It was a miscalculation—no doubt about it. I was sure the credit card charge would fly under the radar. I didn’t factor in my mother’s new eager-beaver accountant. Still, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. I bet my mother spends more than six grand on Botox every month. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if my father spent even more than that. He’s starting to look like a Madame Tussauds wax sculpture of himself. There’s probably a warning tattooed on his ass that says KEEP AWAY FROM OPEN FLAMES.
My parents didn’t stick around after they taught me my lesson. They had very important golf balls to hit, frittatas to eat and luxury leather goods to acquire, so I’m alone again, sitting on the edge of our pool with my legs dangling over the side. With my devices shattered, I’m trapped in what passes for reality here in beautiful Brockenhurst, New Jersey. My house is a fake French château, and my town stole its name from some fancy place in England. The grass in my lawn is a shade of green not known to nature. And the sausage in the Hot Pocket I’m chewing tastes like mystery meat that was grown in a lab.
You can touch Brockenhurst and you can smell it, but you’d be crazy to call it real.
Where our backyard ends, the woods begin. When I was a kid, the wilderness seemed endless; now most of it’s gone. I look for the path that leads through what’s left of the forest. The trail’s grown over, but I could still walk it in my sleep. It leads straight to one of the few old houses around here that was never torn down. The land it sits on is swampy, and until recently the building had been slowly sinking for ninety-odd years. That’s where Kat lives. I’d be there right now if she’d just let me talk to her. But these days my best friend bolts whenever I get near her. It cost me a few grand and a near-death experience with my father, but I got to see her in Otherworld. Unfortunately, in Brockenhurst she wants nothing to do with me.
Kat and I met ten years ago, when we were eight years old. My father had just made senior partner at his law firm, and he’d built this McMansion as his trophy. Thousands of trees were sacrificed to ravenous wood chippers, and our house rose near the edge of what would become the town’s swankiest gated community. We moved in on the first day of summer. Mrs. Kozmatka, the nanny my mother had hired, told me to stay on the grass in the backyard when I played outside. I wasn’t allowed to set foot in the woods, which my mother believed to be teeming with snakes, ticks and poison ivy.
In her defense, Mrs. Kozmatka was new. She knew nothing of my history. And for the first couple of hours, I gave her no cause for concern. I sat exactly where I am right now and stared at the trees. Everything seemed so much more alive in the forest. As I was watching, I heard branches snapping and leaves rustling. And then someone stepped out from the other side.
I’d been playing a lot of Harry Potter games that summer, and I was convinced it was some kind of mythical creature. It was pretty clear that it wasn’t a centaur, but I figured it could be a faun or a sprite. Even if the creature had spoken to me on that first encounter, I wouldn’t have believed she was human. I’d never seen another kid so dirty. She was covered in dried mud from head to toe. It was camouflage, Kat later informed me. And it worked like a charm. That day, when the nanny came outside, Kat took a step backward and vanished so completely into the woods that it was almost as if she’d been swallowed whole.
My tender young mind was totally blown. My family had just moved from Manhattan. The first eight years of my life had been filled with fancy private schools and playdates with kids named Arlo and Phineas. It was an ideal life, which was why my therapists had so much trouble identifying the cause of my behavioral issues. (Arlo and Phineas got their asses kicked on a regular basis.)
In hindsight, it all seems perfectly clear to me. I’d been kept in a cage my entire life. I wasn’t a kid. I was veal. And then this portal opened up in suburban New Jersey and I was offered a glimpse of an untamed universe. I didn’t tell the nanny about the creature I’d seen. Instead I spent the next few hours eagerly waiting for it to return. I was sure it was spying on me, but it didn’t set foot on my grass again. And by lunchtime I just couldn’t wait any longer. When the nanny went inside to make tuna sandwiches, I slipped into the woods to go find it.
I was only a few yards past the tree line when I heard Mrs. Kozmatka calling for me from the backyard of my house. When her cries grew more frantic, I stuck my fingers in my ears and kept going until I couldn’t hear her anymore. The deeper I went, the wilder the woods got. Everywhere I looked, there were signs of the creature. Boards nailed to the trunks of trees—makeshift ladders leading to lookouts positioned high above in the canopy. Lean-tos built with branches and bows, their interiors carpeted with soft green moss. A massive fort made from scavenged wood, plastic tarps and car tires. I climbed every ladder and lay inside every shelter. I felt like I’d made one of those discoveries no one makes anymore. I’d stumbled across an abandoned world.
