Christian Baxter Mott

The Taper in Wait

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Now, it hadn’t been all that long since the Henderson kid’s face showed up on the sides of milk cartons. There’d already been a lot of talk about where he’d gone off to, and who took him there—gossip stoked by the haunting sight of the candle his parents kept lit in his bedroom window, hoping it would somehow guide him home. So when rumors began circulating around town that the old pine-loggers’ cabin also had a taper burning in one of its clouded windows, the McHale boys just had to get a look for themselves.