Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (24 page)

Julia thought over her
answer.
“When you’re in love with
someone, you think about that person all day. You long to spend
every last minute of the day with him or her. And when someone is
in love with you, they often try and be around you as much as
possible. And they’ll say nice, sweet things to you, of course,”
she replied with a smile.

Her sister bit her lip. “That’s the reason I
like going to the forest so much, lately,” she mumbled quietly.

“You’re in love?”

“When I go into the woods… to that place I
don’t want to tell you about… the Prince of the Forest is there,
too.”

Julia smiled indulgently.
“You mean the prince who’s helping you build your tree
house?”
Just Thorsten’s luck – the
wrong
neighbor girl had fallen for him.

Anne shook
her head. “I help
him
, he doesn’t help me. And it’s
not really a tree house, but an entrance to his palace.”

“Uhm... like
a gate of sorts?” Julia frowned. This story was getting stranger by
the minute, Anne apparently using elements of her fairytale to talk
about everyday life.

Suddenly,
this all felt wrong –
it didn’t sound like innocent make-believe anymore. Grandma was
right: something serious was going on if Anne felt the need to
escape into fairytales like this.

Anne shook
her head once more.
“No, not a gate. A tunnel.
But I can’t tell you where it is.” Her voice
dropped. “No one is supposed to know where it is.”

They
both kept quiet for a moment, a shiver running
down Julia’s spine as she held her sister’s gaze. There was
something profoundly wrong with the look in Anne’s eyes – she
didn’t look as if she was enjoying the mystery of her story. Anne
was deeply
afraid
. It hit her like a punch
to the stomach.

“Why can’t you?” Julia
continued carefully.
She didn’t want Anne
to clamp up again, so that meant taking it easy and not firing off
all the questions going through her mind at once.

“Because
… it’s a mystery. Just
like the prince remains a mystery to the adults in the real world.
They don’t see him for what he truly is.”

“And you do?”

Anne turned red. “Yes, but he told me I
wasn’t supposed to talk about him. Or about that place where he’s
building stuff. He’d get mad.”

Julia’s
stomach turned. She had no idea what was going on, but every nerve
in her body told her something was seriously wrong with Anne. It
was almost as though she couldn’t separate truth from fiction
anymore.
How was she supposed to handle this? She
couldn’t do this alone. It was best to call her mom straight
away.

She pushed her chair back
and stood up.
“Anne, I would really like
to discuss this with Mom. You look scared and I want to help you,
but I don’t know how. Why don’t you wait here while I give her a
call?”

Julia rushed out of the kitchen and ran up
the stairs to get her phone and call her mom.

Fortunately,
her mom answered on the second ring.
“Hey, honey.
What’s up?”

“Mom.” Hearing her mom’s voice suddenly made
her eyes water up. “Something weird is going on with Anne.”

“What do you
mean?” her mom cried out in alarm.
“Is she
sick?”

“No, it’s not that.
At least, I don’t think so. It’s just that she’s
telling all kinds of absurd stories about what she’s been doing in
the woods lately. You know she’s building a tree house with Sabine,
right? And she didn’t want to tell us where they were building it?
I know she’s also working on a fairytale of her own. It’s her
version of the Prince of the Forest, and now she’s telling me
the
prince
told her to keep her mouth shut about the location of the
tree house. She’s suffering from a case of puppy love for Thorsten
and she probably cast him in the role of heroic prince in her mind,
but this is seriously giving me the creeps. It’s so bizarre – I
don’t know what to think.”

“Well, didn’t
she simply make up a story to entertain you? You girls tell each
other fairytales all the time, don’t you?”

“No, Mom.” Julia swallowed
hard.
“She’s afraid.
Like,
really scared. I could see it in her eyes.
She said something terrible would happen if she talked
about it. She said the prince would be angry with her if she
did.”

Her mother stayed quiet on the other end of
the line. “I know Anne for her flights of fancy, but you’re right:
this doesn’t make sense,” she admitted at last. “If I didn’t know
any better, I’d say she’s used drugs, triggering some kind of
psychosis.”

Julia laughed
nervously. “I think
she’s a bit too young
for that.”

“Well, it’s just a shot in the dark.” Her mom
paused for a few seconds. “How well do you know this Thorsten
guy?”

“Not that well, but he seems nice
enough.”

“Do you know whether he smokes pot?”

Julia’s mouth
turned dry. She had no idea, but it wasn’t completely unlikely.
Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine Thorsten holding a joint
while playing guitar at some deserted spot in the forest, watching
the two girls at work.

“Are you implying Thorsten offered a joint to
my little sister while they were building their hut in the woods?”
she asked, her head spinning.

“I’m just
thinking out loud,” Ms. Gunther replied. “Maybe he has no idea what
kind of effect that stuff has on young brains. And who knows, he
might have actually told Anne and Sabine to keep the location a
secret for now. If Anne is drugged up on something, those words may
have morphed into a threat in
her
mind.”

On
shak
y legs, Julia stumbled backward,
sagging down in the easy chair in the corner of her bedroom.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t
conceive
of it. What the hell was he
thinking?”
Her mom was right: this had to
be what was going on. Thorsten had unwittingly scared her sister by
saying the tree house should be a secret, and he might even have
let her take a puff of his cannabis while they’d been at work in
the woods. He probably hadn’t meant any harm, but sadly he had
harmed Anne nonetheless.

“Do you want me to come home?” her mom
asked.

“No, I don’t
think that’s necessary. Anne is probably going to the pool with
Sabine in a minute, so she’ll be fine. But rest assured I’ll talk
to Thorsten today. He’s in
big
trouble.”

