Town of Wrenoakey, New Hampshire
Ryan Avery woke to find himself inside the abandoned Cooper's Car Wash again. He felt the cold concrete against his back, and his eyes flew open. The unfinished, rusted pipes of the car wash came into focus above him, laced with spiderwebs and climbing vines, and he sat up with a start. The morning light was purple-gray, and the din of birds in the nearby woods filled his ears. As he pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the worn, white-washed brick walls on either side of him, he rubbed a nervous hand over his mouth.
He shivered with the chill of the early summer morning and a familiar sense of rising panic. Normal people did not wake up miles from home in abandoned car washes he thought as a shiver moved over him. The idea of not being normal made his breath catch in his chest.
He walked briskly toward one wall of the car wash and touched it, hoping it was a dream this time. He wanted his hand to move through that wall and the car wash to dissolve as he woke safely in his bed at the Bramble Farm.
That didn't happen.
He let out a disappointed huff as he felt the whitewashed bricks solid and cold under his fingers. He was here again. Miles from home. The jittery panic was trying to claw its way up from the deep place he kept it locked in. How could he have slept walked this far? What if people saw him? He ran a hand over his messy brown hair and began to pace as he told himself what he often did, "Panicking never helps. Get a grip."
He stood for a moment shivering in his thin tee shirt and sweatpants, when he suddenly realized he was wearing his old, tattered black sneakers. He stared at them for a long moment as he realized one was tied in too many loops and some tiny bit of root was wedged into the knots.
Did he put his sneakers on last night? Or did someone else?
His heart thumped behind his thin black tee shirt and his hands were sweating now. He squatted down and tugged the root from the laces and threw it away. He fought the urge to pull off his sneakers and chuck them into the nearby field, but he didn't relish the idea of walking the two-and-a-half-mile walk back home in his bare feet. He did that the last time.
The abandoned Cooper's Carwash was up the long, muddy, pothole-riddled road that sliced between a thick forest of pine trees. This unpleasant road had been named 'Go Away Road' by the people in town due to the many unfriendly signs that Old Man Cooper had nailed to the trees. The signs were hardly needed. It was a narrow, dark, muddy car-rattling nightmare to drive on, so it was rarely used, even though the fork to the right provided a shortcut to homes on Corlisston Street.
No one ever took the fork to the left. It was a dead end to this decaying single-stall car wash huddled next to the rubble of a collapsed barn. Everyone believed it was cursed. It stood in a small clearing of overgrown grass surrounded by woods. It belonged to Old Man Cooper, an antisocial chicken farmer who'd died ten years ago. The shell of his old farmhouse was cleaved down the middle by a huge oak that had fallen in a violent storm all those years back. The tree had not hit Old Man Cooper, but he was found dead in his bed with his funeral suit hanging nearby. The reason why he built a car wash died with him, but Ryan suspected it would not have been a story that made any sense. The town, however, had determined that in both life and death, he was a man to avoid.
This car wash felt like some kind of altar of craziness. The inside was whitewashed, but the outside was painted black with faded, child-like images of tiny antique-looking trucks floating atop clouds filled with tiny toads. Below the trucks was painted a large cemetery where ghosts hovered near headstones holding skulls. At the gate of the cemetery, three black hairy monsters with bright red eyes stood guard. Just inside the car wash, a rusted metal box was welded to one wall with the word "Tickets" nearly faded off over a small slot, and more strangely an old candlestick phone covered in layers of dust and webs sat on top of the box. Stranger still was the shelf that held a box of old soap flakes, a tin pail of dried mushrooms, and a metal oil lamp in the shape of Santa Claus with a smile of pointed teeth.
While Ryan did not believe Old Man Cooper was dangerous, he did believe the town of Wrenoak was filled with crazy people and he did not want to become one of them. Whatever parts of him might be broken, he intended to keep to himself while he found a way to fix them. He would certainly not be telling his Aunt Hattie about this new bout of sleepwalking. She would likely attribute it to ghosts, magic, or some kooky paranormal thing as she always did.
Ryan had to figure out what was going on in his subconscious that would make him come here. He couldn't be crazy. He was too logical for that, he thought. He was the outlier in this town that made their business selling paranormal lies to stupid tourists.
