MATT'S DAD CAME IN just before dinner. During the meal Charlie couldn't stop talking about how the company that owned the construction equipment suspected he'd damaged their vehicles through his own negligence, and they were going to pay him a visit to find out what was going on. In the meantime, he'd found another company to lease him a backhoe. Now he could divert the stream that ran down the hill, and clear the way for more construction. Normally Matt would have joined in the dinner conversation. But tonight the pain in his heel made him quiet, and nobody seemed to notice the difference.
When bedtime came, Matt's foot was bothering him more than ever. With the bedroom door closed behind him he went to the drawer and pulled out the little shoe. Lying in the palm of his hand it looked innocent enough. He touched the heel. Don't toy companies have rules about safety, and stuff like that? he thought. Why would they make something this sharp? Who knows. Maybe the shoe's really old and it's been buried in the dirt back there for a hundred years, before anybody thought about kids getting hurt. But then, a hundred years ago, there was nothing but a big, empty forest back there. In fact, just six months ago there was nothing back there but forest.
Matt put the shoe back in the drawer, tucked behind a stack of shirts. Maybe if his foot didn't get better he'd need to show the doctor the doll shoe so they could do tests on it and find out what kind of bacteria or viruses it might have had on it. If his foot healed on its own, the shoe would stay hidden. He'd have to volunteer to help his mom put away any clean laundry, to make sure she didn't get into that drawer. Matt hobbled over to his bed beneath the window. He crept under the covers and stared up at the ceiling. The light on the bedside table threw shadows around the room. Most likely his foot would feel better in the morning, and he'd forget all about it. Matt pictured the jewel-encrusted shoe. It crossed his mind for a moment that the little jewels might be real, and that the thing was worth a fortune. But that's stupid, he thought. If only I'd kept my sneakers on …
Matt's foot throbbed. He remembered that back in their old neighborhood there was a guy, an Iraq War vet, who lived down the hill in a first-floor apartment. He didn't have any legs, just pants bunched up around his hips. He used to scoot his wheelchair down the block to the liquor store, and then back to the deli where he bought lottery tickets and cigarettes. Matt wondered what it would feel like to have his injured foot cut off. Could the doctors fit him with some kind of high-tech mechanical foot? Would he have to go to a special school? Or would he have to spend the rest of his life on crutches, or maybe in a wheelchair, with his mom pushing him around?
What if the infection in my foot is really, really bad? Matt wondered. What if it spreads to my leg, or my brain? What if I go insane, like some dog in a horror movie, foaming at the mouth and attacking other people? Why did Mom have to tell me all the nasty things that could happen?
Matt found himself drifting off to sleep, and the ache in his foot began to pulse. Voices whispered in his head. Something like wind chimes tinkled in the distance. Part of Matt's brain wondered if he had a fever, if he was hallucinating. The voices grew clearer.
"What excuse, what lie conceals,
What fate befalls the Soul who steals?
Who's proven, by his act, a thief?
And is there hope for some relief?
The culprit walks a slippery slope;
To change course is his only hope.
The shoe was never his to own.
Is not his conscience like a stone?
He cries in shame, alas, alack;
And knows that he must give it back!"
Matt turned in bed, pulled the blanket tighter around his chin, dragged his pillow over his head, but the voices wouldn't stop. They kept repeating the same strange poem, chanting the refrain, Give it back, give it back, give it back.
Matt was certain he was losing his mind. He sat up in bed, and held his breath at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall toward his room. Maybe it was just the pounding of his heart, or the throb of pain in his heel. Maybe it was something else. Matt remembered a story from his childhood, something about a ghost who comes to haunt the person who found a severed toe in the grass outside his cabin. Bony toe, the ghost in the story called, give me back my bony toe!
Little fingers curled around the edge of the bedroom door. A shadow cast by a light at the end of the hall leapt into Matt's room as the door swung wide. "Matt?" whispered Becky, standing there with her hair tousled, and a blanket and a pillow in her arms. "Matt, I had a bad dream, and when I went into Mommy's room Emily was already in bed with them. Can I sleep here with you tonight?"
Becky wasn't used to having a room of her own. Neither was Matt, for that matter, so he limped to his closet, pulled out his sleeping bag, and spread it out on the floor next to his bed. "This is just for tonight," Matt grumbled. "Don't make a habit of it."
Secretly he was glad for the company. Before he fell asleep again, Matt glanced at the dresser drawer where the little shoe lay, and felt very foolish. He also thought that tomorrow would be a good time to get rid of the thing for good.
The morning sun spilled through the window of Matt's room, waking him before he was ready. He pushed his rumpled bedsheet aside and stepped onto the floor. "Aaaangh!" he cried. The pain in his heel rocketed straight to his brain. For a moment he thought he might pass out. Becky's face was buried in her pillow, and she groaned. "Is it daytime already?"
Ten minutes later the pair stumbled down the stairs. Charlie raced around the kitchen searching for his keys, while Matt and Becky slid into their seats at the table. Matt sat with his head in his hands as Jill spooned mashed apricots into Emily's mouth. Becky yawned and reached across the table to rub her sister's hair. "Kids," Jill asked, "can you get your own breakfast?"
"I'm not hungry," Matt mumbled.
"Me neither," said Becky. "I didn't sleep too well."
"You didn't have to get up," Jill said. "Why don't you go back to bed?"
Becky stole a glance at Matt, feeling a little embarrassed about having slept on the floor of his room. "I had some bad dreams. It's time to get up anyway, I want to fix my room today. Matt's going to help."
Charlie turned to his wife. "Jill, I'm supposed to meet the crew up on the ridge at eight, and I can't find my keys."
"They're hanging from the ring on your belt," Jill said, rolling her eyes. "Do you have your cell phone?"
"Nah, I forgot to charge it."
"Again?" Jill sighed.
Matt shifted in his seat. The throbbing in his foot was impossible to ignore, and he had to keep his heel off the floor. His mind wandered back to the weird chanting he heard in his dreams. Something about give it back, give it back … "See you guys at dinnertime," Charlie said, slipping out through the French doors.
Matt hobbled to the window over the sink and stared out at the woods. "Give it back, give it back," the voices kept repeating, and Matt began to feel like the voices weren't just in his brain. They were coming from outside, maybe from the woods beyond the construction site. It was just too weird. He thought of the doll shoe hidden in the drawer upstairs. His chest felt tight; he tried to push the feeling of panic away. "Are you okay, Matt?" his mother asked.
Matt heard her voice like it was a hundred miles away. Somebody, or something, wanted the stupid doll shoe back. What else could it be? It was dumb, he knew, but he couldn't shake the feeling. "What excuse, what lie conceals, what fate befalls the Soul who steals?" the voices cried.
"What?" Matt said. He blinked, and stared into the woods. Were those figures milling behind the trees? Matt felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Nothing. "I think I'm going to go back to bed," he said.
"I hope you're not getting sick," Jill said. "Are you coming down with something?"
"I'm okay," he lied. "Just tired, that's all."
Matt looked at his baby sister, sitting cheerfully in her high chair. He noticed Becky staring at him, her eyes wide. "You promised you'd play with me," she said.
Matt's foot was throbbing. All he wanted to do was get into bed. "I already helped you get your dolls unpacked, didn't I?" he muttered, casting a quick glance at the window. He was certain that he had seen movement among the trees.