Chapter 7~ The End~

We were now at a small-town diner, warming up and eating real food in the back of the diner-which was his idea. We had talked and talked for hours about everything that had happened to him, my dreams, and of course the tree house. He told me when he was alive, his parents were always fighting and he would go to the tree house to get away.

“I forgot about the lit candle, I fell asleep and woke up to smoke and ash everywhere,” he explained. “Half of the tree house was on fire, and it blocked my way to the door. The only other way I could get out was to jump out of the window, though it was about 20-30 feet down. I closed my eyes and jumped and everything went black, when I woke up I heard people calling for me but I couldn’t find them. I went back to my house -the lake house- and waited for my parents to come home. Eventually my mother walked in crying with Father’s arm around her shoulders. I tried to talk to them but they didn’t hear me, and they walked right passed me.” He went on about how his body had been found with the still burning tree house, luckily the fire department got to it before the fire spread any further.

“Wow,” was all I could manage. I couldn’t imagine the pain his parents must have felt, or how he felt when he woke up to a roaring fire. Then I realized something, he said his parents couldn’t see or here him, but I could, was there something wrong with me? “How can I see you then...if your parents couldn’t?”

“I don’t know...I tried to figure that out when we met, it didn’t make any sense to me either.” After about 15 more minutes of talking, we decided we should go find me phone to call my family. It was about 6 now and the diner was about to close, so my parents had to rush to come pick me up so I wouldn’t be out on the street again. The owner let us stay inside a little after they closed, though he was about to leave and he didn’t trust us to stay by ourselves. While we waited we talked more and I started to realize that the whole time I was telling myself that being stuck out in the middle of nowhere was a horrible thing so I would have a reason to not stay here-with the only guy I’d ever liked.

I’d always been shy around guys and I’d always pushed them away, seeing what happens to my friends when they and whoever their dating breaks up and the pain they feel-I never wanted to go through that. But now, I realized, that this nameless boy wasn’t like any of the jerks my friends had dated and no matter what I said or did he had stuck with me and helped me. Interrupting my thoughts, my mom pulled up screeching the tires when she stopped. I turned to the nameless boy and smiled, my eyes began to water when I realized I didn’t want to leave him nor did I want to leave the lake house, the forest, or anything here.

“Oh, Honey!” My mom cried bursting through the door and giving me a smothering hug. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Mom,” I said trying to smile despite the sorrow I felt that I was really leaving the nameless boy.

“Well, come on let’s get you home. I’ve got dinner ready and your bed made, your Father will be so happy to see you!.” She said leading me to the car. After climbing in the passenger side I turned to look at the nameless boy, expecting him to be waving and smiling but instead he was looking down-like he was sad too. Finally he looked up and faked a smile, I pressed my face against the window and tried to smile back.

“What’s wrong sweety?” My mom asked, obviously anxious to leave.

“Mom, I don’t want to leave.”

“What? What are you talking about, your just delusional from the cold.”

“Mom, I don’t want to go!” I said and opened the car door and ran to the nameless boy. I hugged him, though to passing people and my mom it looked like I was hugging the air. “Mom please, don’t make me go!”

“You’re not even 16 you can’t stay here by yourself!” She said, panic in her voice.

“Then lets take him with us, please!”
“Who are you talking about Emily? You’re starting to scare me,” she said growing more worried by the second.

I sighed and looked at the nameless boy not knowing what to do. “I’m not leaving you.”

He smiled and hugged me again, “How about we visit each other on the weekends?”

“You live to far away!”

My mother’s eyes grew wide, “Aren’t you a little old to have an imaginary friend Em?”

I gave her a weird look and looked back at the nameless boy. He laughed, “Maybe I can move closer, just no tree houses or lake houses this time.”

I smiled and said okay, “Just tell me one thing,” I said seriously.

“What?”

“You never told me your name.”

He kissed me on the cheek, “Andrew,” he whispered.

Chapter Five

“What’s this,” I asked-my voice laced with panic.

“Come up here,” he said smiling, though my instincts said to just run away I couldn’t say no to him and came up the ladder into the ash-filled tree house.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on now?” It never occurred to me that my dreams actually meant something. Maybe you’re dreaming now, I said to myself with a sigh of relief.

