Tip Jar

To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar by pressing the button above. I’m a starving artist and the starving part is currently a harsh and literal reality. If you can’t leave a tip, consider liking or subscribing! No matter what, thanks for taking the time to read my work! Please share it if you enjoy it :-)

The children followed the leader single file across the beach and began to climb the winding staircase from shore up to the manor somewhere high above them, mostly hidden from view. The hike up the stairs was a slog and Flaygin, cursing and out of breath, clearly hadn’t accounted for it. Already frustrated and out of patience, the man ignored the children’s squeals of protest and pushed to the top, leaving his gang of short-legged thieves to fend for themselves.

Oscar hadn’t accounted for the stairs either, but the chaos they created couldn’t have been more opportune. He had spent many nights staring at the ceiling in the dark, trying to work out this part of the plan, how he would get away from the larger group, his mind spinning round and round in circles trying to solve a problem with no solution. The thing nagging at him was a variable he had no control over: terrain. The houses they had robbed previously came in all shapes and sizes and he had no way of predicting what any of it might look like on the big day.

Lagging in the back of the group, climbing the stairs at a snail’s pace, Oscar kept his eyes fixed on Flaygin, watching him continue to widen the space between himself and the others, stopping occasionally to catch his breath but never once turning to check the children’s progress on the stairs. Oscar waited for Flaygin to climb high enough to have an obstructed view of the beach, then doubled back and flew down the stairs as quickly as he could manage without tumbling. He didn’t have much time. Flaygin would almost certainly notice his absence as soon as the others reached the top of the stairs. He gave himself five minutes at most.

By the time he reached the canoes Oscar was sweaty and winded, but the rush of adrenaline didn’t afford him a moment’s pause. Flaygin’s boat had a long rope tied to an anchor point on the bow and coiled neatly where a passenger’s feet might go. Usually, it sat beneath the most valuable loot, which was always in the bow of Flaygin’s boat. Oscar grabbed the entire coil of rope and tossed it to the ground, holding the tail in one hand. He pushed the canoe in the water, still holding the rope, and grabbed another canoe, dragging it into the water and feeding the tail end of the rope through the handle at the bow. He did this with all seven canoes, one by one, constructing a large, awkward flotilla.

Oscar waded up past his knees clearing Flaygin’s boat from the tangled mess of canoes trailing several feet behind, the slack floating just below the surface of the water. He slithered up and into the boat, simultaneously groping around for a paddle. His fingers closed around the shaft of a paddle as he took his seat in the middle of the boat on the starboard side. The boy got to work, digging his paddle into the water with ferocious desperation. The canoe lurched forward until the slack was used up and the rope went taut, yanking the boat back like a naughty dog on a leash. But with a few more strokes of the paddle, he managed to get the flotilla moving. It was slow, stuttering progress. The flotilla would drift forward a few feet, putting some slack in the rope and allowing Oscar to paddle freely, but after making a few feet of forward progress, he would feel the heavy yank of the other boats and stop short. Then he would pause a moment, waiting for the flotilla’s delayed reaction to the yank of the rope. Once it started drifting forward again, he would repeat the process again and again.

His arms felt like they might fall off but he bared his teeth and kept paddling, beads of sweat dripping down his sides and gathering on his brow. Eventually the flotilla began gaining momentum, but there was too much weight on one side for Oscar to steer effectively and he kept having to switch from starboard to port and back, the boat being just a bit too wide for the young boy to reach across without sliding over to the other side on his bum. He spun around accidentally, tangling himself in the rope, but only slightly. He let out a shout of frustration and turned around in his seat to untangle his boat from the others, then he resumed paddling, straightening out and aiming the bow in the direction of the channel he had scoped out when they first arrived. His body screamed in protest but the boy kept pulling with everything he had.

Oscar gradually became aware of distant shouting and whoops of excitement. Their shouts grew louder as they approached, as did the thumping of his heart. He took a peek over his shoulder and saw Flaygin sprinting in his direction, a line of children trailing behind him. And he was getting close.

“What do you think you’re doing, you little bastard,” Flaygin cried, sprinting across the beach. “I’ll fucking kill you, you little cretin.”

Oscar started to panic and paddled with a wild desperation. By this point he had only made it a few yards from shore and thought he was done for, that Flaygin would surely reach him any second, when a sudden, strong gust of wind blew in at his back, propelling the flotilla another several feet. It was as if God himself had bent over and blown at the boy’s back. Taking advantage of the wind, Oscar paddled with measured intensity and built momentum. He turned again just in time to see Flaygin run into the lake at full speed, shoes and all. He filed this away to chuckle at later, once he was at a safe distance.

Flaygin was thrashing around violently in the water, but his vigorous strokes were highly ineffective. The flotilla on the other hand, was chugging along nicely now, keeping up a slow but steady pace. Out of breath and lightheaded from the effort, Oscar allowed himself a moment’s pause and glanced over his shoulder once more and was astonished to see he had made quite a bit of progress. He wondered at a little dot bobbing up and down in the distance, before deciding it must be Flaygin’s head. He grinned a mischievous grin, proud of what he’d been able to accomplish already, and let out a cry of celebration, pumping his fist in the air and flashing his middle finger in Flaygin’s direction.

“Hey, dickhead! I think you forgot your paddle,” Oscar shouted at the top of his lungs, lifting a paddle into the air and hucking it with all his might toward the shore. The paddle sliced through the wind, spinning like a tomahawk end over end and landing with a splash. It hadn’t come close to hitting Flaygin, but simply throwing the paddle in his general direction was a catharsis. He picked up another and hucked it as well, this one sailing a bit farther than the last. He picked up another, this time by the blade, and threw it frisbee style. It smacked the water and skipped high into the air. He lifted a fourth paddle, but dropped it back into the boat and took his seat, resuming paddling. Best to keep a few spare paddles, he thought, they just might come in handy. He gathered up all of the paddles and tossed them into his boat. The journey ahead, he reminded himself, would very likely contain unknown hurdles and challenges. He couldn’t rule out the possibility of losing or breaking a paddle, something he’d seen happen before.

By now, the singular focus and the feeling of invincibility had worn off with the adrenaline, leaving Oscar exposed to the lonely realization of just how large the lake really was. His victory over Flaygin was no longer at the fore and he quickly gave in to feelings of futility and defeat. The channel he had scoped out as his escape route had seemed so close from land, but now he felt like he was paddling on a treadmill trying to reach a papered wall, nothing moving, nothing changing, no matter how hard he paddled. In the wide open water he had no frame of reference, nothing to contextualize the distance he had already traveled.

To escape the hollow pit of fear, to fend of ghastly images of various disastrous outcomes, Oscar plotted out the remaining hours of his first day of freedom in his mind, asking himself what he needed to do next. First thing, he needed to ditch the extra weight. A few extra paddles could stay, but the canoes had to go. He had originally hoped to make it to an island before dismantling the flotilla, to beach the canoes before leaving them behind, thus eliminating the possibility of their floating back to the group, but he started to wonder if that wasn’t a silly concern. He might be dragging himself down for nothing. Even if one or two of the canoes floated back to shore, Flaygin would never run the risk of leaving even one of the children behind without one of his henchmen watching over them. He would need enough space to transport the entire group, which would require three boats minimum, and that’s if they were cramming bodies in. Anything less than three and the boats wouldn’t be able to accommodate the weight even if they could squeeze everyone in on each other’s laps. No, if they tried something like that the boat would ride too low in the water, scooping it up by the gallon.

To get off that beach with the slightest comfort or ease they would need four boats. But, if Oscar kept all of the remaining paddles, the others wouldn’t get anywhere even if all six boats ended up on shore. The others would, however, likely be able to craft makeshift paddles, or worse still, there might be paddles somewhere on the expansive grounds of the manor where he’d left them. In fact, they might even have a boat of their own, he realized, a chill creeping down his spine.

Oscar made an impulse decision, reaching behind him and untying the knot tethering him to the rest of the fleet. The most important thing, he had decided, was putting as much distance between himself and Flaygin as possible. He couldn’t let the maze of possibilities distract him from the task at hand.

After a few minutes of heavy paddling, Oscar turned around to check his progress using the other boats for frame of reference. To his delight, the boats had already been reduced to distant specks. Feeling newly invigorated, he put his head down and went to work, occasionally lifting his chin to maintain a course for the island. After what felt like hours the boy finally heard the shriek of rocks scraping the hull and slithered out of the boat, collapsing on the beach in a panting heap. He could stay here as long as he liked, he realized, prone on his belly with his cheek against the dirt. With this thought, physical exhaustion took over and his eyes shut all on their own.

Oscar slowly regained consciousness, realizing he was batting at mosquitos and curled tightly into a shivering ball. It was dark and the boy was disoriented, but he had to do something to improve his situation immediately, so he rose to his feet and looked around aimlessly, clawing at bug bites. The most important thing, he decided, was shelter from the wind. Looking around, he doubted there would be any sign of human life on this random little island beyond a few scraps of garbage. He made a mental inventory of the things in the canoe, but there wasn’t much. He had a few spare lifejackets he could use for warmth and padding, but they were likely wet.

His feet still planted in the sand, he leaned over the canoe to check the status of the life jackets, which were indeed a bit damp. He dug around until he found the driest one and tossed it onto the beach to use as a pillow. As he pushed himself back onto his feet, the canoe toppled over and he realized the solution to his problem was right in front of him. He turned the canoe upside down and shook all the loose items out then dragged it a few feet up the shore to a level stretch of beach.

He wriggled under the boat and felt an instant sense of security. He grinned at his coffin-like bivouac.

“Hello,” he said loudly, his voice echoing back at him.

His grin widened and he rolled onto his side, staring out through the little gaps between the gunwales and the sand where the curve of the boat didn’t follow the flat surface of the ground. Scooping up a handful of sand, he scooted it under the gap between the boat and the ground and patted it in place. He kept at it until he had sealed off the outside world, bugs and wind and all. Within a few minutes the interior of the canoe had warmed up several degrees and Oscar found himself drifting off to sleep once again.

A drop of condensation landed on Oscar’s face, waking him with a start. Confused and disoriented, he shot up to seated, smacking the top of his head against the floor of the canoe. The hot air was thick with his own moisture and he was soaked with sweat. His hands hurt when he tried to bend his fingers and he noticed they were swollen and red, his fingers shriveled as if he had just gone for a long swim. Feeling an irresistible urge to escape the stuffy shelter and jump in the lake, he pushed the boat up and off of himself with one careless shove, flinging sand into his eyes. He let out an exasperated grunt and punched the side of the boat, hard. He regretted this instantly, crying out again and shaking his hand as if he could flick the pain off like water.

After a quick dip in the lake Oscar had forgotten all about the frustrating start to his day. A new concern had taken over: hunger. Wasting no time taking in scenery, the boy launched his boat within a few moments of waking. He didn’t have a map, but he had an idea of where he was headed from looking at maps of the lake in the past. He was heading east and no matter how he tilted his head or where he positioned his hand, the rising sun bounced off the water’s surface and straight into his eyes. Finding no alternative solution, he was forced to paddle with his eyes shut, periodically peeling one eye open to check his course.

Soon the sun was high in the sky and out of his eyes. His stomach rumbled and contracted and he began to feel nauseous from exertion. He had to eat something soon if he wanted to keep paddling. He looked left, then right. Lake on all sides. The next estate he came across, he decided, he was stopping to raid a pantry. As he carried on paddling his imagination tortured him with visions of sliced deli meat, pickles, fruit and nuts.

Oscar’s luck that first day was poor and by the time he finally encountered the first signs of human habitation the sun was already low in the sky behind him. Seeing something man-made, even though it was only a neglected old dock, had snapped him out of a trance and he felt his hunger and his exhaustion all at once. His arms were limp noodles and he didn’t think he could keep going any longer. He reached out for the dock and nearly fell in the water. One more stroke of the paddle felt impossible, like his forearm would separate from his upper arm at the elbow, but he winced through it, gritting his teeth and grinning like a mad man, pulling himself over to the rickety structure.

He clambered up onto the dock, pulling the bowline up with him and fastening it to a post to prevent the boat drifting off, then promptly collapsed. He was asleep in an instant and this time he slept soundly through the night despite being bombarded by bugs and exposed to the wind. In the morning he felt groggy and confused and didn’t want to get up to face the day. He rolled over on his side and fell asleep again but eventually his grumbling belly could no longer be ignored. By the time he finally sat up and started moving, the sun was already high in the sky and he felt discouraged.

Unhitching the bowline from the dock, Oscar slid down into the canoe and started paddling. In the light of day, Oscar could see a crumbling shack in the woods beyond the dock and he hoped this wasn’t the only sign of life. But his luck had improved with the dawning of a new day and after a few short minutes of paddling he rounded a bend and saw a sweeping estate off in the distance. He paddled along the shore eagerly now and beached the canoe. He dragged it into a patch of brush and shoved it into a bush, obscuring it from view, then started exploring the area, getting his bearings.

Oscar followed a small footpath until the rocky beach gave way to a finely manicured lawn surrounded by a wrought iron fence and flanked on all sides by enormous, carefully placed trees. The gate stood open and Oscar let himself in, shutting it reflexively as he passed. He strolled across the huge lawn, at least as large as a soccer pitch, smiling at his luck and wondering if he would be able to make a grilled cheese. In his experience robbing similar homes, these places often didn’t have power or gas or running water once they had been abandoned for the season, but even if he had to suck cold beans from a can he’d be happy. He wanted to take a salt shaker and shake out a small mound on his tongue.

A small set of stairs led up to the front door and he tried the knob. Locked, of course. He kicked aside a welcome mat but there had been nothing hidden underneath so he looked around and decided to try a different entrance. He rounded the house and tried several windows and the sliding glass door to the back porch all with no luck. Finding himself back at the front door again, he sat on the steps and tapped his feet nervously, contemplating next steps, when his eyes landed on a rock the size of a baseball.

“Bingo,” he said quietly. A smashed window hadn’t been his preferred entrance, but, seeing no other option, he rose to his feet and stooped over to pick up the rock.

To the boy’s surprise and confusion, the rock was deceptively lightweight, a piece of hollow plastic with something rattling around within. He turned the thing over in his hands and slid a back cover off, revealing a key inside. He smiled at his dumb luck and turned around eagerly, salt on the brain.

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Tip Jar

To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar by pressing the button above. I’m a starving artist and the starving part is currently a harsh and literal reality. If you can’t leave a tip, consider liking or subscribing! No matter what, thanks for taking the time to read my work! Please share it if you enjoy it :-)

“Either of y’all got experience paddling a canoe?” Oscar asked. Haddie and Hobby both wagged their heads. “Don’t matter much either way. I got the thing all the way here all by myself, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble showing y’all two how to make useful. Fairly simple stuff. Dip, pull, dip and then, you guessed it, pull. Anyway the canoe’s the first piece of the plan. It’s waiting for us in the bushes a ways down the beach. It took me about a week of paddling to get here so I expect a similar timeframe going back the other direction, hopefully a couple days quicker with your help.”

“Where’d you learn how to canoe? I’ve always wanted to try it out! This is gonna be so much fun I can’t hardly wait,” Haddie said, jumping to her feet with excitement. It was her turn to pace around the room. “I wish it were tomorrow already. What do you say, Hobby, I think we have us an early night tonight so the morning comes quicker.”

Hobby offered up a weak smile, trying in vain to match Haddie’s excitement. He desperately hoped his friends didn’t find his lack of enthusiasm suspicious, but he couldn’t find the strength to pretend convincingly; his mood was too foul. Haddie cocked her head and squinted at him, waiting for him to say something. He mustered up a few words and opened his mouth to speak.

“I ain’t sure either one of us’ll be able to sleep no matter what time we go to bed, on account of all the excitement,” Hobby managed a halfway convincing dry chuckle, enough to mollify Haddie for the moment, even if the words had been hollow.

“Guys, I need y’all to remember this ain’t no summer camp and I ain’t no camp counselor with a whistle and a compass. Fact, I ain’t got neither one so you two better listen up.” Oscar said, his terse tone at odds with his congenial facial expression. “This here’s serious business. We don’t know what kind of dangerous situations we might encounter out there on the water, and don’t matter how scared you might get out there, it’s always worse on shore. Grownups everywhere you look and every one of ‘em means you harm one way or the other. If they ain’t looking to sling you over their shoulder and toss you down in the cellar then they’re probably looking to call the police to pick you up. And I already told you the police won’t be no help. Best case you get thrown in some musty cell with cold concrete floors and a ceiling vent pointed right at you. Worst case you end up in a catalog.

“But y’all already know all that. Look here, it’s fine y’all’s excited, but try and remember there’s people’s lives at stake here. Hell, it could be our lives at stake. So I’m gonna need some focus while I go over what we got ahead.”

Oscar scanned the eyes of his friends and decided to shift his approach. He could tell he was coming across as pedantic and his audience was losing interest.

“What y’all say to story time? Best not get too far ahead of ourselves with the nitty gritty. I think if y’all have a better understanding of how I got here, how I managed to escape that place, you’ll have a better understanding of how we’ll go about infiltrating it. The way out might just be the way in. And once you hear how capable your captain is, maybe you’ll end up with a bit more faith in this crazy stunt.”

Hobby thought Oscar came off as self congratulatory and, hearing a quiet scoff, he could tell Haddie felt the same way. Oscar ceased his pacing and pulled out a chair for himself, resting his elbows on the table and propping up his chin with one fist. He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts, and launched into his story.

“Flaygin’s the greediest man I ever met. Probably, if he could contain himself a little, I wouldn’t have been able to slip away like I did. Seemed to me we were making more money than we knew what to do with, but I guess it just ain’t never enough. Wasn’t enough to fix the rotten front steps. Wasn’t enough to get us a new roof, maybe one that didn’t leak on us. Being apparently destitute and all, we had to resort to robbery to supplement the human and drug business. In the off season, once August is up, we’d knock off a different lakefront mansion at least once a month. Sometimes two or three. You’ll get a better idea as we’re paddling, but this lake is a damned ghost town once the summer comes to close. Just a bunch of second homes no one really lives in. Bunch of huge estates like this one y’all live at. Everywhere you look, no joke. And no one’s ever home far as I can tell. At worst it’d be a groundskeeper on the property, though they’s usually the one tipping us off in the first place.

“I wasn’t there a terrible long time, not compared with some of the long timers they had over there. One kid, well he wasn’t no kid nomore even though they all pretended he was, he been there going on ten years now and it ain’t like his station changed. He wasn’t climbing the corporate ladder, if you know what I mean. They ain’t start giving him a proper meal or a actual mattress just on account of his tenure. Nope. Not those kinds of folks we’re dealing with here. Well anyway, I wasn’t there all that long so I don’t know every little detail about the operation like Long-Haul Luke over there, but I picked up a thing or two.

“Y’all remember I was telling about how the cops is involved in all this? How we had protection? Well it seemed to me there’s two ways we would set up these heists. We’d either get word from a contact in the cops or we’d get word from someone working for the people who owned the house. Their ‘Franklins,’ so to speak. I mean, would you be so shocked if Rudy, or especially Stephan, got so fed up as to give up some information on the old hag’s whereabouts, her movements, to look the other way when someone took her for all she got? Plus, Flaygin always makes sure to keep his contacts happy. Not that it matters all too much, what with the law on his side. I heard him telling about some gardener he had locked up for life because he thought the fellow might consider opening up his mouth up. But he was always going on about some tall tale or other so who knows.

“Whenever a heist week came around, all us kids got real excited seeing how it was our only opportunity to get out and do something different. The other days just all blend together out there. It was the heists and the days leading up to ‘em that we got us a little excitement. Got to pretend we was James Bond or something. Robinhood’s what I used to pretend. I was at least half a Robinhood. We was stealing from the rich, that’s a fact, but I wasn’t redistributing it out to the poor. Suppose maybe I would have, if I could have, but naw, Flaygin saw to it that we didn’t see none of the loot. But we did try our damndest to sneak what little trinkets we found. I stuffed a little music box — know the ones, with a little crank on it — down in my pillow case. I had that thing a couple weeks before they found it. I got a licking from the whomping stick. And all for a worthless dealie I couldn’t even use without giving myself away. Never even heard what tune the thing played.

“I don’t know what happened on the night I escaped, not entirely, but I do know they started slipping, getting over confident. See, on the heist before the one I used to make my escape, I noticed something different.

“All the other times we did this, we had what they called a sweep boat. It’d be Carl or one of the other grunts in a canoe all by hisself, taking up the rear to make sure there wasn’t no funny business or no one getting lost by accident. Then during the heist he would stand watch on the beach with the boats while the rest of us did what we would inside the house. But then I guess Flaygin decided the sweep boat wasn’t necessary no more because we stopped doing it altogether. Maybe he just thought we’d have to be crazy to try anything way out there in the middle of that lake. Or maybe he thought he had us trained like dogs. He would have been mostly right. Didn’t take yours truly into account, though, eh? Most of them kids was real scaredy-cat types, always crying and slobbering and everything else. Not me. Like I said, I think he got too greedy. Probably got tired of cutting another guy in. I think he figured he could handle it on his own. Big mistake, thinking he could handle me all by hisself.”

Haddie groaned and Oscar continued, unbothered.

“Right then and there, right when I noticed there wasn’t no more sweep boat, that’s when I decided. I thought, ‘if it still ain’t a sweep boat on the next one, I’m getting myself a big heaping helping of gone.’ Then I started thinking up a plan. We usually had at least two good weeks between robberies, so I had some time to prepare and all that. By the time we set out on the next one, it was all squared; yessir I had a row of ducks sitting pretty just waiting on me to say jump. I was just praying I wouldn’t see Carl show up and ruin everything I’d got in the works. But what do you know? Wasn’t no Carl and wasn’t no sweep boat.”

It had been an unusually cold morning, Oscar explained, and he hadn’t wanted to crawl out of the cozy confines of his sleeping bag when Flaygin flipped the lights on. Oscar didn’t know what time it was, but the sun wouldn’t start peeking up over the horizon for at least another hour.

The children grumbled in protest, some crawling deep into the depths of their bags, hoping to disappear altogether, but Flaygin came directly to dispatch them with a boot to the belly. Before long the children were all standing around waiting to be told what to do, shivering and yawning in the dark, half asleep and clumsily bumping into one another.

Flaygin led the procession to the beach where the canoes had been staged the previous night. All they needed to do was don life jackets and launch, but this always took an impossibly long time. This morning was worse than usual. One of the newer children was scared to get in his boat and threw a howling fit. Flaygin and a couple of the older, heavily indoctrinated boys tried to coax the screaming child into the boat, gently at first, but quickly resorting to threats and violence.

Oscar stood shivering and damp from the wet wind blowing in from across the lake, disassociating to the tune of water lapping the side of the canoes, tossing them into one another with an occasional muted clang of aluminum. The last thing he wanted to do was climb into that wet boat. His sneakers were mesh, and full of holes besides. His feet would be soaked all day no matter how careful he was. He considered just stepping into the lake to go ahead and rip off the bandage but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He relished a few final moments of dry socks before what he knew would be a very long and wet road ahead.

In the distance the sun got to work painting the sky pink as the children clambered aboard their assigned canoes. Boarding typically involved at least one clumsy faceplant into a gunwale and this particular morning was no exception. One of the newer children, a seven year old boy named Randal, tried to steady an empty canoe with one hand as he lifted a leg up and into the boat, but, one leg in the air, he put his whole weight on the gunwale, trying to pull himself up and into the boat, but instead pulled the boat down into the water. The canoe flipped over on the boy with a splash and a thud. Shrieks of laughter filled the air, drowning out the muffled cries for help echoing from the capsized canoe.

The boat was righted and one of the bigger boys lifted Randal by the scruff, one handed as if he were scooping up a soggy puppy, then dropped him carelessly into the canoe. Anxious to get moving, the small fleet of canoes set off straight into the wind. It was hopeless at first, the boats stubbornly refusing to make forward progress despite a valiantly desperate effort on the part of the children, but after a short struggle the wind stopped altogether and the sun was high enough to shine in their eyes, giving them something different to complain about.

Flaygin never gave the children any details before or during these trips, partially to prevent loose lips, but mostly because he knew from experience how slippery the slope gets after even one answer is dispensed. The children would never cease their pestering. In fact, he had recently enacted a ‘no questions allowed’ policy, strictly enforced on the water. If a child dared break this rule they would have to fast for an entire week. The punishment was harsh, but it served its purpose; after enforcing it just once he hadn’t had to do it again. As it stood, the children were only allowed to speak if spoken to or in the case of an emergency, though the particular qualities of an emergency remained a mystery to all but Flaygin himself.

The result was a peaceful morning on the water. Oscar certainly preferred the silence to the endless singing and word games and mindless chattering the children had employed to occupy the long hours on prior journeys like this one. In the silence Oscar found he could slip away from himself entirely and disappear into the monotonous repetition. The motion of his paddle, the gentle splashing sound it made when he dipped it in the water, was hypnotic. He gazed at himself gazing up at himself from his reflection on the still surface, then shattered the mirror with a gentle dip of his paddle. Bits and pieces of his image scattered, rearranging like a liquid jigsaw puzzle before the image ultimately repaired itself and there he was gazing up at himself once more only to be shattered again and repeat.

