Lucinda sat on the couch chewing the inside of her cheek.
She was in big trouble. Humungous trouble. She’d fibbed. Again. First about playing with fire, now about a stupid spider. Well. She had seen a spider, and it had been humungous. And she had thought it was going to bite her. So she hadn’t really fibbed.
But the spider was not why she’d screamed. She’d never scream over a stupid spider. Humungous or not, a spider was still just a spider, still small compared to her. It wasn’t like Vermont had tarantulas. And she knew from books spiders never really bit, except for that one with the funny name. Hermit spider. No, that was a crab. Rescue spider? Recluse. And she could still easily splat that kind of spider with a shoe. Spiders were just all skin and black juice, and she’d splattered tons of them in the pit, where Sally had first told her the secret; told her about the man in the woods.
At the thought of the man in the woods, Lucinda bit down harder on the inside of her cheek, blood leaking. She pushed her tongue against the wound, sucked at the blood, hot and salty. She took a rock from her coat pocket. She’d found it under Sally’s bed. A rock. Not an arrowhead, as Sally had insisted, although it did kind of look like an arrowhead. It was thin, with a sort of scalloped edge and kinda sharp edges, but it was soapstone, and soapstone wasn’t used for that. At least none of their books and magazines said so. It was talc schist. A metamorphic rock. A pretty swirl of green and gray, the piece of rock felt soft and slippery and comforting in her hand. It was everywhere under the mountains and up in the Gore.
She turned the thin chip of rock in her hand.
She wondered if her dad knew she was fibbing. He’d had that look in his eyes that said, What are you hiding, what are you fibbing about? When have you ever been scared of a spider?
All Lucinda knew was she couldn’t tell him what had really scared her. She could never tell anyone about the man in the woods. Ever. She’d made a pact with Sally. Friends didn’t break pacts. Everyone knew that. No breaking pacts. Especially to parents. Sally would be so mad. She probably would stop being friends. And that was more important than anything. If Lucinda told her dad what she’d seen out Sally’s window, or thought she’d seen, Sally would never ever forgive her. Besides, maybe it had not been him, maybe it had been nothing. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, or a trick of the dark. Maybe what she’d seen out Sally’s bedroom window had only been a shadow, a tree, or a branch, or something. It could have been almost anything besides a man.
Lucinda bit her cheek harder.
She could never speak to anyone about him. Ever.
Except to Sally.
Wherever she was.
Where could she be so late at night?
Why was she not here?
And what was taking her so long to come home?
Lucinda squeezed her eyes tight and wished as hard as she could for Sally to come home.
Please, just come home.
She felt something warm in her palm and looked down to see she had squeezed her hand tight around the piece of soapstone and cut her flesh. Not bad, not deep anyway, it was like a thin paper cut, and it stung as blood seeped from it. But she’d live.