“I don’t have to, Emily, you already know,” when he said my name my eyes grew wide, I hadn’t told him my name-and he hadn’t told me his.
“Who told you my name? Is this just a big joke or something?”
“No it’s not, think hard, you know why we’re here.” Before he finished I was already out the door and climbing down the ladder. Whatever he thought was funny about bringing me to some old burnt house in a tree I didn’t understand-and I didn’t want to.
It took about an hour until I found my way back to the lake house and I was starving. After eating some berries and a fish again I laid down in front of the wood stove. That night my nightmare was back-I woke up screaming at about 2 am and I was in a cold sweat.

I realized then what he was trying to tell me the day before, he wasn’t really a teenage boy my age. My dreams did mean something and I wasn’t going crazy-the guy I was starting to like wasn’t even alive. But how did that make any sense? A ghost? Ghosts aren’t really- are they? After thinking of every possibility I could I finally fell asleep again, when I woke up at the regular time, I peeked outside expecting to see the nameless boy outside waiting for me-but he wasn’t there. I looked everywhere I could for him for the next 3 days, freezing in the cold of winter, I tried to find the tree house but I ended up getting lost every time.

After the fourth day I finally gave up, that night I admitted to myself that I really was falling for a ghost, as crazy as it sounded it was true.

Chapter Six

Even though I knew he wouldn’t be there, I checked every morning to see if anybody was outside standing by the now frozen lake. My life was totally boring without him to talk to or explore the forest with, even if it was winter. I was scared I’d get lost again if I tried to look for people, and there wasn’t anything at all to do in this old lake house. All I could do was skip rocks on the lake and feel sorry for myself, wanting to go home more and more each day.
It had now been about a week since I talked to the nameless boy, and I couldn’t take being by myself all the time. Instead of looking for him though, I packed some food and headed down the old dirt road again, towards what I hoped was a town. An hour after I’d left the lake house it started snowing, all i had to keep me away from the cold was a thin jacket, I kept trying to tell myself that I’d soon be at a town filled with warm food and people but after awhile the happiness started to wear off.
That night I took shelter under a pine tree that half blocked the snow that was still coming down a little heavier now. When I woke up I ate some of the fruit I had saved from the cold-and some snow since that was the only water I had- and started walking again. The snow was still falling and the piles were about knee-high.

It went on like this for another two days, the snow acted as if it would never stop, but was starting to lighten up a little bit. It finally quit on the third night but I was running out of food and still hadn’t found any sign of civilization. When I woke up the next morning the snow had stopped completely and I was out of food. I sighed and started off on my journey again, a couple hours later I came across footprints in the road-it was then I realized I had been walking in a circle. Not knowing what else to do I sat down in the snow and cried, scared I would die out here in the cold all alone.

Suddenly a voice-calm and soothing- said “Come with me, you’re not far from the town.” My eyes got wide when I heard the familiar voice, turning around I jumped up and hugged the nameless boy. He returned the smile and took my hand, ready to show me the town.

“I’m sorry about the way I acted, it’s just my friends are always trying to mess with me back home and-”

He laughed, “it’s okay. If I were you I would have done the same thing, how many times do you meet a ghost?”

I smiled again, thankful someone had found me, but more thankful that I could see him again. We walked down the road-the sun finally turned on the heat- as the snow melted and finally reached the town.

Chapter Four

“So, how do you like the waterfall?” He asked, we were sitting on the grass, looking out across the water towards a huge waterfall, I’d never seen anything like it. It was loud but at the same time really beautiful, I wasn’t a big tree-hugger or nature freak but it still amazed me.
“You’re going to have to show me the way out here again so I can come all the time,” even if I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere at least there was a little peace here.
“I can come whenever you want, don’t try to find the path by yourself though-if you get lost you’ll never find your way out of the forest especially when it’s dark.” He acted as though he’d known from experience, but I didn’t think much of it.
“That’d be nice,” I said smiling, “I’d like that.”

For about another week, the nameless boy and I went back to the waterfall, and explored other places of the forest. I kept having the almost same dream every night, sometimes when we got to the tree house the tree house looked brand new and when we were inside it was on fire, others it looked as if the fire had just went out and there was still smoke all around. I only remembered bits and pieces from the dreams and just thought it was from me being without anybody but him out in No Man’s Land.

