Matt Beers - The Bloodpines

The world works for some folks. Throwing a ball is easy for some folks. Mirrors are kind to some folks. Life makes sense to some folks.

To the rest of you, I dedicate this book.

C ommon Lester stood at the railing on top of the Watchtower and watched as the last few boys disappeared, laughing and cheering, down the path toward home. They wouldnt go far, though. The sun was setting and there was a designated campsite nearby where they would all spend the night.

The whole thing...the walk, the Watchtower, the non-existent bloodpines...seemed foolish to Common, but much of adulthood seemed foolish to him. This was just one more confusing piece of the puzzle.

He wasnt in a hurry, but he was growing impatient. Almost done over there? he called. His best friend, Abner Burnham, knelt on the platform at the top of the Watchtower with his hatchet in his hand. It was a tradition to carve your name into the tower once youd climbed it, one more layer of proof that youd come and claimed your manhood.

Almost, said Abner. Common walked over to inspect Abners handiwork. He had carved both of their names nearly a half-inch deep.

Good Lord, Ab, said Common. Did you need to cut it so deep?

I dont want it to wear off. Look at the names on here, he gestured around him at the graffito covering the platform. You can barely read some of them. I just want to make sure future generations of disillusioned boys know we were here. Abner had a habit of overdoing things, and he took perverse pride in knowing how obnoxious he was being in moments like this.

Future generations? repeated Common. You think our great-grandsons will still be coming up here?

Abner waved away the question. Im never having kids.

Common didnt pursue the comment. The wound behind it was still too fresh. Instead, he looked around at some of the other names carved into the platform. He recognized many of them. For generations boys had been coming up here to fulfill the rite of passage. Hed been excited himself to climb the Watchtower and see where the great forest of bloodpines had once stood, but now that hed done it he wondered what the point was.

I think Id like to have kids some day, he said, forgetting that he was avoiding that particular topic.

Fine. Have a hundred kids, said Abner. He put a few finishing touches on the carving and stepped back to examine his work. I hope theyre all girls and you have to find husbands for all of them.

The two boys, both fifteen years old, stood at the railing and watched the sun touch the horizon, another mid-summer day gone.

You ready to go back? asked Common, meaning to the campsite.

I dont ever want to go back, said Abner, meaning home.

You cant do this, Ab.

Why go back? asked Abner. So my father can control my every move? Or so I can watch Victoria get married off to the highest bidder?

Did you really think you had a future with her? asked Common for what seemed like the hundredth time.

I asked her to run away. Abner stared at the setting sun without seeing it. Just before the Jubilee. Her father was so preoccupied with preparations...It would have been a week before he noticed she was gone.

Your pa would have noticed, said Common.

Well, it doesnt matter now, spat Abner. She said, no. She said that it was better this way. She said that were from two different worlds and she wouldnt be happy living my life and I wouldnt be happy living her life. She sounded like her mother.

I think I agree with her, said Common. Abner shot him a dirty look. Can you imagine marrying into that family? Do you really want to be related to Simon Downey? Victorias great, dont get me wrong, but her brother has got to be the most unpleasant person Ive ever met.

True, agreed Abner. He couldnt even do the whole walk. Had to get a ride from his father.

And everyone knows it, said Common, but theyll all cheer like mad when he walks into town a full day ahead of the others.

I cant go back to that, said Abner. Not yet.

So, what do we do?

Abner looked south toward town and then north away from it. What do you suppose is up that way?

Mountains, eventually, said Common. Why?

A spark flared in the corner of Abners eye. What do you suppose wed find if we walked that way?

Not much, said Common cautiously. Loggers cleared out most of the trees.

But not all. They couldnt have cleared out everything.

You think there might be bloodpines out there?

Why not? asked Abner.

Nobodys brought back a bloodpine in nearly a hundred years, said Common. Theyre all gone.

Are they? asked Abner. The spark danced from the corner of his eye to the center.

Yes, said Common. He saw the dancing spark, had seen it before, and didnt like what it meant.

But how can we be sure? Wed better go check. Abner moved toward the stairs.

Ab! You cant go wandering around the woods for a week. Your father will kill you.

A week? said Abner, pausing at the top of the winding staircase and putting on his most sincere, innocent expression. This could take months.

I t was two days before the Jubilee and Parlay Burnham stood in the shade of a large oak tree. The leather straps around his thigh, never very comfortable to begin with, were unbearable in the stifling July heat. He longed to sit down, undo the straps, and remove the heavy wooden leg that dangled beneath his right knee, but that would have been madness. The other children knew about his disability and they made sure to taunt him whenever possible. To remove his leg in public, to flaunt it so brazenly, would have only invited further torment. He didnt even dare scratch at the straps.

Par preferred to stay indoors where he could be alone with a book, but his mother sent him out here every few days so that he could pay his respects to the man who lay beneath the gravestone standing twenty feet from the large oak tree. Abner Burnham, Pars father, died in the same accident that took Pars leg. One wagon-load of logs and one skittish horse was all it took to change the Burnham family forever. That was seven years ago. Par, now fourteen, had suffered in one way or another every day since. He sometimes envied his father, whose suffering was over.

After what he judged to be long enough, Par stepped away from the tree and winced as the leather straps pinched his thigh. He didnt know how much longer he would be able to wear the false leg. It was far too small for him and the straps barely reached around his thigh as it was. His mother had made such a fuss over the cost of it and bemoaned the day he would outgrow it that he had gone to great lengths to postpone that day for as long as possible. He avoided exercise and ate very little hoping to forestall growth of any kind. Whether due to his efforts or because of his natural build, it was hard to say, but he remained small and skinny and his wooden leg lasted far longer than intended, though it was several inches too short.

Par had adopted a shuffling gait that kept his wooden leg pressed to the ground to prevent it from falling off, but it still happened occasionally. When it did, he was forced to drop his pants to refasten his leg. He suffered this humiliation stoically, but the bitterness always lasted for days after.

His mother never seemed to notice how he suffered. She was too busy relishing her own suffering. Its not easy, she would say, supporting a son on a school teachers wage. And you wouldnt believe the looks I get from the other women around town, as though Id like nothing better than to swoop down and snatch up one of their husbands.