Peregrine
I turned the other cheek, but the turn was a 360
Inner Sanctum Nobility
Cool blood beating beneath
a wind blue moon,
bitter as a shadow
The want, watching.
Frantic Feet
A Cry.
Aching breast
The Scream.
The Blow.
The death moan.
A sordid Symphony
Cornwall, Connecticut
There comes a time in every skeptic's life, that something so illogical happens, they have to rationalize the experience or turn into the town crazy.
One week ago was the day, I Julie Mullins, turned into a believer, and the town lunatic.
'There's nothing like an east coast fall.' It was something I have heard countless times from locals and stop throughs alike.
Were the colors nice? Sure. Is the weather the perfect blend of crisp in the morning and cool in the day, with rains washing through and leaving clean air or lingering fog? Yes. Did I believe that it couldn't be beat? No.
I suppose that is the attitude of most eighteen-year olds looking to the future and the chance to break free from the small town life in their senior year of high school. It's cliche, but it's true.
Cornwall tops out at just under two-thousand people. People either can tell you their entire family's history from the time of settlement, their proud yankee roots, or they are some kind of crazy and for some reason moved here for the 'beautiful small town peace and quiet'.
We don't get many of those.
There is one school that finishes when you're in eighth grade, and if you miss the bus that takes you nearly thirty minutes away to the nearest high school when you're fourteen, you better be one of the fastest gangle leg peddle pushers out there to get your bike from Cornwall to the high school twenty or more miles away, in under forty minutes, before that first bell rings- or you get to sit on the front steps until the bell rings to dismiss for lunch and the front doors are opened again. Half our roads aren't paved, and neither are our parking lots.
We're known for an old covered bridge, 'listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut' that had a brief cameo at the beginning of the movie 'Valley of the Dolls', and is sent all over the world on postcards set in every season it can be snapped rapidly in by a passing second rate photographer, and very little else. At least, that's what we're best known for in the non-crazy people circles.
The problem with Cornwall, is everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows all the stories, and all the labeled crazy folks. You want to avoid being labeled one of the crazy. One of those people that talks seriously about how they won't walk across the bridge on a foggy night, because you might be caught up with a company of passing revolutionary soldier ghosts and never be seen again. Or the ones that won't hike Pine Knob Loop on a full moon because there is an immortal demon that lives in the dark hollow in the woods who will harvest you for all your juiciest bits. Or, someone that believes that the nearby abandoned Dudleytown settlement is cursed.
Sure everyone jokes about those things, or pretends to. Sure everyone pulls the stories out when they are at a harvest fire at the end of the reaping season, and then laughs. 'No one' actually believes the things they are saying that are sending shivers down their spines and goosebumps racing across their skin.
Nope. No one, really, but Demella Crane.
No, you don't want to be Demella Crane, the town 'crazy' (or witch, depending on who you speak to) or anyone seen associating too often with her.
I used to roll my eyes at the people that both bought into her warnings and theories she was a witch, and those that made fun of her or turned away when she walked through the few isles at the grocers while they were there.
You see, my mom is a nurse practitioner, and my dad is the local Doc. And since we don't live even close to within spitting distance of anything more than the bare bones clinic my dad only has open on rotating Mondays and Wednesdays, when he's not working out of town, they both make house calls. Demella is a frequent clinic flier and homevisit getter.
I grew up walking right into her oddball, crumbledown house on Popple Swamp Road, surrounded by trees that were growing closer to her house every year and needed a good thinning, and pressed up against Bloody Brook, hanging onto the hem of my mom's favorite Buffalo plaid jacket. (Please don't get me started on the names we've never changed for any of these places).
Older kids always told all of the younger kids that Demella was a witch who bled black and could curse you just by spitting in your general direction. Her house was filled with all the most odd and ancient and fantastical things, and I cried the entire drive to her house the first time my mom took me. I hid my face in the folds of my mother's jacket as she knocked and then just… walked right in this house I was certain would be filled with horrors, not a care or worry to the steady set of her shoulders.
Mom didn't grow up in Cornwall. She met Dad while he was in his second to last year of residency and she'd just started her first rotation as a night manager for the hospital they were both working at. Mom grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts- smack dab between Boston and Salem. She'd heard every ghost story and been to all the most 'haunted' places her friends would drag them all around to, and none of it ever left its mark. She'd smile and play along, but it was all so much water off a duck's back if you ask her.
So, she firmly and with a good deal of finality told me to wipe my face and stop my fussing as we walked up the old wood steps, reminding me that the desire of my six-year-old heart of blackberry ice cream for dessert was hanging in the balance of my behavior during her stops.
With fistfulls of my mother's red and black jacket I followed her a little too closely for her irritation, into an old great room that had been turned into a sitting room, or what could pass for a sitting room. Demella was sitting with her foot propped up and a pained expression on her face as she waved my mom in. I couldn't tell you what she said happened, or how she got the large cut on her leg, but what I can tell you is the moment her own haphazard bandage made of what looked like leaves, and smeared with some gross smelling concoction of her own making was pulled away was when I stopped being scared of Demella Crane.
She bled good old red, and nothing but, like the rest of us. And once my mom had cleaned and stitched her up, she shared some of the best peanut butter cookies you should ever chance to get to eat in your life. She also chuckled and let me touch almost anything my eyes roved across as she waved my mom through the 'care procedures' she was likely to ignore now that she was stitched up.
Before I left, Demella gave me a book on botany and showed me just what I could put in Thomas Evans shirt if I ever wanted to make him itch, but not cause harm. Much to the chagrin of my mother.
That first visit was the beginning of many, and after I turned twelve and got my first ten speed bike, I went and saw her even if she wasn't being treated by my mom or dad. I didn't tell anyone I was going to see her, but we became good friends all the same. She'd stuff my cheeks and my pockets with cookies or rich homemade caramels and warn me to keep my feet, or my bike tires, on the paths home or anywhere in our miles of woods so I didn't wander off and get snatched up by the things that go bump in the night.
I would always laugh it off, and Demella would narrow her eyes and shake her finger at me until I promised. I always stayed on the path. As I got older I realized it was just sound advice. The forests are dense and more often than not there was a call out for the volunteer rescue to go and hunt up a hiker or traveler that got themselves lost in the woods. It never stopped Demella from warning me against the supernatural, but I figured it was just her way of scaring me into obedience.
So I guess I ought to get back to a week ago. Halloween is obviously a big deal on the east coast, and in small and big towns alike. Cornwall is not so different. People put up decorations, kids trick or treat, there's a festival, the whole bit. In order to beef up my applications to get out of the speck that is my town, I had started joining every club and organization I could from the time I was a freshman. So a week ago I was setting up the Pep Club booth with Mrs. Laythrup in the town square that would become ground zero for the fall festival in a few hours. She'd left some box of garish decorations at her house for the booth, so I was mostly just screwing around when Kyle Peck and his group of friends showed up. They were supposed to be helping with some game booth for the basketball team.
I wouldn't call myself girly, but I wasn't a complete freak either. Kyle Peck had been my closest neighbor for as long as I can remember, and had never been the center of attention until he grew a foot and a half over the course of a year and started playing basketball. He wasn't ever going to get in the NBA, but he'd helped our team win state last year, so of course he was now Mr. Popular. We all knew each other, and I wasn't a pariah by any means, I was the doctor's daughter after all, people wanted their kids to be my friend. I just didn't care for all of it, because I wasn't planning to stay.
