《1987》


 One

    He died on the third of October, thousand-900 and eighty-7 A.D¡ªhe was buried the next Saturday, the tenth, at Chapel Hill Cemetery, here west of Salem. I know because I attended, we attended, it was the least thing we could do being his closest friends of the past eleven months. We tried to be the ones that stayed the longest but his family silently insisted that they¡¯d rather take that title, going so far to force us out of their presence by the shortened remark, ¡°We¡¯d like some time alone with Lucas¡±. I wondered what he¡¯d have said if he was still alive, maybe he would¡¯ve defended us and let us stay.


    Three in the morning, driving down Second Street, we weren¡¯t there, but we should¡¯ve been; I should¡¯ve, she would¡¯ve made it worse. Instead, he was with some other boy, he knew him for a few years already, he was on the football team as well. That¡¯s how we met Lucas¡ªshe was on the cheerleading team for quite some time, a few seasons, until ¡°some whore¡± made the executive decision to kick her off. I knew exactly who she was talking about as she rambled on to me, as I sat amongst her blankets, stuffed animals, beanie babies, and pillows stacked on her bed all the while I stared out the window to watch autumn leaves fall on wet concrete; she didn¡¯t even need to say the girl¡¯s name.


    After his burial we ate an early dinner at about four o¡¯clock, and then returned to his grave the first time that night at six. She smoked, I wept, she almost started to as well but the cigarette¡¯s draw held her tears back. Maybe that made me less of a man, but I didn¡¯t care, I still don¡¯t care. Left his grave at six-30 to try and ease our minds from the loss in the confines of her bedroom¡ªher mom was never home and her dad was long gone so parental supervision was null and void. I called my dad from her place, I was staying the night, no doubt about it, he didn¡¯t care. He thought we were dating.


    The second time we went to the cemetery that night I almost pissed on a tree at nine o¡¯clock but the snapping of a twig sent me running back to his grave where she stood, with my pants down. She was smoking again. I didn¡¯t cry this time. Lucas¡¯s dirt mound was already covered in dead leaves by this point and his stone was at an odd angle¡ªthey didn¡¯t set it right.


    If I was still staying with my mother I would have had to leave Amber¡¯s house at an ungodly hour that morning so I could get home in time for her to drag me off to church with my nails full of dirt, but ever since I got a knife pulled out on me when I spoke in a tone she didn¡¯t like I¡¯d been shacked up at dad¡¯s. One year by December, and though she would¡¯ve loved to have me around during Thanksgiving or especially Christmas so she could baptize me in her bathtub, it''d be the first year her holiday dinner table was empty. Of course I miss her, but I don¡¯t really miss her. That¡¯s all to say we were up late with our own affairs that night.


    By midnight we were back in her bedroom, from twelve to two-30; we reminisced about him, how he talked, how he walked, how he had about a foot on both of us¡ªa foot on me, eleven inches on her. How, somehow, he had become friends with two people like us, we who considered ourselves to be the outcasts. I always thought that maybe he found her pretty and that he was only friends with me by association, he was only nice to me because he had to be since I was her best friend. Still, the much quieter part of me said it wasn¡¯t her he wanted, and that he was only nice to her because he had to be.


    ¡°That¡¯s not true.¡±


    ¡°Of course it isn¡¯t,¡± I said, sunken into her bed. ¡°I was joking.¡±


    ¡°Didn''t sound like it. I thought I was great when I cheered.¡± She probably was lying to herself.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t go to the football games to see you, that¡¯s for sure.¡±


    She threw a pillow across the room at me. ¡°I know, you just went because you wanted to see someone.¡± Standing up, she checked her mascara in the full length mirror. ¡°Didn¡¯t smear.¡±


    ¡°You barely cried.¡±


    ¡°You balled your eyes out like a little bitch.¡± A twirl from her as she admired her reflection, her red hair flying about. ¡°I don¡¯t normally wear skirts, but this one suits me.¡±


    ¡°Nothing suits you, other than a broom and a black, pointy hat.¡±


    ¡°Look at what your ass is wearing.¡± She fixed her lipstick, I didn¡¯t see the need for her to reapply.


    ¡°Dad said I need a haircut.¡±


    She disagreed. ¡°You always look ugly but a haircut would make it worse. Don¡¯t grow it out like a girl of course, but since you don¡¯t have straight hair the crazy look is fine.¡±


    I crossed my arms and shrugged it off. ¡°It¡¯s not that crazy.¡±


    ¡°You look like you came out of the drying machine.¡±


    Now I crossed my legs, indian-style. We talked for about an hour, focused on him for some time; it was natural, I would think, to be able to talk our feelings out.


    It was a chance encounter, really, when I met him. Chance in the sense that, if it weren¡¯t for Amber, I would have never spoken to him, I would never have been able to have a genuine relationship with him. He was a football boy, he had practice almost everyday, he didn¡¯t have the best of grades but at the same time he wasn¡¯t a nonce. He knew Amber because, like I said, she used to be a cheerleader and they had got to talking one night under blindlight floodlights; she played cutesy, she pushed him in the shoulder as he held his helmet off to the side. Everyone that was once in the stadiums were dispersing, I was cleaning up the concessions that I ran that night¡ªI was her ride home, too. Her mom was working late and she didn¡¯t have her license yet even though we both were juniors; all three of us were juniors. If it wasn¡¯t for me she would have had to walk twenty minutes home on a cold November night.


    I shuffled over to the two of them, squeezed in my puffer jacket, her forcing our introduction.


    ¡°Mark,¡± I said, with my hand outstretched.


    He smiled¡ªI couldn¡¯t tell if it was genuine. ¡°Lucas.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I know.¡± Maybe I was off putting. Maybe I looked stupid at the time, maybe I sounded like a dick with all the remarks I made back and how I was begging for Amber to come along so that we could just get to her house and hang out that night. And maybe that gave him the wrong impression about me.


    That entire concept was shattered before my very eyes when he spoke to me that coming Monday at school¡ªI had to piss, I went to the bathroom, came out into the hallway and wandered over to the drinking fountain to practically instantly refill my bladder once again. He was behind me, I had no idea, I thought he was a ghost, a zombie maybe. Lucas shadowed me, leaned his arm against the wall to utter under his breath and only to me, ¡°Mark.¡± Even though I had already gone to the bathroom I almost did it a second time right there and then.


    ¡°You scared the¡ª.¡± I thought it was some creep, so I was about to do my best at reprimanding the bastard only to then cover my mouth when I realized it was the guy from Friday-Night-Football. ¡°Lucas, it¡¯s¡ª.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only me?¡±


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    I nodded, my hand still partially covering my mouth as I almost sat on the water fountain behind me. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s only you.¡±


    I¡¯m not saying that I don¡¯t have any friends, no. I have Amber, and there¡¯s a handful of people that I talk to on a daily basis¡ªI¡¯m not the most famous, most popular person. I still have reason to thank God for Amber though. Still, maybe he was only doing it because he remembered my name and just so happened to see me in the hallway, he wasn¡¯t trying to seek me out.


    But then he asked me if I wanted to do something after school.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have football practice?¡±


    ¡°It got canceled.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have homework?¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t planning on doing it in the first place.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t normal. No, it wasn¡¯t normal at all. I entertained it though, of course, as I¡¯m only human¡ªwe were only human.


    I suggested that we could go and get ice cream, just for him to tell me that it was late September and that didn¡¯t really make any sense, far too cold for that¡ªI told him that it didn¡¯t make any sense at all for football practice to be canceled relatively close to the beginning of the season and he didn¡¯t have a response to that. He, instead, suggested that we hang out at one of our houses, causing me to instantly interject him and propose my house. Though I felt bad having to cancel the plans that I had made with Amber for that night, we hung out all the time and, even more so, I didn¡¯t think I would be able to have a chance like that ever again.


    Other than banter and plans to ¡°do it again sometime¡±, nothing else came of what happened after school. He followed me to my house, he left before dinner (as if my father was planning on making something in the first place), and he returned home at a most reasonable time. Yet I found myself clutching the side of the door frame as I watched him walk to his car, open his door and get inside, fiddle with the gear-shift for a second because apparently he had some sort of issue shifting gears, and speed off down my street. I almost ripped the wood off. I thought he would have stayed longer, so when I wasn¡¯t able to see his car anymore I rushed back inside and to the safety of my room, slamming the door behind me and dialing Amber¡¯s number.


    ¡°Mark.¡±


    ¡°He left earlier than I thought, we can still do something tonight.¡±


    She didn¡¯t respond at first¡ªa pause. ¡°He? Who?¡±


    That was right¡ªI didn¡¯t tell her what I was doing, I only told her that I had to cancel our plans. ¡°Lucas.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know if she was upset or unsurprised, or perhaps that she didn¡¯t care in the first place; and it didn¡¯t matter to me at all, this was my chance. Sure, he was her friend first, but he asked me to hang out with him, not her. And yes, Amber and I did spend the rest of that night together, sat on her back porch as she dragged a cigarette and I held loosely with my right hand a bottle, staring up into the dark-lit sky in that metal wicker chair. I hated nicotine. The first time she offered it to me she attempted to fit it in my hand¡ªI ended up burning myself, dropping the cigarette onto the ground, and in my anger towards her I squashed it beneath my foot. But she knows now that if she offered it to me again, even if I probably was weaker than her, I¡¯d raise hell.


    ¡°He¡¯ll come to you. Or he¡¯ll come to me¡ªat the end of the day, one of us will get him, I know that for sure.¡±


    I glared at her; maybe I hated the fact that she would even suggest that. Maybe I hated the fact that she would leave it all up to chance, implying that it was all based on luck and that ¡°at the end of the day¡± we couldn¡¯t do anything about it except wait. Yeah¡ªI didn¡¯t like that at all.


    ¡°And if he doesn¡¯t¡­¡± she trailed off.


    That¡¯s what I wanted. She shouldn¡¯t think of ¡°if he doesn¡¯t¡±.


    I learned about his death the day after it happened. It would have been two days after it happened if it wasn¡¯t for Amber; again, she was my saving grace that time. She learned it before me, from her neighbor who heard it from his girlfriend. And I thought that when she called me that afternoon we would just have our normal talks, where we would go on and on about whatever came to our minds and where we refused to filter out those things that would have gotten a volley of questions if any other person overheard our conversation.


    ¡°He¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s dead?¡±


    ¡°He is. He¡¯s dead.¡±


    Dad wasn¡¯t home when I learned, so I slammed the receiver down on my desk and put a dent in the wood, put a split in the plastic too.


    She had a boyfriend before we met Lucas. He was part of the reason why she got kicked off the cheerleading team; he slept with the captain of the team, the girl whose name she wrote in her diary ad infinitum. That girl. Everyday that I went to school I wondered if she was going to do something that day, if she was going to act on her raw emotions and put an end to the girl. She didn¡¯t, of course, but she should have. But she did get in a fight with her at a party that I attended; the second party I¡¯ve gone to, about the thirtieth she¡¯s gone to. Could be more, actually. I¡¯ve always thought that I should go to more of those, meet more people, and maybe I will¡ªmaybe that¡¯d be good for me. Lucas and her used to go together and he would invite me everytime. The first party I went to was when he called my house at around midnight from the host''s phone to ask if I could come pick him up because he and Amber both had been drinking and he wanted to get out of there, he didn¡¯t want to risk driving back intoxicated. Good on him. Amber ended up staying at that party until four in the morning, and she did end up walking back home that night since I couldn¡¯t be bothered to pick her up¡ªLucas had come back to my place anyway, he was spending the night. And dad wasn¡¯t home that night either, he was off doing God knows what, it didn¡¯t concern me. Sure, she called multiple times but I just let the thing ring itself off the wall practically, it wasn¡¯t my fault that she had made such a terrible decision. And I knew that she could make her way back by herself, wasn¡¯t the first time she had done that sort of thing. That all happened two months after we met him.


    And the second party I went to, like I mentioned, was the one where Amber and the cheer captain got into it; Amber was accused of harlotry¡ªthat wasn¡¯t the word that Heather used, it¡¯s the word I like to use. Amber didn¡¯t stand for that at all, Kirk Matthews stepped between them trying to act as a wall between the two of them. All I did was stand there, sipping from my SOLO cup, watching the two girls pull each other''s hair out. Kirk Matthews was on the football team like Lucas, he was a big guy, he could maybe stop them. Still, Amber wasn¡¯t having it; she reached around him, grabbed Heather¡¯s dyed blonde hair with her right hand (it was fake, everyone knew), grabbed one of those phones that¡¯s supposed to look like a pair of lips with her left, and cracked it over her head like a piece of candy. She bled a bit, not too much though, put a few drops on the floor¡ªwasn''t a hard stain to clean up at all. Definitely made her stop talking. And that was the first phone broken between the two of us.


    Nobody called an ambulance, nobody thought it was that bad of an injury, and it wasn¡¯t. Maybe a minor-grade concussion, though no one even dared to talk about it the next day, a Wednesday. Lucas was there, standing next to me, talking with a group of people I had seen him talking to a handful of times after some of his games. And I didn¡¯t involve myself.


    I, instead, watched. I observed. Just like how, later, I watched the funeral. I observed. I watched as they buried him, as his family cried, as Amber stood next to me and didn¡¯t say a single word until they were done piling all the dirt on him, just to turn to me and say, ¡°Well, that¡¯s that,¡± with her hands tucked in her pockets and the smell of smoke on her breath. And I¡¯m sure she could smell that sickly sour smell on mine too.


    ¡°No it isn¡¯t.¡± I responded to her statement hours later, after we held between us so many conversations that there was no chance that she understood what I was referring to.


    ¡°¡®No it isn¡¯t¡¯ what?¡±


    I didn¡¯t respond to her¡ªeither I was trying to piss her off or I just didn¡¯t see the need to give her an answer, I don¡¯t really know. Yes, of course, I was the one who said it, but it didn¡¯t really matter.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t what?¡±


    That night was terribly cold, utterly awful. It would have been a great idea to bring gloves of some sort but too bad we didn¡¯t think of that. Yet it was fall and we should have known better. We saw the dead leaves, we felt the weather getting more and more crisp, the gray skies and the rainy weather, but we somehow didn¡¯t think to wear gloves. I wore my jacket, she wore her sweater, and I put on rain boots just in case a storm came in during our third visit to the cemetery.


    I buried my dog. I¡¯ve dug a grave before. Lucky. Hit by a car, he got stuck in the wheel well. And I had to bury him. It¡¯s not that hard. It takes a while, that¡¯s for sure, but it¡¯s not the hardest thing in the world, even for someone my size.


    It did start to rain, dirt turned to wet dirt, wet dirt turned to mud, mud turned to me slipping a few times, my grip on the shovel getting more and more loose. She took a few turns, she made a little bit of progress. I straightened out the stone, did the groundskeeper''s job. They should¡¯ve put it in place right the first time. Apparently I didn¡¯t even notice that it was right next to a massive tree, with roots that spread to a ridiculous degree¡ªwhy would they have him be neighboring a tree? He¡¯d end up getting a pile of leaves on him every fall.

 Two

    We were at it for a long while. Didn¡¯t hit his coffin until three-10. I know because I checked my watch when I got in the truck eventually. My hands vibrated once I finally struck the top of the coffin¡ªI tossed the shovel to the side, almost hitting Amber who was sitting on the edge of the hole dangling her boots down.


    ¡°Mark¡ª!¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer; I got on my knees and dug with my hands, launching clods of dirt and muddied soil behind me as I quarried just like Lucky. She was saying something, she might have even been shouting, but I didn¡¯t hear her. And when my hands felt the smooth outer-wood of the coffin I couldn¡¯t contain myself, we had been at it for hours and now I could see my reflection in the polish¡ªthe whole time she was illuminating me in my work with a flashlight, even if the moonlight might have sufficed that night.


    ¡°Mark, god damn it, Mark!¡± Now she cut through.


    I stared up at her, on my knees as I held my hands tightly against the frame of the box.


    ¡°There¡¯s someone.¡± She motioned behind her in a short manner, then turned off her flashlight. I held my breath. If we did get caught we¡¯d just say we were grave robbers, maybe we could convince him that the two of us had fallen on hard times and we were just trying to make some money; and maybe he¡¯d be sympathetic. I was lying to myself but it helped.


    Amber laid on the ground, ruining her clothes in such a way that I had to hear all about it on the eventual drive back to my house. He didn¡¯t even notice us, she was worried about nothing¡ªI thought that surely he would¡¯ve seen a beam of light. Who in their right mind would go to mourn at a grave at three in morning? Better yet, who in their right mind would¡¯ve taken the job of a night guard at a cemetery? Perhaps it wasn¡¯t that bad, a short hourly check¡ªwalking down the lanes could¡¯ve been calming for him. Never mind that, he was gone now.


    ¡°Mark!¡± She was whisper-shouting. Now she peeked her head over the edge, much like how she positioned her boots not but a few moments before.


    Again, I didn¡¯t answer her, I just looked up and out of my shallow hovel.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably locked, how are we going to open it?¡±


    I looked back at my warped reflection in the shiny black, I constricted myself slightly in my puffer jacket. My hands clawed at the coffin lip as I did my best to try and open it in the confined space.


    I desired to look upon him again¡ªto peer at his brown and frazzled hair, to feel it twisting and twirling about my fingers like I had a few times before, to look at his fair skin and gaze into those eyes that entrapped me. To feel him embrace me, like when he hugged me before he left my house the morning after that first party. The night that I learned of his death I dreamed that perhaps I would, at one time, be lying in bed with him, atop covers, me coddled in his arms with no troubles on my heart; he would entangle my hair in his fingers as well, rub my back and tell me that I didn¡¯t need to worry. I could wait at the sidelines after a game, for him to come and greet me, for me to ask him how he felt during the game, for me to hand him his water bottle as he tried his best to catch his breath, as I stared up into those burning blue eyes. And maybe he could tell me something like, ¡°Yes, I did like her for a short while, but that doesn¡¯t matter anymore. I got over it because now I have you instead, and you¡¯re much better than her, Mark.¡± Then maybe I could call him in the late hours of the night, when my mind is spinning and I have no one else to talk to, even if she would have picked up the phone just as fast as he would.