After the 8th nightmare I finally asked him if he knew where any tree houses were in the forest. It took a while for him to reply but he finally said he’d show me soon, but that didn’t sound soon enough to me. After all the time we had spent together we had become like best friends, and I always got butterflies in my stomach when I saw him at 9 every morning out by the lake.

Finally, one day I was ready to explode if I couldn’t see the tree house, and I wouldn’t shut up about it until he agreed to take me to see it. We walked for about 15 minutes through thick trees and bushes, and finally came to a big tree with a small clubhouse on top. When I looked up and saw it all the memories from the nightmares I’d had came back and hit me so hard I felt dizzy, the little house was charred and ash was everywhere. He started to go up the ladder, insisting I follow him but instead I went around to see the ground where you can look at from the window and saw the outline of a body in the leaves.

Chapter Three

"Let’s go for a walk," he said to me, at exactly 9 o’clock he was standing out by the lake waiting for me."Where are we going?" I asked curiously, glad we were with each other again.Instead of replying he led me down the dirt road-the opposite of which way I had explored yesterday- and finally brought me to a dead end. He reached for my hand and started running through all the bushes and trees, until we came to an enormous tree with an old tree house built on top. It looked at least 20 years old, it was covered with black, as though it had been burned years before. "What’s up there?" I asked staring at the charred tree house."Come on, I’ll show you." So we climbed up the old and fragile ladder, on one side of the tree house was a small bed with one pillow and one blanket, a small crank television, and a framed picture on top of the t.v. On the other side were what seemed like thousands of books, some open, some with bookmarks, and some looked as if they had never been touched, the air smelled of smoke."How’d you find this place? And so many books?" I couldn’t believe my eyes, only in the public library at home had I seen so many books. "I live here," was all he had to offer."You...live here? By yourself? Your only 15!" "No, I’m not. I was once but that was years and years ago." "What? You can’t be any older then I am! What are you talking about?" I didn’t know if he was just trying to mess with me, but he sounded serious. Maybe he was just crazy or maybe he really was older. But that’s not possible, there’s no such thing as ghosts that’s crazy. "It’s hard to explain-but I can’t tell you here." "What? You’re making no sense!" "Come here," he said grabbing my hand and leading me to the window. We looked down to the ground at an outline of something-I couldn’t tell what- in the leaves."There," he said pointing to the outline, "is where I died in 1942." I woke up in a cold sweat, the details of the dream instantly gone. The rest of the night I was restless and couldn’t sleep.

Chapter Two

He was wearing a blue shirt, and old ripped blue jeans. He looked as if he had been working in a field all day, his short, blond hair and tanned face was caked with dirt. "I’m sorry," I said, "I didn’t know anybody lived here." After it was clear he wasn’t going to reply I added, "I got lost last night and needed a place to sleep but-" "I don’t live here," he said cutting me off. His voice was a little deep, you could hear a light southern accent in it, and he sounded kind of sad when he spoke. "I used to, not anymore.""Sorry but I really don’t understand what you mean, where’s the rest of your family or your friends?" I was confused, if he didn’t live here then why was he here? Why did he have to come to the one place I found shelter at."You know if you’re really that hungry you should catch a fish," he replied, ignoring my questions."What?" This boy was starting to scare me a little, what was he supposed to be? A mind reader?"There’s stuff to catch them in that room," he said pointing towards one of the other rooms. "Come on, I’ll show you."A couple minutes later I found myself outside by the lake, standing next to the mysterious boy who was going to ‘show me how to survive’ as he put it. He had grabbed two of the pointed sticks and the old torn net from the small ‘kitchen’ and told me that was all I ever needed to catch food. He handed me one of the sticks and waited, I gave him a puzzled expression."Stab at the fish with it," he said, still sounding a bit sad.I didn’t feel like arguing with him so i tried to catch a fish, but every time the fish darted out of the way at the last second. "Watch," he laughed and stabbed towards the water. When he pulled the stick out there was a fish on the end."How did you do that?!" "It’s easy, it just takes concentration," he tried to show me countless times, it took me about an hour to catch my first one, I was gleaming at it like it was a 1st place trophy. After that he showed me how to make a fire and cook over it. It took me hours to learn everything, but he was as patient as ever with me, every time I messed up or tried to give up he would just laugh and say try again. Though I didn’t want to admit it, he was nicer to me then most of my friends back home.When it was finally dark, we took the net and newly sharpened spears in to the house. "I gotta get goin," he said, sounding a little happier then earlier. "Oh, what are you doing tomorrow?" Even though I just met him today I really didn’t want him to leave, it felt as if I’d known him all my life. "Same thing I was doing yesterday-until I ran into you," he said looking down, the sorrow returning to his voice. "And what would that be?" "Nothing, don’t worry about it," he faked a smile, his bright blue eyes seemed to twinkle in the light of the moon coming in through the window. "Okay, well do you want to maybe hang out after your done doing whatever?" I asked, I wanted to see him again, he was nice and fun to be around. He seemed to have to think about it for a minute, finally he agreed though. "Meet me at the lake tomorrow around 9." Before I could ask him how in the world was I supposed to know when 9 was he was heading out the door