The violent screeching sound of rocks scraping against the aluminum hull snapped Oscar back to reality. He looked up and saw a massive house looming on the cliffside above him, a long winding staircase connecting the house to the beach. They’d already arrived and he’d hardly even noticed the trip, lost as he was in eager and anxious dreams of the perilous road ahead. He didn’t know how long they’d been paddling, but the sun was low in the sky now, so it must have been quite a long time. Flaygin jumped out of his boat and stood in water up to his ankles, grabbing hold of the bow and dragging it onto the beach. The others followed suit and once he had his boat on the shore Oscar split off under the guise of relieving his bladder. In reality, he was scoping out the beach, mapping out his escape. He climbed a small hill into the cover of trees. He crunched through the stand of tall trees, most of their leaves already beneath his feet.

“Jackpot,” he said under his breath as he crested the hill and gazed out at twisting, braided channels of the lake and several densely forested islands. Much of the lake was like this but he had still feared he might find himself stuck with miles of open water where he’d be easy to spot. He hoped, with these conditions, he would be able to disappear from sight before they saw which direction he was headed. It would be nearly impossible to find him in that tangled mess. He noticed his hands were shaking and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly to calm his nerves.

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To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar by pressing the button above. I’m a starving artist and the starving part is currently a harsh and literal reality. If you can’t leave a tip, consider liking or subscribing! No matter what, thanks for taking the time to read my work! Please share it if you enjoy it :-)

“So she’s back, then,” Oscar said wistfully. “Used to be, back when I first got sent here, Mama Robin would show up every fall right around time the other birds left for winter. She’d show up and throw a nest up on that bough right out there, and real quick too. Flash construction. Next thing you know it? There’s a litter of chicks out there squawking their damned beaks off. Then we’d get a little storm, you know how it gets out here this time of year, and next morning the nest’d be long gone and you wouldn’t see Mama Robin for another full calendar.”

“Wait, really? Oscar, how come you never told me about that? I never saw Mama Robin,” Haddie said, whining slightly. “You better not be fibbing.”

“Well, she’d gone for good, least I thought it was for good, right around the time you first showed up. Besides, you wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Fact, I think last time I saw her was the fall before you showed up. It’s a curiosity, that’s certain. Oughta send that specimen off to some university, have some nerd in a white coat study her brains and figure out which wires got crossed up.”

Oscar lifted his eyes to meet Hobby’s at last. There was something intensely competitive in Oscar’s eyes and, though it wasn’t overtly mean spirited, Hobby shrank into himself, his shoulders climbing up his neck until they touched his ears.

“Haddie told me you’ve got yourself a little secret,” he said, grinning. “I thought the three of us was friends! And, I don’t know how they did things down in Arkansas, but up here in Missouri, secrets and friends don’t exactly go together hand in hand. Round here, friends are for telling your secrets to.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong! I never had a secret at all,” Hobby’s voice cracked and he took a step towards his friends, his arms outstretched at his sides. “I just found out myself last night and before I even got a chance to tell Haddie, she, my gran— the Madame told her. And now Haddie told you before I could say it myself, so you see it was never—“

“Easy, easy, I was mostly giving you a hard time,” Oscar interrupted. “Mostly. Don’t really matter to me when or how you found out because it sounds to me like you’ve got mixed up in the head and started drinking from the bottomless fountain of concentrated shit spewing from that witch’s mouth. You wouldn’t be the first. Fact, she tricked me a time or two when I was still new around here. So why don’t let’s see if we can’t straighten things out. She says she’s your granny, huh? Well, I admit I never have heard of her using a granny scheme, but maybe she just got bored of her usual dusty old bag of tricks. Haddie here is convinced the old witch is yanking the chain, and you’re convinced it’s all true. I’m gonna mediate between y’all because, truth told, even though she sells lies to every soul she encounters, and that is a certainty, don’t necessarily mean this is a out and out lie.”

“What are you saying?” Haddie jumped in, jaw swinging slack with shock. “Do not humor him! What are you doing? There’s no way it’s true. You know that as well as I do.”

“Look here, I gotta play devil’s advocate on this one. We gotta analyze this thing from all angles else how is our friend Hobby supposed to feel? How’s he supposed to trust us? It wouldn’t be very friendly of us to just dismiss him outright,” Oscar’s tone was gentle but he could see that Haddie wasn’t receptive to his words so he approached her and gave her a brotherly squeeze on the shoulders. “Come on, Hadd, we can’t be certain it ain’t true without some sort of proof, right? I mean, it is possible isn’t it? Far as I know, no one ever did society the favor of having that old bat fixed, but do correct me if you’ve got some inside information. Ever heard the expression ‘even a broke clock can tell the time couple times a day?’ We oughta at least treat her like a broken clock. That’s not too hard, is it? We don’t have to humanize her.”

Haddie rolled her eyes, shrugged and tossed her head, apparently coalescing but continuing to sulk. Hobby stood in the corner anxiously eyeing his companions, choking on the tension in the air. After a brief pause Oscar continued.

“I don’t think it’s likely true, but if it is true and she really is your granny she’s using this information as a tool to manipulate and control you,” Oscar paced around the room looking at his feet, his arms held behind his back as if deep in concentrated thought. “I mean, think about this. Why did she wait until now to tell you? I’d expect, were she actually your granny, she’d want to tell you right away. Why’d she wait ‘till now to tell you? Seems calculated, don’t you think Sonny? And you gotta keep in mind, that old woman ain’t capable of genuine emotion like you or I, so you see even if you were, are, her grandson, she only sees your blood bond as a tool. There is no affection hiding behind the nastiness you see in her. No depths to hide in. I really don’t think it’s true, though. You have to remember, this woman is so full of shit no one within squeezing range can breathe through their nose without gagging. I know it’s not what you want to hear. I know it’s tempting to believe you’ve got a granny, someone to call family.”

Hobby felt a hot tear roll down his cheek but his emotions were a confusing cocktail of anger, sadness and fear. Though he had originally been angry with Oscar, Hobby appreciated his approach to the situation. Oscar at least tried to see things through Hobby’s eyes, showed him some compassion. Haddie’s knee jerk reaction was still fresh on his mind and his anger was unconsciously redirected in her direction.

He could tell the others were waiting on him to say something but he didn’t care and said nothing, so Oscar continued.

“Let’s start the with facts, take a rational approach. Evidence, that’s a good place to start. Let’s share what evidence we have. Haddie, I’m assuming you don’t have any evidence to disprove the old hag’s claim? Hobby? I’m assuming you wouldn’t be so dim as to take her at her word, though I don’t know you all that well, so maybe you are. Are you? She give you any evidence?”

“Uhm, in fact she did,” Hobby’s voice trembled and so did his hands as he reached into his back pocket and delicately removed the aged cocktail napkin. “Here, this is a note my dad gave me before he left for good. I had forgotten all about it. She said she went to adopt another little boy and I guess my file was on the social worker’s desk for some reason and she saw this little note sticking out and recognized my dad’s handwriting. Here, see for yourself.”

He passed the napkin to Oscar, who raised his eyebrows in mock interest, scoffing.

“And this is evidence, how? This has nothing to do with the Madame. Anyone could have found this note and made up the same phony story,” Oscar said, audibly annoyed. He carelessly handed the note to Haddie who, snatching at it hastily, ripped it nearly in half.

“Hey!” Hobby squealed, visibly distressed. He held is hand out impatiently for the napkin. “Be super careful with that! It’s the only thing I have left of my dad.”

“Sorry,” Haddie muttered softly, appearing genuinely embarrassed. She read the note over, flipped it around and handed it back to Hobby. “We can tape that back up later when we get back to the house. I’ll show you where it is and help you fix it. Sorry.”

Hobby gaped at the tattered scrap of paper and carefully folded it into itself, tucking it back in his pocket.

“Well, you would have to hear her tell it herself,” Hobby pleaded, tears flowing freely now. “You can see it just the way she talks about him. She knew him and she even loved him. I’ve never seen her get like that, all sad and, I dunno, thoughtful.”

“Okay, fair enough. Had to be there. Well let’s say it’s true for argument’s sake,” Oscar said, pacing about once again. “Even if this place here weren’t hell on earth, wouldn’t you be more interested in finding your dad than wasting away out here in the sticks with that drunk old racist?”

“Wait, what do you mean,” Hobby said slowly.

“What do you mean what do I mean? You read the thing for yourself, didn’t you? Think about it. A ‘number on a bathroom stall?’ I hardly think he expected you to comb through each and every truck stop east of the Rockies. I think it could be a clue, if he really was the Madame’s son, that is. Maybe he left you words you wouldn’t be able to understand until you needed to. Maybe he knew she’d find you and one day you’d understand,” Oscar said, pacing faster now and gesticulating wildly, his volume increasing steadily. He looked back and forth from one blank face to the next, eyes wild and manic. “Come on, ya’ll, don’t you remember? The girls! Working the phones? Remember? They make their calls from the bathroom and the stalls are like their little cubicles. The girls keep their lists of numbers taped to the wall. You could find his number in one of those packets, maybe. I bet there’s an old master list or something. It’s a real solid lead, that’s certain.

“Who knows, if he actually is her son, maybe she sent him there way back when. Sounds extra messed up but I wouldn’t put it past her. Or maybe he’s connected to Flaygin’s organization somehow. He could be the original founder for all we know. Maybe. But this is only if he’s really her son. Otherwise the note means nothing to me and maybe he did mean for you to go around checking truck stops. Beats me.”

There was a long pause, each of the three children lost in their own maze of thoughts. Haddie took a seat at the table and gazed out the window and Oscar followed, taking a seat in the chair opposite hers. Hobby stood frozen in the center of the room, head bowed and one shoe untied.

“You’re not seriously considering this as an actual real-life possibility, are you?” Haddie asked Oscar quietly.

Oscar ignored her and turned in his seat, resting his back against the wall with one arm rested on the seat back and the other on the table, his legs stretched out in front of him with ankles crossed. He was facing Hobby now, watching him with curious concern. He shook his feet absently, exorcising the nervous energy from his body.

“Think about it this way, kid,” Oscar injected his voice with a healthy dose of familial camaraderie. Hobby was unmoving, head still bowed. “If it is true, that means you should come with us to find out about your daddy. If it ain’t? Well, you should still come with us seeing as you got no reason to go on living with that woman otherwise. Am I wrong?”

“Hello in there, anyone home?” Haddie said after a beat. “I think we broke him.”

Hobby shuffled across the room without lifting his head and pulled out a seat at the table. He plopped down and lifted his head, keeping his eyes fixed on a long crack in the window pane.

“I never said anything about not coming with ya’ll” Hobby said, his voice low and slow. “I don’t know what Haddie told you, but I only told her that I believed she really was my grandmother. And I really do. I have to. It ain’t up to me, or either of you, what’s true or not. It’s up to the grown ups. All my life they got to decide who I am, not me. Why should it be any different now? She says I’m her grandson so I’m her grandson. And no one’s ever decided I was their kin before.”

“But it ain’t up to them to decide. The truth is what’s really true, not what someone says is true,” Oscar said, scoffing, his lips bent into an amused frown and his eyes wide.

“That hasn’t been my experience,” Hobby’s words came out steady but tears dotted the corners of his puffy eyes.

“Don’t ever let someone else decide what you believe. You’ll learn all about freedom in just a couple days though, sounds like. I don’t see any point dwelling on this tense subject any longer, seems like we beat this horse to death and then some. I say we get down to it. We’ve got a lot to go over before we leave. There’s a lot left to explain to you two before we can go. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this thing. Ya’ll probably guessed, but we gotta go tomorrow night for sure. No way around it we gotta get some gone before that little snitch shows his face on Friday.”

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Hobby pushed himself back from his desk and stared up at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He had made some progress with his worksheet but didn’t think he’d be able to finish it without Ms. Tartt’s help. She had called this a diagnostic exercise, but Hobby didn’t know that word and had been afraid to ask. Sensing the boy’s nervous apprehension, Ms. Tartt told him not to worry, to try his best and come prepared with questions about anything he didn’t understand. But the blank spaces tormented the boy. There were so many of them, too many of them, he worried. He finally had the opportunity to learn like a normal boy his age and he worried about being deemed unteachable and having this privilege revoked. The most important thing was impressing Ms. Tartt and the sheet in front of him didn’t look very impressive.

At the start he had taken great pleasure in the assignment, feeling a sense of prideful satisfaction each time he remembered how to spell one of the animals pictured above a given blank space. Words like ‘pig,’ ‘cow,’ and ‘dog’ had come easily, but he couldn’t remember any of the trickier rules, like how to write the ‘ch’ sound in ‘chicken’ or the ‘sh’ in sheep, so he moved on to the next section. He worked like this for about an hour and a half, completing the easier parts of each section and then staring hard at the more difficult questions, wracking his brain for information he had never possessed in the first place. He had come to a dead end. A seed of frustration sprouted somewhere behind his left eyeball and slowly morphed into a pounding headache. When his vision beginning to blur he accepted defeat and put the pencil down. The boy really wanted to keep working, to demonstrate his worth to Ms. Tartt, but he simply hadn’t developed the stamina or discipline necessary to carry on in a productive manner.

While it lasted, the homework had been a welcome distraction from the unpleasant stew of yet undigested emotions heavy in the young boy’s heart, but now his mind was free to hyper fixate on his problematic position. He finally felt the comfort of security for the first time in his life since the death of his mother and he fretted over the possibility of having that wrenched from his sweaty fingers.

Hobby’s feelings towards his grandmother remained complex, but he found himself softening to her and questioning some of what Haddie and Oscar would have him believe. Maybe it really was how the Madame said, Haddie painting her out to be this villain because she felt rejected. Though he knew the old woman was far from perfect, Hobby had seen worse candidates for the role of guardian and didn’t want to take his chances with the system again. He was inexperienced and naive, but he wasn’t too ignorant to recognize the winning hand he had been dealt here. He could see that, if he played his cards right, he would never want for anything again so long as he may live. The dresser full of clothes was just a drop from the spigot.

The boy spun around in his chair, lifting his knees to his chest and pushing off from his desk. When he made it all the way back around he pushed again, harder this time, gaining speed. Around and around he went until the room blurred and he began to feel dizzy and forgot all about his headache. He lowered his feet and dragged them across the floor, slowing the chair to a stop, but the world around him kept turning. He tried to stand but couldn’t stay upright and plopped back down into his chair, delirious and giggling to himself. He looked around his bedroom and smiled unconsciously. He didn’t want to leave this behind.

A foreboding chill tickled Hobby’s spine and the boy felt a sense of dread as his mind wandered over to Oscar’s dubious plan to run away and liberate Flaygin’s alleged forced labor camp. He tried to think about something else but thoughts of Oscar and Haddie and Edwin and the gun and running away swirled around in his head like a great whirlpool sucking his train of thought into a dark void, sending him careening to that place where thoughts collide and deteriorate into raw, senseless emotion somewhere between the throat and chest. He was frozen, unable to reason with himself, locked in a Mexican standoff of the heart. The sprouting frustration grew and grew until it verged on real anger. He combed his brain for a suitable target at which to aim this unprocessed emotion and landed on Haddie and Oscar. He was mostly angry with Oscar and wished things could go back to the way they were before he showed up, but he also blamed Haddie for going along with what he quietly thought was an insane proposition.

When Oscar originally pitched the idea Hobby had been carried away by the moment, excited by the prospect of adventure in much the same way as when he and Haddie played soldiers in the woods. But the next morning, sanitized by the light of a new day, the idea had seemed fantastical, even silly, but the two of them had been deadly serious. Hobby selected the path of least resistance, keeping his thoughts to himself and nodding along until the time came to make a real decision. That time was rapidly approaching.

Hobby didn’t even have confidence in Oscar’s ability to safely lead the trio back to wherever it was he had come from, let alone take on a gang of adults. But he also knew, no matter how insane the whole thing sounded to him, there was nothing he could say or do to stop Oscar and Haddie from following through. He wished he had more time but the clock was ticking double time. The children would need to leave the following night since Oscar needed to be long gone by the time Edwin returned to retrieve the pistol on Friday. Hobby knew Haddie wouldn’t stay with him and suspected she would lose all respect for him if he communicated his desire to remain in the care of his grandmother. He shuddered, imagining what she might say to him if she knew how he really felt about the situation.

The boy ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, plagued by visions of the various outcomes to his situation. He worried about what his grandmother might do when she found Haddie gone on Friday morning and learned about Oscar’s involvement from Edwin. He wouldn’t be able conceal his own knowledge of what they were planning and even if he tried, Edwin would most certainly give him away. There didn’t appear to be a way out of this without some significant betrayal.

The boy stood and crossed the room, leaning up against the window sill and gazing out at the morning. He tracked a gust of wind tearing across the lawn in a cloud of dust and leaves like some massive, twirling ghost, watched Rudy pushing a wheelbarrow brimming with gravel, sweat stains creeping down his sides despite the crisp fall weather. The boy was overcome with an urge to go outside, to move, to do something beyond the stuffy confines of his bedroom, but he worried he’d be scolded if he tried to go out and play after studying such a short while.

Hobby’s feet decided for him, carrying him back across the room without prior authorization. He didn’t wake to the decision until his autopilot malfunctioned at the door when, instead of pulling it open, the boy pulled himself into the door with a heavy slam. The ancient cast iron doorknob had a trick to it, requiring the user to push in on the door while turning the knob clockwise, otherwise the spindle, which had been neatly polished into a cylinder by the passage of more than a few decades and several million uses, would slip the housing chassis and spin freely.

“Damn it,” Hobby hissed under his breath, cramming an awkward beat between the two words. The young boy had never learned to curse properly and had generally avoided using harsh language altogether for fear of being perceived rude or ill mannered. But here, in the comfort of his own company, in the confines of his grandmother’s home, he felt safe enough to try out a phrase he had heard Oscar use.

“Damn it,” he said again, louder this time but still closer to a whisper than an inside voice. Cursing the doorknob made him feel good, he found, but it also fueled his anger. He stared at the knob shaking his head. Why should he have a broken door knob in this palace he called home, he thought, shaking his head. He’d have Franklin fix the thing right away. He made a mental note to mention it to his grandmother the next time he saw her.

Hobby wanted to kick the door open violently, to punish the thing for its insubordination, but he restrained himself and opened it gently, stepping quietly down the hall to Haddie’s door. He still hadn’t seen beyond the door and felt a powerful itch to know what it was like in her private space. Hobby’s room was still mostly a blank canvas, but Haddie had been living here for years, more than enough time for her personality to seep out through her pores and stain the walls, for her scent to sink deep into the fibers of the curtains and the bedding. He wondered if he could really know her at all without seeing for himself what the center of her universe contained. He looked down and saw his hand on the door knob. He considered trying it, walking right in and scratching the itch, but thought better of it and removed his hand from the knob, raised his knuckles to the door and very lightly rapped out a ‘shave-and-a-haircut,’ something he had learned from Haddie.

Hobby listened closely but there was no movement beyond the door, so he raised the volume a hair and tried again. Floor boards creaked from within Haddie’s room, the sound of a chair rolling across hard wood followed by the patter of bare feet drawing near. Hobby felt a rush of anxious energy and released a breath he’d forgotten about.

The door opened a crack, just enough for Haddie to squeeze out into the hall without permitting even a small glimpse at the space beyond. She smiled warmly at her friend and Hobby’s heart fluttered out a silent response. He began to ask to see her room but Haddie quickly silenced him, pressing her index finger to her lips. She began creeping down the hall and Hobby imitated her gait, trying to follow her footsteps exactly. Hobby felt sure he’d get the two of them caught as they creaked their way down the stairs and crept past the open door to the study, but he felt a rush of cold air and then the door slid closed behind him and he was outside standing on the covered porch, looking on as Haddie listened intently, head cocked and brows pinched in concentration as if the wind were giving her valuable intel on the enemy’s position.

Without warning Haddie bolted across the lawn, dashing for the forest’s edge and Hobby scrambled to catch up. They tucked themselves under the cover of forest and paused a quick moment, Hobby leaning up against a tree catching his breath as Haddie peered out from behind another, apparently gathering more intel. Satisfied with her observations, Haddie turned on her heel, stuffed her hands in her pockets and spat in the dirt, then set off down the trail headed for the treehouse, calling out to Hobby over her shoulder.

“We need to talk about this ‘long-lost-grandson’ mumbo jumbo, make sure we’re still on the same page,” Haddie said, successfully masking the tremble of her voice with a flimsy patina of resolve.

Hobby tried to catch up and walk beside her but she matched his pace, speeding up and slowing down whenever he did without so much as a glance in his direction, maintaining a distance of a few steps between them.

“There’s no way it’s true, which I’m sure you know as well as I do. You may be a freak, but you’re not altogether dim, so I’m guessing, hoping, you already realized this for yourself.”

Haddie kept walking but stopped talking, leaving space for Hobby to jump in and reassure her of his enduring loyalty. But he said nothing, letting silence flood the space between himself and his friend. Haddie, inexperienced in the company of silence, couldn’t take it for long.

She stopped suddenly and Hobby, lost in thought and oblivious to the world around him, walked right into her. He stumbled backwards, his arms flailing wildly at his sides, barely keeping himself upright. Neither of them giggled. Haddie turned around slowly and lifted her eyes to meet Hobby’s at last. He saw tears streaming down her face, but she didn’t look sad; she looked almost scary. She wore a stolid mask and her breathing was slow and even, utterly still, a statue with moving lips and burning eyes.

“Don’t be so gullible,” she coldly, her flat, impersonal tone sending a chill rattling down Hobby’s spine. He didn’t recognize the person standing in front of him. “She’s not your grandmother, and even if she was would it make any difference? Would it change the past? What she did to Oscar? Or what about all the kids, Lord knows how many, who came before Oscar? Or what about me? I can see the way you submit to every little thing with that woman. I’ve seen it all along. But now this? It’s obvious what she’s doing, can’t you see that? She knew she could manipulate you. You’re an easy target, know why? Because you’re desperate. The most desperate little boy I ever met. Anyone else with two eyes and a brain bigger’n a walnut could see right through this act of hers. Your grandmother. Ha! That woman is feeding you hay and telling you it’s spaghetti and, what’s worse, you keep buying it! She’ll toss you out when she’s had her fun just like she’s done the others. And I think somewhere deep down you know that.”

Utterly inexperienced in the realm of drama and social tension, Hobby didn’t know where to begin. As thoughts went racing by Hobby opened his mouth, but finding none solid enough to chew on and spit back out, he just closed his mouth again and again like a guppy. Haddie, disgusted by this pitiful display of spineless indecision, rolled her eyes and huffed off down the trail once again, muttering something under her breath.

As the seconds ticked by and Haddie disappeared through the trees Hobby felt the weight of unspoken words gathering in the growing space between himself and his friend, all that silence gathering strength like a great wave calmly building far out at sea before hurtling toward the inevitable roaring of jumbled words and mangled thoughts crashing upon the shore. He wanted to apologize, but he didn’t know what for. He also wanted an apology for himself but, again, didn’t really know what for. He wanted to cry and he wanted to shout but he also wanted a hug. His head began pounding again.

Unsure of what to do with himself he followed Haddie at an awkward interval, keeping her just barely in sight. He wasn’t trying to be sneaky, but he also wasn’t sure if she knew he was there. The treehouse loomed up ahead. As Hobby watched Haddie jog over to the ladder, tear up it at top speed then disappear into the trapdoor, it struck him that this would likely be one of the very last times he’d watch her climb that ladder. He shook his head at the thought of abandoning such an amazing hideout just days after being handed the keys. Even without Haddie here to play with the treehouse was an invaluable resource to a boy Hobby’s age.

Heaving a great sigh, the boy plopped down at the base of the tree, picked up a small stick and began doodling spirals in the duff at his feet. Tossing the stick aside he gazed around absently and his jaw dropped in horror as he saw what looked to be the remains of three baby robins a few feet away. He stood to get a closer look and saw the entire nest was in a crumpled heap nearby. He thought back to the first time he and Haddie visited the treehouse and remembered seeing a robin building a nest in a bough off the treehouse porch.

It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now he thought about how strange it was to see the bird building a new nest in the fall. He thought back to a nature program he had seen a couple years before. Most birds left for the winter, he remembered, but the ones that don’t tend to join a flock for safety and to pool resources until the return of warmer weather. What he found strangest of all, were the dead chicks. This meant the robin had mated recently, something he knew only occurred during the springtime, and then she hatched these eggs out of season, something which would take a heavy toll on the sparse resources available this time of year.

He had to tell Haddie about this curiosity. Forgetting all about the previous tension, Hobby scrambled up the ladder and burst into the treehouse.

“You guys, you guys. There’s some dead baby birds down at the bottom of the ladder, you gotta come see for yourself you wouldn’t believe it. You remember that robin we saw the other day, Haddie, when we first came here?” Hobby said, clambering to his feet and dusting off his new blue jeans. He looked around at the stiff faces around him. “Oh. Right.”

Oscar didn’t look in Hobby’s direction and Haddie looked mildly disgusted, like she had smelled foul milk. An awkward silence sliced the room in half and Hobby felt tears welling up in his eyes.

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To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar by pressing the button above. I’m a starving artist and the starving part is currently a harsh and literal reality. No matter what, thanks for taking the time to read my work! Please share it if you enjoy it :-)

The first rays of morning light crept across Hobby’s bedroom, leaking in through the easterly window on the far side of the room, crawling across the floor and climbing up and into bed with the boy. The warm light tickled Hobby’s eyelids until he could no longer keep them closed. The boy stretched his arms out wide and yawned, rubbing the sand from the corners of his eyes. He looked around and felt confused, as though he had woken up in a stranger’s bed. A smile of recognition flashed across his face as he remembered whose bed this was.

Upon close inspection Hobby found the sheets silky smooth. He picked up a pillow and fluffed it, then dropped it with a satisfied grin. He bounced up and down on the bed and found it to be very stiff, stiffer than the air mattress he had grown accustomed to most recently, but with time, he noticed, the material conformed to his shape. He wondered to himself how the bed could be so firm but so comfortable.

