I am the only true woodsman I know. Whilst my friends enjoy the forest and feel at home there, I, on the other hand, am truly a part of it. That’s why, as we sat around the fire listening to Mr. Swan on Saturday evening, a familiar chill crept down my spine. That old feeling of being watched was back.

Then I noticed him standing just inside the tree line, not forty feet away from us.

He wasn’t hiding, but he wasn’t doing anything to draw attention to himself either. I nudged Spence and nodded in the direction where the man stood.

Spencer looked for a second, then shrugged, unable to pick him out in the darkness. Keeping my hand low so only Spence could see it, I pointed right to where the man was standing. Spencer’s eyes scanned the tree line, and a look of disbelief washed over my friend’s face.

Before either one of us could say anything, Mr. Swan noticed Spencer and I weren’t listening to him, stopped his story in mid-sentence, and pa-toohed a cold comet of saliva into the fire. He was preparing to give us the “And I hopes y’all’s enjoyed your last time listening to the stories of Mr. Willie J. Swan” speech, the speech he gave whenever he was going to ban one of the children from his stories for life. Instead, something in our expressions made his eyes follow where we were looking.

All of the children exchanged looks of surprise when Mr. Swan stood up and walked to the tree line where the stranger stood.

Mr. Swan called out, “Well, I’ll be! Seeing you’s done brightened my spirits and brought gladness into my heart. This is sure a huge surprise!”

The man looked around and said, “It a surprise to me too. I been watching y’all for years and been satisfied just to sit back. For some reason lately, I been having to … or wanting to get closer and closer to hear better.”

“I’m flattered by that, I sure am.” He stuck out his right hand to the man. “You gunn come sit at the fire?”

The man stepped forward to shake Mr. Swan’s hand and said, “Willie, I’m much oblige you ain’t forgot me. I think I will join y’all, if don’t no one mind.”

Mr. Swan said, “Mind? These here young folk ain’t got no idea how lucky they is that you gunn honour them by sitting in they midst. Most of ’em ain’t got the sense of a turkey in a thunderstorm, but even they’s got the brains to know that one day they’s gunn tell they own kids ’bout this. You’s a true hero to all us in Buxton!”

The man said, “Naw, Willie, ain’t no one a hero. Don’t say that.”

As soon as they realized who this stranger was, Big Twin and Little Twin shrieked and bolted hand in hand into the night as if a bear were at their heels. I bet the only reason everyone else didn’t follow was because fright had caused them to grow roots and plant themselves right where they sat.

The Madman of Piney Woods walked into the circle of light thrown by the fire and perched himself on the stump Little Twin had been sitting on before he and his brother ran into the darkness.

Right next to me! I could have reached out and touched him!

The twins’ soul-curdling yells were fading farther and farther into the forest.

The Madman said, “Shouldn’t one y’all go get them two afore they gets lost or hurt theyself?”

Mr. Swan said, “Don’t worry, they’s gunn run up to the door of the first house or cabin they come to and scare the bejeezus outta whoever’s there. Someone’ll chase ’em off or see to it they gets home. They gunn be just fine.

“They’s a rare set a twins, ’cause most times with twins, you got your clever one and then you got your thick-head one; with them two, one’s as big a dunce as the next, and scairt to death of they own shadows! Fra-gilest matching set of idiots you’s likely to ever run up on.”

The Madman smiled and said, “That ain’t what’s normal atall.”

Mr. Swan paused a second, then asked, “You wants to say something to these young folk?”

The Madman looked uncomfortable. “Naw, Willie, I been ease-droppin’ on your stories for the longest and ain’t got nothin’ to add. I’m just gonna rest and listen if it don’t bother no one.”

Mr. Swan said, “That’s fine, whatever you wants.”

The Madman stared into the fire with a soft smile on his face.

Mr. Swan spit into the fire again and said, “Where was we at?”

But he was talking to himself. I looked and every single boy around the bonfire had his eyes locked on the Madman.

Mr. Swan stood up and said, “I’m-a tell all you little no-goods, if y’all don’t …”

The Madman looked up and all of the children’s heads bobbed down.

The Madman said, “I do ’pologize, Willie. I suppose it a bit much for these boys to see me like this. They been hearing so much nonsense ’bout me that this gotta be a shock. You caint hold it ’gainst ’em.”

Mr. Swan said, “Uh-uh, ain’t no reason for them to be rude like this. Every last one of ’em, wit’ one or two ’ceptions, come from good people and know better.

