Page 18 of Bewicched

The bedroom on the right side of the hall was the one I’d seen in my vision. Trophies, Avengers, drawings, they were all here. Something felt off, though. What was it? I stood in the center of the room, closed my eyes, and turned slowly in a circle. When my stomach cramped, I stopped and opened my eyes. His desk and bulletin board.

The action figures lined up, a sketch book open to the beginnings of a drawing, a tin filled with colored pencils, it all looked as it should. Turning my attention to the bulletin board, I studied each drawing, looking for a secret message. Most of the drawing were of superheroes, but a few were of the forest, of a rabbit and a bird. The bird…

Glancing in the corner, where I remembered the ticket stubs, there was now a feather. The oily black feather made my stomach clench.

Pulling off my glove again, I laid one finger on the feather and felt an electrical jolt, the stench of death heavy in my head.

“Hey, want to see something cool?” The older kid is back. They’re in the forest behind the house now.

Christopher has Spider-Man in one hand and Ironman in the other. He’s surprised to find the kid right outside his backdoor but thrilled too. “What is it?”

He waves the boy down the dirt path, away from his house. “Look!” He points down at a dead black bird.

Christopher steps back. Spider-Man and Ironman are held tight in his grip, up against his chest like a kind of shield. “What happened to it?” he whispers.

“I don’t know,” the big kid says with a grin. “Maybe a cat got him. It’s all tore up like it’s been clawed.” He leans down, pretending to get a better look.

Christopher vomits where he stands and then runs, horrified by what he’s seen and mortified to behave like a baby in front of his sort-of friend.

“Anything?” Hernández was standing in the doorway, watching me.

“Yeah, but let me wash my hands first.” I went into the bathroom next door and did my usual glove and sleeve shuffle that allowed me to clean my hands without touching faucets or soap dispensers with my bare hands. I was sure I looked ridiculous, but it worked for me.

I walked out, drying my hands on my sweatpants and then pulling my gloves back on.

Hernández was waiting for me in the hall.

“Let’s go out back and we’ll talk,” I said.

9

The Woods Are Watching

The detective led the way back through the living room and into the kitchen. The mom was sitting at a little café table by the window, not looking up when we walked through. “We’ll be right back, Nancy.”

The mom nodded listlessly while staring into her cup.

Once we were out of the house, the oppressiveness lifted. “She needs help. She’s losing hope and won’t stick around.”

The detective looked over her shoulder at the back door, nodding. “I know. She says she doesn’t have any family to call. I tried to send a priest or something, but she says she’s not religious. I can get her admitted for observation, but I know she needs to be here to wait for her son.”

“She’s fleeing an abusive spouse. She doesn’t want you to call her parents because they live in the same town as the ex and she’s worried news of her will get back to him. She’s also ashamed she stayed with him as long as she did before she grabbed her son and ran.”

“How do you—”

“My glove slipped and my finger grazed the faucet.” A wind kicked up, making me wish I had a hair tie in my pocket. I wound my hair into one long coil and then stuffed it down the back of my hoodie collar to keep it out of my face.

I started down the dirt path. “She wants her parents with her but she’s too afraid to call. Everything becomes real when she acknowledges it and talks about it, the abuse and now the abduction.” I stopped where the dead bird laid.

“What are you—oh.” Detective Hernández followed my gaze to the bird. “Why are we staring at a dead bird?”

“This is what he used to scare Christopher. He pretended to just find the bird when Christopher came out to play with his superheroes. He hadn’t happened upon it, though. He’d followed the boy after their first meeting and had been watching the house.”

I stood right where he had when he’d beckoned the child over. Being this near to evil made my stomach cramp. “He didn’t find the bird, or at least not here. He found a dying bird with a broken wing. He cut it open while it was still clinging to life. He was so tickled by the obscenity, he brought it over to share with the boy, as a kind of torture appetizer.

“Christopher was horrified, vomited, and ran. The kid started to pick up his bird to take it with him, because he enjoyed his handiwork so much, but then decided it would be put to better use here, where the boy would be terrified and sickened by it. And perhaps, eventually, move in for another look.”

“Do you know who he is? Where he is?” Hernández took out her notebook again.

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