He jumped out of bed and took a shower. After showering he emerged, towel around his waist, and groaned at the sight of his dirty clothes hamper. He really didn’t want to climb into his underpants from the day prior. He crossed the room to his dresser, having decided to check and see if he somehow forgot about an extra pair, though in the back of his mind he knew he hadn’t. He opened a drawer and furrowed his brow in confusion. It was brimming with new underpants. He opened another drawer. It was fully stocked with a variety of t-shirts. He gaped in confusion as he opened the other drawers, finding a drawer full of new blue jeans and chinos and another full of socks. He donned a fresh pair of underwear and carefully selected a pair of blue jeans. He sifted through the t-shirts, selecting a purple one. Purple had been his mother’s favorite color and it was his favorite as well.

He turned to face the floor length mirror hanging from the back of his bathroom door and noticed he was grinning, which in turn made him grin even wider. He had never had so many sets of clothing to choose from in his wretched life and he found himself thinking about what he’d wear tomorrow, what Haddie would say when she saw his new outfit.

He pulled open the door and rushed down the stairs, greeted by the familiar yawning sounds of the slumbering home rising to greet the day. The cabinet doors banging shut, the pans clanking against utensils, the flush of a toilet, the creaking floorboards, had become a comforting refrain. He felt at ease as he greeted Stephan with a congenial smile and a quick wave, unperturbed by the man’s scowling response.

Pulling the screen door open, Hobby stepped outside and joined the Madame and Haddie on the porch. He greeted them both warmly before taking his seat, ruffling Haddie’s hair and even going so far as to hug the Madame around her neck. He settled into his seat and smiled at Haddie, but she was too busy glaring down at her lap to notice. Hobby started to speak but, as though choking on the thick tension swirling around the table, his voice came out cracked and hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Boy, I sure am hungry,” Hobby said with a dry chuckle, suddenly self-conscious. “What do you think chef Stephen, err sorry, um chef Franklin, has on the menu this morning?”

Haddie remained motionless, her expression unchanged, glaring at her lap with vicious intensity. The Madame absently rearranged her silverware. An awkward moment crawled past and just before Hobby thought the silence might rupture his eardrums Stephen pushed through the screen door with his rear end and backed into the room, a steaming platter in each hand. Stephen’s energy felt warm and sunny compared with the darkness swirling around the table, the boy thought to himself.

“Thank you, Franklin,” the Madame said without looking at the food. Though the blank expression on her face remained unchanged, her voice sounded bright and tender.

Before Stephen even made it back inside, Hobby, ravenous as usual, rose to his feet, plate in hand, studying the food and planning his attack. He piled his plate precariously high and carefully returned to his seat. Like a dog eyeing a chipmunk, the food before him temporarily drove any and all concerns from the boy’s mind.

He ate without coming up for air and resisted the urge to lick his plate clean, having been previously reprimanded for such unbecoming table manners. He slouched back in his chair with a satisfied sigh and, looking around the table, remembered the dreary tension polluting the table. Haddie still hadn’t moved a muscle and the Madame had traded her blank eyes in for something resembling cheer, but she was missing some essential secret ingredient.

Haddie pushed her chair back without lifting any of her weight so that the legs shrieked violently as they scraped across the tile flooring. She rose to her feet slowly for dramatic effect, her hair obscuring most of her face. She turned to leave without so much as a glance in Hobby’s direction. The boy felt a pang of emotion he didn’t yet know how to describe, something between anger and sadness, not quite an insult but more than a slight.

“I believe you’re forgetting something,” the Madame spat this at Haddie without turning away from her plate of food.

Haddie tossed her head back and heaved a great sigh.

“May I be excused?”

“Still forgetting something,” the Madame said distractedly, cutting into a soft morsel of potato with the side of her fork. The Madame looked up as she lifted her fork to her mouth and Hobby noticed something cruel swimming in her eyes.

“Please.” Haddie’s head was still thrown back over her shoulders in frustration and Hobby knew she was squeezing her eyes shut tight even though she still had her back to him.

“Now the whole thing.” The Madame’s tone was blunt and humorless, but her eyes betrayed her amusement. She didn’t even try to conceal it.

“May I _please_ be excused. Please,” Haddie added a second ‘please’ for good measure, speaking slowly and deliberately, her voice hollow.

“By all means. We thought you’d never ask,” she gestured to Hobby as she said this and his blushed as he shrank in his seat. “Your brother and I don’t need our morning spoiled by your foul mood. I want you upstairs at your desk working on your assignments. Ms. Tartt let me know you seemed distracted and disinterested in your last lesson. So, from now on you two will be working on your studies separately, at your own desks. Can’t have you falling behind, can we?”

Haddie stormed off in a huff, slamming the door as she entered the house, and a still silence fell over the table. The energy on the patio shifted immediately and Hobby exhaled a great breath of air, as if he was blowing Haddie’s stressful presence far away. As if nothing had happened, the Madame smiled warmly at Hobby between bites as she finished her food. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin before crumpling it up carelessly and tossing it onto her plate, then she shifted her weight forward in her chair and propped her elbows on the table casually. Now she was beaming at Hobby and he tried his best to hide his discomfort but he couldn’t keep from squirming in his seat. He glanced around and avoided contact with the Madame’s eyes, but it didn’t matter; there was no escaping the heat of her gaze.

“I see you found your new clothes just fine and I must say you look absolutely fabulous. Purple suits you, you know.”

“Oh,” Hobby said, looking down at his shirt, ashamed of his poor manners. “I should have said thank you as soon as I came down. I guess I got distracted by the food. And then Haddie.”

“Don’t be silly child, I’m happy to get you out of those rags you arrived in. In fact, it’s my duty,” she said waving Hobby’s apology away with one hand. “I just wanted to make sure everything fits okay and do tell me if there might be anything else you need straight away.”

“I only tried on these pants, but they fit great. And the shirt is perfect. Thank you so much Madame...” Hobby was cut short.

“Uh-ah, from now on, I want you to call me grandma, granny, mee-maw, whatever variation you prefer.”

Hobby didn’t know how to feel about this sudden change in the nature of their relationship and he wasn’t particularly comfortable calling her grandma or either of the alternatives she had provided, so he decided to use the more formal ‘grandmother’ from now on. Masking his discomfort without missing a beat, he did as he was told.

“How could I be so silly, of course,” Hobby slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Grandmother. I guess I never thought I’d get to call someone that, so it might take some getting used to.”

Once again, his grandmother waved his apology away and went on beaming at him. Hobby resisted the urge to look away or drop the phony smile. He opened his mouth to speak but the Madame beat him to it.

“You’re probably wondering what all that fuss was about,” her voice a bit too melancholic to be believed, but Hobby bought it. She shook her hands around in a circle above her head as if to clear the air around her and Hobby felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. “I figured it would be best for everyone if I went ahead and broke the news to Haddie myself. Her reaction was, while expected, nevertheless upsetting. I suppose you saw for yourself.”

The Madame sighed and broke eye contact with Hobby at last, staring out into the garden and shaking her head back and forth slowly as if in disagreement with some cosmic decree. After a beat she turned back to Hobby and locked eyes with him once again, then continued speaking.

“I was fairly certain she’d take it like that. She’s always been so delicate when it comes to my feelings for her. I’m sure you can tell, but she seems to think I’m some sort of wicked witch. I tried my best to make sure she knows I’ll always love her, no matter what. But, after everything that happened with Oscar, sometimes I worry I might not be cut out for motherhood any more. Maybe I never was.” Hobby was pretty sure he had seen a quavering lip and he thought he might have even detected a slight tremble in her voice. “I’m sure she just needs a few minutes to process everything. She’ll be back to a normal level of hostility in no time.”

“Maybe it would help if I go talk to her?”

“I think it will help immensely, when the time comes. She ought to be busy with her studies right now and I won’t have you interrupting her. In fact, why don’t we walk upstairs together just so I can make double sure you’ve got everything you’ll need to get your school work done. I think the desk in your room should be fully stocked with supplies, but let us see just in case why don’t we,” the Madame stiffened in her chair and her voice grew suddenly sinister. “Then I can pay Haddie a quick visit as well. Make sure she feels my love.”

The Madame’s last comment struck Hobby as strange, but he wasn’t afforded more than a few seconds to dwell on the matter before his grandmother stood from the table and beckoned him through the door and back into the house, then up the stairs and into his bedroom.

They found the desk fully stocked with pens and pencils, a pencil sharpener and a stapler, but the drawers also contained more than a few implements completely foreign to the boy. He picked up a protractor and fiddled with the knob curiously before returning it to the drawer.

“Ah, don’t you worry about that thing just yet,” she said, seeing Hobby examining the protractor. “One day you’ll know how to use everything in this desk, but we’re not there yet. However, when you sit at this desk I want you to bear in mind the potential stored in these drawers. If you so choose to take advantage of your resources, with my guidance and Ms. Tartt’s tutelage, you already posses everything required to shape your delicate young mind into a formidable force. You ought to feel a thrill when you handle a new, unfamiliar tool for the first time because each represents a new skill to master, and each skill mastered is another step down the never ending road to excellence. And striving for excellence is a requirement in my social circles.

“I know this is all new to you and it’s probably a bit overwhelming, but I believe in you and so does Ms. Tartt,” noticing the boy’s wide eyes, she softened her voice and squeezed the boy’s shoulder tenderly. “You’re a sharp young man, you know. You’ve got your father’s brain, but you appear to have a superior temperament. Maybe you inherited that from your mother, but who knows? Your father refused to put the necessary work in, as you’ve already learned, and high society chewed him right up just to spit him out in pieces. You’d do well to remember your father’s failures when you feel tempted to neglect your studies.”

Beginning to feel annoyed with his grandmother’s lecturing, Hobby took a seat at his desk and pulled out his assignment from the previous day, hoping she might leave him to his studies. The Madame understood and turned to leave without another word.

Hobby stared at the worksheet in front of him but couldn’t focus enough to decipher the symbols swirling across the page. The Madame’s words were still bouncing around his brain and he found himself imagining a gilded future, one where he had finally made it to the other side of the fence, one where he ate lobster instead of serving it. He imagined a closet full of collared shirts and sweaters and khakis and myriad ties of every pattern imaginable. He imagined himself lounging on a love seat in a room with high ceilings, enjoying the afternoon sun as he read one of those thick books he had seen on the shelf in the study. He returned his attention to the worksheet before him and desperately tried to make sense of it, but he was wandering down meandering hallways in the mansion of his mind, lost in the carefully crafted dream his grandmother had planted in his mind.

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When the children came tipping back into the house late that night lamp light spilled out of the cracked door to the parlor and, alerted by a low groan in the floorboards, the Madame called out from within just as the children began to climb the stairs.

“Hobby? Is that you? Come in here a moment I need to speak with you.” Her voice sounded bloated, like she had been drinking wine. She muffled a hiccup.

Without looking, Hobby knew Haddie wore a suspicious frown. They silently made an about face, slouching resignedly into the parlor.

The room, which Hobby hadn’t actually entered yet, was gilded into oblivion, every surface a blinding mess of gold plating, every piece of furniture adorned with loud satin frills. A sofa not unlike the one Hobby had encountered in the attic sat unused in one corner sporting a thin plastic gown to protect from dust and mites and the threat of being used as intended by visiting posteriors.

“Hobby, why don’t you take a seat there,” the Madame said, indicating a stiff leather chair opposite herself. “Haddie, off to bed with you. I’ve a private, delicate matter to discuss with Hobby. We’ll see each other in the morning and I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”

Hobby climbed up and into the indicated chair, the leather moaning a tight-lipped protest. He tried to get comfortable, but as he shifted his weight from side to side the chair emitted an embarrassing flatulent squeak, so he simply froze self-consciously, awkward and uncomfortable with his legs dangling six inches from the ground, arms crossed in his lap.

Haddie shot Hobby an apologetic glance before turning on her heel and pulling the door shut behind her. Hobby heard her steps creaking up the stairs and down the hall. His heartbeat quickened.

“First off, I feel like I haven’t seen you in days and I wanted to apologize for my absence,” the Madame began with a disarming sigh and a stifled burp. She reached for her glass of wine before continuing. “I’ve received some troubling information regarding one of my business interests. But, my problem seems to have resolved itself so I can now return my attention to you, my sweet grandson.”

This last word hung heavy in the air, ringing again and again in Hobby’s ears until it lost all meaning.

“I’ve debated how, and when, to tell you this,” she continued. “But, at last, I’ve concluded that the time will never be right and this will always come as a shock to you and this information will always threaten my delicate relationship with Haddie. There is simply no easy way to go about this.”

Hobby gazed at the sofa and wondered if it had been the direct successor to the one in the attic. He wondered if it had ever been used as intended, if either had.

“Your father was my first and only son,” the Madame slurped loudly. “I loved him dearly, but, in the end, he couldn’t bear the pressure of this life. He hated luxury’s lap and bent his silver spoon, and in the end he paid a price for it. We lost contact for many, many years. I’m still not sure if he’s living or dead.

“I’ll spare you the details, young man. The human heart is a puzzle and it only gets more difficult with time, as pieces break or end up swept under some rug. Eventually the original picture becomes hard to define, sometimes lost in the attics of our memories. This is a difficult subject for me to talk about, so I’ll just say this: I couldn’t be happier to have found you, against all odds, the grandchild I never knew I had.”

The Madame stood and crossed the room to a desk and opened a drawer, removing a thick packet of papers. She returned to her seat and plopped the folder on the end table beside her, swirling her wine and gazing off somewhere distant, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She took a final greedy gulp and set the empty glass on the hardwood at her feet before turning to the sheaf of jumbled papers and rifling through. She made it to the end and let out a frustrated grunt before beginning again.

“Aha, here you are,” she muttered under her breath, barely audible. With great, delicate care she lifted a small square of time weathered paper from the depths of the stack, gazing at it with glassy eyes and a nostalgic frown. “This is how I found you. This silly little note. How like your father. He always had absurd, romantic fantasies as a child and I see they carried on into his adulthood. ‘You’ll find my number on a bathroom stall,’” she read softly from the note. “How absurd. Your father was a drug addict, I’m sure you’ve guessed if you didn’t personally witness his abuse. To my eye, this message reads like the ravings of a mad man. I can’t tell if he really believed you might one day make this phone call or if he simply wished to inspire some sort of hope in your tender little heart, but either way the reality is quite unromantic. Sad, really. All this amounts to is a goose chase, one that could very well have consumed you and still might if we don’t take the utmost care.”

Grandson and Grandmother sat opposite one another with glazed eyes, both looking without seeing, both thinking hard enough to drown out the thick, heavy silence seeping through the parlor walls and crowding around them. Hobby thought hard without thinking anything at all, his brain processing the words without yet accepting or understanding them.

The Madame rose slowly and crossed the room once again, this time removing an unopened bottle of wine from a cabinet beside the desk. She moved with quiet intention, careful not to disturb the meandering current of wandering thoughts swirling forth from her grandson’s mind. Ever so delicately, she lifted a corkscrew from the desk and silently opened the bottle with an expert precision born of decades of practice. She filled her glass nearly to the brim, nearly emptying the bottle, and replaced the cork with the same slow intention. She returned to her seat and brought the glass to her lips, slurping loudly and breaking Hobby’s trance.

“You’re not unlike your father, you know. He had the same quiet manner when he was a boy. Thoughtful, perhaps to a fault. But then again, our greatest strengths all too often manifest themselves again as our greatest weaknesses, wouldn’t you say? I think it’s a matter of application. Thinking and thinking and thinking, when appropriately applied, can produce extraordinary conclusions, but thinking and thinking and thinking can also prevent one from drawing any conclusion at all. You’re young and you’ve plenty of time to harness your strength and learn to avoid its pitfalls, but you should know your father never did. He would think and think and think until he was so certain about the existence of some uncertainty. Hubris, what it was. So sure he knew the truth that he managed to hide the truth from himself, no matter how obvious. You’d be wise to learn from his failure, to learn to draw conclusions rather than disproving them.”

“Why do you keep a plastic sheet on the couch?” Hobby inquired softly.

A disappointed scowl flashed across the Madame’s face as she thought about the boy’s question. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, the weight of thoughts furrowing her brow.

“I’d like for you to hold on to this note,” she stood and placed the weathered cocktail napkin in the boy’s hand. “That little scrap of paper could have been your ruin, but instead it was your salvation. I want you to remember that when you look at it. That piece of paper is the reason you’re here. When I went into the adoption agency, you should know, I had an appointment to meet with another little boy, but I saw that note poking out of your folder there. Just the corner was enough for me to recognize your father’s hideous chicken scratch. Straight away I knew the contents of the folder, that jumbled bureaucratic paper trail, must describe the life and history of my only grandchild. My grandson.”

Another silent moment passed, just a beat too long for comfort. Hobby was still staring at the couch in the corner. The Madame cleared her throat, betraying a hint of frustration.

“Perhaps it’s time we call it a night?”

She rose briskly, walked to the door and held it open for her grandson. She wore a cheap plastic smile as she beckoned him into the hall. Hobby climbed the stairs in a daze, thinking hard about the two couches, how similar they were, how pristine and new they both looked. He opened the door to his room and crawled into his bed for the first time, too distracted by whirling thoughts to consider the darkness crowding around him. He slipped to sleep thinking of his father. He pictured him as a young man sitting on a couch in the parlor and intentionally smearing greasy fingers across the cushions.

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**Warning, this chapter contains potentially triggering content, including references to child sex abuse. Discretion is strongly recommended.**

“Where’s the ice, Haddie? I’m supposed to drink warm soda like a peasant?” Oscar joked, removing a dripping can from the cooler. “Want one? I ate all the snacks, but there’re a couple more sodas swimming around in here.”

Hobby declined, but Haddie took one. She popped the tab and took greedy gulps.

“Definitely better cold,” she said, smacking her lips dramatically. “We’ll bring some ice in the morning. And some more food. First thing, so you don’t starve to death.”

The children took their seats and settled in for story time. Oscar scooped his backpack up from the ground and brought it to the table. Hobby turned the lantern on, wanting to make himself useful. Haddie quivered anxiously, tapping a nervous rhythm with her feet.

“I’m not sure how much you two know about drugs,” Oscar said, flicking his eyes back and forth between his companions, one eyebrow raised. Hobby looked at his lap and decided to keep his mother’s death to himself for now, unsure of the relevance and hesitant to dredge up such a painful story. Haddie looked at Oscar in silent anticipation, so he continued.

“It’s okay, I didn’t know anything about drugs either, not until I wound up at Flaygin’s. Think about it like this. Alcohol is a drug. You know, like wine and gin and all the crap Ma drinks, but since it’s legal no one calls it a drug. Best way I can explain it, drugs make your mind play tricks on you. They all play different tricks and some of the tricks are dangerous. When I was there I was forced to produce and sample three drugs: heroin, the most deadly; methamphetamine, the cheapest and most popular; and Marijuana, what you just saw me smoking, the kindest drug of the three. I have reason to believe it should be legal, but that’s another conversation for another time.

“I was interested in the drug stuff, at first. I knew it was illegal, but what do I care, I’m underage and I’m not in charge. And when it came to the robberies we did? That was some real fun. I felt like Robin Hood, breaking into all these fancy pants estates, fancier even than Ma’s. We would steal all this old expensive crap, sell it and have a party. Thing is, I don’t know if I would have even escaped if I never found out about the other stuff, the real dark stuff Flaygin was doing. That’s what’s important for y’all to understand. The real evil stuff.”

Oscar pulled his backpack up into his lap and rifled through it, removing several crumpled pages.

“What I’m about to tell you will be difficult to believe. Painful, probably. The time I spent in Flaygin’s Flock, that’s what he called us, is probably unbelievable to someone who didn’t live it. I recognize this. Plus, Haddie never believed anything I said, and I’ll admit, I had a tendency to exaggerate when I was still a kid, so I made sure to bring receipts. Evidence.

“Remember last night I mentioned how the girls would go upstairs in the morning to make phone calls? Here’s part of one of their scripts. This ought to show y’all what kind of sickos we’re dealing with.”

Haddie snatched a page from Oscar, scanned it quickly and grabbed another. She squinted her eyes in confusion and put the pages back down with a frown. Oscar lifted them and offered them to Hobby. He politely declined, hoping Oscar wouldn’t insist. He didn’t.

“Let me set the scene for you a little bit. Help you understand. We all slept on cots upstairs in a big, open room. It was like a day area, the kind of place a foosball table might have been, once upon ago. Picture some cheesy youth pastor with a golden hoop in one ear playing duck, duck, goose after Sunday school. That kind of space. Smelled like crayons.

“The whole upstairs was just the one room and two big bathrooms. Or what used to be bathrooms. The toilets had been removed, so we had to go downstairs to take a dump or whatever, which was super annoying but that’s unimportant. Anyway, each stall had a little desk with a phone and an office chair right where the toilet should have been. Still had a sink, tile floors with a drain, the usual. Don’t look at me like that, Haddie. Keep up. Remember Charles? The guy with the cuffs? He’s a sheriff’s deputy and he gave Flaygin regularly updated lists of all the phone numbers and addresses on file for local sex offenders. Drug offenders, too, but that’s a different scheme. Look, this here’s a script for talking to the perverts,” he held the sheet up. “It’s something called a flow chart. Works like this: if the person who picks up responds this way, you follow this line and respond like so. Get it?

Haddie nodded slowly and Hobby cocked his head, wheels spinning in six inches of mud. Oscar plowed on anyway.

“So, for example, the calls always start the same way. At least for this particular operation.”

Oscar picked up the paper and started reading aloud.

Caller: Hello, this is Cindy. This call is regarding your interest in the Flaygin’s Flock re-homing program. If you would like more information, please provide the six-digit code.

“I found out through means of espionage, some real 007 shit, these guys, the ones on the list, they’re all sickos. Perverts, every last one of them. Scum of the earth.”

Haddie started to interrupt but Oscar waved her words away with a frustrated sigh.

“I can see you’re still not getting it. The girls are making sure we got the right number and address. Lookie here, if they provide the code, means they’re familiar with the program, means they’re in on it, they know who we are and what we do. Listen to me, still saying ‘we.’ I think probably they were told we’d call, maybe by Officer Charles, maybe someone else in on it. Some contact must have give them the code. Maybe when they’re released from jail, but I guess it doesn’t really matter much.

“This is how the flow chart works. If they provide the code, you continue. If not, hang up and cross them off the list of numbers.”

Oscar cleared his throat and resumed reading from the sheet.

Caller: Would you mind confirming the address we have on file *read provided address aloud and update as needed* Thanks for that. Are you interested in receiving a catalog of current products?

“Here we’ve got another option. They say no, hang up and cross them off. Yes, continue.”

Caller: For the standard re-homing catalog, we require a one-time, non-refundable deposit of $1,000. For a discerning customer such as yourself, we recommend the Connoisseur’s Catalog. For just $500 more, that’s a one-time, non-refundable deposit of $1,500, you will gain access to the complete list of Flaygin’s Farmaceutical products in addition to the standard re-homing catalog.

“If they don’t want to pay the deposit, that’s right, you guessed it, hang up and cross them off. If they do want a catalog, it says to ‘carefully fill out one of the included Credit Card Authorization Forms, being sure to carefully read the information back to the client. If either the name or address on the credit card is different from the name or address previously provided, hang up and cross them off the list.’”

Oscar continued reading from the sheet.

Caller: Thank you for your interest in Flaygin’s Flock. Your deposit is greatly appreciated. Once your payment has been processed, you can expect your catalog, including further instructions, to arrive within 5-10 business days.

Oscar looked up from the sheet and slapped it down on the table, a wild, manic look in his eyes. Hobby raised his hand apprehensively and Oscar responded with a subtle upward nod and raised eye brows.

“What’s a pervert?”

“Oh jeez, okay. Uhm, well. You know about, well, the birds and the bees, don’t you?

“Sonny knows tons about bees. Probably birds too,” Haddie said, looking at Hobby with the pride of an older sibling.

“Not you too,” Oscar said, turning red and rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. “I didn’t think we’d need to do an anatomy course. Let me put it this way. You know where you came from? I’m gonna need more than a nod, Hobby.”

“My mom’s belly,” Hobby said. “I remember there was a picture of her from when I used to live in there. Her belly was huge. She said I ate all her food and never paid any rent.”

“Ha. Okay, good. I suppose that’s true for all of us. So, your dad had to get you in there somehow, didn’t he? Well imagine if someone’s dad tried to put a baby into a little kid, someone small like Haddie. That wouldn’t be right, would it? No, no, it’s not a question, don’t answer that. It wouldn’t be right. It’s illegal because kids shouldn’t be parents. Well, even more than that. It’s a kind of abuse, like if a grownup hits you, but even worse. Much worse. It’s something that’s only supposed to happen when people love each other, or at least when they agree to it. Didn’t y’all ever get asked about this stuff by social workers?”

Haddie and Hobby looked at each other and shook their heads, no.

“Wow. Okay, well I did,” Oscar’s face darkened and his voice grew quiet and serious. He stood up and pointed at his crotch. “It’s simple, really. If an adult touches you there, it’s a crime. They’re called privates because they are. Private, I mean. I’m not going to go into it beyond that, but some of the stuff these perverts like to do is much, much worse than touching.”

“Does it hurt?” Haddie asked softly.

“I don’t remember,” Oscar replied slowly. “Which probably means yes.”

