Piper and the Gren - Part 2

Thursday October 12, 1995

Piper’s bedroom window looked across the circle drive and straight down Blair Street, giving her a perfect view of the caretaker’s cottage and the old Blair cemetery, its age-worn tombstones sheltered under the branches of countless old oaks. She was unable to see the base of the gren’s tree, but its dark branches loomed behind the small house. They swayed in the cooling autumn breeze and cast wicked shadows across the Old Man’s roof.

And though she took breaks to nap, or to read, or to watch the other children go to and from school, she spent most of her isolated day staring from her window at the crooked limbs, imagining the creature that hid within. She tried to compare the branches of the gren’s tree to those around it, but couldn’t tell if they were truly more twisted and finger-like, or if she was imagining it.

In her dreams that night, Piper watched from a tree branch as a boy her own age threw rocks at another boy that had been tied to a tree. The bound child begged through bloody lips for his tormenter to stop as a stone cracked against his cheek. Piper clapped her hands in joy from her high vantage point. And though she was so enjoying the show, she considered what would be the best way to frighten the children. She could take her time with the rock thrower since the other was unable to escape. He would have to sit and wait his turn. She licked her lips at the beauty of it and awoke with a start to the sound of rustling tree limbs outside her window.

She lay unmoving for over an hour as the dim moonlight slowly crept across her wall. When she finally fell asleep, she could still remember the feeling of her claws digging into tree bark and the slick feel of her tongue against pointed teeth.


Saturday October 14, 1995

“Can I go to the library today, Mom?” she asked over breakfast.

He mother looked up from her coffee. “No, you’re grounded.”

After a few minutes of silence, Piper tried again. “Then could you pick up a book for me?”

With a far away look in her eye, Piper’s mother considered this. “Yeah, I’ve gotta pick up my Prozac at that pharmacy next to the library anyway. What do you need?”

“A book on goblins. You know…fairy tales about…little monsters and stuff.”

Once she had scrutinized her daughter for a few long seconds, Piper’s mother finally nodded absently.

After another day in which Piper stared sullenly out her window, her mother came home with a bag from the pharmacy, but no book.


Wednesday October 18, 1995

“Could you please pick up that book today?”

Her mother nodded absently without looking up from her instant oatmeal.

That evening she found a copy of British Goblins waiting on the kitchen table. It was hard to read and far more boring than she had expected, but she was able to find a few interesting details.

That night, she dreamed she was surrounded by the chaos and mud of a large battle. She scurried among horses and men with strange-looking uniforms and rifles. One side of the battle seemed to be Asian of some sort, but Piper knew no more. Her ears rang from the explosions as she scampered from shadow to shadow. She was desperately searching for someone and terrified that she was already too late. The silhouettes of men and flags flashed against distant explosions.

She squealed in panic as she awoke to the sound of rain against her window. She shook her head to jostle loose the water in her ear, and then remembered that she was dry. In the morning she found what appeared to be the marks left by a face pressed against the outside of her second story bedroom window.


Friday October 20, 1995

“Mom?” Piper asked tentatively over dinner. “Do you think it’s possible to talk to someone who’s died?”

Her looked up from her oatmeal and looked sadly at her daughter. “No, honey, I don’t. But, we’ll see Daddy soon enough. You know he’s waiting for us up in Heaven.”

“Yeah, I know. But…this book says that goblins can talk to the dead.”

“Are those the kind of ideas that book is giving you?” She looked at the copy of British Goblins sitting on kitchen counter. “I think you’re done with that book, Pipe.”

“But, Mom…”

“And I also think you’ve been cooped up too long if crazy goblin stories are doing this to you. You can go play with your friends tomorrow.”

“My friends are back in Indiana.” Piper spat bitterly as she pushed her plate away.

After a long pause, her mother replied, “We’re both making a lot of adjustments,” to no one in particular. “Look, Pipe, I know getting expelled has been tough on you, but….”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Piper’s mother started to say more, but instead turned back to the simplicity of the food before her.


