Kim nodded at the change and hurried to his side. She mumbled something to him and he looked at her. “What?”
“I said: my dad says they’re going to fill in the pond.”
Before Timmy had met Darryl, this might have hurt him more than it did now. Still, it didn’t seem right. “Why?”
“I don’t know. He says in a few years all of this will be houses and that the pond is only in the way. Apparently Doctor Myers’s son sold this area of the land so they’re just waiting for someone to buy it before they fill it in.”
Timmy knew her father worked on a construction site across town and would no doubt be privy to such information. It was a depressing thought; not so much that they would be taking the pond away, but because he suspected that would only be the start of it. Soon, the fields would be gone, concrete lots in their place.
They carried on up the rise until the black mirror of the pond revealed itself. Timmy’s gaze immediately went to the spot where he had seen Darryl, but he saw no one sitting there today. Kim walked on and over the bank and made her way around the pond toward the brace of fir trees weaving in the wind. She paused and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah.”
But he was already starting to question the logic behind such a move. At least the last time he’d been here he’d had the escape route at his back; if The Turtle Boy had tried anything it wouldn’t have been hard to turn and run. Going into those trees was like walking into a cage. You would have to thread your way through brambles and thick undergrowth to be clear of it. And even then, there was nowhere to run but the train tracks.
A quiver of fear rippled through him, and he masked it by smacking an imaginary mosquito from his neck. Overhead, the clouds thickened. With a sigh, he followed Kim into the trees.
On this side of the pond, dispirited pines hung low. The earth beneath was a tangle of withered needles, flattened grass and severed branches. The children had to duck until they’d cleared the biggest and densest stand of pines.
At last they emerged on the other side, a marshy stretch of land that offered a clear view of the train tracks but soaked their sandaled feet.
After a moment of listening to the breeze and searching the growing shadows around them, Kim put her hands on her hips and looked at Timmy, who was preoccupied with trying to remove sticky skeins of spider web from his face.
“He’s not here,” she said, stifling a giggle at Timmy’s dismay.
He didn’t answer until he was sure some fat black arachnid hadn’t nested in his hair. When he’d cleared the remaining strands, he grimaced and looked around. “Sure looks like it. Unless he’s hiding.”
“Maybe he’s gone.”
“Yeah, maybe.” It was a comforting thought. Behind them in the distance, the hungry heavens rumbled as God made a dark stew of the sky. “Maybe he caught a train out of here.”
Kim glanced toward the tracks, which were silent and somehow lonely without a thousand pounds of steel shrieking over them. “Or maybe a train caught him.”
Before Timmy could allow the image to form in his mind, he heard something behind him, on the other side of the pines.
“Did you hear that?”
Kim shook her head.
A twig snapped and they both backed away.
“It’s probably a squirrel or something,” Kim whispered, and Timmy was suddenly aware that her hand was gripping his. He looked down at it, then at her, but she was intent on the movement through the trees behind them. He ignored the odd but not entirely unpleasant sensation of her cool skin on his and held his breath. Listening.
“Maybe a deer,” Kim said, so low Timmy could hardly hear her above the breeze.
They stood like that for what seemed forever, ears straining to filter the sounds from the coiling weather around them. Timmy could hear little over the thundering of his own heart. Kim was holding his hand even tighter now. A terrifying thought sparked in his mind: Does this mean she’s my girlfriend?
“C’mon,” he said at last. “There’s no one there.”
She nodded and they both stepped forward.
Timmy was filled with confused excitement. Then, just as quickly, uncertainty came over him. Was she waiting for him to let go of her hand? Was she feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed now because he was holding her hand just as tightly? He tried to loosen his fingers but she squeezed them, and a gentle wave of reassurance flooded over him.
She wasn’t uncomfortable. She didn’t want to let go. His heart began to race again but this time for a completely different reason.
And she continued to hold his hand. Continued even when something lithe and dark burst through the pines in front of their faces and dragged them both screaming through the trees.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Timmy’s mother opened the front door. Her look of surprise doubled when she saw the rage on Wayne Marshall’s face.
She stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “What on earth is going on?” she said, crossing her arms. The gesture meant to convey that she was prepared to dispense blame wherever it was due.
On the porch, Pete’s father still had a firm grip on the collar of Timmy’s T-shirt, but he held Kim by the hand. Timmy felt strangely jealous.
“Sandra, I found these two snooping around back at Myers Pond,” Mr. Marshall said firmly, as if this should be reason enough for punishment. Timmy’s mother stared at him for a moment as if she didn’t think so. Her gaze shifted briefly to Kim, then settled on her son.
“Didn’t your father tell you not to go back there?”
Timmy nodded.
“Then why did you? And I suppose you dragged poor Kimmie back with you, back into all that mud and sludge? Look at your sandals. I only bought them last week and you’ve wrecked them already.” She shook her head and sighed. After a moment in which no one said anything, she looked at Mr. Marshall. “You can let them go now, Wayne. I don’t think they’re going to run away.”
But he didn’t release them and Timmy thought he could feel the man’s arms trembling with anger. In a voice little better than a growl, he said, “Sandra, it’s not safe for kids back there. I don’t think I have to remind you what happened a few years ago. I know I certainly don’t want Pete back there and it’s becoming blindingly obvious that your son has taken the role of the neighborhood Piper, leading everyone else’s kids back there to get into all sorts of trouble.”
A hard look entered Mrs. Quinn’s eyes. “Now wait just a second — ”
“If you had any sense you’d send this little pup away for the summer like I sent Pete. It’s the only way to keep them out of trouble. I mean, what was your son doing back there on the other side of the trees? With a girl? Is this the kind of thing you’re letting him do behind your back?”
Timmy’s mother straightened, her eyes blazing. “Just what the hell are you saying, Wayne? That because we don’t shelter our boy and scream and roar commands at him around the clock that we’re doing a bad job? Is that what you’re saying? How about you mind your own business and let me raise my child how I see fit? Or would that be asking too much of you? He’s eleven years old for God’s sake, not a teenager.”
“Just what I expected,” Mr. Marshall said with a humorless smile. “All the time strolling around like you’re Queen of the Neighborhood, better than everyone else. Well, I’m afraid your superior attitude seems to be lost on your kid.”
“That’s rich coming from you. At least Timmy doesn’t live in fear of me.”