It was dark in the treehouse now, only the thin glow of the lantern illuminating the three faces. A pensive silence crept in from the shadows as the children individually travelled to dungeons of their memories, wondering what monsters might be harbored within the inaccessible depths of their own minds.

Oscar, squirming uncomfortably in his seat, couldn’t take it anymore and broke the silence.

“These are real-life monsters,” he said, as if he could read their thoughts. “They don’t have to hide in your closet or under your bed, though given the opportunity I’m sure they’d be thrilled to do just that. These sickos are everywhere. They’re cops and priests and social workers and foster parents and real parents and teachers. Politicians. I have reason to believe the Governor could be involved, but I don’t want to get carried away. These people don’t need to hide in the dark; they’re not vampires. They walk around in broad daylight and, lots of the time, they live in real fancy houses like the one over there where Ma might be on the phone with Flaygin as we speak, might be getting ready to sell Haddie off to the Flock. It isn’t a matter of if it might happen, it’s when. Which is why we have got to do something before it’s too late.”

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When Hobby laid eyes on his new teacher he felt the first churning of desire welling up hot somewhere in his chest. Miss Tartt was a beautiful, slender woman in her mid-thirties, her milky complexion framed by a severe bob of black hair. She introduced herself and he heard himself stammering a response from somewhere remote, floating high above himself and gazing down in horror at his own flushed cheeks. Haddie socked him in the arm and he snapped out of it.

“Pleased to meet you, Hobby,” Miss Tartt said with a knowing smile. “Madame Cleary told me you’re owed an education. Today I’m going to see what we’re working with. Sound like a plan?”

Hobby nodded his head vigorously, agreeable to anything she might say.

“Haddie, I’m going to have you work independently for a little while, okay? At least until I can figure out a way to integrate your lesson plans,” she handed Haddie a weathered workbook. “You’ll find a lovely little lesson on page 143. Covalent bonds. Remember those? When you’ve finished, come see me and we’ll move on to a math lesson.”

Miss Tartt led Hobby to a small table in the study, one of several boring rooms he’d already forgotten about, just as Haddie had said he would when she first showed him around. The place seemed to have infinite doors, after all. He took a seat to the left of his new teacher, trying to focus on the letters in front of him, but he kept getting distracted by the sweet scent of his teacher’s breath.

“That’s good, very good, Hobby.” She was encouraging, though Hobby knew he’d butchered the alphabet. “You’ve got an excellent grasp of your letters for someone who never went to school. Let’s try sounding out some words, shall we?”

This task proved difficult for Hobby but his teacher was gentle and kind. By the end of the reading lesson he could feel blood pumping in his temples and his eyes began to hurt. He rubbed them with the back of his hands. Seeing this, Miss Tartt suggested he take a break and have a snack.

“Why don’t we take a little break? You may not know this, but your brain, like all of the muscles in your body, burns calories when exercised. I can see you’ve been sapped of energy. Go refuel and use the restroom, then meet me back here in half an hour. In the meantime, I’m going to check on Haddie. Okay?”

Hobby crept from the study to the kitchen, still afflicted with the nagging sensation of being a stranger in his home, a sensation he would never truly overcome. Years later, living alone in an apartment of his own, he still found himself tiptoeing past closed doors leading to empty rooms.

Just outside the parlor, a floorboard groaned beneath his toes, even tipped as they were, and he winced. He could hear the Madame cackling beyond the cracked door, a news broadcast blaring about faraway tensions between forces unknown to Hobby. He paused a moment to listen to the radio announcer.

“You really ought to hear these loonies,” the announcer said. “It’s like they need a nuclear war to start before they’ll believe us, before they’ll take the nuclear threat seriously. How many towers need to fall? You bet those, I’m gonna say it, those ‘sand monkeys’ got weapons of mass destruction. You betcha! And don’t let none of those loonies tell you otherwise! Our security depends on it. Ask yourself: would Jesus let a buncha savages carry on making weapons? Weapons with the power to end our Christian way of life?”

The combination of words didn’t make much sense to the boy, but still he felt a mysterious sense of existential dread. Maybe he would be unaffected, he thought, the Christian way of life having so far eluded him.

He crept on down the hall and slunk into the kitchen where Stephan was busy preparing a plate of veggies and hummus. Hearing Hobby’s entrance Stephan whipped around and sneered at him.

“Get out of my kitchen. Yes, right now.”

The boy didn’t waste any time turning around and scurrying away, his fear of confrontation far exceeding his present hunger. He rushed down the hall, abandoning his previous delicate steps, pulled open the bathroom door and locked himself inside. Gazing down at the bathmat, he had to resist an urge to curl up and retreat to the safety of his eyelids. He sat a while on the toilet, but, nothing of note taking place, so he stood and washed his hands absentmindedly. The sound of the faucet had a hypnotic effect and the boy found himself somewhere remote once again, lost in abstract thought. Something like an alarm penetrated the depths of his subconscious and Hobby woke to scalding hands, bright red and raw from a vigorous lather. He turned the faucet off and dried them carefully, the skin feeling like it might rub free.

When Hobby returned to the study he found it empty and took his seat, waiting patiently for Miss Tartt’s return. Eventually he heard the soft click of her heels, louder and louder still, and she entered carrying Stephan’s tray of veggies and hummus.

“Stephan can be difficult to read sometimes,” she spoke softly, setting the tray down in front of the boy, “but he really does mean well, believe it or not. One day you’ll learn that some of us are clouds and others the sky, and what a pretty picture the two combine to create.”

“Okay,” Hobby said, considering her meaning over a bite of carrot, afraid to try the mystery dip he didn’t yet recognize. As he chewed his mind wandered to other things he couldn’t understand and, seeing an opportunity to change the subject, he asked about what he had heard on the radio. “What’s a weapon of mast reduction?”

Miss Tartt politely swallowed her giggle and, without missing a beat, corrected the boy.

“A weapon of mass destruction is one which, if used, could destroy a mass-ive amount of life.” Seeing the boy’s alarm, she quickly changed tactics. “It’s a difficult subject, I know. You’d be wise not to worry about things you can’t control. The other option leads nowhere but tragedy, but this is one thing you shouldn’t have any trouble understanding after these first ten years of your life. Most boys your age believe themselves princes of their own manors, based solely upon their previous contentment. Enough philosophy, though. Let’s start small. We’re going to write down and learn twenty relevant two letter words. Can you think of any?”

Morning bled into afternoon and afternoon passed in much the same way, Miss Tartt setting one child on a task, then attending to the other down the hall. Learning concluded at four pm and by then Hobby was exhausted, but he knew he could neither miss the rest of Oscar’s story nor hope to dissuade Haddie from returning to the treehouse again that night, so he dug deep and somewhere down there found a smile.

Miss Tartt led Hobby down the hall to the quiet alcove where Haddie sat in an armchair. She said goodbye to the two children, leaving each with a detailed lesson plan to be completed independently the next day.

“I’ll see you two on Wednesday, okay? Be good, but don’t be too good.” She winked and squeezed Hobby’s shoulder, disappearing down the hall and out into the waning light.

Haddie gave Hobby an expectant look and, without a word, both children dashed down the hall, their footsteps creating a thunderous ruckus. They raced to the treehouse and, by the time they made it there, Hobby had forgotten about his previous drowsiness. He hurried up the ladder, right on Haddie’s tail. When they pulled themselves in they were both out of breath and giggling uncontrollably.

“Ugh, what’s that smell?” Haddie asked once she caught her breath.

“Gross. It’s even worse than last night,” Hobby replied, pulling his shirt up over his nose.

“You smelled it last night? Hey, what’s that smell?” She turned and asked the empty room. “Oscar?”

Oscar pushed the door open and stepped in from the porch, his eyes red and swollen. He looked like he had been crying.

“This is the only good thing to come out of that awful place,” he said, lifting a smoldering roach between thumb and index. He took one last, long drag before tossing it carelessly out into the twilight at his back. He was laughing harder than he should have. “Sit down and try some, if you want. I’ve got plenty more. Might make y’all understand. Then again, maybe none of it’ll make any sense. Yea, actually, let’s hold off. If you want, maybe y’all can try some tomorrow. It’s better during the day anyway. The anxiety’s always easier when the sun’s out.”

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Mr. Flaygin talked at Oscar for a few minutes but little of what he said registered. Oscar nodded along when he was supposed to, filling awkward gaps with an occasional “uh-huh.” He understood that this was to be his new home indefinitely, that he would be put to work.

“We’re going to start you off out in the fields,” Flaygin said. “But, as you’ll learn, we rotate duties here. Tomorrow you’ll be downstairs in the lab. For now, I’m going to send someone over with some food for you, but you are forbidden from speaking to any of the other students during this probationary period. Got it?”

Without another word Flaygin rose to his feet and waddled back through the pews like a crab without its shell, just butter soaked flesh scuttling along. Oscar watched as Flaygin pulled aside a boy with long blonde curls, giving him instructions and pointing in Oscar’s direction then handing him a second bowl. The boy stood in line with a bowl in each hand, waiting for the cook to serve up a couple portions of gruel. The leather faced man with sagging frown lines and tired eyes scooped a grey glob the size of a baseball into each bowl, shaking his ladle vigorously until the glob plopped loose with a splat.

Oscar watched as the blonde boy hurried over and noticed he wore the same clothing as Flaygin. He gazed around at the other boys and realized they all wore precisely the same clothing: dirty boots, thick canvas work pants and long-sleeved denim shirts buttoned right up to the collar. The girls, he saw, wore a slight variation: the same or similar work boots poking out from beneath long denim dresses.

When Blondie reached Oscar’s post in the far corner of the room he held out a bowl of food and a small paper cup of water without making eye contact. Oscar took his breakfast eagerly, but his face fell when he got a closer look at the sickly gray substance in his bowl. By the time he looked up Blondie was somehow already seated with the others eating ravenously.

He held his breath and opened his mouth, taking the biggest bites he could manage, gagging each time he tried to swallow, but ultimately getting it all down. The small paper cup of water wasn’t nearly enough to wash all the food down so he rationed it carefully, taking tiny sips until he had nearly cleaned his bowl, washing down the final bites with large gulps.

Finished, he looked up and noticed some of the others beginning to clean up—or take down—the mess hall, tossing dishes into a bucket of soapy water and removing cooking equipment from the long table at the front of the room, disappearing through side doors into the building’s bowels and returning empty handed. In the blink of an eye the room had been transformed, all reminders of the morning meal having vanished.

Everyone returned to their seats. Flaygin stood before them on a raised platform where a priest might have once stood, leaning on a podium and speaking into a microphone.

“One day closer,” he said, the microphone projecting his voice into the far reaches of the building, unnecessarily loud.

“To the life we deserve,” the first row of pews chanted in unison, a sort of call and response.

“And one day further,” Flaygin said.

“From the life we were served,” the crowd responded.

“We have a new arrival, my children, a new arrival and a timely reminder of why we are here. This boy, like each of you, has been cast aside like a broken toy. And why? What crime is the boy guilty of?” Flaygin asked the room.

“Just like one and each of us all, he grew too big when they wanted him small,” the chorus answered.

“I expect you’ll all welcome your new brother. His name is Oscar.”

“Welcome, Oscar,” the chorus answered in a chilly monotone. Oscar, trembling in the corner, didn’t feel welcome.

“A few notes before we get on with our day,” Flaygin said, lifting a pair of spectacles from his podium and resting them on the tip of his nose in such a way as to allow him to gaze over the lenses and out at the room and then down at his papers without removing them or moving his head. “The final numbers are back from the poppy harvest. It was an improvement over last summer, but we can do better. If we want to fix the leaks in the roof before spring you’ll all need to work harder.

“Ladies, we’ve got an updated list of phone numbers and some small revisions to the script. Miss. Stansberry has been kind enough to hi-light the revisions and you’ll find new copies posted in your cubicles.

“Gents, I understand we’ve had to make some adjustments to our recipe downstairs in the lab after the little mishap last week. Careful down there; remember what happened to your old pal Howie. We don’t need a repeat, do we? I think I can safely say none of us wants to go through cleaning up a mess like that again. As for the fields, I’ve just taken a stroll around and I must say, I’m impressed with how far you’ve come from the atrocious ditch weed you all grew last year. I think this year’s crop shows real promise, but improvements can always be made.

“Lastly, we’ve arranged for an excursion at the end of the month, similar to last year’s. Officer Charles has used his connections to obtain a dossier on one of the nearby land owners, a wealthy old cow not far from here. Her manor will be empty in two weeks for fumigation and, for a small price, our friends over at Brett’s Bug Bombers agreed to hold off before they gas the place. We’ve only got one night, one shot. Like last time, we’ll paddle the canoes down and beach on her property, but our window is too tight for the usual mishaps so we will be training in the lake every night until we launch. Got that?”

Flaygin, smirking with delight, picked up a long stick with a fuzzy ball at one end and turned to face a gong. He raised the stick above his head with somber intensity, striking three times at regular intervals. At the third strike the room stood in unison, as if connected by a giant, invisible chain. A long moment passed before the ringing finally faded to still silence, at which point the chain shattered and everyone scattered, splitting off into three groups moving separate directions. All of the girls, and one grown woman, marched silently up the stairs.

Oscar found himself nearly alone in the great, echoing room, only Flaygin left behind. He didn’t know what to do, which way to go, so he sat watching Flaygin tidy his podium. Flaygin glanced up and, noticing Oscar still seated in the corner, cocked his head and looked quizzically at the boy.

“Go on, then,” he said into the microphone, his gruff voice booming even louder now that the space had been nearly emptied. He pointed to a door off to his left and said, “Out to the fields.”

Oscar stood on trembling legs and scuttled across the room, then down the center aisle. He hurried out the door Flaygin had indicated and trailed behind a group of four young boys. He jogged to catch up with them and followed them down a well worn dirt path from the side door of the church. He trailed behind the boys as they entered one of the cabins he had seen tucked away in the woods when he first arrived. A hand-painted sign above the door read: ‘The Fields.’

The cabin consisted of one room, brightly lit with UV lamps and crammed with row after row of tall, leafy plants bending under their own weight and forming a canopy overhead. A hydroponic system snaked across the floor connecting one plant to the next in a giant chain. He wandered down a row of plants and forgot where he was, momentarily transported to a leafy jungle.

Oscar watched with fascination as the others tended to the plants, but he didn’t have a clue what they were doing. The closest he had ever come to gardening was chatting with Rudy as he knelt before a flower bed. He wandered to the rear of the space, ducking beneath a garland of dried out plants hanging upside down from the ceiling and watched as one of the older boys snipped away at little chunks of leafy plant matter, tossing leaves and long stems into a trash bag between his legs and depositing neatly trimmed nuggets into a bucket to his right.

Oscar moved in for a closer look and couldn’t help but reach over the table, grabbing a little nugget. It was mostly green, with little purple and orange hairs sprouting from all angles and shimmering in the light with tiny crystals. It was beautiful, he thought. He held it up to his nose and inhaled a musty odor, something like sweaty armpits and lemon juice. Without knowing why he did it, he stuck it in his pocket.

**

“Haddie! Hobby! Y’all children up there?” came a voice from down below. It was Rudy.

Without missing a beat Haddie rose to her feet and crossed the room, lifting the trap door and calling down.

“Hi, Rudy!”

“How-do, Had-die? Ma sent me to tell y’all dinner’s up. Come on down and get some while it’s hot. She just went off to bed. Had a few too many with Miss Handle, I think.” Rudy sounded pleasantly amused by this and flashed a wide grin up at Haddie.

“Well I never!” Haddie chuckled back sarcastically, returning Rudy’s grin with her own crooked, toothy variant. “We’ll be right down. Just need to clean up in here.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to bed. But don’t you dare dally! Stephan’s in there waitin’ on you. He’s gotta clean up before he can leave and, big surprise, he already looked in a mood.”

“We’ll be quick, promise! Good night Rudy!”

“Night Haddie! Hobby, too, if you can hear me! Sleep loose, and if the bed bugs try and bite, you just bite quicker! Ha, ha!”

Haddie joined Hobby and Oscar at the table and begged for just a few more minutes of story time, but Oscar refused.

“Come back tomorrow right after breakfast and I’ll finish the story, okay? Anyway, I’m exhausted.”

“We’ve got Miss Tartt tomorrow, dummy,” Haddie reminded him. “But after that, we’ll be here fast as we can.”

Hobby and Haddie said goodbye to Oscar and turned to leave, heading down the ladder and out into the night.

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The light was fading quickly, so Oscar fetched a battery powered lantern from the chest of junk, flicking it on and placing it on the table between the three of them. Oscar lowered his head and gathered his thoughts for a moment, suddenly solemn. When he raised his head his previous good humor had vanished and he spoke in a somber and hushed tone.

“It was actually almost exactly a year ago when all this started. For me, at least. I can’t tell you when all of this really got started, though I do aim to find out. Remember when you first showed up,” he turned to address Haddie. “I told you about how I woke up and Melody was gone? Poof. It was always such a mystery and Ma acted like she’d never even heard the name before. But it really didn’t bother me much because she was a bully. Well I know what happened to her. I even saw her. And I felt bad for her, too.”

It was mostly dark in the treehouse now, just a dim glow illuminating the faces of the children huddled around the table. Oscar looked back and forth from Hobby and Haddie as he continued his story, gesticulating wildly and making sound effects with his mouth. He chronicled in great detail the events of his final night under the Madame’s roof, the night a stranger burst into his bedroom.

“There I was, fast asleep, when BAM!” He slammed his open palm on the table, knocking the lantern on its side and plunging the three of them into momentary darkness. Hobby quickly righted the lantern. “My door flew open and a big, big boy stood there in the doorway. Could have been a linebacker. Probably was, at some point. I remember rubbing my eyes and rolling over. I was sure I was still dreaming.”

Oscar pulled the covers up over his eyes, sighing loudly and kicking at the sheets, trying to find the one comfortable spot he always struggled to find, but then the covers were wrenched from the bed. The boy curled into the fetal position and cried out for help, covering his exposed delicates.

“I always sleep naked, so we had an awkward moment,” Oscar recalled. “I sure woke up after that. I started screaming ‘rape,’ ‘kidnapper,’ whatever I could think of, ‘stranger danger,’ I think I even said. He just yanked me up out of bed by the arm and told me to get dressed.”

Bleary eyed and confused, Oscar dressed himself quickly, huddled in a corner and tripping over his pant legs as he struggled to pull them on. He turned to face his abductor and noticed a second figure standing illuminated in the doorway.

“It was—” Oscar trailed off and paused for dramatic effect, “Ma! I yelled and hollered for her to help me, but she didn’t do a damn thing. She just stood there.”

Oscar bolted for his guardian, arms outstretched, but he was intercepted by the linebacker, scooped right off his feet. Oscar tried to meet the Madame’s eyes but it was too dark then she was gone without a word and he was listening to the sound of her creaking steps down the stairs, followed by the distant sound of her bedroom door clicking shut.

“I always hope I ain’t gon need these,” the linebacker sighed, removing a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. He looked tired and altogether unenthusiastic about the task staring him in the eyes. "If you’ll just calm down I’ll put these right back where they came from. This is a one-time offer.”

The situation, Oscar could see, was well beyond his control and no one was coming to his rescue. He weighed his options, glancing from the glinting steel to the empty hallway. His feet moved on their own and he tried to push and squirm his way past the man, shouting desperately into the hall, begging for help, or at the very least an explanation, but, slippery as the young boy was, he still couldn’t skirt the mountain of man blocking the door.

“They always test it,” he muttered to himself, slapping the cuffs on the boy’s wrists with a decisive clink. “Move it. We’re going right out the front door. Don’t do nothin’ silly and I’ll take ‘em off when you’re in the car.”

The toothless steel jaws bit into his flesh and he hung his head and did as he was told, resigned to his fate. Outside, a black SUV idled, sighing and buzzing impatiently, belching plumes of exhaust into the night. His captor opened the passenger side door and helped the boy up and inside before walking around the vehicle, never taking his eyes off of his prize. When he climbed in the driver’s seat the entire vehicle sagged and shuddered under his weight.

“Can you relax now? I’ll take those off you,” the man held out the key to the cuffs and indicated for Oscar to turn around. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us and you’d be wise to get some sleep. I doubt if you’ll get much tomorrow. Here, hold ‘em up for me, steady, there we go.”

The man returned the cuffs to his back pocket, the car shaking again as he shifted his weight from one cheek to the other.

“I know you’re confused, kid, but this is for the best. No one’s gone hurt you, okay? My name’s Charles.”

Charles held his hand out to shake but Oscar turned away, buckling his seat belt with his eyes lowered. He didn’t want Charles to mistake his tears of frustration for tears of a weaker variety. He knew his voice would quiver if he tried to speak, so he marinated in the sounds of the asphalt punching back against the thumping weight of tires, the rattle of something shaking loose under the hood.

The dashboard display read just past three in the morning but Oscar was too upset to sleep, so he passed the time watching road signs, trying to figure out where they were and where they might be headed.

Just before five they turned off the highway at a sign for Mt. Zion, Missouri, following a winding dirt road through a dense growth of trees and thicket for another hour or so without suffering any reminders of the existence of the human race. Oscar stared at the trees racing by and wished he could be one of them. As the car bumped over the unfinished road Oscar allowed himself to go limp, letting his body sway with the jostling rhythm of the vehicle like a leaf rustled free from its branch, drifting carelessly through space.

Suddenly the trees cleared and Oscar could see the lake stretching out before him. In the distance he saw a pointed steeple shooting up from a small stand of evergreen. Charles slowed, pulling into a parking lot out front. The clock read 6 a.m.

“You wait here for a second while I go make sure everything’s ready for you,” Charles said, killing the engine and pocketing the keys as he hauled his massive frame out into the early morning.

The sun was beginning to crest the horizon, illuminating several cabins tucked away in the woods flanking the steepled building. He wondered if this wasn’t some sort of summer camp, but decided it couldn’t be, for it was nearly winter.

The main building certainly had the trappings of a church, but paint peeled and flaked free from rotten siding and the steps to the front door crumbled under their own weight. Everywhere he looked Oscar saw detritus of some variety. Battered shingles scattered by the wind. Old barrels of stagnant water. A bathtub with a copper ring stain. A few old doors piled up, their knobs having been previously removed.

The front door swung open and Charles trudged out wearily. He was looking at an envelope in his hands, which he tucked into jacket pocket.

“Alright, let’s go.” Charles opened Oscar’s door and escorted him to the door. He paused and looked down at Oscar. “Everyone else just woke up. They’re in there goin’ through the normal morning routine. You just take a seat wherever you like and observe today. Mr. Flaygin will greet you and go over some things with you. It’s gonna cause quite a stir, you showing up, but don’t bother ‘bout that. Always happens and we ain’t had a new arrival in a couple months now. Okay, you ready?”

Without waiting for Oscar’s response, Charles swung the door open and pushed him through the threshold, pulling the door shut without following him inside. Oscar found himself alone in an enclosed vestibule, hallways stretching out to either side and a door directly in front of him.

Oscar’s parents had been devout Catholics, so somewhere in the distant chambers of the young boy’s mind lived a vague familiarity with churches. The door before him, he guessed, led to what had at one point been the larger worship space, and the hallways probably led into the bowels of the building, the private backrooms where devils made deals with holy men.

His back to the front door, he took shallow breaths and steeled himself, gathering the courage to continue into the next room. A supremely foul olfactory hue stagnated in the air around him, the space glowing with a combination of chemical and organic odors. A cacophony of sounds sketched an outline of the smells, painting a faint picture of the happenings in the next room.

He mostly heard the typical sounds one might hear in a home full of people waking up. An occasional clang of pans. A toilet flushing at intervals. Stomping footsteps overhead, creaking stairs. Somewhere an empty boiler clanged and hissed. Laughter rang out periodically, accompanied by gruff shouting. He heard male and female voices of varying ages. He was scared. He didn’t want to see for himself.

Struggling to turn the sweaty knob with his trembling hands, Oscar wiped his palms on his pants and tried again. A thick curtain of silence fell as the door groaned open and for a brief moment Oscar wondered if the previous clamor hadn’t been some sort of anxiety induced auditory hallucination. He gawked at the scene framed by the doorway, looking out on this busy tableau, this frenzied still-life, with all the detachment of an exhausted museum guest taking in a massive gallery piece.

Around a dozen frosty faces frozen in space and time stared back at him with wide eyes and slack jaws, clutching mugs and bowls or pots and pans, each seeming to have his or her own place in the chaotic picture. Even upon first glance Oscar could tell there was a precise order hidden somewhere between the frantic air and the crumbling walls.

It took a beat longer than most, but eventually the moment melted and trickled into that great homogenous puddle of moments past, time resuming its plodding pace. Oscar crab-walked through an empty aisle of pews, taking a seat all the way at the far corner where he felt safe. No one could sneak up on him. He could see the entire room from this vantage.

Oscar gazed around the room and sighed, massaging his strained, overstimulated eyeballs. He counted the heads in the room and found fourteen individuals focussed on breaking their previous evening’s fast, scurrying to and fro like ants on a hill. There was a palpable pecking order in the room, and it didn’t seem to have anything to do with age. A balding man with sagging, leathery skin scooped something gray and sticky into chipped enamel mugs and bowls.

He noticed movement in his peripheral and turned to see a squat man with a funny hat scuttling through the pews as he had just done a moment previously. When the man reached him he was out of breath, wiping sweat from his brow with a hanky and stuffing it into his pocket with a grunt. He righted his little saucer of a cap with one hand, straightening it on the crown of his head.

“Hello there, Oscar,” the man spoke through his nose in a weathered rasp. He took a seat beside the boy without looking him in the eye. “My name is Mr. Flaygin. Welcome home.”

