Slice

Jessie was in an utter panic. “My baby!” she kept shrieking. “My baby is gone!”

“We’ll find her, honey,” Aunt Paulette assured her, rushing about the yard.

“I saw her!” It was Gert Gorin, huffing and puffing as she made her way up the hill. “I tried calling you, but there was no answer. I saw her walking into the woods!”

“The woods!” Jessie echoed.

“Yes,” Gert told her. “With a little boy. They were heading toward the old barn. That’s when I figured I should come get you, because that place is just too dangerous for me to go in after them.”

Jessie was already barreling down the hill toward the brook and the woods beyond. She wished Monica and Todd were home. They’d gone into the city for the night for some event hosted by Todd’s firm, and they wouldn’t be back until very, very late. Jessie knew that Todd had been in that old barn many times. He knew his way around it, since he’d been considering restoring it. Decades ago, when Jessie’s family had actually run a farm on the property, the barn had been in use. But ever since she could remember, the barn had stood there rotting, the trees growing thicker around it.

The moon slipped behind some clouds, plunging the night into total darkness.

Still, Jessie managed to leap over the brook in a single bound and head into the woods. Ahead of her, the beam of a flashlight kept bobbing from place to place. Aunt Paulette was following her, Jessie realized, and had wisely thought to grab some light for them. The older woman was aiming it ahead of Jessie so that they could at least make out where they were. Jessie sensed Gert Gorin was somewhere behind them as well.

“Abby!” Jessie yelled.

There was no response except for the flutter of wings in the trees above.

She reached the barn. “Abby!” she shouted again.

“Mommy?” came a little voice from the dark.

Aunt Paulette staggered up behind her, out of breath, trying to steady the beam of the flashlight inside the barn. They stood at the entrance facing nothing but utter darkness. The flashlight picked out the remnants of a rusted old tractor, then some decomposing crates, then a ladder leading up to one of the overhead beams.

“Abby?” Jessie said into the dark, more quietly now.

“Mommy.” Abby’s voice floated out from the darkness. She sounded frightened.

“Where are you, baby?” Jessie asked.

“Up here.”

Jessie took the flashlight from Aunt Paulette and aimed it toward the sound of Abby’s voice. At first she saw nothing. But then the light found the little girl’s face. Jessie saw that her daughter was crouched on a beam. Below her was a drop of some thirty feet to the hard earthen floor of the barn.

Jessie suppressed a scream. “Baby, don’t move,” she whispered. “I’m going to come get you.”

“I was going to jump into the hay pile, Mommy,” Abby said. “Aaron already did, and it’s safe.”

The moon slithered out from behind the clouds at that moment. Through the broken roof it revealed the mound of hay in the far corner of the barn. Gert Gorin had arrived by now, and, breathing heavily, moved stealthily across the floor toward the hay, one eye looking up at Abby at all times.

“No, honey,” Jessie said. “Just stay right there. You’re not far from the ladder. I’m going to come up and help you come down.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Jessie handed the flashlight to Aunt Paulette, who kept it trained on the ladder.

“Be careful, Jessie,” her aunt implored.

Jessie gripped the sides of the ladder and placed her foot on the first rung. The ladder was flimsy, as if made of balsa wood. It shook under Jessie’s weight. Still, she went up several steps, all the while talking calmly to Abby.

“Sit down on the beam and hold on tight, sweetie,” she instructed her daughter. “Then move back toward the ladder on your butt. Don’t try to walk.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Abby replied, and did as she was told.

Jessie was now halfway up the ladder. Aunt Paulette stood below, aiming the flashlight at Abby and holding one side of the ladder to steady it. Gert, having checked out the haystack, hurried over to grip the other side.

Abby had worked her way across the beam so that she was now near the top of the ladder. Her little feet dangled over the side. Suddenly one of her untied sneakers fell off, spiraling down through the air and whizzing past Jessie’s face, landing with a thud on the barn floor. Gert Gorin gasped.

“It’s okay,” Jessie said, her voice steady. “I’ve almost got you, baby.”

She took another step up the ladder, and the rung broke under her foot.

“Jessie!” Aunt Paulette shouted.

“It’s okay,” she said again, taking a large step to reach the next rung.

Abby was now within arm’s length.

“Come on, sweet baby, come to Mommy,” Jessie purred. “Shake off your other sneaker. It will be too hard to climb down otherwise.”

Abby did as she was instructed. Her second sneaker plunged to the ground, reminding Jessie of just how far the fall would be.

“Come on, Abs.”

The little girl moved her feet down onto the top rung of the ladder. Jessie reached up and grabbed her by the waist, guiding her down to the next step. When they came to the broken rung, she held Abby tighter and moved her past the space.

“You’re almost down, Jessie!” Aunt Paulette called up to them.

Beneath Jessie’s foot, another rung snapped in two. Gert Gorin shouted out in horror.

But Jessie kept going. She was down the ladder far enough now, with Abby securely in her grip, that even if they fell, the worst they might incur was a broken arm.

“Almost home, my babies!” Aunt Paulette sang out.

And then Jessie was down, Abby safely with her. Once she got her off the ladder, Jessie wrapped her arms around her daughter and began to sob.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” Abby said. “Aaron said it was perfectly safe.”

“Where is this Aaron?” Aunt Paulette asked.

“He’s in the haystack,” Abby said, pointing.

“There’s nobody in that haystack,” Gert Gorin said. “But come here and see what is in there!”

They followed her across the barn, the flashlight illuminating their way.

“Look!” Gert said, pointing down.

There, just under the top layer of moldy stray and hay, protruded the rusted blades of an old lawn mower.

“I don’t have to spell out what would have happened to the child if she had jumped into this hay,” Gert said, shivering dramatically.

Jessie gripped Abby tightly. “Oh, no!”

“But Aaron jumped in and he wasn’t hurt!” Abby insisted.

“Where is Aaron?” Jessie asked, crouching down so she could look Abby straight in the eyes. “Did he bring you here?”

Abby nodded.

“Then where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

Jessie looked up at Aunt Paulette, then back at Abby. “Sweetie, could Aaron be an imaginary friend . . . ?”

“No,” the little girl insisted. “He’s real.”

“I’ll say he’s real,” Gert said, folding her arms across her chest. “I saw the two of them walking together. And I’ve seen him before, too. He’s a very real boy.”

Jessie looked up at her.

“A very real, and a very disturbed, boy, I’d say,” Gert told her. “If he was trying to coax your daughter into jumping into this hay, then I suspect he wanted to kill her.”

Jessie looked back at Abby. Suddenly she pulled her close in an embrace, and began to cry.