Hidebehind

Thirty-Five

Waking up the next morning was like being struck by lightning. I'd tossed and turned all night, half-awake and half-dreaming about Luther's house, about being chased in the woods, about Jay . . . and then all of a sudden, as if daylight itself had been all I needed to understand things, I bolted up so fast that I terrified the cat lying at the foot of the bed. Tinkerbell yowled and darted away, but I had no time to apologize to her. I scrambled out of my covers and left the room, the linoleum in the hallway cold on my bare feet. I heard Penny ask me something, but I was too preoccupied to think of her.

I raced out of the house, neglecting even to put on my shoes, and my bare feet burned with the early morning chill as I ran to the shed. It was easy to get back into it, now that I knew the key was under a rock outside of it, and I quickly found what I wanted.

There was a box of blankets, kind of high up, that I'd toppled weeks ago. Blanket. One of the words I'd decoded—the one on the silo—was blanket. And the only place I'd seen anything even remotely interesting involving a blanket was in Great Grandma's shed, where Penny and I had rifled around in our boredom. Something shimmered in my mind about that box—there'd been something that had fallen out of it, that I hadn't really paid attention to, that I'd put right back and thought nothing more of. I'd barely glanced at that picture, but now I felt as if I'd dreamed about it all night. It was as if something in my brain had been pieced together.

The shed was freezing cold. My feet actually hurt as I stood on the poured cement floor and reached up high for that box, pulling it down too quickly, just as I had the first time, and jumping back as its contents spilled out.

I worried I'd hear breaking glass, that the picture frame would shatter, but it must have been wrapped too well in the blanket for that. It was, in fact. I had to unroll the blanket quite a bit in order to even find the picture, but as I did so, I focused on another thing that had meant nothing to me before . . .

The blanket was covered in dark brown splotches. I'd noticed it the first time, but I'd just figured the blanket was dirty. Now, as I slowed myself down, something more sinister entered my mind: this wasn't dirt—this was blood.

Freaked, I shoved the blanket away from me. Blood. That definitely looked a lot like blood. It might not be! I told myself. It might be any number of other kinds of stains . . . stains that just looked like blood; maybe they were rust stains, or some type of mold, or maybe food stains. Why had blood entered my mind? This wasn't a crime show. This was Great Grandma's house. This wasn't some murder mystery.

And yet . . . blanket, the silo read. Blanket. A clue to something important . . . this blanket.

But then I saw the silver frame peeking out of the corner of it, and I realized how stupidly my mind was working. This picture would have been what was meant by blanket, if anything was meant at all.

Get it together, Robert.

I held the picture in my hands. Inside its silver frame, which was etched with little leaves, was a black-and-white image that was so dusty I had to clear it with my finger, but when I did, my heart flip-flopped in excitement.

The image was of two boys, standing with arms around each others' shoulders, in front of what looked like a makeshift tent, with some trees behind them. The boys looked mischievous, and the taller one was unfamiliar to me, but the shorter of the two was fair-haired, pug-nosed, and freckled, with a grin I recognized immediately.

Clutching the picture to my chest as if in fear I'd lose it, I hurried back into the house and to Grandpa's room. I knew both he and my Great Grandma were asleep, but I didn't care. Without even hesitating, I knocked gently at first, then a bit more insistently, and when I finally heard a drowsy "come in," I slipped into the room quickly and quietly.

Grandpa was sitting up in the chair that was in his room, still in his pajamas, but more awake than I expected him to be. The way the morning light outlined his face was a little eerie, but I brushed away my reservations and went to his side.

"Grandpa," I said, holding out the picture for him to see. "Who is this picture of?"

He looked down at the photograph in my hand and didn't say anything for a moment. I realized that he wasn't himself, as was so often, and pushed it more toward him.

"These boys, who are they, Grandpa?"

Slowly taking the picture from me, he stared at it for what felt to my impatient mind forever.

"The boys, Grandpa. What are their names?"

"My birthday," was what he said, not answering my burning question. "We camped on my birthday. June seventh. Got to bring the right shoes for that; supposed to rain tonight." He tapped the photo with a wrinkled old finger, right on the image of the taller boy.

"That's you? Who's that next to you, then?"

"Mom won't let me go unless I finish my chores, though," he mumbled, frowning, as if I weren't even in the room. He put the frame on his footstool and started to move around, looking for who-knew-what, probably thinking he had to do whatever his chores were.

Maybe I had to take a different approach. "Who's coming tonight? Who's going camping with you?"

"Just Jimmy. He's my friend."

"Is this Jimmy, Grandpa? Is this Jimmy?" I'd grabbed the picture, not wanting to let this go. I was practically forcing it up under his nose, standing in front of him so he couldn't move around, so he had to look at it, had to see it, had to answer me.

The cloud covered his eyes again as he looked for the second time at the two boys. He stood more still than he'd sat, and I was afraid for a moment that some other fog had filled his mind, one that wouldn't let anything at all through, but to my joy he smiled softly and nodded. "That's him all right. That's Jimmy."

"You sure, Grandpa? You sure?"

A frown crept back onto his face, and he threw the photograph face-down on his unmade bed. An almost-sob cracked his voice as he said, "It got him. Jimmy's gone now."

For a moment, I held Grandpa's arm, and I was able to help him sit back down in his chair without any trouble. He seemed to be done talking, and I felt I'd bothered him enough. Besides, I'd gotten the information I wanted, and once he was settled back down, I discreetly grabbed the picture and slipped out of his room.

I held the photo to my chest as if it were some important treasure. So much was storming in my mind. I didn't know what to believe. Until my parents had gone, I hadn't believed in the supernatural. But then I'd felt that monster in the woods, and I'd known something more was there . . . only because of that was it easier to believe what was now presenting itself to me. That and the memory of my friend's face last night in the gloom outside my window: Jay was Grandpa's friend. Jay was Jimmy.