The Wolfenstein residence had no such separation. Max could not recall a time in his life when his parents weren’t hugging and praising him. Their joy at the loss of his first tooth was as dramatic as his high school graduation.
“SIDNEY MITCHEL PUTNAM, what have you gotten on your brand new polo shirt?”
Sid looked up to find his mother waiting for him on the front porch, hands on her narrow hips, brow so creased it looked like waves of sand on a windblown beach.
He peered at the splotch of chocolate goo on his shirt from the fudge pop he’d eaten with Ashley. A strictly off-limits fudge pop as far as his mother was concerned, who allowed Sid one treat a day, always after dinner and always some healthy version of the popular treats - sugar free cookies for instance.
“Um, uh, in art class we-”
“Save it,” she snapped, marching down the porch and prodding him inside the house. “Into the tub.”
She pulled the shirt over his head and held it to her nose, her mouth pinching into a little angry bud.
“Art class,” she huffed, shaking her head. “Do you want pimples like Zach? That’s where chocolate gets you.”
Sid’s older brother, Zach, suffered from such terrible acne; their mother had started putting makeup on his face every morning before school. Their father had scoffed at this, but then shut his mouth after a look from his wife that could have melted the polar ice caps.
“Okay, Mom,” Sid said, annoyed. “I can take it from here.”
He stood naked except for his underwear in the little bathroom as the bathtub filled with water.
His mother shook her head, already rubbing at the blotted stain as she walked out the door.
“Believe you me, Sidney Mitchell, I’ve seen it all before.”
Sid rolled his eyes and locked the door behind his mother. He settled into the bath, preferring not to imagine what exactly his mother, a nurse at Frankfurt Emergency had seen. He’d overheard her on more than one occasion telling his father about wounds leaking puss and a guy who nearly chopped his arm off trying to chainsaw a tree branch while standing on his roof.
Sid’s father would moan and beg his wife to spare him the gory details. His dad loved horror novels, but when it came to real life, he preferred the sugarcoated version. Which was why Sid couldn’t understand his dad’s choice to become a volunteer firefighter.
“Parents,” he grumbled. They were more like aliens than real people.
Sid loved creepy tales, but recently had discovered he had more in common with his dad than he’d originally believed.
The realization had come the week before, on the night when Sid nearly died.
It had been an ordinary night.
He’d left Ashley’s house to walk home just before dusk. If he didn’t step foot across the threshold of his front door before nightfall, he’d get a lecture from both his parents. Five blocks from his house, he’d broken into a sloppy run. He wasn’t a runner. The extra pounds combined with an overlong torso and too short legs made running a chore more loathsome than scrubbing toilets.
He’d glanced at the patch of woods that offered a direct path to his backyard. He walked in the woods all the time. He’d found his salamander, Captain, named after Captain Kangaroo, though he kept that part to himself, under a fallen maple tree.
The problem was he rarely went in the woods at night unless he was with Ashley. She wouldn’t hesitate to stride into the trees and cut three minutes off her time, but Sid had paused, gasping for breath and studying the outline of the dark leafy branches.
Lily-liver. His brother’s voice had taunted from within his mind.
“Am not,” he’d muttered out loud before he’d turned into the woods.
The near-dark became full dark as soon as he’d stepped into the dense forest.
His sneakers had crunched over branches, and he’d squinted toward the path beneath him. It had become almost impossible to see in the overgrown ferns. He’d taken his glasses off, blown a halo of breath onto each lens, and then wiped them on his t-shirt. When he’d put them back on his face, the path hadn’t looked any clearer.
Sid had then stumbled over a root and balked when he fell full-face into a wall of cobwebs. Clamping his lips closed, he had swiped and pulled at the fine gossamer webbing. He’d wanted to scream, but he’d bit back the bellow of surprise for fear a huge hairy spider would crawl right into his mouth.
He’d continued walking, pulling the web from his eyebrows and hair, half considering returning to the street. The lamps had already come on. The sidewalks would’ve been washed with warm yellow light. He’d have been able to see the blue glow of televisions from peoples’ living rooms. It had seemed like a world away from where he stood in the black forest, his face a mask of gauzy strands.
The Six Million Dollar Man wouldn’t have been afraid in the woods. Sid had imagined the man striding and leaping with his great bionic legs. He’d picked up speed then, dodging around a tree and laughing as he’d spun away from it, suddenly feeling graceful and fast.
He’d leapt over a pile of sticks, likely gathered by some kids attempting to build a fort that hadn’t come to pass. He had landed smoothly with a thwack and crunch and had reached low, grabbing a stick and swiping at the air in front of him like a samurai. He had whipped the stick against the tree and crouched, slicing it back through the air as if it were a silver blade sharp enough to cut glass. Realizing he’d slowed, he’d thrown the stick aside and again picked up his pace.
Behind him a twig had snapped, and Sid had stopped walking. He glanced back, and already the beat of his heart had quickened. The throbbing had pulsed out to his fingers and down to his toes.
He’d turned in a slow circle, squinted into the darkness, and searched for movement. He’d seen nothing, but the shadows were dark and deep. A man or worse, a monster, could’ve been standing five feet away and Sid would’ve been none the wiser.
Sid had turned back to the invisible path and forged on. He’d gone only a few feet when another twig snapped, and leaves crunched underfoot.
He’d started to run, and his lungs had screamed in instant protest. His breath had whistled out, and he’d put his hands in front of him to bat away the branches that blocked his path.
He’d twisted around, needing to see what chased him, but only the thick impenetrable darkness had unfolded behind him.
When his foot had hit the log, he’d had only a second to flail and panic before his upper body had heaved forward and he’d sprawled onto the forest floor. The sleeve of his shirt had gotten caught on a sharp branch jutting from a tree. He’d felt the branch jab into his shoulder and heard the sharp tear of fabric as his shirt ripped. He hadn’t even thought of his mother’s exasperated sigh when she saw the shirt. His only thought had been to run, get back up and run, run or whatever was in the woods would drag him back into the darkness.
He’d pressed his hands down and felt the sharp prick of a thorn in the flesh of his palm.
Suddenly a hand had clamped onto his ankle.
Sid had screamed and tried to wrench his leg away, but he’d only managed to fall forward on his face. He’d sputtered in the grass, jerked his leg, and rolled onto his back.
The creature behind him had leered from a face as pale as the moon. Dark sunken eyes had glared out from its hideous face.
Sid had kicked out, and his sneaker caught the thing in the chest, sending it sprawling backward.
Sid had lunged away, pushing up to his hands and knees, and then finally to his feet.