Maggie Shayne's By Magic

By Magic Beguiled

Adam
Long ago, but not too far away…

Seven-year-old Adam Reid raced through the forest, zigging and zagging like a mad bumblebee, his arms spread out at his sides. The summer breeze turned into a wind that whooshed past his ears and tangled his hair. He pretended he was flying. He liked pretending. Even though his father was always telling him how bad it was, how foolish. He got the strap for it sometimes, when his tall tales got a little too tall.

But only if his father had been drinking.

He buzzed around the base of a giant maple tree three times, then came to a halt when his keen eyes picked out a barely visible path beneath its broad, leafy limbs. No longer interested in playing bumblebee, Adam lowered his arms. He hunkered down and squinted at the almost invisible trail in the mossy ground. No matter how many times he came out here, he never failed to find a new adventure to pursue.

Adam loved the woods. He wasn’t supposed to be there. The forest was not on his father’s property, but on the state land that bordered it. And he’d been warned repeatedly to stay away. But that hadn’t stopped Adam.

Now he began following that trail, wondering what it might be. Deer trail, he decided, his seven years of wisdom assuring him it was so. Maybe he’d see a big whitetail if he went really slow and quiet.