Silently we walked down the driveway. Now that the trees were bare, we could see farther into the woods, all the way to the road.
“Erica,” I said, “did you see anything in the woods? A sort of dark shape, a shadow maybe?”
“No.”
“But you were sitting on that log, staring into the woods as if you were talking to somebody. And then you got up and walked straight toward whatever it was.”
She shook her head. “That’s what you thought I was doing.”
“Well, what were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
I wanted to shake the truth out of her, but I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and finally said, “You told me you had a secret. Is it something you do in the woods? Someone you see? Or talk to? Do you still hear whispers in the dark?”
Erica looked at me at last, her pale face closed tight. “A secret is something you don’t tell anyone, Daniel. That’s what it means.”
“Does Mom know?”
“I just told you. It’s only a secret if you don’t tell anyone.” With that, Erica ran down the driveway ahead of me.
I picked up a stone and threw it into the woods as far as I could. Thonk. It hit a tree and bounced off. I was frustrated. No matter what I asked, Erica would not give me an answer. Somehow, my seven-year-old sister was getting the best of me.
I caught up with her at the end of the driveway. Shivering in the wind, we waited silently for the bus. I’d given up talking to her. What was the point?
Eight
As soon as we boarded the bus, Mrs. Plummer noticed Erica’s mood. “What’s the matter, sweetie? You get up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”
Or something, I thought.
“It’s my doll, Little Erica, you know—the one I told you about. My brother made me leave her in the woods, and now she’s gone.”
Mrs. Plummer turned around and looked directly at me. “Why on earth did you do something like that?”
As usual, I was being blamed. “It’s kind of complicated,” I said. “I thought, well, I won’t tell you what I thought. It’s dumb, and you wouldn’t believe me. Let’s just say I made a mistake, and I’m really sorry and I’ll find the doll after school.”
“He won’t find her no matter how hard he looks.” Erica turned her face to the window and pressed her nose against the glass. “She’s been took,” Erica whispered to herself in a voice so low I scarcely heard her.
Mrs. Plummer looked at me in the rearview mirror. “What makes you think I won’t believe you?”
“My parents don’t.” She was slowing down to pick up Brody. With him getting on the bus, I couldn’t tell her what I saw.
“Tell me later,” Mrs. Plummer told me.
As usual, Brody gave me a nasty look as he walked past. He was heading for a seat at the back of the bus where he and his friends sat.
Ignoring him, I looked straight ahead, and Erica looked out the window. We rode in silence all the way to school.
My day was no worse than usual. A B-minus on a history report because I’d gotten a date wrong. A bloody nose in basketball—an accident of course. And so on and so on.
The bus ride home was worse than usual because Erica still refused to speak to me. Without her to talk to, I had to listen to rude comments about my sweater, my haircut, my shoes, and who knows what. I wondered how the kids on the bus had entertained themselves before I’d had the bad luck to move to Woodville.
After Brody got off, Mrs. Plummer glanced at us in the rearview mirror once or twice, but she didn’t have anything to say until she stopped at the end of our driveway. “I hope you find the doll, but be quick about it. It gets dark early, and I don’t want you getting lost in the woods.”
She shut the door and drove away, heading home, I guessed, to her husband and kids. We stood at the side of the road and looked down the driveway. The trees were a tunnel of darkness already.
“Let’s go straight to the woods and look for your doll,” I said.
“She won’t be there,” Erica said in the flat little voice she’d been using all day.
“Yes, she will.” I took her hand to hurry her along, but she pulled away and ran ahead.
I chased her through the field’s tall weeds and into the woods. In a few minutes I came to the dead tree, the clearing, and the fallen log. How had Dad and I missed it last night?
Erica waited for me, empty-handed. “She’s not here.”
“She must be.” I ran around looking in piles of fallen leaves, under bushes, behind logs, even leaving the clearing to search the woods.
Erica stayed where she was, her arms folded across her chest, shivering.