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“I’m gonna drop the ladder, Haddie,” Oscar shouted from the treehouse. “It’s gonna land on your big fat head if you don’t move it.”

Haddie looked up and stepped to the side as the ladder fell, reaching out and catching it gracefully. She had clearly done this before, Hobby thought. She squared up to start climbing but before she could get one foot up Oscar shouted again, telling her to wait.

“Make the runt climb up here first,” Oscar’s voice was sharp. “We need to have some words with him.”

Edwin huffed at the word 'runt' and crossed his arms in pathetic defiance, his lower lip stuck out in a pout. Edwin was tiny, Hobby thought as he watched the boy kick at a rock. Upon first meeting Edwin, Hobby had assumed him to be older than himself, based solely on his table manners and bowtie. Watching him stomp around throwing a tantrum, Hobby wondered if he was even ten years old. He started to ask but Haddie cut him off.

“You heard him, squirt,” Haddie seemed to be enjoying herself, a cruel glint in her eye. She shoved Edwin towards the ladder and he stumbled backwards, grabbing a rung to catch himself. “Start climbing.”

“Or what?” Edwin asked loudly. “You can’t make me do nothin’ I don’t want to.”

Hobby loomed as large as he could behind Edwin, blocking his retreat, but the tough-guy pretense made him feel silly.

“Well we could start by shoving poison oak down your pants. I know just where some is,” Haddie edged toward Edwin and the boy backed away from her, bumping into Hobby. He stammered and darted his eyes this way and that. Once again, Hobby found himself feeling sorry him, but held his ground.

“Start climbing,” Hobby tried to muster up a menacing tone, but his voice came out squeaky.

Edwin hung his head like a condemned man and grabbed hold of a rung with both hands. He slowly stepped a foot up, but once he was poised to climb he hesitated, then, in a series of increasingly clumsy, jerking movements, tried taking off for the woods, but accidentally stepped his raised foot through the ladder and found himself tangled up, tripping and crashing to the ground face first, his tangled leg splayed awkwardly over his head.

Hobby rushed over and freed Edwin’s leg, asking if he was okay. Edwin grunted in acknowledgment but kept his gaze fixed ahead. Hobby noticed tears forming at the corners of Edwin’s eyes, but as far as he could tell, the only injury had been to the boy’s pride.

“Come on,” Hobby said, reaching out a hand. “Get up. Climb the ladder. Let’s get this over with.”

Edwin slapped Hobby’s hand away and pushed himself up from the ground, brushing himself off with both hands. He pushed past Hobby without a word and started climbing.

“How old is he?” Hobby asked Haddie once Edwin was out of earshot.

“You’ll never believe it,” Haddie turned to him with wide, excited eyes, “but I swear that runt is almost thirteen years old! His birthday’s in November, just a couple months younger than Oscar.”

Silence crept over the pair as they watched Edwin’s slow ascent and Hobby tried, unsuccessfully, to dodge an incoming wave of melancholy. He could feel nervous excitement radiating from Haddie as Edwin neared the treehouse, and the moment he disappeared from sight she raced up the ladder and pulled herself in after him.

He gazed up at the treehouse and thought he could hear muffled laughter, or was it shouting? He imagined the three of them up there laughing at his expense, and even though he knew this was a silly and improbable thought, the image still stung. He bared his teeth and started climbing, feeling more nervous than usual, but this time his anxiety was unrelated to his fear of heights. He was anxious about Oscar. Older boys had always been unkind to him and, based on what little he had learned about Oscar over the previous days, Hobby didn’t think he sounded particularly friendly. Hobby wasn’t well versed in social dynamics and he worried about what effect Oscar might have on his relationship with Haddie. What if she started treating him differently? He worried and wondered and before he knew it he had pulled himself up and inside.

The treehouse had a stale, smokey smell, similar to the way Mr. Box’s car had smelled, but with a sweaty musk almost like that of an armpit. Hobby noticed some things had been shifted around and it looked like Oscar had spent the previous night sleeping on the floor. The three seat cushions from the wooden chairs around the table had been removed and placed in a row on the floor in the center of the room with a blanket haphazardly crumpled at one end, a rolled up pair of jeans serving as a makeshift pillow at the other. Beside the improvised bedroll sat an unfamiliar backpack, unzipped and hanging open, its contents spilling out across the floor.

Edwin sat on the table staring ahead blankly, never acknowledging Hobby’s presence. He looked like a patient in a doctor’s office nervously waiting on a prognosis, the nervous way his legs dangled from the table and kicked at the air. Any minute now, Hobby thought, the doctor would walk in with bad news on a clipboard and Edwin would climb down from the exam table a new person with a new outlook.

Haddie and Oscar were on the porch having a discussion in low voices. Not wanting to intrude, Hobby sat at the table beside Edwin, absently flipping through a magazine. Hobby yawned. He was suddenly tired and wanted to go to bed, to just be done with this long, stressful day. He looked up from the block of text he had been staring at and sighed loudly, looking nervously at Edwin.

“What’s that smell, anyway? Man, it reeks in here,” Hobby said nervously, pulling his shirt up over his nose dramatically. When Edwin still didn’t acknowledge him, he went on chatting nervously and flipping pages. “I wonder what’s for dinner tonight. After all that runnin’ around I’m starting to get hungry. Do you normally stay for dinner?”

Edwin slowly turned his head and stared at Hobby with cold, menacing eyes, then turned back to staring holes in the wall. Hobby gave up warding off the icy silence and stared blankly at a picture of an African penguin.

Sounds of muffled laughter erupted outside. Hobby looked up and saw Haddie and Oscar embrace, huge smiles plastered on their faces. Oscar saw him staring at them and Hobby flicked his eyes back to the page, but he could feel the heat of Oscar’s eyes on the nape of his neck.

A moment later the door swung open and Hobby jumped. He looked up and found Oscar grinning at him, hand outstretched. He could feel the blood pumping in his cheeks. He stammered and reached out for Oscar’s hand, knocking the magazine to the ground with his elbow. He picked it up with shaky hands and then remembered Oscar was still standing there, so he shot his hand back out and shook. Oscar’s hand felt like a grownup’s, Hobby noticed. He had cracked, callused fingers and a firm grip. Grinning a toothy grin, a warm glow emanated from Oscar’s eyes, and Hobby’s previous concern melted away.

“I’m Oscar. But I’m sure you already know that. You’re Hobby. Like I know that,” he winked at Hobby, genuine pleasure dancing in his eyes. He released Hobby’s hand and dropped his arm to his side. “Haddie told me you’re the best. Her words. I wanted to say thank you for being so nice to her.”

Haddie came out from behind Oscar, giggling, and took a seat next to Hobby, squeezing a couple vital pumps of reassurance into his knee.

“You’re never gonna believe it! Oscar’s on the run,” Haddie said, practically vibrating with anxious energy, still gripping Hobby’s knee.

“Hold on, Haddie. We don’t want this little brat knowing all of my secrets,” Oscar said, shooting Haddie a knowing glance.

Oscar, very large and developed for a thirteen year old, picked Edwin up by the collar of his shirt.

“Wait! Wait, I promise I won’t tell,” Edwin groveled. “Please, don’t hurt me. They’ve already been ganging up on me all day.”

He started to cry, or at least he started wailing as if he were crying, but his cheeks remained dry. Seeing Edwin beg like a dog made Hobby cringe with disgust.

“I’ve never believed a word out of your mouth and I don’t plan on starting today,” Oscar abruptly released his grip on Edwin’s shirt, sending him toppling to the ground. “So, I’m going to make a deal with you instead. You tattle, deal’s off.”

Oscar picked his backpack up from the ground and set it on the table. He pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a camouflage jacket before he found what he was looking for. He extracted a rolled up t-shirt from the depths of the bag, winking at Hobby.

“Anyone wanna guess what I’ve got here? Anyone?” He unrolled the shirt gently. No one made any guesses, so he revealed the object hiding beneath the shirt with a flick of his wrist and a practiced flourish, sending the shirt flying high in the air. He had a small, shiny object resting on the open palm of his hand. He moved closer to the table, his hand outstretched. “Take a look. This thing’s an antique, a gift from President Eisenhower to some General What’s-His-Fart or another. Least that’s what the display case said. It’s an old dueling pistol, I guess. That’s why it looks so strange. But ain’t she a beaut? Never seen anything like it, myself.”

The gun was indeed unlike any the children had seen on television or elsewhere. It didn’t have the characteristic L shape like most modern handguns; rather, the handle extended straight from the barrel like a miniature rifle, curving only slightly at the end, resembling a J.

Hobby leaned in to take a closer look and he had trouble believing his eyes as he took in the gilded artifact from a bygone era. It was so tiny Hobby wasn’t convinced it was real. But, real or not, it was extraordinary. The barrel was made of solid gold and engraved with a floral pattern, the center of each flower represented by a tiny ruby, only large enough to shimmer when the light landed in just the right place. The hammer was ivory, white as a page. The handle itself was a rich, red mahogany inlaid with thin bands of alternating ivory and obsidian. It was adorned to an almost comical degree, like a cartoon rendition of something a pirate might carry.

The pistol seemed to have a gravitational pull all its own and before they even realized what was happening, Hobby, Haddie and Edwin found themselves on their feet, crowded around Oscar, shoving at each other for a better view, eyes glued to the treasure, practically salivating. Hobby looked down and noticed his arm had taken on a mind of its own, floating out in front of him and reaching for the pistol without consulting him first.

“Okay, okay, back off you jackals! Gimme some space. You can all have a turn holding it, but don’t forget who it belongs to,” Oscar winked at Edwin.

Oscar was giddy, clearly pleased by their reactions. With another agile flourish, he spun the pistol up from its resting place on his outstretched palm, gripping the barrel tightly and extending the handle to Hobby. Hobby hesitated, suddenly afraid of holding the weapon.

“This thing sure has quite an effect on people,” Oscar said, chuckling and shaking his head. “Here, see how she feels. Don’t worry, she don’t bite.”

Hobby’s fingers slid into the little ergonomic indentations on the handle and he gripped the weapon tightly, his finger naturally sliding into the trigger guard. The gun had a satisfying weight and Hobby was surprised to find he rather enjoyed holding it. He felt like he had been born with this gun in his hand and he had never felt such a strong desire to possess a material item. He lowered it, pretending to holster it on his belt, then quickly raised it, pointing at the door and pretending to fire, bucking the pistol up with each imagined shot and saying, ‘pew, pew.’

“Who’s next? Haddie, would you like a turn?” Oscar said, holding out his hand. Reluctant, Hobby handed it over the way Oscar had handed it to him, gripping the barrel and offering him the handle. He took it and passed it to Haddie. “I’m sorry, Hobby. I know, that brat doesn’t deserve a treasure like this. Much as I hate to see it go to such an undeserving home, I got no choice.”

Edwin waited patiently for his turn with his new weapon, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Haddie hefted the gun, pointing it around the room the way Hobby had, but she quickly lost interest.

“This is the most pretty thing I ever saw,” Haddie said, holding the gun out for Oscar to grab. “But I don’t like holding it. It makes me nervous.”

Oscar took it from her and extended it to Edwin, who jumped at it greedily, but Oscar moved the gun at the last second, holding it just beyond his reach. Oscar was a full head taller than Edwin, with bronze skin and even had the faint shadow of a mustache darkening his smile. Edwin, pasty white and scrawny, didn’t even appear to be of the same species as Oscar.

“Not so fast, twerp,” Oscar scoffed down at him. “I need insurance, don’t I? I’m not giving this baby up until I know I’m home free. What’s to stop you takin’ this and tattling right away? No, this gal’s too sweet to pass on insurance. I’m sure you can understand.”

“That’s not gonna work for me,” Edwin’s face fell and he shook his head. “I should have known it was too good to be true. How do I know you aren’t telling another one of Oscar’s famous fibs? You’ll probably be long gone by the time I come back here next Sunday, won’t you? No sir, I won’t be taken for a fool. I’m sure Mother would love to hear all about this tonight on the drive home. Heck, I bet she takes me for ice cream after.”

Oscar’s face hardened and he looked down at the gun, fidgeting with it. He bent down and rifled through his backpack, removed a screwdriver and sat down at the table. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, poking the screwdriver into a little hole on the underside of the barrel, and after a moment of silent tension, said, “Aha, there you are,” and pulled something loose from the gun. He held it up for the room to see then handed it to Edwin. He was not impressed.

“What do I want with this?” Edwin shook his head in disgust as he eyed the piece of metal in his palm, turning it over and looking at it again, before setting it down on the table. “Looks like a piece of trash. What, did you break the thing? What do I want with a broken gun?”

“Are you being dense on purpose? I can’t remember if you really are this stupid. No, I didn’t break the thing. That little piece of metal in your hand is called a frizzen plate. It’s like a firing pin, kind of,” Oscar said, but the words meant nothing to Edwin. “Okay look, the gun won’t work without that hunk of metal in your hand. Now that you have that piece, this thing might as well be a paperweight. Clearly I won’t keep the gun, since it no longer works. And you will keep your mouth shut, or else you’ll never get the actual gun itself. And I know you want the gun, you little psychopath. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of evil things to do with this gun.”

The cruel offspring of a scowl and a smile crept across Edwin’s face as he no doubt fantasized about his future life as a gun owner. He looked at the gun appraisingly and his greed got the better of him.

“Deal,” he said. “I’ll be back next week and I expect to leave here with that little beauty, else the deal’s off. Are we done here?”

“Yea, we’re done here you little brat. Always a pleasure. Same time next week?” Oscar sauntered to the trap door like a good host, showing his guest out.

Without so much as a backwards glance Edwin opened the trap door and disappeared from sight. Oscar hesitated over the open door, watching the boy’s descent, and at the first opportunity bent down and reeled the ladder up and inside.

“Can never be too carful,” Oscar said, gently closing the trapdoor and taking a seat at the table between Haddie and Hobby. “Don’t want him climbing back up, listening in, learning my secrets, huh?”

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Haddie and Edwin stood in the hall, arms crossed over chests, arguing over whether Edwin had been intentionally eating slowly in order to poke at Haddie’s nerves. Hobby wondered why, with Edwin’s intentions being so plain, Haddie kept taking his bait. They went back and forth, Haddie’s volume increasing gradually, while Edwin, calm as a Buddha in a bowtie, rephrased the same tired excuses without ever conceding to, or even addressing any of Haddie’s points. Hobby didn’t want to intervene, nor did he really know how to, but the absurdity of the argument really bothered him.

“Can you please shut-the-hell-up,” he roared, making use of a phrase regularly employed by Mr. Box. Haddie looked at Hobby with wide eyes, taken aback and a little offended. Hobby was also shocked, hearing himself. “I’m sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout but I couldn’t listen to y’all argue anymore it’s just so stupid, Haddie. Of course he ate slow on purpose to mess with you. And why would he ever admit it?”

“Yea, he’s right Haddie, I was just messing with you,” Edwin was smiling a wide, creepy smile at Hobby. “It was just a prank, it’s not that big of a deal. No need to be a cry baby about it.”

Haddie blanched, but only momentarily, then her face flushed as she turned to address him, but Hobby grabbed hold of her shoulders, squeezing the way she had done the day before, when the Madame’s hissy fit in the lawn had scared him. She stopped and dropped her head.

“I have an idea,” she grinned, turning to face her friend. “Why don’t we just agree right now, for the rest of today, he’s invisible and we can’t hear him either.”

“Yea when he starts to talk, we’ll just talk to each other. Wanna go back out to the treehouse? Maybe we can lose him in the woods.”

“Fat chance,” Edwin grunted. “I know that forest like it were my own backyard.”

“Ignore him,” Haddie smiled. “Come on, let’s race each other there, he’ll be puffing and wheezing you wait.”

As they ran Hobby noticed Edwin struggling to keep up, pausing to catch his breath and wheezing loudly enough to be heard at a distance of at least twenty yards. He felt bad about backing up Haddie’s invisible Edwin idea, but he didn’t know what else to do and Edwin did seem to be a pretty nasty person.

But he didn’t believe treating someone badly would bring about good results; in fact he believed the opposite to be true: treating someone badly creates a cycle of negativity. Hobby had seen it play out in others, Mr. and Mrs. Box’s relationship, for example, but he had also seen this play out within himself. Edwin was cursing and shouting from somewhere behind them, signifying the completion of another complete rotation. It was now up to them to decide whether or not to spin the wheel again.

“Let’s hide over here,” Haddie could barely get the words out from panting so hard. “I know a good spot.”

“Why are we hiding?” Hobby inquired, following Haddie off the trail and into the thorny brush. Hobby had already decided he didn’t want to be involved in being mean to Edwin anymore.

“So we can pop out and scare him! Why else?”

“Doesn’t that seem a little mean?”

“He’s the mean one. I swear, you are just too innocent to understand some things, huh?”

“You do what you want, but I’m not scaring him anymore or pretending he’s invisible,” Hobby said, looking at the ground. “But I won’t be friends with him like the way we’re friends, Haddie. I just hope you don’t accidentally end up like him.” He looked up and made eye-contact for the last bit.

“I don’t think he’s capable of being friends with anyone in the first place,” Haddie shrugged, turning to hide. “Listen, I tried the nice way, believe me. I’m not a mean person, but he is and sometimes there’s no other way to deal with a mean person than to be mean right back.”

Silence fell between them for a moment or two. Hobby didn’t know what to say.

“If you don’t want to scare him, that’s just fine and I do understand, believe me, but don’t ruin my hiding spot, okay? Get down here with me.”

Haddie took hold of Hobby’s wrist and gave it a hard yank, as if it were a string attached to a ceiling fan. Hobby obliged, begrudgingly. The underbrush was still wet from the storm night before last, and as he knelt there in the soggy duff and moss his pant legs soaked up the moisture like a sponge. He started shivering and shifted his weight around, but anywhere he put pressure just got wet, so he tried crouching but Haddie yanked him down.

“What’re you doing? He’s coming, can’t you hear him trying to breathe? He’ll see your head if you sit up like that.”

So he gave in and returned to kneeling on all fours, but he didn’t need to stay that way long, for Haddie’s ears hadn’t deceived her and not a moment later Edwin came wheezing past their spot behind a thick growth of fern.

Haddie crept out from her hiding spot and edged over to Edwin on tip-toe. She didn’t make a sound, though it wouldn’t have mattered much with how much noise Edwin was making. He would have been surprised by an approaching semi.

Hobby stood, not because he wanted to watch the unfolding prank, but because his wet pants were making him cold and colder as the dark patches around his knees grew and crept down his legs, their original color no longer obvious.

He happened to rise from behind the fern at the precise moment of action. Haddie lunged forward, both hands outstretched, reaching for Edwin’s shoulders. She grabbed him and shook and at the same moment screeched a particularly unholy screech, one reserved for 11 year-old girls or demons from a layer of hell at least as deep as the sixth.

Edwin, to Hobby’s surprise didn’t make a sound. He just went limp and crumpled beneath his own weight, landing with a gentle thud. Luckily, his landing was thoroughly padded by the muddy layer of leaves at his feet.

Haddie, Hobby could see, was instantly distressed. She bent down on all fours and started shaking Edwin, who flailed limply, his head hanging rag-doll from his unsupported neck as Haddie tried scooping the boy up in her arms. Hobby raced over.

Haddie’s face was white with concern and fear, Edwin’s white from a sudden loss of consciousness. Hobby raced over and stood by awkwardly as Haddie wiped mud from Edwin’s face and gently patted his cheeks, calling his name sweetly in his ear as one might to coax a nervous kitten out from beneath a bed.

Hobby saw what he thought was a twitch of recognition, and then a suppressed smile, but he couldn’t be sure. Haddie carried on patting his cheek and calling his name softly in his ear for what felt to Hobby like another ten minutes more but couldn’t have been more than one, until suddenly Edwin shot to life in Haddie’s arms, squealing like a pig in heat.

Haddie fell backwards with fright and Edwin was on top of her in a flash, grinding her elbows into the soggy earth with his knees. Before Hobby had time to intervene Edwin had produced a huge, sticky gob of spit which presently dangled just half an inch from Haddie’s pursed lips.

Hobby’s brain performed lighting-fast calculations: if he rushed Edwin, the gob of spit would probably fall on Haddie’s face, but if he did nothing, it would also probably fall on Haddie’s face. Before it even registered that he had no choice he had pounced on Edwin, peeling the boy from his friend and rolling him over. Hobby, surprised to find himself on top of Edwin, didn’t know what to do next. But Edwin did.

Edwin leaned up and hawked from deep in his chest and spit something thick and pungent at Hobby. The viscous substance made contact with the bridge of Hobby’s nose and slowly dripped down either side. Hobby threw his hands up to his face in absolute horror at the thought of this foreign bodily fluids entering his mouth or nasal cavities. He grunted and scoffed with disgust, trying not to breathe in as he wiped the sticky mucus from his face.

His opponent distracted by his foul projectile, Edwin yanked his knee sharply upward into Hobby’s groin, knocking him over into the brush. He had narrowly missed Hobby’s delicates, a small target at his young age, but the groin kick had still hurt and Edwin’s thrust had been great enough to throw off Hobby’s balance and send him reeling.

Haddie wiped her face clean, which had also ended up coated in Edwin’s foul saliva, then stood up just in time to see Hobby kneed in the groin and tossed to the side.

Haddie rushed to her friend’s aid with the concern of an older sibling. Hobby sat up as she reached him and he was touched by the expression on her face. He quickly assuaged her concerns, brushing himself off and shooting her a wry smile, shaking his head and chuckling. They just looked at each other for a long moment and then burst out laughing. Haddie helped Hobby to his feet and the two of them stood, Haddie first brushing the leaves off of Hobby, him spinning around so she could get the ones on his back. Then Hobby did the same, trying to pull off a clump of mud but smearing it instead and deciding to allow it to harden before trying again. As they cleaned each other, they each regaled the other with their side of the story, each exaggerating only the acceptable amount and never any more or less.

Finished with clean-up and story-telling, time resumed plodding along at its usual cruel pace, and the children realized Edwin was nowhere to be found. They looked at each other and the message traveled from eye-to-eye with a depth and precision words could never hope to afford.

Both children whipped around three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, meeting back at the start. They were around halfway between the house and the treehouse, and they had each calculated the possibility of Edwin’s returning to the house and compared it with the possibility of his returning to the big house. To solve the equation they first had run the numbers with regard to the boy’s possible motivations, ultimately finding Edwin much more likely to tattle than to try to pull a prank on them somewhere along the trail. They compared results telepathically and, without a word, set off down the trail in the direction of the treehouse.

By now, they had tacitly agreed, Edwin would be caterwauling egregious fibs about his bullies in the woods and his mother and the Madame would be lapping them up. Safest thing was to hide out in the treehouse until supper when Miss Handle usually went home. Hobby just wanted to put distance between himself and the potential consequences of his actions. In his experience, adults didn’t listen to his side of the story, choosing instead to adopt whichever reality suited their fancy.

They were both lost in thought, trudging along silently through the damp leaves, when they heard movement and desperate gasps for air. Spitting in the face of their rigorous calculations, Edwin had made-off toward the treehouse after all. Haddie grabbed Hobby’s arm and pulled him into the thick wet bush, where they crouched down again, listening to the sounds of the forest, but they couldn't hear Edwin’s breathing or rustling anymore.

“He’s gotta be nearby,” Haddie whispered. “The treehouse is just up ahead. I wonder if he’s planning to climb up and bring the ladder up with him? Oscar used to pull that one on me all the time, make me beg to be let up. Sometimes he could be a little bit mean, I guess. One time he made me agree to be his slave and made me drink from the toilet.”

Hobby remained quiet, listening intently as the image of Haddie lapping up toilet water swirled around his brain. He thought he could hear the faint sounds of someone yelling, but he wondered if his ears weren’t playing tricks on him. He started to ask Haddie but she had turned to ask him the same thing so they both saved their breath and crept further down the trail toward the treehouse, bent low and moving slowly. As they neared the treehouse they could hear the sound more clearly, confirming it was indeed their ‘friend’ Edwin. They continued their slow creep until eventually they could make out his words.

“Hello,” he was calling out, drawing out the end of every word. “I know you’re in there! Drop the ladder down! Let me in!”

The blood in the faces of both Haddie and Hobby suddenly stopped resisting the pull of gravity, pooling around their ankles instead. They crouched down in the middle of the trail whispering to each other.

“That’s not possible,” Haddie’s ghost said in a trembling voice. “We were just there! I didn’t pull the ladder up and fly down. Still working on that trick.” She tried to inject a little humor and Hobby gave an obliging, though dry, chuckle.

“Maybe it’s a prank? Maybe he’s trying to lead us to the treehouse and then he’s gonna jump down on us wearing a suit made of loogies?” Hobby returned Haddie’s serve but she didn’t follow up with a chuckle.

“That’s a thought! Okay let’s get off the trail and we’ll bushwhack our way over there and see what we can see. Sound like a plan?”

“Sure,” Hobby said, mustering what enthusiasm he could. “but what’s ‘bushwalking?’ Walking through bush?”

"Well actually, yes, more or less,” Haddie said through a giggle. “But it’s bush ‘whacking,’ like how I’m gonna whack Edwin across the back of the head when I see him.”

They crept through the forest with quite a bit of resistance, Hobby snagging again and again on various briar and even finding himself inside of a particularly thorny briar with no choice but to push through, tearing a much larger hole in his shirt and several new ones on his pants. He had scratches up and down his arms when he emerged, and little beads of blood dripped down to the forest floor.

