Watcher in the Woods Read online

  Toria said, “Maybe he didn’t really see David.”

  “He did,” David said, remembering the eyes watching him in the forest. They were the same eyes that had stared him down just now.

  Xander stepped closer. “This can’t be a coincidence. We move in, Mom gets taken, this guy shows up wanting to buy the place? What’s going on?”

  Dad didn’t answer right away. When he did, his words came slowly. “I don’t know who he is or what he wants with this house. But you’re right, his showing up isn’t a coincidence. He’s here because we’re here, and he doesn’t want us to be. We’ve got to watch out for him.”

  “Like we don’t have enough going on?” Xander said. “We’ve gotta find Mom while pretending everything’s all right, we gotta watch out for the guy who took Mom, and now we have to watch for this guy?!”

  “What else are we gonna do?” David said.

  It was too much for one day. Stepping into some French village during a Nazi attack. The flying—or whatever it was they had done in the clearing. Breaking his arm. The doctor’s accusation. And now this guy: his sudden appearance, his low measured way of talking, his eyes.

  David didn’t want to let go of his dad. And his other arm was in a sling. But in his mind he did the backstroke. Just trying to be calm when he had every reason to go crazy.

  “I’m not going to pretend this doesn’t change things,” Dad said. “We’ll have to be more careful, we may have to work faster, and we’ve got to keep our eyes open for dangers coming at us from outside the house.”

  “Taksidian,” Xander said.

  Dad nodded. “But in some ways, nothing’s changed. We still have to do everything we can to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Maybe that’s more important than ever now.”

  David said, “Is that your way of saying we still have to go to school tomorrow?”

  “No!” Xander said.

  Dad smiled. “First day of school. I’m the principal. I think we have to, don’t you?”

  Xander said, “I say we do nothing but look for Mom. Eat when we have to, sleep when we can. Get Mom, get out of here, and leave this house for Taksidian or whoever else wants it.”

  Man, that sounded good to David.

  But then Dad said, “That would be fine if we knew for sure we could find Mom quickly. My dad spent weeks looking for my mother and never found her.”

  “That was one person,” Xander said. “With all of us working together—”

  “And that’s why we’re going to find her,” Dad interrupted. “But I don’t think it will be easy . . . or quick.”

  “If it takes a year, ten years,” David said, “I’m in.”

  “Me too,” Toria said.

  Xander frowned, but he was nodding. He said, “Okay, we pretend everything is great, and that buys us the time we need to find Mom.”

  “School tomorrow, then,” Dad said. “So let’s get to bed early. Toria, how about the two of us rounding up something else for dinner?”

  Toria headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Xander,” Dad said, “would you and David mind cleanup duty?” He nodded his head toward the mess on the floor.

  “Awww,” David said. “The meat loaf smelled good. We can’t have any of it?”

  Dad laughed and gave him a push, then went to join Toria in the kitchen.

  David touched his arm to stop him. “What about the man? Taksidian?”

  Dad squeezed David’s shoulder reassuringly. “He’s going to do what he’s going to do, Dae. Right now all we can do is wait and see what that is.”

  “He said he was in the house. Do you think he knows about the third floor, the portals?”

  Dad thought about it. “There’s a reason he wants this place. I imagine it has something to do with this place being special—and what makes it special are the portals.”

  David bit his lip. “But . . .” He didn’t know how to put his feelings into words. It was like having the messiest room in the world: he didn’t know where to start to sort it out in his head.

  Dad touched his cheek. “Don’t worry about it, son. Together, we’ll get through whatever we have to. Okay?”

  David nodded.

  Dad walked down the hall and disappeared into the kitchen.

  David stood watching, thinking. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. David didn’t like the sound of that.

  CHAPTER twenty

  SUNDAY, 9 : 00 P . M .

  Mr. James Taksidian—he was used to the name now—stood in front of the house among the trees. Moonlight played against the clapboards, stirred by the shadows of countless leaves. He could still see the oldest boy in the foyer, his back to one of the narrow, leaded windows that flanked the front doors. Absently, he rubbed at the heavy scar on the back of his right hand.

  The meeting had not gone as well as he had hoped. A few more weeks without their wife and mother, a few more encounters with household intruders, and they would have jumped at the opportunity to abandon the house. Ah, but Taksidian was growing older, and less patient. He had fewer years left to do all the things he wanted to do. He didn’t have time for pests like the King family.

  He had hoped to find more despair and disillusionment. When he started to push them—frightening the boy, implying knowledge of what had happened to the woman—he had witnessed more anger and determination than the fear he had hoped to instill.

  One important fact had come from the meeting: he had verified that they were not some random family who had somehow weaseled their way into the house. They belonged. This meant they would not scare so easily. But he had no doubt that he could get them out. If one method did not work, another would. Seeing the resolve in their faces, hearing it in their voices, had convinced him that he had to step up his efforts. The pressure he would apply could crush a . . . He searched for the right metaphor and laughed when he found it. The pressure he would apply could crush a king.