That whole afternoon, I remember having no sense of time passing. And then suddenly I was hungry and thirsty and the sun was beginning to set. As it grew dark, I saw a light appear in the distance. I hurried toward it and discovered a little white house tucked between the trees. A gravel driveway snaked toward the other side of the woods. The place I’d found was no fairy-tale cottage. It was more like a tumbledown shack. Half of it seemed to be sinking, and there were several kitchen appliances rusting on the front porch. Patches of paint had peeled away from the walls, leaving the house looking sickly. But the light was on in the living room, and I caught the scent of bacon in the air. I was trying to work up the courage to knock on the front door when I heard the growls.
Three dogs emerged from the brush. They seemed enormous to me at the time, but they couldn’t have been much bigger than your average border collie, and all three of them were clearly starving. Their gray-and-golden coats were mottled and their skin clung to their ribs. The trio slinked toward me, yellow fangs bared. They’d been stalking me for a while, and they were ready to make their move. I was a plump little veal calf lost in the woods. I’m sure I looked absolutely delicious.
I grabbed a stick off the ground and backed away slowly, holding the large twig in my hands like a sword. I knew better than to run. I needed to climb something. I was so busy scanning my surroundings for a tree with low-hanging branches that I forgot to look down. I tripped over a rock, tumbled backward and fell to the ground. The dogs were on me in an instant. I waited to feel their teeth sink through my skin.
Then the air popped behind me. One of the dogs howled in pain and sprang at least a foot in the air. Another pop and there was a spray of sawdust from the trunk of a nearby tree. A third pop followed and the dogs fled.
I examined my arms and legs for missing flesh and bloody wounds, but much to my surprise, I was completely intact.
“Hey! You okay?” a voice called out to me.
I picked myself up and turned to face it. There on the porch of the house was a girl my age. I saw the hair first—a fierce mane of copper curls. Then my eyes moved to the pellet gun in her hands. The freckles came into view as I walked toward her. They covered the bridge of her nose and spread out over her cheeks. But it was the eyes I recognized. They belonged to the mud-covered creature I’d seen spying on my house. “Those your dogs?” I asked.
“Nope,” said the girl. “Those’re coydogs. Half wild dog, half coyote. They used to live farther out in the woods. Then you cut half the forest down. Now they’ve been hanging around here at night, eating our garbage.”
“I didn’t cut down the forest.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. People like you.”
“Where’d you learn how to shoot so well?” I asked. My eyes were practically fondling her pellet gun. None of my friends in Manhattan had that kind of stuff. If a neighbor had spotted a kid with so much as a slingshot, child protective services would have been alerted.
“My gramma taught me. She says you gotta be tough when you’re pretty and poor.” I must have stared at the girl a little too long. Her brow furrowed and her eyes turned hard. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’m not pretty enough. I shouldn’t be worried,” she snapped.
“That isn’t what I was thinking,” I told her honestly. “You just don’t look like anyone I’ve ever met before.” Which was true but completely pathetic. I probably would have seen lots of kids like her in New York if I’d ever left the Upper East Side.
The girl scowled, like she couldn’t figure out whether to be offended. “Well, I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met before,” she finally said. Then she glanced up at a patch of blue sky. “It’s going to be dark soon. Want me to walk you back to your house?”
“Your parents will let you?” I asked, shocked. My parents locked the doors and drew the shades as soon as the sun went down.
“My dad’s dead,” she said.
“Your mom, then?”
“She’s not home.” The girl seemed annoyed by my questions. “Where’s your parents, anyway?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. They don’t tell me where they go.” As far as I knew, they could have been in Hong Kong. They often showed up with trinkets they’d purchased at airports in faraway lands.
“Who’s that lady at your house who was on the phone all morning?”
That was when I realized how long I’d been gone. Hours had passed since I’d slipped into the woods. Mrs. Kozmatka would have called my parents, and they wouldn’t be happy. “She’s the nanny.” The last word slipped out before I could catch it.
“Huh. Must get boring hanging out with an old lady all the time.” It sounded like an observation, nothing more.
I was pretty sure I’d rather play in traffic than spend another hour with Mrs. Kozmatka, but it didn’t seem macho to say so. I shrugged instead. “I guess.”
“Come on,” said the girl, setting off down a path with the barrel of the pellet gun resting on her shoulder. I scrambled to catch up with her, and once I had, I paid close attention to the route we took. I knew I had to be able to find my way back.
That night, when we reached my house, every window was ablaze. I could see around one corner of the building to where a police car was parked in our drive. Its flashing red and blue lights painted the lawn, but there was no siren to accompany them.
“How many rooms are there in that house?” the girl asked.
