Eleven

"Oh, my goodness," Mary Ellerbee said as she looked up at the man from her big easy chair, noticing what looked like a gray wig peeping out of his pocket. "I haven't seen you in ages." She was in her mideighties and quite thin. Her eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be but her mind hadn't dulled a bit. "How have you been? Is your mother well?"

"Yes," he said. "A few aches and pains, but nothing serious."

She had an idea why he was here and what he planned to do to her. She'd seen the news on TV and had shed tears over what had been found in dear little Lachlan. It was about her friends Verna and beautiful young Cheryl. Their skeletons had been found in a tree's roots! After her initial grief and shock, she remembered the young man she'd seen lurking about. It probably meant nothing, but she decided she should call the sheriff, though she hadn't got around to it yet. Why had she hesitated?

She glanced at the closed door. "Where is that nurse? She should be here any minute." She tried to control the shakiness of her voice. "Maybe I should call her."

He put himself between her and the call button beside her bed.

Mary immediately thought of that one night not long before Cheryl and her mother vanished, when that pretty young girl had been sitting on the back doorstep and crying. All summer she'd been practicing being a newscaster while the Wyatt boy filmed her. Mary had encouraged them. It was important for Cheryl to think about her future. And besides, that poor Wyatt boy needed to get away from his loudmouthed father.

But that particular day, only Cheryl was there. Mary put the pie she'd baked down on the porch and wrapped her arms around her. The girl was too often alone. Verna did her best to support them, but it meant that she was gone a lot. The Wyatt child made Cheryl laugh and Mary liked that.

The other boy, the older one, the one who skulked around, sniffing like a wild boar, bothered Mary. He made sweet little Cheryl indecently happy or, like now, left her in tears that came from deep inside her. Mary knew what the problem was. She hadn't lived sixty-plus years without seeing this particular kind of agony. She had to refrain from asking, "When are you due?"

"Now what?" Mary asked, her arms tightly around the girl. Her whole body was heaving.

"We'll have to get married. I wanted to wait, but..." Crying overtook her.

"You could do something about this," Mary said softly.

"No! Absolutely not!" Cheryl sat up and wiped her eyes, which spread makeup across them.

Mary had talked to Verna about how Cheryl dressed. "Let her be a child," Mary said.

"It's not me," Verna had said. "I want her to stay nine years old. It's her. She has dreams and ambitions. She wants a place in the world, and she wants it all to happen fast."

Mary knew from experience that Cheryl was everything to her mother. The center of her world.

That night Cheryl had gone back into the house to get her little red makeup case and repair her face. It looked like he was coming over. The Shadow Boy, as Mary called him. Skulking about and hiding.

Mary had encountered him face-to-face only once. No words were spoken. They just tripped over each other in the dark. She had the good sense to act like she didn't recognize him, didn't know why he was there. Later, when she saw him in church, she pretended that she didn't know who he was.

Not long after Cheryl had been crying, she and her mother abruptly left town. Packed up everything and left. Mary had been away that weekend, visiting her sister. When she got back, they were gone.

"So he refused to marry her," Mary said to no one, not in the least surprised.

She thought about telling the sheriff what she knew, but then what? He'd track them down? And do what? Cause a scandal? No, it was better to keep her mouth shut. But she missed them deeply. Several times she peeped through her curtains and saw the Wyatt boy over there. He looked as lonely as Mary felt. One time she saw him sitting in the back under what looked to be a newly planted tree and crying hard. She took some cookies to him but he didn't want any.

He was embarrassed at being seen crying. He wiped his eyes, sniffed and kicked the tree so hard that it fell sideways. Then he ran away.

Mary straightened the tree and stamped on the earth around it. The roof of the house leaked, the kitchen stove was twenty years old and there were rusty iron parts in the back, but the landlord planted a goddamn tree? She was tempted to rip it out of the ground.

But she didn't. She went home and watched TV and tried to calm down. She never saw the Wyatt boy there again and she never again crossed the road to the house. Even when it was rented, she never went over to meet the new neighbors.

So now she was looking up into the eyes of The Shadow Boy—and she knew what he'd done. Cheryl had told him about the baby and he'd killed her. And, of course, her mother had to go, too.

That he'd come back and planted a pretty tree over their graves made her feel sick. Did he think bright orange flowers made up for what he'd done?

She glanced toward the door. Maybe Nurse Jenkins would come in with her cheery smile—and her big shoulders. Mary thought about screaming but her voice was weak. No one would hear her. Part of why she'd chosen the place was because it was so well built. You couldn't hear what was going on in the next room.

"I'm really sorry," he said as he pulled what appeared to be a plastic dry-cleaning bag out of his pocket.

At over eighty, you'd think she'd be prepared for death. But she wasn't. She tried to fight him, but it was a baby rabbit wrestling against an eagle's talons. He slipped the bag over her head and tied it about her neck with her own bathrobe belt. He stood over her for a moment, watching her try to breathe, nodding, satisfied with his work.

Through the plastic, as she gasped for breath, she saw him sit down on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, as he answered his emails.

It didn't take Mary's soul long to leave her body. He finished the last email, then went to her. When he saw no movement, he removed the scarf and the terry-cloth belt, then the plastic. He picked her up and put her on the bed, taking time to arrange her naturally. The scarf and the belt were put back where he found them. He loosely stuffed the plastic into his pocket.

Once he was done, he went to the door and walked out with a firm stride. There were several people in the hallway and no one paid any attention to him. He was just another visitor saying hello to an old relative.

By the time he got to his car, he was smiling at a job well done.