He was going to install a lock on the inside of his bedroom door today so he could lock himself in his room. That would solve the sleepwalking problem.
Having a plan made him feel more in charge. He blew in his hands to warm them up and jumped around in the car wash a bit to get warm. He was going to get this day going and do what needed to get done.
Then he smelled the faint smell of a fire wafting in and carrying a hint of bacon cooking.
He furrowed and peered out of the car wash, jerking himself back inside when he saw the familiar figure sitting by a campfire tending to a pan of bacon just yards away.
"I thought you were going to sleep longer," she called out to him. "The bacon's not done yet."
Ryan peered back out of the car wash and watched the tiny, ancient-looking woman adjust a coarse gray blanket over her bony shoulders. She smiled a crooked smile that bunched the wrinkles up around her eyes and waved a gnarled hand at him beckoning to the fire.
She was one of the town's oddities, never seen without the tin funnel she wore over her ragged gray hair. She had knitted a floppy brim out of green yarn with two long strings that she tied under her sagging chin. This strange tin funnel hat along with her layers of tattered skirts, grass-green heavy boots, and her habit of wandering the town in the dead of night carrying a broom had earned her the title of "The Tin Witch" among the residents.
She was Mary Devlin to him. She was the eccentric friend of his Aunt Hattie. She lived a mile from the Bramble Farm, her worn little shack surrounded by an army of small mannequins painted orange and dressed in capes. She was a frequent visitor at the Bramble Farm, and she had watched Ryan with her stealthy, watery blue eyes for as long as he could remember.
Ryan knew there was no avoiding her, so he stepped out of the car wash and made his way across the clearing and stood by the fire.
She had stepped away to stack bits of the rubble from the collapsed barn to create a small, makeshift table. She placed a tattered basket and atop it and fished out small tin plates, cups, and a thermos. Her familiar ragged broom was propped against a nearby tree with a yellow flower tied to the handle.
"What are you doing here?" Ryan snapped.
"You've got leaves in your hair," she commented in a friendly voice.
He shrugged and stared at the fire. "Why are you here? Did you follow me?"
"You should neaten up," Mary said a little more firmly. "You should look presentable. Can't you see breakfast is nearly done?"
Ryan let out an irritated sigh. He didn't care if he had leaves in his hair or how he looked at this hour, but he knew Mary well enough to know she would keep commenting until he addressed it. He yanked the hair tie holding his hair back in a low ponytail and raked his fingers through it to get the leaves out, then tied it back.
"Are we good now?" he asked in an irritated voice, throwing his hands up in the air. "And who said I wanted breakfast?"
Mary handed him a dented tin cup filled with coffee poured from a thermos before she sat back down on a large flat rock to tend to the bacon with a wooden spatula.
Ryan begrudgingly accepted the coffee, but it began to warm his cold hands and he felt grateful.
Mary gestured with her spatula for him to take a seat on the ground by the fire where she'd placed a small folded blanket. He sipped the warm coffee and felt the heat from the fire warming his damp clothes.
"I got here just after you arrived," she said, prodding the bacon around the pan. "Had to be sure you were safe, but you move fast. I barely had a chance to tie your shoes."
Ryan splurted coffee down the front of his shirt. "What? When did that happen?"
"When you were on the front porch. I figured you were heading here again and would appreciate some shoes."
Ryan could not even think of a way to respond to this. He abandoned the coffee cup on the ground near him. Thoughts were jamming up like a train that had just jumped the track.
"That car wash is a really terrible spot to sleep," Mary continued. "I had to chase the toads off you twice."
Ryan's eyes widened and jumped to his feet. The idea of this old woman tying his shoes, and watching him sleep while toads crawled on him was too much.
He refused to believe her version of his story. She was hardly reliable.
"Why didn't you just wake me up?" he snapped.
A brief silence fell between them, filled with the soft crackling of the fire, and the birds in the forest around them.
"I didn't know what else I might be waking," Mary said slowly. She didn't look at him. She was plating the bacon and then cracking some eggs into the pan.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ryan's voice was sharp. He wasn't in the mood for her riddles.
