The Boy Who Lived
By Erica Obey
The carnage in Little Red Riding Hood’s Cottage was enough to make the most hardened trooper retch. Even worse was the serene indifference of the rest of the Pied Piper’s Story Land. All the rides kept moving of their own accord. Captain Hook’s Flying Pirate Ship swung back and forth midair. The Friendly Dragon roller-coaster released with a whoosh after clacking up the steep incline, as if it were still filled with screaming and laughing children. The Enchanted Pumpkin Coaches spun against the sky on Cinderella’s Wonder Wheel. Humpty Dumpty’s Teetering Egg still rolled wildly to the edge of his wall and back again. The Six Swans boats sailed emptily into the Tunnel of Love.
“Bastards!” the Captain said, recovering himself enough to examine the mess. “This is nothing but a kid! Sixteen on the outside, although I’m sure if we actually turn up any witnesses, no one will know anything about him, including his age. Just like it always is in this town. Prefer to keep to themselves, that’s what they say. More like they’re running a goddamned cult in here—and any time you try to investigate, they close ranks and protect their own. Well, this time it’s murder—and of a child. And this time, we’ll get them, if we have to track them to the ends of the earth.”
In fact, the Troopers would have had to track the miscreants much further than that—for just as the Captain predicted, when it came time for questioning, the villagers of Dynan’s Clove were nowhere to be found—decamped to Florida for the winter, according to what few forwarding addresses could be gleaned from the tiny post office in the back of Paul Bunyan’s Company Store and Nut House. “Closed for the Season. See you this Summer!” signs shielded the shuttered storefronts along the Village’s twisting lanes. The Town Offices were closed for renovation. And by the time the residents returned to crank the Village back to life for the summer, any requests for eyewitness accounts were met with nothing but a helpless shrug.
But all that was in the future. Right now, a trooper cried out at another discovery. Jammed into the Wicked Witch’s Gingerbread Oven was another teenager, who had pressed his gangly limbs into the tiny space in such contorted terror that the troopers had to remove the entire machinery to release him. But this boy was alive—or at least his heart was beating. But his eyes were focused on a horror only he could see as he shook his head and sobbed, “I don’t know anything! I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything at all.”
If only Jake hadn’t had the flat. If only he hadn’t pulled off the Thruway at the nearest possible exit to fix it. If only he hadn’t stopped over at the diner across the road from the filling station for a late breakfast while he waited for the tire to be fixed. If only, if only. . .
His phone had buzzed as he was sopping up the last of his bacon and eggs.
“APB on a 10-11,” dispatch informed him.
“What the hell is a 10-11?” Jake asked.
“Wolf attack,” dispatch said. “And subsequent suspected abduction.”
“Seriously? There’s a code for that?”
“There’s a code for everything,” dispatch said. “But in this case, a 10-11 just means an animal problem. We’ve got a missing twelve-year-old dancer—as well as an up-and-coming internet influencer, if you believe her press releases. And for reasons unknown, the prime suspect in her disappearance is a wolf.”
Jake sighed. He was a sworn New York State Trooper, yes, but frankly, he was strictly Search and Rescue. A simple assignment for a simple man. Search and rescue missions were straightforward. All they required was stamina—although it didn’t hurt to have good night vision and an instinct for tracking that many in the locker room joked was equal to that of any wolf out there. They did not involve radio codes he didn’t know. They did not involve wolves kidnapping young dancers. They emphatically did not involve the internet. On the other hand, he was within walking distance of the complaint, even if he was off-duty, and the repairs to his vehicle were supposed to take all afternoon. And many would argue a rogue wolf was a wildlife problem, which fell under the aegis of search and rescue. Jake mopped up the last of his eggs, threw a couple of bills on the counter to cover the bill plus an overtip, the way his Gran had always taught him, and radioed dispatch that he was responding.
He began to regret his decision long before he neared the faded sign that welcomed him to Dynan’s Clove, the “WonderLand of the Catskills!” Maybe it had been back in 1945, but now it was a ghost town, surrounded by half-farmed cornfields that were pocked with forgotten billboards for such attractions as Alberich’s Mine-It-Yourself Crystal Caverns and Doc Holiday’s Wild West Village and Adult Saloon. Beyond the billboards came the attractions themselves—many of them shuttered “For the Season” but others strangely charged with life. Lights flickered in the Saloon; shadows rustled beneath the outspread legs of the giant Paul Bunyan. A cloud of exhaust hung over the go-kart track, as if a race had just been run.