Saturday October 21, 1995

“I didn’t expect to see you out and about so soon,” called Simon as he tucked a copy of “The Hobbit” into his back pocket. Piper slid her bike to a stop.

“Yeah, my mom called off the grounding early. I think she felt sorry for me.”

“Wow,” replied Simon, “I wish I could get my mom to feel sorry for me when I’m in trouble.”

Piper rolled her eyes, not feeling particularly lucky. “I was looking for Toady. You know…just kinda curious how he’s doing.”

“I don’t know.” The thin boy pushed his glasses back into place. A cartoon man asking “Why does the sun shine?” peaked from behind Simon’s flannel shirt. “Toady seems fine, I guess. We don’t really, you know, talk much. I saw him and Ryan heading down the bike path with a bunch of plywood, though.”

Piper groaned. Of course he’d be with Ryan.

Simon, noticing her reaction to the news, smiled. “I’ll tag along if you want. Maybe take the brunt of the insults.”

They found Ryan and Toady on the dirt trail that wound its way behind all the houses on the eastern side of Banner Street.

“Riddle me this, Crack Pipe,” called Ryan as they approached. “Who’s nerdier? You for hanging out with Nerdman, or Nerdman for hanging out with you?”

Piper noticed that Toady didn’t chortle along with the joke as he would have previously. “You are,” she said as she leaned her bike against Toady’s and took a seat on the plywood ramp the boys were building. “Cuz now you’re hanging out with both of us.”

“Yeah, it did get suddenly lame around here. Come on, Toady…let’s get out of here.”

Toady shrugged meekly. “You go on…I…I kinda want to talk to Simon and Piper,” he managed finally.

After a few seconds of disgusted silence, Ryan finally managed, “Don’t go gettin’ all geek on me, Toady,” before pedaling away.

The three children stared awkwardly at each other for a few long moments, unsure what to say now that they had the opportunity, until Piper broke the silence. “Anything new from the gren?”

Toady shook his head. “We’ve been steering clear, pretty much.”

Piper sighed in disappointment. With her book gone, she had been hoping they would have more information for her. She stared into the distance as she remembered the dreams that had awoken her at such odd hours.

“You ok?” inquired Simon as he waved his hand to gain Piper’s attention.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired,” she replied as she wiggled her fingers to shake away the memory of claws. “What do you know about the gren, Simon?” she asked at last.

“Not much,” conceded the taller boy casually. “No one’s ever seen it.”

Toady smiled, “He’s always going on like he’s the expert…but he’s never even got as close as we did, Piper.” His smile faded and Piper knew that he was remembering the glowing eyes from inside the tree.

“I never said I did!” objected Simon, clueless to Toady’s mood change. “I have no intention of upsetting that thing. I just watch and I learn. People get too close, see some weird thing that no one on the sidewalk can see and then run away. That’s it. Now, if you want to talk records…I’m your guy. I can tell you that you two are tied with Erica Jensen’s older brother for getting closest to the gren. And since Toady spent longer in the lead position…he’s the current record holder the way I figure it.”

“Only because I couldn’t get away.” Toady conceded modestly. Despite his humility though, his posture straightened noticeably with pride as he considered his role as record holder.

“Hey, a record’s a record,” continued Simon as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “And using the Old Man’s house to keep you from running is no different than the samurai. When they wanted to make sure they didn’t retreat…they’d tie themselves to a stake during battle.” He smiled at Toady. “I mean…that’s how I’m gonna tell the story.”

“But nothing about the gren itself?” interrupted Piper, bringing the conversation back to what she thought was more important.

Simon shook his head. “I’ve looked it up in the library….nothing. Far as I can tell, there’s no such thing as a gren…well, aside from the fact that we’ve got one just down the street.”