    ¡°I swear to God if we came here and we dug for this long just so that we can¡¯t open the damn¡ª!¡±


    Even though I could¡¯ve stared up at her from down below for the third time, my face splattered with mud and my hair stained with sweat now almost freezing in the fall night air, I didn¡¯t. ¡°I have a hatchet in my truck.¡±


    ¡°Your keys?¡±


    I tossed them up to her.


    ¡°Where¡¯d you buy a hatchet? I thought you weren¡¯t allowed to have weapons anymore.¡±


    A nod from me¡ªI don¡¯t know why I did that. ¡°I took it from my grandpa¡¯s shed.¡±


    ¡°You brunettes are all the same.¡±


    Just barely I could hear the sound of her unlocking the door, perhaps her whispering to herself something about not being able to see in the back seats with how dark it was; when she got down on her stomach the flashlight had fallen down into the hole with me.


    Mumbling under my breath before she returned: ¡°And yet dad lets me have alcohol.¡±


    Not so precariously she tossed the hatched down to me¡ªI didn¡¯t even have the flashlight on, she could have easily hit me with it and knocked me out cold. Thankfully, it landed on the coffin. I took it up in my hands and held it far above my head; as I did so I felt the slightest flurry of raindrops begin to fall upon my jacket and face, as I strained my eyes to see through the darkness. One cut didn¡¯t do the trick¡ªneither did five, or fifteen. Already tired from digging, I strained every possible muscle in my upper torso in order to cut away the last thing that separated me from Lucas. We neglected to think about how, even if we cut through the lumber, we still had the trouble of trying to get him through the hole we made. That didn¡¯t matter and I hadn¡¯t even realized that in the first place yet.


    About twenty-5 cuts deep and I had breached, to be met with white cloth of silken pillows. With my same bare hands that I heaved up mud with I pried off chunk after chunk, splinter after splinter, to throw it out of my burrow, up towards Amber watching from above. Soon, the top of the casket was gone, save for only a few bothersome plush scraps¡ªand there, in the deepest slumber, was he. Now, once again, I was on my knees, with him between my legs as I dared to touch his hands and unfold his arms. He was buried in his jacket, that same jacket that he wore everyday through the halls of our school, that same jacket that he wore on the night of the first and second party, that same jacket that he wore as he leaned over me at the water fountain. His parents requested that he be buried with it.


    ¡°And how do we get him out?¡±


    I didn¡¯t respond, and I think that she had grown accustomed to that; my hands then laid upon his chest as I stared at my companion¡¯s visage.


    ¡°God damn it Mark!¡±


    So she broke me from my trance. ¡°Amber?¡±


    ¡°How do you plan on getting him out of there?¡±


    ¡°Come down here.¡±


    She refused.


    ¡°I ask that you come down here. Or am I going to have to try and hoist him up?¡± Though I was trying my hardest to sound sarcastic I do not think she caught on.


    ¡°That sounds like the best idea.¡±


    Sarcasm was her natural state of mind; at all times it was what she resorted to and now, for some reason that I couldn¡¯t even begin to try and understand, it was alien to her.


    I held onto the sides of his jacket, gripping at the somewhat soaked cloth and leather, to then tug upwards and force him into an upright position. His movements were jagged and yet taught¡ªhe partially refused to comply. And I am not the strongest person, I barely had trouble moving my dresser even with the help of my own father, having to maintain control of one of the sides when lifting it. I heaved upward again, trying desperately to reach within myself and pull out some sort of strength that I held deep in my being. My eyes clenched shut, barely any visual contrast to the dark night, and when I opened them he awkwardly leaned his back against the hole¡¯s wall. He was now at the height for Amber to reach down into the pit and grip his jacket¡¯s shoulders; carefully, she did so. Precariously, actually. And I pushed upward against his body, in the direction of the watchful moon above¡ªas detrimental as it was to my own masculinity she was just barely stronger than me.


    ¡°I think he¡¯s slipping Mark!¡±


    I exhaled deeply as I exerted all force, hoping that she would do the same. Then, in an act of God, he came to the surface, to the land of the living even. Laying on damp grass with his legs awkwardly bent and hanging in an uncomfortable position at the side of the hole, I climbed up to see his corpse.


    ¡°And the truck now.¡±


    We decided that it would be better if, instead of dragging him along the ground and over to the bed of my truck we, instead, backed the truck up and near the hole; that was, of course, after we drug him about ten feet. Dragging him risked ruining his jacket. And just as when we brought him up and out of his grave, jointly we brought him from the ground and into the truck bed. Up with the tailgate¡ªinside the car, in the darkness, I heard Amber barely say something in an uttering fashion, so much so that I couldn¡¯t even make out what she said.


    ¡°What was that?¡±


    ¡°The dirt.¡±


    She was right. If anyone saw that he had been deliberately taken out of the grave then who was to say that we wouldn¡¯t be the first ones that they questioned. I spent two hours afterward, with her sitting on the reopened tailgate and watching me, shoveling the dirty back into the pit and continuing my burdensome sweating. Five-30 just about and we feared the approaching daylight¡ªwith every passing minute the potential for someone to see us increased dramatically.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Amber came to grips with our reality before I did. And of course, there wasn¡¯t much to come to grips with really. No, instead she was paranoid, worried about nothing. The question of where we were to store him didn¡¯t bother me; like my grandpa, I had a shed in my backyard as well, that was the simplest solution. And since we didn¡¯t have school in the morning, we could use as much time as we needed¡ªit was a Sunday, after all. I didn¡¯t dare to even try and console Amber, I let her figure it out herself. She wasn¡¯t crying, don¡¯t think I have barely ever seen her cry. Perhaps once, when she was drunk, out of control of her own emotions, and it was completely possible that it was spurred on by some ridiculous factor that never would have caused her such sorrow if she was sober. Though I knew when she was upset, when she was concerned with something completely different than the task at hand; she would become disconnected from everything around her. And I felt as though I was reliving the same night some eleven months ago in November, the night she spoke to Lucas after the football game and I drove her home¡ªthere, in that same seat, even though she had just met him, she already was heartbroken over the fact that he most definitely didn¡¯t like her back. Of course she had seen him in passing in the hallway, even watched him on the field when she did cheer, but she never had a direct conversation with him until then¡ªuntil he acted as though he had interest in her. And I was the same. And maybe that¡¯s just what he was great at.


    We had upturned a corpse, exhumed him from his resting place. At the very least we had displaced him from a place of comfort, yet what we had in store for him was far greater than any sort of burial practice that he was given. And I didn¡¯t care, and I still don¡¯t.


    ¡°This was a terrible idea.¡±


    ¡°This will be a great idea.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t do this.¡±


    ¡°Of course we can, what¡¯s stopping us?¡±


    ¡°I want to get out of the car.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re going far too fast, we can get out when we pull into my driveway.¡±


    ¡°Mark, I want out now.¡±


    ¡°You can wait.¡±


    ¡°Mark.¡±


    Though I knew that I had better judgment I went against my gut feeling, pulling over to the curb and just barely scraping it with my tire and quite possibly bumper, allowing her to leave the safety of the truck and stand on the concrete abutment. ¡°Mark, we can¡¯t keep a dead body in a shed.¡±


    I attempted to stand uncorrected. ¡°He¡¯s not going to be a dead body.¡±


    She started to do the same thing that I was doing earlier: she refused to respond.


    ¡°Thousand-900 and eighty-seven A.D. October the tenth.¡¯


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s this year.¡±


    And again, she didn¡¯t respond.


    ¡°Coffins are mentioned four times within the entirety of Oliver Twist.¡± I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. ¡°Four times.¡±


    Still, she didn¡¯t respond.


    ¡°Four times seems like quite a lot if you think about it.¡±


    Silence.


    ¡°Ridiculous, really.¡±


    Somehow I had coaxed her back into the truck. More likely she had realized the sheer cold of the outside night air and that she¡¯d rather be in the cab with me than out, alone in the fog. Fog had been creeping about, manifesting from the ground and now coming up to my headlights, only a matter of time before it obscured my vision and we were already rather limited on our amount of time to return back to my house.


    ¡°Four doesn¡¯t seem like enough.¡±


    I smiled. ¡°Is that so?¡±


    ¡°Of course, considering how that story goes,¡± she said, doing her best to get comfortable in her seat.


    ?   ?   ?


    The awful sound that he made when he expelled from his lungs and stomach that foul smelling, putrid concoction of chemicals that I had no knowledge of nearly pushed me to evacuating my guts as well. She refused to be present during the operation, he laid arms and legs stretched across the table, strapped down by my father¡¯s belts that I had nailed to a workbench. It wasn¡¯t often that I wore my glasses, but I thought it necessary for such an endeavor. That is, of course, he vomited when he stood, not when he was supine. I fixed his hair, I cut his fingernails, I shaved his face, I parked my truck in front of the open garage door to run red and black jumper cables into my new laboratory. I failed biology. She made me swear on a Bible before I began the operation, a testament to a God that she had sworn off years before. I would have rathered he thrown up in the road-side drainage grate than in my neighbor¡¯s bushes, but I couldn¡¯t stop him¡ªhe was a hulking, twisted beast of movement. Of burden as well.


    Amber sat in my living room, completely disconnected from my surgery, if it would even be fitting to call it that. He didn¡¯t spill any of the bile on his chest or his stomach thankfully. I feared to touch him, afraid that at any moment he might limp and run down the road. That was an issue as well: his right leg was broken from the crash, the event that unfortunately took him away from me in the first place. By six we had an hour left until the sun fell on October 11th; I approached him sheepishly, carefully, with his best interest in mind as I motioned for him to follow him. I was completely wrong in my first assumption¡ªhe wasn¡¯t afraid of me at all, he was just indifferent. He refused to speak, he quietly inferred with his blue eyes now turned ghost-gray. His skin was much the same, gone from the fair yet lightly tan complexion that he originally had to now a pale silver.


    My words were brief, as again, I didn¡¯t want to scare him¡ªI didn¡¯t want to scare him, Lucas. I briefly thought back to how he writhed about on my operating table, whether it was in pain or major discomfort or something else in between, electricity pulsing through his corpse. I thought I had gone crazy¡ªbut no, I wasn¡¯t crazy, as there he stood before me in flesh and blood once again. He wasn¡¯t a ghost because I could feel him, and how cold he was to the touch. And he let me touch him, he did not pull back, just looked upon me with dull eyes with dark shadows around them. I was the first to greet him back into the world. And even his jacket felt frostbitten.


    He took my glasses from my face, off of my nose, and put them on himself.


    As I kept my eye on him, making sure to keep him within my peripheral vision, I opened the door to the mudroom and shouted to my lab partner who refused to be a part of the experiment. Her voice distant, she refused to believe what I told her until she laid eyes upon him herself; I should have called her Thomas, I could¡¯ve.


    Maybe in three minutes I would have woken from my dream, holding onto my sheets as I sweat in the solitude of my room, hearing the tapping of a branch on my window in a storm. Maybe his death would have been a nightmare and his resurrection a fantasy. But it wasn¡¯t; neither of them were. She didn¡¯t pinch me.


    My first concern while Amber made her way to the garage was to turn off the truck. My second was that even though I had done my best at the cemetery to protect his jacket, I had burnt two patches on the front from the use of the jumper cables. She dropped a glass of water, the dish taken from the cupboard and now a thousand pieces on the floor¡ªand though he jumped he didn¡¯t run. His senses were still heightened since his awakening, I would think. Before she could let out her scream I rushed to her side, clasping my hand over her mouth and putting my other hand upon her shoulder, to then walk with her slowly to my Lucas and formally introduce them to one another.


    He didn¡¯t stretch out his hand when I brought her out. He looked upon her, his face fit with my glasses, and didn¡¯t speak a word¡ªI don¡¯t even know if he thought a singular thought. Instead, his eyes left her and looked to me. And through his stare my blood tried to run ice cold, yet the passion for him burned far too bright for it to have any effect on me. ¡°Amber, this is Lucas V. Beaumont; Lucas,¡± I dared to see if he would respond to me calling him by his name, ¡°this is Amber.¡± Though her hand was shaky I believe that she quickly came to realize just like I that this was not a hallucination, that she was not stuck in a purgatory-like dream. I whispered into her ear, ¡°he¡¯s real.¡±


    ¡°This is Lucas,¡± maybe she was trying to say it to me and she made it appear to be a self affirmation. ¡°Hi, Lucas.¡±


    I would¡¯ve thought that she would have been more obsessed with the idea of his return. Excited to a ridiculous degree, possibly. But we still had the concern of his shuffling movements as his leg was still broken¡ªI failed biology, I had not the slightest clue of how to fix it.


    A dead body is significantly heavier than I thought¡ªit could have been that his embalming fluid added to his weight, but then again he was a football player. Even though I had gone about my work as if there wasn''t a second thought, I still severely doubted whether or not I would succeed. And if I didn''t then it didn''t matter. I had him with me, in my garage, to eventually be placed within my shed, and that''s all that matters. But now he was in front of me and her, living dead, standing in the doorframe of my garage.


    I''d played Dungeons and Dragons a few times before. The kid who organized its name was Roger¡ªhe listened to rock, screamed at his parents, refused to cut his hair even though his father insisted he did. There was a necromancer when we played. I met Roger through Amber.


    Of course, he was a looming figure, his shadow projected on us from the truck headlights. I had taken off the cables but hadn¡¯t shut off the car. And the fog still crept in, it wrapped itself about his legs. He was awkward in his stance.


    He slept in my room. I have no idea if he "slept" in the living sense, but he was present. Sleeping on his back like before wouldn''t have worked, the worry that he would get stuck in it or have difficulty getting into it in the first place. Without help from either of them I retrieve a mattress from the basement. During that time Amber had to watch over him, sitting politely yet uncomfortably on my dad''s velvet couch, his hands at his sides, all the while she stood as close as she possibly could to the front door. I knew that she wouldn''t leave¡ªthough she most likely feared him, her morbid fascination was too great. He didn''t speak to her, I don''t think he could.


    Before I let him into my room I forced him to shower. It wasn''t that he stunk, and if he did I couldn''t tell, but that he was covered in rain-slicked mud, his hair was a mess even though I had done my best to fix it. I suggested to Amber that she help me with getting him to the bathroom¡ªshe refused. She didn''t want to touch him. I didn''t mind, she confused me.


    I had him shower in his boxers, I wanted him to keep his dignity. After almost slipping three times he was safely leaning against the tiled wall, standing in the tub. As the room steamed I exited, to find Amber outside the door.


    "He''s in."


    It was ridiculous to her. "''He''? So we''re calling him a he?"


    Was she questioning his awareness, his self? "Why wouldn''t we? He is Lucas. You said so yourself.¡±


    Apparently, she didn¡¯t recognize his independence.


    He definitely didn¡¯t sleep because I awoke in the middle of the night to him with his head placed against the window, staring out into the street¡ªfrightened for a quick moment I sat up in my bed, to then realize that my companion had possibly had a nightmare. ¡°Lucas?¡±


    His eyes rolled to the right in his skull, his head sliding to the side to look at me as he remained dependent on the glass to keep him up right.


    ¡°So you know your name. Go back to sleep.¡±


    He coughed in his mouth¡ªdid he breathe?


    And I was right, of course: the shower had warmed him. In my embrace he was no longer cold to the touch. Sure, he was still slightly freezing, but he was warmer than he was before, and I didn¡¯t really mind it at all.


    Swaddled in those covers I remembered the wintry days before her dad was gone, when she would be picked up at three o¡¯clock and I would have to stand, shivering, waiting for mom. How I used to wipe at the snot that came down onto my lip, tightly holding onto the straps of my bookbag and chattering my teeth. But there, in bed, I wasn¡¯t alone like I was on the sidewalk, with everyone gone because their parents showed up on time. They didn¡¯t have to wait till five, close to when the sun decided it wanted to leave too.


    I wish he had gone to sleep, and I know that I did. Even if he was a little cold it didn¡¯t matter, the covers and sheets helped with that. And I would have thought that he was tired, but maybe it made sense because he was sleeping for a few days. Amber slept on the couch¡ªshe¡¯d done it before, when we were much younger and I was still living with my mother. She let us have sleep overs but we always had to sleep in separate rooms.

 Three

    She hung up on me at first, after that brief silence when I told her that I had Lucas over; she was upset but she still ended up spending the rest of that night with me. The next morning, or maybe the next morning¡ªI can¡¯t really recall, it might have been a Tuesday and or it might have been a Wednesday¡ªI got to school late. He was skipping class, a habit that I eventually learned he had, he was sat on the concrete steps at one of the back doors to the school, facing a chain link fence and a line of trees. If someone wandered far enough into that ¡°forest¡± they would come out on the south side of Chapel Hill Cemetery. Usually, if you wanted to avoid getting caught showing up late you would park in the back, sneak into class through one of the many back doors that were unlocked, then move your car during lunch to the front where everyone else was parked.


    He waved, he didn¡¯t call my name¡ªhe smiled.


    I waved back, then I adjusted my jacket, it was far too cold out to be wearing anything but. ¡°What class are you missing?¡±


    Lucas coughed, kept on smiling as he talked. ¡°Chemistry.¡±


    ¡°To hell with chemistry,¡± I muttered loud enough for him to hear. I was lying¡ªI really did like chemistry.


