The Madrona Heroes Register: Underneath It All

Chapter 35 - The Ice Cream Break

Ever since Gore Grater had seen the children escape into the forest, he’d been focusing his efforts on the woods and the streets immediately surrounding the Madrona woods. In the time he’d been searching without success, his philosophy had also changed. If Dr. Trace wanted to see the kids use their powers, why wait for them to use them on their own. 

Gore wasn’t entirely sure what he’d seen at the fence, but it didn’t look like the little girl unlocked the padlock with a key. It looked like she’d broken it into pieces and then somehow reassembled it. Was that one of them using their powers?

Gore suspected it was. And it didn’t just happen. It happened because Gore himself had pushed them into a corner. Gore intended to find those kids and as many corners as it took to get them to reveal what they could really do.

Gore didn’t enjoy traipsing around in the woods. Despite the shade, he would get sweaty quickly as the paths in the woods crisscrossed the hillside and invariably had him hiking uphill for some amount of time. He’d seen one particular tree no fewer than three times. He knew because its bark was peeling profusely.

“Are you enjoying our woods?”

Gore stopped in his tracks, almost tripping over the old man crouched by the side of the path. “What are you doing in the path? I almost tripped.”

“I’m repairing the path so you don’t trip.” Caleb Adams responded. “So you can enjoy the woods.” Caleb smiled.

“Hmm.” Grater grimaced. He was breathing heavily from all the walking. “Have you seen a bunch of kids running around here?”

“Can’t say that I have.” Caleb had resumed attending to the rocks that had been dislodged from the side of the path. “May I ask why you’re looking for them?”

Grater had to stop for a moment, realizing that he hadn’t prepared for a question like this.

Caleb continued in Grater’s silence. “Maybe, Mr. Grater, if I see them I could tell them you’re looking for them.”

Grater’s hand involuntarily went up to his name embroidered on his pocket, and then went back down as it was too late. The old man knew his name. “I, I, well, it’s official business. Nothing bad of course. Just need to find them.”

Caleb stopped what he was doing, and stood up. Even though his height had started to diminish over the past decade or two, he was still taller than Grater by a couple of inches. Caleb smiled, but his eyes were steel. “Of course. Official business. I understand. But I think you shouldn’t look in these woods anymore. Do you understand? These woods, they scare you. Badly. And besides, there are never any kids in these woods, so you can do your job without ever coming in here.” Caleb paused for a moment and then added, “You should probably go now.”

As the old man spoke, Grater’s eyes darted from branch to branch. His head swiveled suddenly at every tiny animal sound. Beads of sweat formed on Gore Grater’s forehead and started their slow descent down his thick face.

“You’re sure there aren’t any kids here?” Grater asked, his voice filled with dread. “I saw some run into the woods the other day.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure. They might hang out around the edges, but they would never go beyond that. They get too scared in here. Don’t worry, you’ll still be doing a good job even if you never come into these woods again.”

Gore Grater turned on his heel and ran down the path towards the edge of the woods without another word.

§

“We’ve covered the neighborhood twice already. There’s no sign of him.” Zoe said in frustration.

“Rembrandt or Ollie?” Binny asked.