“I don’t understand it.” I pointed to the place where I’d last seen Little Erica. “She was right there.” I kicked at the leaves, scattering them, thinking the doll had to be under them.
Erica hugged herself as if she still held the doll in her arms. “She’s been took.”
“‘Took’? That’s how the kids in Woodville talk, not you and me. We say ‘taken.’ And besides, who took her?”
“Selene.” The name dropped from Erica’s lips like a stone. “The girl who lives on the tippity top of a hill with her old auntie.”
“Are you crazy or just a liar? Selene disappeared fifty years ago. Nobody’s seen her since.”
Honestly, I wasn’t as sure as I tried to sound. My feeling of being watched, the darkness of the woods surrounding the house, Erica’s behavior, the tension between Mom and Dad, the unhappiness we’d all sunk into—everything was wrong. Maybe, just maybe, it all tied in with Selene Estes. Or something else—I didn’t know what.
My brain was muddled. My hands and nose were cold, and I wanted to go home, light the fire, and play games on my iPad.
Erica stared into the woods, at the very spot where I’d seen, or thought I’d seen, the shadow thing.
“You saw something yesterday,” I said. “I know it.”
“Suppose I did?” Erica’s pale face looked spooky in the dim light, her eyes too big for her face and shadowed with dark circles.
“What did you see?” I stood over her. “I want to know!”
“It’s a secret. I made a promise, I—” She was crying now.
Angry and frustrated by her silent, secret ways, I pulled her to her feet and shook her. Not hard, just a little. “I’m serious. There’s something going on, and I need to know what it is.”
“Let me go, let me go!” Erica struggled to get away. It was just like the day before, and I was fed up.
“Tell me!” I shouted. “Tell me the truth, you little liar!” I let go of her and shoved her so hard she fell on her back in the leaves.
Scrambling to her feet, she glared at me like a wild thing. Her hair hung in her face; leaves clung to her jacket. “I hate you, Daniel! No matter what you do, you can’t make me tell. Never never never!”
She spun around and dashed into the woods.
“Come back here!” I yelled.
I ran after her, slipping and sliding on fallen leaves, tripping on roots hidden beneath the leaves. A branch she’d brushed aside flew back and hit my eye. Its thorns clawed my face.
Smarting from pain, I shouted, “Go on, then, stupid! Run. You’ll be sorry if you get lost and it’s dark and cold and . . .” I stopped yelling because I couldn’t hear her crashing through the bushes anymore.
Fine, I thought. I brought her home yesterday. I’m not doing it again. Let her find her own way back, maybe it’ll teach her a lesson.
I turned away and followed the path back to the house. It was practically dark, and a cold wind hissed through the dry weeds. Erica wouldn’t stay long in the woods. She probably knew a shortcut. When I got home, she’d be there, sitting on the couch, smirking because she’d beaten me. Mom would never know I’d let my sister run off into the woods without me.
The Taking
The old woman returns to the clearing and waits for Erica and her hateful brother. She leaves the dolly hi
dden in the woods near her cabin. She has another use for it.
She hears them coming before she sees them. Their voices are loud and angry.
The hateful brother can’t believe the doll is gone, but Erica knows who took it. That girl, she tells him. The one who lives with her auntie on the tippity top of a hill. They fight, and the hateful brother pushes his sister. She falls backward into the leaves. Now she knows he hates her. She must find the cabin and the girl.
She scrambles to her feet and runs away from him. The old woman makes sure he gives up and goes home.
She lets Erica run until she’s too tired to go farther. She watches Erica sink down on the ground and cry. She waits until the trees thicken with shadows. The wind blows harder, its breath as cold as death. Bloody Bones snuffles and snorts in the dead leaves, looking for grubs or voles, anything juicy or crunchy.
Erica hears him coming closer, step by shuffling step. She whimpers and cries and curls herself into a ball.
