By later that evening, we couldn’t see any signs of Harvey lurking at the edge of the woods, though we knew that meant very little. Rusty bandaged up his leg and went back through what had happened with me, but it still made little sense. He claimed they had just been playing fetch when Harvey had suddenly started making a terrible noise as his shape and size changed. Rusty immediately knew something was wrong, but thought at first he could talk to Harvey and calm him down. He took a couple of steps toward the creature, and that’s when he got clawed on the leg.
Rusty was clearly still upset as he talked about it, seeming to vacillate between fear, anger and sadness at what he seemed to view as some kind of betrayal. For my part, I didn’t know what to think. I wanted to believe Rusty, but I also hated the idea that Harvey would intentionally hurt one of us—both because I saw him as our friend and because of the implications that might have. If we had angered some kind of magical monster, who knew what it might be capable of?
That’s what led me to convince Rusty we needed to go back out to the clearing. The rocks there were the only thing we knew of that could stop Harvey, and we needed to either get the rocks or figure out how they worked. I didn’t want to hurt Harvey, but if we could block him or ward him off for a time, maybe at least things wouldn’t get any worse and I’d have more time to figure out a way of fixing things.
So the next day we went back to the clearing, this time carrying shovels more as makeshift weapons than digging tools. We didn't run like before, instead picking our way carefully through the forest and jumping at every noise. I kept expecting to see a leaf devil or some hulking forest monster come charging at us from out of nowhere, but nothing like that ever came. And after breaking open one of the rocks and seeing how it was constructed inside, I was already starting to have the beginnings of an idea for how we could protect ourselves from Harvey.
Rusty had always read more fantastical stories than me, so he was the best expert we had on myths and legends and various superstitions. When I put down Karen’s encyclopedia from reading about rock salt and asked him about it, he pondered it a few moments before nodding. According to him, there were several legends about different creatures being affected by various mundane things. Silver, of course, but also iron, running water, or in some cases, salt.
I was still weak and running a fever at this point, and my exertion during our secret trip to the clearing and back had taken its toll. I was in a cold sweat, and as it got later in the day I could tell my temperature was shooting up as my joints began to ache and my head started swimming. I needed to sleep some and think of the best way we could use our new information. Maybe a weapon we could carry to fend him off if there was another attack, or a salt barrier around the house until he calmed down, or…something. I still had hope we could fix this, and if I’m honest, I still had doubts about what exactly had happened.
Rusty had given me some more flu medicine, and it didn’t take long until I could feel my consciousness slipping away. I told him to just stay inside for now, that we would figure it out. He smiled at me and nodded. Told me not to worry, that it would work out. That he already had a good idea that might work.
I wanted to say more, but I was gone. I remember being plagued by dark dreams while I slept, terrible things that I told myself were born from the fever and medication. Either way, I slept my troubled sleep until noon the next day, and when I did finally wake up, I found myself in sweat-soaked sheets, but feeling much better. My fever had finally broken.
I was getting out of bed when Rusty came in, his face lit up in a way I hadn’t seen in days. When I asked him what was going on, he told me he had figured it out. That it was all better now. Then, to my growing horror, he began to explain.
He said he had gone back out to see if there was anything we might have missed at the clearing and to see if he could bring at least a few pieces of rock and salt back so we knew we had something that worked. As a precaution, and having no idea that it would have any effect at all, he also carried a small sandwich bag of table salt with him from Karen’s pantry.
He was halfway to the clearing when he saw the leaf devil approaching from his right. He didn’t want to have another fight with Harvey, so he just hid behind a tree and stayed there, hoping he hadn't been noticed. But he had, and as Harvey grew closer and closer, the whirring wind seemed less like a stirring breeze and more like a buzzsaw. He heard the force of it tearing into the far side of the tree, and he imagined what it would do to his skin when Harvey finally reached him.
So he took a fistful of the salt and threw it around the tree.
The effect was instantaneous. There was a loud and rapid crackling sound like a distant firework and then Harvey was quickly moving away again. He didn’t know if he had hurt the monster, but he was pretty sure it didn’t like salt of any kind.
Already shaken and scared, and satisfied that regular table salt would work too, he came back to the house and began trying to formulate a plan. He was sitting in the basement staring up at the ceiling when an idea came to him.