  He spun away from the house and headed toward the car he had parked down the road. He laughed again, sure that he knew the outcome of this latest little adventure with the house.

  They would run or they would die—he didn’t care which.

  The last one had fled, and for almost thirty years had left Taksidian alone to do as he pleased. It had been a time of great prosperity.

  And he would have his time with the house once again.

  CHAPTER twenty - one

  TUESDAY, 11 : 2 8 P . M .

  Something woke David from a sound sleep. He saw that Xander was sitting up in bed and thought that his brother had called to him.

  “What?” he said to Xander’s dark profile.

  “Shhh.”

  Bam!

  David jumped. “Was that a gunshot?” The noise seemed to come from the hallway, but who really knew?

  Bam!

  “Xander!” David had felt the noise that time, coming up through the floor into his bed.

  “Daaaaad!” It was Toria. David and Xander threw back their blankets at the same time and hit the floor running.

  Bam! Bam!

  The vibration shot up into David’s feet. Before they reached it, the hallway light turned on. Xander charged through the doorway, with David right behind.

  “Daaaaad!”

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Dad was running down the hall toward Toria’s room. He reached it ahead of Xander and swung through. Xander and David stopped at the threshold.

  Bam! Bam!

  David not only felt it in his feet, but also in his arm, which was pressed against the door frame. Toria was sitting up in bed, eyes wide. She reached out and grabbed her father’s neck. He lifted her out of bed and scanned the room wildly.

  Bam!

  Not from this room.

  “What is it?” Toria squealed.

  Dad said, “I don’t know, honey. It’s okay.” He walked toward the door. David and Xander stepped back into the hall.

  Bam!—followed by a crash.

  At once, their faces tu
rned toward the ceiling. David touched his father’s elbow. “The hallway upstairs.”

  Dad began walking with Toria in his arms toward the far hallway and the false wall. He stopped in front of his open bedroom door to hand Toria to Xander.

  Dad disappeared into his bedroom, then reemerged with the ring of keys he and David had made earlier in the day.

  “Stay here,” he told them.

  “No way!” Xander said. He reached out and grabbed hold of his father’s T-shirt.

  “Daddy, no!” Toria said.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! More crashes. Something thunked. The lights in the hall flickered with each sound.

  Dad thought about it. He scanned the ceiling.

  Bam! Crash!

  “Stay behind me,” he said. He walked around the corner and stopped.

  The false wall was shut tight. The two padlocks they had attached earlier were locked and hanging from their hasps as they had left them.

  Bam! Bam!

  The lights flickered. The locks swung slightly from the vibration.

  Dad strode to the wall. He checked the number on the top lock and started flipping through the keys.

  “We should have bought a gun,” Xander said. He stooped to set Toria down on her feet. “Why didn’t we buy a gun?”

  Dad got the first lock off and squatted in front of the lower one.

  The bat Dad and Xander had used against the big man who had taken Mom had been destroyed when one of the portal doors shut on it. Not that it had done any good, David thought. Still, he would have felt better if one of them carried something, anything more than keys.

  The boxes that had been piled up against the wall and then scattered when the man had come for Mom were still there. Some were turned over, none of them neatly arranged. It looked as though the boxes themselves had been running from the sounds and stopped when the humans arrived. David looked in one and found only clothes. Another contained books. Not quite sure what he was looking for.

  From the third box he pulled a toy rifle. He hadn’t played with it for at least a year, but he hadn’t wanted to toss it out, either. The stock and forward grip were made of wood, the barrel of steel. At one time it had been a cap gun, but that part of it hadn’t worked for a long time. David held it by the barrel, feeling its heft. He caught Xander looking at him, and David nodded: Yeah, this’ll clock somebody good.

  Dad had the false wall open and was stepping through to the next door. David hurried through the opening and over the next threshold to follow his father up the stairs.

  Dad was tiptoeing now, so David did too. He had forgotten Xander and Toria were behind him until he heard the creak of a step and his brother’s breathing close behind.

  Bam!

  Toria let out a yip.

  David jumped. He almost lost his balance and fell backward down the stairs. Xander’s hand pressed into his back and righted him.

  The noise had been earsplitting. Definitely a gunshot.

  Their father was crouched low at the top of the stairs, not quite on the landing. He was trying to peer around the corner and down the long, jagged hallway.

  “What is it?” David whispered.

  “Can’t see. Too dark.” Dad edged up onto the landing, gesturing for them to stay back. He moved toward the hallway on his hands and knees, stopping when his head was just below the light switch. He stayed like that a long time, perhaps listening or hoping his eyes would adjust to the dark.

  David expected another gunshot at any moment. For some reason, he didn’t think Dad would be hit, but he would jump back to get out of the way and crash into the three of them. The whole family would tumble down the stairs and land in a heap at the bottom. The flight did not have a handrail, so he crouched low and gripped the edge of the landing. Xander crowded up behind him.

  In the murky light of the staircase’s single dim bulb, David saw his father’s hand finally rise to the switch. The hallway lit up in that strange way that was becoming familiar to David: it was somehow different from other light, seeming to flicker like fire, without actually flickering at all.