    ¡°Amen to that.¡± Putting his head in his hands he grunted, sighed, maybe. His fingers went through his hair, that same soft hair that I put my hands through. ¡°Can¡¯t the week just be over?¡±


    I didn¡¯t ask but I assumed that I had the ability to sit next to him. ¡°That¡¯d be nice, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± The two of us had a few classes together, though he always sat with all of the other football players. ¡°I enjoyed you coming over.¡±


    Between his mask of fingers I could see that he was looking over at me¡ªhe hesitated in his response. ¡°Yeah, that was fun.¡±


    ¡°And maybe¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Maybe we could do something like that again? I wouldn¡¯t mind.¡±


    There was a sort of feeling that I had in my stomach, or maybe it was my head, or maybe, instead, it was between my legs. I couldn¡¯t tell and I don¡¯t think it made any difference. Still, I placed my hands on my thighs, I flexed my stomach, and adjusted how I held my head, looking now straight into the trees. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯d be great.¡±


    He coughed again.


    ¡°Do you smoke?¡± I asked.


    Lucas shook his head. ¡°My dad does, in the house. My cough isn¡¯t from that, I think it¡¯s from the weather.¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡± I fought every voice of my internal monologue to not scoot closer to him, to not desire affection from him, but I believe that no matter what, I was doomed to fail. Distracting myself by staring at the trees, or the leaves, or possibly even the garbage can that sat awaiting the truck seemed like my best chance at a saving grace. He was looking at me¡ªhe was looking at me now and I had no idea until I gave one little glance, and instantly I was flustered, overwhelmed. Deeply troubled. I pulled at the sides of my jacket, I coughed, I kicked my feet slightly as I reached out to grab the metal railing that went in tandem with the stairs. His gray eyes¡ªno, his blue eyes, they pierced through mine everytime we made eye contact and they threw me into a torrent of confusion interlaced with worry. Worry and fear. They weren¡¯t gray then, not yet. ¡°I should probably be going to class,¡± I said, slipping on the stairs that weren¡¯t even wet and landing on my backside. I must have startled him, or I must have made him laugh¡ªI couldn¡¯t tell, I was too bothered by the pain. He helped me up, I took his hand.


    ¡°I should get going too, I can only act like I¡¯m pissing for so long.¡±


    That was funny. ¡°You¡¯re funny.¡± I don¡¯t think I should have said that, it felt out of place. My eyes straightened when I thought about how stupid I sounded. I always sounded stupid, it didn¡¯t matter what I did.


    ¡°Sometimes.¡±


    A few steps into our walk back up to the nearby back door. ¡°Amber smokes. Did you know that?¡± Was I trying to make her sound worse than me?


    ¡°I did know that, yeah.¡± He reached out for the door. ¡°Shit.¡± It was locked.


    ¡°Someone must have locked it.¡± Now we were stuck outside, and if we went through the front door we would, again, risk getting caught¡ªbut maybe the teachers didn¡¯t care, or maybe they wouldn¡¯t even see us. ¡°Mrs. Giodarno doesn¡¯t have a class this time, she always has her windows open.¡± I took Italian that year.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t there screens?¡±


    ¡°A kid cut through one of them when he was trying to sneak out during her fourth period study hall when she went to get something from the teacher¡¯s lounge and they never bothered to fix it.¡± That was a long sentence, I didn¡¯t even breathe.


    ¡°You take italian?¡±


    ¡°Italian II, yeah.¡±


    ¡°French.¡± He put his hands in the pockets of his varsity jacket. And he was still smiling, still looking down at me. ¡°My mom speaks it. Canada. She¡¯s from Quebec.¡±


    Geography wasn¡¯t my strong suite either. ¡°North?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, Canada¡¯s north.¡± I made him laugh, quietly of course, but I made him laugh and I wasn¡¯t even trying to. ¡°So I boost you?¡±


    ¡°You what?¡±


    ¡°What side of the school is her classroom on? Ain¡¯t she on the second floor too?¡± He broke our eye contact, going in the direction of the western side of the building.


    ¡°Other side.¡± I sounded rude.


    He spun around on his right foot. ¡°Other side then.¡± I continued to watch him until he disappeared behind the garbage bin, then I started after him. Why was I just standing there?


    ¡°You comin¡¯?¡±


    I rushed, almost tripping over nothing¡ªactually, it was probably the loose asphalt pebbles, all the parking lots needed redone. In my hurry I almost ran into the brick-wall corner of the school as I went around the bend, and while I was still dazed from that potential collision I slammed, head first, into his back. He barely even budged.


    ¡°Do you usually show up late?¡±


    ¡°My truck wouldn¡¯t start.¡±


    He took his hands out of his pockets, stared up at her window. I was right, it was open. ¡°I¡¯ll crouch down, you get on my shoulders, and then you can climb in through her window.¡±


    ¡°How are you going to get up? I can¡¯t pull you up.¡± I didn¡¯t even know if I could pull myself up and onto the window sill let alone heave him up. But I could, at least when I was helped by Amber.


    His head slowly turned, his eyes pierced through me yet again. ¡°I¡¯ll find another way, don¡¯t worry about me.¡± Then his smile melted me. Maybe I could get myself up.


    I can¡¯t even imagine how stupid I looked when I was flailing my legs, trying to kick off of the brick so that I could bring myself through the window. And I probably looked even stupider when I was standing on his shoulders, like it was a circus act. Eventually I did get through, eventually I looked out the window as I stood in the slightly warmer school and saw Lucas staring back at me, giving me a thumbs off, then walking off with his breath freezing in the air.


    I forgot my backpack in my truck.


    My temptation to hit my head against the door to Mrs. Giodarno¡¯s door was unmatched; thankfully, I didn¡¯t. I was stopped just before I did by the ringing of the bell. Almost instantly, like always, the halls were flooded. And I wanted to stay in that room even though I knew she would come in at any moment¡ªthe lights were off, the air was still, the sun¡¯s rays came in through the windows, it would have been the perfect place to sit and do nothing.


    Of course, I had to find Amber.


    At lunch I ended up moving my truck, though it took longer than I thought because, like that morning, it wouldn¡¯t start. Something was wrong with the something¡ªI don¡¯t know anything about cars. It was my dad¡¯s old truck anyways, he would know how to fix it. I returned to the overwhelming scene of the lunchroom, with Amber sitting next to Roger and a few others that I was barely acquainted with yet I sat with them every single day. I can¡¯t even be bothered to remember what we were eating. Oftentimes, I found myself just watching everyone else eat, messing with my food only to then throw it into the trash before I left for my next class.


    The topic of discussion was something. It didn¡¯t matter. It never mattered. Barely did I ever chime in, barely did I ever join the conversation to add something that had no value. I wondered if they would even care if I was there¡ªAmber would, I knew that. Since my truck didn¡¯t start in the morning I could have potentially stayed home, slept in, neglected to do my homework.


    ¡°Are you and Lucas like a thing or something?¡±


    I looked up at Roger. He wasn¡¯t even looking at me, he was talking to Amber.


    She laughed. ¡°Well, kind of.¡± His question had everyone else sitting on the edges of their seats. ¡°We don¡¯t have a title or anything like that, but we hang out all the time.¡±


    She was lying. I knew she was lying. She hadn¡¯t even done anything with him outside of school¡ªI had, she hadn¡¯t. I never knew her to be a liar. My grip on my fork tightened to a ridiculous amount, I gritted my teeth.


    ¡°I thought you were off the cheer team,¡± another kid said. He was a sophomore, we were juniors at the time, and for some reason we had decided to keep him around. I¡¯ll call him Theodore¡ªthat wasn¡¯t his name.


    Again she laughed, she fixed her top. ¡°I am, I have been for a long while. That¡¯s not stopping him.¡±


    ¡°Someone said that he only dates girls on the cheer team.¡± Theo was sitting next to me but I kept myself at a distance.


    ¡°He did date Nicole but they¡¯ve been over for a long time.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t she try to hit him with her care?¡± Let¡¯s call her Sam.


    ¡°She sure as hell did, crazy bitch.¡± No she didn¡¯t. I knew that she didn¡¯t, Lucas told me. He told me when he was over at my house, not her¡¯s. Sure, she repeated gossip, she spread rumors that she didn¡¯t make up, but she never openly told a fib about herself. That wasn¡¯t her.


    ¡°That¡¯s not true. She didn¡¯t do that.¡±


    Everyone stared at me. Theo questioned me. ¡°How do you know that?¡±


    My gaze met my plate, I placed my fork down. ¡°He told me.¡±


    ¡°You talk to Lucas?¡±


    ¡°Of course I do.¡±


    She undermined me. ¡°He only talks to Lucas because I introduced them, and plus they don¡¯t get along too well.¡±


    She was wrong again, and I refused to try and defend myself. It didn¡¯t matter, because even if they didn¡¯t know the truth I still knew that I was right and, in the end, it didn¡¯t really matter. I think. If I did I would most likely be discredited.


    Again, it didn¡¯t matter, because as I stood next to my truck at the end of the day, doing my best to try and figure out how I would be able to start my truck without having to slam on the hood with both my fists like I always did, I was approached by Lucas. He must have been watching me from afar, maybe under the shelter of the roofed concrete slab that sat directly outside the front of the door. And I bet that he was getting a kick out of watching, seeing me stress out over not being able to get back home when I wanted to. Usually Amber would have been the one to help me out but she had left already, she was going to do something that I didn¡¯t care about. Whatever it was, it didn''t concern me, so I didn¡¯t want to think about it.


    ¡°Car trouble, again?¡±


    I forgot that I had made a brief mention of it to him. ¡°Oh, yeah.¡± I leaned up against my half-ajar door, arms crossed, for it to then close on me and I practically fell down like I did on the concrete steps¡ªI caught myself this time, didn¡¯t need his help.


    ¡°Is there any way that I can help?¡± If he was Amber, he wouldn¡¯t have offered. She would have made me force her to. If he was Amber he would have already been gone, but he wasn¡¯t.


    Of course there was something for him to help me with. ¡°If you can slam on the hood when I go to start it then that would help.¡±


    He seemed confused¡ªI didn¡¯t blame him at all. It didn¡¯t make sense, why would I need to assault the vehicle in order for it to start? Nonetheless, he did it without even a second thought. Well, he had his initial confused thought, so he did it without even a third thought. Something within me told me that I should make some sort of comment about me being afraid that he would dent the hood, yet I refused.


    It started, and thank God it did because if it didn¡¯t then I would be walking home in freezing rain; it wasn¡¯t freezing yet, but I knew it was going to. A few days before it had made the roads slick, I could have sworn I saw someone slip and fall walking outfront my house¡ªit might have even been the mailman coming to our front door.


    ¡°That really worked.¡± Lucas was astonished, perplexed, I infer. ¡°Doesn¡¯t make sense.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t blame you.¡±


    ¡°For what?¡±


    I hesitated, even somewhat confused as to what I meant in the first place. ¡°For thinking that.¡±


    ¡°Thinking what?¡±


    What was wrong with me? ¡°Okay, well I probably should get going.¡± I had found myself getting out of the truck that I had just started, that I was originally about to take out of park, that I was about to rush out of the parking lot with¡ªbut now I was standing in front of Lucas, my arms crossed yet again, my eyes stuck on him.


    ¡°Why¡¯s Mark in such a hurry?¡± Something about the way he said that, the way he had put the words in such an odd sequence that genuinely confused me and, contradictingly, enthralled me.


    ¡°Because Mark has better things to do.¡± I uncrossed my arms finally, even though I was more relaxed in the former. ¡°Better yet, because Mark has homework to do.¡±


    ¡°I doubt it.¡±


    Why would he doubt that? He had homework that he had to do, it didn¡¯t make sense for him to think that I didn¡¯t have homework if he definitely did. ¡°I have quite a lot.¡±


    ¡°No, I bet that Mark already got his homework done.¡± I heard someone call his name, they were trying desperately to get his attention, following the first call with three more¡ªhe shifted his feet but he didn¡¯t directly turn his attention to them. He was too preoccupied with something else. ¡°Mark uses his time wisely.¡±


    ¡°Mark has to get going.¡±


    He grabbed my door; he didn¡¯t want me to go. I don¡¯t think he wanted me to go, at least. Maybe that¡¯s what I hoped, and now that hope¡ªthat deeply rooted desire that I made attempts to keep within me and to deny any avenue to be properly expressed¡ªwas given coal.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°Why isn¡¯t Amber here to help you with this sort of thing? I¡¯m sure she would if you just asked her.¡±


    ¡°We may have our differences but I know that she will never help me when I need it most.¡± I was exaggerating, sure, but he didn¡¯t know the difference. He probably couldn¡¯t even sense the tone that I was putting on in my voice.


    He sighed, finally redirecting his attention away from me and to the calling voice. ¡°In a minute!¡± It wasn¡¯t that he was upset, it wasn¡¯t that he was irritated with their constant yelling and shouting, it wasn¡¯t that he wanted them to go somewhere else so that he didn¡¯t have to worry about them anymore and so that he didn¡¯t have to hear them saying his name at the top of their lungs, howling like a madman. He just wanted them to stop for a second. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll be letting Mark go then.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good,¡± I said. Was I too short with him?


    ¡°And what time would Mark want me to show up to his house tonight, unannounced?¡±


    Lucas was inviting himself, he wanted to spend time with me. My dad was going to be home that night, that could have posed an issue¡ªor maybe it wouldn¡¯t, maybe nothing would come of him being over and it would be completely innocent, just how I wanted it to be. Who was I kidding? I was lying to myself, on both ends. That wasn¡¯t something I ever did, and I still don¡¯t do that; I don¡¯t lie to myself, lying to yourself is only a way of being able to convince yourself that something isn¡¯t the way that it is, or it is the way that you don¡¯t want it to be. Either way, I didn¡¯t lie to myself. I told myself the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God in gated heaven.


    ¡°That¡¯s for sure.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s for sure?¡± I asked.


    He didn¡¯t answer me back. I had slipped up, I said something out loud that I was trying to keep within my brain and only within my brain. So it was that my tongue betrayed me, it didn¡¯t have my best interest in mind. My tongue bit me rather than I bit my tongue.


    ¡°You can come at six.¡±


    Finally, the person begging for Lucas¡¯s attention interjects the two of us. Kirk Matthews. ¡°You¡¯re coming to practice, right? You¡¯re taking a long time, god damn it.¡± Kirk looked at me, raised an eyebrow, then brought his attention back to Lucas.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be staying for the entire time, I got other stuff to do, but yeah.¡± Even though he didn¡¯t give me a ¡°goodbye¡± I assumed that I was not free to go. Our chained connection forged there in the parking lot was now cut, my tires screeching on wet asphalt¡ªI needed to get them changed, I could barely see Lincoln¡¯s head, I could barely pull the penny out everytime I put it in. My hands were red, with my knuckles white and my teeth clenched together needing a wedge and a hammer in order to pry them apart. Wait, I could see the head of Lincoln, I got the trick wrong. My face was probably red too, just like my hands, just like the tomatoes my mom used to grow in her garden when I was little¡ªand that was a reflection of the fire that I felt sitting in the cold front cab of my car, the fire that lingered somewhere within me. Probably between my legs. I bet it was between my legs. Or in my chest.


    And, truly, either way it didn¡¯t matter, because he was coming over that night, skipping football (I assumed) so that he could spend time with me. Amber and I hadn¡¯t made official plans, but I still thought that the nicest thing that I could possibly think of and the nicest thing that I could possibly do was to call her and explain to her that any attempt to make plans that night would end up dead in the water. Instantly inert.


    ¡°What¡¯re you up to tonight, got something planned?¡±


    ¡°I do, actually. As a matter of fact¡ª.¡±


    ¡°And who are those plans with?¡±


    She knew, she always knew. I don¡¯t blame her for knowing, with the amount of things that I told her and the amount of times I did everything in my little power to bend and stretch the conversation in the direction of Lucas, of my Lucas, that Pandora¡¯s box that she had opened and then handed over to me. But she felt the same way about him, that¡¯s why she would constantly force conversation with him in the hallways, outside in the parking lot when she had the time to, and on those late nights at the end of every individual game. ¡°Lucas, you did so well tonight.¡± ¡°Lucas, your spiral is great.¡± ¡°Lucas, how about you drive me home?¡± And I still ended up being the one that would take her home when the night couldn¡¯t sustain itself any longer.


    Eventually, she called it obsession; I called it admiration. And the ghost hunter in her, what she liked to refer to as her ¡°spectral clairvoyance¡±, called it possession. She couldn¡¯t perform an exorcism, even if she did try on the stray cat we found a month before school started this year. A black one.


    I didn¡¯t know what a quarterback was, all I knew was that it was him. Or would it be ¡°he was it¡±? Does it matter? No, it doesn¡¯t, but I¡¯ll act like it does. No, I¡¯ll act like it doesn¡¯t


    It would have been a much better idea to simply hang up the phone. If I did then I wouldn¡¯t have to talk to her anymore that night, but if I didn¡¯t then I would have to give her what she wanted; she would, somehow, force me to admit my attachment to him. I went for the latter.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Maybe I was messing with her¡ªI knew that she knew, she knew that I knew, we both knew that Lucas didn¡¯t know. And at the end of the night he didn¡¯t really know, at least that¡¯s what I told myself. At the end of that night he definitely didn¡¯t know, even though I couldn¡¯t keep my eyes off of him, I suggested that he shower at my place before he got back because he said that he felt dirty after practice, and I even offered for him to spend the night since he had gotten so tired when the sun finally set¡ªhe didn¡¯t.


