Adam turned toward Scott. “What if there aren’t any cars?” he asked, secretly hoping that there wouldn’t be.
“Don’t worry,” Scott said. He motioned with the flashlight. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They continued up the trail.
This section of the path was shorter, and ten minutes later they were at the clearing.
It was freezing out tonight, but Adam was sweating from the climb, and so he took off his jacket. The cold air felt good against his skin, and he stood there enjoying it, looking down over the wall at the still silent highway, as next to him Scott sat down hard in the dirt. “Whew!”
“The tough part’ll be going down,” Dan said from behind them.
Scott snorted. “You’re crazy. We can slide down on our asses if we have to. Piece of cake.”
Adam checked out what he could see of the town, getting his bearings and trying to find his own house, but it was blocked from view by a low hill. He wondered what he would do if he looked down and saw their van pull into the diner’s parking lot. He’d told his parents that he was spending the night at Scott’s, and they said that was okay as long as the two of them remained at his friend’s house and didn’t go anywhere. He’d lied and said they were just going to watch the Star Wars movies on video.
To be honest, he was surprised that his parents had even let him stay overnight. They knew Scott, but they had never met Scott’s parents, and though he’d falsely portrayed his friend’s mom and dad as kind, caring, loving, happy Mike and Carol Brady clones, he was still surprised they had let him go. Back in California, they never would have been so lax, and while part of him was happy for this change, another, more responsible part was worried by it. He tried to tell himself that it was nothing, that they were acting this way because they believed this was a better, safer environment, but he could not make that rationalization stick. Deep in his heart he believed that they did not care as much about him as they used to.
His sweat had dried, and now he could feel the cold. He slipped back into his jacket and sat down next to Scott in the dirt. Dan remained standing, looking over the edge. Above them, a half-moon turned everything into silhouette.
“So what’s the plan?” Dan asked.
“You know what the plan is. Keep a lookout.” Scott turned toward Adam. “You take over when he gets tired.”
Adam nodded.
There was something different about Scott lately, too, although once again it was not anything he could pin down. Like his parents, his friend had seemed preoccupied recently, as though something was worrying him. And while Scott’s interests and actions were the same as they’d always been, a cruelty and harshness had crept in where before there had been playfulness.
None of them spoke as they waited. Adam picked up the flashlight between them and shone it on the dirt around him.
“What are you doing?” Scott said.
“Looking for spiders,” he explained. “I want to make sure there are no bugs here.”
“Don’t worry. If there are, you’ll feel them.”
The light played over the small indentations made by their feet before settling, near the wall, on an object with a red-and-gold pattern that he immediately recognized. He leaned forward for a closer look, not believing what he saw.
There in the dirt, half hidden, chipped and cracked with age, was a wooden Russian spoon.
The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He scooted forward, picked up the object. He could not have said what about the spoon so unnerved him, but finding it here seemed somehow—meaningful. That was stupid, he knew. There’d been a lot of Russians in McGuane over the years, and finding a piece of discarded trash like this was perfectly natural.
But it did not feel natural. It felt preordained, as though it had been left here specifically for him, as though he was supposed to find it. He could not help thinking that the fact that it was a Russian spoon and he was Russian and he had found it way up here in their little secret hideout had some deeper, hidden meaning.
“What’s that?” Dan asked, walking over.
He handed the other boy the spoon as though it was nothing to him. “A Russian spoon.”
“What’s it doing up here?”
“You got me.”
“Somebody keep an eye on the highway,” Scott said.
Dan handed the spoon back to Adam, and they returned to their original positions.
They lapsed back into silence, and Adam found himself wondering how this little clearing had come to be, who had constructed the path up to it. Its origin still seemed suspect to him, and the spoon made him think that maybe Molokans had built it.
But for what purpose? He looked at the low sandstone wall that separated Dan from the cliff drop-off. It was almost like a fort, like someplace built to be defended.
He had avoided thinking about the cave until now, had not even looked at the hanging succulents covering its entrance when they’d arrived here, but the image of that alcove in the cliff, with its hint of ritualism and unknown purpose, was imprinted permanently on his brain, and he could not get away from it. Even in avoidance, it dominated his thinking about this place, and he was acutely conscious of the fact that the cave was facing his back. He was tempted to turn around, to look at it—to make sure nothing was coming out of it
—but he remained facing forward, willing himself not to give in to temptation and fear.
Fear?
Yes. There was something scary about the hidden cave behind them. He was reminded of the banya, and when he thought about the cave he imagined the shadow of a Russian man burned into the rock of the back wall.
He wished he hadn’t come here. He had a bad feeling about this.
The spoon suddenly felt strange in his hand, and he tossed it over the edge. Dan ducked, thinking it was a rock, and turned on him. “What the hell was that?”
“The spoon.”
“What did you throw it at me for?”
“I wasn’t throwing it at you. I was just throwing it.”
Dan looked at him, and Adam knew he understood.
Adam stood. “I don’t like this place,” he admitted. “It’s creepy.”
“It’s haunted,” Scott said.
Adam looked at him, and he shrugged. “I told you. There are a lot of haunted places in McGuane.”
“And you think this is one of them?” Adam asked.
“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” Scott stood, walked over to the wall. “I don’t like the cave.”
Full-fledged chills rippled over nearly all of Adam’s body. His mouth felt dry.
“Let’s get out of here.” Dan’s voice was low, quiet, as though he didn’t want to be overheard.
“Nah, we’ll be all right.” Scott looked down on the empty highway. “Let’s give it another ten minutes.”
“I don’t like the cave either,” Adam said.
“I don’t know what it is, but it didn’t seem that scary to me in the daytime.”
“I thought it was scary.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
Adam looked at his feet. “Yeah, well…”
“I’m bored,” Dan said. “Let’s go.”
Scott smiled. “Bored? You’re scared.”
“So am I,” Adam told him.
“Another ten minutes.” He looked at the two of them.