  Dad made a noise David didn’t understand, kind of a surprised moan.

  “Dad?” he whispered. When his father didn’t answer, David reached out and touched his foot.

  Dad startled and swung his head around to look back. David didn’t like what was in his eyes.

  “What is it?” David whispered.

  Dad shook his head. Slowly he stood, staying close to the wall.

  Can’t be some madman with a gun, David figured, but what would scare Dad without chasing him away?

  He rose and stepped onto the landing behind his father. He looked past him and gasped.

  Every lock and hasp they had installed that day was lying on the floor. They were closest to the wall opposite the doors they had secured, as though ripped from the doors and frames with great force.

  He heard the others coming up behind him. He stepped around Dad for a better look. Across from the first door the wainscoting was damaged. Farther up, opposite the second door, one of the wall fixtures had broken. A large piece of it—featuring the prancing legs of a horse—lay on the floor. Sawdust, splinters, even pencil-sized strips of wood fanned out from each door.

  “The locks just blew off,” Xander said behind him. “Look. They hit the walls hard enough to break the wood. That light fixture is higher than the lock was. The lock must have come off with so much force it actually flew.”

  “Did someone kick the doors open, you think?” David asked. He looked back at his dad.

  Dad’s eyes roamed the hall, taking in the locks and splintered wood. He whispered, “The doors don’t open into the hall. They couldn’t have been kicked open.”

  Toria spoke up, her voice shrill. “Is somebody here? Are there people behind the doors?”

  That creeped David out. He felt his stomach tighten. His eyes darted from door to door, as far as the crooked hallway would let him. He caught a glimpse of something. He said, “Dad? About halfway up on the right—one of the doors still has a lock.”

  “Not only that,” Xander said. “It’s moving.”

  CHAPTER twenty - two

  SUNDAY, 11 : 39 P . M .

  Xander was right. The lock was vibrating. It seemed to move faster and faster. Then the sound of it rattling against the hasp reached them: click-click-click-click-click-click . . .

  Xander said, “What does that mean?”

  Dad just shook his head.

  David pressed up close to him and stayed there as they moved closer to the door. He felt Xander’s hand on his shoulder. David was doing the same thing with Dad: it was a way of staying close without having to pay attention: all of their focus was on that door.

  As they drew nearer, Dad lifted the keys.

  “Don’t,” David said.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” Toria agreed.

  Dad hesitated. “Look, guys,” he said. “Maybe there’s a reason this door and only this door still has a lock on it.”

  David’s head began to hurt. He squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Just do it.”

  Keys rattled, and he opened one eye to see this father select a key and let all the others drop away from it to settle at the bottom of the ring. Dad took a step closer. David went with him. Xander kept his hand on David’s shoulder.

  The vibrating of the lock became faster: clickclickclickclickclickclick.

  Toria said, “Is there something on the other side of the door doing that?”

  Dad pressed his palm to door. He said, “I don’t think so. I don’t feel it coming through the door.”

  David was between his father and the door. He leaned his shoulder to the door and felt nothing.

  Dad reached out with the key. David saw that Dad’s hand was shaking, almost as quickly as the lock. David heard the key tap against the lock as Dad tried to find the—

  Bam!

  The lock and hasp flew away from the door—so fast David saw only a blur marking its trajectory. It st
ruck Dad’s hand. He yelled and pulled his arm back.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Back! Back!” He swung his arms out and reversed, forcing David, Xander, and Toria to move back toward the landing as well. His hand grazed David’s cheek.

  David felt warm wetness and wiped at it. His fingers came away bloody. As they continued moving away from the door, he focused on Dad’s hand, held out to corral his children: blood poured from a gash along the back of his hand. David could see that the skin around it had already turned dark—black-and-blue, people called it, but this was mostly black.

  “Dad—” David said. “Your hand!”

  “Go, David! Go!”

  At the landing, they stopped.

  Dad continued holding his arms out like a guard keeping back a crowd. David stared at the wound. It was leaking like a broken bottle of ketchup. But it wasn’t ketchup, and David’s stomach turned.

  “What happened?” Xander said.

  “It just flew off,” Dad said.

  Toria said, “It hurt my ears.”

  “Your scream hurt mine,” Xander said.

  “That was David,” she said.

  Dad hushed them. They stood quietly in the hall, watching the door, listening.

  Finally Xander whispered, “If that lock had hit somebody, they’d be dead.”

  “Xander,” David said, “it did.” He turned his eyes back to Dad’s hand.

  “Dad!” Xander said.

  Toria made an “Oohhh” sound.

  “I’m all right,” Dad said.

  Xander said, “That doesn’t look all right.”

  Dad inspected his hand and tucked it close to his chest. “It looks worse than it is.” He glared down the hall. “Are there any more locks?”

  “Daddy,” Toria said, “can’t we check tomorrow? Your hand . . .”

  David saw the struggle in Dad’s face. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know now.

  After a moment, Dad said, “Okay, we’ll see what’s up tomorrow. After school.”

  “We still have to go?” Xander said.