Closed for the Season

The boys race into the cemetery where they hide under a giant willow tree. The long branches hide them from view, and they stay there for a long time, on the lookout for Silas. Arthur tells Logan that he found the hiding spot previously when Danny and his crew had been chasing him. The two boys then begin looking at the map where they notice there is a “fence made of gingerbread men leading to the Witch’s Hut” that look exactly like the plastic men mentioned in the note (86). Arthur and Logan make plans to go to check the place out tomorrow, and as they make their way out of the cemetery, Arthur points out “a statue of a woman and her little boy. The woman had an open book in her lap, and the boy stood beside her, looking up into her calm marble face” (87). According to Arthur, the woman is Eleanor Beale, who was once the wife of the town’s founder.

The little boy was Eleanor’s son, also named Arthur. Arthur tells Logan that he used to pretend that she was his mother, climb into her lap, and pretend to read together. Logan asks Arthur about his real mother, but the boy in question insists that he has lived with his grandmother since he was a baby.