    ¡°It does matter. I should be able to know these things, you should want to tell me these things.¡± She heard me sigh through the phone. ¡°You asshole.¡±


    ¡°What did I do?¡±


    ¡°You know what you did, you know exactly what you did. You always know what you do. You¡¯re the one doing these things.¡±


    ¡°No I¡¯m not.¡±


    This time she mocked me with a pseudo-sigh. ¡°Mark, this isn¡¯t an arcade machine¡ªno one¡¯s putting quarters in you, no one¡¯s punching buttons and making you do things against your will. If anything, you¡¯re the one sitting in the stool staring at the screen.¡±


    ¡°You get poetic when you¡¯re angry.¡± I was right¡ªshe always did. She was never going to change, she would constantly be that way, I had just gotten used to it.


    ¡°Have fun with Lucas.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not who it is.¡±


    She was doing something that night anyway. She had better plans than me. ¡°I wrote a spell an hour ago.¡±


    Gerald Gardner, he founded Wicca. That¡¯s what she aligned herself most with. She didn¡¯t have any books on it, I don¡¯t know where she would have been able to¡ªif anyone in our town figured out that she did the things that she did, that she practiced the things that she practiced, they would have a hunt. They¡¯d grab pitchforks and torches, they¡¯d sweep the streets. I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d defend her, I might just board myself up in my house.


    ¡°It¡¯s a choking spell.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know that you can write your own spells.¡±


    I heard a scoff. ¡°Of course you can, I¡¯ve told you that you can. I¡¯ve written one in front of you.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know that they were written.¡±


    ¡°Do you even pay attention when I do anything in front of you?¡±


    My fingers were tapping on my desk, the blood in my hands was running warm. I debated whether or not I wanted to lay in my bed and talk, but I remembered that if he was coming over halfway through practice I would have to get everything in my room straightened up first¡ªI had let my dirty clothes pile up in the corner, my bed wasn¡¯t made at all, my pillow case was half off, my desk was covered in papers and things that I couldn¡¯t even remember the origin of. ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not listening.¡±


    ¡°No, I am.¡± I set the receiver face down on the desk, wrapped the cord around the leg of my chair so that it wouldn¡¯t slip off. Then I shouted so that, hopefully, she could hear me: ¡°I¡¯m listening.¡±


    I completely bet on the potential for her to keep talking, as if she didn¡¯t¡ªif she fell silent sitting on her own bed, the cord curled around her finger, twirling around the rest of her hand and maybe even her arm, down to her elbow¡ªshe would have realized I wasn¡¯t listening. I wasn¡¯t listening, why would I? I had other things to do. And when I finally did pick up the receiver again she was reading her spell out loud.


    ¡°Were you casting that on me?¡±


    ¡°I was trying to.¡± Even though any other person would have been embarrassed being caught red handed¡ªwould you call it green handed? The wicked witch, of course.


    I wonder why I wasn¡¯t named Victor. That would have fit me better, I think. Mark. Mark, that didn¡¯t sound right. Although, I couldn¡¯t do anything about it¡ªI¡¯m not old enough to change my name. Still, everytime I say it out loud I feel as if it doesn¡¯t roll off my tongue.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t feel right.¡± I said, throwing my hacky sack that I hadn¡¯t touched for over a month into the air, only for it to hit the ceiling and fall back down into my face. Should have caught it.


    ¡°What doesn¡¯t feel right?¡± He asked me. He was laying on the floor, on his back, in a similar fashion to me. I¡¯m glad that I vacuumed before he came over, or else he probably would have gotten his jacket all dirty. He rolled over and onto his side so that he could look at me¡ªI could see him out of the corner of my eye but I didn¡¯t dare meet his gaze. ¡°What doesn¡¯t feel right?¡±


    ¡°My name.¡± Apparently he had forgotten that we were even on that topic.


    ¡°It¡¯s been five minutes since we talked about that.¡±


    That was right. ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡°But go on.¡±


    I held tight to the hacky sack, debating if I wanted to throw it again. ¡°It should be Victor. That feels right. Mark doesn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± He was still looking at me¡ªI couldn¡¯t help but briefly choke on my own spit.


    ¡°When I say it out loud I don¡¯t think of myself. I don¡¯t think, ¡®I am Mark¡¯.¡± I threw the ball, it landed at my side. ¡°I think of someone else.¡±


    Finally he looked away, now on his back. ¡°Who does your name sound like then? What are you supposed to be named?¡±


    I thought hard. I didn¡¯t want to tell him the wrong answer, while at the same time I worried that he would think my answer was stupid. I refused to lie to him. He didn¡¯t deserve that. My phone rang.


    ¡°Do you want me to get that?¡± Lucas was already making his attempt to get up off of his back¡ªhe was sore from something.


    ¡°No, just leave it. Whoever¡¯s calling will give up eventually.¡±


    ¡°Amber?¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡±


    I kept thinking. I hadn¡¯t forgotten about his question, and he hadn¡¯t either.


    ¡°So, what is it?¡±


    ¡°Give me a second to think.¡±


    ¡°How does sixty sound?¡±


    I nodded. Didn¡¯t even know if he was looking over at me at first¡ªhe was, again.


    ¡°That¡¯s twenty passed. Tell me.¡±


    ¡°I still have forty.¡±


    He sighed, rolled to his back for what seemed like the millionth time, stared up at my spinning fan, his eyes slowly trailing over to watch me toss the hacky sack into the air, for it to plummet back and onto my face. I wasn¡¯t bothered by it. I could see him grip a few times at the carpet he was laying on.


    ¡°Victor.¡±


    ¡°Victor?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that sounds right.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Victor.¡± The tone in his voice made it sound like he was about to get up and leave, but he didn¡¯t. ¡°If you like it then I¡¯ll like it.¡± He could never be comfortable, he was rolling around on the floor every second he got¡ªevery position seemed to be uncomfortable to him. Unnatural. Then again, what even was natural to him? ¡°I think Lance wanted to do something this weekend.¡± That wasn¡¯t the right position, on his back again. ¡°We¡¯ll see about that though.¡±


    Now I played his part; I rolled over on my side, I looked over at him. ¡°Do you have other plans? Is something stopping you from hanging out with Lance?¡±


    I think he tried to stifle a laugh, putting his right hand over his mouth and his left on his stomach. Or maybe he had to cough and he didn¡¯t want to be uncivilized. No¡ªit was a giggle. ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± His eyes slipped over to me. I looked away, almost instantly.


    ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, nothing at all, Victor.¡± He said slowly, methodically, looking up and almost out of his skull to awkwardly peer out of the window, upside down. ¡°Time?¡±


    ¡°Time?¡±


    ¡°The time.¡±


    My watch was on the nightstand. ¡°Seven-30.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been here for two hours already?¡± It wasn¡¯t that he was saying it to me, he wasn¡¯t asking me, he was just saying it. He could have been saying it to God, even. Probably not. Yeah, probably not.


    A second call on my phone.


    ¡°You should pick it up.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t see the need.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s Amber¡ª.¡±


    It was. ¡°It is.¡± I felt bad interrupting him yet I needed to reassure him.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s Amber. Since it¡¯s Amber, she might need a ride.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not her ride for tonight. I have more important things to do.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re laying in your bed doing nothing.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not true.¡± I pulled the covers up over me, I was done throwing my hacky sack¡ªI tossed it over to him, it landed on his chest. That was my second athletic feat for the day, the first being pulling myself up and into that window. ¡°I have a guest over.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just a guest?¡±


    What did he mean by that? Did that term demean him? ¡°You¡¯re not just a guest, but I called you a guest. You¡¯re a¡­¡±


    ¡°A¡­?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a friend.¡±


    He actually coughed this time. ¡°That¡¯s the title I was looking for.¡±  Though I had trouble telling the majority of the time I knew I was right this time, that was laced with sarcasm.


    ¡°Is that the wrong word?¡±


    ¡°Of course it ain¡¯t, I said it was the right word.¡±


    The covers were at my nose now, my voice muffled. ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound like it. Didn¡¯t sound like it.¡±


    ¡°You repeat yourself a lot, don¡¯t you?¡± The hacky sack was tossed at the door, making a soft punch-like noise.


    ¡°Do I?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t repeat yourself exactly¡ªwhat you do is you say almost the exact same sentence, worded slightly differently.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re smart for a jock. You¡¯re smart for a football player.¡± I did it again.


    ¡°See, right there!¡± He sat up, partially to crawl over and retrieve the hacky sack and partially to release his excitement. ¡°You did it again. I¡¯ll start pointing it out to you now.¡±


    ¡°Is that a bad thing? I don¡¯t want it to be a bad thing. I¡¯d hate for it to be a bad thing.¡± He didn¡¯t respond, he was trying to see if I picked up on what I said. I didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Not at all¡ªit¡¯s kind of funny. It¡¯s a quirk.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d think someone like you would be a lot more out of touch with his thoughts.¡± I meant emotions. I didn¡¯t say ¡°emotions¡±.


    ¡°Are you calling me stupid?¡±


    I froze¡ªI wasn¡¯t trying to call him stupid. Did he really think that I called him stupid?


    ¡°I¡¯m joking.¡± He threw the ball back at me. ¡°I¡¯m smarter than I look, man.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m getting at. That¡¯s what I meant. I meant that you¡¯re smarter than you look, yeah. Of course, your grades aren¡¯t any proof of that. Maybe you do that for a reason, you know? You act like you''re dumb so that people don¡¯t expect a lot out of you. You act like you''re stupid because then people don¡¯t want a lot out of you. You should always try to improve your grades, but I guess that doesn¡¯t matter. What matters is what you¡¯re really like, and the fact that you are yourself when you¡¯re around the people that matter the most to you. I don¡¯t know if I matter that much. I¡¯d like to think that.¡±


    He drew quiet.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to make that feel weird, did that make that feel weird?¡± I kept the covers over myself¡ªmaybe I was trying to find some sort of protection from the situation, build a barrier between the two of us after I somehow forgot how to control my tongue. They were up to my nose.


    ¡°You read me like a book.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡°Is it that easy to tell?¡± He flipped over on his stomach again, making it easier for him to be able to look out the window if he wanted to. Now he didn¡¯t have to crane his neck.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not.¡±


    ¡°But you figured it out.¡±


    I feared that I had hurt him, that he was convinced that I was some sort of shrink that used cards to predict his future, to figure out how his mind worked. That would have been Amber, I didn¡¯t dabble in that sort of thing. ¡°I did, yeah. I did.¡±


    ¡°So, would you dress up as the doctor or the monster?¡± In between him saying that and what I last said there was a minute of silence.


    ¡°Doctor or the monster?¡±


    ¡°Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein¡¯s monster. You know, like the story?¡±


    Everyone always seemed to think that the monster was the one named Frankenstein¡ªit wasn¡¯t. It was never given a name. It came into existence, it lived, it read some of the most horribly depressing literature in English history, it learned from that, and then it became deeply troubled. If I recall correctly, there was something in that story about a house burning down.


    ¡°Well, if I want to be called Victor, I guess I would go as the doctor. But that wouldn¡¯t be as good of a costume, I doubt anyone would instantly recognize it.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯d probably think that you were Doc. From Back to the Future.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I could tell people I¡¯m him.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t find the clothes, I didn¡¯t have them.

 Four

    He rolled over, his cold body brushing up against me as he did; he was facing me now, his eyes long gray, his face void of any color. Even though it was dark, not even the moonlight cutting through the void of my room, I could see the drab expression on his face. It wasn¡¯t that there was no emotion, and it wasn¡¯t that he was trying to have no emotion¡ªI¡¯m sure that somewhere, far behind those lost, sleepy hollow eyes that looked in me as if they were a lake of quicksilver teaming with corpse-fish, he hid emotion. Lucas processed thought.


    ¡°Victor.¡±


    It was long, it was snowy, it was drawn-out, it was brash and rash. Maybe when he was underground he somehow caught a frog in his throat. And how my hands gripped at his sides, like I was going to squeeze him and he would pop like a cork; like a bottle of wine, champagne, that expression made a lot more sense. When I did so I felt like my hands were going to go into him, he groaned, he reached out his hands to hold onto me¡ªit was tight and firm, the way he held onto me. I buried my face into his chest, rubbed into his shirt. I should have had him change his clothes, I didn¡¯t think so; either that, or he should have taken the shirt off so that he was more comfortable. But did he care about comfort? Was it a worry to him or, instead, was it a trouble to him at all?


    In the morning, he was still awake; I assumed that he stayed awake the whole night, I wasn¡¯t too sure if he could actually sleep. I was still in his grip¡ªI saw, over his shoulder, the light pouring into my room, even if it was dim and akin to autumn, and I could barely get a glimpse outside through a corner of the window. Unsurprisingly, it was rainy.


    ¡°Lucas,¡± I said¡ªthough I wanted to stay in bed forever I knew that I couldn¡¯t, I had to get up because I didn¡¯t know if my dad was at work or not. It was like he was a ghost, I didn¡¯t see him at all unless the two of us crossed paths when one of us was leaving. And I understood that I was the one that had to get my own dinner, make my own breakfast, and that made me feel like an adult. Four months until that fact was true. ¡°Lucas, I think we have to get up.¡± Hopefully he understood what I was saying¡ªhe could talk, I struggled to contain my excitement about the fact that he could talk, maybe I was the one that was going to pop like a champagne bottle. No, pop like a cork made more sense.


    Those eyes looked at me, like when they were baby blue, like when they were an ocean of waves and salt, and I thought that he was waiting to say something, waiting for the time that he believed was right. Yet there was nothing else that he said, so I filled that blank space. ¡°We need to get up.¡±


    I would have thought that the ancient Egyptians would have pulled out the brain through the noise or through the ear of a mummy, but it turns out that I would have been wrong; instead, they keep the brain in there, they let it mummify like everything else. I wasn¡¯t able to see what the state of Lucas¡¯s brain was. There was no desire to, either. Instead, I only wanted to imagine it. He opened his mouth to say something, cold air coming out and lightly blowing on my hair, then for him to say fairly quietly:


    ¡°Bed.¡±


    He wanted to stay in bed, then. Who could blame him? I needed to get out though, I had to make it known to him. ¡°Out of bed. I have to get out of bed. You can stay, but I have to get out.¡±


    When I explained it like that he understood. His awkward grip tightened, I was no longer being somewhat constricted¡ªI didn¡¯t mind it, of course. Getting out of the bed still required me to crawl over him, and for a moment I was overtop of him, he remained on his side. I finally got out, looked at him facing away from me, towards the wall, my bed in the right-hand corner of my room.


    ¡°Lucas.¡±


    He grunted. He had heard me, he had recognized his name again.


    ¡°Do you want to stay in bed?¡±


    Now he rolled over to stare blankly at me. He had range of motion, he wasn¡¯t as clumsy as I thought he was going to be¡ªI came to his bedside, pulling up the covers over him. I knew that he was cold, I thought that maybe the covers could bring him some warmth.


    ?   ?   ?


    ¡°He¡¯s a zombie.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not a zombie. He¡¯s different from a zombie. Zombies aren¡¯t real, he¡¯s real.¡±


    I was making waffles, something that I did almost every morning. Whenever she would spend the night we would have breakfast together, she would stay for a few more hours, then we would part ways somewhere around two-twenty. It was a science at this point.


    ¡°He¡¯s a zombie. He was on the ground. Now he¡¯s not. He was dead.¡±


    ¡°If he was a zombie,¡± I said, bringing her plate of food over to her, ¡°then we would have performed voodoo. That¡¯s something you would know about, right?¡± I was trying to mock her. ¡°Have you done anything like that yet? Or do you only concern yourself with brooms and tongues of newts?¡±


    ¡°It''s the tongue of the dog, you would know that if you actually finished reading Macbeth.¡± She ate her waffles bland¡ªshe stabbed at it with a fork, picking the entire thing up on the prongs.


    ¡°I did.¡±


    Her mouth was full of food. ¡°No you didn¡¯t.¡± In a short motion she fixed her hair, then she adjusted her strap. ¡°I didn¡¯t see you even open the book.¡±


    ¡°Shake off this downy sleep, death''s counterfeit, and look on death itself! Up, up, and see the great doom''s image.¡±


    ¡°So you know one quote¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.¡± I knew that I was getting on her nerves. It was all purposeful.


    She looked up at me, still standing off to the side of the table. ¡°You need a haircut, asshole.¡±


    ¡°I thought you said I didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°I changed my mind.¡± A swallow. ¡°You need a haircut.¡±


    I stamped off and back over to the waffle-iron; it was sitting relatively close to the sink, on the counter, so I peered out the window above the faucet. Save for my truck, the driveway was empty. I could see my neighbors getting back from church, father and mother and son and daughter, all in their Sunday best. With their perfectly trimmed bushes and their perfectly cut lawn and their perfectly smoke-billowing chimney¡ªthere wasn¡¯t a fire yet, but if there was it would be coming out perfectly. The little girl had a nice pink dress on, it swayed in the still, damp air as her father helped her out of the car. It was a minivan, Dodge Caravan, why was it always a minivan?


    ¡°Why is it always a minivan?¡± she muttered under her breath. Amber could see them too. ¡°Is the door to your room locked?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t lock it from the outside.¡±


    ¡°I thought that you could.¡± With her waffles finished, her feet were sat up on the table, her leaning back in the chair with her arms crossed behind her head. ¡°Don¡¯t want him wandering off.¡±


    ¡°He shouldn¡¯t walk too far.¡± I finally decided: I wasn¡¯t going to eat breakfast. ¡°He isn¡¯t fast, he¡¯s slow. His leg is broken.¡± Now I was looking at her, I was watching her every movement. Something inside of me wanted the chair to slip, for her to fall flat¡ªshe was teetering its legs at an angle. ¡°You¡¯re going to fall.¡±


    ¡°Nope.¡±


    Maybe I could make coffee. The coffee pot was in the sink, dad had washed it the night before. I pulled it out, wandered over to the maker, forgot that I had to fill up the pot with water, and went back over to the sink.