No such hints of life graced the Pied Piper’s Story Land. The flute of the grinning Head that served as the park’s ticket booth had been muted by a barrier of chicken wire and plywood that warned the Park had been possessed by the Marshall’s Office and trespassing was strictly forbidden. But Jake found himself shining his flashlight over the gate anyway—only to glimpse a fleeting shadow in the depths of the shuttered amusement park.
“State Trooper on official business!” Jake called out. “Someone there?”
The shadow in the park turned, and its face coalesced into view.
No. Not now. Of all the goddamned times, not now.
Who knew how long Jake froze? As long as it took the image of that face to disappear beneath a whirl of candy canes and gingerbread. . .
“Who are you? And how did you get here?”
The questions snapped Jake back to reality, and he blinked down at a woman peering at him over her horn-rimmed glasses.
“Jake Woods. New York State Police F Troop,” he told her. “I’m responding to a report of a missing girl—suspected wolf abduction? You the one that called that in?”
“Just as I always do. I’m the Village Clerk and Divisional Field Archivist.”
She certainly looked the part. The Village Clerk was not an old woman, but she was dressed like every cliché of a librarian. Prim blouse with a slender velvet thread tied around her neck. Hair gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck. Sturdy high-buttoned boots beneath her sensible skirt that allowed her to move across the Catskill landscape with the ease of scores of intrepid lady travelers before her.
“But I only call them in as a jurisdictional courtesy,” she went on with a frown. “They’ve never sent someone before. They’ve always been happy to let me handle matters up until now. Did something change?”
“Damned if I know,” Jake said. “But I’ve got to file a report. You have a name?”
“People around here call me Marie,” she said.
She did not offer a last name. Jake decided not to press the issue. “And what is this Division you work for?”
“The FBI. Special Archives division.”
“This is a federal case?”
“And I’m a federal officer,” she said. “Field archivist. As I said, we only call the State Troopers as a jurisdictional courtesy.”
Great. When most guys get a flat, they wind up in a filling station. Just Jake’s cussed luck to wind up in the middle of a turf war instead.
“Trooper Jake Woods,” he said. “And, trust me, I’m not a guy to get into a pissing contest, especially over jurisdiction. I’m just Search and Rescue, as a matter of fact. So let’s just head down to your office and wind up the jurisdictional courtesies, along with the paperwork. My car should be ready by then, and I’ll be on my way.”
The actual village of Dynan’s Clove had not given up on its dream of becoming the “WonderLand of the Catskills!” any more than the shuttered attractions on its outskirts had. A turreted Victorian called the Doll’s House displayed toy soldiers, marionettes, and elaborately costumed china-headed monstrosities in its casement windows. Granny’s Kandy Kupboard offered tall jars of licorice whips, jawbreakers, boiled sweets, and saltwater taffy, beneath a gingerbread roof decorated with gumdrops and candy canes. A Teepee Trading Post sold moccasins and feathered headdresses in defiance of all political correctness. The menu painted on the window of Doc’s Corner Drug Store and Old-Fashioned Soda Fountain offered malted milks and egg creams, along with the invitation to “Come In, It’s Kool Inside.” The Seven Dwarves’ Mineral and Gem Shoppe advertised a special on tumbled crystals.
The Village Hall dominated one side of the Green, where a bandshell promised Free Band Concerts and Barbershop Quartets every Sunday afternoon at 5. On the opposite side of the Green, a rooming house had been converted into something called the Matreum of the Magna Mater—which supported itself by selling Collectibles and Fresh Eggs. A shuttered clapboard building that once might have been a church cowered in both their shadows.
The main entrance to the Hall was a pair of imposing brass doors at the top of a flight of stone steps. But Marie skirted them to go in through a side door. “That’s my office,” she said, pointing toward a half door fashioned like an old-fashioned brass bank teller’s cage. “We’ll handle the paperwork in there. But as long as you’re here, you might as well see the scene of the crime.”