“I’m ’bout ready to quit telling these ungrateful brats my stories. I think they’ve heard ’em all.”

The Madman said, “What was you telling ’em ’bout, Willie?”

“We was discussing all the places the demons and haints and monsters is hiding out in the woods.”

The Madman smiled.

“In that case,” he said, “maybe I got something to tell ’em after all.”

“The pulpit’s yourn, my brother.”

The Madman said, “What you think, Willie? You think they’s old enough that they ready to get scairt for real?”

The Madman seemed to become lit up with such a light that Mr. Swan stopped chewing and gave him a cautious look.

The Madman looked into the fire and began rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his buckskin-covered shins.

“Willie, you ’members when we was young how we looked to hear stories what would prevent us from sleepin’ for a while? You think that what these young’uns wants?”

It’s not possible, but it seemed like even the crickets stopped chirping and the toady-frogs in the pond quit making sounds when the Madman spoke.

He pointed at the six youngest children and said, “Y’all run on home now. None of y’all’s ready for this. Y’all’s too young to even have places in your heads where you can rest what I’m ’bout to say.”

Some of the youngsters, already rising, looked at Mr. Swan. He said, “Get on home. Stick together.”

None of them said a word about wanting to stay.

I didn’t know if he could keep this up, but, judging by who was saying it and by the tone of his voice and by the look in his eyes, this had to be the best introduction of a scary story ever told on earth!

He said, “Now, if any the rest of y’all’s been blessed with a sensitive nature, listen here: That ain’t nothin’ to be ’shamed ’bout, but if I was you, I’d use this time to follow them li’l babies back on out these woods.”

Even if any of us wanted to leave, and it wouldn’t take too much encouraging to get even me out of here, what he said meant whoever got up might just as well hang a sign from their neck saying SENSITIVE-NATURE CHILD, and that’s one thing none of us wanted to be accused of!

He took his eyes off the fire and, with his body becoming as still as death, he started looking like an owl! A great horned owl! He rotated his head and its tangle of hair to look around the circle, catching hold of the eyes of each of the seven of us left.

Some cast their glances down, a couple bawled quietly. Spencer stared back, his face twisted in pain. By the time the Madman’s head rotated in my direction, I thought I would be ready. I thought I could be like a reporter observing a scene. Plus, we were almost like old chums. No one knew it, but I’d already talked to him.

But when those black eyes snatched hold of mine, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to prepare for this if I’d had millennia. There was something different about him now. I wasn’t sure if it was the light of the campfire or the darkness that was all around us, but he was much more frightening now than he was during our talk.

I was glad I hadn’t told anyone. As terrifying as he was now, even I wouldn’t have believed my tale.

As the Madman of Piney Woods’s eyes captured mine, I remembered this feeling. Once the fear in me quieted down, I remembered a trip when I was eight years old and the mayor had loaded most of Buxton’s young folk in wagons and taken us to visit the falls at Niagara. We don’t really have a mayor in Buxton, but everyone knows if we did have one it would be him.

They’d stopped the wagons two miles away so we could more clearly hear the low rumbling growl that had been creeping up on us. The closer we got, the louder it became. Something in the air made the younger horses pulling the wagons skittish and prone to rear up. At the same time, the air made me and the other children giddy and silly. We seemed to lose control of our arms as they flapped ridiculously about.

We were still a half mile away when they stopped again. The vibration of the falls rumbled up through the floor of the wagon. Small bits of straw, dirt, and dried leaves trembled and leapt on the boards there.

We came upon the falls and my first surprise, other than how loud they were, was that every description of them I’d read or been told had been wrong.

Yes, they were unbelievable.

Yes, they interfered with you breathing natural because it seemed the air was charged like lightning.

And, yes, it was a memory you knew was yours forever.

But the one thing they were not that every description said they were was beautiful.

The falls at Niagara were anything but beautiful.

They were harsh and terrifying. They were ugly and confusing. They looked to me like a festering wound in the earth.

I got even scareder when the mayor had made all of us under ten years of age get tied to one another with one adult at the front of the rope, one in the middle, and one at the rear.

Then we were led to the wooden railing at the edge of the falls and I understood why we needed the rope.

The strongest feeling surged over me when I looked down where the roaring water crashed below. If it weren’t for the rope and Patience and Stubby clinging desperately to each side of me, I’m sure I would have calmly climbed up on the railing, stepped over the edge, and allowed myself to be swallowed by the water.