    ¡°You hate coffee.¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± And she was right.


    Nothing made sense. The night before she was losing her mind, she was worried that we would get caught, she thought that what we did was a horrible idea and that we had committed a sin that was unforgivable; of course we hadn¡¯t, but she didn¡¯t know. And she didn¡¯t think of it that way. But now¡ªnow she acted like this was simply normal, as though this was something that we did all the time, there wasn¡¯t anything odd going on. I¡¯m not saying that what we were doing was strange; it was a product of our endeavors, and it was a product of my passion, mostly. It was mostly my passion. Hers¡ªnot so much.


    ¡°Maybe I should check on him.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been fifteen minutes, hasn¡¯t it?¡±


    Yes, it had. Fifteen minutes where he could have potentially run off¡ªI had changed my mind, as in that fifteen minutes, even if he was shuffling, even if his leg was broken, even if he was limping, there was the possibility that he had gone through the mudroom door and left through the garage, and now he was terrorizing the townspeople as he walked down the sidewalk and people screamed saying things like, ¡°He lives!,¡± ¡°Lucas is back!¡±, ¡°Call a priest!¡± But that was turning him into a monster, he wasn¡¯t a monster. Not my Lucas.


    ¡°Go check on him.¡± I should have checked on him, but I didn¡¯t want to submit to her and listen to what she said. She wasn¡¯t allowed to order me around.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have a western sky to go and rule?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The west, the witch of the west. You¡¯re the wicked witch of the west.¡±


    I was given a dead, blank stare, much like Lucas¡¯s. ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°No?¡± The joke didn¡¯t land. I don¡¯t even know if I would consider it a joke actually, I was trying to be insulting. It was an insult. ¡°Okay, well I probably should go and check on him, you¡¯re right.¡± I had submitted. What a fool.


    My bedroom door was still closed; that was a good sign. The air in my room was significantly damper than the air in the rest of the house, it was cold too. I had left the window slightly open all night and I hadn¡¯t even realized because of how cold Lucas was already. When I looked at Lucas I realized that, potentially, Amber and I¡¯s roles had been switched. Perhaps I was the one that was becoming too worried, I was the one that was having the weight of our sins put on my shoulders¡ªstop, they weren¡¯t sins. It wasn¡¯t a sin.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ¡°Lucas¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    It was a groan, a growl, just like the two other times he spoke¡ªhe ¡°spoke¡±¡ªbut he turned over when he responded.


    ¡°Were you sleeping?¡±


    He nodded. Even though it was without verbalization, he responded to me, and that was all that mattered. Of course, I had already established with myself that he somewhat sort of knew what I was saying when I was talking, but now I was definite. Lucas put his hands over the covers, revealing his sleeved arms, his hair spread out on my pillow; he had, apparently, stolen my pillow when I was gone. I gave him his own when he first laid down.


    ¡°Do you want to get up?¡± He didn¡¯t respond this time, he only blinked. He grunted when he tried to roll back over. Yes, he did want to keep sleeping. He said he was sleeping, so I guess he was actually sleeping.


    ¡°What¡¯s the verdict?¡±


    I jumped out of my skin¡ªwell, almost, if I wasn¡¯t sewn to it so tightly. But I did jump, higher than I would any other time I purposely tried to. ¡°Are you going as a witch for All Hallows Eve?¡±


    ¡°I was thinking of it, why?¡±


    ¡°Which witch? I think that the wicked witch would suit you.¡± Of course I was trying to be annoying¡ªI had already made that joke before. Multiple times. Every Halloween. I smiled at her. ¡°Happy Halloween!¡± to then close the door in her face. But I wasn¡¯t done with my joke. ¡°Try green paint, that could work out quite well!¡± My slamming of the door seemed to have spooked Lucas, him now sitting up in the bed. ¡°My fault buddy.¡± That wasn¡¯t something I called him, his name sounded better¡ªwe never came up with a nickname for him before. ¡°Lucas, my fault Lucas.¡± Maybe in a bit I could try the wicked-witch-joke a third time, thrice is the charm.


    ?   ?   ?


    I guess I was wrong when I said that I¡¯ve gone to only two parties; it would be three if I counted the Halloween party, junior year, October 31st. Luckily All-Hallows-Eve had landed that Friday. I doubt anyone calls it that anymore, it was probably just me.


    ¡°Is your coven invited?¡± That was a month after I learned about her practices. At that time I refused to call it religion¡ªand I have remained in that headspace ever since, it was a lousy, esoteric excuse for something that she and everyone that associated themselves with it couldn¡¯t explain: whatever God was. I¡¯ve always been one with the witch jokes, even if she didn¡¯t find them funny.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a part of a coven. I haven¡¯t been invited to one yet.¡± I doubted that she knew what she was talking about. Herman Slater. Another occultist. Big surprise, she dug him, ever since she went up to New York with her dad and found the Magical Childe that year, over the summer. When she mentioned him I instantly thought of Herman Melville, and I was wrong; that wasn¡¯t who she was talking about. My fault, I guess. What she did introduce me that I was interested in though was Anton Lavey, but that¡¯s a subject for later. Although she did get me a pentagram necklace, metallic black¡ªeven though I kept it under my shirt I wore it everywhere I went. Other than her, Lucas was the only person to know about it, after he asked me about it when I took off my shirt to change for a second. That was the day before the All Hallows Eveparty, at Mariana Cross¡¯s; she had one of those names, like Kirk Matthews. ¡°Kirk¡± didn¡¯t fit, just ¡°Mariana¡± didn¡¯t fit.


    I looked at him, my hair a walnut-gray mess (assumingly), my chest bare, my underwear peeking out from the waist of my pants. Yes, I hoped that he noticed¡ªI don¡¯t know if he did. And when he asked about the necklace, about my amulet, I clutched it instantly. ¡°This thing?¡± I was covering it. ¡°Amber got it for me.¡±


    ¡°Can I see it?¡±


    No. ¡°I guess.¡±


    That was the third time we were doing nothing in my room together. I came over, leaned over a bit for him to get a look at it.


    ¡°Can you take it off? I want to hold it.¡±


    No, I couldn¡¯t. I hadn¡¯t taken it off for the past few months. I wore it when I slept, when I drove, when I showered¡ª¡±Yeah.¡± Then I slipped it off my neck.


    ¡°It¡¯s cool.¡± He held it up, let it dangle down and it almost touched his stomach. ¡°I don¡¯t know what it is, but it¡¯s definitely awesome.¡±


    ¡°A pentagram.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a what?¡±


    I put my hands behind my back. ¡°It¡¯s a pentagram.¡± Now I was standing up straight, looking over the bridge of my nose and down to him, laying on his back on my bed. My bed. ¡°That¡¯s what the shape is called. Didn¡¯t you used to wear a cross? A crucifix? Was it a rosary?¡±


    ¡°I did, it was a little cross on a chain¡ªmy old pastor gave it to me, a week before he died.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you wear that anymore?¡± I wanted to put the necklace back on but his gaze remained on it, I didn¡¯t want to take his candy away from him. ¡°The cross, I mean.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t fit me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not my place, but I thought it fit you just fine.¡± Overstepping my boundary, crossing right over the border into a place that I shouldn¡¯t be.


    ¡°Sure it is.¡±


    What? Sure what is? ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I respect your opinion. Do you think I should start wearing it again?¡±


    ¡°Totally up to you.¡± I turned around, to return to what I was originally trying to do, put on another shirt.


    ¡°Let me guess, your favorite holiday is Halloween?¡±


    After putting on the shirt I sat down on the ground. Something inside me told me I should have¡ªcould have, even¡ªsat at the end of my own bed. I didn¡¯t. ¡°How¡¯d you guess that?¡±


    The posters. ¡°Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, your copy of the Modern Prometheus.¡±


    ¡°The what?¡±


    His finger jutted out, pointing to a book on the shelf above my desk. ¡°Frankenstein. Mary Shelley gave it two names.¡± The necklace was sitting on his stomach, his hands placed over it. He rubbed the back of his head into my pillow, straightened out his jacket, then put his hands back over the necklace.


    ¡°You read the story?¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? It was cool too.¡± He brought the necklace back up. ¡°I want one like this.¡±


    ¡°You can have it.¡± I was lying. I wasn¡¯t lying, actually, I was just denying myself the respect that I thought I ought to have at one point.


    He shook his head, again rubbing it into my pillow. ¡°No, I won¡¯t. I mean I won¡¯t take it. It¡¯s your¡¯s, I don¡¯t want to take your stuff. That¡¯s stealing, taking what¡¯s not yours.¡±


    ¡°Like a grave-robber.¡±


    His normal, short, soft cough. ¡°Like a grave-robber. Do you think that people really make a living off of that or it¡¯s just exaggerated? I feel like there¡¯s no way in hell you would be able to make a bunch of money off of digging someone¡¯s grave up.¡±


    I was mimicking what he was doing, laying on my back, instead on the floor though. It made sense why he had stayed on the floor for so long the last time he was over, in the oddest way my fan was enchanting, it occupied your mind. ¡°I doubt it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I thought.¡±


    ¡°What is your costume going to be?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± He thought. ¡°Indiana Jones? Michael Jackson? Ghostbusters? I was thinking of the Terminator. Ya¡¯know, from Terminator.¡±


    I silently nodded.


    ¡°But then I was like, ¡®Yeah, I¡¯m built for it, but I don¡¯t think I have the stuff for it¡¯. I could always do a vampire, but that¡¯s pretty basic. Mummy is a solid choice.¡±


    ¡°Hey, that was my idea.¡±


    ¡°I thought you were going as the Doc. Or Frankenstein.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. You could be a werewolf.¡± I thought to myself now. ¡°But if you don¡¯t get all of the other stuff right and only have the flannel you might just look like a lumberjack.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good idea.¡±


    I doubted that. ¡°No, lumberjack is too silly.¡±


    He rolled up his sleeves, then rolled the back down for some reason. And he laid on his side, facing me, gripping his left hand the necklace. ¡°What¡¯s Amber dressing as? I could match with her.¡±


    And I caught my breath. I couldn¡¯t have that, that wouldn¡¯t be right, if she was going to match with anyone it would have to be me or someone else, it couldn¡¯t be him. He was far too tall, she was far too short. ¡°I think she¡¯s going as Carebears with some other girls.¡± No she wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°I was going to say that you could match with her too, but now I¡¯m not so sure. Do you have a costume?¡±


    ¡°Even though it is my favorite holiday I¡¯ve kind of been out of it. No.¡±


    ¡°We have a day. We could match.¡±


    Lucas was right. He was always right, wasn¡¯t he? ¡°Any good ideas?¡± Something burned within me¡ªexcitement, want?¡ªand I had no idea what it was. It could have been need. ¡°I bet that we can¡¯t throw matching costumes together in one day. Under one day, honestly.¡±


    Out of my bed, over to my closet, he was now standing with the double doors open, scratching his head like he was some kind of ape. ¡°You have a lot of clothes¡ª.¡±


    I ran up in front of him, tripping over my untied shoes; I forgot that I hadn¡¯t taken them off yet. ¡°Hey, hey¡ª!¡± Slammed the doors in front of him. ¡°You can¡¯t just open my closet.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s my closet. Only I get to see the inside of my closet.¡± Maybe I didn¡¯t mean that, but my closet was the dirtiest part of my room; it was unkempt, there were clothes all over the floor. It was extremely shallow yet I somehow found a way to fill it to the brim. ¡°My closet.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t I take one peak?¡±


    ¡°No¡ª.¡±


    His hand was now on my wrist. Wasn¡¯t forceful¡ªassertive, that¡¯s what he was. ¡°It¡¯s just a closet.¡± Apparently when he had opened it before he hadn¡¯t had the time to absorb what it looked like on the inside. I conceded to him, his smile was too much for me.


    I opened the gates to hell. Hell was an understatement. Hades, even. Scribed above the closet doors should have read, ¡°Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch''intrate¡±. I knew that taking Italian was a good idea. Might have fit better as an abbreviation: L.O.S.V.C.


    ¡°Jesus Christ.¡± If he was holding a stick he might have poked at the amalgamation of garments on the floor, saying something like, ¡°Is it going to move?¡± ¡°Have you ever thought of cleaning this?¡±


    Cleaning was my least favorite thing to do¡ªmy floor was constantly a minefield, unless I knew that someone was going to be entering in, at most, the next thirty minutes. I could do it, there wasn¡¯t anything stopping me from cleaning up my room (my closet, even) other than myself. And I could have listened to him, that would have been easy too. Amber had told me to do the same thing, every time she did I acted like she wasn¡¯t talking in the first place¡ªtoo much of a bother, I couldn¡¯t hear what she was saying. ¡°I can¡¯t hear you¡±. That¡¯s what I would say.


    ¡°So, we don¡¯t have clothes for Doctor Frankenstein, Victor.¡± For a second he looked at me, for a second he looked me up and down, then he scratched his neck. ¡°The simplest thing I say we could do is¡­¡± He didn¡¯t have an answer, he was trying to prolong conversation. He was trying to stall. I was blanking and so was he. In his pocket he was holding onto my necklace¡ªI saw the chain hanging out and at his side.


    ¡°We have a lot of toilet paper.¡±


    ¡°Dressing up as a mummy is good, hard to keep the paper on you though, and some people think it¡¯s gross.¡±


    ¡°Some people are stupid.¡± That wasn¡¯t my best comeback; I could have done much better than that.


    ¡°Some people are stupid, yeah.¡± Another turn to me.


    This time I smiled at him. ¡°I think I have an idea.¡± Approaching my desk I pulled out a drawer, grabbed a pen, scribbled on my finger with it, rubbing the ink onto my thumb. ¡°Let¡¯s try this.¡± I struggled significantly to reach his face, requiring me to leave the room for a moment and bring in an ottoman to stand on. ¡°Here.¡±


    Gaunt eyes¡ªactually, I have no idea if ¡°gaunt¡± is a word that can be used to describe eyes, that might be more for the description of someone¡¯s face. Rather, it was dark eyes. Sickly? That was right. Yeah, that was the right word. It looked like he hadn¡¯t slept in days. I noticed that when I wiped the ink underneath his eyes, curled it around his sockets, he didn¡¯t flinch at all. Brought him into the bathroom, turned on the light; I showed him what he looked like. ¡°What about that?¡±


    ¡°Hopefully it doesn¡¯t stain.¡±


    ¡°Amber has makeup that would work.¡±


    ¡°Ink is fine.¡±


    ¡°So I¡¯m a zombie?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, you¡¯re a zombie. We can be zombies.¡±

 Five

    It would have been much easier if I had a baseball bat on me. That¡¯s why when we went out after that, we made Lucas always have a baseball bat. That way, in case we needed it, either one of us could use it¡ªor we could have also used a hatchet, the one I stole from my grandfather, but that would be way too messy. Blood would stain our clothes. It¡¯d stain his jacket. It¡¯d stain my jacket. And it¡¯d stain her skirt. Though he could have trouble remembering to hold the bat, it might slip out of his limp wrist, he didn¡¯t have the most firm grasp sometimes.


    I broke the bottle over his head. Right over his head. I shouldn''t have been out. We shouldn''t have been out, the three of us. He was limping, I was drinking, she was smoking. And the guy didn''t do anything wrong. It was all in his eyes¡ªI knew he had sinned. He''d cheated on his wife that same night; I hoped at least, that''s how I reasoned myself when I had hulking Lucas, stumbling with his maimed leg, dragging the poor soul''s unconscious body behind him. He was dead, hopefully he was dead.


    "You''re going to hell,¡± she said.


    "We''re going to hell."


    "No, you are."


    "I can''t, I went to church."


    "A year ago. Two."


    He groaned.


    And I''ve always thought that "longing" was too soft of a name for a miserable state of the worst kind of existence. When he lifted him up, when he put him over his shoulder, when he tossed him into the shallow grave I had dug just off of Second Street, near that part where the asphalt started to turn to gravel because the city refused to pave that far out. Far too tender, too easy of a word to say.


    If I used a bat it would have smashed like a pumpkin. And two feet deep wasn¡¯t enough for a grave, I could have tried three or four¡ªwe lacked the time.


    ¡°The church doesn¡¯t save you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk. Everything you do is a giant middle finger to God, a giant¡­¡± I hesitated. ¡°Screw you.¡±


    Insulting me, she put her hand over her mouth. ¡°He swears now?¡± She wiped dirt off of her skirt. ¡°If this guy¡¯s blood gets on my clothes¡ª.¡±


    ¡°He hasn¡¯t bled.¡±


    Lucas groaned again, wandering over to the two of us, walking like a dog that has a thorn stuck in its paw.


    ¡°Is he going to hell?¡±


    ¡°Is he dead?¡± I felt my necklace underneath my shirt, I was starting to sweat. I didn¡¯t want to sweat; sweating made me uncomfortable. ¡°I want him to be dead. Let¡¯s hope so.¡±


    ¡°Listen to yourself, you¡¯re wishing for this random¡ª.¡±


    I cut her off. ¡°You¡¯ve written a death spell before. You¡¯ve read a death spell out loud before, when I was sitting on your love seat. You did it a second time when we were out on your back patio. Did it work, either of those times? No, it didn¡¯t, and what a big surprise that was¡ªis. Was.¡± I hate to think that my yelling made Lucas upset¡ªthere was no response, though. I guess he didn¡¯t care. Was it my thing to worry about?


    ?   ?   ?


    ¡°Popular.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I wish I was popular.¡± We were debating on whether or not we wanted to walk in. It was eight-30, the party started at seven-30. The two of us took his car, his dad¡¯s Audi Quattro, I suspected that my truck wouldn¡¯t even start and we would end up being there at ten, could be even midnight. Might be an exaggeration.