“Lots,” I told her. “I’ve never really counted.” It was a lie. There were twenty-two.
“What do you put in all of them?”
I could have listed all the contents of my life, but the subject bored me. “Will you be in the woods tomorrow?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said. “I got a lot of work to do. D’you see the fort? Some of the walls washed away the last time it rained, and the roof keeps coming down.”
“I saw,” I told her. “I can help.”
Her eyes narrowed. She seemed unsure.
“My name is Simon.” It had been so long since I’d introduced myself to anyone that my name felt like a gift.
“Kat,” she replied. “Raid your parents’ garage tomorrow. Bring some nails and a rope.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Kozmatka was crying. My mother was draining a tumbler of red wine while my father conferred with a police officer in serious tones.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” said the cop, who’d caught sight of me over my father’s shoulder. He winked at me like the two of us were in on a secret. “Looks like someone’s been exploring the woods.”
I gave myself a quick inspection and realized I was covered in brambles and a leaf was sticking to the bottom of one of my sneakers.
“Simon!” Mrs. Kozmatka yelped. She started to rush for me, only to be blocked by my mother, a master of optics, who wanted the policeman to see her receive the first hug.
“What were you doing out there?” my father demanded. Even back then, he always seemed vaguely annoyed by my presence. Like I was a puppy his wife had wanted. He’d indulged her little whim and now the beast wouldn’t stop relieving itself all over the rug.
“I was playing,” I told him.
“Didn’t Mrs. Kozlowsy—” my mother started to say.
“Kozmatka,” said the nanny, who must have realized she was going to be fired and didn’t feel the need to take my mother’s crap anymore.
“Didn’t Mrs. Kozmatka tell you to stay away from the woods?” my mother said sternly. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? Officer Robinson had to come all the way out here…”
Officer Robinson looked a bit thrown by our family dynamic. “It was no trouble at all, ma’am,” he insisted. Then he knelt down in front of me. “Did you get lost?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Did you have fun?”
I couldn’t help it. I must have grinned like a maniac. The cop mussed my hair and stood up. He was a nice guy. Still is—though he wasn’t quite as helpful the next few times we met.
“Excuse me, Officer,” my mother began, “but I really don’t see—”
“Mr. and Mrs. Eaton, the woods around Brockenhurst are pretty safe during the day. That’s where most of the kids here play. My own girls included. Of course,” he said, looking down at me, “it’s a good idea to get inside a couple of hours before dark. There are some wild dogs that come out when the sun starts to set.”
“Wild dogs?” my mother gasped, as if he’d said lions or bears.
“We call them coydogs around here, and your son is no safer from them in your yard than he is out in the woods. You might think of getting Simon a slingshot or a BB gun and teaching him how to use it. The dogs are scavengers. Cowards. They won’t put up a fight.”
“Simon is eight,” my father argued. “He can’t be out running wild in the forest.”
“Why not?” the cop asked, and my father clammed up.
“I can’t see why Simon would want to play in the woods when he has toys and a pool and everything he could possibly want right here,” my mother informed the cop.
“You’re absolutely right, ma’am,” Officer Robinson told her. “I’m sure your boy has everything you could buy. But out there in the woods, Simon can make his own world.”
My mother remained skeptical, but my father must have felt that his manhood had been challenged. He sided with the cop. After that, I was allowed to leave the house in the morning and return just before dusk, covered in leaves and mud. No one ever asked what I did in the woods. I didn’t tell them—and I never breathed a word about Kat.
Over time, my behavior improved. I got into fewer fights. Kat and I built new worlds and burned old ones down. We ruled over our forest kingdom with barbaric benevolence. Kat showed me how to shoot, saw and hammer. I gave her my ridiculous weekly allowance whenever her mom didn’t have money for groceries, and I taught Kat how to curse in French. At school we beat up each other’s bullies and did each other’s homework. We bought our first game consoles together—and transitioned to PCs together. We were inseparable in every world we visited.
Kat was my best friend and my family for ten whole years, but I don’t think I ever spoke her name in front of my parents. She belonged to my world, not theirs. She was none of Grant and Irene’s business.
The sun is setting behind me. It’s a beautiful Sunday evening in Brockenhurst. A cold wind ripples the swimming pool water, and the trees at the edge of my lawn shove against each other like commuters boarding a subway car. Kat’s somewhere beyond those trees. She can’t be far. I can feel her. I hope she’s all right, but until I see her at school tomorrow, I’ll have no way of knowing. My Otherworld gear is just a pile of shards. I’m legally forbidden to use email. And Kat blocked my calls three months and four days ago.