Marie unlocked another door that led into a high-ceilinged room that appeared to serve as both a courtroom and an assembly hall. Its front was decorated with a canvas curtain painted with elves, wicked witches, giants, gingerbread ovens, pumpkin coaches, and fairy godmothers.
“What is this? Some kind of high school play?” Jake asked.
“It’s the Midsummer Pantomime. An antiquated tradition, of course. Completely outmoded and more than a little politically incorrect,” Marie allowed with a wave of her hand. “But our little village will cling to its traditions. The Greater Pantos on the Cross-Quarters: Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas, and Samhain. This is one of the children’s pantos we celebrate on the lesser equinoxes and solstices: Mabon, Yule, Easter and Midsummer.”
Marie frowned at the state-of-the art recording equipment that stood incongruously at the rear of the hall. “We’ve always tried to keep it a community effort, but when Rosa came up from the City this year, she brought her people with her. By Rosa, I mean, Rosa Hudson,” she clarified. “That’s the girl who’s missing. She’s an up-and-coming young dancer—as well as something they call an Influencer. According to her people, she’s even got her own YouTube Channel.”
Marie’s tone left no doubt about what she thought about that qualification.
“She’s spending her summer vacation with her grandmother here in Dynan’s Clove this year, and so they rewrote the entire Panto so she could star in it.” Marie frowned. “I warned them it was ill-advised. It’s always a bad idea to change the Pantos. But her mother would insist, and despite her history, she has certain rights. After all, she starred in the Pantos back in the day and who could blame her if she wanted to see her daughter continue the tradition?”
“Is Rosa’s mother the one that reported Rosa missing?” Jake asked. “Where is she now?”
“Not here, that’s for certain!” Marie snorted. “Aggie Hudson isn’t likely to show her face in Dynan’s Clove, even after all these years. Not after the way she left town. The Darling of Dynan’s Clove, that’s what everyone called her. But Aggie always wanted more. Let it go to her head, that’s what Aggie did. Went down to the City, determined to be a star. Well, she got cured of that notion quickly enough. Got herself in trouble, and instead of coming home like any sensible girl, she put all her energy into her daughter. Calls herself a Momager now.”
Another disparaging gesture at the equipment. “She sent Rosa up with some man who calls himself a talent scout. Keeps telling people that he’s going to make Rosa go viral.” Marie shook her head. “I don’t know about you, but in my day, that was a bad thing.”
In her day? She was no older than Jake was. But there were a lot more pressing questions that Jake could see right now—ones that arose as soon as you had an adult talent scout, a prepubescent girl, and a camera in the same room.
“Anyone else see what they were filming?”
“No. He insisted on complete privacy while filming,” Marie said. “If anyone asked him about that, he had a lot of talk about artistic license and non-disclosures.”
Of course. Big surprise there. “Let me guess,” Jake said. “Now that the girl is gone, he’s nowhere to be found either.”
Marie’s jaw set. “We don’t know. We didn’t even know something was wrong until her grandmother telephoned to say Rosa was late for lunch.”
Something, that is, beyond a grown man filming a young girl with no one else watching? Jake jerked his head at the camera. “Anybody take a look and see what’s on there?”
“Of course. That’s the most troubling thing. . .” Marie corrected herself with a shrug. “Perhaps it’s best for you to see for yourself.”
There was only one video on the camera, and it wasn’t of a twelve-year-old girl. An elderly woman sat in a rocking chair, reading from a huge book of fairy tale. But when she looked up at the camera, yellow eyes peered over the wire-framed glasses perched on her long snout.
“And so we come to the final question,” the Beast said. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? The Wolf guards the archive. But who guards the Wolf?”
The screen went black, and it was all Jake could do not to throw the camera away. “This has got to be some kind of bad joke.”
“I’d say more of a riddle. Our storyteller seems to be a puzzlemaker. A riddler, who is in fact setting us to a test.”
“If you say so. But honestly, I’m not getting the punchline.”
Once more, Marie studied him with wary curiosity, before she responded. “Officer… Woods, was it? How much do you know about fairy tales?”