Aunt Karen sometimes had bone-rattling chills throughout the day and night because of her chemo, and while she would turn up the heat and pile on blankets, the thing that seemed to help the most were these long, rubber hot water bottles that she bought at the pharmacy in town. Scrounging around the house, Rusty said he’d found four that she wasn’t actively using. So he made up an excuse to go into town and got another ten.
It was late afternoon when he got back home, and he waited until he knew I was still asleep and she was in bed for the evening before he went to work in the basement. The ceiling of the basement was, naturally enough, also the bottom of the first floor of the house. And running all along that ceiling were paths of pipes and wires that aside from serving their normal purposes of carrying water and electricity, also served as good spots to hide rubber bags filled with salt.
He only filled the bags about a third full so they wouldn’t be too heavy, and he still had to quietly attach a few bits of wood to the floor joists here and there to provide spots for the remaining bags. Because his goal was to make a large circle of the bags, much like the stones in the clearing, and then trap Harvey in it temporarily until we could make him understand we were still his friends.
I stared at him in mute horror at this part, dread crawling up my back at what I was afraid was coming. He continued, seemingly oblivious to how I was looking at him as he went on to describe how clever and brave he had been.
Rusty said knew he would have to bait Harvey into coming into the basement, and the circle couldn’t be closed until Harvey was inside of it, if it worked at all. He gave me a brief, apologetic smile at this part, saying he knew he’d put me and Karen at risk with this plan too, but he had been sure it would work, and he was right.
He told me that it didn’t take long walking in the woods this morning before Harvey found him and started approaching again quickly. Rusty didn’t waste any time, running back toward the house at a decent pace but slowly enough that Harvey would hopefully be encouraged to follow. He heard bushes rustling and tree limbs snapping and saw that Harvey was back to the larger form that had clawed him—a bristling bear-like thing with glowing eyes and long teeth.
He sped up then, more out of fear than anything, but by the time he reached the exterior door to the basement, Harvey was at his heels. Rusty ran through the space he had prepared and then juked to the right where he had three more of the rubber bottles ready and waiting. In the handful of seconds it took Harvey to realize he was being blocked from going forward in most directions, Rusty had already thrown down the remaining containers of salt and closed the circle.
Harvey was trapped and they were safe.
I had held my tongue until he was finished. I wanted to hear everything, and I was afraid he might stop telling me or leave something out if I started yelling at him mid-story. But when he finally fell silent, that’s when I started to scream, tears of anger running down my face as I gave voice to everything I had been trying to ignore for weeks now.
I told him he shouldn’t have messed with Harvey again. He should have just left him alone. And Harvey was probably mad at him because of the way Rusty treated him. Like he was stupid. Like he was our pet. Now Harvey was going to always hate us, and it was all his fault.
I’d half-expected Rusty to get mad, or given how he’d been lately, even try and hurt me. But he looked like the one who had been hurt. His bottom lip began to tremble as I spoke, and as I saw him start to cry I lost my will to go on. We sat together on my bed, silent and miserable, for several minutes before he spoke in a shaky voice.
“I don’t want us to lose him. That’s why I’m doing all this. I need to make sure he listens to us. Does what we tell him to do. So we don’t lose him. So he’ll come with us when we go home.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I think he meant what he was saying, but he didn’t seem to understand how backwards and stupid it all was. I was still struggling for words, for an answer to this mess, for something, anything that might help, when Aunt Karen came to the door. She looked concerned when she saw our expressions and tears.
“Are you boys all right?”
Rusty nodded. “Yeah, we were just talking about stuff that makes us sad. But I think Tommy is doing better, aren’t you?” He glanced at me meaningfully and I nodded, trying to give Karen a smile.
She returned it, her eyes still troubled. “Well, there’s been a lot going on, and there’s no shame in having a little cry from time to time. Anytime you boys need to talk about things, I’m always happy to listen.” Her expression darkened slightly for a moment before she continued on. “But I have some good news for you. Your father is coming to get you this afternoon. He’s found you a new place, and he thought it’d be good to get you settled before Christmas comes in a few days. He says you’ll be able to start back to school in January too, either at your old school or a new one closer to the new apartment.”
I saw Rusty’s fist go white as his fingers clenched on the bedsheets. “But Karen, we’d like to stay with you longer. We can help out more too.”
She shook her head with sad eyes. “There’s nothing I’d like more than for you to stay, but your father misses you terribly and he needs your help too. Just promise you’ll come back and visit me every chance you get.”