When the old woman is sure that Erica cannot run or put up a fight, she steps out of the woods in her own shape. Her ragged cloak billows around her gnarled body. Strands of white hair stream across her bony face. She stands over Erica, leaning on her staff, older than old, crueler than cruel, as wicked as the devil hisself.
“Air-ric-cah,” she croons. “Air-ric-cah, come to Auntie.”
Erica looks up. The old woman takes her arm and pulls her roughly to her feet. “You belong to me now. No one wants you but me, no one loves you but me. They’ve forgot all about you, and you’ve forgot all about them.”
Smiling to herself, the old woman drags Erica through the woods to her cabin. She has what she wants.
Nine
When I slammed into the kitchen, Erica wasn’t there. I called out, just in case, but there’s something about an empty house. You always know when you’re alone.
I pictured her taking her time coming home, sulking, mad, hoping I’d worry about her. Little brat. I couldn’t stand my sister anymore. I was sick of her. Sick of her scenes. Sick of the doll. I hoped we’d never find it.
I smeared a thick layer of peanut butter on a piece of bread, poured myself a glass of cider, and went to my room to play games on my iPad. But for some reason I couldn’t concentrate. The silence of the house pressed against my ears. A clock ticked. The refrigerator turned off and on. A gust of wind rattled the windowpanes. Noises you never heard except when there were no other noises.
I closed my iPad and went to the window. Where was Erica? I walked down the hall to her room. Maybe she’d been hiding there all the time, playing a trick on me. Yes, that must be it. She’d beaten me home, run upstairs, and hidden. It was just the sort of prank she’d pull.
Fully expecting to see her sitting on her bed, laughing at me, I flung open the door and flicked on the light. A row of stuffed animals sat on the window seat, staring at me with shiny round eyes.
I called my sister’s name. I looked under her bed and in the closet, expecting her to jump out and scare me. No Erica.
As I turned to leave the room, I saw the van’s headlights coming down the driveway. With a half-formed hope that Erica would be with Mom and Dad, I ran down the back stairs to the kitchen and opened the door before Dad had a chance to fumble with his key.
“Well, thanks, buddy.” Dad brushed past me and set a case of wine down on the counter with a thud.
Mom was right behind him, balancing a stack of carryout cartons from Lucky’s Chinese Restaurant. “No pizza tonight. Moo goo gai pan for you and me and Erica.”
“And General Tso’s chicken for me.” Dad turned to the cupboard to get dinner plates. “Go fetch Erica so we can eat before the won ton soup gets cold.”
“Why are you just standing there?” Mom asked. “What’s wrong? Where’s Erica?”
“She—” I took a deep breath, then started again. “She’s not, she’s, she’s not—”
Mom left the kitchen. “Erica,” she called. “Erica!”
Dad grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him. “What’s going on, Daniel? Where’s your sister?”
“She’s not here, Dad. I don’t know where she is. We had a fight. She wouldn’t come home with me—she, she ran off—”
“She ran off?” Dad stared at me. “Why didn’t you go after her? How could you let her run off?”
“I tried to stop her, Dad, but she was mad just like yesterday, and I—”
His eyes lit on the jar of peanut butter and the loaf of bread I’d forgotten to put away. “You came home and ate a sandwich? Is that what you did?”
“I thought she’d be here any minute. I never imagined she’d do something like this.”
Mom reappeared. “She’s not in the house, Ted.”
Dad grabbed my shoulders again, harder this time. “Where did you last see her?”
“In the clearing. We were looking for the doll, but she wasn’t there, and Erica wouldn’t come home with me. She got mad. She said it was all my fault, and then she ran away from me, and I got mad at her and came home.”
Dad swore softly. “Martha, you stay here in case she comes back. Daniel, grab your jacket and a couple of flashlights.”
I followed Dad out into the cold, dark night. The wind was blowing harder now, and the trees sent wild rocking shadows across the driveway. In the woods, Dad began calling Erica. I joined in.
Erica, Erica, Erica. Her name bounced from tree to tree, caught by the wind, tossed into the sky. But she didn’t answer. She didn’t come.