Thing was, Kyle had always been good looking, but no one had paid him much attention except me, before now. Now... it was awkward. I didn't care about his popularity, and he seemed to take that as a challenge to get my attention or embarrass me when he was around his 'crowd'. He could still be perfectly pleasant to hang out with, alone, but we rarely did that anymore and I kept trying to tell myself I didn't care. I didn't care that he wasn't the kid that I'd pushed out of tree fort and he'd told my dad he'd slipped when he was getting stitches. I didn't care that he was the kid that I walked into Dead Man's wood with the first time and he hadn't laughed when I'd screamed at an owl when we were seven. I didn't care that Tiffany Olsen, a move in, was now always right at his arm, clinging to him like he was a life saver and she was about to drown in a hurricane. I. Did. Not. Care.
Nope, not one bit as he came up to my half decorated booth and fingered the worn out baseballs for the pinball toss. Or the way he picked at a loose stitch on one, the same way he had when I'd beaten him at this game when we were twelve. "Sooo, a bunch of us are going out to Dudleytown tonight, you interested?" It was one of the first things he'd invited me to personally in months. My eyes had roved around his friends milling around with nothing better to do, the sneer on Jeff Peters face as he started to laugh, "Bet she's going out to cast spells with that Witch tonight, Peck. It's a special night for you lot, isn't it?" I hate to admit that my mouth dropped open slightly.
Only my parents and Kyle knew that I frequently spent time with Demella. The fact he'd told his 'crew' hurt more than I could process at that moment. I quickly shut my mouth, and knew my neck was going red under my violet sweater as my glare turned from a red eared Kyle to Jeff. "Well if I was, and I was you, I'd be careful who you're calling a Witch. You might just end up cursed. Then Silvia and Stephanie would find out you're groping both of them behind the Miller's bakery, Tuesdays for Silvia and Thursdays for Stephanie? When you've told them you're supposed to be at tutoring. Ooops! Did that just slip out? Sorry, maybe I've been cursed by a witch too!" It was satisfying to see his face pale and then burn red as the girls near him instantly laid into him and then stormed off in opposite directions.
It was even more satisfying to see Tiffany run off after her best friend Silvia and the rest of the 'crew' kind of shrug away before I could do more damage. Well, all of them but Kyle. He just shook his head and crossed his arms and leaned against the booth. "He's gonna pay you back for that." I rolled my eyes and started reorganizing the boxes of last year's prizes with the new ones still all bundled up in their bags. "Like I care. Jeff Peters is a jerk and I have no idea why you hang out with him."
I heard him sigh, "He's not that bad once you get to know him. Or the rest of the team for that matter." He went quiet as I had squatted down and my head was stuffed under the top of the booth. I figured he'd just walked off. When I had turned around and his legs were right there, I let out a yip before bolting to my feet. His face had tugged up in a slight smirk and I glared at him, which only made him actually laugh. I rolled my eyes and stepped around him after picking up the empty box I had been intending to go and throw in the can nearby. He stepped in my path a little and I had to tilt my head back to look up at him, much to my irritation.
"You never said if you'd come."
I studied him for a minute, raising my brow, "We've been out there hundreds of times. Besides, I'm sure Tiffany will be plenty distraction enough for you."
"Come on Jules, you know I don't like her like that." He huffed and started to lope along beside me as I forced my way past to go and stuff the box in the can.
"Well, she likes you that way," I ground out as I tried to make the square box literally fit in the round hole. His hand dropped on top of mine, stopping me. "Well, the feeling isn't mutual." I looked up at him and he was just… looking at me. Like really looking and it took me longer than I wanted to admit to myself before I looked away and gave the box one more hard shove and it finally caved and dropped to the bottom of the can with a thud. "I'll think about it," I muttered, not looking at him, though I could see his head bob as he pulled his hand away.
"We're meeting at the corner of Cemetery Hill and Town at ten. I hope you come."
And that had been that.
Mrs. Laythrup showed back up and sooner than later we were swamped by kids coming by to hand us their sticky and crumpled tickets for a chance at a penny toy and the sky was going dark as the town was lighting up with glowing pumpkins and stringed lights. When eight o'clock rolled around and Penny Hill came to take her turn manning the booth I gladly collected my bag and headed to my hand-me-down honda accord.
I got in and shut the door to the noise of it all and dropped my head back against my headrest, closing my eyes. A thump and a shaking of my car forced my eyes open and my hands up toward the steering wheel, my head swiveling to find Jeff and two other seniors laughing and pointing at me, saying some kind of taunts before I started to let my mouth move in nonsense patterns and one of their faces went pail, probably convinced I was cursing them and he smacked his friends and they moved along.
I was still mad, and hurt, that Kyle had told everyone about my friendship with Demella. I wasn't ashamed of her, but I also needed to be able to have strong recommendation letters to get me out of this town, and half the letters would be coming from classmates' parents that made up everything from our teaching staff to our civil servants. Demella's knowledge of medicinal plants had set me on a course to want to become a chemist, but she didn't have anything to recommend me behind her name that colleges would care about- just a decades long acquaintance that could speak to my 'character' maybe.
I sighed and turned the car over, and before I realized what I was doing, I was pulling up in front of her house. I didn't believe Demella was a witch, though there were times she did things or knew things I couldn't explain away, but she always played into her reputation. Her whole drive was lined with pumpkins, their candles flickering in the growing breeze of the night and carved with tortured faces, frightful frowns and smiling faces alike. Her yard had webs strung from all the tangled trees and she had ghosts and bats and spiders hanging from fishing lines from branches and hooks on her porch. She'd even stuck a pair of stripe stocking feet out from under the edge of her broken trestle next to the stairs and her old anatomy skeleton Mitch, sitting in a rocking chair on her porch.
I chuckled as I got out, and pulled my jacket a little tighter around me over my sweater. The door opened before I could even shut my car door and she had one hand on her hip and a wooden spoon in the other holding open the creaky screen door. She shifted her hand so her forearm was holding open the door and shook her spoon at me as I came up the stone laid path to her steps, Jinx her cat darting out of the house in pursuit of a mouse most likely.
"That boy has your energy all sorts of tangled up." She'd say things like this sometimes and make me feel off balance. Tonight I decided to indulge her. "His 'friends' more than him." She let out a sigh and pulled me in with her arm for a partial embrace as she guided me into her house, "Nothing one, or five, of my cookies can't fix eh?"
She plied me with cookies, got me talking about Kyle and even admitting to the invitation to go out to Dudleytown. That made her scowl.
"That place is nothing but trouble and darkness, why do you kids always want to go meddling where you ought not?" I sighed, she'd told me as much about all the 'scariest haunts' in our area. Always tossing salt, or spitting, or drawing a ward with her fingers. She never seemed very serious about it, smiling as she did so, but tonight she looked ready to tie me to the old wooden chair at her kitchen butcher's block table I always sat in.
Instead I just shrugged and took another cookie. "It's Halloween, the teenagers have to do something. Besides, who said I was going?" I asked as a stuffed yet another cookie in my mouth. She shook her spoon at me again, this time it was covered in a dough, "Julie Elspeth Mullins," I cringed and always regretted doing something to get my mother to scold me with my full name in front of her when I was nine, "Don't try to lie to this old witch. It's plain as the crumbs on your jacket. You hope that boy cares for you as much as you do him and you want to test it." I glared and stuck my tongue out at her and she wrapped my knuckles with a spoon in the other hand that hadn't been there a moment ago.
I yanked my hand back from the slight sting as she got even more serious, "You go courting trouble and you'll find it. You ever think he might not go if you gave him a different invitation? Let those other hoodlums that come and kick my gates go mucking about with things and get their brains addled and their pants full of piss, or lost to this world all together, you be smart. There's powerful things up in Dudleytown. Why do you think it's abandoned?" Seeing my face flush and my shoulders slump under her harsh scolding she had softened and shook her head, rolling her eyes going back to mixing with a single spoon and she softened again, "Or if you're not going to take sound advice on a full moon samhain, at least don't go out their blind, stupid, and unprotected."