“Not a hell of a lot,” he admitted, although suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. Where had that sudden surge of déjà vu come from when she had mentioned the Pantos? And how had he known Samhain was what most people called Halloween?
“Are you acquainted with the first printed version of Little Red Riding Hood?” Marie asked. “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge. Charles Perrault, 1697.”
Jake shrugged. “Should I be?”
“Anyone should be,” she said. “It’s one of the oldest and most dangerous tale types in the world. The girl venturing into the dangerous territory all by herself. The Wolf, seductive and deadly. The grandmother, safe and obedient. How many times have we seen that played out?”
“Be that as it may,” Jake said. “How does that connect to our missing girl?”
“Perrault’s version isn’t popular these days,” Marie told him. “Perrault’s fairy tales are ironic fables meant for a sophisticated, adult audience. The Grimms’ version is deemed far more suitable to children.”
“And why is that?”
“In Perrault’s version, there is no Kindly Woodman who rescues Little Red Riding Hood. Nor does she join forces with her grandmother to trap and kill the wolf themselves, as in Grimms’ alternate ending. The wolf simply eats Little Red Riding Hood just as he devoured her grandmother, and the story ends with a simple moral: Children, especially attractive, well-bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf.”
“Okay,” Jake said.
Marie met his eyes. “So, I am proposing that that is the riddle we need to answer. Which version of the story are we faced with here? Is there a Kindly Woodman to rescue Rosa Hudson and will he arrive in time?”
Her words were punctuated by a bell being smartly tapped out in the hall. “Strange,” Marie said. “People usually call in advance to make an appointment with my office.”
She stepped out into the hallway. “I’m the Town Clerk. Can I help you?”
Jake never heard the reply. All his attention was on the shadow that rose outside the grilled half-door of the Records Office, before it laid its finger alongside its nose, winked, then disappeared.
When Jake finally could see again, Marie was frowning at a file with the irritation that only a librarian could marshal at finding a mis-shelved book. “Some kind of prank,” she said. “There was no one there. But someone left this.”
“What is it?” Jake forced himself to ask.
“A file that has been missing for years.”
“Another Red Riding Hood case?”
“No.” Marie’s frown deepened. “This is actually the file on my predecessor and his… abrupt departure.”
“Can’t imagine why anyone would want to run away from this place,” Jake snorted, but the sarcasm sounded forced even to his own ears.
“Dynan’s Clove is a strange place,” Marie allowed as she folded back the cover of the file. “It takes its fairy tales very seriously. Goes back to when this place was a genuine tourist town, and the locals had to stay in character 24/7. You know, like Colonial Williamsburg? Or a Renaissance Faire? Eventually, the tourists stopped coming but the habit remained—at least among those who were raised here.”
“Were you raised here?” Jake asked.
Instead of answering, Marie flipped through the pages of the file, as she continued, “I suppose that’s why they keep the Archive here. But it can get to you. It got to him.”
And it was about to get to Jake. “Got to who?”
“My predecessor, Andrew Grimes, was a brilliant folklorist as well as an accomplished archivist,” Marie mused. “He began his studies simply by categorizing the various tale-types as allegories of the truths of human behavior, but quickly he progressed to a psychological theory of the characters in these tales as psychological archetypes that existed in the human subconscious—Jung, if you will, avant la lettre.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Jake just nodded.
“Of course, like any psychological theory, Grimes’ system of archetypes was meant to be read metaphorically. But somewhere along the line, his theories grew more. . .esoteric. He began to believe his own metaphors.”
“Meaning exactly what?” Jake asked.
“Andrew Grimes was retired military,” Marie told him. “Psy Ops. That’s short for Psychological Operations. . .”
“I know.”
She raised an eyebrow at his tone. “Grimes began to claim that the Archive was a clandestine military operation to harness these archetypes and weaponize them. Of course, this was back in the nineties when the world was crawling with Psychic Warriors, so no one took him seriously.”
Jake swallowed hard. “Until he kidnapped a girl?”
“No,” Marie said. “He beat his son to death, convinced he had kidnapped a girl. Ripped open his stomach to rescue her, just like in the story.”
