felt like a ghost had walked right through me.
“No one’s going anywhere alone,” I said. “And we’re making a promise to keep our eyes and ears open, and if we see anything suspicious we tell Sheriff Dearing, okay?”
“That’s what we’re going to do,” Maurice said.
“I agree,” Daniel said.
“We’re done then. The Guardians have been founded. No one speaks of this,” I said. “If this is someone we know then we don’t want everyone blabbing about it. We don’t want to give this . . . this boogeyman any chance to find out we’re watching for him.”
Minutes later I walked away, the newspaper clippings folded and stuffed into my pants pocket. My hand was sore, and before I went into the house I washed it in the rain barrel at the end of the yard.
I felt like a child. Perhaps for the first time I really felt like we were up against something that we could never hope to understand. I was frightened. We all were. Whatever was out there was an awful lot more terrifying than some war in a different country. But there was something else, something small but nevertheless significant. Took a while to get my finger on it, but when I did I looked underneath and found it.
It was the first time I’d ever felt part of something. That was all it was, but it seemed important and special. The first time I’d ever really belonged.
Three days later we met after school and agreed on the location of our first meeting.
“End of Gunther Kruger’s field,” I said. “The furthest one from the road toward the bend in the river.”
“I don’t know where that is,” Daniel McRae said, and for a moment I wondered whether it was simply fear that prompted such a statement. I got the impression he didn’t want to come, that he’d made an oath to do everything he could and now felt afraid.
“You know where the road from your house meets the road to school?” Hans Kruger said.
Daniel nodded; there was no way he could deny where that was.
“I’ll meet you there,” Hans said. “Meet you there and I’ll show you the way.”
Daniel’s eyes flashed nervously. He glanced at me. I smiled reassuringly. He did not smile back.
After school we went our separate ways, each of us to our own homes for dinner. My mother had plans to be away most of the evening. She asked what I would be doing.
“Reading some,” I said. “I have some work to do as well.”
“You get hungry there’s milk and corned beef in the cold box.”
She left a little after seven. I waited until eight, nervous in the base of my gut, and then I put on a dark jacket, took a box of matches from the stove, and from beneath my bed I retrieved a four-inch knife with a leather sheath that my father had given to me a year or so before he died.
“You can’t be giving him that,” my mother had said.
“Lord’s sake, Mary, he’s a grown boy. Anyway, the thing’s as sharp as a lettuce leaf. Maybe if he’s lucky he could crease someone to death with it.”
They shared words for a minute more. I had to give the knife back. Later my father took me aside, said he’d hidden it beneath my bed, that I shouldn’t say a word. Our secret.
I tucked the sheath into the waistband of my pants, tugged my shirt down over it. I looked once more at the kitchen, and then I left by the back door and crossed the yard toward the fields.
By the time I reached the end of the road I was joined by Hans and Daniel. They had walked the long way round. We said nothing, took forthright and confident steps as if we were trying to convince ourselves that we knew what we were doing.
By the time we reached the end of the Krugers’ field everyone was there save Michael Wiltsey. No one said a word. We merely nodded at one another, tried to smile, each of us waiting for someone else to say something of meaning. Ten minutes went by. Maurice Fricker suggested we go look for Michael, but I told them to stay put, that he’d be along soon enough.
By the time he arrived it
“No one’s going anywhere alone,” I said. “And we’re making a promise to keep our eyes and ears open, and if we see anything suspicious we tell Sheriff Dearing, okay?”
“That’s what we’re going to do,” Maurice said.
“I agree,” Daniel said.
“We’re done then. The Guardians have been founded. No one speaks of this,” I said. “If this is someone we know then we don’t want everyone blabbing about it. We don’t want to give this . . . this boogeyman any chance to find out we’re watching for him.”
Minutes later I walked away, the newspaper clippings folded and stuffed into my pants pocket. My hand was sore, and before I went into the house I washed it in the rain barrel at the end of the yard.
I felt like a child. Perhaps for the first time I really felt like we were up against something that we could never hope to understand. I was frightened. We all were. Whatever was out there was an awful lot more terrifying than some war in a different country. But there was something else, something small but nevertheless significant. Took a while to get my finger on it, but when I did I looked underneath and found it.
It was the first time I’d ever felt part of something. That was all it was, but it seemed important and special. The first time I’d ever really belonged.
Three days later we met after school and agreed on the location of our first meeting.
“End of Gunther Kruger’s field,” I said. “The furthest one from the road toward the bend in the river.”
“I don’t know where that is,” Daniel McRae said, and for a moment I wondered whether it was simply fear that prompted such a statement. I got the impression he didn’t want to come, that he’d made an oath to do everything he could and now felt afraid.
“You know where the road from your house meets the road to school?” Hans Kruger said.
Daniel nodded; there was no way he could deny where that was.
“I’ll meet you there,” Hans said. “Meet you there and I’ll show you the way.”
Daniel’s eyes flashed nervously. He glanced at me. I smiled reassuringly. He did not smile back.
After school we went our separate ways, each of us to our own homes for dinner. My mother had plans to be away most of the evening. She asked what I would be doing.
“Reading some,” I said. “I have some work to do as well.”
“You get hungry there’s milk and corned beef in the cold box.”
She left a little after seven. I waited until eight, nervous in the base of my gut, and then I put on a dark jacket, took a box of matches from the stove, and from beneath my bed I retrieved a four-inch knife with a leather sheath that my father had given to me a year or so before he died.
“You can’t be giving him that,” my mother had said.
“Lord’s sake, Mary, he’s a grown boy. Anyway, the thing’s as sharp as a lettuce leaf. Maybe if he’s lucky he could crease someone to death with it.”
They shared words for a minute more. I had to give the knife back. Later my father took me aside, said he’d hidden it beneath my bed, that I shouldn’t say a word. Our secret.
I tucked the sheath into the waistband of my pants, tugged my shirt down over it. I looked once more at the kitchen, and then I left by the back door and crossed the yard toward the fields.
By the time I reached the end of the road I was joined by Hans and Daniel. They had walked the long way round. We said nothing, took forthright and confident steps as if we were trying to convince ourselves that we knew what we were doing.
By the time we reached the end of the Krugers’ field everyone was there save Michael Wiltsey. No one said a word. We merely nodded at one another, tried to smile, each of us waiting for someone else to say something of meaning. Ten minutes went by. Maurice Fricker suggested we go look for Michael, but I told them to stay put, that he’d be along soon enough.
By the time he arrived it
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