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "Demella, you've been like a grandma to me, but I don't believe in all the extra stuff. I'm not sure half the time you do either. If I go, I'll take a flashlight and my phone, like I always do."
She looked up at me and shook her head again, "You'll take what I say to take or I'll be calling your mother and telling a mighty tale on you to get you good and stuck home. Besides which, we both know you're going, so stop your fighting and fussing and start rolling this dough out for this poor, tired old woman." I laughed, but helped her roll out her dough for her cookies and pie anyway. She was one of the least incapable people I knew, old or not.
When I left nearly an hour after I'd arrived, she'd dropped a leather pouch on a string around my neck, stuffed several bundles in the pockets of my jacket and pants and slipped a bracelet on my wrist. She'd also pushed a new bic lighter into my jeans and given me an extra pouch and bracelet 'for that boy' before also handing me a ziplock bag full of more homemade treats.
When I got to Furnace Brook that connected to Cemetery Hill, I debated on turning left toward home, instead of right toward Kyle. But Demella had been right. As much as I wanted to not like Kyle in a more than friendly way, I had, for a long time and had denied it any time it had been brought up by anyone, including him. It was also our last Halloween together, and with the exception of last year when I was sick (and pouting at his new popularity) we'd spent every one of them I could remember together.
So. I turned right.
Sitting at the north end of the dirt parking area to the cemetery, a few minutes before ten, I almost lost the nerve to wait, but just as I was getting ready to throw my car in reverse and forget the whole thing, headlights flashed in my rearview. I took a deep breath and turned my engine off, sighing as I grabbed my bag and stuffed the things Demella had given me in it and got out. If I was going to do this, I wasn't going to look scared to do it.
Dudleytown wasn't my favorite place to go. Despite what I'd told Demella in the safety of her house near the crackle of her old kitchen hearth fire, the place had always given me a weird feeling. I'd only once been anywhere near it at dark, and once I realized where I was, I'd pedaled my bike faster to get back to a different trail to get me home. It had been turned into a 'nature reserve' after it had gotten too popular and the land owners were sick of people trespassing. It hadn't stopped the local kids though.
I moved to the end of my car and leaned against the trunk as Kyle's truck and four others filled with 'the crew' pulled up. I saw him try to hide his smile, as I tucked hair behind my ear, pleased to see no one else had been riding in his truck with him, and the sulky look Tiffany had on her face until it turned into a glare in my direction.
He walked up to me, swinging an ax up over his shoulder and I raised a brow as I looked at it, and then him. "Turning into Paul Bunyan there Pecks," I harassed him with the nickname the team had given him and he rolled his eyes in the dim lights from the cemetery fence. "We hauled in logs earlier, but someone forgot the ax, so we have to chop some to get the bonfire going once we're up there Mulder," he taunted back. He hadn't called me that in ages. I rolled my eyes and shouldered my bag as the others were hollering, having gathered a cooler and some other things from their cars and were headed toward the foot of the trail.
I took a breath and Kyle actually looked like he was worried I was about to change my mind. "We don't have to stay long… if you don't want." I raised my brow again, pulling the straps to my bag over both my shoulders and started walking toward the trail, turning and walking backward, "If you're scared you can hold my hand," I'd taunted. He shook his head and laughed, said something I'd missed and caught up with me, immediately reaching down and taking my hand, and not in the way we used to do when we were kids. "It's Dudleytown, you never know what's going to happen up there." His hand tightened on mine as I looked at him and then he tugged me along and we headed up the trail behind all the others.
We'd all heard the stories, but mostly everyone figured it was all made up. Overactive imaginations, ready to be triggered from the mere idea of the place, and the friends that were more than willing to facilitate you peeing your pants to harass you about it. Still, you couldn't deny that a whole lot of terrible things happened to the original Dudley family that had tried to settle the area. More members of that family died in terrible ways than most families saw in several, if any, lifetimes.
The worst of it came when the crops had failed and they entered into a terrible winter. People went mad, several handfuls died, one person killed themselves, and the rest that survived the winter were half crazed with starvation before they finally made their pitiful way back into Cornwall and scattered from the settlement as quickly as they could recover. People claimed to see starving children ghosts, or to be stalked by shadows that looked to be dressed in period clothing during the daylight when they got too close. There was a story of a girl that had gone up there to kill herself when my dad was a teenager, but he said it had nothing to do with Dudleytown and that she'd moved away before she'd done it when I asked him when I was twelve.
Demella, of course, had plenty of stories to make my skin crawl. She hated the hollow more than Dudleytown, but she didn't much like Dudleytown either. She'd told me enough tales, I figured were mostly made up, that I had a healthy fear of the place. Obviously not healthy enough to not be walking hand in hand with Kyle to a place that gave me the creeps just thinking about it, but that was the fun of going places you shouldn't, wasn't it? Feeling that rush and laughing about your stupidity later.
In the end they were lucky they brought me a long, three flashlights failed on the hike up to the flat just outside the open treeless area that bordered the entire settlement, except mine. It took longer than I would have liked, and more glares than I'd ever caught in my life, for my single flashlight to find the hole in the fence disguised by a giant "no trespassing" sign. We found the bonfire spot well enough, the team really had hauled up or drug along enough dead wood to last the night… if they could get smaller pieces to even start the thing.
I turned to Kyle, "Alright Paul Bunyan, do your thing," I teased and he gave my hand a squeeze as I directed the light so he could see what he was doing and not chop his own foot off. The minute he stepped away, Tiffany and her cheer squad stepped around me. They were careful not to disturb the beam of light, but she was a good deal too close to me for my comfort. "So, what? Are you guys, like a thing now or something?" I wish I could say I had an amazingly witty comeback, but my mouth had gone dry surrounded by the catty pack and I just shrugged and tried to step away.
She grabbed my arm, her perfectly manicured nails digging through my jacket and sweater and I could feel the pressure on my arm, "Mighty stupid to get attached to someone probably going to residential college when everyone knows you can't wait to get out of here." I yanked my arm back, the flash light twisting to flash right in her stupidly perfect face as the ax was coming down. "He'll go wherever he wants to go. Mighty stupid of you to doubt that." I heard a thunk and a startled cry of fright and instantly turned it back around, terrified by what I might see as one of Tiffany's friends pulled her back from saying more and I walked closer to the pile Kyle had been chopping.
He was rubbing a foot, but there wasn't any blood. He grinned, "The log split and landed on my foot, but thanks for the concern Mulder." I rolled my eyes and the guys set about stuffing the bonfire together with the newly smaller pieces and kindling. Though I stuck close to Kyle, not wanting to deal with the cat pack again, and doing my best to ignore the wind picking up and the sounds it was making in the trees, the feeling that kept trying to creep up my spine, or the shadows that seemed to stretch just outside the beam of light in my hand.
Again, it was good I was there, because every match struck blew out. The one other lighter wouldn't catch, and even the one I dug out of my pocket after remembering Demella had stuffed it in there, wouldn't work until I gave it a try. Then it was like the fire was craving to ignite and it burst into bright, hot light. Kyle yanked me back, swearing at one of the team guys for putting gas on the wood, even though he denied he'd done it like he'd talked about doing earlier in the day.
With the fire lit, the tension in the air seemed to ease, or I convinced myself it did. I still kept catching the glares from Tiffany and company as we moved around the fire, setting up places to sit, someone cracked open the coolers and everyone settled in a bit. For a short time, I let myself be happy in this crew, mostly because Kyle kept making sure to hold my hand and draw me into those that were more receptive to me even being there.
Then… well, then Jeff decided to be a dick and get me back.
