Don't Call Me Dead

3. The Proposition

The little clearing is flooded with late afternoon sunlight. I find the boy sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, carving something into its bark. I come closer and look over his shoulder. The carving is a heart with two names inside it.

"Who's Kattie and who's Jack?" I say.

He jumps up and turns to me, dropping the knife to the ground where it remains stuck upright in the moss. He stares at me for a while, then remembers to start breathing again.

"Holy crap," he says, grabbing at his heart. "You've freaked me out! Worse than the first time."

"The first time?" Then, I remember. "Oh. You had a dog."

"Yes," he says. "Didn't bring him this time. After what he did to you." He clears his throat. "I mean, what he tried to do." He looks at me searchingly. "They say dogs go nuts like that when they sense danger, you know?"

"So you decided to come back without him?"

"No." He shrugs. "I mean, if you wanted to hurt me, you would have done so, right? Brownie wouldn't have stopped you. Yet you didn't. And you looked kind of sad. I played it all in my head later and I felt kinda sad myself. You get it?"

He picks his knife from the ground and turns it over in his hands. Then he sticks it into the bark of the dead tree and looks at me again. "I was just curious, you know. Like, what happened when Brownie attacked you, it was the strangest thing I've ever seen. I just had to investigate." He looks me over. "So, the million dollars question—who are you, exactly?"

"I don't know," I say.

He raises his eyebrows. "Where do you come from?"

"No idea."

"Uhm...did you hit your head and forgot everything?"

I shrug. "If so, I've forgotten that as well."

He looks at me suspiciously. "But you've got to remember something."

"I try to," I say. "It just feels like...you know, like my memory is a huge attic full of stuff, but it's too dark to see around."

"I see. That's...poetic." He crosses his hands on his chest. "Okay, unless you're some mean forest spirit, which I think you're not, I have a proposition. How about we go to the road, take a bus and get you to a police station? I'm sure they could figure it out."

I think for a moment. Can't see any flaws in his plan, so I nod.

"All right," he says slowly. "That was easier than I expected." He sticks out a hand and says, "Before we go, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Jack."

"And who's Kattie?" I nod at the heart carved in the bark.

"Doesn't matter." His cheeks go slightly red. "You're not shaking hands?"

"Sure I do." I reach out, but my hand goes right through his, and then he just stares at me with his mouth open.

* Thank you for reading! I hope you're enjoying this story! Please remember to vote, it would really make my day :) *