't know. Perhaps he could open and close the abyss inside at will. But Jake had always been the strong one. He began to take another step, and hesitated. He searched Jake's face. Jake made eye contact with effort, smiled a sad goodbye, and managed the slightest nod.