Piper idly spun her bike’s pedal with her hand as she thought. Her mind drifted back to the look of regard that had passed over the gren’s eyes in the moment before it let her pass. She felt the hair on her arms arch into goose bumps. Somehow, the idea of a thinking gren, a gren with some small degree of compassion or at least a pragmatic grasp of the situation was more unnerving to her. An unthinking force that scared kids away from the oak tree was fascinating, but no more threatening to her than a rotwieller the O’Neills kept in their back yard. However, the eyes she had seen…they understood. And now this newly terrifying, thinking gren had taken an interest in Piper. She recalled watching her own window and suddenly a vision flashed into Piper’s mind of the gren crouched in the dampness under Medry’s tree at that very moment thinking about the girl who had said, “please.” Piper stood up and paced in an attempt to distract herself from the image.

“So, who knows more than you, Simon?” she asked.

“Well, my Dad grew up on the street, but he doesn’t like to talk about the gren. He tries to tell me there’s no such thing,” Simon explained as he rolled his eyes. He thought for a moment. “I guess you could always go knock on Medry’s door.” When both Toady and Piper shook their heads, he continued, “And I know Oliver Blair goes and visits Medry every once in a while. He may be able to tell us something.”


Piper considered this, “He’d just tell Old Man Medry that we were asking.”

“Well yeah, that…and he’s a vampire,” added Toady.

Simon rolled his eyes. “He’s not a vampire, he’s just an undertaker.”

“No, seriously,” insisted Toady. “He won’t go near a mirror. He doesn’t even have mirrors in the bathrooms at the funeral parlor.”

“Fine, he’s a really weird undertaker,” reasoned Simon. “That doesn’t make him a vampire.”

Piper listened quietly, weighing her own dilemma. Whatever Oliver Blair may or may not have been, he was certainly an undertaker, and the thought of going to a funeral home brought back too many memories. She stepped onto the bike ramp. “Simon’s right, Toady,” she began playfully.”This book I’ve been reading says there are all sorts of monster things that hate mirrors. He doesn’t have to be a vampire.” She gave Toady just a second to digest this before changing the subject. “Who else would know about the gren?”

“There’s always Critter,” Toady offered with a shrug, still pondering what other sort of monster could be living in their midst.

“That guy gives me the creeps,” grimaced Piper. At thirty-six, Jeff Creedor was the oldest delivery boy at the local Pizza Hut and lived in his mother’s basement two down from the Erdmann house.

“I don’t know,” agreed Simon. “My Dad went to school with that guy and he made me promise never to be alone with him.”

Toady nodded, “Yeah…but Critter says he spoke with Old Man Medry about the gren.”

“He also says he sees UFOs flying signal patterns over his mom’s house,” laughed Simon. “He doesn’t strike me as an expert.” Simon kicked a loose rock up the bike ramp and into the trees. “But,” he conceded, “he is the only one who’s likely to talk to us.”

Toady crossed his arms in the silence that followed. “Guys,” he paused. “Should it be telling us something that the only person willing to discuss the gren is Jeff the Critter? I mean…it took every bit of courage I had to get that close. But what if,” he licked his lips as he stalled, “What if there really isn’t a gren?”

Piper jumped off the ramp. “What? You and I both saw it!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t really know what I saw,” sighed Toady. “It was dark.”

“No, it wasn’t, Toady,” responded Simon. “It was broad daylight. The only ones who thought it was dark was you two.”

“Well, maybe…we just imagined it, Piper. What if we just got scared and saw what other people say they saw…ya know?” Toady twisted his foot into the dirt.

Piper lowered herself back onto the make-shift ramp. “Look, Toady, I don’t buy that. You’re braver than that.” She smiled as she saw Toady look up with pride. “And both of us seeing the same thing? That seems a bit of a stretch, doesn’t it?”

“I know,” conceded Toady, “but Ryan says …”

“Forget Ryan,” spat Simon. “He can say whatever he wants, but I didn’t see him so much as put a toe off that sidewalk.”

The three waited quietly as the wind rustled the leaves overhead. Finally, Toady nodded firmly.

Piper shivered. “And if the only person who is willing to tell us about it is Critter…then I guess we need to go talk to Critter.”

