Slices (19 page)

The
next day, no breakfast, and a couple of wasted hours proving to
himself that he did not, in fact, remember how to build a lean-to.
All he had to show for the attempt was a pile of useless leafy
branches, some frustrated tears that burned in his eyes like shampoo,
and a heartfelt wish for some rope, or even the stupid plastic cord
he’d thrown away.

There
was no use wishing, though, he decided, because then he might as well
wish he had a real tent, or worse yet, wish he was inside, and there
was no point in that.

Instead,
he made his way down to the bottom of the ravine, and skipped stones
across the river.

He
found, using fifty stones to keep track, that he could easily
remember the names of all fifty states, and he knew the capitols of a
lot of them. He knew his times tables all the way up to twelves, and
he knew when they’d signed the Declaration of Independence and
when John Glenn landed on the moon.

But
he was keenly aware that he didn’t know how to tell if nuts
were good to eat, or what berries will make you sick, or what
mushrooms were poisonous, and he slowly began to wonder why not one
person had ever taught him anything useful.

He
knew how to clean a fish, at least, with his little pocketknife, if
he had any way to catch one. He could even make do with some string
and a safety-pin, if he had some string and a safety-pin.

He
had to take his mind off being hungry, and off the knowledge that it
was only going to get worse. He climbed back up out of the ravine —
harder and more frustrating than coming down had been — and
went for a run again. His body burned and ached for it, but he felt
much better. He found Tallest Tree and its easy branches, and went
all the way to the top, so high it was like flying, and the world all
below him was woods, the horizon a curving treeline. Not a road or
building anywhere in sight to ruin it; endless playground, all for
him.

It
seemed a miracle at the time, up in the sky, but as he fitfully slept
that night under the shelter of Tallest Tree’s branches, his
stomach was empty and his heart emptier. He hadn’t figured out
what to eat or where to sleep, but the worst failure of all was that
he’d come here alone. What good was an endless playground with
no-one to play with?

He
slept shallow and stirred and did not dream, and a hundred eyes
watched; and a single pair of eyes that moved alone watched and
thought and considered.

Matthew
spent most of the third day distracting himself. Worse, he knew he
was distracting himself — he knew he had no plan here, no
goals, and that if he wasn’t careful, he’d soon be very
frightened. It was hard to stop thinking about food, and when that
got too bad he would distract himself with water; with a clear, cool
drink from a lake or stream, and it tasted good and sweet and sharp
and not like any water he’d ever had before. It soothed his
nerves and froze his tongue and empty guts back into silence.

The
rest of the day he invented little contests for himself, like how
fast could he run between two tall trees, or how many nearly flat
rocks could he stack before they fell over.

He
fell asleep that night in the middle of nowhere and nothing, no
shelter sought or found. He’d just stopped, having decided
while trying to find his way back to the road (and trying to remember
what the road had look like) that he was, after all, Lost, a
realization that surprised him — he hadn’t thought of
himself as Lost when it hadn’t occurred to him that he had
anywhere to be.

He’d
given up, just lay down Lost on the ground, curled up cold on his
side and gone to sleep.

He
woke some immeasurable time later, a strange tickle in his throat and
a dull light seeping through his eyelids, a smell filtering into his
nose —

Smoke.
Fire! He bolted awake, sudden and sure that the forest, the world,
was on fire —

He
sat, blinking in bleary confusion at the circle of stones that had
been silently gathered, the small campfire that had been built while
he slept.

Another
small miracle — there, next to him, someone had left a small
pile of nuts and berries, and some dried meat. His hand shot out for
the food, and he hesitated for just a moment — who had left
this here? Was this like taking candy from a stranger? Or, an older
caution warned him, was it like eating the witch’s gingerbread
house? These questions froze him for only a second before hunger
trumped fear. He ate quickly, savagely, his stomach cramping
gratefully around the food.

He
stared into the flames, watched shapes appear and disappear, listened
to the crackling of the dying branches. After a moment, he felt
watched. He tried to look past the fire, into the dark. “Hello?”
he said.