"Hey Julie, you know so much about this place and all the spirits here, why don't you start the story telling?" I felt everyone look at me. I wasn't uncomfortable being the center of attention, I did drama and debate and all the things, but this felt different. The look of pleasure on his face, on Tiffany's face, it felt… sinister. I felt Kyle give my hand a squeeze and I bucked up my courage and my performer self, and I laughed.
"Sure, because ghosts and demons and witchcraft are all real." I deadpanned it and then let the silence linger. In the back of my head I heard Demella warning me to let them all piss their pants and to be smart, but I was always responsible, always sticking to my plan, and this whole day had turned into a lesson in curve balls. I watched them look at each other trying to decide if I was serious, and then… I laughed again. This time I let out the crazy. I pulled out all the stops, letting it roll around the fire until I could tell everyone was as uncomfortable as I had been not too long ago, and then I went silent at a sudden stop. The only sounds were the creaking trees, the wind, the fire- snapping and popping… and then me, quite, almost too quiet.
"Some people don't believe in witches, and demons, and ghosts, and the supernatural, perhaps some of you are among the unbelievers…" I watched a few of the guys, Jeff included, try and look tough, like I hadn't crawled under their skin with my being here and the act I was putting on. "I think I should warn," I continued, my voice chilly clam, still quiet enough they had to strain to listen, "In certain times, and in certain locations, the unbelievable does happen." I was getting into it now. I couldn't help it. My own fear seemed to be feeding into making sure they felt it too. I could feel Kyle's hand tighten on my own, whether to stop me, or encourage me, or if I'd gotten under his skin too, I didn't spare the thought to decide, "Dudleytown is just an abandoned place, but we've all heard the stories. The woman who killed herself after every one of her children and babies died, and now goes searching for replacements. The man they say was sick in the head and poisoned the little water they had to drive the rest of them mad, who's shadow lurks about the trees, hungry for more screams of insanity." I took a breath, and could see the fright on some faces now, "The stories of travelers out camping, who followed a mysterious light on the full moon, and were found blubbering and mad, if they survived the night at all."
"Of the coven of witches that use this place to cast dark arts and spells," my eyes narrowed at him, "And how do we know who among us has been spun into their web and have become willing participants to their dark magic." I let my eyes cast around, as if it wasn't me and I was searching for faces of witches among our company. "We've all heard them, but none of us believe them, right?" I cast my eyes around their faces and let them land solidly on Jeff, "We ought to be careful in places such as these… no sense in looking for trouble, besides, sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted." I let my voice raise then, just slightly and sat back, as if comfortable, and completely at ease, even though something in me had stirred and I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with how much I enjoyed it, "Of course, it couldn't happen here. Could it?" There was a sudden fluttering of bats or birds, disturbed in the night, a snap of some branch out in the dark, and several screams and shouts from the group.
While I was still looking at Jeff, I let my mouth make movements without sound for a moment as everyone was distracted and was pleased to see the blood drain from his face, before Kyle tugged on my hand to draw my attention. He kept his voice low, "Enough Jules. I think you proved your point." I took a breath and realized that I had spun quite the web of fear as my eyes went from his worried face to those around us and back again. I swallowed, hard, and nodded. "Yeah, you're right."
Someone brave enough started making whooping noises and someone else pulled out a speaker and their phone and started playing music and we all went back to being teenagers in the woods for a while. Though, I got a lot less looks of one kind and a lot more of another as I sat with Kyle.
Sooner than later though, the creeping feeling started coming back to me, the one from before I told the story and my wrist started to itch. I scratched at it and saw the bracelet Demella had put on me, my eyes narrowed on a bit of leaf bound up in the cord and I shook my head. She'd put in something she knew explicitly would make me itch and that I was a little more than mildly allergic too. Kyle noticed and asked about it and I told him I'd be fine, but after about fifteen more minutes of itching he took it from me. The creeping feeling got worse and so I reached instinctively into my bag for the second one Demella had sent. He almost took it before I gave it a good inspection and declared there wasn't any more of the plant.
I noticed he slipped the other one on the hand that wasn't near and holding mine and I pulled out the charm necklace she'd said was for him as well and held up and tried to laugh off my feelings of unease as I explained it was a gift to ward off the things that go bump in the night. We laughed a little, but he noticed I was still itching.
"Let's go back, we don't have to stay." I looked around at everyone and back at him with a raised brow. "I'm the only one that has a flashlight that works, remember?" He smirked and shrugged, "Serves them right for not checking their batteries. Phones and possibly torches will get back the ones that weren't planning to stay out until sunrise."
I was surprised that that had ever been anyone's plan, but reminded myself that none of them had Demella planting seeds of fear and loathing of this place in their heads for years like I had. When the itch moved from just around my wrist up to my elbow I finally caved and Kyle made his short goodbyes. I felt the creeping fear even worse when he walked around to the other side of the fire and I found myself spinning around to peer into the darkness beyond the firelight.
For a moment, I was certain I saw eyes peering back at me, but then I blinked and Kyle's hand was on my shoulder, gathering my attention again. He took my hand and when a few of the others saw us leaving, and knew I had the flashlight, they decided they weren't staying either. Still, Kyle pulled me ahead to the trail and told them we wouldn't pace them too far as they scrambled to grab things.
Once we were in the dark, I moved to flick my flashlight on, but instead he pulled me round to face him and kissed me. I was surprised at first. I hadn't expected it, and had at the same time, and I smiled and he pulled back. "That bad huh?" I smirked and shook my head, "You could have said you wanted to leave for this," and I pushed up on my toes and kissed him back. This time, he was the one that smiled. "That bad?" I mirrored and he grinned and shook his head, "No, as good as I've thought it would be since we were little. I've been waiting a long time for you to want me back."
My eyebrows rose and he kissed me again, this time, both of us were ready, and this time it lasted until he heard the others coming our way. He reached down and flicked on the flashlight, underlighting his face and making a grimace. I chuckled and then he started down the path. "Some act you put on back there by the way. I think Jeff will steer clear of you… maybe everyone else too." I grimaced this time and glanced up at his taller stature, "Yeah… I don't know what got into me honestly. Once I got started…. It was almost hard to stop." I shrugged and tried to pull a joke, "So long as you weren't scared off."
He glanced down at me and steered me around a fallen tree in the path, "Naw, I've known you were a witch since we were four." I jerked to a stop and my head pulled back, my hand starting to pull from his before he snatched it again. "I'm joking… sort of…" His face looked regretful and then he continued, quieter, "I mean… you've always bewitched me." As fast as my anger had flared, that cooled it and I smiled and blushed, but rolled my eyes, still a bit uneasy to the fact we'd finally just fallen together, or were pulled together, drawn like magnets that finally stopped fighting our natures. I was about to kiss him again, when the most blood piercing scream tore through the trees and the darkness and I jumped into him instead, his arms going around me as we both jerked around looking for the source.
"That… that sounded like Tiff." I looked up at him and swallowed, ignoring the flare of jealousy at the nickname and the fact he knew what she sounded like.
"You think they're trying to get back at me?"
But before he could answer, there was another scream, and another, and they were behind us and I could have sworn even one in front of us on the trail. We looked at each other for a moment, at a loss and he pulled out his phone to dial for help as he started dragging me down the trail, the flashlight at an odd angle as he tried to hold it and the phone at the same time. I took it to try and keep us going, and heard him swear. "No service" he said and we slowed. "It… it sounded too real. Do we… do we go back?"
His voice was trembling and I could feel my own body starting to shake. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. He took a breath and looked down at me, "I'm going to go and look, keep going, I'll meet you by the pillar where the old bridge used to cross Furnace brook. Call for help." I grabbed his hand, clung to his arm and shook my head. "No. Don't." I managed to gasp out. He took a breath, "They're probably just being jerks, I bet their flashlights going out was all part of this, Jeff, trying to get back at you for Silvia and Stephanie. Besides, your legs are short and stumpy and mine are fast, I'll catch up quick."
