He walked back up our driveway and into the woods, toward the trail where Sage had gone. A few seconds later we heard a motorcycle start. Wilson must have come to our house through the woods and left his bike up there. Why hadn’t Sage and I heard him when we were up in the Kingdom? He made me uncomfortable. People instinctively moved away from him. There are trees—allelopathic trees—like black walnuts that are poison to whatever is near them. They release chemicals from their roots, their decaying leaves, their bark, that starts to destroy the life around them. I thought of Wilson like that, bringing toxins and danger just by coming near us. We didn’t know anything about where he’d been. Juvenile prison, a mental institute, reform school? I blamed him for Mr. Franklin. Was a BB gun even strong enough to kill a cat? I’d been shot loads of times by a BB gun. The De Martino boys used to wait for us to pass on our way up to the Sun Bowl and shoot us. I’d been hit in the behind and got bruises, but the metal balls had never broken my skin. Maybe Wilson had done it with some other kind of air gun, or a real gun. Marie had an air gun that shot darts, a Marksman, and it could definitely hurt or even kill an animal. No one else knew about it but me. She had begged Dad for it. We took it out into the woods sometimes and kept it hidden in our bedroom closet.

“Marie, what if Wilson killed Mr. Franklin? Why are you hanging around him?”

“That’s just people talking. He’s not bad if you get to know him. He’s had a shit childhood.”

“So?”

“He’s helping us, Libby.”

We could hear the revving of the gears on Wilson’s bike as it hit Forge Mountain Drive from the trail. He was a blur when he passed the top of our street at full throttle, the front wheel elevated in the air.

“God, what an asshole,” I said. “Please tell me you don’t go around with him on that.”

Marie didn’t say anything, and we stood there together for a few minutes, watching Mr. Walker cut perfect circles on his lawn.

6