Part 2 of "In The Woods When First We Met"

220. A Palace Not Built to Withstand a Siege

I don't think Billy is a character who ever really feels bad about anything he does (at least not during Season 1, maybe he'll change in upcoming seasons). And I really doubt the boy who did this to me felt bad, I mean I'll never know but I just doubt it.

However.

It would make me feel slightly better to think that when people do terrible things they realize what they did and they feel bad about hurting people. I thought about having that be how the story goes: that Billy finally realizes what he's done and truly regrets it.

...But that is just unrealistic. I don't think he can actually feel real regret. So, I decided I AM going to have him feel bad, but he'll only feel a tiny little bit bad.

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After Billy ran away- angry at Jane and devastated by Josie's disgust at him- he did not know what to do. He wandered through the fields until he came to the woods. He walked into them and stomped around for a while, frustrated and with no way to express it.

As he wandered, he came across a tumbled down little structure in the woods. It was leaning against a tree, and since it looked inviting, he went in.

He looked around. Though there were dry leaves scattered around and the shelter seemed abandoned, it looked as if someone had been there in time gone by. There were a few boards stacked on each other, arranged for sitting on, and there was a big rock in the middle of the house. At first he thought the pinecones on the rock were just ones that had fallen through the cracks in the roof, until he realized they were arranged in a pattern. There was a branch that had been stuck through a knothole in the wall, and the branch had been decorated with tiny bits of cloth hanging from it.

He sat down on the seat that the boards made. He wondered who had been here.

He swept a pile of acorns out of the way so he could stretch his legs out, and as he moved them he realized the acorns had faces. He picked one up. A tiny face made with black ink smiled back at him.

He looked at it for a minute, then threw it at the wall. It bounced off the wall and the acorn cap came off. He started throwing them all at the wall, watching the caps bounce off one by one.

It felt good, but it wasn't enough. He started to crush the stupid happy acorn faces in his hands, feeling satisfaction every time one was destroyed.

He did not care who had made the little faces or how it would feel for the person to find them ruined. He cared only that destroying them made him feel better.

But once they were all thrown or crushed, he had nothing to do. He thought about shoving the whole house down, but then he'd have nowhere to go, because he didn't want to go home. This little shelter would have to be home at least for a few hours until he could figure out what to do.

What could he do?

Josie knew what he'd done. He'd told her that Anne had seduced him and that he was sorry he'd fallen for it. Now she knew the truth.

His parents knew what he'd done, of course, and the Cuthberts...and probably a lot of other people would know soon, too, now that Josie was angry with him.

He thought about running away, but where would he go? And he didn't have any money. He could steal, he supposed, but if he were caught he'd only make things worse.

"Ugh," he groaned out loud, feeling like screaming, but not wanting anyone to hear him, in case anyone was close by.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve. He hated that he had started to cry in front of his sister. But he couldn't help it.