The words fell with the force of a physical blow. “He was convinced his son was the Big Bad Wolf?”
“Just the Wolf. The Big Bad was another story altogether.”
Jake shook his head, taking a moment against the dizziness that threatened to engulf him. “Be that as it may. Do you seriously believe that?”
There was a long pause before Marie answered him. “That doesn’t concern us now any more than it really matters what exactly Andrew Grimes believed. What concerns us right now is what the person who snatched that girl believes.”
“A copycat.” Jake relaxed. That was at least a concept he understood.
The corner of Marie’s mouth lifted. “Well, I’m sure that would be preferable to believing Andrew Grimes has returned to perfect his filing system after all these years.”
Indeed. Nonetheless, the gentle sarcasm grated, especially now, especially here. “Then who dropped off that file?”
“His son would seem to be the logical choice.”
“I thought his son was dead!” Jake said.
“One son is dead,” Marie agreed. “But what about the other? What about the Boy who Lived?”
What about him? Who cared? Who could blame Andrew Grimes for running away from a place had driven him crazy—just as it was rapidly threatening to do to Jake? It was all he could do to force his voice to careful reason.
“No offense, but I think the best and most effective way to answer that question would be to start tracing Rosa Hudson’s movements. Not to mention it being something I actually know a lot about. I work for the troopers, yes, but I’m not an investigator. Search and Rescue, like I told you. Which means I know how to track people. In fact, I’m very, very good at it. So, I suggest you trust me when I tell you that a search always begins with two simple questions. Where did our missing person start from? And where was she going?”
Marie studied him with that same, strange speculative expression, before she conceded the point and got to her feet. “Well, to her grandmother’s house, as the tale goes. Shall we?”
A bell tinkled to announce their arrival at the Kandy Kupboard, and an old lady straightened away from the stove behind the counter to lay a tray of freshly made fudge atop the glass display case. Jake froze—his vision a whirl of gumdrops, candy canes, licorice whips, boiled sweets, and gingerbread. . .
“Oh, don’t be shy and have no fear, dear!” the old lady said. “All that is an entirely different story altogether. I’m no Wicked Witch. I’m just Granny. Would you like a piece of fudge?”
Jerked back to reality, it was all Jake could do to shake his head.
“Of course, dear,” Granny said, patting his arm. “It takes you a little while to adjust. Why don’t you step out the back for some fresh air, and I’ll head down to the Town Offices to straighten things out with our dear Marie?”
There was a sudden undercurrent of meaning to her voice that left Jake no choice but to step out into Granny’s tidy garden, with its pots of geraniums, flourishing beds of herbs, and peas, beans, and cucumbers winding up the rustic trellises. Gnarled fruit trees lined the picket fence, and Jake froze with the memory of climbing up just such a set of twisted limbs to steal an apple. . .
He became aware of flute music coming from the behind him, calling him back to himself. He just had time to recognize the impossible shadow that sat cross-legged on the roof, before the flowers and vegetables began to sway and unfurl themselves into the flute, drawing the entire garden with them to reveal the Story Land that lay beneath.
This time, it was not abandoned. This time the Story Land seethed with life. Magical creatures riding white horses with red ears pounded skyward from the carousel. Children spilled merrily out of the Old Woman’s Shoe and slide down its laced-up front. The wheels spun crazily on Cinderella’s Pumpkin Coach. The Briar Roses on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle twisted with life. And in the middle of it all, stood Marie chanting from an ancient tome as film spooled crazily out of Mother Goose’s Once Upon a Time Photobooth.
Jake coiled to spring. “Someone has been a very naughty little girl. Someone has been stealing secrets she shouldn’t see.”
Only to feel himself pulled up short—frozen in midair, hovering on the roof of the Wicked Witch’s Gingerbread Cottage. “Hello, Jake,” Will said. “It’s been a while.”
“No,” Jake said. “I saw you die.”
“You saw what I needed you to see,” Will said. “What the world needed to see.”
“But why?” Jake demanded.
“You were too young. You weren’t ready. But Marie forced the issue and I had no choice. She chose to challenge our Father for the secrets of the Archive and she won. She won that which you weren’t ready to protect. That which you were bred to protect.”