They reached the clearing where the treehouse stood and found Edwin standing there, neck craned back all the way, still hollering up the tree, but to their great concern and dismay, the ladder had in fact vanished from its usual spot. The two children looked at each other with ponderous eyes, trying to come up with reasonable excuses for the ladder’s absence. Finding none Haddie shot up to her full height and marched over to Edwin without hesitating.

“What did you do with the ladder, Edwin,” Haddie called when she had halved the distance between the spot in the bush and the treehouse. “I’m not falling for your tricks. I know you did something with it.”

Hobby stood up and stepped out into the clearing awkwardly and watched the unfolding drama from a safe distance.

“That’s lie-blus,” Edwin shouted, pointing a finger in Haddie’s face. “I ain’t done nothing of the sort and you know that to be fact sure as I do. You heard me, didn’t you? I thought you all was up there. I’m just confused as you are.”

Hobby took tentative steps over to the tree. He looked around for the ladder, but it hadn’t wrapped up around the tree and it wasn’t caught on a neighboring tree, either. He was stumped.

“I don’t believe a word outta your lying mouth! I’ve known you too long. You know what they say, lies are cow-pies and your breath stinks like shit!” Haddie started off yelling, but by the end her voice had grown shrill with frustration.

“My word,” Edwin whispered to himself. “You cannot say that word and I’m telling my Ma and yours too.” Edwin opened his mouth to continue, but unfortunately the world will never hear the, no doubt elegantly phrased, words of condemnation and childish threats he had in store for Haddie because he, along with the rest of the children, froze at the sound of a fourth voice calling down from above the children.

“Is that Haddie I hear?” the mystery voice shouted from above. “I know I heard Edwin’s whiny voice before but I’m not letting that brat in here, not even for a slice of cake! And I sure could use one.” The voice cracked under the strain of puberty here and there.

Hobby saw the way Haddie’s eyes shimmered, the loose hinges of her jaw, and knew who it was, and felt something he’d never felt before rising up hot and heavy in his chest. It was jealousy.

“What in the world are you doing up there, Oscar?” Would you mind letting us up, please?”

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Madame Cleary sat at the head of the table engrossed in conversation with Miss Handle, shouting and gesticulating in a merry sort of way. Edwin was sitting between the two women with a bored, blank look on his face when Haddie and Hobby came giggling and racing into the room, and he seemed determined not to look in their direction, despite Hobby’s attempts at eye contact. The children found seats opposite Edwin and Miss Handle, with Hobby beside the Madame.

Stephen gracefully pushed through the kitchen door with a large silver platter in each hand and reached over Edwin’s head to place them in the center of the table. Hobby eyed the food eagerly, though he was a little disappointed to find a very European cold spread of meats, cheeses, fruit and jams. Hobby’s belly grumbled impatiently and his mouth started to water. None of the others had begun loading their individual plates yet, but Hobby lacked both the self-control and awareness to wait for the others before eating. Without hesitation, Hobby leaned over the table and helped himself to a little bit of everything.

Miss Handle watched Hobby loading his plate with a look of astonished disbelief, eyebrows halfway up her forehead and jaw hanging slack. The Madame either didn’t notice or didn’t care and continued babbling about the state of the lawn and the mess left by the previous night’s storm, complaining about how much work needed doing as if she were to be the one doing the work. But Miss Handle ignored her friend’s enthusiastic tirade, focusing instead on Hobby and his peculiar manner, staring at the little boy as one might stare at a pig with freshly sprouted wings.

Miss Handle was astonished at the boy’s audacious disregard for decorum, but her disbelief soon morphed into a kind of disgusted amazement as Hobby proceeded to inhale his food. She waited for the Madame to take a breath between her various complaints and interrupted her at the first opportunity.

“Where did you find this foul little heathen,” Miss Handle rudely inquired, huffing and scoffing. “You need to take him shopping, and I mean yesterday. I can hardly believe my eyes, a dirty little boy wearing a torn t-shirt and stained pants around this table? I won’t stand for it, Jewel. You expect me to allow Edwin to run around with dirty little Oliver Twist here? You have got to do something about him. And those table manners of his are illegal in several counties, ought to be.”

Hobby looked down at himself and noticed he had indeed managed to tear a small hole in his shirt stumbling around the forest in the dark. His pants were caked with a bit of mud around the cuffs, but the greasy hand prints up and down his pantlegs had been there when Mrs. Box gave them to him. He looked over at Haddie, pleased to find her dirty as well. She grinned at him and stood to load her plate in solidarity. Hobby felt a little better, having seen the black smudge on Haddie’s cheek and the dirt on her clothes, but he still felt like he didn’t deserve to sit around this table.

“This little ‘heathen’ here has certainly found the soft spot in my heart,” the Madame said, using air-quotes to distance herself from Miss Handle’s callous comment. She smiled at Hobby affectionately and, leaning forward, licked the corner of her napkin and reached for Hobby’s cheeks, but he recoiled with horror. She quickly dropped it and settled back into her chair with a pained, self-conscious chuckle, flicking her eyes around the room, quietly assessing the social weight of this awkward little moment. “Don’t you remember what I was telling you last week? We drove all the way down to West Memphis just day before last to pick him up. I suppose it’s true what they say, they make ‘em a bit different down there. But we’ll have him up to speed in no time, you’ll see. Before you know it you’ll forget he wasn’t born and reared right here along the lake.”

“Yes, yes, I remember now. Have you told either of them about, well you know,” she whispered without lowering the volume of her voice whatsoever, all the while staring at Hobby with an expression too suspicious to be considered wonder, but too amazed to be pure doubt. The Madame shook her head no and shot her friend a wary scowl, warning her to steer clear of the subject.

A heavy silence fell over the table and lasted a beat too long for comfort. Even Edwin squirmed in his seat until the Madame broke the tension at last.

“West Memphis sure is far, let me tell you,” she said quietly.

“Oh, I know it. I haven’t been there in a decade at least, though. How long’s that drive?”

“It took around five and a half hours getting down there, but coming back we ran into construction so it took a little longer. This one slept the whole way home,” the Madame said, looking at Hobby with a warm, toothy smile.

“Wow, that is a long day in the car. And not much to look at, either. Just a bunch of rice paddies, huh?

“The first half of the drive is nice. As you well know, driving through the Ozarks is a treat this time of year, even on the Arkansas side much as we hate to admit it,” she paused for Miss Handle’s laughter, then continued. “But the majority of that drive is just as unpleasant as the majority of that state.”

“And then you cross the Mississippi into Tennessee, and, what, you’re in West Memphis? That would be the western side of the city if I’m not mistaken.”

“Oh, no. No, if Memphis is Elvis Presley, then West Memphis would be a flea on the rear-end of his dog,” once again, she paused for laughter. She continued talking as she stood and began scooping food onto her plate. “Nothing but rice, far as the eye can see. The town itself is smack in the middle of a swamp, and Kudzu might as well be the high school mascot, so I’d say it isn’t exactly heaven on Earth.”

Once the Madame finished serving herself and took her seat Miss Handle followed her lead, preparing a plate for Edwin, who still hadn’t made a peep, before serving herself a heaping portion. She returned to her seat and started to speak, but was interrupted by Haddie smacking her lips before issuing a loud burp and shoving her plate forward. Miss Handle turned white.

“And now this one, she’s bound to start behaving like a little barbarian as well,” Miss Handle was visibly unsettled. “I do not envy you, Jewel. The two of them will be trouble, you mark my words!”

Edwin, on the other hand, looked like a miniature business man in his bowtie and blazer. His eyes may have been on his plate, but Hobby could feel him looking down on him, flaunting his class. The stoic little boy sat up straight with his napkin in lap, elbows tucked in tightly to his sides even as he took slow, deliberate bites. Hobby studied Edwin’s etiquette from the corner of his eyes, impressed by the delicate way he gripped a fork in his left hand to stabilize a cold hunk of ham as he sawed away at it with the steak knife in his right. Then, once a morsel had been carved free from the larger hunk, the boy gently placed his knife on the edge of his plate and traded his fork from his left to his right before finally stabbing the morsel and raising it to his mouth. Hobby recognized a certain dignity, an elegance in the shuffling hands and restrained movements, but Miss Handle’s rude remarks had left him feeling bitter about her and her pompous progeny. Watching the cutlery move back-and-forth from one hand to the other made him dizzy.

Eventually Edwin looked up at Hobby and curled his lip into something meaner than a sneer, but too silent for a snarl. Shocked by this sudden show of aggression, Hobby flinched in his seat, but the adults hadn’t looked up from their food. Haddie chuckled and shot Hobby a knowing look, then flashed a cruel smile at Edwin, balled up her napkin and tossed it onto the table.

“May we please be excused?” Haddie said over her shoulder as she turned to walk out the door. The Madame grunted out for her to stop and then quickly finished chewing, washing it all down with a slug of iced tea.

“I think you ought to wait for your young friend Edwin here to finish eating, that way you all can play together. You wouldn’t want to abandon him here with the two of us ladies, would you? That just seems rude,” she chuckled to herself and grinned at Miss Handle, shoveling another bite into her mouth.

Haddie rolled her eyes and plopped dramatically back into her seat, letting out an exasperated groan. Edwin made a mocking face and stuck his tongue out at Haddie, but, once again, the adults didn’t notice. The children sat around the table waiting impatiently while Edwin ate slowly, maintaining eye contact with Haddie whenever possible. Eventually he wiped his chin with his napkin, folded it and placed it neatly beside his clean plate.

“That was de-licious, Miss Jew-el. It was so good, I’m considering having another plate,” Edwin finally broke his silence, turning in his seat for a better view of Haddie’s frustration. His speech was slow, agonizingly so, and his drawl lazy. Staring daggers into the boy, Haddie’s face turned bright red and her nose began to twitch involuntarily, like a rabbit’s. Hobby was stunned by Edwin’s ability rile his cool-headed friend. “Yes, I think I will.”

Edwin stood to help himself to a second portion, reaching for the food like a sloth might reach for a bough, and Haddie looked like an overinflated balloon just before it pops. Suddenly, linoleum flooring screamed out in protest as Haddie shoved her chair back from the table and stood.

“Come on, Sonny,” she said quietly to Hobby before turning to address the table at full volume. “If Edwin wants to play games at the table we should let him, but we’ve got more important business. Or at least, we’ve got better games to play than whatever this one’s called.”

Hobby pushed back from the table just like Haddie had done, but to his dismay the floor didn’t screech. He stood behind her and hid his face from the adults, afraid to see their expressions.

“What could be more important than showing your guest a little bit of patience and grace? You will sit your butt right back down in that chair, missy. You too, Hobby. You’ll wait for Edwin,” the warmth had evaporated from the Madame’s tone and she was practically shouting. Hobby didn’t want to find out what actual rage sounded like, so he dropped right back into his seat with his eyes lowered before she finished speaking.

All the while Edwin made faces at Haddie. When the Madame wrapped up her stern admonition Haddie sat back down wearing a sullen expression.

“Actually, I guess I’m not that hungry after all, Miss Jew-el. Well, I am but I don’t want to make Haddie start fussin’ and carrying on again so I’ll make a little sacrifice for her sake,” Edwin pushed his plate forward the moment Haddie sat back down. “You know how she can be when she doesn’t get her way.” He practically sang this last bit.

Pleased with himself, he winked at his mother, then rose from his seat and called into the kitchen.

“Franklin, you can come clear our plates anytime now,” his tone was curiously curt, considering the young boy’s age. He turned to face his playmates. “Are y’all coming or am I gonna need to wait here all day?”

Haddie rose to her feet slowly, stiff with suppressed rage and clearly hesitant to go anywhere or do anything with Edwin. Neither did Hobby want to go anywhere with Edwin, but he couldn’t leave Haddie alone with him. He glanced over at the Madame, but she had shifted her attention back to Miss Handle, who was in the middle of telling a particularly troubling story about her son’s fondness for animals and how he sometimes plays too rough with them, how some rude ‘dim-wits’ had accused her ‘angel’ of animal abuse and how a veterinarian had called her up to inform her of the cost of the dog’s surgery. But apparently ‘nothing and no one on God’s green Earth’ could make her pay.

Seeing no way out, Hobby silently rose to his feet and followed his play-mates out into the hall. He could hear them arguing through the door.

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Tormented by restless visions, Hobby hardly slept and felt as if he had just closed his eyes when Haddie’s knuckles rapped out a sharp shave-and-a-haircut on the bathroom door.

“What are you doing in there, you freakazoid?” Haddie giggled through the door. “Did you sleep in there?”

Hobby shot up from the floor, brushed himself off and turned on the faucet, but he knew Haddie would never believe he had been brushing his teeth in the dark, so he quickly gave it up. Hobby hung his head in embarrassment as he opened the door and, noticing his blanket and pillow still on the ground at his feet, turned cherry red. But his new friend was kind, and she could practically smell Hobby’s sensitivity around the subject, so she decided to let it slide.

Without another word they went downstairs. They slunk out the backdoor and staggered down the steps to the garden, almost drunk on predawn delirium.

It was pitch black outside, but as they crossed the lawn to the forest, their eyes adjusted somewhat. As their surroundings came into focus, the children noticed the aftermath of a storm in the night. It had been a big one, judging by the state of the lawn: everywhere were strewn branches of various sizes and leaves in various states of decay.

Entering the forest, Hobby took cautious steps but he still managed to trip over a massive, gnarled root, seeing it just in time to brace his fall on a nearby sapling. Already grumpy from poor sleep, Hobby started to sour on the whole sunrise idea as he stumbled around in the dark and the cold. As he grumbled to himself, wishing he could teleport back to the bathmat, a lovely, twittering birdsong heralded the sun’s imminent arrival and a soft, green light from somewhere over the horizon washed away his bitter frustration. He forgot all about his chattering teeth and the soft bathmat waiting for him.

The previous night’s storm lingered in the sky like a bad memory, hiding the climbing sun and emanating a surreal glow. The sun couldn’t penetrate the persistent blanket of thick gray thunderheads, but instead seemed to nestle in for a cozy day off. Haddie stopped and gazed up at the sky, amazed by the sight of all that passive water simply hanging there, glowing green and occasionally groaning out a tired threat of violence.

The wind gathered its strength as they marched through the forest. They could hear it coming long before they could feel it blowing on their faces, like an oncoming train gathering speed somewhere way down the tracks. The distant sound grew louder and louder as it closed in on the children, whistling through the gaps between trees and stripping all but a few persistent leaves from branches. Sandy dirt blew through the air, blinding Haddie and crunching between Hobby’s teeth.

They reached the treehouse and, wasting no time, Hobby gulped down his fear, approached the tree, put on a brave face and wrangled the ladder, which had wrapped itself around a neighboring sapling. Haddie looked on as a mother might, watching with pride as her timid friend climbed the ladder without a single word of encouragement.

Hobby hauled himself up and inside, then turned and watched Haddie’s ascent. This time had been much easier and, looking down, he didn’t feel nearly so high up in the air. Haddie scrambled up the ladder quickly and then the two friends walked out to the porch in silence.

The porch faced due East, Haddie said, which made it perfect for sunrises. They sat down and dangled their legs over the edge of the treehouse porch, resting their chests against the railing, arms dangling through the slats.

The growing light made for moody ambiance, cool dark tones replacing the classic pink, orange and red. The children sat in silence and listened to hesitant sounds of the forest coming to life. A unique birdsong rang through the air and Hobby wondered what kind of bird it could be. The song came from nearby so he stood and looked around but couldn’t identify the source. He didn’t want to interrupt the peaceful silence of the morning, so he simply sat back down without a word.

The wind abated for a while and Hobby thought maybe the worst of it had passed, but suddenly it returned with a vengeance and Haddie’s long hair whipped around as she struggled to keep it out of her eyes. Eventually she went inside and Hobby heard her rummaging around. Despite the sun’s efforts, the clouds hadn’t dissipated at all, and probably wouldn’t all day, Hobby thought. The green tint had all but vanished from the morning light, leaving in its place a dull gray. Sensing the excitement had concluded, Hobby stood and went inside as well.

“Not much of a sunrise,” Haddie said without looking up, continuing to rummage through a dusty chest full of odds and ends accumulated over the years. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have made you come if I knew it would be like that.”

“No, it’s fine,” Hobby said enthusiastically. He felt sorry for Haddie, seeing her disappointment in the morning. “You couldn’t have known. And besides, it was cool. It felt like I was in a dream. It didn’t seem real, you know?”

Haddie found what she was looking for, an old blue baseball cap with ‘LA’ embroidered across the front. “Aha,” she said to herself, donning the cap. “This was Oscar’s. I never wanted to wear it because it made me feel lonely. But you’re here now so how could I feel lonely?”

Fat droplets of rain pelted the porch outside, darkening the wood, rapping out an arrhythmic, but soothing, ambient tune on the tin roof over their heads. A gust of wind threw the door to the porch open and blew a magazine off the table. Hobby wrestled with the door, shut it and latched it. Cozy and secure in this lofty cabin, Hobby felt the uniquely human satisfaction of thumbing his nose at mother nature. He pulled a chair up to the window and gazed out at the nasty weather, chin resting in the palms of his hands.

Haddie sat down at the big round table in the middle of the room and picked through a pile of old magazines with crinkled, puffy covers.

“There’re a ton of National Geographic in here,” she said, pushing through the stack and spreading it on the table to get a better view of the contents. “Have you heard of it? I bet you’ll like it. Look, here’s one about frogs.”

She tossed the magazine over to Hobby and he gazed at a wall of text, attempting to read by osmosis. It didn’t work, so he turned the page and studied a bright green tree frog. He wanted to be able to learn about the frog from the text, but the prospect felt hopeless and frustrating, so he closed the magazine and pushed it away. Haddie could tell Hobby hated to be reminded of his illiteracy and regretted showing him the magazine in the first place.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Tartt will have you reading in no time. She’s the best teacher ever and I know you’re smart.” Hobby smiled a vacant smile at his friend and nodded his head slowly. “Do you know the alphabet? I could teach you that if you want to start now. But we don’t have to.”

Hobby did know the alphabet, at least he had at one point, but he was struggling to remember it so he told Haddie to have at it. Haddie found a thick permanent marker and ripped out a blank page near the end of a book. She wrote down the alphabet and sat sounding the letters out with him. It came right back to him.

“Now I want you to walk around singing the song all day long, even if it’s just in your head. Everyday I’ll show you some new words, okay?”

Haddie pulled her chair closer to Hobby and picked up the copy of National Geographic at his feet. She began flipping through the pages and, on a separate sheet, writing down good words when she encountered them. She wrote down ten words and handed the paper to Hobby, patiently sounding out each word. Hobby’s head started pounding about halfway through and he heard his stomach grumble. He pushed through the rest of his impromptu lesson with a polite smile and then neatly folded his word sheet and alphabet sheet and stuck them in his pocket.

“Thanks, Haddie” he said softly, smiling at the ground. He changed the subject. “Got anything good in your cooler? I’m real hungry all the sudden.”

Haddie slapped her forehead with her palm and hurried over to the little plastic cooler. Opening it, she groaned.

“I forgot to bring ice yesterday and I meant to grab some this morning. It’s just a puddle now.” She pulled out a granola bar and shook water from the wrapper. “This is probably fine.”

"This doesn’t need to be cold at all,” Hobby grinned at his friend. “Do you like them cold?”

“I keep anything with food in it in here because the squirrels can’t get the lid open.”

Hobby inhaled the granola bar as Haddie dragged the cooler out to the porch, pulling the drain plug and letting the water drip down through the cracks between the planks at her feet. Rain continued falling and she hurried back inside, leaving the cooler to drain.

“Luckily there wasn’t much in there,” Haddie said. “Mostly just a couple drinks. Rudy gave me a can of lemonade and I’ve been saving it for sometime special.”

Hobby could tell that the cooler gave Haddie a sense of importance, responsibility over a daily task, so he didn’t tell her he thought the whole thing was silly. She was clearly proud of her efforts to keep the cooler cold, even if nothing in it actually needed to be kept cool.

The sound of the rain died down and the children were starting to feel bored, so they decided to head back to the main house. Judging by the position of the sun, Haddie guessed lunch would be ready any minute, and since they skipped breakfast, they were very hungry. Haddie pulled the cooler back inside and replaced the drain plug, removing a second granola bar for herself. She made sure the backdoor was latched properly and then started climbing down.

They tromped through the forest, enjoying the sweet smell of decaying underbrush. As they neared the house they could hear a car coming up the drive, parallel to the forest, and Haddie groaned in recognition.

“I forgot it’s Sunday,” she squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Miss Handle always comes on Sunday and, if we’re really unlucky, she’ll have her bird-brain kid Edwin with her. He’s the worst, but we have to play with him when he’s here or Ma will be really angry because Miss Handle is her best friend.” She screwed up her face and affected her Madame voice, “‘How dare you treat our guests with such contempt, young lady! Off to bed with you and you can forget about dining with us this evening.’”

Miss Handle, Haddie explained, was a massive woman. Nearly six foot tall and weighing just under 200 hundred pounds, she was an imposing figure for a small child. On those rare occasions when she laughed, the sound rumbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, shaking the house down to the foundation. More often, however, she simply groaned in pain as she shifted her bulk from one joint to another. She was a dreadfully unpleasant woman, Haddie surmised, and it would be best to steer clear of her for the day by any means necessary.

The car crunched up the drive and came to a stop just out of view of the garden, where the children now stood apprehensively.

“Quick, let’s get up into the attic before they can find us,” Haddie said, her eyes twinkling with mischief and excitement.

They ran up the garden steps and in through the back door, but before they managed to place one single foot on the stairway leading to the second floor, the Madame heard the children giggling and called them both by name.

“Haddie, Hobby, come here. Come to the dining room. We have visitors and they will be thrilled to enjoy your company.”

Haddie rolled her eyes at Hobby and he feigned a pained grimace. But Hobby wasn’t actually worried about any of it, because he really liked the Madame so far. He recognized some faults in her character, but she had treated him with much more respect and kindness than any adult previous, so he already trusted her to introduce him to additional kindly strangers.

He went along with whatever Haddie said, even when he didn’t agree, because he didn’t have the confidence to tell his new best-friend when he disagreed, at least not yet. In truth, Hobby felt eager to meet another little boy, even if Haddie despised him, but he knew he would need to take behavioral cues from Haddie or else risk losing her trust, so he played it cool and walked apprehensively toward the dining room.

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When the children arrived at the table they found the Madame already in her seat.

“Ah, look who’s decided to join us this evening, Franklin,” she called into the kitchen through a tight lipped smile. She gave the pair an appraising, but not altogether disapproving, glance up and down. “I see you two got on like gangbusters. Go on, food won’t get any warmer. Franklin, could you hurry up and bring the pitcher, please. Now, Franklin.”

She said all of this without turning to direct her shouts at the kitchen, staring at the children with pleasure in her eyes.

“So, tell me little ones, tell me all about your day. What do you make of it all, Hobby?” She leaned back in her chair and swished red wine around her glass before raising it to her nose and taking a long sniff.

“Oh, uh it’s great,” he stuttered, unsure how he really felt about most of his new home. After an awkward pause Hobby realized the Madame was still staring at him, expecting him to cough up more information. “Haddie’s the best. I’m so glad she’s here.”

Seeing her new brother floundering under the Madame’s gaze, Haddie jumped to his rescue, describing in great detail the adventures of the day. Hobby continued eating. Once again, he couldn’t slow himself down. He finished his plate before the Madame had even taken a single bite.

“I just wish he could have met Oscar,” Haddie said, looking at the Madame with expectant eyes. “They would have been great pals. I wonder how he’s doing. When did you say I would hear from him again?” Haddie injected just enough venom into her voice for the Madame to notice, but not enough to incur her wrath. She bristled at the faint insolence and stiffened in her seat, then quickly changed the subject. Hobby, slouched in his chair, drunk on satisfaction, hadn’t noticed.

“Let us discuss our plans for tomorrow and the rest of the week, shall we children? As you know, Haddie, Ms. Tartt returns from her vacation on Monday. I was hoping you might be able to fill Hobby in, at least somewhat, so that he might not start so terribly behind schedule.”

Haddie nodded her head and continued eating. Hobby shot her a quizzical glance.

“Ms. Tartt is our teacher,” Haddie mumbled through a stuffed mouth. “She comes Mondays and Wednesdays. She really nice, you’ll love her.”

“Mr. Box implied that you might be a bit behind in your lessons, Hobby,” the Madame inquired gently. This made Hobby laugh out loud, which was out of character for him, but the day had done wonders for his confidence. Though newly acquainted, the Madame already recognized this behavior as out of the boy’s character and her gaping expression revealed as much.

“Excuse me,” Hobby turned red. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never been to school at all.” The Madame looked at him with a blank face. His face hardened and his eyes darkened as he continued. “I barely even know what a lesson is, so I think maybe you could say I’m all the way behind. Mr. Box said he got a letter from the governor saying a stupid little boy like me had no business taking up space at a school.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case, Mr. Box seemed to be a fair man! You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? It’s okay if you’re a bit behind,” a serene smile fixed on her face. “But you know it’s not nice to tell fibs, don’t you dear?”

Haddie seemed uncomfortable, shifting in her seat and moving food around her plate with her fork, gripping it as though it were a paintbrush. In a low voice, without looking up from her abstract art, she came to Hobby’s defense once again.

“It’s true what he says,” she said, eyes burning a hole in her mashed potatoes. “No one even taught him to read. I bet he doesn’t even know what long division is. It’s not his fault, though. It’s the ‘education system in our country,’ at least that’s what Ms. Tartt always says about Edwin. No one ever took Hobby to school, not even once since his mom died, so don’t be mean to him about it. And he doesn’t fib like Oscar. But he’s still super smart, I can tell when we talk about all kinds of stuff. Like before, he told me all about bees. Did you know that bees only live for a month?”

