The Box by The Box

Author:The Box
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765361431
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

As soon as she heard the truck turn off the road, Cora Wheeler’s quick right hand moved along the stove-front switches. Before her husband’s bootfalls sounded on the back porch steps, the bacon lay neatly in strips across the frying pan, white moons of pancake batter were browning on the griddle, and the already-brewed coffee was heating.

“Harry.”

There was a sound of pitying distress in her voice as she saw the boy in his arms. She hurried across the kitchen.

“Let’s get him to bed,” Wheeler said. “I think maybe he’s in shock.”

The slender woman moved up the stairs on hurried feet, threw open the door of what had been David’s room, and moved to the bed. When Wheeler passed through the doorway she had the covers peeled back and was plugging in an electric blanket.

“Is he hurt?” she asked.

“No.” He put Paal down on the bed.

“Poor darling,” she murmured, tucking in the bed-clothes around the boy’s frail body. “Poor little darling.” She stroked back the soft blond hair from his forehead and smiled down at him.

“There now, go to sleep, dear. It’s all right. Go to sleep.”

Wheeler stood behind her and saw the seven-year-old boy staring up at Cora with that same dazed, lifeless expression. It hadn’t changed once since Tom Poulter had brought him out of the woods.

The sheriff turned and went down to the kitchen. There he phoned for replacements, then turned the pancakes and bacon, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He was drinking it when Cora came down the back stairs and returned to the stove.

“Are his parents—?” she began.

“I don’t know,” Wheeler said, shaking his head. “We couldn’t get near the house.”

“But the boy—?”

“Tom Poulter found him outside.”

“Outside.”

“We don’t know how he got out,” he said. “All we know’s he was there.”

His wife grew silent. She slid pancakes on a dish and put the dish in front of him. She put her hand on his shoulder.

“You look tired,” she said. “Can you go to bed?”

“Later,” he said.

She nodded, then, patting his shoulder, turned away. “The bacon will be done directly,” she said.

He grunted. Then, as he poured maple syrup over the stack of cakes, he said, “I expect they are dead, Cora. It’s an awful fire; still going when I left. Nothing we could do about it.”

“That poor boy,” she said.

She stood by the stove watching her husband eat wearily.

“I tried to get him to talk,” she said, shaking her head, “but he never said a word.”

“Never said a word to us either,” he told her, “just stared.”

He looked at the table, chewing thoughtfully.

“Like he doesn’t even know how to talk,” he said.

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