    ¡°Popularity ain¡¯t that big of a deal.¡± In the dark I could see the rings around his eyes. I think I put too much ink on, he looked somewhat like a raccoon.


    ¡°Coming from the person who is popular.¡±


    ¡°I ain¡¯t that popular.¡±


    We were saying the word so much that I felt like it started to lose its meaning. I slipped up a few times saying it, even. ¡°Yes you are. Of course you are.¡± My hand motioned towards the house, colorful lights pouring out of the curtained windows, the front door open with some unintelligible noise spilling out. ¡°Every person in there knows your name, everyone in there knows who you are. I can count the number of people that know me in there on my right hand.¡±


    ¡°Be nicer to yourself.¡± It could have been a suggestion, it could have been a command.


    I was sitting on the hood of his car, he was standing in front of me, same jacket as always, his hands in his pockets as always. ¡°Well,¡± I said. ¡°That could help.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a lot better than you think you are.¡±


    We were going to get green face paint, though unfortunately we didn¡¯t have enough time to. The most important thing to me was that, in the end, we were matching, and that we were going together. I had him walk in first, through the front door, asd I trailed behind him like a cat trying to take shelter under its owner¡ªI¡¯ve never owned a cat, I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s accurate or not. That¡¯s not entirely true, actually, as I found a stray one for a day and kept it in my room, until my dad threw it out into the street and I never saw it again.


    That¡¯s something that I didn¡¯t understand, an unknowable madness¡ªhow he was so popular. Yes, he was on the football team, yes he went to parties (usually), yes he would stay after school for long periods of time and talk to everyone. Well, that was probably the reason why. He was strange, incredibly strange. Everything that he did confused me. He was a foreigner from a world that was completely and utterly confusing to me. An alien, he should¡¯ve come down in a flying saucer, there wouldn¡¯t have been any difference, really. Confusing.


    Almost instantly there were girls and boys alike trying to talk to him, and even with how short I was compared to him I did my best to try and put myself between them. I saw vampires, ghouls, criminals, Doc (which could have been me), two mummies, someone dressed as the devil, three witches who all came together, a handful of superheroes, a Marty McFly, Darth Vader, a Yoda¡ªI saw a lot, all of the costumes melding into one colorful mirage that I got lost in multiple times. Not to mention the fog, the fake fog, made from a machine, a blanket that did its best to make sure I had no idea where my feet were. Even through my tennis shoes I stubbed my toes a few times. Marianna Cross¡¯s parents had a pool, so it was inevitable for some of the football players to strip off their costumes and jump in the water¡ªsome of them didn¡¯t bring swim trunks.


    ¡°Are you going to swim?¡± I asked, interrupting a conversation he was holding with a girl that I didn¡¯t know the name of. She was a blonde, she was trying to get her hands all over Lucas.


    ¡°Sorry.¡± He felt the need to dismiss himself from the conversation. And she was the one who interrupted our conversation in the first place, five minutes before, when I was talking to him about how the punch didn¡¯t taste right. Lucas took a sip of mine, thought for a second, then told me that maybe I was overthinking things. I was overthinking things ¡°What¡¯s that, Victor?¡±


    ¡°Victor?¡± the girl said. She didn¡¯t understand. Somehow, she knew me, she knew the old name that I had¡ªbut he was the only one that knew my new name. ¡°That¡¯s Mark.¡±


    ¡°You know me?¡± I said, looking up at her slightly; she had four inches on me. She had too much makeup on¡ªshe was dressed as a cheerleader, with a skirt and pom poms, though the right pom pom was in her armpit, her hand holding a drink. The same outfit for school, barely even a Halloween costume. ¡°How much of the punch have you been drinking, Luke?¡±


    I looked down into my drink, saw some flakes or something spinning around in it. I drank almost every night, I don¡¯t know how I couldn¡¯t taste it. My stomach turned¡ªif I could have one moment alone. But I didn¡¯t want to be alone, I didn¡¯t want to be by myself at the party.


    ¡°So what are you supposed to be?¡±


    Lucas glanced over and down at me; I had broken my eyes away from my drink, I was analyzing the girl. Come to find out she was ¡°some whore¡±. ¡°We¡¯re matching,¡± he gingerly pointed at me.


    ¡°With him? You¡¯re matching with him?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, why not?¡± She didn¡¯t like me¡ªI didn¡¯t like her. ¡°Sorry, Victor, this is Stephanie.¡±


    I don¡¯t know if she was trying to patronize me, but she gave me the worst, most fake smile I have ever seen and reached down her hand like I was much shorter than I really was. ¡°Mark.¡±


    My stomach turned a second time. I could feel my eyes squint¡ªI hoped that it wasn¡¯t obvious. ¡°Sarah.¡±


    ¡°Stephanie,¡± she said.


    ¡°Sarah.¡±


    In the bathroom I tried to keep my composure, I tried to reorganize my thoughts, I tried to do something¡ªanything¡ªso that I could walk back out there, attached to Lucas¡¯s hip, try to get the night over and go back to my place where I could relax and fall onto my bed like a brick. In the bathroom I searched for a toothbrush, my breath smelled bad.


    And when I returned I got a horrible glare from Stephanie¡ªSarah, actually. I had interrupted their conversation, just like how she had interrupted my original conversation that I was having with Lucas, my very private conversation. The conversation that I didn¡¯t want interrupted. The conversation that¡ª.


    ¡°So as I was saying Luke, I think it¡¯d be fun if, maybe once the season is over, we could go out sometime. What do you think?¡±


    The urge to crush the cup in my hand was strong, but the urge to splash my drink in Sarah Tzu¡¯s face was even stronger. Running mascara, a stained and ruined cheerleader¡¯s outfit, the spoils of my victory.


    If only I was that brave.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to see about that, Steph.¡±


    I lied.


    She didn¡¯t scream, she was just shocked that some little pygmy like me would do something like that. I bet that¡¯s what she thought I was, a pygmy. A small brick wall got in the way of her getting into Lucas¡¯s pants¡ªthat wasn¡¯t her place to be, so I had to exercise her. I thought that she would have cried, but she didn¡¯t. And the dripping mascara made it look like she did anyway.


    When I was sitting on the curb of the sidewalk, forced to get out of the party because I was the instigator (they used a much kinder word than that, of course), Lucas joined me. I was his ride, he had no choice but to join me.


    ¡°Are you mad at me?¡± A few leaves rolled past, picked up by a tiny dust devil that tapered off as it went down the black asphalt road, those few leaves then getting stuck to the ground because of how damp everything was. Why was it called a dust devil if everything was wet?


    ¡°Why would I be mad at it?¡± He sat down. ¡°I thought it was funny, I wasn¡¯t planning on doing anything with her.¡±


    ¡°You weren¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°She tried to sleep with every guy on the football team. I¡¯m waiting. For the right person, I might.¡± His eyes were stuck on his shoes. A leaf fell down, landed at the end of his sneaker.


    ¡°Whore.¡± I stole that line from Amber.


    ¡°That¡¯s not nice,¡± he said, picking the wet leaf up, crushing it in his hand, then throwing it to the right. ¡°That¡¯s kind of true, but that¡¯s not nice.¡±


    I tried writing a play. Big mistake. Amber read it, she said that I lacked ¡°any vision, creativity, or anything that playwrights have¡±. She said that I especially lacked the ability to put the characters'' thoughts into what they said¡ªI¡¯d like to say that she was utterly wrong, I had the ability to do that, I just refused to.


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t apologize. There¡¯s no need for you to apologize¡ªwell, that¡¯s not entirely true. You should probably apologize to her for splashing that in her face.¡±


    Awkwardly, I laughed to myself; I couldn¡¯t tell if I was laughing because I thought it was ridiculous for him to suggest that or because I thought it was funny that I threw the drink in her face.


    ¡°You ruined her outfit.¡±


    ¡°I changed the colors, it looks better now.¡± The school colors were white and red, yet the cheerleading team wore pink and white. It didn¡¯t make sense at all, and now, she wore red and pink. More pink than red.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Can¡¯t argue with that,¡± he mumbled. ¡°Maybe I can, though. Red and pink don''t go well together.¡±


    I nodded, he couldn¡¯t hear my nod, and I didn¡¯t know if he was looking at me.


    ¡°You could be popular now. Everyone saw it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯m sure that there are a whole lot of people that have been wanting to do that to her for a long time. Mary told me that she wasn¡¯t even invited but since she is, allegedly, currently sleeping with another one of the football team players¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Is she?¡±


    ¡°Allegedly.¡± He put his hands together like he was praying. ¡°It¡¯s always allegedly, never any proof. But since she is sleeping with another one of the football team players she had to come with him.¡±


    ¡°I thought you said it was allegedly, not that she ¡®is¡¯.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± His hands unfolded, sat on his knees. A car drove down the road, its tires trying to stick to the moist ground, kicking up a few leaves that hadn¡¯t glued themselves down to the asphalt yet. ¡°The cat¡¯s out the bag now, ain¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°How are you so sure?¡±


    ¡°Bruce cheated on Amber, right? She¡¯s with Bruce now. Bruce cheated on Amber with him.¡± Apparently, I didn¡¯t put two and two together. My brain couldn¡¯t make four.


    ¡°Wait, you¡¯re right.¡±


    Someone shouted from the front door, calling for Lucas. I looked over at him, motioned for him to go. He cocked his head, then looked back, the person calling a few more times¡ªit was Bruce, he was pointing in our direction. Shouted again.


    ¡°I think he¡¯s calling for you, Lucas.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s calling for you.¡±


    That¡¯s when Bruce broke his stance, walking down the sidewalk. Were the two of them even dating? Did it matter? He was going to kick my ass anyways. It was about a forty second walk from the front door to where Lucas and I were sitting, but Bruce didn¡¯t have the widest stride¡ªmake it fifty.


    ¡°Victor, we should probably go.¡±


    I was right behind him, slipping on the wet asphalt, falling on my back; he grabbed my hand and pulled me up, I was struggling to keep up with him running in front of me. ¡°Lucas, Lucas¡ªLuke, come on!¡± My right shoe was tied; the air was cold. My head was reeling, imagining what it was going to be like when Bruce grabbed me by the back of my collar, lifted me into the air as my arms dangled and I kicked in every direction, for him to throw me across the road and into the front door of the nearest brick home.


    The door was being held open for me, so I jumped in.


    Barrelling down the road we kicked up leaves just like the car that came before us.


    ¡°She tried to cast a death spell on her.¡±


    ¡°She what?¡±


    ¡°Sarah¡ªStephanie, whatever her name was. Amber tried to cast a death spell on her.¡±


    ¡°As in, like, magic?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± It sounded so stupid. Of course it sounded so stupid; I didn¡¯t want him to think that I believed in it, I had always refused to believe in it. ¡°I don¡¯t believe in it, I¡¯ve always refused to believe in it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s funny. How do you cast a death spell?¡±


    ¡°Have you ever heard of the Necronomicon?¡±


    ¡°Not a clue,¡± he turned the corner. We had slowed down somewhat, still going faster than we should have been going though. ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°H.P. Lovecraft?¡±


    ¡°Also not a clue.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡±


    ¡°What is it though?¡±


    There was a fascination that he had. He wanted to hear what I had to say. He desired to hear what I had to say¡ªwas he trying to entertain my conversation because¡ª.


    No. Lucas was my friend. This is what friends did, right?


    ¡°H.P. Lovecraft was a writer. He wrote a whole bunch of different stuff but one of the main things in one of his stories was this thing called the Necronomicon, Book of the Dead, Kitab al-Azif.¡±


    ¡°Ain¡¯t that Arabic?¡±


    It was. ¡°Yeah, it is. It is Arabic. So, it¡¯s the Book of the Dead in his story, and it¡¯s full of spells that when you read them out loud someone dies, that¡¯s what a death spell is. None of it¡¯s real, of course. It¡¯s a fictional book in a fictional story. Kind of like the King in Yellow.¡±


    ¡°Another thing that I have no idea about.¡±


    This time I actually laughed, and I knew why I was laughing: he knew about a lot of stuff that I thought he wouldn¡¯t know about, stuff that I didn¡¯t think people like him concerned themselves with, but I had finally found things that could stump him. ¡°The King in Yellow: a book about a fictional play that makes people go crazy when they read it. Or something like that. I haven¡¯t read it.¡±


    ¡°Makes sense as to why you¡¯re not crazy. So is it that you go crazy because the play is magical, or do you go crazy because the play is that bad?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know¡ªlike I said, I hadn¡¯t read it yet. I wanted to, but I didn''t. ¡°I¡¯ll get back to you when I read it. And with the Necronomicon, you can bring people back from the dead too. There¡¯s a whole bunch of stuff in it. It¡¯s pretty cool.¡±


    ¡°So Amber thinks that she can bring people back from the dead?¡±


    ¡°No, she¡¯s a novice.¡±


    ¡°So she thinks that she can kill people with magic?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s a novice.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to see some proof of either of those things.¡±


    So would I. I could have mentioned the Shambler from the Stars, the Color from Outer Space, the Shadow over Innsmouth, all those things that I found a weird, obscure, wild interest in, and the majority of which I have yet to read. I did have a copy of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre¡ªthat sat next to Frankenstein. And I still didn¡¯t understand how I didn¡¯t know its second name.


    ?   ?   ?


    ¡°I was accepted.¡±


    ¡°You were accepted for what?¡±


    Amber stood about twelve feet away from the man¡¯s grave¡ªLucas was at my side, me standing almost practically over the grave. ¡°I was accepted into a coven.


    ¡°They exist?¡±


    ¡°Of course they do. A few girls at school¡ª.¡±


    I interrupted her, cutting her off even though I wasn¡¯t looking at her; I was looking at him, him at me. ¡°There¡¯s girls that do the same things as you?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s taking the world by storm.¡± No it wasn¡¯t. ¡°Someday, it¡¯ll replace every other religion and people realize that times are going to have to change and that we¡¯re right.¡± No they weren¡¯t. ¡°And¡ª.¡± No.


    ¡°I get it.¡±


    ¡°Well we were supposed to have a meeting tonight.¡±


    ¡°On a Sunday night? Isn¡¯t that sacrilegious?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t your necklace sacrilegious? Isn¡¯t he¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Stop.¡± I placed my hand over his chest, having to reach up somewhat. ¡°No. Don¡¯t say that.¡±


    He grunted, looked over at Amber; he understood that we were having a conversation, and maybe he understood what we were saying.


    ¡°You can¡¯t come with me.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to ask.¡± Yes I was¡ªI wanted to peer into a world that I didn¡¯t understand. Well, I understood it, but it was more that I discredited it. And if I was to say that I didn¡¯t believe in something I would have to at least experience it once.


    ¡°Yes you were.¡±


    I was looking at her now. ¡°Why can¡¯t we?¡±


    ¡°First of all, you¡¯re boys.¡±


    ¡°So only girls can be witches?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡± She was not right. That much I knew.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure they wouldn¡¯t mind.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure that at least one time they wouldn¡¯t mind, but they definitely would mind a dead man walking into their meeting.¡±


    I was trying to think of what the meeting would be like¡ªa cauldron in the middle, every girl there dressed in black pointy hats and long, black gowns, holding brooms and putting green paint on each other, the event probably being held in a rental hall, the sort of thing that families would use to hold Christmas parties or maybe a random organization would use to hold a pageant.


    ¡°How are you sure they would recognize him?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s Lucas Beaumont waltzing in, as if they were on set for Night of the Living Dead. He¡¯s undead. We brought him back.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good movie.¡±


    ¡°Shut the hell up.¡±


    ¡°I never understood how the chainsaw hand thing worked, it never made sense to me. How can he even move his hand if¡ª.¡±


    ¡°I said, shut the hell up.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯d make the perfect surprise for All Hallows Eve.¡± What was I even saying¡ªHalloween was twenty-7 days away.


    ¡°You don¡¯t get it, do you, Mark? We killed a man.¡±


    So? ¡°I killed a man.¡±


    ¡°Exactly.¡±


    We could have buried him in Chapel Hill Cemetery, maybe then he would have had some neighbors; of course, if we did that it would be extremely suspicious. Here, on the side of the road, about ten yards away from passing cars, hidden within the treeline, who would ever find him? And he cheated on his wife, he didn¡¯t deserve a proper burial. He didn¡¯t bleed¡ªmaybe he wasn''t human. Humans bleed, and he didn¡¯t.


    Lucas¡¯s eyes were what caught me, milky and graying. Even though I couldn¡¯t see within his mind I could see through the window into his soul¡ª¡±Victor, what are we to do now?¡± That¡¯s what I thought. That¡¯s what I thought he thought. That¡¯s what I hoped he thought.


    ¡°We¡¯ll figure something out,¡± I said to him quietly, but not quite enough for Amber to not pick up on it.


    ¡°You¡¯re not coming with me. He¡¯s not coming with.¡±


    ¡°What are we going to do with him then?¡±


    She thought for a second¡ªI think she was doing it for dramatic effect. ¡°Oh¡ªI don¡¯t know, put him back in the ground? Put him where we got him from so that we don¡¯t have to worry about having to deal with him anymore?¡± That was a simple answer, yet to me it wasn¡¯t the right answer.


    ¡°Wrong. We can¡¯t do that.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s our problem now.¡±


    ¡°Mark, he¡¯s your problem. I may be an accomplice but I¡¯m going to wash my hands of this.¡±


    I wouldn''t be having that. She was the one that came with me to dig him up, she was the one that leaned over the edge of the grave and told me that someone was coming, she was the one that helped me drag him up from the ground and heave him into the bed of my truck. ¡°Not happening.¡±


    ¡°And you''re not coming to my meeting if he is.¡±


    Did it matter? Of course not. But I wanted to. I was stubborn. I¡¯ve always been stubborn, that¡¯s what my mother said.


