Bobby likes a bear, in its place, and he didn’t want his sandwich to lead to all that so resignedly he began to retrace his steps to retrieve it.
He pushed through some scrub and the lilac tree was there, ten feet or so away. Bobby caught his breath. There was a face in the blossom. It looked up and its eyes drove holes into him.I never got so close to screaming like a girl, he said later. The eyes he looked into were black tunnels. The small face was scarred with smears of orange-redblood. The thing opened its mouth and screamed. Bobby saw pieces of half-chewed meatball on the pink tongue. A scent of caries and decay filled the air and he clapped a hand over his nose and mouth.
Then the face disappeared, and there was a commotion of blooms and leaves and a thump. A small body fell to earth and Bobby heard, unmistakably, the sound of a child crying.
His fear vanished – he had two boys himself and he recognised that tone – just a hungry child who had been pushed too hard. Bobby said, gently, ‘It’s all right, son.’
The boy looked up at Bobby. Tears made tracks through the dirt on his face. He clutched Bobby’s sandwich to his chest. The red stuff on his mouth was meatball sauce. ‘You hold on to that now,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ve been looking for someone to help me finish it, so I’m glad you came along. Now, why don’t we get somewhere warm? Maybe brush your teeth and give you a bath. How about some pyjamas?’
He offered his hand. The boy looked at it and bared his teeth. Big Bobby held his breath; he thought about that rotting mouth closing on his tender palm.
‘Dead,’ said the boy, fast and low. ‘All dead – dead, dead, dead.’
Bobby was shaken. But he held his hand out still, in offering. After a moment the boy put his small filthy hand in Bobby’s and they walked slowly, carefully through the forest and all the way down the mountain.
‘So I knew someone had loved him, once,’ Big Bobby says always, at this point in the story. Someone claps him on the back and they all pretend not to see as he quickly wipes his eyes.
The little boy was never identified. Bobby took him to the police station and he seemed ok with that. He could read, Bobby thought, because he gave a little nod when he saw the ‘police’ sign at the door. But he wouldn’t talk. His injury was substantial. Who would do that to a child?
His clothes were in tatters. Some of the labels were fromcompanies that went out of business years ago. No one had reported a boy missing matching his description. In the local paper they called him the Lilac Boy.
‘I know how it sounds,’ Bobby would say. ‘But I think he came out of the mountain.’ He’ll sometimes pause here and wipe his eyes again. ‘How long had he been up there? How many years?’
The boy was taken by the state, and later Bobby heard he was adopted. Somewhere far away. That was good, he thought. Get him away. Give him a chance to get the mountain out of him.
Big Bobby could never find that particular lilac tree again though he looked and looked. He was never the same after that day. Though who is exactly the same after any day that passes? Still, the mountains do things to people, mind and body.
It’s because of stories like this that in Ault they say,don’t go nowhere alone. It’s kind of a pun, but it’s not a joke.
17Riley
She’s pulling carrots in the meadow. She likes carrots; they always feel like a surprise. They grow wild at Nowhere, come out of the ground thin and bright like shoelaces. She shakes the dirt off one and eats it. Fresh, sweet, crisp. ‘Blood in the land,’ Riley murmurs. She slips one into her pocket as a peace offering to Oliver. He’s still upset. He fixes her with dark-green judging eyes. But he’ll come around.
She sees a figure at the top of the cliff. Her heart fills with light; Cal is back from the mountain. Riley still loves to be here when he returns. He’s always sad but it makes him hold her so tightly and makes her feel so needed.
She runs to greet him.
Something is wrong, Riley can see that as she gets closer. Normally Cal has a sure, clever step like a cautious deer but today he’s unsure, stumbling a little. When he’s near enough she sees that he is crying.
She breaks into a run. He does too and they seize one another hard as they meet at the foot of the slope. ‘What is it?’ Riley asks, heart pulsing with worry. She strokes his forehead like that could help. ‘Are you ok? Are you hurt?’
Cal shakes his head, mouth wrung out. ‘I found him,’ he says. ‘Danny.’
A hum begins in Riley’s ears. ‘That’s great,’ she says. ‘Where was he? Is he coming back now?’
Cal shakes his head.
Riley takes his hand. She holds it as hard as she can. Grief is a solid thing, she knows. It will fill your body right up.
Cal takes her face in his hands and looks at her, searching. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he whispers. ‘Help me understand. Tell me what happened.’
‘What happened when?’ Riley meets his eyes, bewildered.Sun in the head.
‘Don’t, Riley.’
‘Cal, I don’t know what you’re—’
He shoves her away, hard. ‘I have to talk to Noon.’ He runs from her through the meadow, down towards Home Barn.
