Mel raced the wind, which picked up speed every second. He neared his goal, a little stone ruin—the remnants of a spring house—at the far edge of the cornfield. Behind him came shouts of warning, a girl’s scream. He pelted through the doorway, his lungs on fire.
Crouched in the most shadowy corner behind some grayed roof planks, he strained to listen. They could come at any moment. Cornstalks whispered and shushed when brushed against. Someone running would gasp for breath. Coughs. Whispers, should there be more than one pursuer.
But the wind worked against him. It drowned the sounds in a gray roar that matched the amassing clouds. Distant thunder rumbled.
He peeked through a broken window. No one. An ocean of cornstalks whipping in the wind. The sky a sickly green. Scattered droplets of rain turned into a deluge. Thunder rolled and fingers of lightning flashed. He counted the seconds between flash and boom, to estimate distance.
“One… Two…” he whispered.
Boom!
“One…”
BOOM!!
Then roared the sound of a freight train.
He grabbed a loose plank, pulled it toward him, and laid flat down. The sky roiled in angry black and sickly green. The world screamed.
When he awoke, the roofing that had given Mel shelter had fallen and swept everything against the wall. He crawled out on his belly, rusty roofing spikes scratched his back, butt, and thighs. He winced as he emerged, eyes blinking in the light.
One of the ruin walls had fallen in—he thanked the Maker he hadn’t been on that side of the spring house. The sky was blue, cloudless. Birds chirped in the border trees. He stepped back through the doorway. The corn had been swept flat.
“Who’re you?” asked a boy. Mel spun around to see someone who looked very much like himself peeking out from around the corner.
“Mel,” he coughed. “Who’re you?”
“Burt. You new?” the boy continued to eye him warily.
“No. You?”
“No. I lived her all my life.” Burt adjusted his Pirates ballcap and scowled at the sky. Finally he shrugged. “You wanna play hide and seek? We already got a game going.”
“That’s what I was doing,” Mel explained. “These ruins are great, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Burt agreed. “Best hiding place in the world.”
They hid there among the ruins, crouched below the window, until a third person—an older girl in a pair of overalls—peeked in and surprised them.
She swatted her hand downward through the window, slapping Bert on the head.
“Found you!” she yelled, then she turned and raced back through the corn.
“Bert’s it! Bert’s it!” she screamed.
The boys started back through the field. The Bert turned, a sly look on his face, and tagged Mel’s shoulder.
“You’re it!” he yelled and tore off between the rows.
Mel gave chase, back over the hill to the little dell with the big chestnut tree—home base. He ran as hard as he could, but the going became harder as he went. He broke into the clearing to find a group of eight kids gathered around the tree.
“Mel’s it! Mel’s it!” Bert yelled as he tagged the tree.
“Who’s Mel?” an older version of Bert asked.
“Him,” Bert pointed Mel’s way.
“Idiot,” said the older boy, slapping Bert in the head.
Poor Burt, Mel thought. The boy rubbed his scalp.
The older boy and the girl who had tagged Bert “it” approached him—not in the happy sprint of kids at play, but in the slow walk of those who had been chastened, or forced home at the end of the day.
“We’re sorry, sir,” the boy began.
“For what?” Mel asked. He coughed again. Paused. His voice sounded lower. Older.
The two children exchanged nervous glances.
“For Burt… bothering you,” the girl said.
“It was no bother. I’m glad to finally—” Mel waved, then stopped. His hands were wrinkled and liver-spotted.
He looked to the pair. Burt. The others. The tree. Then back at his hand.
“I need to sit.” He sat with his back against the chestnut.
It came to pass, just as Mel suspected it would, that somehow he had been gone over seventy years.
“They still talk about the tornado as if it happened yesterday,” explained Allen, Burt’s older brother.
“It made the state news,” added another pudgy boy with a sheepish expression. “Especially because of the death toll—I mean, all the kids. everyone who died was a kid. My gram says she prays every day for those kids, and thanks heaven she got grounded for kissing Billy Blankenship the night before, or she might’ve been out there too—”
“Billy Blankenship?” Mel paused. “Your gram? Is her name Franny Dormont?”
“It was,” the boy seemed astonished. “But then she got married to Gramps, and now its Platt.”
“Platt, as in Mikey Platt?”
“No, sir. Marcus Platt. His little brother Mikey—my great uncle—died in the storm. He and two brothers who tried to outrun it.”