    ¡°We¡¯ll bring him back to my house.¡±


    ¡°You can do that, I¡¯m leaving.¡±


    ¡°What time is your meeting?¡±


    ¡°Midnight.¡±


    ¡°Oh no! It¡¯s the witching hour,¡± I said, poking fun at her. ¡°We have two hours.¡±


    ¡°Not we¡ªyou.¡±


    Lucas understood how to get into a car; I was the one that had to open the door, of course, and I was the one that had to buckle his seat belt, but he sat where he was supposed to sit and he stayed seated. When I drove he was deadpan, facing forward, his eyes never coming off the road. Maybe he was mesmerized, maybe the road hypnotized him in a sort of unnatural, ethereal way. She convinced me that she would be able to walk to the meeting in time¡ªoutside the Chapel Hill Church. For some reason, the cemetery and the church weren¡¯t attached to each other. If they were, the cemetery would be called Chapel Hill Graveyard; it wasn¡¯t. It was Chapel Hill Cemetery.


    When he laid on the floor of my bedroom the year before, he was restless; all of his movements were done in order to try and make himself comfortable, yet he could never achieve the state that he desired. And I would have thought that he would do the same thing, tussling and jostling himself so that he could be casual, comfortable in his own cold skin. He didn¡¯t. I wanted him to be comfortable, I desired for him to feel that he was at ease constantly.


    In a way, I suppose, we did abandon her. But I was going to see her once I put him in my room, once I made sure that he couldn¡¯t open the window, once I made sure that the door was locked and my father wasn¡¯t home. Business trip, I came to find out¡ªhe never told me that. I don¡¯t know why I even expected him to in the first place though. And it worked out for me in the end, he never was going to see Lucas.


    He asked me something before I left; me, he asked me something. I tried his best to vocalize his concerns, he tried his best to form a sentence that I was able to understand:


    ¡°Victor, where¡­ going?¡±


    How I felt in that moment¡ªit wasn¡¯t her who I abandoned, it was him who I was abandoning. I was going to be spending time with her and only her for one of the rather uncommon occurrences lately. He was confined to my room¡ªhe was trapped. And he didn¡¯t know why.


    ¡°I have to go, but I¡¯ll be back.¡±


    ¡°Where going?¡±


    The second time I was hurt. Hurt even more than I already was. ¡°Away.¡±


    There was no emotion on his face. His mouth didn¡¯t change, his eyes didn¡¯t change. There was no expression, there was no joy, there was no sadness, there was no anger or fear or madness or somber or humility or embarrassment or anything that I thought I had the ability to experience. There was nothing but a blank stare¡ªbut I could hear it, I could feel it, and I could sense it as he sat on the side of my bed as though he was made of stone.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I have to go.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    ¡°Okay¡±. Did he really mean that? Was he actually ¡°okay¡± with me leaving? I couldn¡¯t tell, I couldn¡¯t discern what he was thinking, I wished I could. And, you know, maybe I couldn¡¯t see behind those coffin eyes, maybe I couldn¡¯t figure out what he was thinking, maybe I couldn¡¯t decipher what he was trying so desperately to tell me through his gazes, his pauses, his mouth agape, his eyes seeming as though they wanted to close so that he could fall back asleep as a fly landed on his temple and he didn¡¯t even dare to bat it away. It was too cold for flies, why was one out now? I thought they all died.

 Six

    It could have been the prayer that I put in for it, about an hour beforehand, sitting on the cold tile of her bathroom. My mother''s rosary in my hand¡ªCatholic, not Protestant¡ªand mumblings that only I could understand. I''d sworn Him off too (him) yet the practices were still there.


    There was a girl that I was acquainted with before. I remained friends with Amber during our escapade, and even though it lasted through three seasons (winter, spring, and summer) it failed in the fall. That fall, the fall I met Lucas. August. Maybe right at the beginning of November, let''s give it an arbitrary date: the 5th. That could be right for all I know. She was the one that got me my puffer jacket. She was the one that got me the rosary, when, at that time, I remained in the belief that I was Christian¡ªlittle Christ. Better term: Catholic. I already established that.


    She engraved her name on the back of the crucifix. Was that sacreligious? I had no idea, my mother probably did.


    Lucy.


    Skin crawling. Yet I still keep the rosary¡ªtoo expensive to throw away. And throwing it away is most definitely sacreligious. Why would I want God to be even more mad at me than he already was?


    We came to know each other that winter. That isn¡¯t exactly true, we knew each other from Italian I, for a few months, then we got to know each other during the Christmas party that Mrs. Giodarno held. Ms. Smith at the time, she got married that summer.


    ¡°I take it Christmas isn¡¯t your favorite holiday.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you know that?¡±


    I had forted myself in the corner of the room, where I scribbled something on a piece of paper. No idea what it was. Could have been what the room looked like, could have been my feelings about that very moment¡ªthat wouldn¡¯t make sense, I didn¡¯t do that.


    She was my exact height: five feet four inches. Blonde. I don¡¯t know what I was thinking, blondes always pissed me off.


    ¡°You¡¯re Mark, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m not going to try and guess your name.¡± Her eyes were blue. Her smile was nice, I could at least say that about her. She had a nice smile. It was different¡ªeveryone else had fake ones, it was easy to tell when you had been with the same people for so long. Real, that¡¯s what I¡¯d call it. I can¡¯t remember what she was wearing, I didn¡¯t pay much attention to that.


    The girl pulled up a chair next to me, as everyone else in the room celebrated the festivities that were at hand, the two of us huddled up and shied from the crowd. She didn¡¯t sit on it normally; she sat on it backwards, straddling the back of the chair with her legs, her arms folded on the top. ¡°I bet people think you¡¯re no fun.¡± Playful in how she said it.


    ¡°That¡¯s two for two. What¡¯s your next guess?¡± I now entertained her, taking a break from what I was doing with pencil and paper.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t asked my name yet.¡±


    ¡°Am I supposed to?¡±


    That made her laugh. That didn¡¯t make her think I was some sort of¡ª.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to, no.¡± She took advantage of the conversation. That¡¯s what she always did. ¡°Lucy,¡± her hand reached out. I took it¡ªstrong grip.


    ¡°How have I never noticed that you¡¯re in this class?¡± I was somewhat lying, as I had seen her multiple times. One time I dropped my pencil, and since there was no one else around but her to pick it up for me, I requested.


    ¡°I¡¯m elusive, I guess?¡±


    That didn¡¯t satisfy my lie. ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°No? You¡¯re the one that gets to decide things for me?¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t trying to.¡±


    She looked back at everyone else. ¡°So you''re going to sit her in this spot, all by yourself?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I was planning on doing.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll fuck your plans up then.¡±


    That caught me off guard. Kind of. Barely. Not at all.


    She made it her mission to interject herself into almost everything I did from then and onward. She¡¯d sit with us at lunch¡ªAmber liked her, Amber saw no problem with her¡ªand she¡¯d stop me in the parking lot, she¡¯d invite me to do things for the first few weeks of knowing me and I always declined, until one day I decided that I might as well get it over with. One night. I¡¯d go home afterward.


    I got teased by Amber, got told that I had a girlfriend, that we were dating. We weren¡¯t dating. Not yet.


    I wasn¡¯t the one who asked her out. I wasn¡¯t the one that gave us titles. She was the one that did it; she introduced me to her parents as her ¡°boyfriend¡±. I could have stopped her from going on from there, done something that would have clarified to her parents that that wasn¡¯t true and that we were ¡°just friends¡±. I didn¡¯t.


    Amber thought that maybe I did like her and I was incredibly awkward about it. I was limiting myself, not taking my situation ¡°by the balls¡±.


    So, on the night of our fifth date, a date to the movie theaters in February, Pretty in Pink, when we returned to my home¡ªno, it was her home. It was her bed that we were sitting on. My body was pressed against hers, I embraced her with my arms wrapped around her, my hands grabbing at her shoulders as she pressed her cherry-lipstick mouth against mine. My hands gripped at the back of her head in an attempt to paw at her, yet I found it difficult to get a grip on it without it being uncomfortable. I thought to myself briefly. I repositioned myself in her hold almost a dozen times, everytime a futile attempt and everytime I still felt awkward as I held her in my arms. I thought to myself, ¡°Maybe it would be easier if it was short hair¡ªthen I could grab at it and maybe hold it in clumps rather than ropes.¡± Instead, I remained uncomfortable as she pushed herself against me. Three minutes before she had taken my shorts off and I was now only in my underwear and sweatshirt with my ex-shorts tossed to the side as if they were a piece of trash that didn¡¯t need to be worried about. Her fingers crept up my pale thighs as she continued to push herself against me and yet with each push I pulled, pulled away from her form and backwards towards the white pillow on her pink bed. I removed my hands and arms and placed them behind me as I continued to lean backward in a semi-desperate attempt to leave her.


    Lucy¡¯s right hand left my thigh and found itself entangled in my mess of brown, kind of dirty hair and then on my back as she pulled me closer to her even more. Her blonde curtains of hair now partially rested on my shoulders, and with the most discomfort I swiftly brought my face away from hers and stammered across my words, saying, ¡°I need to use the bathroom¡±.


    Either I was an idiot or I was a genius. If I were to bet, I would put all of my money on the former.


    And, somehow, what caused the end of our ¡°relationship¡± was even worse than that.


    That entire summer, I refused to do anything similar to what happened after that movie. I held her hand, I rarely played with her hair that I didn¡¯t find that much enjoyment in. She was the one that messed with my hair, she was the one that rubbed my back, she was the one that gave me all the affection¡ªand, apparently, she wanted it back. So that November she had had enough of it all and tried to kiss me again. I don¡¯t know why she stuck with me for so long. I pulled away, just like how I pulled away when we were sitting on her bed. That hot pink bed¡ªI neglected to mention it was hot pink.


    ¡°Are you fucking kidding me Mark?¡±


    We were sitting in the back of my truck, she had her legs crossed; we had planned to go to a drive-in. A drive-in in November, incredibly odd.


    She gave me the crucifix a week before that.


    And it could have been that the prayer worked, that the prayer is what made the car battery work when it was connected to Lucas. It could have been what caused the power-surge to jolt him back to life, to give him breath¡ªif he breathed like we did. But why would God have done something like that, why would he bring someone back that he had already taken. And why had I confided in him if I had thrown the concept of his existence away months beforehand? Why did I think that he would have even cared in the first place?


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m asking for. I¡¯m asking for the ability to see him one more time. I don''t care if it works, and I don¡¯t care if this sort of thing is a sin. I don¡¯t care, I just want him back.¡±


    What an idiot I sounded like. Because it wasn¡¯t him who brought Lucas back, he had nothing to do with it. It was all me, I was the one that brought Lucas back into the land of the living, gave him a second chance, gave him a second life, gave him a second breath. I was the one, and Amber didn¡¯t even have anything to do with it either. She wasn¡¯t in the garage when he stood up, she wasn¡¯t in the garage when vomited. She could have tried her witchery, casting a spell and doing her best to ask the spirits to resurrect a dead man. But I was the one that resurrected a dead man. I was the necromancer. She wasn¡¯t. I brought back a lover, she didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Try me not. Rebuke me not. Hold me not. Yet, if it does come upon a moonlit clear night, where thou desire to hold I in thine arms, to feel mine body to press against thine, when thou are in thy most monumental solace, when the hour of witches creeps upon thou swiftly, and when thou have yet again started to desire what I offered thou, call upon I, and I will answer. Knock thy hand upon mine door and I will answer. Call up to mine tower, as I will lean out the window, with mine hand cupped to mine ear, and see thou down below, and I will embrace thou once again. Soon, mine love. Soon.¡±


    My play. And cry at my grave and I will come up from the ground.


    Tell me how cold my hand is when you clutch it. Tell me how my body feels against yours. See how my head crawls with insects, how I have come out of my grave to be here with you. Can you see the bite marks on my skin? Can you see the scratches, my broken leg, my withered fingers? I am here for you and you alone.


    ?   ?   ?


    I was halfway right. There was a cauldron. I don¡¯t know if it was to be ironic, as there was no fire. It was barely even a cauldron, actually. There were the remains of a fair. It was two poles, straight up, with a rope tied between the two of them, a bucket hanging off the rope.


    ¡°Not at all what I thought it was going to be like.¡±


    My hands were in my pockets, I thought that I could outwardly wear my necklace¡ªthey were all girls, but they weren¡¯t what I would think of when I thought of witches. Sure, they were weird, they were awkward, they spoke in hushed tones. I assumed that one of them would cackle, howl into the night, maybe something like a werewolf. Witches don¡¯t howl, they laugh. And they fly on brooms, too.


    ¡°We don¡¯t fly on brooms.¡±


    I was wrong. ¡°Then what do you fly on?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t fly.¡±


    She called herself the grand witch¡ªI thought of something that rhymes with that, but I didn¡¯t say it.


    ¡°Mark, I swear to God, if you ruin this for me.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t swear to God.¡±


    One was tall, second was stout, and the third¡ªthe third was abnormally, quite possibly unnaturally, stout, and brunette. Three witches, standing like they had been waiting for me; they were waiting for Amber, this was her induction ceremony, they weren¡¯t waiting for me. Apparently she had gotten there rather late, twelve-40. That was too late for them. But that didn¡¯t stop them from doing the ceremony.


    ¡°Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.¡±


    That¡¯s not what they actually said. That¡¯s what I expected them to say¡ªinstead, though poetic, they said something different. How I would have laughed uncontrollably if they called for eye of newt, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.


    The taller one spoke first, a flashlight in hand, cutting through the night air. If they needed wool of bat there were plenty of bats that nested in the trees above us. We were in a grove, the kind of space that one might think to find something of the likes of a fairy circle, the star-filled expanse above us broad and open. She muttered at first, her first few words slipping away from her. She interjected herself, to ask the other attendees whether or not their ceremony would work with a boy present.


    ¡°By the power of¡ªI don¡¯t know if this will work with Mark here,¡± Stacy said, her face illuminated by her flashlight. She looked something like a ghost.


    The third girl, with what I thought to be a ridiculous amount of makeup plastered on her face, looked at Stacy. ¡°The forest will tell us if it doesn¡¯t work.¡± That made no sense.


    ¡°¡®Ronica, I don¡¯t think¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Just go.¡±


    The second girl remained silent.


    ¡°By the power of the north wind, the east wind, and... wait, the other winds. The west wind¡ªthe south wind, we call you. Uh, let us be witches for real, or at least get cooler, or, like, have something good happen at least.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not how you start it!¡± Veronica stopped her from continuing her babbling. ¡°By the power of the ol¡¯ north within, the eastern wind, the wicked western wind, the deep southern wind, we call upon you, forest. Put on our heads our hats, let us be witches and follow the puppeting strings of your hands, and¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Please, let the cute guy on the football team call me back¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Stacy.¡±


    The tall girl got quiet again.


    ¡°We ask the spirits to show us a sign, to reveal your presence. Maybe make the lights flicker? Or make it rain.¡±


    Stacy had to keep talking. ¡°But not too much because my mom will freak if we¡¯re soaking wet.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re throwing me off, Stacy!¡±


    I found myself glancing over at Amber; her hands were outstretched, her eyes closed. That was the position that she was told to assume by the witches.


    ¡°By fire and ice, rain and¡­ snow?¡± It sounded like Stacy was asking me a question.


    ¡°This is your thing¡ª.¡±


    ¡°Mark!¡± ¡®Ronica and Amber yelled at me at the same time.


    ¡°We offer up our sister, Amber Blair, to become a part of our coven,¡± said the stouter one.


    They weren¡¯t given a sign. ¡°¡®Ronica, we weren¡¯t given a sign!¡±


    The second witch, who had yet to speak, stepped forward. She wore a black hood, one that I learned she bought not too long before from a costume shop. ¡°Per noctem et lunam, potentiam invoco.¡±


    Was that Latin? ¡°Does she speak Latin?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Veronica was the one to answer me, she didn¡¯t let the stout one respond. Apparently, she didn¡¯t speak Latin.


    Everything seemed rather disjointed. This only led to more discreditation.


    ¡°Did it work?¡± Amber whispered under her breath, just barely enough for me and the three girls to hear.


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to see, but by name you¡¯re totally a part of the coven.¡± The taller one, the one with blonde hair¡ªit was always the blondes that threw me off¡ªwalked over to Amber, placed her right hand on Amber¡¯s left shoulder, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. That didn¡¯t seem right. ¡°¡®Ronica, you know that I¡¯m a medium, I¡¯m only good for talking to ghosts. That¡¯s why we usually do this sort of stuff in the graveyard.¡± It was a cemetery, not a graveyard.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°Amber told us that that wouldn¡¯t work for her, so we had to compromise.¡±


    The forehead kiss was odd, yes. It confused me, perplexed me, it haunted me in my dreams when I, later that night, curled myself up against his frozen frame once again. But at that time I didn¡¯t think about it too much. There was still more of the ceremony to complete.


    ¡°What¡¯s the next part, again?¡±


    ¡°Stacy, if you don¡¯t get your shit together you¡¯re going to be kicked out. You do this every time, that¡¯s why the last girl we tried to have join the coven left halfway through her induction. It¡¯s always you who¡¯s causing the problem.¡± She was pissed, that much I knew.


    ¡°It¡¯s not my fault.¡± Stacy crossed her arms, trying to give herself some semblance of a defensive stance.


    Veronica wasn¡¯t having any of it. ¡°I just pointed out how it is.¡±


    ¡°Mark, you have to offer something of yours.¡±


    ¡°I have to do what?¡±


    ¡°Give us something of yours.¡± Didn¡¯t think so.


