A Black Magic Tree Stump

by Regan Keeter

Don’t look directly at him, that’s what Juliana from my math class always says. And I should have listened.
But I couldn’t help it. I was just walking down Sampson Street, going to pick up some milk for my mom, and I almost ran into him. It’s my own fault—I was watching my feet, thinking about how I was going to ask Lou Anne to the eighth grade prom, and I looked up and there was his dirty gray shirt right in front of me.
I stepped back. My eyes followed the shirt buttons to his thick black beard and gray eyes. “Oh, my God,” I said. “Oh, my God. It’s you.”
He smiled like he knew all the stories I had heard about him—that he had been locked in his father’s basement for fifteen years, living on stale bread and rats; that his eyes had turned gray because he had spent so many years without sunlight; that he knew black magic and had turned
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Susan McCarthy into a tree stump when she called him an ogre. There are too many stories to remember them all.
But he smiled like he knew I had heard them. And when those few remaining teeth broke through that hairy beard, I knew they were all true.
His dirty hand reached out for my shoulder. He mumbled and whined words I couldn’t understand.
I ducked underneath his hand and ran home, no longer thinking about the milk. Actually, I don’t remember thinking about anything. Not until I got inside.
“Mom,” I said, “it’s him. That crazy man, he almost got me. He was going to turn me into a tree stump, just like he did to Susan.”
“Did you get the milk, Harry?” she asked from the kitchen.
I walked into the kitchen. “Mom, did you hear me? That crazy old man almost got me.”
“Honey, that crazy old man is just Bob Wilker. He grew up around here. He’s no one to be afraid of. Fate just dealt him a bad hand, okay?”
Still shaking, I nodded to let her know I understood. “But I’m not going back for any milk right now.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll get it later.” Then she ran her fingers through my hair and gave me a hug.
But I think she was wrong, because I see him everywhere now. He’s outside the school building when I go home. He’s standing on the corner when I leave in the morning. And even now, right now, as I turn off my bedroom light and slide between my sheets, I can see him under the streetlamp outside my window. He’s waiting for me.
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But I know that, just like always, as soon as I try to get someone to show them, he’ll be gone. I know he wants to turn me into a tree stump, I just hope I get to go to the dance with Lou Anne first. I really like her.