“Ready?” a voice off-screen asks.
The camera pans to reveal Danny standing in a shady thicket, his cap turned back-to-front. He begins talking, pointing to the screen of trees behind him.
“One hundred and fifty years ago, these woods were witness to a terrible murder. I’m talking, of course, about Joseph Bray, the farmer who—”
Of course it’s about Joseph bloody Bray, Cathy thinks, resisting the urge to roll her eyes because Danny is watching her, not the screen, assessing her reaction. All the kids Danny’s age are obsessed with Joseph, just like they had been when she was younger. Idless is a small town with a long past, and, like the house on Beeker Street and the ghost of the packhorse bridge, Joseph Bray has become a town bogeyman, chasing teenagers down, down into their dreams since the day he picked up the axe and took his youngest daughter out to the barn barefoot in the snow.
Every Halloween, there’s usually about three or four Joseph Brays roaming the streets, bulging their eyes and baring their teeth, holding on to cardboard axes painted red with “blood.” The year Danny had dressed up as Joseph, he’d spent weeks building a papier-mâché head to carry under his arm, telling people it was his wife. He’d come home with bags full of sweets that year, his eyes sparkling with good humor as he held a severed head by the hair and swung it loosely around.
“Many people know the story,” the Danny on the screen is saying now, stepping agilely over a fallen log, “but few know that the Bray Farm is still standing. Somewhere. Out here in these woods.”
The camera pans round to show the thick forest. Ambient noises—rustling leaves, the wind, rapid breathing—become a roar. There is the briefest glint of metal, like the flare of sunlight on chrome. Danny is still talking.
“We’ve come out here to get some footage of the place where the Bray family saw their last sunrise. Who knows wh—”
“Shit!” a voice off camera whispers, sounding loud and distorted so close to the mic. “Can you see that, Danny? Is that a car?”
They are filming in what looks to be a small clearing of flattened grass ringed with deadfall. The foliage is colored in the muted golds and browns of early autumn, the light soft and gauzy.
Danny crosses in front of the lens as the camera lurches forward. More glints of metal, a rustle of movement, and Danny steps back to reveal a vehicle half-hidden in the scrub. Cathy watches as her son begins to lift the leaves and branches away, his grin turning slowly into a puzzled frown as he looks back up at the camera.
“It’s a truck.”
“You think it’s been abandoned?”
Danny shakes his head. He has revealed most of the pickup now, reaching up to brush the last of the leaves away from the roof. “Nah. It’s in pretty good condition. I bet one of these would cost, like, ten grand.”
“Why’s it out here, then?”
Danny doesn’t answer, but Cathy recognizes the look on her son’s face. He’s nervous, and she doesn’t blame him. Something about the situation doesn’t feel right. She thinks briefly of Mrs. Scott saying,He was in the truck that Hazel climbed into, and something squeezes her heart, making it flutter and palpitate.
“It’s been hidden,” Danny says, so quietly she almost misses it. “See? All these leaves and branches are just laid on top of it to cover it up. Someone doesn’t want it to be found.”
“Put ’em back then, man,” the off-camera voice snaps, and Cathy finds herself nodding in agreement. Even though he is standing right beside her, near enough for her to reach out and touch if shewanted to, Cathy is still very worried for her boy in the video. She can feel her pulse quickening, making her sweat.
“Why drive it all the way out here and then just leave it?” Danny-in-the-video is asking, rubbing at his chin with his fingertips. “There’s nothing out here. Where have they gone?”
Lots of places to hide in the woods, Cathy thinks. She opens her mouth to say something but then the camera is panning around again—the two boys have obviously decided to clear the hell out of there, and as far as she’s concerned, that’s the best decision they’ll ever make, when she catches sight of something. Only a flash, no more than that. Like a kingfisher flying past.No, not a kingfisher. It’s just the color. That bright, beautiful blue.
“Go back.”
She holds the phone out to Danny, who takes it from her, frowning in confusion.
“But you haven’t finis—”
“Go back. About ten seconds.”
Cathy is leaning over his shoulder now, her mouth hot and dry with excitement. She is almost shaking with agitation as Danny drags his finger along the bottom of the screen and the footage rewinds. She waits to see that flash of blue again, her finger poised to jab at the screen, pausing it.
“There! Do you see it?”
Danny squints at the freeze-frame. In among all those drowsy autumn colors is a flash of vivid blue. He enlarges the image with his fingers before turning the screen toward Cathy. “Is it a fish?” he asks her, still looking confused.
She peers at it. He’s right. A fish, floating among the treetops. Seeing it that way is surreal, particularly as the design of it is monstrous and strange, like something from a medieval woodcut.
It clicks then. “It’s a thing for the wind…” She gropes for the right word, gesturing with her hand while Danny and Scout both look at her with identical expressions of confusion. “Come on, you know what I mean. It’s a thing that turns in the wind. Fuck, it’s aweather vane!”
“Oh.” Danny sounds disappointed, like he’d been expecting more. “Is that all?”