Saturday, October 31st, 2009

     Henry has been upset since yesterday. I knew I should have seen the signs. He’s upset, and after yesterday, who wouldn’t be? He’s blaming me, I know he is, but I don’t think he quite knows why.

     The show aired live, so everyone in town saw what happened. Everyone’s been looking at him differently and speaking to him differently.

     “Henry,” I broke the silence at last night’s dinner. “I know today has been hard. I’m sure it was embarrassing and—“

     “I’m not embarrassed.”

     “Do you want to talk about it?”

     “No.”

     “All right. Just the same, I think it would be good if you saw Dr. Hopper on Monday. Will you do it for me?”

     “Fine.”

    I didn’t know what Halloween would bring. I didn’t know if he would even want to dress up in his costume again. I wondered as the morning grew closer to disappearing and the afternoon beginning. Finally, I knocked on his door, but no answer. I turned the knob and pushed the door open to find him gone. I ran around the house, searched the yard, and called his name up and down the street before calling Graham to say my son was missing. In less than an hour, the whole town had met and planned to search everywhere we could. A group of us went to the woods and paired off. As misfortune would have it, I was paired with Miss Blanchard, who insisted on consoling me.

     “I’m so sorry, Mayor Mills.” Miss Blanchard and I began our steady walk in as straight of a line as we could.

     “I don’t want to talk, Miss Blanchard.” My pace quickened, but she kept up with me. “I just want to find my son.”

     “It’s just—I never thought he would take such a drastic action. Everyone was used to Henry saying weird things.” This was the closest thing we’d had to a parent-teacher conference in a while. As we walked our careful pace, Henry’s teacher informed me that none of the children seemed surprised or confused by what he had said about Sam or the sixth grader on the show. Apparently, Henry had been saying lots of things like this in class for a while.

    “And you never thought to tell me about this, Miss Blanchard?”

     “I just thought he was playing.”

     The sound of a whistle blew through the air. It was the sound of us to stop and come back. Miss Blanchard and I turned around. Her pace was faster than mine, and she continued to walk on when I stopped. There had been a crunching noise to my right. I turned and saw a fallen tree, its trunk arched off the ground. Beneath that arch were two familiar sneakers.

    “Henry!” I ran to him. My son bolted up and put out a hand to keep me back. On one shoulder was his backpack.

     “Where are you going? Everyone in town has been looking for you.”

     “I know. I’m running away, mom.” A breeze made its way past the trees and feathered Henry’s brown hair. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t belong here. I’ll miss you.”

     “You’re not going anywhere. You’re still a child.”

     “I don’t care. I don’t belong here.” He was still such a little boy. The tree was so big and old, even on its side; Henry only towered over it from his shoulders up.

     “Where exactly will you go?”

     “I know there’s a diner fifteen miles away from us.”

     “Do you know how far that is?” I didn’t like it there. There was something familiar about the rustling of the trees and the softness of the ground beneath my feet wasn’t pleasant. “By car, that’s nothing. But by foot, that could be a whole day for you.”

     “I don’t care.”

     “Well, I do!” It was time to talk some sense into this kid. “There are wild animals out there. And if you get lost, you may not be found, because there’s twenty miles between us and anyone else. And what if you are found? Henry, you know everyone in this town. Everyone here knows you and likes you and wants you to be safe. Not everyone out there is like us. There are people out there who will want to hurt you because they can, and they might look like everyone else.”

     I was getting to him. Henry’s defensive posture relaxed, and now he was only visible from the neck up.

     “A knight doesn’t run away when he’s needed, Henry. I need you.” I stepped in closer, pressing into the dirt beneath my feet. “Please stay?”

     “Okay. I promise.” He saw my outstretched hand and walked around the tree to meet it, but once he reached the end of the trunk, the ground gave way from where the tree had once stood. I don’t know how, but Henry managed to avoid falling in and was hanging onto a strong root at the edge of a pit that looked just like the one in my dreams.

     I was terrified. Henry tried to put his feet flat against the wall of the pit, but he couldn’t turn without the root he was holding onto threatening to bend. I knew that if I just grabbed my son, I could pull him out of there and he’d been fine. But I was so afraid when he fell that I became dizzy. Confusion swept over me before everything made sense, and someone who hadn’t been able to in years came to the forefront of my being. My cursed persona took over my body, and I took a backseat to this terrible moment.

     He reached for my hand, but it was her hand now. She stood there and watched him. She knew him. She wasn’t afraid, but she would not help him.

     Then she took a step back. I have never seen that look of terror on Henry’s face before. His eyes grew wide and he cried for me and begged for me to come back. She was just going to let him hang there, surely not for long because his was thrashing his legs and that would only make him lose his grip.

     I couldn’t stand this. I struggled inside this cage of a body against the curse that had locked me inside it. Every ounce of my identity focused on reaching inside my pocket to grab that coin. First, the shoulder. To my surprise, I moved it back! Then the elbow, back! Four fingers and a thumb attached to my palm reached inside and closed around the coin. I made them hold on and pulled my elbow back once more to raise my hand in front of my face. My hand opened, and there was Daniel smiling back at me. I felt myself rush to the front of my own consciousness and placed the coin back in my pocket. I called out Henry’s name and ran back to him, and at that moment, Graham, Dr. Hopper and everyone else ran in. Graham reached and pulled Henry up and back onto solid ground. I ran to my son and held onto him, repeating “I’m here” over and over again.

     Henry was crying, but he wasn’t really hugging me back. Graham bent down to us and said Henry should get checked out. He grabbed Henry’s hand and took him over to the waiting ambulance. I watched my son sit on the edge of the ambulance as he got checked out by the EMTs. My son looked back at me, but there was something different in his eyes. It frightened me almost as much as watching him fall.

     It was only then that I realized Dr. Hopper had been standing beside me the whole time. I turned on him so fast, he jumped.

     “This is your fault, Hopper!” I pointed my finger right into his chest. “None of this would have happened if you’d started treating him sooner!”

     “N-no! You’re right. I’m sorry.” He took two cautious steps away from me and held up his hands. “I’ll see him every day, if you want.”

     After Henry was cleared, I took my son, and everyone went home. He wouldn’t speak to me during the drive or when we got home. I knew the whole way, even when he shut the door to his room, that I could tell him everything. I could explain everything he suspected and more. But I couldn’t, and now a bond is broken between us. I will fight everyday to mend it.