By the time Haddie had finished speaking she had worked herself up, the volume of her voice rising steadily as her frustration grew, until she was finally shouting at the Madame about bees. Hobby was touched and more than a little surprised to see Haddie’s fierce loyalty on display after having only being acquainted for one day, but he could tell there was something more below the surface of Haddie’s frustration with the Madame. It seemed as though she had been prepared for this moment, as if she had already been through this conversation previously, in her head or otherwise.

“Is it true! You don’t know how to read,” the Madame inquired rhetorically, disbelief tugging her forward in her seat. She took a swig of wine and refilled her glass from the pitcher on the table. Her cheeks were rosy from the wine. “My Heavens, what unjust world deprives a young boy, especially a boy of your caliber his right to an education. Just a disgrace, I’ll say. You can bet I’ll be on the phone with that Mr. Box tomorrow and he’ll have to answer for this. I may even get my lawyer involved. Who knows what recourse he’ll come up with? Sly man, that one.“

She huffed as if in anger, but her eyes twinkled and a smile flashed across her face, betraying a perverse excitement at the thought of litigious possibilities. Hobby was shocked to see her attitude make such an abrupt about face, and the incident in the garden this morning came tumbling back into his mind. The prospect of the Madame phoning the Box residence made Hobby shudder. What other lies could Mr. Box be prepared to tell about him, he wondered, and how readily would the Madame take him at his word?

“Mr. Box is a liar, sometimes,” Hobby stammered, launching a preemptive strike on Mr. Box’s credibility. “Once he told me he didn’t have a belly button because he was an alien, just to scare me. But I then I saw it one day, his belly button I mean.”

The Madame downed her fresh glass of wine in one gulp and promptly lost interest in the boy.

“Franklin, would you please get in here and start cleaning up this mess,” she called over her shoulder. When Stephan entered the room and began clearing dishes she hissed something under her breath but Hobby couldn’t quite make it out.

With a full belly, the weight of the day hung heavy on Hobby’s eyelids so he went straight to bed after dinner. Haddie said she would go to bed early as well, promising to wake Hobby up in time to watch the sunrise from the treehouse.

“Then we can go find a plant in the greenhouse. Maybe there is one that doesn’t need sunlight, who knows?” She giggled and bounced down the hall to her bedroom. Hobby shut his bedroom door behind him with a yawn and crossed the room to the bathroom. Once again, he curled up on the bathmat with his back pressed up against the door.

*************************************************************************************************************
Uncanny visions of his new family, the Madame and Haddie, as well as Rudy and Stephen, danced around the boy's mind as he dozed. Something about their shapes made him uneasy. They were all gathered around the dining room table and suddenly began shouting commands at him. Hobby looked down and noticed he was wearing a black suit. 'Franklin, fetch your toothbrush and scrub these floors," one of them shrieked dreadfully. The dining table was suddenly in the bathroom, and his toothbrush was suddenly in hand. Everyone, even Haddie, sat around the table cackling at the boy while he scrubbed vigorously with his toothbrush. No matter how he tried, none of the scum would come free from the floor and he was beginning to sweat and cry under the pressure. He tried to appeal to the crowd around the table with words that weren't really words at all, and as he begged to be freed from his task he noticed the Madame's face morphing into his father's face, then back. He looked to Haddie and she began to morph into his mother's decaying corpse, her mottled skin and vacant eyes sending a shiver down his spine. Rudy and Stephen vanished and when he turned to see where they'd gone off to, he ran into face first into a mirror. He stepped back and watched as his face morphed into Rudy's face. He grabbed at his skin. It was no use. His face morphed from Rudy's back into his own, then suddenly he was wearing Stephen's scowl and he heard the Madame cry from somewhere far away: 'Get in here now, Franklin, and get to work.' He wholly became Franklin, forgetting he ever had a different name, and scuttled off to see what was required of him. Right as he stepped through an open door he fell through the floor and screamed. As he fell he could see faces from his past, a beige woman or two talking inaudibly with a shadowy figure, the nuns gathered around a small child with paddles at the ready. As he fell his scream multiplied, taking on different tones and pitches until it simply sounded like radio static, individual voices indistinguishable. He picked up speed and realized he was spinning, tumbling and choking, sputtering and spitting out water. His eyes burned with soap and he couldn't breathe. Suddenly the door to the laundry machine swung open and he fell out in a puddle of mucky water. Mr. and Mrs. Box stood pointing and laughing at him, taking turns spitting on him. 'Get back into your cage, Franklin,' they sneered in unison. Bars materialized around him and he was alone in a cramped cage, screaming to no one.

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To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar. I’m unemployed and my stomach is growling at me. Thanks for reading!

“What’s your favorite game?” Haddie shuffled through the board games. “Ooh have you played this one,” she held up a colorful box but Hobby didn’t recognize it.

“The truth is, I’ve barely played any games, at least not real ones with instructions and all the pieces and everything,” Hobby said quietly. “The nuns only let us play with the chess board and we were all too little to understand. Besides a bunch of pieces were missing I think, so we made up our own rules but it wasn’t very fun.”

“Hmmm, well why don’t I teach you how to play checkers?”

“If you want to,” Hobby said unenthusiastically. “I was really hoping you would tell me some stories. I’d love to know more about Oscar, maybe. If that’s something you wanna talk about.”

Haddie folded open a wooden board and a set of checkers pieces tumbled out and rolled across the floor.

“I don’t really know where to start,” Haddie’s eyes softened and a melancholy smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She stood and gathered the checkers pieces as she spoke. “Oscar was the best. He was my first ever friend. I was so glad he was here when I got here, because I was really scared at first. We did everything together that first year. And then one day I woke up and he was gone.”

Having collected the stray pieces, Haddie sat back down and began absently placing the pieces on the board as she thought.

Hobby stared out from beneath a furrowed brow and into Haddie’s eyes as she spoke, doing his best to encourage her tale, but, before she launched into the story of her first friend, Haddie realized just how difficult it would be to properly explain who Oscar was and why he was so important to her if she didn’t first explain who she was and how she came to be in the Madam’s care to begin with. So she backed up, all the way back to the very beginning of her life.

“I guess there are some things you need to understand about me. When I was born I had a twin,” Haddie abandoned the checkers board and fiddled instead with the hem of her shirt, pulling at a loose thread. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Hobby could see her eyeballs darting back and forth beneath their lids, searching frantically for the right details to include. Exhaling, Haddie flicked her eyes up at Hobby without moving another muscle and continued, a stony resolve glimmering from the depths of her eyes. “But there was a problem. My um-bel-tickle chord got wrapped around my brother’s neck and he couldn’t breathe but the doctors didn’t know until I came out. ”

She twirled the thread over her index finger and pulled, snapping it. She pulled it taut and absentmindedly used it to floss her two front teeth. When she realized what she was doing she looked embarrassed and flicked the piece of thread into the darkness behind her.

“But then I guess everything just went wrong,” her lower lip started to quiver and a few tears dropped down her face. “My dad told me that after I killed my brother I made sure to kill my mother, but that’s not true. My brother was dying and the doctors chose to try and save him even though it was dangerous for my mom. I guess when they cut her open and pulled him out she died. And then my brother died a few hours later.”

Hobby said nothing. He knew from personal experience how angry he felt when other people felt sorry for him, when people took his pain and used it as an opportunity to boost their own sense of virtue, to listen to themselves talk and get off on the stench of their own sympathy. This was especially true when they fed him all those empty platitudes, the ones everyone has heard a million times, about how sad and unfair everything was. Instead of saying anything at all the little boy made an effort to physically display his concentration, maintaining strict eye contact with Haddie and nodding along to the rhythm of her story, occasionally narrowing his eyes with pained understanding.

“I actually didn’t find out about any of this for a long time, until right before my dad died. He wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. He wouldn’t really talk about anything at all,” Haddie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat as she told Hobby about her first day of Kindergarten and how she came to realize something must be wrong with her home life. She had always sensed something off about her life, suspected there was a key ingredient missing, but she didn’t know what it was until she saw the happy parade of parents escorting their squealing children to school. Though she was just five years old, she was walking alone. She was the only one alone. She told Hobby how empty she felt, standing alone on the corner without a backpack or a lunch or anything, watching all those normal, smiling people stream past. She felt like a freak, a caged zoo animal watching normal people doing normal things through a thick sheet of glass.

“I remember when I got home that day, I asked him if he loved me and he started laughing and wouldn’t stop. I started crying,” she said. “And that’s when he told me about all of it. He told me it was my fault I didn't have a brother or a mom. He never told me he loved me that day, and I don’t think he ever did before either.”

Hobby shuddered at these painful details, a tear rolling down his nose. Seeing this, Haddie’s tears began to flow freely, though she didn’t sob; her speech was not affected at all. Her face remained stony, like a slab of granite veiled by a waterfall.

“I know it sounds strange, but it didn’t bother me at the time. The words didn’t really mean anything to me. I had never known anything else, so it just felt normal. He sent me to bed without dinner again that night. I remember I couldn’t sleep because I was so hungry and then, in the middle of the night, a loud bang shook the house but I was scared so I stayed in bed until the morning.”

When the sun finally came up Haddie gathered the bravery to go downstairs and investigate. In gruesome detail, she described how she found her father sitting at the kitchen table, right where he’d been when she went to bed, missing most of his head. Brain matter and bits of skull were plastered to the wall behind him, his lower jaw hanging limp and awkward without its counterpart.

The grisly scene didn’t scare the young girl. To her surprise, she mostly felt curious and confused about how his skull had come apart. She had seen guns on television, but, having never seen one in person, had no idea how they actually worked or what effect they might produce.

A bomb must have done this, she told herself, he must have eaten a bomb for dessert. Approaching the corpse to investigate the explosion, Haddie found a single shoe and sock. Recognizing them as her father’s, she looked under the table at his feet and, sure enough, he was missing the shoe and sock on his right foot. There, under the table, she finally saw the patricidal culprit: a double-barrel shotgun, mostly obscured by the table cloth. She stood and looked around, putting the pieces together.

She figured the shotgun’s blast must have sent the barrel careening off to the right, where it now rested against the wall. She noticed her father’s hands hanging limply at his sides and deduced he hadn’t needed to use them, for his big toe was still crammed tightly into the trigger guard.

“I’ve never told anyone this because it makes me sound so crazy, but after I found my dad I just walked to school like nothing had even happened,” Haddie said, breaking eye contact with Hobby to pull at another thread in the hem of her shirt. “I know I was just a baby still, but I didn’t even tell my teacher about it until the end of recess.”

Something silly had brought her father’s corpse back to mind on the playground after lunch that day. She was particularly ashamed about this, Hobby could tell by the rouge creeping up her cheeks to her forehead, a wise and endearing shade. Haddie could see the compassion and respect in her young friend’s eyes and she felt safe sharing her shame.

“I still remember all this real well because I had to talk to a therapist about it since all the grownups thought I was crazy.”

A classmate named Rory, she said, had pulled his shirt collar up over his head, proceeding to gallop around the playground on an imaginary steed, proclaiming himself the legendary headless horseman. Haddie had been playing a game with one of her teachers when she heard the horseman’s proclamation, which she apparently found hilarious. The teacher watched with concern as Haddie laughed uncontrollably. When she caught her breath she told her teacher about how her daddy didn’t have a head anymore either, sharing all the gory details of the corpse in her kitchen without a trace of sadness. The teacher was shocked by Haddie’s detail, but she mostly forgot about it until the end of the day, making a note to address the girl’s morbid imagination with her parents at the next conference.

“Then recess was over and I guess we just went back inside to learn or whatever. I don’t really remember the rest of the day,” Haddie said. “But I do remember the teacher brought this TV in to show us our Spanish lesson, and she always plugged the TV in right by my chair.”

When the teacher bent to the outlet she noticed a thick, congealed bloodstain visible on the young girl’s socks where they peeked through her Mary Janes. Standing to ask about the stain, the teacher noticed an even larger copper stain on the cover of Haddie’s workbook. She sent the girl to the school’s resource officer straight away.

“It sorta gets fuzzy for a while after that,” Haddie said. “That’s the stuff I had to talk about over and over otherwise I probably wouldn’t remember any of that either. Sometimes I wonder if any of it’s even true or if the grownups just all decided what they wanted me to say and made me say it until it became true.”

Silence crept in from the shadows and thickened the air around them, simultaneously daring them to break it and begging them not to. They marinaded in the silence together, each thinking separate but similar thoughts. Hobby thought about how similar their stories were, trying to figure out how to tell her his without diminishing his sympathy for her.

Haddie contemplated the pain and understanding in Hobby’s eyes, wondering what kind of foul treatment could have lent such profound depth to her young friend’s eyes, what could have possibly produced those dark, heavy bags weighing them down. Haddie decided to ask at the very same moment Hobby decided to tell her about it. They both spoke at the same time, then both hesitated, each waiting on the other to speak, then spoke again at the same time and giggled.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Hobby smiled, “you go first.”

“I was just going to ask you, well I was trying to figure out what to ask you exactly,” Haddie replied. “I just want to know more about you, I guess.”

“Well that’s what I was gonna say anyway, silly,” Hobby’s smile grew sad and his face darkened. He sighed and continued. “I’ve never met anyone else who really wanted to know. When I was six my mom died and my dad left.” His eyes glistened and Haddie felt the hairs stand up on her arms and legs.

Hobby told Haddie everything. How his mom had overdosed on pain medication and how he had found her body. How he spent a week alone in the house with her corpse before neighbors began to suspect something was wrong and called the police. He told her about the nuns, how cruel they could be. He told her about his first foster parents, whose names he no longer remembered, how they were arrested shortly after his arrival into their care. He touched briefly on his time at the orphanage in Northwest Arkansas, but he skipped over the time he spent with the Thorntons because it was simply too difficult to bring up. He described how he had lived at the Box’s house, crammed in the laundry room.

“And then I heard Mr. Box talking about some relative of mine coming to get me,” Hobby said, wrapping up his story. “A couple days later the Madame, err, Ma, came to pick me up.”

The scent of pot roast and baked carrots began to drift up from somewhere in the bowels of the house beneath the two children and suddenly they realized how very hungry they had become. Without saying a word Haddie and Hobby stood in unison and went downstairs, lost in thoughts.

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The children giggled their way back through the forest, only slightly deflated from their previous battles and the treehouse adventure. When they reached the forest’s edge they could see the Madam marching toward the garden where one of her employees knelt toiling. Haddie pulled Hobby behind a tree, silencing him with one finger over her lips. She whipped out her imaginary binoculars and held them to her face and peered out to spy on the two figures. Hobby imitated her but found the imaginary binoculars really just obscured his vision so he dropped them and dangled his arms at his sides awkwardly.

The Madam came to an abrupt halt and stood over the man, cloaking him in her shadow. ‘Franklin’ turned to face his employer, then slowly removed his dirty gloves and pushed himself up onto his feet one rusted vertebra at a time. Eye-to-eye with the Madam, ‘Franklin’ took a defensive stance, crossing arms over chest. She began gesticulating wildly and yelling. Individual words couldn’t quite traverse the space between garden and forest edge where the children stood straining their ears, but shrill fragmented screeches penetrated deep into the forest, evidenced by the sudden flight of a large bird somewhere far behind them. The man lowered his head like a wounded dog, nodding gently up and down in ritual compliance. He had clearly done this many times before.

“Which ‘Franklin,’ er, I mean, who is that,” Hobby stuttered, unsure how to ask the question.

“I can’t tell from here,” Haddie whispered back, staring out at the unfolding drama with concentrated, narrow eyes. “Ma makes sure they all look the same for some reason. I can only tell them apart up close, when I can see their faces. They’re all the same height and Oscar said they even have to stand on a scale when they apply for the job but he was always fibbing so who knows.”

Haddie trailed off as the Madam made an about face and huffed off up the stairs. Once she had disappeared into the house, Haddie came out from behind the tree and started over to the garden.

“Let’s go see who she was hollering at,” Haddie said, grabbing Hobby’s hand and tugging him across the lawn. Haddie’s hand squeezed reassurance and Hobby forgot about the stress of conflict, if only momentarily. “I’ll introduce you. All the ‘Franklins’ are super nice and sometimes they’ll give you candy but you can’t tell or they’ll get in trouble. No sweets unless Ma gives us permission. And she never does.”

The man heard their approach and turned, smiling a great big white smile. Having resumed his gardening after the Madam’s interuption, he removed his gloves once again, but this time he remained kneeling before the flowerbed. Seeing his face, Hobby recognized his bright smile and friendly eyes.

“Haddysue, always good to see you,” he said in a singsong voice, wiping sweat from his brow with the grimy tail of his t-shirt. “Wanna introduce me to your friend here? I had the pleasure of carrying his luggage upstairs last night but I didn’t catch his name.” He addressed Haddie when he said this, but he was looking at Hobby, one eyebrow raised.

“Hi Rudy,” Haddie said, blushing slightly and holding her arms behind her back in a prim display. “This is my new brother, Hobby. He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met and I love him very much already.” She threw her arms around Hobby and it was his turn to blush. He grinned sheepishly at Rudy, unsure how to behave.

“Well, isn’t that just wonderful. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Hobby. My name’s Rudy. I’d shake your hand but mine are all dirty,” he slapped his gloves against his soiled blue jeans. None of the dirt came off and he put them back on. “Children, I’ve got a lot to do and only so much time before I’m tending this garden in the dark. You children run along and play.”

“Rudy, why was Ma so angry just now,” Haddie burst out as Rudy began to turn back to the garden. “Why is she always so mean to you and all of the other people who come here just to help her do all of her own chores?”

Rudy hung his head with his eyes scrunched closed as if in pained concentration, then he turned and looked up at the children with sad eyes. He opened his mouth as if to speak but paused and exhaled instead, then he pursed his lips chuckled through his nostrils.

“What did I tell you about spying? One of these days you’ll hear something you’ll wish you hadn’t.” Rudy said in a soft, but terse tone. He smiled and looked at Hobby. “Don’t think too much of it, okay? One thing I know for certain, all these old white women around here treated my granddaddy much worse than Miss Cleary treats me. Shoo, if my granddaddy had made such a gruesome mistake such as this one here, putting Geraniums where she wanted Tulips, well he’d have made out a lot worse I can tell you that. Don’t worry about me, okay Hobby? You’ll learn more about all this nastiness as you get a little older, but for now just consider it one of my occupational hazards. Now get on before she comes around here having another hissy.”

“Okay, well I’m still sorry she treats you like that,” Haddie said, looking down at Rudy with sad eyes. “Obviously you know you’re my favorite but even Stephan doesn’t deserve that.”

“Nice meeting you,” Hobby called over his shoulder as Haddie yanked him toward the stairs.

“Rudy’s really funny,” Haddie giggled as if remembering previous gags. “He’s always making these faces at Ma when she can’t see him. It’s hilarious.” Haddie screwed up her face and the imitation made Hobby burst out laughing.

The children made their way back into the house and resumed their tour. Haddie showed Hobby the parlor and told him in hushed tones to steer clear between breakfast and dinner, as this was where the Madam wiled away the morning and early afternoon, her feet up and her face in a newspaper or a cheap romance paperback. After the Madam’s previous display Hobby took the advice seriously, but he still wanted to like her because she, unlike any previous guardian, had only ever been kind to him.

“Most of the house is super boring old people crud, all antiques and stuff Ma doesn’t like us to touch,” Haddie said this and then screwed up her face to do her impression of the Madam. “‘Don’t go getting your greasy little fingers all over the velvet love seat.’”

She showed him the other rooms anyway, but she was right. None of it interested Hobby in the slightest.

“I’ve got to show you my other hideout, but that’s about it in the main house,” Haddie said. “Later we can go check out the bunkhouse where Rudy lives. Oh, and the greenhouse is pretty cool. There’s a Venus flytrap we can feed.” Hobby wondered what could be so cool about a green house but kept it to himself. He’d seen houses of just about every color imaginable, especially green ones.

The children raced each other up the stairs and Haddie won, but Hobby didn’t care. Haddie danced around in a circle blowing raspberries at Hobby and he tried to blow one back but couldn’t figure out how to drum his tongue up and down against his lips the way she did. He made a note to practice this trick later in the comfort of his room. Footsteps approached the foot of the stairs and Haddie rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Children, please,” the Madam called up the stairs in a strained, but gentle tone. “I’ve been nursing a headache all morning and I would really appreciate some quiet. Stephan has just finished preparing some lunch for us and you’re welcome to make yourselves a plate whenever you like. I’m going to lie down until dinnertime.”

The Madam’s steps echoed down the hall, growing faint. Hearing the Madam’s door open and close, Haddie scoffed loudly turned down the hall and continued past Hobby’s room all the way to the far wall.

“I’ve got to swear you to secrecy, Sonny,” Haddie said with a low voice and serious eyes. She spit into the palm of her hand and held it out to Hobby. He was horrified and confused by her intention. “Gosh you are like an alien. You need to spit into your hand, and then you can shake my hand and that means we’re spit siblings. Or as Oscar used to say, ‘spitting cousins.’”

The thought of spitting into his own hand was bad enough, but the thought of touching Haddie’s spit actually made him gag. Seeing this involuntary reflex made Haddie’s jaw drop. She was incredulous, at a loss for words, so she just shook her head absentmindedly. Hobby folded to her disappointment and followed her instructions.

“Now that’s out of the way, prepare to enter your new secret lair,” Haddie almost looked maniacal. She jumped up into the air, flailing one arm, then landed with a thud. She smiled an embarrassed smile her eyes begged Hobby for his patience. She jumped again and missed, but this time Hobby noticed what she was reaching for. A short piece of twine dangled from the ceiling above her head and on the third try she managed to grab hold of it and, as she came floating down to the ground, a large ceiling panel came with her. Hobby instinctively jumped backwards and shielded his head, sure the entire ceiling was falling, expecting rubble and blood. But when he opened his eyes, a large staircase had materialized before him.

“After you, kind sir,” Haddie said in her British accent, holding her arm out like a doorman. “Wait, actually, you won’t be able to find the light switch. Follow me.” She turned and started up the stairs.

Too shocked to remember to feel afraid, Hobby followed her up and into the pitch black. Haddie reached the top of the stairs and groped along the wall for a light switch. The light flickered on, illuminating a dusty attic full of boxes and old decorations, various totems of a bygone era or two. An elegant old sofa sat in a lonely corner, begging to be put to use one more time. Hobby went up to it and looked at it closely. He was guessing the thing must be around a thousand years old, but somehow it looked as if no one had ever sat on it once. Looking at the sofa made him feel hollow. Couldn’t use it, couldn’t throw it away, couldn’t look at it any longer. A joke of an existence, like a shadow of the real thing. Now it was cursed to languish in this dank corner until someday comes and someone works up the courage to toss it in the trash.

“What’re you doing? That hunk-a-junk’s been here since I first came here. Ugly, isn’t it? You can see why they hide it up here,” Haddie tugged Hobby over to the opposite end of the attic.

“But why do they keep it at all if they’re just going to stick it up here?”

“You are so weird,” Haddie squealed at him. “Why do you think about this stuff? Who cares come check out the Inner Sanctum.”

Haddie led him to a small door, just barely taller than the children. She eagerly opened the door and flipped another switch and hundreds of Christmas lights came on all at once. Hobby entered the small room and Haddie closed the door behind him. The lights strung along the walls encircled a pair of small, dusty armchairs and a little end table. The atmosphere was dim and moody, but magical nonetheless.

“What is this place? This is so cool,” Hobby said. He took a seat in one of the armchairs and found it supremely comfortable. He noticed a stack of board games and a couple jigsaw puzzles under the table.

“I like to come up here when I draw,” Haddie said, her eyes gazing at something far away. “Oscar and I put all this up ourselves. We used to come here everyday to play, but when he went away I didn’t want to come here for a long time.”

Silence fell over the cozy space and Hobby noticed he could hear sounds drifting up through the thin boards beneath his feet. He concentrated and realized it was coming the radio he had heard beyond the parlor door earlier. He wondered whether the Madam had left it on earlier or if she was up already.

Haddie seemed to remember where she was and plopped down in the chair opposite Hobby.

“Now that you’re here, we’re going to need to give this place a touch of Hobby, right? Surely you’ve got some thoughts on the design,” Haddie affected the accent of a New York City socialite. Making a rectangle with her thumbs and index fingers, she closed one eye and panned around the room. “We could really use some life in here, wouldn’t you say? Why don’t we fetch a potted plant from the greenhouse.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty much perfect as it is,” Hobby noticed Haddie’s face tightening up. “But, uhm, I do say we should get some life in this space.” He did his best to mimic her accent.

“That’s a good lad! Why don’t we run down and see if Rudy has any suggestions for a good one. We need something that doesn’t need a lot of sunlight,” Haddie said trailing off, seeming to rethink the entire idea. “Maybe there’s some sort of a night plant. Or we could bring one up every day when we come up, then bring it back down later.”

“Why don’t we spend some time in here and see what it’s missing,” Hobby interrupted her rambling thoughts. “We only just got here. Show me how to play one of these games. Which one was Oscar’s favorite?”

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Hobby slept better on the bathmat than he ever slept in the Box’s laundry room. A soft light filtered through the skylight and, when it reached his eyelids, he woke up. The house was alive with alien sounds and smells. He remained there frozen on the bathmat, wide eyed and trembling like a rabbit, afraid someone might hear him and investigate the noise. Hobby always felt like an intruder.