I swallowed and shook my head but he just kissed me again and then turned and ran, pulling his arm from my feeble grip before I could protest more.
I turned the beam of the flashlight on him, trembling and watching until he was swiftly out of it as I finally managed to call out, "Don't step off the path," as if the words were ripped from me, a warning that had to be said. And then... cowardly, I turned and ran. I ran like the devil was chasing me, and it certainly felt like that. The charm around my neck felt heavy and I almost let it snag and yank off on a branch, but something stopped me and I untangled it before starting to move on again.
I strained to hear any sounds besides my own heavy breathing and the thundering of my blood in my ears. "He'll come. He'll come. He'll come." I told myself. A mantra that he'd be fine, this was all some big joke, there were no creatures going bump in the night… but there were plenty of real things, black bears, and snakes and coyotes. I could feel my chest tightening with the panic and the effort to keep running when I saw the pillar flash in my bobbing flash light.
I practically ran into it and fumbled around as I leaned heavily on it, the beam of my flashlight pointing back toward the way I'd come, darting around as if I knew something was right behind me and only the light was keeping it at bay. I shoved my shaking hand down into my jacket pocket for my phone to pull out, but it wasn't there.
I felt my panic ratchet up a notch as I cast the beam around, as if it had just fallen out of my pocket and would be right at my feet if I just looked. Then I heard… something… not a scream, but more of a lament, a cry.
I strained to hear, and thought I heard speaking, possibly chanting, and a scream torn from a deep low voice and I jumped to my feet, tears springing to my eyes, and Kyle's name stuck. Choking me as I couldn't scream and I couldn't swallow it, and I was frozen. Frozen.
I stepped forward hesitantly, ready to go back up the trail. There was a sickening thud, a squelch, what sounded like the croaking of a deep bellied toad. My mouth opened again, no sound escaping. I stepped forward, and before I could stop myself, or realize what I was doing, I was racing back up the trail, the flashlight slashing light back and forth as my arm pumped and my head swiveled to find the sound… and my feet took me crashing through the brush and trees and off the path. Demella's terrified face flashing before my eyes as she silently screamed 'Stay on the trail'.
But already… I knew I was lost.
The next thing I remember was waking up to a blurry face standing over me and screaming before I realized it was my mom.
I clamped my lips between my teeth and my eyes started to look around. I wasn't in my room… maybe the guest room of our house? No, the colors were wrong. That room was cream, this one was a blue so pale it was almost white. I tried to sit up but my hands, something was around my arms or wrists and I laid back and looked down.
My mouth opened but my mom just soothed my forehead and shhed me and I fell back asleep.
The next thing that registered was what I assumed was nurses in the hall. I caught snatches, "missing a week" "that poor Peters boy." "The Olsens are already gone" "terrifying" "blood". I didn't want to hear anymore. I didn't want to hear "poor Peck boy" come out of their mouths. "He'll come," I told my brain before I passed out again.
Demella was the first concrete and lucid thing I remember, and the room was near dark. My eyes had instantly gone to her, sitting in the corner near the window in the room, black leaves sliding with a shlick shlick shlick sound along with splatters of rain. I knew without knowing that I must be in a loony bin, or dreaming the most vivid dream of my life. She put a finger up to her mouth and quietly got up and moved over to my bed. "I sent your folks to get something to eat. I thought you might come around about now and I wanted to be here when you did."
I know I looked confused and she glanced at the door and back to me, and before I could ask what happened words were spilling out of her mouth, almost too fast to understand, and certainly too much to comprehend. "I thought I'd helped, but The Wanting got you. I had hoped that root would scoot you on your way before it could take its hold on you, but I should have just stopped you. That thing and that place gobble up girls like you. So full of want and desire, it just can't help it." I shook my head and my voice came out in an unrecognizable croak, "You're not making sense."
She tried again, with more words, different words. All I understood was that Jeff Peters was either dying or dead, Tiffany Olsen's family had already taken her and left our sleepy town, and something about mangled for life, and that everyone had been hunting for me since Halloween night and it was now a week into November. None of it made sense. It had been minutes, maybe hours, since I'd run back up the path from the pillar to go looking for Kyle.
I finally managed to swallow around the gravel that was my throat and ask, "Kyle? What about Kyle?" Demella's brow furrowed and she looked at me funny, and for so long that my parents came back in. I repeated the question to them, and they all looked between each other as if I was speaking some foreign language they couldn't understand.
It was making me feel crazy, and obviously they already thought I was, but I needed to know if he was okay, if they'd found him too, to know what happened, and not from some other crazy person that kept talking about 'The Wanting' like it was some creature of the black lagoon, but for our very own woods. "Kyle Peck. Where is he? Is he okay? We were coming back together and we heard…" I couldn't find my words but I saw my mother's face go extremely pale and my father pull her in close. "What happened to him?! Is he dead??" My mother started to cry and turned her face away and my father's face got stern.
There was a knock at the door and two officers came in. It was all too much. Everyone started talking to each other around me, and about me, and no one would tell me what happened to Kyle.
I gripped my fists, took a deep breath past the pain in my throat and screamed at all of them, Demella's eyes darting to the fluorescent bulbs above my bed that had flickered while I screamed and the rest of them went silent. "Someone needs to tell me what is going on, what happened, and where Kyle is, right now or I'm going to start screaming and not stop again."
My mother couldn't seem to bear to look at me and the officers looked at a loss. Demella seemed to melt into the shadows near the window, so it was left to my dad. Who came up and lifted his hand to put it on my leg in a comforting gesture, then just let it fall to his side. "There was… some kind of attack on Halloween night, up at Dudleytown…" I saw a look pass between my parents and the police, "A bunch of kids were hurt, but… Jeff Peters is in critical condition and they aren't sure he's going to make it, he lost a lot of blood before they got him out. Tiffany Olsen.. Well, her face won't ever be the same, and she'll have some scars on her arms. Most everyone else that got hurt was stitches or scrapes, a few burns…" The screaming, I remembered the screaming. "What about Kyle? He went back for them. We were coming down the path, we left first, and we heard screaming. He went back and sent me to the pillar to try and call for help, but I thought I heard him and so I ran back and…"
One of the police officers stepped slightly forward, "And?" I tried to think, my eyes glossed over as I searched my memories, tried to remember what happened, but I shook my head, my brow furrowed. "Darkness… I… I don't know. Then I was here. Please. Please. Someone tell me if Kyle is alright."
More looks passed between my parents and my mother looked ill and terribly upset, and she wouldn't look at me. My father touched the back of my hand lightly, but the touch didn't linger. "Julie… When we found you… you'd been missing for nearly a week… when we found you, you were muttering, incoherent… and you were covered in blood. What happened at Dudleytown?" I shook my head, trying, trying to understand, but my thoughts just kept going back to Kyle. "Jeff, he was there and Tiffany, they were behind us. Kyle and I were coming down the path first, there was screaming. There were weird noises, maybe an animal... a creature... That's what I remember, and Kyle. He went back. That's all I remember. Ask him. Or find him. You have to find him, he could be hurt."
Again, that look between the others before my dad looked back at me and shook his head sadly, "Julie… Jules... Kyle Peck has been gone since you were four. He wandered off the trail in front of his parents when they went out hiking. Everyone looked for weeks… months... but he's gone. Kyle has been gone for years, Jules."
My eyes went to the window and the black shadowy leaves plastered against the window and where two blue eyes I'd known my entire life, had gaze at as I talked to him, had seen filled with glinting happiness what felt like mere hours ago, were peering back at me, and a mouth… that was smiling.
I shook my head, my own eyes wide, "No. He came back."
a wind blue moon,
bitter as a shadow
The want, watching.
