Page 19 of Bewicched

Shivering, I stuffed my hands in my hoodie pocket. “No.” I stared out into the woods around us, wondering if he was out there now. Watching. Listening. I tipped my head toward the trees. “He’s out there. He’d been stalking the boy for a while, dreaming of what he’d do when he had someone to play with. No more animals for him. He’s leveling up.”

“He lives in the woods?” she asked.

I considered. “His passions live in these woods. But, no. He has a home. Some kind of adult who looks after him. No, what’s out here is his fort, his hideout. It’s where he tortures and kills animals. I think that’s where you’re going to find Christopher. All the evidence will be there. He can’t bear to part with his toys, even as they decompose.”

“Well that just gave me goose bumps,” Hernández muttered under her breath. “These woods have been searched, in case he just wandered away.”

I shook my head. “Not well enough. Not far enough. He knows how to camouflage his workshop. Look for large bushes and…” I closed my eyes, trying to get it. “I feel like he’s underground. It’s bigger than just a hole, though.”

I turned to the detective. “I can’t get a clear picture in my head, but it feels underground.”

Hernández made a quick note and then dropped her hands. “Thank you. I can see if there’s a fee we can pay you for your assistance.”

I was shaking my head before she finished her offer. “I can’t take money over the body of a dead child.” I held up my hands, warding off her words, and stepped away. “I’d like to go now, though. I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched and it’s really bothering me.”

Hernández fished into her pocket for her car keys and handed them to me. “Go wait in the car,” she said, unholstering her firearm. “I need to talk with Nancy before we leave.” She walked into the woods, scanning the trees, looking high and low. “Go on. I’ll be out in a few.”

When the detective emerged twenty minutes later, I was still standing there, waiting for her.

“I thought you were going to the car?”

I handed her back her keys. “I know what he is. I couldn’t leave you out here alone.”

She nodded. “Thanks for that. I do need to go in and talk with Nancy, though, maybe convince her to let me get her help.”

Blowing out a breath, I said, “I’ll go with you.”

Nancy was right where we’d left her, a full cup of cold tea on the table in front of her.

Detective Hernández sat opposite the mom and talked quietly with her. I moved to the living room, not wanting to crowd them. How had he gotten in? This was not a woman who would forget to lock a door. A window? A woman on the run would lock those too, but would a kid?

I wandered back down the hall to Christopher’s room. He had a big picture window looking out over the forest. There were blinds, but unlike all the rest of the windows in the little house, the blinds weren’t closed. They’d been pulled up, the view unfettered.

They’d probably already dusted the windowsill for prints, but as this seemed the most likely point of entry, I pulled off a glove and touched a finger to where I guessed he’d have needed to plant his hands to haul himself in. Cops, techs, Christopher, his mom… I felt them all but in the background, there was a darkness.

I pushed open the window and touched the outer sill and my stomach heaved. I just made it to the toilet to vomit. It hurt and sickened me knowing that kind of evil existed in the world, existed and went about stalking children, setting mothers adrift in vast oceans of grief.

When I came out, Hernández was in the hall again. “He came in through the window.” My voice was pitched low so his mom wouldn’t hear.

The detective shook her head. “They dusted. They didn’t find any prints that didn’t belong.”

I held up my hand. “Gloves. He liked to watch Christopher sleep, to plan what he was going to do. He stood right outside, held onto the sill, and watched.”

Hernández turned and walked out. I heard the front door open and close, so I went into the kitchen. I wanted to leave—her grief was like a weight around my neck, dragging me down—but I couldn’t. Taking the seat the detective had earlier, I sat across from the mom. She didn’t acknowledge me.

I placed my ungloved hand on the table, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation, she laid hers in mine. My head reeled back with the force of the punch. I felt blood trickle from my nose. That was new.

Wiping my gloved hand under my nose, I said a little spell in my head to staunch the flow. I wasn’t a healer, but it also wasn’t much of a nosebleed. He’d worn her down, tearing away at her self-confidence as soon as they were married. She got pregnant with Christopher right away, as he’d taken her birth control, exerting another form of control.

She hid the bruises, even as he pushed her family and friends further away. It became a relief, really, not having to tell all the lies, not having to hide what was happening. And then she had Christopher, and he was perfect, the only joy she had in that miserable life.

Then it happened. Christopher was so little, just a toddler, when he’d knocked over his father’s drink. The boy had been coloring quietly—always quietly—while his father watched a game on the TV. The boy moved his coloring book to start a new picture, not realizing the far edge of the book would push the glass off the table.

Nancy heard the crash and the shout. She was in a dead panic, sweat breaking out as she ran to the living room just in time to see her precious beautiful boy, the only light in her life, get backhanded by his father, his little body propelled through the air.

She screamed, knowing how breakable a body was. The husband said she was overreacting. The kid needed to learn discipline. She was too easy on him. She needed to clean up the mess first…

She did what she needed to, but when he went to work the next day, she ran.

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