Jake shook his head. “But why? Why like this?”
“I’m the Storyteller. I can do it any way I want. It’s part of the Rules,” Will said. “But I can’t change the Challenge. Marie won. She won it fair and square. It’s her Archive now. I’m subject to her Rules as well.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Now that she is Archivist, Marie. . . takes her responsibilities very seriously,” Will said. “She disapproves of cutting corners. . .”
“Like faking your own death?”
“It might be simpler to say, I rewrote the story my own way. I caged the Wolf before it could do any harm. Locked him in the Gingerbread Cottage instead of Hansel.” Will shook his head. “Unfortunately, the way this plays out, the Wolf is needed. The Wolf is the Guardian of the Archive. The Wolf must guard against those who would venture into a forest too dangerous for most. Alas, there has been a breach. Someone has found the Wolf where I had caged him and is trying to bend it to his own ends. He is trying to seize one of our children and ransom his way into Dynan’s Clove. Which means the true Wolf has to come back. I’m sorry, Jake. I truly am. I thought to spare you this. But there can be no Kindly Woodman without the Wolf, just as there can be no Wolf without the Kindly Woodman. So now, I must have faith in you, Jake. The Wolf cannot be allowed to run free. You must take back the Wolf, Jake. You must be who you are. Wolf and Kindly Woodman at once. Two sides of the same coin. But you must master both.”
Jake blinked back the tide of déjà vu that threatened to overwhelm him. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”
“I rewrote the story in your head as well,” Will said.
Okay. That was at least a glimmer of sense. Jake’s mind went back to that file that had been so mysteriously returned to the Records Office.
“Okay. Let’s say I lived here once. And my father was some kind of crazy man. . .”
“Our father,” Will corrected him. “And crazy is a relative term.”
“So I saw him kill you. I’m the Boy who Lived,” Jake plowed ahead. “And now I’m hallucinating this. Recovered memories. PTSD.”
“If you find it easier to think of it in those terms,” Will said with a shrug. “But right now, you must do what you are born to do. You must challenge the Wolf and you must win.”
“Marie is one of us. She dared deeply and she won the Archive rightly. But this newcomer is nothing but a predator. This man cannot be allowed to succeed. You must reclaim your pack, fight for it as is your ancient right.”
Will snapped his fingers, and Jake landed on the ground, crouched, nostrils flaring, as he prowled among the sentient attractions, following the stranger’s spoor. He was the Guardian now. He would claim his pack.
The other wolves cowered and bowed as he prowled past. Aesop’s wolf cowered beneath its sheep’s pelt. The Big Bad Wolf slunk away, leaving his succulent prey to his master—as did the Wolf with the Seven Young Goats. The Wolf and the Fox moved as one to bend the knee.
No! That was wrong. That was the Beast thinking, not the Man. Jake needed to use his mind, not his rage. Jake was Search and Rescue. Jake knew how to follow a trail—even when it was disguised. And right now, if the searcher wanted to find his quarry, he had to understand that the stranger was not a wolf. He was trying to pretend to be one. Jake had to look for someone who was pretending to be what he was not, not one of his own kind.
There! The old-time Photographer at Mother Goose’s Once Upon a Time Photobooth, ducked beneath a hooded tripod, holding up a flash pan as he snapped souvenir photos of the plywood cutouts of fairy-tale characters who were suddenly bouncing with three-dimensional life. Jake sprang. And he had a quick glimpse of long ears and a snout with wicked yellow teeth, before the Photographer pressed the shutter and the flashpan exploded into light.
When Jake’s vision finally came back, he was face-to-face with Rosa Hudson, who was sitting on the steps of the Gingerbread House, picking through a paper bag of sweets, until she found a caramel and placed it in her mouth. In the machinery that operated the oven behind her was a mess of clothing and cameras, tangled face down in a vat of treacle.
“Well done, Jake,” Will’s voice receded—along with the Wolf, leaving Jake to wonder what he may or may not have just done.
Jake turned to the girl. “You want to tell me what happened here?” he forced himself to ask. “You see who killed him?”