There was such a magnetic pull to go over that my knees buckled and I strained against the rope.

That was the same electrical feeling I had as the Madman of Piney Woods, sitting mere feet from me, locked his eyes upon mine. For some reason, I knew I could jump into the swirling madness I saw there. I didn’t fear the rush of movement and noise and currents that lay behind his eyes. I wanted to look deeper.

Either that or run as quickly as I could after those lucky little brats who had been excused earlier.

Good sense prevailed and I was just about to tell Mr. Swan, I’m not comfortable with those children walking alone in the woods, sir. I’ll escort them home and come right back.

Before that lie could pass my lips, the Madman freed my eyes and, peering back into the fire, said, “If what you looking to hear is something that’s truly frightening, you done come to the right place, your call been answered by the co-rrect man.”

Mr. Swan seemed worried. “Uh, look, I ain’t so sure now’s a good –”

The Madman said, “Naw, Willie, let me tell ’em. I’m-a tell ’em something true and frightening. I’m-a let ’em know the truth ’bout demons and monsters. I’m-a show ’em ’xactly where they’s laying in the cut waiting for ’em. I’m-a show ’em like no one took the time to show us. I’m-a give ’em the news ’bout who them demons truly is and where they be waiting.”

The Madman never took his eyes off the fire. Time froze during those few moments of waiting for him to speak. They were the longest, most fearful moments I’d ever had.

The Madman hadn’t lied. Once he began talking, I didn’t see where in my head his words could rest without causing huge distress to my every hour, waking or sleeping. I wished I had shown the same wisdom and bravery that the twins had shown and bolted screaming into the woods, never to be exposed to his horrible insanity.

The Madman of Piney Woods began the process of absolutely destroying the sleep of seven children from Buxton by whispering one word: “Monsters …”

There was no way to tell what made that word so terrifying, if it was because of what he said or because of the way he said it.

He didn’t use any of the tricks Mr. Swan did to make his stories scary: He wasn’t lowering his voice to make you lean in closer; there weren’t any long pauses followed by sudden shouts that blasted coldness and shivers into your bones; he wasn’t waving his arms and pointing, suddenlike, off into the dark forest.

He just started talking.

“Let me open your eyes ’bout demons and monsters. I’m here to speak the truth, so get ready. Sometime that be the hardest thing to hear.

“I know all them tales ’bout haints and dead chiefs and such wandering ’bout these woods once the sun’s gone down. And, no disrespect to you, Willie …”

The Madman looked right at Mr. Swan, who said, “None taken.”

“I was tolt them same lies when I was little. All us young folk was. Them tales was entertaining, but they was lies and that’s where we starts going wrong, filling young folks’ heads with folderol that don’t make no sense just like it the stone-cold truth.”

He stared back into the fire.

“Young folks is lots smarter than they gets credit for and all them stories and lies end up doing is planting seeds of doubt ’bout everything they’s tolt. Things what they should re-ject the second they hears ’em lingers in they head. The only thing them stories and lies do is crack the door open for every other pretty lie they hears, don’t matter how foolish it be, to blow in, lay down roots, and start growing in they ’maginations.

“These young’uns starts up having pause at anything they ma and pa say, and caint no one blame ’em neither, ’cause they ma and pa be tellin’ ’em stories ’bout ghosts and Easter bunnies and the most ridiculous set of nonsense. And they tells ’em with the same straight face they tells ’bout not hurting no one else or treating folks the way you wants to get treated.”

He stopped.

Every eye around the circle was locked on him, every one of us waited.

“Yessir, I got tolt ’bout the ghosts in the woods what come out at night too. But if y’all youngsters is smart, that there is your first clue that these is lies. Anytime someone start they story by saying it happened in darkness or fog or smoke, anything what cloak they words, you needs be suspicious ’bout what follows. Darkness hide a whole lot of things, but in talkin’, it’s used most of all to hide the holes in the words of whoever be talkin’.

“Darkness? Real demons and monsters and devils ain’t gotta wait on no darkness.

“Darkness?

“Darkness?

“They work get done as much at high noon as at the blackest midnight. They ain’t no respecter of the ’mount of light washing over the earth. They gunn get done what they need get done.”

The Madman’s voice changed. It became steady and near monotonous, in the exact way Mrs. Brown warned us against during forensics lessons.

I had no idea if the other boys were feeling what I was. All I could see, all I could hear, was this man with the huge head of wild hair.