Frantic Feet
A Cry.
Aching breast
The Scream.
The Blow.
The death moan.
A sordid Symphony
Cornwall, Connecticut
There comes a time in every skeptic's life, that something so illogical happens, they have to rationalize the experience or turn into the town crazy.
One week ago was the day, I Julie Mullins, turned into a believer, and the town lunatic.
'There's nothing like an east coast fall.' It was something I have heard countless times from locals and stop throughs alike.
Were the colors nice? Sure. Is the weather the perfect blend of crisp in the morning and cool in the day, with rains washing through and leaving clean air or lingering fog? Yes. Did I believe that it couldn't be beat? No.
I suppose that is the attitude of most eighteen-year olds looking to the future and the chance to break free from the small town life in their senior year of high school. It's cliche, but it's true.
Cornwall tops out at just under two-thousand people. People either can tell you their entire family's history from the time of settlement, their proud yankee roots, or they are some kind of crazy and for some reason moved here for the 'beautiful small town peace and quiet'.
We don't get many of those.
There is one school that finishes when you're in eighth grade, and if you miss the bus that takes you nearly thirty minutes away to the nearest high school when you're fourteen, you better be one of the fastest gangle leg peddle pushers out there to get your bike from Cornwall to the high school twenty or more miles away, in under forty minutes, before that first bell rings- or you get to sit on the front steps until the bell rings to dismiss for lunch and the front doors are opened again. Half our roads aren't paved, and neither are our parking lots.
We're known for an old covered bridge, 'listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut' that had a brief cameo at the beginning of the movie 'Valley of the Dolls', and is sent all over the world on postcards set in every season it can be snapped rapidly in by a passing second rate photographer, and very little else. At least, that's what we're best known for in the non-crazy people circles.
The problem with Cornwall, is everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows all the stories, and all the labeled crazy folks. You want to avoid being labeled one of the crazy. One of those people that talks seriously about how they won't walk across the bridge on a foggy night, because you might be caught up with a company of passing revolutionary soldier ghosts and never be seen again. Or the ones that won't hike Pine Knob Loop on a full moon because there is an immortal demon that lives in the dark hollow in the woods who will harvest you for all your juiciest bits. Or, someone that believes that the nearby abandoned Dudleytown settlement is cursed.
Sure everyone jokes about those things, or pretends to. Sure everyone pulls the stories out when they are at a harvest fire at the end of the reaping season, and then laughs. 'No one' actually believes the things they are saying that are sending shivers down their spines and goosebumps racing across their skin.
Nope. No one, really, but Demella Crane.
No, you don't want to be Demella Crane, the town 'crazy' (or witch, depending on who you speak to) or anyone seen associating too often with her.
I used to roll my eyes at the people that both bought into her warnings and theories she was a witch, and those that made fun of her or turned away when she walked through the few isles at the grocers while they were there.
You see, my mom is a nurse practitioner, and my dad is the local Doc. And since we don't live even close to within spitting distance of anything more than the bare bones clinic my dad only has open on rotating Mondays and Wednesdays, when he's not working out of town, they both make house calls. Demella is a frequent clinic flier and homevisit getter.
I grew up walking right into her oddball, crumbledown house on Popple Swamp Road, surrounded by trees that were growing closer to her house every year and needed a good thinning, and pressed up against Bloody Brook, hanging onto the hem of my mom's favorite Buffalo plaid jacket. (Please don't get me started on the names we've never changed for any of these places).
Older kids always told all of the younger kids that Demella was a witch who bled black and could curse you just by spitting in your general direction. Her house was filled with all the most odd and ancient and fantastical things, and I cried the entire drive to her house the first time my mom took me. I hid my face in the folds of my mother's jacket as she knocked and then just… walked right in this house I was certain would be filled with horrors, not a care or worry to the steady set of her shoulders.
Mom didn't grow up in Cornwall. She met Dad while he was in his second to last year of residency and she'd just started her first rotation as a night manager for the hospital they were both working at. Mom grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts- smack dab between Boston and Salem. She'd heard every ghost story and been to all the most 'haunted' places her friends would drag them all around to, and none of it ever left its mark. She'd smile and play along, but it was all so much water off a duck's back if you ask her.
So, she firmly and with a good deal of finality told me to wipe my face and stop my fussing as we walked up the old wood steps, reminding me that the desire of my six-year-old heart of blackberry ice cream for dessert was hanging in the balance of my behavior during her stops.
With fistfulls of my mother's red and black jacket I followed her a little too closely for her irritation, into an old great room that had been turned into a sitting room, or what could pass for a sitting room. Demella was sitting with her foot propped up and a pained expression on her face as she waved my mom in. I couldn't tell you what she said happened, or how she got the large cut on her leg, but what I can tell you is the moment her own haphazard bandage made of what looked like leaves, and smeared with some gross smelling concoction of her own making was pulled away was when I stopped being scared of Demella Crane.
She bled good old red, and nothing but, like the rest of us. And once my mom had cleaned and stitched her up, she shared some of the best peanut butter cookies you should ever chance to get to eat in your life. She also chuckled and let me touch almost anything my eyes roved across as she waved my mom through the 'care procedures' she was likely to ignore now that she was stitched up.
Before I left, Demella gave me a book on botany and showed me just what I could put in Thomas Evans shirt if I ever wanted to make him itch, but not cause harm. Much to the chagrin of my mother.
That first visit was the beginning of many, and after I turned twelve and got my first ten speed bike, I went and saw her even if she wasn't being treated by my mom or dad. I didn't tell anyone I was going to see her, but we became good friends all the same. She'd stuff my cheeks and my pockets with cookies or rich homemade caramels and warn me to keep my feet, or my bike tires, on the paths home or anywhere in our miles of woods so I didn't wander off and get snatched up by the things that go bump in the night.
I would always laugh it off, and Demella would narrow her eyes and shake her finger at me until I promised. I always stayed on the path. As I got older I realized it was just sound advice. The forests are dense and more often than not there was a call out for the volunteer rescue to go and hunt up a hiker or traveler that got themselves lost in the woods. It never stopped Demella from warning me against the supernatural, but I figured it was just her way of scaring me into obedience.
So I guess I ought to get back to a week ago. Halloween is obviously a big deal on the east coast, and in small and big towns alike. Cornwall is not so different. People put up decorations, kids trick or treat, there's a festival, the whole bit. In order to beef up my applications to get out of the speck that is my town, I had started joining every club and organization I could from the time I was a freshman. So a week ago I was setting up the Pep Club booth with Mrs. Laythrup in the town square that would become ground zero for the fall festival in a few hours. She'd left some box of garish decorations at her house for the booth, so I was mostly just screwing around when Kyle Peck and his group of friends showed up. They were supposed to be helping with some game booth for the basketball team.
I wouldn't call myself girly, but I wasn't a complete freak either. Kyle Peck had been my closest neighbor for as long as I can remember, and had never been the center of attention until he grew a foot and a half over the course of a year and started playing basketball. He wasn't ever going to get in the NBA, but he'd helped our team win state last year, so of course he was now Mr. Popular. We all knew each other, and I wasn't a pariah by any means, I was the doctor's daughter after all, people wanted their kids to be my friend. I just didn't care for all of it, because I wasn't planning to stay.
Thing was, Kyle had always been good looking, but no one had paid him much attention except me, before now. Now... it was awkward. I didn't care about his popularity, and he seemed to take that as a challenge to get my attention or embarrass me when he was around his 'crowd'. He could still be perfectly pleasant to hang out with, alone, but we rarely did that anymore and I kept trying to tell myself I didn't care. I didn't care that he wasn't the kid that I'd pushed out of tree fort and he'd told my dad he'd slipped when he was getting stitches. I didn't care that he was the kid that I walked into Dead Man's wood with the first time and he hadn't laughed when I'd screamed at an owl when we were seven. I didn't care that Tiffany Olsen, a move in, was now always right at his arm, clinging to him like he was a life saver and she was about to drown in a hurricane. I. Did. Not. Care.