Another silent moment passed as Simon hesitated to speak. “Where’s this coming from, Piper?” he asked at last. “I mean, I know it was scary…but out of nowhere you want to march down to Critter’s basement to figure this thing out?”

Piper licked her lips and recalled far sharper teeth. “I don’t want to go into details…but I think the gren has been watching me this last week.” She paused as the boys made confused faces. “I…know this sounds crazy, but the gren listened to me and let me get Toady. And now it’s…messing with me.”

“Piper…” Simon began.

“For instance,” she continued. “Did either of you climb up the side of my house so you could leave an imprint of a face against my window?”

Silence.

“But that doesn’t mean,” said Toady carefully, “that the gren did it.”

Piper sighed. “You just have to trust me on this. I’m not asking you to go back to Medry’s place or anything. I’m just asking you to help me find out anything I can about the gren. And if Critter knows something…then I’m going to go talk to him. I mean…surely someone who faced down the gren isn’t going to let a girl show him up by being less afraid of Critter.”

She grabbed her bike and waited at the path that would lead back to the street.

“We’ll keep you safe, Piper. Right, Simon?” smiled Toady after a moment, clearly enjoying his new role as protector.

“Well,” Simon began. “’Whose more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?’ Huh?” He waited for a moment, but saw no recognition of the quote. “But, all right. I guess someone’s got to save your skin.”

“You can ride my back tire,” said Toady as he pushed up his kickstand. “But, um…can we take the trail through the woods if we’re going?” The other two looked at him questioningly and Toady sighed in resignation. “Not that I’m…you know…gonna listen to her or anything. But I’m…my mom says I’m not supposed to be hanging out with Piper.” His embarrassed eyes drifted to the ground.

“What? That’s so unfair,” exclaimed Piper. “I saved you from the gren and everything.”

“I know, I know,” reassured Toady. “Like I said, I’m gonna ignore it. We just might want to keep clear of my end of the street so my mom doesn’t see us. You know…until this whole drug thing blows over.”

Piper’s jaw clenched and she swung onto her bike. She muttered a terse, “Fine,” as she pedaled down the thin path that lead into the woods. She kept the boys behind her for the entire trip so that they wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.


...Continued in Part 3

Piper and the Gren - Part 1

For the children of Banner Street, there was no holiday bigger than Halloween. This truth had developed through the years at least in part due to Banner’s convenient shape. An almost perfect ankh…if you were willing to ignore the short stub of a glorified driveway called Blair Street that jutted off the circle at an irregular angle, which most adults were willing to do. The children, however, could think of little else as the autumn air turned crisp.

Parents from surrounding subdivisions congregated once a year to allow their children to make the trick or treat circuit around the closed course of Banner Street. The entire street took on a festival atmosphere of costumed children and outrageous yard displays against the backdrop of the vibrant colors of an Ozark autumn. So, it was inevitable that each October, as the excitement of the upcoming holiday grew, the children of the neighborhood would once again become fascinated by the gren that lived in the gnarled hollow under the oak tree behind Old Man Medry’s house. And it was equally inevitable also that in such an environment, the events set in motion by Toby Cooper’s attempt to test his bravery against the wicked little creature would become part of the Halloween lore of the neighborhood...despite the fact that the gren’s attack occurred a week before that date…despite the fact that even the resulting funeral was held days before All Hallow’s Eve.


Wednesday October 11, 1995

“Just take two steps past the edge of his house, Toady!”

“And then get out of there!”

The loud whispers of multiple children overlapped as they gestured their frozen friend onward. A small crowd of neighbor kids had swarmed the sidewalk in front of Old Man Medry’s place to watch the sixth-grader the children called Toady press two steps past the safe zone. It was widely understood through rules past down from older siblings that the Medry front yard was safe, the back yard was purely off limits, but the side yard was an area of overlap where a young man could test his bravery. The gren might make its presence known, might threaten…but it had never harmed a child in the side yard.