“Where are you?” Dad called, his voice scraped raw from shouting.
Are you, are you, are you, the trees repeated. Creatures in the underbrush rustled. An owl screeched.
Our voices sounded small in the noisy darkness.
We called her name again and again. We waved our flashlights in hope that she’d see their bobbing light. We were hoarse from calling. And desperate when she didn’t answer.
The faint trail gave out, and we began circling back to the house without realizing it until we saw the lights in the windows.
“We need to call the police,” Dad said. “We don’t know the land the way they do. We’ll get lost ourselves if we keep going.”
Wordlessly, we made our way home. Mom was on the front porch, shivering in her warmest down coat. “You didn’t find her?”
“No.” Dad stopped to hug her. Mom clung to him. They stood there whispering to each other, as if they’d forgotten about me. I waited, shifting my weight from one frozen foot to the other, afraid Bloody Bones might be watching us from the trees.
Not that I believed he actually existed, not in my world, the real world, the five-senses world. But with the wind blowing and the moon sailing in and out of clouds like a ghost racing across the sky, I could almost believe I’d crossed a border into another world, where anything could be true—even conjure women and spells and monsters.
The police came sooner than we’d expected. We heard their sirens and saw their flashing lights before they’d even turned into the driveway. Four cars and an ambulance stopped at the side of the house. Doors opened, men got out. A couple of them had dogs, big German shepherds who pulled on their leashes, excited. Flashing lights washed the living room walls with red and blue.
“Why did they bring an ambulance?” Mom clung to Dad, her face a strange ashen color.
He frowned at the scene outside. “It’s standard procedure when something like this happens.”
Something like what? I wondered. No one was hurt. We didn’t need an ambulance. Unless they thought—but no, Erica wasn’t hurt, she was just lost. They’d find her fast with those dogs. I’d tell her I was sorry I got mad at her. I was scared, that was all. Scared of what? An old folktale? I shivered as a draft of cold air came creeping into the house. At my age, how could I be scared of a bogeyman?
Two policemen came inside and went upstairs. I heard their shoes clunking overhead. A policewoman sat down with us at the dining room table. She had questions: Erica’s full name
and age, a description of her and the clothes she was wearing, and the circumstances of her disappearance.
“Daniel was supposed to walk home from the school-bus stop with Erica,” Mom said in a shaky voice, “but they had a fight, and, and—” She faltered and tried to brush away her tears.
The detective turned to me. “What was the fight about?” She’d been jotting things in a little notebook, and now she sat looking at me, waiting, her pen poised. She had stubby fingers and close-cut fingernails, no polish. No makeup either. A plain face, short hair. Not very friendly. Small, hard eyes. The name on her badge said Detective Irma Shank.
I told her what I’d told Dad, still leaving out any mention of things in the woods or Selene Estes. My hands shook, and one leg jiggled without my being able to stop it.
“So he came home and ate a peanut butter sandwich,” Mom said when I’d finished. “Then I imagine he went upstairs to play a game on his iPad. When we came home, he panicked and told us what happened.”
While Mom talked, Detective Shank watched me, still jotting things down. “Is that what you did, Daniel?”
“Yes, but I thought Erica was playing a trick on me. She does things like that.”
She looked at Dad and Mom, and they nodded. “Sometimes Erica is very willful,” Dad said. “She’s not happy here.”
I wanted to say, That goes for all of us, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Where did you live before you moved here?”
“Fairfield, Connecticut,” Dad said.
Detective Shank leaned across the table. “I know your daughter’s only seven, but do you think she’d try to go back there?”
Dad and Mom looked at each other and shook their heads. None of us could picture Erica going to Connecticut. She had no money, and even if she did, what ticket seller would let her get on a bus all by herself?
“She’s high-strung, fearful,” Mom said. “I can’t imagine her being outside in the dark—she’s afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a light on.” Now Mom began to cry in earnest. “She must be so scared. And so cold.”