There
was no answer. He stood up and started to walk around the fire when
he heard, and felt more than saw, a sudden rush of motion, heard a
distant branch snap and then a crash and rush of leaves. Matthew
stared into the dark in the direction of the noise for the longest
time. “Thank you,” he said softly, and then lay back down
to sleep, warmed by more than just the fire.

The
next few days went much the same, his unseen friend bringing food and
making fires. Matthew began slowly to be able to feed himself,
started to recognize the nuts and berries he’d been eating and
gather his own. It wasn’t much to live on and he was still
hungry all the time, but it wasn’t the hopeless hunger he’d
had at first. He was running and playing more now, singing and
laughing, knowing he wasn’t alone. He even went swimming a time
or two, something his mother had taught him long ago he must never do
without someone to watch him.

He
finally heard a voice one day, close behind him, as it muttered two
sharp dark words —

“Don’t
move.”

He
didn’t. Immediately trusting, he froze in mid-step. Only his
helpless and curious eyes darted around, and they saw it — the
snake edging ever closer, about to strike. He’d have stepped on
it if he’d kept walking. He did not cry out.

The
spearpoint flashed down, and split the snake in half. He turned to
thank his rescuer, and all he saw was a fleeting shape, scarcely
bigger than he was — an impression of wild hair and
golden-brown eyes as they glanced back at him — and then gone,
back into the trees.

It’s
okay,
Matthew wanted to say,
you
can come out
—
but he said nothing.

He
puzzled over the brief glimpse all day, wondered whether the person
he’d seen was even a boy or a girl.

A
boy, he’d decided, by the time he slept again. Definitely a
boy.

Matthew
woke up in the middle of the night a few days later as the rain
started to fall.

He
ran for shelter of the nearest tree, but it did little good. Within a
few minutes he was shivering and soaked to the skin. He thought
forlornly about the shelter he’d never figured out how to
build. He wondered again about the caves, and if they were safe —
he dreaded sleeping bears and rockfalls.

But
he couldn’t stay out in this — he could imagine his
mother telling him he’d catch pneumonia and die — so he
huddled under his already wet jacket and bolted for the caves.

When
he got there, the entrance to the largest cave was filled with a
soft, flickering light.

He
approached slowly, carefully, quietly, until he stood at the
entrance, looked in at the small fire, and at the Boy.

The
Boy looked up and watched him for a minute. Then he said, “Well
— don’t just stand there.” He motioned to a place
next to him at the fire.

Matthew
came in and sat down.

The
Boy was a couple of years older than Matthew. His skin was tan,
dirty, a little rough. His dark hair fell in long, matted curls.
There were feathers, bits of bone, and a rattlesnake rattle tied
there. He was barefoot, and his clothing was rough and leather and
handmade and was not held together with a plastic cord.

If
the Boy minded Matthew’s staring, he didn’t show it. He
just watched the fire and stirred its slumbering embers with a stick.
Like the forest itself, the Boy was familiar. Matthew had had an
imaginary friend once — or at least, he seemed to recall now
he’d had one — who looked much like this. Just like this,
except this Boy was solid and real.

He
even looked a little like Matthew himself, if Matthew had been a bit
older, a bit taller, a bit stronger — everything Matthew would
like to be. Matthew liked him immediately.

“Hi,”
Matthew said.

The
Boy raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Hello,” he said.

“What’s
your name?”

“I
don’t have one.”

“You
don’t?”

“Nope.”

Matthew
pondered that for a minute.

“Well,”
he said finally, “my name is — ”

“I’m
not interested,” the Boy said, and somehow, he didn’t
sound mean or unfriendly saying it.

Matthew
just sat there, not sure how else to start a conversation. The fire
died down eventually, and the Boy let it. “You can go to sleep
now, if you want,” the Boy told him.

“I
can sleep here? It’s okay?”

The
Boy shrugged. “Sure.”

Matthew
curled up on the floor, not sure if he should say anything else, and
after a while, he slept.