Medry’s was the only house on the dead end street marked Blair and the road’s only destination save for the old Blair cemetery. Jutting off Banner’s circle and tucked behind a small grove, the house demanded attention for its stubborn refusal to join the other houses in the perfect circle drive. In addition, its fieldstone exterior and arched windows were completely out of step with the subdivision’s modest but modern esthetic. The house dated to a time when the Blairs had owned the entire ridgeline Banner Street followed and had once been used to house the grave yard’s caretaker. These days, most people simply chose to forget that there was a house and a cemetery lying unnoticed among the trees. The children, however, could never forget, drawn unfailingly to the bizarre and the mysterious.

Piper stood quietly to the far side of the crowd by the crooked mailbox marked “William Medrier.” She twisted her sandy brown hair around her fingers in an attempt to quell her nerves, to give her hands something to do as she watched her schoolmate stand motionless in Old Man Medry’s front yard. Toady’s eyes were locked on the darkened opening at the base of the oak tree, waiting for any sign of the little troll inside. He had made it most of the way across the lawn, his eyes on his feet at a friends’ suggestion, but had looked up a few steps shy of the side yard. He hadn’t moved since.

Piper scanned the thick-curtained windows of the old house. Nothing moved...nothing ever moved when the kids gathered to play this game. Old Man Medry kept to himself and he never opened his blinds. He rarely left his home and kept his face to the ground when he did venture out. No one visited except for the equally strange Oliver Blair, the town’s undertaker and eccentric descendant of the otherwise respectable Blair family. And despite the noise and commotion the children’s game inevitably caused just outside Old Man Medry’s windows, never once had he seemed even remotely aware of the twenty-two years worth of children that had snuck across his yard.

Piper, witnessing her first October on Banner Street, found the whole thing a little silly. “So, um, what is the gren exactly?”

“We don’t really know,” replied Simon, a tall eighth grader toward the back of the crowd. “It’s just a little monster that lives in there. Why it’s there depends on who you ask.”

“My sister says Old Man Medry and the gren are really the same thing,” added a green-eyed girl beside Piper. “He can change shape to scare kids away from the tree.”

“No way,” interrupted another child. “Medry’s a dead man. He escaped from Hell through that portal in the tree. The gren guards that hole to keep the devil from finding the Old Man and dragging him back.”

Piper considered this. “Then why doesn’t Medry just move? I mean…it’s kinda silly to live right next to the portal to Hell if you’re hiding from the devil, isn’t it?”

Simon laughed from the back of the group. “They say he can’t leave. He has to stay close to his body and tombstone there in the graveyard.”

“Is there a tombstone with his name on it?” Piper asked, suddenly intrigued.

The girl beside Piper shook her head. “The gren cast a spell so you can’t see it.”

“Except at midnight on the anniversary of his death,” finished a little boy Piper didn’t recognize. “But we don’t know when that is…so we check a lot.”

Piper, convinced all the children on her new street were insane, pulled her attention away from the quiet windows and back to the motionless boy in the Old Man’s front yard.

“You can do it, Toady. Just look back down,” reassured Simon.

Piper glanced at her watch and hoped Toady made his move soon. She needed to get back home before her mom got home from work.

“Come on, Toady!” called Ryan, a stocky boy who wore a Batman sweatshirt and a look of self-importance. “My brother went all the way into the back yard, you friggin’ wuss!”

Simon looked over the shorter heads in front of him. “That’s crap, Ryan, and you know it.” He focused past Ryan and called, “You’re doing fine, Toady! Just take your time,” before looking back to the boy at the front of the crowd. “Your brother just about wet himself one step past the edge and I don’t see you out there. Besides, no one’s ever made it to the back yard.”

“Shut up,” snapped Ryan. “Like you would know, Nerdman”

Simon smiled, used to the rhyming nickname his last name had inspired. “I know a lot more than you. My pop lived here when the gren first showed up…”

Ryan whipped around with a harsh whisper. “I know there ain’t no gren. Save it for Toady, ya geek.”