“—my guess is the boys who tried to run were the Farrelly brothers,” Mel said with a wistful smile. Gary and Greg were only a year apart. Daredevils. The bravest of their gang.
“A couple others were killed where they hid,” said the girl, whose name was Jolene. “The twister came right down the tree line, where all the kids were hiding. They still say the ridge and the spring house are haunted.”
“That’s why I hid there,” said Bert. “They’d never come looking—except for Jo, since she’s fearless.” Bert clearly adored the older girl.
“Funny,” said Mel. “I thought the same thing that day—they’d never come looking over there. Not that it was haunted, though I guess I must be the first ghost you’ve ever met.”
“But you can’t be dead,” Bert argued. “I mean, if you’re dead, we’re all in trouble.”
“Seeing as how we can see you,” added Allen.
The other kids agreed.
“But what happened to Jeannie Anne? The little girl who was playing with us that day?” Mel asked.
Allen smiled. “She’s my grandma. Bert’s and Jolene’s, too. And she married Billy Blankenship.”
“She did? Why that rascal. I oughtta –” He stopped at the sight of the kids’ expressions.
“He passed on in 1997,” Allen said. “Heart attack.”
“And Jeannie Anne?” Mel asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
Allen smiled. “She’s still living in the same house her parents lived in.”
“Is she really?” He remembered the sounds and smells of that kitchen, especially on Sundays and holidays.
“She is.” Then Bert paused and studied Mel’s face. “You’re great uncle Melvin, aren’t you?”
Mel nodded.
The other children looked very serious. “She talks about you. They never found you. Great Gram — she never got over you.”
“Bert,” hissed Jolene.
“Well, that’s what Gram says,” Bert protested. “Never got over him, and died a year later. Left Gram and Great Grandpa alone in that house.”
Mel stared down at the dirt. A small beetle crawled alongside his foot. A slight shift, and he could crush it.
“So you’re coming home with us,” Jolene declared. “You’re living history. It’ll be a sensation. Our own ‘boy who lived!'”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Allen said. “Jolene spends too much time reading.”
“Oh, reading’s not such a bad thing,” she insisted. Mel agreed.
“But they’ll want to interview you, for sure,” Allen said. “Find out where you’ve been. Maybe even put you on the news. Meet the governor.”
“Or the president!” A little girl who had played with them exclaimed. “I’d love to see the First Lady.”
“And make a movie about you!” said Bert excitedly. “You’ll be famous!”
Mel smiled at the children’s excitement, then shook his head.
“When I left that day,” he said. “I really wanted to hide. I never wanted to be it, and I never wanted to be found.”
“What are you saying?” Jolene asked, not bothering to hide her frown. “You’re not coming home with us?”
“I don’t think it would be wise.” Mel watched the corn sway in the summer breeze. The town lay just over the hill. he wondered what Main Street would look like. If Corner General and the old school yard had changed much. But where would he even begin rebuilding a life that never really was.
“That’s not true,” Jo protested. “Gram would love to see you! You’re her brother!”
The other kids steadfastly agreed that Mel should go home with Allen, Jolene, and Bert, and accept the fame that was coming to him.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Mel. “We’ll make a deal. I want to visit the spring house one more time. Just once, and by myself. If I return, I’ll come home with you. Okay?”
“We’ll come with you,” Bert said quickly, but Mel shook his head.
“This is a game of Hide and Seek for one. Of course, if I come back, we’ll have a lot more time together. But think: everyone who loved me is gone, or has already mourned me and gone on with life. Would it be fair to dredge up the past on them, show up so late in the game? I don’t think so.”
“But we’ll miss you,” said Jolene.
“My dear,” said Mel, “take a lesson from Franny Dormont Platt, and don’t be so free with your heart. It’s easily broken.”
And the kids watched as he stood up, stiffly, and trudged his way toward the corn.
“We’ll wait for you!” called Bert.
Mel looked at the sky.
“Not past sundown. If I’m coming back, you’ll know by then. And if you’re late getting home, there’ll be hell to pay with your folks, I’m sure. Especially if they’re anything like my sister—like my parents.”
He paused once more.
“Besides,” he added, “you play here often, right? Whose to say I won’t be waiting at the spring house? Maybe even my old self—my young self—waiting for a game of Hide and Seek?”
Then he gave them a smile, and vanished between the rows.
Nicanor Abbott 