Julia ended
the call and stomped out of her room with a grim face. No matter
how sweet and nice the boy next door was, he had managed to really
piss her off now.
He should have stayed away from her
little sister.

“Anne?”
She popped her head round the kitchen door. “I’m cycling
down to Eichet to run some errands.
Are you going to
the neighbors?”

Anne got up and flung both
arms around Julia’s waist.
“What did
Mommy say?” she whispered.

“She said you
don’t have to be scared. The prince can’t harm you,” Julia said
soothingly, deciding to play along for now. “And if you really
think he’s scary, you should tell him you don’t want to see him
anymore when you run into him again.”

“Okay.” Anne pressed her
cheek against Julia’s shoulder.
“I
will.”

A few minutes
later, Julia rolled her bike out of the yard and dropped Anne off
at the neighbors’ door across the street. Sabine and her mother
were home and welcomed Anne with beaming faces, so her sister would
undoubtedly have a good time today.

Meanwhile,
Thorsten would have a
hard
time today if it were up to
her. Julia was hell-bent on talking to him, and if that meant she
had to disturb the peace in the local supermarket, she wouldn’t shy
away from it. So what if he was working and he had no time for her?
She was simmering with anger, and her frantic bike trip to Eichet
didn’t make it any better. When she finally propped up her bike
against the wall and ran into the store, she almost knocked over a
cart partially blocking the entrance. Her face flushed red with
fury, she cornered the first store assistant she encountered,
demanding to know where Thorsten was.

“Oh, he just went to the back to get
something from the warehouse,” the girl replied.

“Thanks.” Julia stalked toward the double
doors leading to the warehouse. Fortunately, she knew her way
around the supermarket because her mom worked here too. It didn’t
take long for her to spot Thorsten. Without breaking stride, she
approached him and stopped right in front of him, her arms crossed.
“I need to speak to you,” she said coolly.

He shot her a
puzzled look. “Uhm, sure,” he said, putting down the box he was
carrying.
“What’s up?”

“You have to stop saying
weird things to Anne,” Julia exploded.
“You can’t say things like you’ll get angry if she reveals
the spot where you guys are building that tree hut. She’s really
scared, okay? And my mom and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you
were smoking dope in the woods out there while working on the damn
thing. Anne is dishing up the most unbelievable,
psychotic
stories about it.”

Thorsten’s
eyes widened, a look
of deep incomprehension crossing his face. “I’m sorry, but
what
the
hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Anne.”

“Yeah, I got that.
I just don’t get the rest. To be honest, I
think
you
sound psychotic.”

Julia drew
breath and peered at Thorsten. He seemed to be genuinely perplexed.
He probably couldn’t have fathomed he’d have such a big impact on
Anne and her wild imagination.

“Okay. I can see how my story sounds
cluttered, but what I mean to say is that my sister has a very soft
spot for you and whatever you say to her influences her more than
you realize.”

Thorsten
heaved a sigh, shaking his head. “Look, I think you’re barking up
the wrong tree here. I didn’t help Anne and Sabine in the woods at
all. Well, I made a few sketches for them so they’d have blueprints
and I helped them haul some timber, but that’s about it. How am I
supposed to help those kids every day? I’m working, right? I’ve
been putting in shifts here four days a week.”

In the
silence that ensued, Julia too
k a few
hesitant steps backward as Thorsten’s words slowly sunk
in.

He hadn’t
helped the girls. He hadn’t even joined them on their trips to the
woods. So how on
earth
had Anne come up with that uncanny story of
hers?

“Are you sure you’ve never used drugs in
Anne’s presence?” she pressed on, but she could hear her voice
falter.

“Okay, that’s
it,” Thorsten snapped. “What kind of a person do you think I am,
huh? I don’
t use drugs, and even if I
did, surely it would never occur to me to smoke pot right in front
of my baby sister and her best friend! What gives you the right to
barge in here and accuse me of all kinds of horrible
things?”

“I’m sorry,”
Julia whispered, her face red with shame. Thorsten was absolutely
right. She’d been prepared to peg him as a
n irresponsible pothead just so she’d have an explanation
for Anne’s odd story. Julia wiped at the sudden tears in her eyes,
letting out a shaky breath. Now that it turned out Thorsten
wasn’t
the
dope-smoking loser she’d accused him of being, she had no ideas
left – except the thought that Anne was losing her mind.
Was her sister going crazy?

“He
y, don’t cry,” Thorsten said,
looking startled. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I
yelled at you; I didn’t mean to upset you. What exactly is Anne
afraid of, then?”

“I… I don’t know,” Julia stuttered in
confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Thorsten
pulled her closer, his arm encircling her waist. “I think you
should go home and talk with Anne one more time,” he said
earnestly. “Kids at that age can have vivid imaginations. Maybe a
bit
too
vivid. If you really think something is wrong with her, I
bet your mom could ask a specialist to look into it.”

“I will,”
Julia replied timidly.
“I’m truly sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” he
said softly.
“You’re just worried about
Anne, so let’s forget this ever happened.” He pressed a kiss to her
forehead and let go of her. “Why don’t you drop by my mom and ask
her if she knows what they’re up to in the woods these days? She
might know. Hey, I finish at three today, so I’ll come round and
see if you’re any better this afternoon, okay?”

Julia nodded. “Thanks. I’d
appreciate that.”

Still
f
eeling mystified, she found herself
dazedly standing next to her bike after leaving the supermarket.
When she moved at last, Julia got on and rode to her grandmother’s
house on automatic pilot. Her grandma was in the front yard
watering the plants. She waved when she saw her granddaughter
coming up the drive.