Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

“He may have moved.”

“No,” Hester said.

“Or he may not be home.”

“Tim.”

He shifted the car into drive. “On our way.”

Tim found the turn on his third pass along Halifax Road. The thin lane of a road was almost entirely camouflaged so that it felt as though they were driving through a giant shrub. The vegetation scraped across the top of the car like those sponge noodles at a car wash. A few hundred yards south was the Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp of the... what did they call themselves now? Ramapough Lenape Nation or Ramapough Mountain People or Ramapough Mountain Indians or simply Ramapoughs, with their murky genealogy some claim came directly from the indigenous people native to this area or maybe native tribes mixing with the Hessians who fought in the Revolutionary War or maybe runaway slaves that hid amongst the old Lenape tribes before the Civil War. Whatever, the Ramapoughs — she’d keep it simple in her own head — were now a reclusive albeit dwindling tribe.

Thirty-four years ago, when the little boy now called Wilde was found half a mile from here, many had suspected — many still did — that he had to somehow be connected to the Ramapoughs. No one had any specifics, of course, but when you are different and poor and reclusive, legends spring up. So maybe a tribeswoman had abandoned a child she’d had out of wedlock or maybe in some whacky tribal ceremony the child had been sent into the woods or maybe he’d wandered off and gotten lost and now the tribe was afraid to claim him. It was all nonsense, of course.

The sun had set. Trees didn’t so much line the sliver of road as crowd onto it, the top limbs bending up and over and reaching across like children’s arms playing London Bridge Is Falling Down. It was dark. Hester figured that they’d hit one sensor when they made the turn, probably two or three more as they coasted down the road. When they reached the dead end, Tim made a K-turn so they were now facing the way out.

The woods remained silent, still. The car headlights provided the only illumination.

“Now what?” Tim asked.

“Stay in the car.”

“You can’t go out there alone.”

“But can’t I?” They both reached for their door handles, but Hester stopped him with a firm “Stay put.”

She stepped into the silent night and closed the door behind her.

The pediatricians who’d examined Wilde after his discovery estimated his age between six and eight years old. He could speak. He had learned how, he claimed, via his “secret” friendship with Hester’s son David and, more directly, by breaking into homes and watching countless hours of television. Along with living off the land in the warmer seasons, that was how Wilde had fed himself — foraging in human beings’ garbage cans, checking wastebaskets near parks, but mostly sneaking (aka breaking) into summer homes and raiding the fridge and cupboards.

The child didn’t remember any other life.

No parents. No family. No contact with any human other than David.

One memory, however, did come back. The memory haunted the boy and now the man, kept him up at night, startling him awake in cold sweats at all hours of the night. The memory came to him in snap-flashes with no discernible narrative arc: a dark house, mahogany floorboards, a red banister, a portrait of a man with a mustache, and screams.

“What kind of screams?” Hester had asked the little boy.

“Terrible screams.”

“No, I understand that. I mean, are they the screams of a man? A woman? In your memory, who is screaming?”

Wilde had considered that. “I am,” he told her. “I’m the one screaming.”

Hester folded her arms, leaned against the car, and waited. The wait didn’t last long.

“Hester.”

When Wilde stepped into view, Hester’s heart filled and exploded. She couldn’t say why. It had just been that kind of day maybe, and seeing her son’s best friend — the last person to see David alive — just overwhelmed her yet again.

“Hi, Wilde.”

Wilde was a genius. She knew that. Who knew why? A child comes out hardwired. That was what you learned as a parent — that your kid is who he is and what he is and that you, as a parent, greatly overstate your importance in his development. A dear friend once told her that being a parent is like being a car mechanic — you can repair the car and take care of the car and keep the car on the road, but you can’t fundamentally change the car. If a sports car drives into your garage for repairs, it isn’t driving out an SUV.

Same with kids.

So part of it was, well, that was what Wilde was genetically hardwired to be — a genius.

But experts also claim that early development is hugely important, that something like ninety percent of a child’s brain develops by the age of five. But think about Wilde by that age. Imagine the stimulation, the experiences, the exposure, if as a small child he really did have to take care of himself, feed himself, shelter himself, comfort himself, defend himself.

What would that do to intensify a brain’s development?

Wilde stepped into the headlights so she could see him. He smiled at her. He was a beautiful man with his dark sun-kissed complexion, his build of coiled muscles, his forearms looking like high-tension wires straining against the rolled-up flannel shirt, the faded jeans, the scuffed hiking boots, the long hair.

The very long hair of light brown.

Like the strand she’d found on the pillow.

Hester dove right in: “What’s up with you and Laila?”

He said nothing.

“Don’t deny it.”

“I didn’t.”

“So?”

“She has needs,” Wilde said.

“Seriously?” Hester said. “‘She has needs’? So you’re being — what, Wilde? — a Good Samaritan?”

He took a step toward her. “Hester?”

“What?”

“She can’t love again.”

Just when she thought that she couldn’t hurt any more, his words detonated another explosive device in her heart.

“Maybe one day she can,” Wilde said. “But right now, she still misses David too much.”

Hester looked at him, feeling whatever had been building inside her — anger, hurt, stupidity, longing — deflate.

“I’m safe for her,” Wilde said.

“Nothing’s changed for you?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. At first, everyone thought that they’d find the boy’s real identify fast. So Wilde — an obvious nickname that stuck — had stayed with the Crimsteins. Eventually, Child Services placed him with the Brewers, a beloved foster family who also lived in Westville. He started school. He excelled in pretty much everything he tried. But Wilde was always an outcast. He loved his foster family the best he could — the Brewers even officially adopted him — but in the end, he could only live alone. Other than his friendship with David, Wilde couldn’t really connect to anyone, especially adults. Take whatever abandonment issues any normal person might have and raise them to the tenth power.

There had been women in his life, lots of them, but they couldn’t last.

“Is that why you’re here?” Wilde asked. “To ask about Laila?”

“In part.”

“And the other part?”

“Your godson.”

That got his attention. “What about him?”

“Matthew asked me to help find a friend of his.”

“Who?”

“A girl named Naomi Pine.”

“Why did he ask you?”

“I don’t know. But I think Matthew might be in trouble.”

Wilde started toward the car. “Tim still driving you?”

“Yes.”

“I was about to hike over to the house. Give me a lift and tell me about it on the way.”