Chris Grabenstein - The Crossroads

But she wasn’t there.

The passenger seat was empty.

On Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, a tanker truck traveled down County Route 13, hauling its load of fresh milk to the dairy-processing plant on the far side of North Chester.

It hissed and clicked its air brakes as it came to a stop at the crossroads. The driver looked up at the blinking red stoplight, glanced out both side windows, and checked for traffic coming in either direction on Highway 31.

Then his windshield exploded.

A tree limb slammed through the glass and pinned him to his seat like a prized trophy in a butterfly collection.

The branch had come from a gigantic oak tree that towered over the intersection.

An oak tree with a white wooden cross nailed into its trunk.

“This, of course, is Main Street,” Zack’s father said as they drove through North Chester.

It was Monday, a week after Memorial Day. After their vacation in Florida, the Jennings family was ready to move into their new Connecticut home. They drove up Main Street, which had so many old-fashioned-looking storefronts and cast-iron lampposts, it reminded Zack of that other Main Street—the fake one down in Disney World.

“There’s the town clock!” Zack called from the backseat. “See it?”

Because Zack and his father sometimes came up to North Chester to visit his grandpa, Zack knew all the tourist sites worth pointing out.

“Wow! That’s neat,” said Judy.

Zack and Judy and Zack’s father had had a blast down in Mouse Land. Riding rides, telling stories, laughing. His dad was loosening up, so Zack did, too. He let silly stuff tumble out of his mouth without being afraid that his mother might scream at him for being such an immature baby. His stepmother, Judy, seemed to enjoy his “flights of fancy”—that’s what she called it when Zack made stuff up.

“I’ve never seen a clock so big,” Judy remarked. “How do they wind it?”

“They don’t,” said Zack’s father. “It rusted out years ago. So no matter what train you take, it’s always the 9:52.”

“Yeah, but in the old days,” said Zack, “they used to have these monkeys and squirrels inside to wind it.”

Judy laughed. “Monkeys?”

“And squirrels,” Zack added. “Grandpa told me.”

“My father, like so many Jennings men, was prone to exaggeration,” said George.

“Well, be that as it may, I’d like to hear about these furry little timekeepers.”

“Okay,” said Zack. “The guys in charge of the clock—”

“The clockmeisters,” his father added.

“Right, the clockmeisters would put bananas and walnuts up in the top of the tower, up above all the gears and pulleys and stuff. Then they’d open the cages and the monkeys and squirrels would climb up the gear teeth to get at the food.”

“Gears have teeth?” Judy asked.

“Grandpa said that’s why they needed a dentist to live inside the clock.”

“I see….”

“Anyway, they’d climb up the teeth and that made the gears turn and that wound the clock.”

“Fascinating.”

“Grandpa knew the dentist. They played poker on Tuesdays.”

Zack’s father pulled the car into a parking lot fronting what looked like a fairy-tale cottage made of weathered brick and topped by a steeply sloped slate roof.

“And this is where my dad used to work,” he said.

“This was the police station?” Judy marveled. “It’s beautiful.”

“True. It’s also old. And drafty, especially in the winter. So the town built the guys a brand-new municipal building a little ways up the road.”

“But, ma’am,” Zack said to Judy with a thick cowboy twang, “when my grandpa rode the range, this here was the hoosegow where he locked up all them cattle rustlers and train robbers.”

“He wrote a lot of traffic tickets,” Zack’s father gently corrected him. “Rescued cats out of trees. Come on, Zack—we don’t need to embellish everything .”

Zack sank back into his seat. “Yes, sir.”

They picked up a few sacks of groceries at the market on Main Street, then headed out to see their new house.

“Wow,” said Judy.

She was admiring the scenery. Rolling hills. Stone fences. The whole state of Connecticut looked like the cover of a Christmas card, only it was summer now, so there wasn’t any sparkle-flake snow on the ground.

“That’s the entrance to Spratling Manor,” Zack’s father said when they neared a pockmarked driveway leading to a wrought iron gate.

“It’s a haunted castle,” said Zack. “Lots of evil lurks behind those walls.”

“Really?” said Judy. “Evil? And it’s lurking?”

“Yep. Grandpa said so, anyway.” Zack pressed his nose against the window. “Coming up next is the field where the Rowdy Army Men roam. Late at night, you can see them marching out of the forest.”

“Okay,” said Judy. “Just exactly who are these Rowdy Army Men?”

“Dead soldiers from the Korean War,” said Zack. “They got drunk and shot each other.”

“Oh-kay. Any ghosts at our house?”

Probably just my dead mother, Zack wanted to say, but instead he mumbled, “I hope not.”

Judy turned around. “Are you okay, hon?”

“Yeah.”

“Here we are.” His father eased to a stop at the red blinking light. “Home sweet home!”

Judy looked around. “We live in the middle of a highway?”

“No. We’re right over there.” Zack’s father pointed to the far side of the intersection. “See?”

“No. Sorry. I see trees and a squirrel. Maybe he ran away from that clock tower.”

Zack leaned forward. Good. No more ghost talk. They had jumped back to squirrels and monkeys.

“If you squint,” he said, “you can kind of sort of see our chimney between all the trees.”

Zack knew where the house was situated because he and his father had come up to watch the men building it one Saturday back in April while Judy was off on her Curiosity Cat’s Furball book tour. This would be her first time seeing the house.

“It’s right up there,” he said. “See?”

“Yes. No. I’m lying. I don’t see anything except trees. Wildflowers.”

“Wait. How about that giant oak tree?” Zack’s father pointed to a huge black tree. “The one with the white cross nailed to it.”

“Okay. I can see the tree with the cross.”

“That’s us. That tree is in our backyard.”

“Not another word!”

“But, Momma…”

“You’ll get us both fired!”

Early that same Monday, Sharon was down at the Spratling Manor carriage house visiting her mother and son.

“I swear I saw her, Momma. Last week. The woman in white. The one folks talk about…right in the crossroads!”

“Do you want Miss Spratling to think you’ve gone mad?”

“I know what I saw, Momma.”

The baby began to wail and kick.

“Now look what you’ve done. You woke up Aidan.”

“I’m sorry, Momma.”

“Sharon, you listen to me, girl: You are not to say another word about this. Not to anyone!”