Nope, not one bit as he came up to my half decorated booth and fingered the worn out baseballs for the pinball toss. Or the way he picked at a loose stitch on one, the same way he had when I'd beaten him at this game when we were twelve. "Sooo, a bunch of us are going out to Dudleytown tonight, you interested?" It was one of the first things he'd invited me to personally in months. My eyes had roved around his friends milling around with nothing better to do, the sneer on Jeff Peters face as he started to laugh, "Bet she's going out to cast spells with that Witch tonight, Peck. It's a special night for you lot, isn't it?" I hate to admit that my mouth dropped open slightly.
Only my parents and Kyle knew that I frequently spent time with Demella. The fact he'd told his 'crew' hurt more than I could process at that moment. I quickly shut my mouth, and knew my neck was going red under my violet sweater as my glare turned from a red eared Kyle to Jeff. "Well if I was, and I was you, I'd be careful who you're calling a Witch. You might just end up cursed. Then Silvia and Stephanie would find out you're groping both of them behind the Miller's bakery, Tuesdays for Silvia and Thursdays for Stephanie? When you've told them you're supposed to be at tutoring. Ooops! Did that just slip out? Sorry, maybe I've been cursed by a witch too!" It was satisfying to see his face pale and then burn red as the girls near him instantly laid into him and then stormed off in opposite directions.
It was even more satisfying to see Tiffany run off after her best friend Silvia and the rest of the 'crew' kind of shrug away before I could do more damage. Well, all of them but Kyle. He just shook his head and crossed his arms and leaned against the booth. "He's gonna pay you back for that." I rolled my eyes and started reorganizing the boxes of last year's prizes with the new ones still all bundled up in their bags. "Like I care. Jeff Peters is a jerk and I have no idea why you hang out with him."
I heard him sigh, "He's not that bad once you get to know him. Or the rest of the team for that matter." He went quiet as I had squatted down and my head was stuffed under the top of the booth. I figured he'd just walked off. When I had turned around and his legs were right there, I let out a yip before bolting to my feet. His face had tugged up in a slight smirk and I glared at him, which only made him actually laugh. I rolled my eyes and stepped around him after picking up the empty box I had been intending to go and throw in the can nearby. He stepped in my path a little and I had to tilt my head back to look up at him, much to my irritation.
"You never said if you'd come."
I studied him for a minute, raising my brow, "We've been out there hundreds of times. Besides, I'm sure Tiffany will be plenty distraction enough for you."
"Come on Jules, you know I don't like her like that." He huffed and started to lope along beside me as I forced my way past to go and stuff the box in the can.
"Well, she likes you that way," I ground out as I tried to make the square box literally fit in the round hole. His hand dropped on top of mine, stopping me. "Well, the feeling isn't mutual." I looked up at him and he was just… looking at me. Like really looking and it took me longer than I wanted to admit to myself before I looked away and gave the box one more hard shove and it finally caved and dropped to the bottom of the can with a thud. "I'll think about it," I muttered, not looking at him, though I could see his head bob as he pulled his hand away.
"We're meeting at the corner of Cemetery Hill and Town at ten. I hope you come."
And that had been that.
Mrs. Laythrup showed back up and sooner than later we were swamped by kids coming by to hand us their sticky and crumpled tickets for a chance at a penny toy and the sky was going dark as the town was lighting up with glowing pumpkins and stringed lights. When eight o'clock rolled around and Penny Hill came to take her turn manning the booth I gladly collected my bag and headed to my hand-me-down honda accord.
I got in and shut the door to the noise of it all and dropped my head back against my headrest, closing my eyes. A thump and a shaking of my car forced my eyes open and my hands up toward the steering wheel, my head swiveling to find Jeff and two other seniors laughing and pointing at me, saying some kind of taunts before I started to let my mouth move in nonsense patterns and one of their faces went pail, probably convinced I was cursing them and he smacked his friends and they moved along.
I was still mad, and hurt, that Kyle had told everyone about my friendship with Demella. I wasn't ashamed of her, but I also needed to be able to have strong recommendation letters to get me out of this town, and half the letters would be coming from classmates' parents that made up everything from our teaching staff to our civil servants. Demella's knowledge of medicinal plants had set me on a course to want to become a chemist, but she didn't have anything to recommend me behind her name that colleges would care about- just a decades long acquaintance that could speak to my 'character' maybe.
I sighed and turned the car over, and before I realized what I was doing, I was pulling up in front of her house. I didn't believe Demella was a witch, though there were times she did things or knew things I couldn't explain away, but she always played into her reputation. Her whole drive was lined with pumpkins, their candles flickering in the growing breeze of the night and carved with tortured faces, frightful frowns and smiling faces alike. Her yard had webs strung from all the tangled trees and she had ghosts and bats and spiders hanging from fishing lines from branches and hooks on her porch. She'd even stuck a pair of stripe stocking feet out from under the edge of her broken trestle next to the stairs and her old anatomy skeleton Mitch, sitting in a rocking chair on her porch.
I chuckled as I got out, and pulled my jacket a little tighter around me over my sweater. The door opened before I could even shut my car door and she had one hand on her hip and a wooden spoon in the other holding open the creaky screen door. She shifted her hand so her forearm was holding open the door and shook her spoon at me as I came up the stone laid path to her steps, Jinx her cat darting out of the house in pursuit of a mouse most likely.
"That boy has your energy all sorts of tangled up." She'd say things like this sometimes and make me feel off balance. Tonight I decided to indulge her. "His 'friends' more than him." She let out a sigh and pulled me in with her arm for a partial embrace as she guided me into her house, "Nothing one, or five, of my cookies can't fix eh?"
She plied me with cookies, got me talking about Kyle and even admitting to the invitation to go out to Dudleytown. That made her scowl.
"That place is nothing but trouble and darkness, why do you kids always want to go meddling where you ought not?" I sighed, she'd told me as much about all the 'scariest haunts' in our area. Always tossing salt, or spitting, or drawing a ward with her fingers. She never seemed very serious about it, smiling as she did so, but tonight she looked ready to tie me to the old wooden chair at her kitchen butcher's block table I always sat in.
Instead I just shrugged and took another cookie. "It's Halloween, the teenagers have to do something. Besides, who said I was going?" I asked as a stuffed yet another cookie in my mouth. She shook her spoon at me again, this time it was covered in a dough, "Julie Elspeth Mullins," I cringed and always regretted doing something to get my mother to scold me with my full name in front of her when I was nine, "Don't try to lie to this old witch. It's plain as the crumbs on your jacket. You hope that boy cares for you as much as you do him and you want to test it." I glared and stuck my tongue out at her and she wrapped my knuckles with a spoon in the other hand that hadn't been there a moment ago.
I yanked my hand back from the slight sting as she got even more serious, "You go courting trouble and you'll find it. You ever think he might not go if you gave him a different invitation? Let those other hoodlums that come and kick my gates go mucking about with things and get their brains addled and their pants full of piss, or lost to this world all together, you be smart. There's powerful things up in Dudleytown. Why do you think it's abandoned?" Seeing my face flush and my shoulders slump under her harsh scolding she had softened and shook her head, rolling her eyes going back to mixing with a single spoon and she softened again, "Or if you're not going to take sound advice on a full moon samhain, at least don't go out their blind, stupid, and unprotected."
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "Demella, you've been like a grandma to me, but I don't believe in all the extra stuff. I'm not sure half the time you do either. If I go, I'll take a flashlight and my phone, like I always do."