“Geez, Ryan. Isn’t Toady supposedly your friend?” interrupted Piper. She didn’t really know why she stood up for Toady. He had certainly never done so for her. More often than not he would simply chuckle along with Ryan’s cruelty. But it was difficult to hold it against poor Toady as he faced his terror, so clearly desperate for approval.

Ryan glared at the girl. “Well, maybe Toady could do it if you’d just sell him some pills to make him braver, Crack Piper.”

“Maybe I could sell you some pills to make you less of a jerk.” Her fists balled and she fought the urge to take a swing at the smirking boy.

“Toady’s moving!” interrupted Simon and the argument died as all eyes watched Toady take a tentative step toward the house. He paused at the end of that first step but then mustered his confidence and took another.

“Alright, Toady!” someone called. That bolstered the young man’s confidence even more. He dropped his eyes back to his feet and stomped his way to the edge of the house and then pushed into the side yard. The childen watched in hushed silence, eyes darting back and forth between Toady and the looming oak tree. Toady took the required two steps into the side yard and slowly stepped forward again.

“Toady, you did it…come back,” urged Piper

“Keep going!” dared Ryan.

Simon moved his way silently toward the front of the crowd, his focus intently locked on the ominous hollow beneath the tree.

Toady, his eyes still to the ground, took a deep breath and then took two more quick steps. He was only a foot or two from the center of the side yard and Piper had heard of no one who had made it this far. He smiled to himself and raised his head to look back at his friends but caught sight of the gren’s tree as he did.

Piper watched from the sidewalk as Toady’s body went rigid. While she could no longer see his face, the shriek that escaped his mouth and filled the street left little doubt of the terrified expression that must have been etched on his features. He dropped to his knees and swatted the air as if trying madly to block his view of the tree as he continued to scream. Toady fell to a sitting position and kicked himself away from the tree until his back was against the Medry house. Terror-filled legs continued scraping against the ground but could not achieve motion. Wide, tear-flooded eyes remained locked on the tree as his heels began digging twin trenches in the grassy lawn.

Panic swept through the children on the sidewalk. Some grabbed hold of on another, some stepped back into the street, and some ran. Piper, Ryan and Simon pressed themselves forward into the front yard.

“Run!” called Ryan.

“This way!” shouted Piper, but Toady seemed oblivious to all but the oak tree as he continued to cry and press himself against the wall.

Simon never took his eyes off the tree.

“You just have to crawl this way, Toady,” called Piper.

Piper waited a second or two more, hoping either Ryan or Simon would rush to help Toady…but no one did anything more than call to their terrified friend.

“I’m coming to get you!” Piper yelled to her stricken friend as she ran across the grass to the edge of the house. She kept her eyes on the ground, but her feet stopped near the imaginary line between the front yard and side. She could feel the tree. Even without looking, she was aware of a crushing darkness pressing on her from the looming tree trunk. She imagined that a black fog emanating from the hollow of the tree had surrounded her and was pressing against her chest. Her breath came in short gasps and she could feel a pressure pushing her backwards…toward the sidewalk. She wanted to run and hide and never see the tree again, never seen any tree again. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to cry. She couldn’t remember why she had decided to rush to Toady’s aid. He hated her. Everyone hated her. It was a hopeless attempt to rescue someone who would just call her names afterwards.

She looked up.

Old Man Medry’s oak tree towered over the rooftops. Its branches curled toward Piper like skeletal fingers and the sky that had been blue only minutes before had turned gray and oppressive. Just as she had imagined, black mist swirled around her like ghostly tendrils from the small opening at the base of the tree.

Toady’s cries urged her onward as she reminded herself over and over that no one had ever been attacked. She took another step forward, into the mist. From the shadows inside the tree two yellow eyes opened, glowing coldly through the haze. She froze again and fought the urge to scream, to cover her face, to curl into a ball and never open her eyes. Through the dark fog, the eyes of the gren ripped through her until her bones felt frozen. Her thoughts slowed and she could focus on nothing but the eyes of the unseen beast. She could hear Toady crying and was aware of calls from behind her, but they seemed far away and very small…dwarfed by the icy force of the eyes that glared from the sinister tree.