“I seent devils and demons and beasts and mostly I seent monsters. I seent how they walks upright, on two legs. I heard ’em talk and they sounds a whole lot like you and me.”

He stopped and I realized I’d been holding my breath.

Mr. Swan said, “Uhh … thank you, that …”

“Uh-uh, Willie, lemme finish. These here boys wants to hear ’bout monsters and they ain’t got no idea they’s inviting them monsters right into they hearts. I seent how they likes playing war and soldiers in the fo-rest; I seent how they crashes ’round hollering and frightening every living thing in the woods. Let me tell ’em, let me tell what no one ain’t had the sense to tell us when we was young and excited by that foolishness. They needs to know what they’s playing at.”

There was no stopping this. In the same manner that water in the Niagara River gets to a certain point and its fate is sealed, the Madman was unstoppable in pulling us into his nightmare.

He moaned, “Lemme tell y’all ’bout who the monsters is and where they be hiding. It gonna be a big surprise, I promise y’all.

“I always looked younger than I was. I’d just turnt seventeen, which was old enough to join up as a soldier, but they thought I was thirteen at the most and would only let me be a drummer boy. I knew at the first chance what come, I’d throw that drum down and pick up a rifle and kill me some of them Johnny Rebs. I knew it was gonna happen. But I sure didn’t think it would happen so soon and in the way it did.

“I got attached to the Sixth Regiment Colored Artillery outta Mississippi, and the day I did, we was in a skirmish at Vidalia. It near cost me my life. But it open my eyes good.

“We got charged by the Confederates, right after they’d shot us to tatters. I dropped my drum and grabbed the first dead man’s rifle I seen. The sergeant told us to prepare bayonets, but them rebs was atop us afore I got the chance to get the bayonet fixed on my rifle. The man next to me got a hole blowed in him, and the sight made me drop my rifle. I run. I ain’t ashamed to say it, I run.

“I run down a little swale and could hear a reb right behind me. I didn’t get thirty yards afore a root reach up and grab me and drop me on my face. I felt the reb’s bayonet poke in my back.

“He shouts, ‘Turn around, darky. I ain’t never shot no one in they back and I ain’t ’bout to start with you. I wanna see your eyes when you die.’

“I turnt over and the rifle was pointed ’tween my eyes. I stayed still to give him a clean shot, but he lowered his gun. He looks at me and says, ‘Why, you ain’t nothin’ but a baby. I got kids at home older than –’ ”

The Madman of Piney Woods stopped talking.

When he started again, his voice was dead.

He said, “That’s when I fount out where the real monsters was hiding. That’s when I seent who was truly a devil. The man reached his hand down to pull me up. I didn’t even know I hadn’t dropped the bayonet. I swung at him and it seemed like his chest welcomed it in. It went in that easy. And that deep. Must’ve pierced his heart. He fell atop me. And bled out right there.

“I knowed right then I had good cause to be afeared of all the monsters I got told ’bout. I knowed right there that devils was real. I knowed I should be afeared ’cause I was carrying the devil ’round inside me. He waren’t hiding in no darkness; he was me. All he was doing was biding his time. Waiting for a sign. Waiting to come out.”

I was dumbstruck. I waited for Mr. Swan to make him stop, but he was as stunned as the rest of us.

The Madman wasn’t through.

“I caint remember nothing what happened for two days. I only know we run them rebs off. But I soon got to see more ’bout them devils.

“A couple weeks later at Fort Pillow, I seent more monsters treading the earth, watched ’em doing they evil work.

“We was outnumbered bad. Four or five to one. Y’all know how in one n’em big storms what blows so hard, the rain be coming at you sideways? That just how them bullets was coming at us from the rebs.

“I was hunkered down praying that one n’em rifle balls would plant itself in my forehead and make this go away quick. If I coulda got my hands on a gun, I’d-a done it myself.

“Must’ve got grazed and knocked cold. In the time I was out, the monsters come upon the earth to practice doing they filth.

“I ’members opening my eyes and thinking it was over ’cause I couldn’t hear no shooting nor cannons. But then my ears sharpens and I’m blast by wails and caterwauls like I ain’t never heard afore. I’d heard wounded men on the battlefield afore, but this was something worst. I raises up and –”

He stopped; I breathed.

When he started talking again, his voice sounded like one of the youngsters at school tiredly reciting something they had to memorize.