    ¡°Why¡¯s that? Why would I have to do that?¡±


    Stacy was the one pushing for this. ¡°Don¡¯t just say the same thing twice, only slightly differently.¡± Lucas had told me that that was my thing, that¡¯s what I did, and that¡¯s what I had always done.


    ¡°I¡¯m not giving anything up.¡±


    ¡°Then I guess Amber can¡¯t be a part of our coven.¡± A turn on her right foot, like she was a toddler trying to guilt trip me into doing what she wanted me to, her back facing me.


    I weighed my options; it would have made Amber exceedingly happy if she was allowed membership into the coven, but then again I had nothing that I wanted to give up, or nothing that I was willing to give up.


    ¡°Wait a minute, you already said that she was a part of the coven by name.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s by name, idiot.¡± Veronica chimed in. The second one remained silent¡ªI¡¯d seen the first and third girls in the hallway before in passing, I knew their frames, I knew their faces, I somewhat knew their shrill, annoying, piercing, burning voices. But I didn¡¯t know the second girl, the one that spoke Vulgar.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to say that I¡¯ve had enough of this, I¡¯d like to say that I can leave and never come back to this. But I can¡¯t leave right now, I can¡¯t leave because I¡¯m tied down with Amber. Amber, I¡¯m going to sit over here in front of this tree, but I¡¯m not going to give up something of mine.¡±


    Amber had, at this point, already broken out of her incredibly odd stance. ¡°Mark, come on.¡±


    Veronica made her decision in about five seconds. ¡°Well, Amber, you¡¯re not a part of the coven.¡±


    ¡°Mark, you asshole.¡± I was the one that she was calling that? How about Veronica? Actually, the name calling did make sense in that conversation. I was stubborn, I am stubborn, I will remain stubborn.


    My bottom got wet in the dew covered ground yet I refused to stand up simply on principle.


    ¡°You could give up the necklace,¡± Amber said, definitely expecting me to concede and comply.


    ¡°No, not at all, not one chance¡ªthat¡¯s a definite ¡®no¡¯.¡±


    ¡°A necklace?¡± She¡¯d sparked Stacy¡¯s interest, her turning on her foot again now to face me in all my relaxed glory on the water-soaked ground, leaning against hard bark. ¡°Let us sisters see the necklace.¡± I don¡¯t know why she even said that in the first place, it was out in the open, hanging down from my neck and leaned against my chest.


    ¡°Not one chance, I already said that.¡±


    She crept towards me¡ªmaybe I shouldn¡¯t have chosen violence, but the closest thing to my right hand was a rock, and I had thrown a baseball before with surprising accuracy. A squeal came from her; I barely threw that hard. Sure, like I said, I was accurate, but I put barely any arm into it, and it only hit her in the shoulder. It was enough to send her back in the direction of the bucket-cauldron.


    ¡°You can¡¯t be here anymore Mark, the spirits are upset with you.¡± Not only was she a ghost medium, but she was a tarot card reader too¡ªAmber told me that later on. I could have never guessed.


    ¡°Did they whisper that in your ear or did they call you on your carphone?¡± That joke didn¡¯t land. I should have thought it through thoroughly before I tried it.


    ¡°My what?¡± She could have been half deaf for all I knew. Or, more likely, confused. Utterly confused.


    ¡°Nevermind.¡± Now I stood up, the necklace that Stacy had desired to see even though it was very clearly on my chest now dangling, reflecting the spare light from the flashlight in its black, metallic, glossy frame. ¡°I¡¯ll be off now.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t just leave after insulting my coven, assaulting a high ranking member of my coven, and then interrupting a sacred ceremony.¡± There was venom in the way that Veronica talked to me, it was there from the very beginning.


    ¡°¡®Sacred¡¯ is an absurd word for this kind of sacrilege. And saying that a pebble thrown at one of your ¡®high ranking members¡¯ is assault is ridiculous. Absurd, even. And I wasn¡¯t even interrupting, I came before the ceremony even started.¡±


    The stout one, the one that barely talked, spoke up, only to put in some of the worst two cents I have ever heard in my life. ¡°Tu es molestus.¡± Definitely Latin, but I didn¡¯t speak it. That¡¯s why it was some of the worst two cents.


    ¡°Okay, do you guys understand what this girl is saying because I don¡¯t and she¡¯s freaking me out at this point.¡± Maybe I could distract them, turn the conversation to the fact that one of their members didn¡¯t even speak English as far as I was aware.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter, Mark.¡± I failed. Stacy looked at Amber. ¡°¡®Ronica has spoken, you¡¯re out of the coven.¡±


    I had never seen her grovel¡ªonly three times had I seen her completely embarrass herself, two of which she did purposefully and she had complete control over. But now, now she was raking the ground and its leaves with her fingernails, she was bursting into tears at an alarming rate, she was uprooting the soil like a squirrel or a badger. ¡°Forgive him, please, let me be a part of your group!¡± She wasn¡¯t crying, crying wasn¡¯t her thing; it wasn¡¯t her style. Maybe her act would have been more convincing if she did cry though.


    That night she wrote her own death spell. I think that she hoped she would, one day, be able to use it on me. She could try it when I was sleeping, when my guard was down. But on Maple, we split paths, me to my home and her to hers¡ªand, thankfully, I wasn¡¯t going to be alone a second night. I had Lucas.


    She called me though, when we laid in bed, as I read to him with a flashlight in one hand and my book of Lovecraftian horrors in the other, reading out loud the Dunwich Horror. He couldn¡¯t relate, he didn¡¯t have an albino mother¡ªneither did I.


    ¡°They called me.¡±


    ¡°Who? Where? When¡ª.¡± Cut off by the voice on the other end.


    ¡°The coven, they called me and said that the forest thinks I should reconsider.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there to reconsider, they were the ones that rejected you.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I meant that the forest reconsidered me. I¡¯m in.¡± It was like she was let back on the cheerleading team, it was like she made it on the football team. It was like she got the lead role in her favourite musical or play. And it was like all the things that I had done were now completely reconnected, the pages of that book were ripped out of the binding and thrown into the fire. Still, the inky stains on her hands when they were pulled out remained.


    ¡°When''s the next meeting?¡±


    ¡°They said they would call me or tell me in person at school.¡±


    I looked back towards Lucas¡ªI didn¡¯t know if he wanted me to come back, if he wanted me to keep reading the story to him. He was looking up, into the ceiling; but not where my fan was, as that dangled above the center of my room. Instead, he looked up at the white ceiling¡ªthat flat, boring, naked ceiling.


    I was trying to get my amygdala burning, so that when I thought of my greatest fears I would be able to nestle myself in his still arms, and her phone call was stopping that from happening. As she continued to talk to me, as I pulled the handset away from its holder, the cord stretching almost halfway through my room, I took off my shirt. I tossed into a laundry bin that I stole from the basement¡ªI thought that, maybe, with Lucas being around all the time I could get more organized. No longer would I have the floor of my room be a minefield of dirty clothes. Still had yet to give him a new change of clothes, he wore what he was buried in. I had him put it back on when he was done showering on the night of his awakening. None of my clothes would fit him, they were far too small. Maybe one would be fit as a belly shirt, but he wasn¡¯t the type to wear that sort of attire¡ªand neither was I. I¡¯d never even entertained that idea.


    She talked for half an hour. I talked for, more or less, three minutes of that entire half hour. Thirty minutes of nonsense, about how the witches were excited to have her, about how even though I had ¡°interrupted¡± their escapade she was still allowed entry into their group, about how she had a specific quota for spells written that she had to meet every week, how she had to try and get others to join that had similar interests. And they, the witches (their names, come to find out, being in totality Veronica, Stacy, and Erica), actually enjoyed my company, even if they acted as though I was a nuisance. Amber was always one to give me any sort of gossip or detailed information that she learned from everyone that she talked to¡ªshe was leagues ahead of me when it came to being informed and involved in the affairs of others.


    ¡°She thought you were cute.¡±


    ¡°Which one?¡±


    ¡°Stacy.¡±


    ¡°Go figure.¡±


    That could have been why she tried to be such a horrible person to me¡ªI¡¯d rather not call her one of the words that Amber so regularly put to use. I¡¯ve never considered those sorts of words to be a part of my vocabulary. And Amber invited them to sit with our odd group at lunch.


    ¡°How did you get acquainted with these girls anyways?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°First of all, acquaintance is way too formal. These ¡®girls¡¯ are my sisters now.¡±


    ¡°How did you meet these women whose sisterhood you are now a part of?¡± I didn¡¯t know if she recognized my attempt at poking fun. My attempt at demeaning.


    ¡°Meanwhile, old Whateley continued to buy cattle without measurably increasing the size of his herd. He also cut¡­ he cut timber and began to repair the unused parts of his house¡ªa spacious, peaked-roofed affair whose rear¡­ Whose rear end was buried entirely in the rocky hillside, and whose three least-ruined ground-floor rooms had always been sufficient for himself and his daughter. For himself and his daughter.¡± I paused in my reading, his hand had crept¡ªhis left was still over my stomach, where I had placed it when I returned to the safety of the bed, but his right was within my hair. I hadn¡¯t put it there. ¡°There must have been prodigious¡­ Prodigious reserves of strength in the old man to enable him to accomplish so much hard labor¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t continue, it was ignorant of me to even try and continue. I turned my head to the right, to look into his eyes like I had done so many times before. He didn¡¯t smile, he didn¡¯t need to smile; I knew that, truly, there was a sort of pleasure that was brewing in him. Even if he didn¡¯t express it on his outside. Or maybe that pleasure was brewing in me. It was brewing in me, indeed, as well.


    ¡°We ought to go to bed.¡±


    That didn¡¯t stop his knotting, knitting, splitting fingers. That didn¡¯t tell him to stop. He peered not into my eyes anymore, but instead into the nest placed above my head. And he still hadn¡¯t yet moved his right arm, stretched about my frame. I thought that it might be better if I turned to him, if I faced him stomach to stomach, face to face, legs to legs.


    ¡°Lucas.¡±


    The shortest, smallest grunt.


    ¡°I said that we ought to go to bed.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t read much of those stories, but what I had I enjoyed. And it made it all the more better that I was able to enjoy them with him.


    ?   ?   ?


    ¡°Do you think that Satan was sad when he fell out of heaven?¡±


    ¡°Lucifer?¡±


    ¡°The devil. Who else do you think that I would be talking about?¡± I was sitting on a stump. The coven meeting was over, we were debating on whether or not we were going to leave. I had someone waiting on me back home, of course. Realistically he was still asleep. Realistically, I thought.


    ¡°Well I don¡¯t know, you could be talking about anyone with the amount of things that you know. Almost every time that I talk to you you spit something new up.¡± In her right hand she held a stick, wacked against a tree¡ªit was rotten, old, it exploded into spongey splinters.


    ¡°I read Paradise Lost not too long ago. Thinking about reading Regained, too.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you tried to write poetry before? Isn¡¯t that a poem?¡±


    ¡°You do listen when I talk to you.¡±


    ¡°Of course I do, your voice is shrill and grading. It¡¯s hard not to.¡±


    I don¡¯t know how true that was. I¡¯d only heard my voice once, from a tape recorder that I used a long time ago¡ªand that was around puberty, too.


    ¡°Me miserable, which way shall I fly, infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell,  myself am hell, and in the lowest deep a lower deep, still threatening to devour me, opens wide, to which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.¡± Part of me wished that she wasn¡¯t really listening to what I was saying, that she was trying to avoid. I bet that she lost interest in my quotation halfway through.


    ¡°Did you write that?¡±


    I wanted to lie. ¡°No. John Milton, Paradise Lost.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like something that you would write.¡± I can¡¯t remember the last time it was that she read something that I wrote. The majority of my manuscripts are cluttered in the drawers of my desk; I don¡¯t even know if I want anything that I¡¯ve written to be published.


    ¡°What was the thing about the devil?¡±


    ¡°¡®Do you think that Satan was sad when he fell out of heaven?¡¯¡±


    ¡°What does the Bible say?¡±


    It was funny that she would ask that, that wasn¡¯t like her; like I¡¯ve said before I think, she doesn¡¯t even care about the Bible anymore. If I were to throw it in front of her she would shield her face from it like she were a vampire and it was the sun, and maybe if it touched her skin she would act like it was garlic or holy water.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t say anything like that, I don¡¯t think.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t think?¡±


    Lying, no idea.


    ¡°I would think that if he is real,¡± she said, picking up another stick that was also most likely rotten, ¡°then he would miss heaven. Heaven¡¯s supposed to be the greatest place on earth¡ªit¡¯s not on earth though. I think that if I was kicked out of heaven I would want to get back in and I¡¯d miss it.¡±


    ¡°I guess you¡¯re right.¡±


    ¡°I mean, do you miss Lucy?¡±


    I choked on air, started coughing as I tried to regain my breath. Why would she ask something like that, why would she pry me like that? That wasn¡¯t something that she would do at all, and when I was Lucy¡¯s boyfriend I didn¡¯t tell Amber much about our relationship.


    Probably her twentieth drag of her cigarette, I wasn¡¯t counting¡ªI didn¡¯t know if I was supposed to be counting. ¡°Tell me, how did that end?¡±


    I¡¯d forgotten, I¡¯d neglected to tell her the majority of that. Thought that I had only omitted some parts, the parts that I didn¡¯t like to talk about nor think about even, the parts that made me uncomfortable; the parts where she tried to do more than just courting.


    ¡°That¡¯s none of your business.¡± She thought that it was.


    ¡°I¡¯ve known you since third grade, Mark.¡± Amber had, she showed up on St. Valentine¡¯s Day. No one knew her¡ªCatholic school at the time, that¡¯s where we were. In middle school we switched to public, but before that everything was private and Catholic. It was gothic, the stones for the foundation must have been set centuries beforehand. We would always hide ourselves away in one of the rooms that no one ever went into near the confession booth; if we couldn¡¯t go there then we would hide away in a far corner-nook of the library amongst where hid the book that somehow the school had neglected to get rid of: the sex education book. There was one and only one, it shouldn¡¯t have been in a place like that I would think. I always imagined that someone had snuck it into the building and hid it away there between a copy of Lives of the Saints and McGuffey Readers. She liked me then, and that went on for a few years. It only got stamped out in eighth grade. And they did eventually get rid of those books, all because of me¡ªI admit it, it was my fault, I shouldn¡¯t have gone in that corner to look at the pictures by myself. When the two of us would go one of us would stay as the watchman, making sure that we wouldn¡¯t get caught. We didn¡¯t care about the text, we didn¡¯t care about what the book had to say and how it was trying to go about educating us, all we had interest in were the diagrams. She was so different, she wasn¡¯t like how she was now¡ªshe wore skirts. She braided her hair. She smiled a lot more. She giggled too. Mother Virginia was the one who caught me; what an ironic name.


    ¡°Do you think that, if he¡¯s real, God regrets what he did?¡± Amber asked.


    We knew the doctrine, it was ingrained in us. Again, Catholic school.


    ¡°He has remorse, he cries.¡±


    ¡°He weeps.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. He weeps. Even Jesus did.¡±


    ¡°Even Jesus did.¡±


    The air was still, the moon shone above us, I could have sworn there were fireflies that flickered about but it was October, that didn¡¯t make sense, my mind was playing tricks on me. They were either dead or asleep¡ªhibernating, that is. I¡¯m not an entomologist.


    A pause.


    ¡°Fuck if Jesus did.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The only person I knew to swear that deeply was Lucy.


    ¡°What does it matter if Jesus cried?¡±


    I¡¯m not a priest either, not a theologian. ¡°I¡¯m not a theologian.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not what?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t study religion.¡±


    She was now leaning against the same tree that she had smacked with the first stick.


    ¡°For so I created them free, and free they must remain,¡± I muttered.


    ¡°But you say shit like that.¡±


    I didn¡¯t quite understand her logic. ¡°That¡¯s still Paradise Lost. That wasn¡¯t the Bible.¡±


    ¡°Sounded like it,¡± she said then to perform a guttural sigh.


    I wanted to see him again. I didn¡¯t understand what was wrong with that. There was nothing wrong with that, everyone else that cared about him wanted to see him again. His family did, his friends did, I did¡ªand yeah, she did too, but I wanted to do more. And in all honesty I think that I deserved to see him again more than anyone else.


    She liked him, she told me. She finally told me now that he was back in the land of the living. She finally told me, on our walk back; it was awkward, incredibly awkward, and I struggled to be able to figure out what I was supposed to say in response. I usually think that I¡¯m good at being able to gauge how someone else feels, what they¡¯re thinking, what they maybe want to say, and I also think that I¡¯m skilled at being able to articulate words in a specific order to make sure that the other person knows what I mean. Now I stumbled over my words. I wasn¡¯t flustered, I would know if I was flustered. She was smoking, almost blew it directly in my face¡ªhowever, before she did, she realized that she had to give me some sort of common decency and, coughing, blew it to the left instead of the right where I stood.


    I thought that I knew, I told myself that I knew the whole time. Yet I knew that I denied this, I still tried to lie to myself and say that he didn¡¯t like her, that it wasn¡¯t her who he wanted.


    ¡°I knew.¡±


    ¡°The hell you didn¡¯t.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t fight back, I felt no need to. She believed what she wanted to believe and I believed what I wanted to believe; it was going to stay that way and we couldn¡¯t really do anything about it. I almost twisted my ankle on a stick.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Amber said, halfway picking me up, doing her best to make sure that I didn¡¯t fall flat on my face.


    I scoffed at her. ¡°What do you think? Was that a serious question?¡± I gripped at the sides of my puffer jacket. Maybe that wasn¡¯t the right attire for a coven meeting. I tripped again somewhere along the walk, I don¡¯t know what it was. It might have been a root that was hiding in the leaf litter or maybe a ball that a dog had lost somehow.