“I got to get out of here,” Adam said to himself. He tried to squeeze back out.
Now there was no doubt, the entrance had shrunk. Adam got halfway through and then felt his midsection catch. Sucking in a strangled breath, he tried to let out a scream, but failed. The bark had him in a viselike grip! And the way it was closing on him, he would be cut in half!
“Help!” he managed to get out. Sally and Watch were at his side in a moment.
Watch yanked at his arms. Sally pulled at his hair. But he stayed stuck. The pain in his sides was incredible—he felt like his guts were about to explode. “Oh,” he moaned.
Sally was near hysterics as she pulled his hair out by the roots. “Do something, Watch!” she screamed. “It’s eating his legs.”
“It’s not eating my legs,” Adam complained. “It’s breaking me in two.”
“A dying man shouldn’t quibble,” Sally said. “Watch!”
“I know what to do,” Watch said, letting go of Adam’s arms. He ran over to a drooping branch and pulled out a Bic lighter. As Adam struggled to draw in a breath, Watch flicked the Bic and held the flame under a particularly big and ugly branch. The tree reacted as if it had been stung. The branch snapped back, the leaves almost slapping Watch. At that exact moment Adam felt the grip on him lessen.
“Pull me now!” he shouted to the others.
Watch returned to Adam’s side and, with Sally’s help, yanked Adam free. Adam landed face first on the rough ground and scratched his cheeks. But the slight injury was overshadowed by his immense relief. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and tried to crawl farther away from the tree. Sally and Watch helped him to his feet. Behind them, Adam noticed that the hole had all but vanished.
“You can see why old man Derby wanted to chop it down,” Sally panted.
“Yeah,” Adam gasped, gently probing his sides for broken ribs. He seemed to be in one piece, although he knew he’d be sore the next day. If he lived that long.
Suddenly he had lost all enthusiasm for finding the rest of the Secret Path.
“There’s no way you’re going in there,” he told Sally.
“I don’t know if climbing inside the tree is a requirement,” Watch said. “It’s
probably good enough that we came here.”
“Now you tell me,” Adam said.
“Let’s quit while we’re ahead,” Sally said. “This path is too dangerous.”
“Let’s go a little farther,” Watch said. “I know what’s next. It can’t be that dangerous.” He paused to look back at the tree. “I hope.”
8
There were other interesting stories surrounding Madeline Templeton. Watch related several of them while they hiked toward their next destination. When she was sixteen, she was supposed to have climbed up to one of the largest of the caves that overlooked Spooksville and wrestled a huge mountain lion.
“She supposedly killed the lion with her nails,” Watch said. “She wore them long.”
“I heard the tips of them were poisonous,” Sally added.
“Are we going to this cave next?” Adam asked unenthusiastically. He was scared of entering any more places that could abruptly close him up inside.
“Yes,” Watch said. “I’ve been there before and had no problems.”
“You were inside the tree before, too, and had no problems,” Sally reminded him.
“We’ll go in together,” Watch said. “We should be safe.”
“Sounds like a plan for disaster,” Sally remarked. “But assuming we survive the cave, have you figured out the rest of the path? I don’t want to waste all my time and energy hiking in circles around this town I hate.”
Watch nodded. “I think I’ve remembered the highlights of her life. We hit the cave next, then head for the chapel.”
“Why the chapel?” Sally asked. “I don’t think it existed when Madeline was alive.”
“It didn’t,” Watch said. “But she got married on the spot where the chapel was later built. She was twenty-eight years old then, and that would be the next big event in her life that we know about. After the chapel, I think we have to visit the reservoir.”
“What happened at the reservoir?” Adam asked.
“That’s where she drowned her husband,” Sally said.
“That’s what the stories say,” Watch added. “People say she tied his legs down with heavy stones and pushed him screaming off a boat that was floating in the center of the reservoir.”
“Why?” Adam asked.
“She thought he was chasing another woman,” Sally said. “Turned out she was wrong. But she didn’t find out until after she buried the other woman alive.”
“Wonderful,” Adam said.
“After the reservoir, we go back to the beach,” Watch said. “That’s where the townsfolk tried to burn her alive for being a witch—the first time.”
“What do you mean they tried to burn her?” Adam asked.
“The wood they stacked up around her refused to catch fire,” Sally said. “And snakes crawled out of it and killed the judge who condemned her to death. You remember that story the next time you get the urge to visit her great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Ann Templeton.”