Chapter One

I looked down out the window, suddenly wishing I hadn’t. Somehow my best friends had talked me into this, now sitting here waiting until I was to high to even see trees anymore I couldn’t believe how stupid I was to agree to this. After what seemed like an hour the pilot told me to get ready, before we took off he showed me the S.P.L.A.T (Squat, Pray, Leap, Ahh, Touchdown,) for sky diving. I grabbed my parachute and closed my eyes, still not believing what I was about to do.

The next thing I know I’m falling about 1,000 mph down to the ground, now I understand why the S.P.L.A.T was so funny to the pilot when he showed me. Scared to death, I reached for the parachute string and pulled, suddenly I slowed down to what felt like the speed of a turtle trying to run away from an angry dog. I finally started to calm down out of my panic attack-like state, it was then I realized I had pulled the parachute out to early, and the wind was picking up.

Like a child trying to ride a bike for the first time, I had no control over where the wind was taking me, which of course was straight into a forest. The wind then changed directions and blew me away from the trees toward a cabin and lake. As if the wind couldn’t change it’s mind about which way to go it changed directions again, heading straight to the forest. All the screaming I was doing started hurting my throat, and I had to stop to breathe. The wind pushed me straight into a tree and a branch caught the parachute.

After hours of crying for help I was ready to give up, then I heard a snap and I found myself heading straight to the ground. I yelled at myself-and the tree- for causing all of this to happen. Why is it that every time I’m with my friends I get into crazy trouble like this? It’s now dark outside and I’m lost in a forest...great. I sighed to myself and grabbed some twigs, leaves, and about 15 hand-fulls of grass to make a “bed.” It was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever laid on, and the next morning I found I could barely move without crying out in pain.

Later that day I found some recognizable berries and an apple tree, so at least I wasn’t completely starved. After I explored around a little more i found my way to the lake I had seen the day before, gleaming when I got a drink of water. I turned around to the huge cabin, you could tell that in its day it had been a ‘first class’ lake house get away. After looking around, seeing no cars, no people, and no random personal property laying around I decided it would be okay if I searched the ran-down lake house.

In the lake house, I found nothing I could think of that would have any purpose for me. The only half helpful thing was a straw mat and fur pillow on the floor by a very old, dirty, and dangerous looking wood stove. In another room was some sticks with a kind of sharpened end, an old net that was torn, and a small wood table and chair. Was this supposed to be a dining room or kitchen? If it was then the people that owned it really needed to get a clue about how to live.

The last room was a tiny room, filled with old dusty furs that looked 100’s of years old. What is with these people? Do they not know there’s such thing as a store where they buy food, not hunt it? It was almost dark now and I didn’t know what else to do so I laid down by the wood stove and eventually drifted off to sleep listening to the rhythm of the crickets.

I woke up the next morning, greeted by a squirrel running around the room. It had knocked down a bunch of stuff and I really didn’t feel like cleaning-especially in a house that wasn’t mine. I sighed and wondered outside, I was starving and there was nothing to eat. I sat down in the sand that surrounded the lake and put my feet in the water. It relaxed me a little but not enough to knock the thoughts of food out of my mind. About an hour later I still didn’t know what to do, so I started walking down the dirt road towards what I hoped would be a town.

It felt like I had just come back from a 30 mile race by the time I got back, the only thing I’d found earlier was trees, trees, and more trees. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the lake house come back into view, glad I could at least rest and warm up inside. When I made it to the porch I thought I heard someone say something, then I realized I was just imagining things since I missed my friends and family so much. I opened the door and saw a boy-about my age- sitting on an old chair in the room with the wood stove.