She chewed, then swallowed before she answered, like any well-brought up girl taught not to speak with her mouth full. “Grandma and I did. The Wolf thought he had fooled us, but we knew better, didn’t we? Because Granny and I listened when they told the story. I never left the path; Granny locked the door to keep him out until we put a trough under the chimney and filled it with sausage water and the smell lured the wolf down, and it drowned.”
She peered into the bag of sweets again. “He didn’t like treacle, you see. He really liked sausages. Never trust a man who likes sausages, Granny warned me. They need to hide their soul as badly as the sausage-maker needs to hide the ingredients beneath the skin.”
*****
Jake fought the urge to retch as Marie pushed aside the photographer’s hood and swiftly knelt and examined the body’s ears and opened its mouth.
“Seriously?” Jake snorted.
“The mouth and ears are normal. This is not a wolf,” Marie said.
“You think?” Jake shook his head. “You have any idea who he is?”
Marie met his eyes blandly. “Logic would suggest he’s The Boy Who Lived.”
“Come now, Marie, you know better than that!” Granny snapped. “Although if that’s what you need to put in your report, I’ll not be the one to contradict you. But what he was is a thorough rotter, and the latest in the string of unsuitable boyfriends my fool of a daughter has brought home. And he will be the last! Rosa will be staying with me.”
Where? In the county lunatic asylum?
“My daughter is a fool and completely unsuited to raising a daughter,” Granny went on. “She got herself in trouble young and then used her own daughter to fulfill her own failed hopes. Unfortunately, her judgment in men didn’t improve with age. This latest one called himself a talent scout. He was going to make little Rosa an internet star. An Influencer, I believe the young people call it. Well, I couldn’t let that happen, now could I?”
“He said it was a game,” Rosa said, her attention still on her bag of sweets. “He thought he was trying to fool us. But Granny and I saw. Granny and I knew.”
“And Rosa was a very brave, very smart little girl, unlike her mother,” Granny said, giving Rosa an approving pat on the head. “Rosa wasn’t fooled for an instant.”
Sickened, Jake moved away, drawing Marie with him. “So what’s the code for this? A dead pedophile, a criminally complicit mom, and an old lady who’s gonna walk on dim cap—if she ever goes to trial.” Jake met Marie’s eyes. “She’s not going to trial, is she?”
“I just file the report,” Marie said. “It’s up to them to decide what to do.”
No. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t it at all. There was one person and one alone who was making decisions here. Jake’s eyes narrowed, his vague suspicions coalesced into something that resembled the utter, damningly clear, truth. “You’re behind all this, aren’t you? Somehow, somewhere along the line, you got wind of what this guy was up to, and when you couldn’t find a way to take him down clean, you took him down dirty. You made up the wolf; you warned Rosa and you warned Granny. No child could be capable of figuring this all out for herself. Or any old woman who doesn’t even know what an influencer is.”
“You could think about it that way if it makes it easier,” Marie allowed.
The echo of Will’s words made Jake pause at the memory of Marie always poring through the books he had been too lazy to study. The books he had been bred to guard. But only momentarily. For he was sure—at least of one thing. “I don’t believe in your Wolf. Or your Kindly Woodman. And I’m beginning to wonder whether I believe in you. If I call the FBI main switchboard instead of the number on your card, will you even be there?”
“Oh, yes. My credentials are quite in order.” Which even a cop as stupid as Jake had to realize was no answer at all. . .
“You’re playing me. You made the call. I wouldn’t be surprised if you engineered the flat. You know who I am. You’ve always known.”
“And who are you?” Marie asked.
Their eyes held for a moment in silent war. Who was he, really? The Boy who Lived? The Wolf? Or just a stupid sod with a case of PTSD and an imagination out of a nightmare?
“I suppose I’ll go with the Kindly Woodman,” he said with a sigh. “At least it’s easier to think about it that way.”
Erica Obey is the author of The Brooklyn North Murder, as well as five other award-winning novels set in the Hudson Valley, including the The Curse of the Braddock Brides. She is currently at work on The Riddle of the Fifth Earl, which was nominated for a 2023 Claymore Award. Erica is the Past President of the MWA-NY chapter, and a frequent reviewer and judge. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and published academic work on female folklorists before she decided she’d rather be writing the stories herself.