“You’s half-unconscious and dazed and laying on your side and not understanding how come so many of your friends is laying ’round you with red caps pult tight over they heads. You might even laugh, ’cause you know that red caps ain’t no part of no uniform.

“Then you sees. You sees they’s all been worked over by them monsters using bowie knifes to cut the scalp clean offen ’em. Seent laying not five feet from me the bleeding head of the man what I was talking to half a hour afore the rebs attacked. Same man I et breakfast with that morning. Same man what talked ’bout his family and listened whilst I talked ’bout mine.

“Then something’s got a claw in my hair, snatching at my head so rough I feared my neck’s broke. There waren’t no real pain. All I feels was something score a line ’cross the back my neck at the hairline and I feel metal hitting bone, making a sound I recognize is the same sound I heard a thousand times afore when a goat or a pig’s getting slaughtered.

“I looks back and up into the eyes of the demon what was scalping me and he waren’t mad nor fult up with hate. He waren’t in no rage with teeth bared and foam on his lips. He waren’t feeling nothing what a human would feel doing this. He was calm as if he was washing his socks at a crick or shaving stubble offen his chin in a camp mirror.

“Then I feels this terrible sawing at the back of my neck. But the main thing is the sound as the monster commence ripping at my scalp. It sound just like a thunderstorm got trap in my skull. It sound like cannons booming in my head.”

The Madman raised his voice as if he had to shout over the sounds.

“Then it stop. My head got dropped back down to the dirt, and once the thunder quit booming in my ears, I hears a voice. I looks over and seent a different white man pointing a pistol dead at the demon with the bloody knife what was standing astride me.

“They argues back and forth afore the one what been ripping at my scalp bend back over and snatch my head up again. The person with the gun holler at him louder and the monster growl something terrible back to the gunman and I feels that knife hit bone again, then hears a shot, and the monster what was stealing my hair fall atop me with a gaping hole where his heart use to be. I seent a swarm of them other gray demons with knives overtake the one with the pistol. Then I passes out.”

When the Madman of Piney Woods stopped talking, his voice echoed in my ears like the fading ring of a church bell. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime during his story, he’d quit looking at the fire and locked onto my eyes again.

He misread my look and said, “What? Y’all think I’s lying? Y’all thinking I ain’t had no truck with monsters?”

I looked around the circle and the only people still there were me, Spencer, and Mr. Swan, who had stood up and was reaching a hand toward the Madman.

“I ain’t afeared of the truth, and neither should y’all be. This is the truth. Look and tell me if I’s lying.”

He stood and turned his back to me and dropped his chin to his chest. Then he used both hands to grab the thick hunk of hair that hung down his back. He lifted his hair as if he were raising up a trapdoor, showing me and Spencer and Mr. Swan the back of his skull.

And that’s all that was there, his skull. Where you’d have thought would be more of the thick hair, there was a slice-of-bread-sized grayish-white patch of bone bordered by a band of thickened, shiny black skin.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away as the Madman, with his back still to me and Spence, said, “I ain’t got no clue how long I slept after. When I finally gets up, it was long enough for clouds of flies to be rolling over Fort Pillow like waves. It was long enough for maggots to set up in my wound. I picks as many of ’em out as I can, then crawls to the river and packs mud on my head to try to cool it down.”

He laughed and the bitterness of that laugh grated on every nerve in my body.

“They tell me them maggots and that mud what saved my life.”

I can’t say for sure if it was me or Spence who made the first move toward bolting. Being a much faster runner than he is, I was already in the house with my chest heaving and my back leaning against the front door when I heard Spencer’s wails as he ran past.

Spencer’s howls, my gasps, and the slamming door disturbed Mother and Father from their bedroom.

They appeared at the top of the stairs, Father holding a fireplace poker, and Mother the small coal shovel. Stubby and Patience joined them; she had her carving knife in hand.

“Benjamin Alston,” Mother said, “what is the cause for this commotion?”

“Mother, Father, I met him face-to-face! He sat right next to me!”

Father said, “Who? What?”

“The Madman of Piney Woods! He’s been scalped! His skull is showing, white as snow!”

Mother said, “This was at Mr. Swan’s storytelling?”

“Oh, yes, Mother.”

“Is he still there?”

“I don’t know, but there’s more I haven’t told you.” Even though I knew they might ban me from going in the forest if they knew, I had to admit I’d talked to him earlier.

She said, “It can wait, all of you go to bed.”

All three of us said, “But, Mother …”

She raised her voice in a way I’d never heard before. “Now!”