The next three hours were a flurry of whispered conversations, hurried packing, and my own internal debate about going down into the basement to see what Rusty had done. Our father arrived at four, and by five he was ready to hit the road. I made the excuse that I had an upset stomach and needed to go to the bathroom before we left, and he gave me a sympathetic hug and told me to take my time. I cringed inwardly at another reminder that one of the big unspoken reasons he had chosen now to come get us was because I had been so sick. As with all of it, some of this was my fault. And I needed to try to fix it if I could.
I made a show of heading off in the direction of the bathroom before veering toward the basement door. My heart was thudding as I crept down the wooden steps, and as I looked out into the basement, I was surprised by how normal everything looked. I could only see a few spots where the hot water bottles were able to be glimpsed in the shadow recesses of the ceiling, and the area below seemed empty at first.
Then I saw Harvey slowly fading into sight. He was back to looking like a hedgehog, but he looked dingier and less magical now. More like a statue or carving that had been given some form of crude life than the enchanted miracle we had come to know and love. He lifted his head and regarded me somberly as I approached.
And then he spoke.
“Let me out, Tommy. Please, let me out.”
His voice was scratchily musical, like a forest filled with cicadas that had learned to sing a shared melody. Looking at him, hearing his voice, I felt my hammering heart break a little. Taking another step forward, I crouched down to his level.
“I…I can’t. Rusty said you tried to hurt him. That you tried to kill him even.”
Harvey’s face contorted into what I took for a weary frown as he shook his head from side to side. “He tried to hurt me is why I clawed him. I was never going to kill him. But he needed to know what was not allowed.”
I felt my stomach clench. I felt myself believing Harvey’s words, but how could I be sure? Then I remembered something else.
“Why did you chase him in here then? How did you get stuck in here if you weren’t after him again?”
Harvey closed his eyes for a moment as he lowered his head in what might have been an expression of disappointment or shame. “He tricked me. He had been telling me for days that you were badly ill. After I clawed him, he found me again and told me you were worse. That you were dying and needed my help.” Opening his eyes, he looked around drearily at the basement walls. “He led me into this place and trapped me here.” His amber eyes met mine again. “I need you to set me free, Tommy. This place…its far worse than being trapped in the stones. There I had the wind and the sun at least. Here everything is cold and dark and dead and I hate it.”
I was crying again now, and I looked up blurrily at the bags I could see tucked away to make a rough circle. Rusty had already replaced the ones he threw on the ground with ceiling counterparts as well, so if I was going to remove some, I’d have to…but what if I was wrong? What if Harvey was the one tricking me? Rusty was acting different, but he was still my brother. I still knew and loved and trusted him. And what if I let Harvey out and he hurt me or my family? Was that really worth the risk?
Harvey let out a dejected sigh. “If you let me, if you touch me, I can show you what happened. Make you see it in your head. Help you understand that I’m telling you truth.”
I frowned at that. “But I’d have to let you out or come in the circle for that.”
Harvey’s gaze remained steady. “Yes. You would. But you are my friend, Tommy, and I will not harm you.”
“Tommy, where’d you go? You okay?”
It was Dad, apparently having figured out I wasn’t in the bathroom. I stood up, torn between reaching out my hand and running away.
Harvey stepped closer to the edge of his boundary. “Please.”
Biting my lip, I was reaching forward as I heard footfalls coming down the stairs. I looked back to see my father looking at me. “What’re you doing down here, Sport? You don’t need to be down in this cold air and we need to get moving. Long drive ahead of us.”
When I turned back to the center of the room, I couldn’t see Harvey anymore. Something about that hurt worse, and my trickle of tears became watery sobs. My father came the rest of the way down the steps and put his arm around me.
“Hey, man. It’s okay. I know you still feel bad. Is that all it is, or is something else wrong?”
Trying to regain control, I shook my head. “I just…I thought I left something down here. But I think I lost it.”
Dad gave me another squeeze and led me back upstairs. As we climbed the steps, I looked back down one last time and saw Harvey watching me go. Mouthing the words silently, I said the last thing I would say to him until I was a thirty-two year old man.
“I’m sorry, Harvey. I’m so sorry.”
I never went back to Aunt Karen’s house after that. Not because she was gone—she actually went into remission and lived another fifteen years before the cancer came back and got her like an absent-minded traveler who had temporarily forgotten his hat.