"You're kind of an irritable boy, Ryan Avery," Mary said. "You are nicer to be around when you are sleeping."
"Gee, thanks," Ryan muttered.
"You've got a toad print on your forehead. You should rub that off. It might give you a headache."
Ryan blew out another long sigh and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
"I just wanted to make sure you were safe," Mary said quietly as she handed him a plate full of eggs and bacon. "That's important. You are important."
Ryan sat back down with his plate of food. These words deflated the anger that was welling up in him. Mary Devlin had always treated him like he mattered, even if she did that in some pretty crazy and embarrassing ways.
They did not speak as they ate, but Mary hummed a happy tune that seemed to be playing in her head, waving her fork in the air at times to tap out the beat.
The sun was rising on the summer morning in reds and golds that stretched over the grassy hill behind them. The pleasant light stretched itself over the collapsed edges of Old Man Cooper's house and through the dead branches of the old oak tree that lay on top. The sky was clear and the birds were darting back and forth across the overgrown field of wildflowers between the treelines, occasionally dipping into the car wash. Ryan could understand why Old Man Cooper chose this spot to live, even if he could not understand his desire to build a car wash here. There was not another house in sight. No prying eyes peering in on his life.
When the food was eaten and Mary reached to collect Ryan's empty plate, she fixed him with those watery blue eyes and said, "Just know I will always protect you. I will never abandon you."
"Okay," Ryan muttered. "But I'm good. I'm not a little kid anymore."
Her head cocked sideways and her funnel hat slid a bit to the side. "You are not sixteen yet, are you?"
"Not for a few more months," Ryan said.
She nodded and smiled. "That's right. I remember. Mannequin Sarah told me that just last week. She's very good with dates. I forget things."
Mary suddenly lifted her funnel hat slightly and fished out a small sack tied with string. She poured a few glass marbles out into her hand, taking time to select one before tucking the rest back up under her funnel hat. She retrieved her broom and walked toward a bit of sunlight hitting the clearing. She squeezed the marble in her closed fist, shut her eyes, and turned in a slow circle muttering.
Ryan got to his feet. He had had enough of Mary this morning. While her presence had given him a brief distraction from his sleepwalking dilemma, he was ready to be alone with his thoughts. He put his empty tin coffee cup on her makeshift rubble table and cleared his throat.
"Okay, I am going to head out. Thanks for breakfast," Ryan paused and added, "And for keeping the toads off me."
She opened one eye as she continued to move in a slow circle, "Just hold a minute!" she snapped.
He stood still and watched her slowly rotating with her arm outstretched in front of her. He was used to her erratic mood changes, but he was ready to take that run back down Go Away Road to the Bramble Farm. Aunt Hattie was surely up, and with any luck, he'd have a second breakfast waiting.
Mary stopped moving in a circle, but then also seemed to forget Ryan was there. She dragged her broom behind her as she wandered into the car wash and began to sweep.
"Mary, I have to go," Ryan said firmly.
She looked up at him, but something had changed. She was crying.
Mary Devlin did not cry. She could be erratic and loudly upset about strange things no one understood, but she didn't cry.
He walked into the car wash and spoke softly to her, trying to distract her from whatever sad thought had taken hold of her. "Mary, you should go see Mr. Patch. You can help him fix something. You know he likes that."
She pulled the marble out of one of the pockets in her skirts and handed it to him. "I wanted to give this to you for your birthday, but I don't think it can wait."
"Okay," Ryan said. "Thank you. It's very nice." He held it up to the sunlight and tried to show serious interest in it to make her feel better. "I like the orange and blue in it."
She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes with both hands. "Keep it with you. That's important. I am sure of that. But you should go now."
She began to sweep the car wash and cry again, and Ryan suddenly did not want to leave her there alone. He knew she'd be better if she was with Mr. Patch, their neighbor. He had a magic way with horses and with Mary Devlin.
"Come on, Mary. I'll walk you to Mr. Patch's place. I can carry your stuff."
Mary stood and stared at him, a blank look in her eyes, but then a flicker of anger.
"Why are you still here?" she barked. "They took your aunt to the hospital last night."