William Royden

It was a color photo of a young boy of about eight whom I'd never seen.

The boy was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and smiling at the camera as it photographed him standing in front of a movie theater.

Because of the exposure to the elements, the photo had faded somewhat, but it was probably no more than a few months old.

I touched it as I moved the camera in to get a shot of it.

I got the feeling that Cording knew right away what the stick and the photo attached to it signified.

To me, it was complete mystery.

The property seemed hideously silent.

The silence was then broken by the sound of an engine approaching.

My grandfather was coming back home.

My first instinct was to walk out of the stable and greet him, but Cording reached a hand out and grabbed my forearm.

He put a finger to his lips to tell me to keep.

It was then that I realized that what he feared was not something nameless that had infested my grandfather's property, but my grandfather himself.

I did as I was instructed.

As my grandpa's truck got closer, the sound of the engine got louder and courting stepped deeper into the musty stable to keep well out of sight.

Soon we could hear the truck less than a hundred feet beyond the stable coming up the path and bumping over the grass in the backyard.

Little by little, Cording crept toward the edge of the stable so that he could lean around the corner in a subtle way and watch to see what happened.

I heard the sound of the engine cut off and the truck's door open.

Cording took a few more steps forward and pressed his body flat against the side of the stable, hiding behind the vines that grew there.

Over his shoulder, I could see my grandfather making his way up to his front door, having no idea we were there.

He walked arthritically up the three steps I myself had climbed so many times before, and then he disappeared inside.