And not because Rusty didn’t go—he actually went back every few months to visit for a few days and took care of Karen during the last year of her life. It made sense that she left the house to him, and while he didn’t live there as far as I knew, I had no doubt he visited it often.
I lost a lot that year. My mother, most of my time with Aunt Karen, and worst of all, my two real friends in the world. Rusty…he was never the same after our time with Harvey. He was never mean to me, and we would sometimes still talk or do things together, but it was always hollow and forced. There was something between us now.
That something was Harvey. I grew to hate myself for not being braver and more trusting when I had the chance. I learned to hate myself even more as months and years went by and I did nothing to correct my mistake.
I think people don’t really know themselves until they have to do a really hard thing that is also the right thing. Their choice holds up a mirror that cuts through excuses and self-deceit, if only for a time.
Well I had seen myself in that mirror. I saw myself every time I turned down a chance to go to Aunt Karen’s and set Harvey free. Every time I made an excuse or rationalization for my inaction. Every day as I pushed myself further and further away from Rusty rather than ask him the hard questions.
How was Harvey doing? Was he still trapped in that basement? And the hardest question of all: Just what are you doing to him when you go to visit?
By the time I left for college, I barely saw Rusty at all. It made it easier you see. Easier to not remind myself of the strange and disquieting young man my brother had become and the weak coward I had always been. Easier to half-deceive myself that my memories of Harvey were all just the fanciful fever-dreams of a young boy who was losing his friendship with an older brother.
That’s why I felt a wave of panicked nausea when my phone started buzzing and I saw that it was Rusty responding to my condolences about his girlfriend. That’s why after three days of messages that moved from “Thanks for reaching out” to “We need to talk soon” to “Answer your phone, Tommy”, I just turned it off.
That’s why I didn’t open the envelope I just got in the mail until a few minutes ago.
It was a burnable DVD with a sticky note on the front that just said “Watch this and then call me.—Rusty”. I felt like all the air was leaving the room as I put the disc in my computer and hit play. At first I didn’t understand what I was watching. It was a home movie of some kind, and it was in Aunt Karen’s house. Or I guess it was Rusty’s house now.
That’s actually what was being talked about on the video. It sounded like Rusty was recording the video with his phone and his girlfriend—Alice, not Alicia—was being given a tour of sorts. He was talking about the remodeling he was doing and how excited he was about it. At first it seemed normal enough, and I found myself missing my brother as he talked to Alice and joked with her. He sounded more like his old self with her.
But then he said he wanted to show her the basement. She seemed willing enough, but it was clear that she was expecting more than the bare room that the camera was showing. There was no sign of Harvey, but there was an area of the concrete floor that seemed rougher and more worn than the rest.
It was in the rough shape of a circle.
The view of the camera was suddenly jerked away from the room and back to Alice. Rusty was clearly excited now, and as he talked, the camera shifted again as he squatted or knelt down on the basement floor. That’s when I realized he was proposing to her.
She seemed to realize it at the same time, and her expression turned from pleasant curiosity to concerned dismay. She took a step back as she interrupted him.
“Russ, no. You need to stop this. Look, you’re a great guy, but I’m not interested in marrying you. I’m probably never going to get married at all. I thought I made that clear.”
Rusty’s voice was softer when he responded, but the hard, waiting anger coiled underneath his words made my stomach clench. “So you’re saying this is the wrong time or that you just don’t want to marry me?”
Visibly upset, Alice ran her hands through her hair and stared at the ground for a minute before looking back up, her expression sad. “Fuck. I didn’t want to do this like this. Look, we need to stop seeing each other. This isn’t working out for me and I’m just keeping you from…”
Rusty had stood back up as she spoke, and I gasped as his leg flashed into the bottom the frame as he kicked her in the stomach and cut off her words with an audible whoosh of air. The force of the kick didn’t knock her down, but it did cause her to stumble back into the circle.
The next moment she was silently thrashing and trying to scream as she tried in vain to get more air. Then she was still and Rusty was sitting the phone down as he moved to pick up a wide push broom from where it was propped against the wall. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could hear the scritchscratch of the broom bristles as he used the wide head of the broom to pull her body back outside the boundaries of Harvey’s prison. I could also hear the last words he said before the video ended.
“That's good, Harvey. That’s a real good boy.”
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Credits
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