Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

He sighed and hopped away, with his limping broke-legged step.

I started spending more and more time alone, at the edge of Carrolton. My favorite spot was right outside the city, near a fringe of old buildings and a short stone wall about waist high, just before the town vanished into woods. It was as close as I could get to somewhere I loved and still be in the town. Nearby was an abandoned church, the congregation long driven out or died, with an old graveyard sitting right next to it. Only twenty or thirty busted and unkempt headstones were left, and the church building was roofless except for the spire, a crooked finger pointing up to heaven. It was maybe my favorite place in all Carrolton. I would go there and hide on my own sometimes, just to be secret.

On those days I would lean against a headstone and watch the sun crawl across the sky, the shadows of the tree limbs stretch into bony fingers and gray out into the dusk light. Sometimes the tree shadows on the grass were like words in a book, and sometimes I thought I could read them, like the trees were spelling out stories with their hands. It was like everything was talking to me. The leaves would swirl and I could catch a glimpse of something, a picture and a word. Caterpillars thick as baby arms traced their names on tombstones. I would sit and watch the spiders build homes in the air, strands of string wispy as breath, like the spiders were speaking out their world. The spiders would catch bigger bugs in the webs, hung up on spider words, and spin their dinner up tight, wrapped like a present. I would listen to the animal sounds windblown from the forest, the strange scratching song of the woods while a cold breeze prickled my neck.

Sometimes it felt like the woods knew me, that as I lay dozing the wind would whisper my name and I’d jolt awake, startled, Bobba’s voice still ringing in my ears, the faint smell of baking wafting through the air. On those days I hated the kids in town most of all. Tommy would bring a kid over to play and I’d rather spit than speak his name.

Even so, life with Tommy and Aunt Barbara was fine, more or less. But then I did something. At least, I think I did, and it made everything go wrong.

A month ago, Tommy asked me to go play hide-and-seek with some of the other kids, a few boys, and this one horrible girl, a pigtailed, gappy-toothed blabby rich girl named Sylvia.

“Ugh,” I said, “why?”

“Because she’s great!” Tommy said. “When you get to know her, you’ll just love her.”

That’s when I realized Tommy had a crush on Sylvia. What was even worse was that he expected me to become friends with her. But I said I would go, and I promised to be nice.

We played on the edge of Carrolton, by my happy graveyard place. Playing there was my idea. I figured if I had to be with the other kids, at least it could happen somewhere I liked.

Sylvia counted at base, the giant oak tree that marked the beginning of the woods. I didn’t much want to play, so after everyone ran away to hide, I snuck off into the woods, even though it was off-limits. I missed the woods so much I couldn’t help it. Besides, Sylvia had only counted to sixteen. She still had thirty-four more to go. I crept past her and into the trees, just a few hundred feet, not far at all. I nestled behind a sprung-out root of a big leaning oak. I figured I could sit awhile and let Sylvia run down someone else before I snuck back and took my usual hiding spot behind an old cracked tombstone that just said Stump on it.

It was nice and cozy in my spot. I took off the shoes Aunt Barbara made me wear and let the dirt touch my toes. A bird sung out, a robin. They always sound so sad to me. It was the loveliest sound I’d heard in months, a mystery voice, not at all human, calling from where I couldn’t see. I decided this was my new favorite spot, and I would come here any time I wanted, even if it was in the woods and off-limits. This was a safe spot. I shut my eyes and listened and smiled, let all the forest smells and sounds and feels swallow me up.

“I caught you!” chirped an awful girl voice. I opened my eyes. Sylvia stood there, her ugly finger poking out at me. “I caught you and that means you’re it!”

“How did you know I was out here?” I said.

“I saw you when I was counting,” she said. “I peeked.”

“You cheated,” I said.

“Well, you cheated first,” said Sylvia. “The woods is off-limits. Everybody knows that.” She was so pleased with herself it made me want to sock her. “Doesn’t matter anyway. You’re still it.”

Sylvia skipped off through the trees, toward the town wall, singing, “Goldy’s it, Goldy’s it, I caught Goldeline!”

I got mad. It was her voice I think, the shrill horribleness of it. It made me crazy, like when rusty metal is scraped together. I shut my eyes and plugged my ears and tried to block it out. But in my mind I still saw Sylvia, plain as day, skipping toward town. I saw all the darkness of the woods stirring, black and alive. I twitched my fingers, gathering it all together, all the dusky damp places, the tree shadows, the cool spots under rocks—I gathered the dark together into something I could hold, twisted and gnarled as an old oak branch, cold and heavy in my hands. I swung it at Sylvia, straight at her knee. It was all in my head that I did this, like a make-believe game I was playing alone with myself.

I opened my