“I…” she stammered. “I just want to get Toady. I just want to get him away from your tree.”

A blast of anger swept from the gren and nearly knocked Piper backward. She could feel tears run down her cheek but had not been aware of crying.

“Please,” she whispered to the gren, to herself, to anyone or anything that would listen.

The eyes cocked to an angle, as if regarding Piper for the first time. For a split second, her vision blurred, two images muddled together. She could see Toady on the ground in front of her, but she could also see her own tear-streaked face as if from somewhere outside her body. She had barely enough time to be confused by this vision before the sinister yellow eyes slipped back into the darkness. The mist that had wrapped itself around her chest relaxed and the fog that had enveloped the entire side yard parted to form a path to the whimpering, scrambling Toady.

Terror still coursed through Piper’s body, but it was manageable terror. She tore her eyes away from the tree and rushed to Toady’s side.

“Come on, Toady,” she said as she dragged him to his feet and toward the safety of the sidewalk. He blinked as he suddenly became aware of her presence. Toady took lead-footed steps with Piper’s assistance and stared blankly ahead as he mumbled something that sounded to Piper like, “The eyes…I couldn’t move.”

“Holy crap!” called Ryan. “Did he wet himself? I bet he did! That was awesome!”

“Cool it!” snapped Simon as he met Piper and helped the two frightened sixth-graders to the sidewalk.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Piper with her hand on Toady’s shoulder, Simon kneeling reassuringly beside them, and Ryan smirking a few steps away. Piper risked a quick glace at the tree. The branches no longer seemed as menacing as only moments ago. The yellow and orange leaves swayed gently in the warm breeze and danced in the sunlight. The sky was a cloudless blue. If not for the way the sunlight refused to enter the shadowy opening at its base, Piper could almost mistake it for a normal oak tree.

“What happened?” asked Simon finally.

“What do you mean?” replied Piper. “Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see the eyes and the mist?”

Simon’s eyebrows raised. “Is that was you saw, Toady?”

Toady meekly nodded his head, “What do you mean…didn’t you see it?”

Simon shook his head. “We just saw you guys freaking out…that’s it.”

“You guys were hilarious,” laughed Ryan. “Boogetty! Boogetty!” he sang as he did his best impression of a little troll.

Piper sighed as she looked past the mocking boy and saw her mother rushing across the street.

“What’s going on? Are you two alright?”

“Yeah, Mom,” Piper replied.

Toady, who had regained some of his composure spoke up, “I’m fine, Mrs. Bishop. Really. I just…had a…I think you call it a panic attack.” He pushed himself to his feet to show that he could stand without assistance.

“I’m sure none of your parents would approve of you pestering poor Mr. Medrier. There’s no reason to…actually, what are you even doing here, Piper? You’re supposed to be grounded.”

“I…” Piper stammered but knew there was nothing to say.

Piper’s mother looked from her daughter to Toady and back again, unsure of which situation to handle first.

“I’ll get Toady home, Mrs. Bishop,” said Simon.

She nodded, “You should wash those scrapes on your hand when you get home, Toby.”

Toady looked at his hand and for the first time noticed the damage he had done to his palms. He hid his embarrassment with a smile. “Thanks, Mrs. Bishop.”

Putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, Mrs. Bishop frowned. “Say your goodbyes, Pipe…it might be awhile before you see your friends again.”

“That’s ok, Piper, we’ll see you tomorrow at school…oh wait…no we won’t,” mocked Ryan, “drug-free zone and all.”

Mrs. Bishop shot Ryan a warning glance and crossed the street with her daughter in tow. Piper glanced back to smile at her friends. Toady mouthed a silent “Thank you,” and as Piper smiled in response, she noticed the silhouette of Old Man Medry watching from the bay window of his house.


That night, Piper dreamed that she perched atop Old Man Medry’s house and stared across the street at her own bedroom window.





...Continued in Part 2