Hidebehind

Thirty-Three

"Cellar?"

"Yeah."

"That's all, cellar?" Alex repeated. "Looks like a lot more than that."

"Over and over and over," I said, quietly. "It just says the same thing, over and over."

We just sort of stood there. It made about as much sense as blanket and car had. "Blanket, car, cellar. Blanket, car, cellar." I hoped, maybe, that saying them aloud would reveal some sort of connection.

"But why so many times?" Maisie asked, her voice even softer than mine had been. "It's weird, Rob. It's really kind of creepy. Aren't cellars basements, but not basements? Like, where you can't really walk around?"

"Yeah," Alex responded, "and they're dark and dusty. Who even has cellars?"

My brain was working so hard to put it together, but I felt that, deep down, maybe the lot of it meant nothing at all, and I was just trying to piece together some nonsense. "I don't know. At least I have it, now, whether it means anything or not. Let's just get out of here before anything happens."

I'd stopped wanting to be with them since they'd asked about why I'd come here. Seeing Shark Fin Rock had been the only thing keeping me going, and now that I'd seen it, I didn't want to be there anymore. I just wanted to go back.

Suddenly, Maisie put a hand on my arm, and even in my thick coat, her touch felt warm. "Did you do this?"

The warmth turned cold as I realized what she was saying, and I wasn't sure what stung more, her words or her condescending tone.

"You can tell us. Me and Alex—we want to help you. Are you doing this spray painting?"

I ripped my arm from her grasp and stared at the two of them. "You think I did this?"

Alex put his hands out, like he was trying to calm some wild animal or something. "Rob . . . we just . . . this stuff started happening when you got here, that's all."

"Are you serious? The whole time we've been walking here, you thought I was the one who did this? And I guess neither of you believes what I said and the hidebehind either, do you?" I was shaking at that point, and not from the cold. Water was creeping into my eyes, but I was trying so hard to keep it away that I could barely speak properly. "You think I'm the crazy one around here? What the heck is wrong with you guys? Why do you keep lying to me?" I got to my feet. "You don't care about me and my problems! You just want to keep making fun of me!"

"No, seriously, Rob—"

"Jay was right. I should've listened to him about you, Alex. He told me you were a jerk, and I think I knew it, but I told myself maybe you'd be all right after all. Turns out I was wrong; it's not the first time!"

"Who?"

"What?"

Alex peered at me with his dark eyes. "Who told you I was a jerk?"

"Jay . . . blond hair, freckles, kind of short—he's in sixth grade at our school." Clearly, neither he nor Maisie had any idea who I was talking about.

Alex shook his head. "I don't know him, Rob. Never heard of him, never seen him. And I've been at that school my whole life."

"But he knows you! He doesn't like you, but he knows who you are."

"Is he your imaginary friend?"

His question caught me so off-guard that I choked on my spit. "What are you talking about, you psychopath?"

"Me? I'm the psycho?" He closed the space between us and made me think for a moment that he was going to push me or something, but he didn't. "Look, Rob, I'm not trying to be mean, but clearly you don't want a friend anyway, so I'm just going to say it. I've tried to be nice to you. I haven't been talking about you behind your back or anything, like some of the other kids. But I think you need to get some help. See somebody, you know what I mean? Talk to your Great Grandma about it. I just don't know how to try being nice to you anymore."

Anger seethed in me, started all the way down at my feet and boiled up, so I felt hot with rage.

"Shut up! Just shut up! Stay away from me. I'll—I'll find my own way out of here."

Maisie had her head toward the ground. She was obviously feeling sorry for me. I hated them both, now. Everyone lied to me. Everyone. Nobody actually cared about the truth. Nobody wanted to help me—they just wanted to tell me lies and claim I was crazy when they were the ones who'd caused it all.

I shoved by Alex and stomped off in the direction we'd come. How could I have been this stupid for a second time? How could I have let myself end up alone in these stupid woods, in the exact same place, again? I wanted to go home. I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted it. This was not a place that cared about me. There was nothing for me here, no friends, no family. Nothing.

"Rob, wait!"

"Leave me alone!" I called over my shoulder.

"No, wait! Listen!"

The sudden change in Alex's tone caused me to second-guess myself, and I stopped moving, though I didn't turn. As we fell into silence, I began to hear something—a very quiet crunch of leaves and twigs, as if someone was moving through the woods slowly but surely, and not too far from us.

I spun around toward the Francises, and their expressions told me this was no joke. They heard it too, and they didn't know what it was, either. I scanned the trees all around us; they were slim enough that it should be easy to see someone or something coming through them. If it was a hidebehind, it couldn't kill one of us with the other two looking on, right? It would have to become visible in some way!

"Back to back!" I hissed, and the three of us scrambled together and linked arms with our backs to one another. I could feel Alex and Maisie trembling, and it made me even more certain that this was not something they'd anticipated. Daylight or not—the sound was louder and closer, and yet we couldn't see their maker.

"Is this you, Rob?"

"No! I told you! None of it's me!"

Maisie was as freaked as her brother. "Then it's real? There's something out here!"

Terror leaped up in me like a squirrel in a cage. I had no idea what to do, and it was all happening so fast, and even though Alex and Maisie were there, I was more scared than anything. Closer and closer and closer the rustlings came, and my breathing drummed through my head, and the pulsing of my blood in my brain was the only thing louder than it, and we couldn't see anything. It was like the sound was behind me . . .

"Where's it coming from?" screamed Maisie, and then I wasn't sure who moved first, but all of a sudden, we were free of each other's arms and running. We ran and ran, and the whole while, it was as if something were after us, and how much of it was our imaginations and how much was just fear, we couldn't figure out, even when we got back to Great Grandma's house where they got on their bikes and took off. All I know for sure was that by the time they left, no matter how crazy they still might have thought I was, they didn't think I was lying about the monster anymore.