"No, no! If your mother thinks it's that dangerous I won't even try it," Matt said. The girls would skin him alive if anything happened to Mrs. Flowers, he thought. Better to play it safe.
Mrs. Flowers sat back in her chair, seeming relieved. "Well," she said at last, "I suppose I'd better get to my weeding. I have mugwort to cut and dry, too. And blueberries should be ripe by now, as well. How time flies."
"Well, you're cooking for me and all," Matt said. "I wish you'd let me pay you bed and board."
"I could never forgive myself! You are my guest, Matt. As well as my friend, I do so hope."
"Absolutely. Without you, I'd be lost. And I'll just take a walk around the edge of town. I need to burn off some energy. I wish - " He broke off suddenly. He'd started to say he wished he could shoot a few hoops with Jim Bryce. But Jim wouldn't be shooting hoops again - ever. Not with his mutilated hands.
"I'll just go out and take a walk," he said.
"Yes," said Mrs. Flowers. "Please, Matt dear, be careful. Remember to take a jacket or Windbreaker."
"Yes, ma'am." It was early August, hot and humid enough to walk around in swimming briefs. But Matt had been raised to treat little old ladies in a certain way - even if they were witches and in most things sharp as the X-acto knife he slipped into his pocket as he left the boardinghouse.
He went outside, then, by a side route, down to the cemetery.
Now, if he just went over there, where the ground dipped down below the thicket, he'd have a good view of anyone going into the last remnant of the Old Wood while no one on the path below could see him from any angle.
He hurried toward his chosen hide noiselessly, ducking behind tombstones, keeping alert for any change in birdsong, which would indicate that the children were coming. But the only birdsong was the raucous shriek of crows in the thicket and he saw no one at all -
- until he slipped into his hideout.
Then he found himself face-to-face with a drawn gun, and, behind that, the face of Sheriff Rich Mossberg.
The first words out of the officer's mouth seemed to come entirely by rote, as if someone had pulled a string on a twentieth-century talking doll.
"Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, I hereby arrest you for assault and battery upon Caroline Beula Forbes. You have the right to remain silent - "
"And so do you," Matt hissed. "But not for long! Hear those crows all taking off at once? The kids are coming to the Old Wood! And they're close!"
Sheriff Mossberg was one of those people who never stop speaking until they are finished, so by this time he was saying: "Do you understand these rights?"
"No, sir! Mi ne komprenas Dumbtalk!"
A wrinkle appeared between the sheriff's eyebrows. "Is that Italian lingo you're trying on me?"
"It's Esperanto - we don't have time! There they are - and, oh, God, Shinichi's with them!" The last sentence was spoken in the barest of whispers as Matt lowered his head, peeking through the tall weeds at the edge of the cemetery without stirring them.
Yes, it was Shinichi, hand in hand with a little girl of maybe twelve. Matt recognized her vaguely: she lived up near Ridgemont. Now, what was her name? Betsy, Becca...?
There was a faint anguished sound from Sheriff Mossberg. "My niece," he breathed, surprising Matt that he could speak so softly. "That, in fact, is my niece, Rebecca!"
"Okay, just stay still and hang on," Matt whispered. There was a line of children following behind Shinichi just as if he were some sort of Satanic Pied Piper, with his red-tipped black hair shining and his golden eyes laughing in the late-afternoon sunlight. The children were giggling and singing, some of them in sweet nursery school voices, a remarkably twisted version of "Seven Little Rabbits." Matt felt his mouth go dry. It was agony to watch them march into the forest thicket, like watching lambs riding up a ramp into an abattoir.
He had to commend the sheriff for not trying to shoot Shinichi. That would really have caused all hell to break loose. But then, just as Matt's head was sagging in relief as the last of the children entered the thicket, he jerked it back up again.
Sheriff Mossberg was preparing to get up.
"No!" Matt grabbed his wrist.
The sheriff pulled away. "I have to go in there! He's got my niece!"
"He won't kill her. They don't kill the children. I don't know why, but they don't."
"You heard what sort of filth he was teaching them. He'll sing a different tune when he sees a semiautomatic Glock pistol aimed at his head."
"Listen," Matt said, "you've got to arrest me, right? I demand that you arrest me. But don't go into that Wood!"
"I don't see any proper Wood," the sheriff said with disdain. "There's barely room in that stand of oak trees for all those kids to sit down. If you want to be of some use in your life, you can grab one or two of the little ones as they come running out."
"Running out?"
"When they see me, they're going to scatter. Probably burst out in all directions, but some of 'em will take the path they used to go in. Now are you going to help or not?"
"Not, sir," Matt said slowly and firmly. "And - and, look - look, I'm begging you not to go in there! Believe me, I know what I'm talking about!"
"I don't know what kind of dope you're on, kid, but in fact I don't have time to talk any more right now. And if you try to stop me again" - he swung the Glock to cover Matt - "I'll cite you for another account of trying to obstruct justice. Get it?"
"Yeah, I get it," Matt said, feeling tired. He slumped back into the hide as the officer, making surprisingly little noise, slipped out and made his way down to the thicket. Then Sheriff Rich Mossberg strode in between the trees and was lost to Matt's field of vision.