He
woke some time later. The rain had stopped, and a huge full moon had
risen — he’d never seen it so big. The Boy stood at the
cave mouth silhouetted in moonlight, his spear raised and ready.
Matthew felt safe and reassured, and nearly rolled over to go back to
sleep, but got up instead and went to the boy’s side.

“Don’t
you need to sleep?”

“Maybe
later. I need to guard the cave.”

“I
could do that,” Matthew said. “We could take turns.”

“Yeah?”
the Boy said dubiously. “I don’t know. Do you think you
could handle this?” He hefted the spear.

“Sure.
I mean, I guess so, sure.” Matthew looked past him, down into
the moonlit forest. “What’s out there, anyway?”

“You
know. Bears. Cougars. Indians.”

“
Indians?”

“Sure,
Indians. Pirates, too, some nights. Rattlesnakes. Werewolves.”

Matthew
laughed uncertainly, not sure if the Boy was joking. “There’s
no such thing as werewolves,” he said.

The
Boy turned and looked at him with wide eyes. “There’s
not?” He deflated a little, looked suddenly less certain; he
let the tip of his spear dip a little as a curious expression crossed
his face, and as he looked back up wonderingly at the full moon.

“Well,”
he said finally, “that’s one less thing to worry about,
at least.” He smiled looked forced as he handed the spear to
Matthew. “Here. If anything happens, come wake me.”

So
Matthew stood watch while the Boy slept.

Matthew
followed the Boy everywhere in the weeks that followed, and the Boy
never once seemed to mind the company, or said he was busy, or told
Matthew to go find something else to do.

And
there was so much to do, for the two of them. The Boy showed Matthew
how to build that lean-to after all, even though they slept in the
cave, most nights. He showed Matthew how to use the spear to fish,
and to hunt rabbits and squirrels and, eventually, lions. They
watched some nights, in secret and shelter, as pirate ships went down
the river; ran and danced and sang in moonlight; scared off bears and
coyotes with flaming torches.

The
Boy told Matthew everything he knew about The Woods, and Matthew
drank it all in. He started to suspect, over time, that there was
more to the world than even the Boy understood, and he sometimes
watched alone as slender and graceful rocketships rose into the night
sky, as sunsets tinted their fuselages rose and red and imperial
violet; or on other nights, as robots dueled with cannons from the
decks of ironclad dirigibles.

But
Matthew never mentioned these things, content instead to do the
things the Boy did, learn the things the Boy had to teach. He had
never had a friend like this before, had barely had friends at all,
and this was more like having a brother.

“I
wish you really were my brother,” Matthew finally told him one
day.

The
Boy paused for a moment; he’d been knapping a new spear point
for Matthew to use. “No, you don’t,” he said, his
tone light and conversational.

“I
don’t?”

“No.”
He looked more serious now. “If I was really your brother, we
wouldn’t be doing — any of this. Anything
fun.
We’d be arguing. About who has to set the table, or who has the
better bike, or, you know. Anything. Nothing.”

Matthew
frowned. “I don’t think we would.”

“We
would. And when we got older it would be worse. There would be girls
and cars and parties and money and nothing would ever be simple.”

He
went back to knapping the new spearhead with sharp, sure strokes.
Matthew didn’t say anything else.

That
night, by the light of the ever-full moon, Matthew brought down a
tiger with the new spear. The point was sharp and heavy and sure and
cut deeper than anything.

Nights
later, Matthew started to explore more on his own. He didn’t
think much about what the Boy had said, about being brothers, but not
thinking about it was taking more and more effort, requiring more
stillness and solitude.

He
wandered, aimless and quiet, farther than he’d ever been from
the paths of The Woods he knew, and the animals here were few and
wary; there was no sign, here, that anyone had walked here before
him, no Indian, no pirate.

The
trees here were smaller and sparser, their colors less vibrant.
Matthew was starting to think he was really alone, might not be able
to find his way back, and he was holding on to his new spear with a
deathgrip when he heard The Boy’s voice from behind: