The pricker boy

A legend in a small woodland town holds that the Pricker Boy was once an ordinary child. He was the son of a trapper who was mocked by other kids and lured into one of his father's snares. When searchers reached the spot, the jaws were open and empty, and brambles had grown over them. Locals said the thorny vines had taken mercy on him, and that his skin had turned to bark beneath a crown of thorns. No one can say whether any of it happened, but everyone who knows the stories keeps clear of the woods past the Widow's Stone.

That rule has always worked, until the summer it stops. Stucks Cumberland and his friends uncover a parcel holding things from their early years: baseball cards, a battered paperback, and a locket. Years ago, children left these tokens in the forest to ward off the Pricker Boy. Now the gifts have been turned away.