Eventually he worked up the courage to run the hot water and take a shower. He missed taking baths because they reminded him of his mother, but now the thought made his eyes feel hot and puffy. Mr. Box said baths weren’t appropriate for a ten year old boy and anyway there wasn’t even a tub in his new bathroom.

Stepping into the shower Hobby heard a gentle knock on the other side of the bathroom door. He whipped the shower curtain shut behind him and clutched it against the wall, eyes on the water pooling around his feet.

“I’m pleased to hear you’re taking a shower,” Madam Cleary said through the closed door. “I wanted to let you know breakfast is served downstairs in the dining room. Just follow your nose,” she trailed off, walking away.

Hobby released his grip on the curtain and looked around. He was stunned to see a beautiful selection of hygiene products lining the walls around him. He popped the cap and sniffed a bottle of shampoo and his eyes widened. He usually used crummy bar soap as shampoo and conditioner was practically a myth at this point, something vaguely recalled from the old days of baths with his mother. The conditioner could have been a Christmas present and, rinsing the shampoo from his hair, Hobby eagerly slathered it in. Now his hair felt slick and he couldn’t help himself from running his fingers through it.

Bubbles took flight as Hobby started scrubbing himself vigorously with a soapy washcloth, his mind drifting to the nuns at St. Jack’s. Everyday after shower time, which came right before breakfast, the nuns marched down the hall like prison guards, inspecting each child’s cleanliness, and taking a ruler to bare backs over minor infractions. When he first arrived Hobby failed to cut his toe nails on time and the nuns exiled him, tossing him outside by the scruff as though he were a naughty puppy. He stood in the freezing rain the entire night and he had never even clipped his own nails before. The boy was just 6 years old. Remembering how he huddled there under the branches of that big oak tree shivering in the dark made the hot water running down his back feel even better.

After showering Hobby dressed himself and looked in the mirror. Seeing his stained shirt he felt embarrassed, but there was nothing he could do. The other one was like that too.

Stepping into the hall, he could smell bacon and overdone toast. He crept down the stairs but each one screeched despite the nimble tips of his toes. A blender whirred off to his right and he followed the sound down a long hall through a swinging door with no knob. The door swung shut behind him and he was face to face with a girl around his age holding a glass of something thick and purple. She tried to take a sip but the thick substance in the glass just slid down and piled around her open mouth. She lowered the glass, smiling and giggling, and wiped off her purple mustache.

“I should have grabbed a spoon,” the girl giggled, slapping her palm against her forehead and turning to grab a utensil from a drawer. “Want some smoothie? I made too much.”

When Hobby didn’t reply the girl thrust out her hand and said, “My name’s Haddie. I’m 11. How old are you?” She came closer and extended the same hand she had used to wipe away her previous mustache.

“I’m 10,” Hobby replied, eyeing her hand with disgust, checking for visible residue. Finding none he shook her hand. It was moist but Hobby couldn’t tell if it was smoothie or sweat, though he wasn’t comfortable with either.

“You didn’t tell me your name, silly.”

“Oh, sorry,” he stammered, "my name is Hobson. But everyone calls me Hobby.”

“Hobby, huh? Well, I’m gonna call you Sonny,” Haddie declared.

Hobby didn’t know what to make of this. He had always been Hobby, but maybe it was time for a change. He could be someone new.

“You want some smoothie? There’s also milk and orange juice but the juice has pulp in it and I hate pulp. Blech.” Haddie said, pointing over her shoulder to the refrigerator. “There’re glasses in the cupboard above the sink, but be sure to bring back anything you take from here. This is the kitchen Ma has for her helpers. I like to come here because they have the blender and milk and Ma doesn’t drink milk because she thinks it’s for babies only.”

“Why do the workers need a whole kitchen? Do they live here?”

“Rudy lives here, but Stephan has kids at home so he only lives here half the time.”

“What about Franklin?” Hobby asked, remembering Madam Cleary addressing the man who brought Hobby’s luggage up to his room the night before.

“Oh there’s no one actually named Franklin around here,” she said with a sly grin. “That’s just what she calls all the help. She’s always saying:” She paused and spoke with an accent, a perfect imitation of the Madam. “Oh, Franklin could you please fetch me a cup of tea? Franklin I just absolutely need you to trim the roses in the west garden they are just atrocious…’” Haddie trailed off and tried her best to act natural as the door swung open.

The Madam’s presence instantly overwhelmed the small space. Once again, she wore a large, gaudy hat. Unlike its gothic counterpart from the day prior, this one was startling and flamboyant. The thing was hunter’s orange and if she had stood on the tips of her toes or even jumped slightly, the big ugly thing would have been shredded by the ceiling fan.

“Come along, children. Let’s grab a plate and sit down at the table on the porch so we might properly enjoy this fine day,” Madam Cleary said, her voice booming. “Follow me.”

The children fell in behind her and went out the door, down the hall, past the stairs and down the opposite hallway. She opened the door to the dining room where plates had already been set out for them. Little wisps of steam drifted up from the food and Hobby’s stomach turned. This smelled much better than the help’s kitchen.

They each grabbed their plates and followed the Madam through a sliding glass door leading outside. The lawn was magnificent, but Hobby’s jaw was tired from dropping so much so he just sat down. He would have plenty of time to stare at the garden later; right now, the boy had more pressing matters to attend to.

Each plate was piled with mashed potatoes and gravy, eggs and bacon, toast slathered in ruby red jelly, and a fully peeled orange ready to be eaten. Hobby tore through his food at a startling pace and the Madam asked him to slow down, but he couldn’t contain himself. When he finished his food he looked up, smiling.

"Wow, I’m impressed,” Haddie said, eyes wide.

“His stomach ache will be quite impressive, that’s one sure thing,” the Madam said between bites of food. “Now, I see the two of you have gotten acquainted. You, young lady, would you show your new brother around the grounds like Oscar did when you first got here?”

Hobby liked the sound of this, but he felt like he had eaten a bag of concrete and it was currently mixing around and solidifying in his stomach acid. He slumped down in his chair and quietly let out a long fart. No one heard it but it did have a pungent odor and Haddie and the Madam both noticed. Haddie slid her plate forward, only a slight dent in her pile of food, and stood up.

“Ready for the grand tour?” Haddie said, rolling her “R’s” and affecting a British accent for dramatic effect. “I’ll even show you my secret hideouts.”

The two children set off down the stairs leading to the garden from the porch and ogled the flower beds for a while. Haddie started naming the different flowers for him, but had to stop at foxglove because she was frightened off by a bee.

Hobby saw it too but he wasn’t afraid of bees. He had never been stung by one before and he figured it wouldn’t hurt half as bad as a belt anyway. The boy loved insects and animals more than most humans he had met and bees were no exception. He saw them as beautiful, complex creatures, not enemies. When he still lived at home with his family he loved watching nature programs and remembered one about beehive dynamics pretty well. He thought about how the queen bee languished while her children toiled, and then finally when the time for mating came the workers were banished from their homes and sent off to die in a foreign orgy. He couldn’t read or write beyond a kindergarten level but he knew quite a few fun facts about the animal kingdom.

Hobby plucked a little blue flower from a bush, held it up to his nose and wondered if he had ever actually smelled a flower before. He hadn’t, at least as far as he could remember. This one left a bitter sweet smell lingering in his nostrils. Smelling this foreign smell, holding this beautiful flower, he realized just how little he knew, how few things he had done, and it made him sad. Looking at the flower made him happy though. He turned around and saw Haddie half way across the lawn, where she lie panting in the grass. He ran over to join her.

“Hey what flower is this one?” He held up the little blue flower.

“That’s a Morning Glory,” Haddie said, jumping up in excitement. “How’d you know those are my favorite? Blue is my favorite color.”

“Well then, you should have it.” Hobby looked at the flower and blushed, then looked down at the ground and held the flower out to her. She smiled and took it from him, then tucked it behind one ear and took him by the hand.

“Come on, lemme show you my favorite hideout in the whole world,” Haddie pulled Hobby by the hand into the forest at the edge of the lawn. Leaves fluttered down from trees and a single, lonesome bird called out to no one. The children threw leaves at each other and pretended to be soldiers. Hiding behind a tree, Haddie popped out with a pantomimed Tommy gun and mowed Hobby down.

The two children fell to the ground panting and laughing. Hobby had never had a friend before so he didn’t know how to behave and took cues from Haddie. This was the most fun he had ever had and the dopamine flooding his brain began to make him dizzy and he kept laughing to the point of turning red from asphyxia.

“So where’s this hideout,” Hobby asked between ragged breaths and giggles.

“Just a little bit further,” Haddie giggled back. “One second, let me catch my breath.” She belly flopped into the leaves dramatically, panting and giggling.

Side by side, they stared up at big clouds sprinting across the sky and Hobby could smell Haddie’s sweat and he liked it. The smell was still sticky and sweet in his nose, just slightly sour like an unripe pear. Without warning Haddie sprang to her feet and, hands on hips, looked down at Hobby.

“Let’s go, Soldier, we’re losing daylight,” Haddie said in her British accent. “We’ve still a half day’s March before we’ll reach camp.”

“Okay, let’s do it then,” Hobby said awkwardly, trying to affect the same accent but failing miserably, then giving up halfway through and resuming his normal speaking voice. This made Haddie laugh so hard she got the hiccups and Hobby turned scarlet. Seeing this, Haddie apologized for laughing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, still trying to contain her laughter, hand over mouth. “That’s just the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. You’re weird, you know? You’re not like anyone else I’ve met. But, no, that’s good. I like you. Best brother I could have asked for,” she said, digging her elbow hard into Hobby’s side.

The children stomped through the woods a bit further, pretending to be soldiers again, but this time they were comrades, not enemies, and they were marching off to fight in the civil war.

They came upon a massive old growth oak tree with a ladder dangling from an unseen bough high above their heads. Hobby looked up but he couldn’t make out the tree house.

“Um, is your secret hideout up that ladder,” Hobby asked in his bravest voice.

“Yep, sure is,” Haddie said, pushing the boy towards the ladder. “And you’re going first, Corporal. I’ve got to cover you.” She did an about face and panned her pantomimed musket around the area.

Hobby looked at the ladder with saucers for eyes and scanned his brain for a reason he couldn’t climb it. Finding none, he took a truly brave step forward, grabbed the ladder and steadied it, then started putting one hand over the other. Climbing the ladder was out of character for the boy who quivered at the sound of a car pulling up the drive, but Hobby had never had a friend before and he found he was more afraid of losing her than he was of the ladder.

With each passing rung he tried to pretend he was still just a foot off the ground. He continued like this and suddenly found himself at the trapdoor, which stood open as if knowing he wouldn’t have had the courage to open it himself. He clambered inside and found himself in a large room with one door leading off to the side. On the walls he saw old posters mixed in with more contemporary ones he vaguely recognized. There was a picture of Bob Marley he had seen before and he remembered the picture of Johnny Cash flashing the middle finger from a t-shirt he saw the time he went to the mall. There was an old cooler in a corner and a couple chairs around a table piled with wrinkled magazines and dusty paperbacks.

He looked down to see if Haddie had started climbing yet and the view made him feel sick. He wondered how he would find the strength to climb back down and noticed his hands were shaking. Haddie was up the ladder in a flash and she did a cartwheel across the empty room.

“Bet you never saw anyone do a cartwheel in a tree,” she giggled. “I come here most days and read during the afternoon. I bring up a bag of ice everyday so my cooler stays cold.”

“What is this place? Who built it,” Hobby asked.

“Most of this was here when I found it, but it was my idea to bring a cooler up here.”

“What’s in the cooler?”

“Well, if you promise not to tell I’ll show you,” Haddie said with a mischievous shimmer in her eyes. “Come on, take a look.”

She went over to the cooler and opened it, revealing an array of snacks and beverages, ranging from salami and cheese to potato chips and fruit, a milk carton and a couple cans of soda. Hobby had never tried a soda before.

“You got to swear you won’t tell anyone, especially Ma,” Haddie’s face suddenly became stiff and serious. “I steal this stuff at night sometimes so I won’t ever go hungry no matter what. Let’s check out the porch.”

Haddie turned away from Hobby and went to the door. Hobby followed her out into the forest canopy and stared in wonder at a bird’s nest resting in the elbow of a branch extending from a neighboring tree and hanging over the porch at eye-level. The porch itself was beautifully made, complete with a rocking chair and a railing.

The children stood in silence for a while and soaked up the sound of the forest. A robin lit on a branch just inches from Hobby and the two locked eyes. The bird cocked her head and squawked as if in greeting, then she skittered across the branch and leapt over to her nest. Haddie grinned at Hobby and he grinned back.

“Let’s go,” she said turning on her heel and opening the door. She put on her British accent and said, “We’ve much more to see, Sonny. Oh so many wonders to behold, my boy.”

Haddie did a cartwheel over to the trap door and opened it. She held it open and beckoned for Hobby to climb down. He hesitated, but not long enough for Haddie to notice, he hoped.

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To Hunt a Stranger is a reader supported publication. If you’re enjoying my work, please consider leaving a small donation in the tip jar. I’m unemployed and my stomach is growling at me. Thanks for reading!

Hobby didn’t wake up until the car came to a stop, and he forgot where he was for a moment, until he saw Madame Cleary peering out at him from beneath a curious, concerned brow. Forgetting himself for a moment, Hobby smiled at her, then covered his mouth in horror, hoping beyond reason that the woman hadn’t seen his smile. Smiling, Hobby had learned, left his wounded heart much more vulnerable to attack.

Seeing this meek display, the concern vanished and curiosity spread down the Madame’s face, parting her lips into the same crooked grin Hobby’s father used to wear before he crouched down and scooped him up into his arms. Following the curve of her smile, Hobby’s eyes made first contact with Madame Cleary’s. Her eyes were full of nuance and complexity, but Hobby couldn’t see past the flames dancing upon the surface of her eyes, the very same flames he had glimpsed in his father’s eyes from time to time. Goosebumps spread down Hobby’s arms as time stood still and he swore those eyes and that grin belonged to his father, that she was his father. But, when Madame Cleary’s momentary transformation was punctuated by a sharp chuckle, time resumed its tired march.

“Okay then, Hobby, let’s go see your new home, shall we?” the woman said, opening the car door and stepping out into the night. Hobby remained frozen somewhere between horror and recognition, hand still firmly fixed over mouth. “I’m not going to have to open the door for you am I? What else, shall I carry you up the stairs and plop you into bed? No reason to be so timid, no one bites around here. Not as far as I know.”

Fumbling at first with the car door, Hobby stepped out into the night. He looked up and saw a massive building, more castle than house. He saw a man dressed in a suit jogging down the front steps but his face was drenched in shadow. He smiled and waved a greeting, and Hobby realized why he couldn’t make out his face but could see his bright white teeth so clearly: the man in the suit was a black man, one of only a very small handful Hobby had encountered in his life. The tiny town where Hobby had lived with his parents was a pinhead sized stain on the map called Possum Grape, and Possum Grape has made a point of keeping its population low on melanin. Hobby wasn’t even made aware of the existence of any skin tone other than the one on his arms and legs until he was whisked away into the care of the state.

The first black person he saw he was amazed and even asked to touch his skin. The man was a kindly service worker and he took no offense, just chuckled and said ‘sure thing, bud.’ As the months turned into years, Hobby bounced around the state of Arkansas like a pinball, seeing many things he had never seen before and meeting many people of the sort he never even knew existed. By the time he had landed at the Box residence, he had learned that people with different skin colors were much nicer to him and tended to actually listen when he told them his challenging life story. They didn’t look at him with blank eyes and a plastered on smile. No, the few people of color Hobby had had the pleasure of meeting had treated him with respect, as an equal, and he saw how they were treated by the beige men and women working for the state.

The man reached the landing and Hobby found himself smiling eagerly again and quickly wiped it away. The driver, who hadn’t uttered a word to Hobby, backed the car down the drive and disappeared.

The man in the suit acknowledged the Madame with a bow but Hobby thought he was checking to see if his shoes were untied. They were not. Hobby waved at the man but he didn’t noticed and continued around to the back of the car, opening the trunk and retrieving the boy’s luggage. He held the tattered old suitcase away from his body as if afraid it might contaminate him and started jogging back up the steps without a word, vanishing into the house.

“Come along now, let’s follow Franklin into the house and I’ll show you to your room,” the woman said, starting her way up the steps. Hobby fell in behind her.

The front of the house was magnificent, a long winding staircase leading to a massive pair of double doors flanked by intricate stained glass. The doors themselves were a wonder to behold, two massive slabs of oak adorned with an intricate design burned into the wood ages before. Approaching the doors, Hobby noticed colorful light reflecting from the stained glass and shimmering at his feet. Hobby blinked and rubbed his eyes, convinced he had arrived somewhere between dreamland and reality. But the patterns and colors were really there and Hobby had never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. A warm breeze carried a lovely floral aroma up from the garden below and the boy’s senses were overwhelmed. He didn't have the vocabulary to describe the intense emotion he was feeling, but he felt like he could cry and laugh and shout all at the same time. But, frozen with indecision, he did neither.

The doors opened outward and two men appeared, one on the handle of each door. The men were dressed identically, in black suits, and they looked similar as well. Hobby recognized one of the men from just before, the man who grabbed his suitcase. Both men kept their gaze on their shoes. Neither said a word.

“Hurry on, you’ll have years to take it all in,” the woman said, stifling a yawn. “I need to get to bed! It’s much too late for a woman of my age to be up chitterchatting. Same goes for you. You’ll have much to do in the morning, so straight to bed!”

Hobby didn’t answer. He was used to doing what he was told without a fuss. He followed the woman up another flight of stairs, then turned left down a hall and his room was the third door on the right. Hobby wondered where all these doors led. He had seen several more on the left hand side of the hall too.

The woman opened the door and Hobby was confused by the space behind the door. He stood, waiting to be led even further to his chambers.

“Go on, now, make yourself at home,” pushing the boy further into his new bedroom, Madame Cleary’s voice was vaguely tinted with frustration. “That door there leads to your own bathroom, so you can get yourself a glass of water if you like. I’ll wake you for breakfast in the morning.” With that, she shut the door and clack-clickity-clack she went down the hall, then creaked down the stairs and out of earshot. Hobby was alone.

He stared around in disbelief at the size of his space, although it was really no larger than a normal bedroom. He had a full sized bed with a real mattress, a luxury barely remembered. His suitcase waited for him on a chest at the foot of the bed.

Hobby wasn’t tired at all, so he made use of his solitude unpacking and putting away his things, something he wasn’t really used to. But it didn’t take more than a couple minutes, since he had very few possessions. In the past, the boy usually lived like a traveling salesman, never bothering to fully unpack, always prepared for the next move. He put his three changes of clothes into the dresser drawers in the corner, then put his old worn out toothbrush on the sink in the bathroom. He filled up a glass of water and put it beside his bed, then sat down with his short legs dangling over the side of the bed. He looked around the room and started to feel the weight of the space all around him. It was suffocating. When he flicked the lights out he felt worse, the darkness piling into all that empty space and crowding up to him.

Tossing a pillow and blanket down onto the tile floor in the bathroom, then closing the door, Hobby felt more at home. He dragged the bathmat over and cozied up to the door, pressing his body against it to keep it shut and curling into a ball. With the walls pressing in around him, the emptiness couldn’t get to him. He closed his eyes and imagined he was surrounded by a bubble, a purple forcefield. He imagined beasts on all fours, black shadowy creatures, clamoring and clawing at the forcefield, but it held strong and they were kept at bay until the sun would ultimately wash them away.

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Years crept over Hobby like vines, never in a straight line, some quicker than others, each fixing him more firmly to his fate. Writhe as he might, the fetters of time held him prisoner, shackled by his past to a dismal present, his future dictated by impossibly powerful forces ushering him through space and time. The little boy was at the mercy of low hissing voices whispering behind cracked doors, hasty signatures scrawled across official documents, documents which, all too often, ended up being lost or incomplete. A gavel would bang or maybe an intercom would drone out his name and then the boy would be whisked off to another set of uncaring arms for a spell. Then the voices would get loud again and the smiles would fall away. Sometimes people even hurt him, but by some grace of biology his brain filtered those memories out, leaving him with a dull sadness in the pit of his stomach where the month of May ought to have been.

The death of his mother and the departure of his father had left a gaping wound in Hobby’s heart, but instead of tending to the wound with salves and dressings, everyone made matters worse. Every time the wounds began to heal someone new would come along and peel back the scar tissue, never missing an opportunity to blame the boy for his own pitiful state, to twist the dagger of responsibility deeper into his wounded soul. Sometimes they did this with their words, though it was usually accomplished through more subtle means, a scoff or a raised eyebrow. Most often the abuse occupied negative space in his life, making it very difficult to report, if anyone would listen. Typically people hurt Hobby by withholding kindness, tormenting him with words unuttered.

Left no other choice but to accept the cool blade of debt like an allergy, a cruel reality thrust upon him by elders wielding knowledge like a guillotine, Hobby was reduced to a minor character in his own story. Watching from the margins as his own character sprang to life before his eyes, Hobby accepted that, somewhere along the way, he had relinquished all control of his own story. It didn’t matter to some beige, nameless woman behind a cheap particle board desk if he thought he deserved to learn to read and write, for he had already been declared a needy, desperate, little orphan many years before. The thick folder following him across state lines, from one household to the next, growing in size with each cruel twist of fate, was where the real Hobby lived, as far as anyone with any power was concerned. The pieces of paper hidden in that folder contained words Hobby couldn’t read, written about him by someone who barely knew his name. Without ever asking how he felt, everyone had agreed that Hobby showed no signs of emotional development. He was kept out of school because the state declared him mentally incompetent, arguing it would be an unfair burden on the other students.

Around the time Hobby turned ten he had amassed enough human interaction and observation to determine his situation wasn’t normal. So thoroughly deprived of normal human interaction, the boy started to think of himself as a pariah, a leper to be kept out of view of polite society. It was during this period of realization that a woman claiming to be a distant relative of the boy filed the necessary paperwork and was granted guardianship.

Then one gray morning a sleek black car announced its arrival with a gentle crunch of leaves. The house being deathly still, Hobby heard the noise and bounded to the front door, never having fully given up hope for a set of loving arms.

He had heard whispers about a relative of his and, despite the nagging voice shouting up at him from the bilious pit of his churning stomach, Hobby hoped to be surprised by the slantwise grin of his father. Would he even remember what he looked like? Could he be sure it was actually him? He thought he knew what his father looked like but he didn’t have any pictures and he was too old, or perhaps too wise for his age, to believe the image in his head hadn’t been warped by the passage of time.

But it wasn’t an image of his father swirling through his mind as he packed his few belongings into a tattered suitcase, it was the thought of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Box far behind. The couple had hardly said a word to the boy throughout the duration of his six month stay with them. Unless otherwise approved, was required to stay in the space designated his room, a space most households would consider a laundry room, a small corner housing the machines and a litter box. The boy was allowed an inflatable air mattress, which only fit diagonally across the space, the foot of the bed smashed against the front loading washing machine so that if he opened the door to the machine he could lay down flat with his feet dangling over the sides. Luckily for the boy, Mr. and Mrs. Box rarely did any laundry.

The night before his scheduled departure Hobby lie awake, hoping the couple would spare him a goodbye. The sound of the front door opening woke the boy early the next morning, confirming he was in fact spared the ordeal and he slept soundly until he was woken by the sound of the car pulling up the drive.

Hearing the sound, he shot up and grabbed his suitcase, then ran to the front door and threw it open, smiling for the first time in months. He stepped out into a light autumnal rain and, without a backwards glance, ran up to the black car. It was a very nice car, the likes of which Hobby had only glimpsed in passing on television or in magazines. The boy noticed the way the rain beaded up when it met the waxy surface of the vehicle, the way the beads slid effortlessly down the door leaving no evidence of their passage. There were no streaks of water running down the door, pooling in dents and then dripping to the pavement. The wipers were smooth and silent. Hobby remembered driving home with Mr. Box, how his wipers seemed to scream with each agonizing swipe, all the while trailing a sad hunk of rubber desperately clawing to escape its wet existence.

The rear passenger window rolled down to reveal a woman dressed in all black sporting a large black hat and sunglasses, despite the gloom overhead. The boy jumped at the sound of her voice and froze. He had never heard one like it. It had all the comfort of a rattling snake, but there was something sad in it, something weary saying they had already been through all of this before and the woman was too tired to be angry about doing it again. Too caught up with the sound of her voice to even notice the words, he remained frozen there until she spoke again.

“I had been led to believe you speak English. I can say it in Spanish if you like. Abre la puerta y entra. El otro lado,” the woman said, indicating the door opposite herself.

The boy had never heard Spanish before in his life, but he understood her perfectly and went around the car to the other door, opening it and climbing in.

“We’re not going to have to keep that up for the entirety of your stay, are we? I must admit I have let my Spanish get away from me after all these years,” the woman said.

At a loss for how to behave or what to say, the boy merely thrust out his hand. Afraid to meet her gaze, he fixed his eyes firmly on the only blemish he could see, a small tear in the leather between his legs.

The woman took his hand and introduced herself as Madame Cleary, how do you do. The boy muttered his name in response as the car backed out of the driveway. He didn’t look up until the car had safely made it to the highway, at which point he permitted himself a glance in his new guardian’s direction. He found her staring at him, so he quickly returned his gaze to the little peeling bit of leather. A thick silence crept over the car and Hobby studied that spot between his legs with all the intensity of a scholar until the curtain of night overtook the travelers and the gentle sway of the highway whisked the young boy off into a comforting sleep.

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