There was no thought but to listen.

Mother and Father didn’t even change out of their night clothes. They hopped at the front door, pulling on their shoes, not even bothering to lace them.

Mother said to Father, “Hurry, hurry, Tim. What Miss Ennis said must be true. He’s starting to talk to people again. That poor man has to be so lonely, maybe this time we can …”

They left in such a rush, they didn’t notice that me and Pay and Stubby had ignored Mother’s order and were still standing on the stairs.

The front door closed, the screen door banged, and they were gone.

Patience said, “Benji? What should we do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should just go to bed like Mother said.”

Stubby and Pay had their arms wrapped around each other.

He said, “You really saw him, Benji? Honestly? Was he horrible?”

I didn’t even have to think. “No, he was very scary, but most of all he seemed … I don’t know, I can’t describe it. Maybe Mother was right; maybe the only word to describe him is lonely.”

Patience said, “Benji, did he really get scalped?”

I could see that even Pay was frightened. I suppose it would be really terrible to hear about this the way they just had. I mean, even Mother and Father had looked horrified, and Mother had roared at us like a lion. It’s easy to see how this could shake a young person up.

“Patience, it was dark. Now that I think about it, he probably wasn’t really scalped; it must have been some kind of trick.”

I felt rotten about how shook up I’d got my brother and sister.

I really wasn’t doing it only for me when I said, “Stubby, if you go get a blanket, we can wait on the couch for them to come home.”

He ran upstairs.

Pay stood close to me and I wrapped my arm around her.

She whispered, “Don’t tell Timmy, but Mother used to know him very well.”

“What?”

“Shh! It’s true. That’s why she gets so upset when people call him Madman. He was –”

Stubby charged down the steps, dragging the blanket from his bed.

I sat on the couch, and Pay and Stubby sat on each side of me. I flapped the blanket a couple of times until it settled over all of us. I felt like a mother hen when he snuggled under one of my arms and she the other.

Stubby said, “Do you remember when we all slept in the same bed and you used to tell us stories to help us sleep, Benji?”

I sort of did. I used to try to get them to sleep so I could sneak out of the bedroom window to run the woods at night with Spencer.

Patience laughed. “I do! They were so funny and it seemed like I always had good dreams afterward.”

I began to remember, but my memories went further back than theirs, and they came because I used to feel that same way when Mother would comfort me after a nightmare or when sleep just wouldn’t come.

After Mother sang me a lullaby or told a silly story or just let her warm hand rest on my forehead, I felt comforted. I knew there’d be no more nightmares. I knew it was safe to sleep.

They waited.

I said, “All right. I’m rusty at this, but I can try.”

I remembered they always wanted the stories to start the exact same way.

I said, “A long, long time ago, even before there were clocks, in a forest so far from here that only eagles know the way there, lived two little trolls named Patience and Timothy. One wintry summer day, they decided …”

I couldn’t believe how easy the stories started coming back.

Pay and Stubby fell back to sleep much too quick. I wished they’d stayed awake longer.

I was left alone with my thoughts.

I wonder if he’d been right when he said the forest had judged me and him to be just alike. I think that’s what scared me most about seeing the Madman at the storytelling – not his wild eyes, not his scalped head, but the thought that he was right.

Could that be me someday?

Had he started out as someone like me who loved the woods too much and that made his mind slip off the tracks?

My right arm started tingling and going numb from Stubby’s head.

I slid my arm from underneath him.

No, there isn’t any way that loving the woods could make you lose your mind. There had to be something more.

Mother said he was lonely, but could that make you go mad?

My left arm started feeling like it was going to sleep.

I lifted Pay’s head. I took the knife she was still holding and set it on the back of the couch.

Then I understood. If it was loneliness that had caused the Madm … had caused Mother’s friend to be so disturbed, then I didn’t have to worry. I had Mother and Father and Pay and Stubby to protect me from that.

It’s funny. While they slept cuddled next to me under the blanket, I thought about the monarch butterfly cocoons that pop up every fall in the woods.

This blanket was like a cocoon, and me and Stubby and Pay were three caterpillars safe inside.

I stopped worrying about Mother’s friend; he wasn’t interested in hurting us or anybody else. He was wrong. Maybe the woods told him we were the same, but the woods didn’t know me when I was at home. But he was right when he said I was to be envied. I could do one thing he couldn’t. I could leave the woods and come home to my cocoon, my family.