She looked up at me and shook her head again, "You'll take what I say to take or I'll be calling your mother and telling a mighty tale on you to get you good and stuck home. Besides which, we both know you're going, so stop your fighting and fussing and start rolling this dough out for this poor, tired old woman." I laughed, but helped her roll out her dough for her cookies and pie anyway. She was one of the least incapable people I knew, old or not.
When I left nearly an hour after I'd arrived, she'd dropped a leather pouch on a string around my neck, stuffed several bundles in the pockets of my jacket and pants and slipped a bracelet on my wrist. She'd also pushed a new bic lighter into my jeans and given me an extra pouch and bracelet 'for that boy' before also handing me a ziplock bag full of more homemade treats.
When I got to Furnace Brook that connected to Cemetery Hill, I debated on turning left toward home, instead of right toward Kyle. But Demella had been right. As much as I wanted to not like Kyle in a more than friendly way, I had, for a long time and had denied it any time it had been brought up by anyone, including him. It was also our last Halloween together, and with the exception of last year when I was sick (and pouting at his new popularity) we'd spent every one of them I could remember together.
So. I turned right.
Sitting at the north end of the dirt parking area to the cemetery, a few minutes before ten, I almost lost the nerve to wait, but just as I was getting ready to throw my car in reverse and forget the whole thing, headlights flashed in my rearview. I took a deep breath and turned my engine off, sighing as I grabbed my bag and stuffed the things Demella had given me in it and got out. If I was going to do this, I wasn't going to look scared to do it.
Dudleytown wasn't my favorite place to go. Despite what I'd told Demella in the safety of her house near the crackle of her old kitchen hearth fire, the place had always given me a weird feeling. I'd only once been anywhere near it at dark, and once I realized where I was, I'd pedaled my bike faster to get back to a different trail to get me home. It had been turned into a 'nature reserve' after it had gotten too popular and the land owners were sick of people trespassing. It hadn't stopped the local kids though.
I moved to the end of my car and leaned against the trunk as Kyle's truck and four others filled with 'the crew' pulled up. I saw him try to hide his smile, as I tucked hair behind my ear, pleased to see no one else had been riding in his truck with him, and the sulky look Tiffany had on her face until it turned into a glare in my direction.
He walked up to me, swinging an ax up over his shoulder and I raised a brow as I looked at it, and then him. "Turning into Paul Bunyan there Pecks," I harassed him with the nickname the team had given him and he rolled his eyes in the dim lights from the cemetery fence. "We hauled in logs earlier, but someone forgot the ax, so we have to chop some to get the bonfire going once we're up there Mulder," he taunted back. He hadn't called me that in ages. I rolled my eyes and shouldered my bag as the others were hollering, having gathered a cooler and some other things from their cars and were headed toward the foot of the trail.
I took a breath and Kyle actually looked like he was worried I was about to change my mind. "We don't have to stay long… if you don't want." I raised my brow again, pulling the straps to my bag over both my shoulders and started walking toward the trail, turning and walking backward, "If you're scared you can hold my hand," I'd taunted. He shook his head and laughed, said something I'd missed and caught up with me, immediately reaching down and taking my hand, and not in the way we used to do when we were kids. "It's Dudleytown, you never know what's going to happen up there." His hand tightened on mine as I looked at him and then he tugged me along and we headed up the trail behind all the others.
We'd all heard the stories, but mostly everyone figured it was all made up. Overactive imaginations, ready to be triggered from the mere idea of the place, and the friends that were more than willing to facilitate you peeing your pants to harass you about it. Still, you couldn't deny that a whole lot of terrible things happened to the original Dudley family that had tried to settle the area. More members of that family died in terrible ways than most families saw in several, if any, lifetimes.
The worst of it came when the crops had failed and they entered into a terrible winter. People went mad, several handfuls died, one person killed themselves, and the rest that survived the winter were half crazed with starvation before they finally made their pitiful way back into Cornwall and scattered from the settlement as quickly as they could recover. People claimed to see starving children ghosts, or to be stalked by shadows that looked to be dressed in period clothing during the daylight when they got too close. There was a story of a girl that had gone up there to kill herself when my dad was a teenager, but he said it had nothing to do with Dudleytown and that she'd moved away before she'd done it when I asked him when I was twelve.
Demella, of course, had plenty of stories to make my skin crawl. She hated the hollow more than Dudleytown, but she didn't much like Dudleytown either. She'd told me enough tales, I figured were mostly made up, that I had a healthy fear of the place. Obviously not healthy enough to not be walking hand in hand with Kyle to a place that gave me the creeps just thinking about it, but that was the fun of going places you shouldn't, wasn't it? Feeling that rush and laughing about your stupidity later.
In the end they were lucky they brought me a long, three flashlights failed on the hike up to the flat just outside the open treeless area that bordered the entire settlement, except mine. It took longer than I would have liked, and more glares than I'd ever caught in my life, for my single flashlight to find the hole in the fence disguised by a giant "no trespassing" sign. We found the bonfire spot well enough, the team really had hauled up or drug along enough dead wood to last the night… if they could get smaller pieces to even start the thing.
I turned to Kyle, "Alright Paul Bunyan, do your thing," I teased and he gave my hand a squeeze as I directed the light so he could see what he was doing and not chop his own foot off. The minute he stepped away, Tiffany and her cheer squad stepped around me. They were careful not to disturb the beam of light, but she was a good deal too close to me for my comfort. "So, what? Are you guys, like a thing now or something?" I wish I could say I had an amazingly witty comeback, but my mouth had gone dry surrounded by the catty pack and I just shrugged and tried to step away.
She grabbed my arm, her perfectly manicured nails digging through my jacket and sweater and I could feel the pressure on my arm, "Mighty stupid to get attached to someone probably going to residential college when everyone knows you can't wait to get out of here." I yanked my arm back, the flash light twisting to flash right in her stupidly perfect face as the ax was coming down. "He'll go wherever he wants to go. Mighty stupid of you to doubt that." I heard a thunk and a startled cry of fright and instantly turned it back around, terrified by what I might see as one of Tiffany's friends pulled her back from saying more and I walked closer to the pile Kyle had been chopping.
He was rubbing a foot, but there wasn't any blood. He grinned, "The log split and landed on my foot, but thanks for the concern Mulder." I rolled my eyes and the guys set about stuffing the bonfire together with the newly smaller pieces and kindling. Though I stuck close to Kyle, not wanting to deal with the cat pack again, and doing my best to ignore the wind picking up and the sounds it was making in the trees, the feeling that kept trying to creep up my spine, or the shadows that seemed to stretch just outside the beam of light in my hand.
Again, it was good I was there, because every match struck blew out. The one other lighter wouldn't catch, and even the one I dug out of my pocket after remembering Demella had stuffed it in there, wouldn't work until I gave it a try. Then it was like the fire was craving to ignite and it burst into bright, hot light. Kyle yanked me back, swearing at one of the team guys for putting gas on the wood, even though he denied he'd done it like he'd talked about doing earlier in the day.
With the fire lit, the tension in the air seemed to ease, or I convinced myself it did. I still kept catching the glares from Tiffany and company as we moved around the fire, setting up places to sit, someone cracked open the coolers and everyone settled in a bit. For a short time, I let myself be happy in this crew, mostly because Kyle kept making sure to hold my hand and draw me into those that were more receptive to me even being there.
Then… well, then Jeff decided to be a dick and get me back.
"Hey Julie, you know so much about this place and all the spirits here, why don't you start the story telling?" I felt everyone look at me. I wasn't uncomfortable being the center of attention, I did drama and debate and all the things, but this felt different. The look of pleasure on his face, on Tiffany's face, it felt… sinister. I felt Kyle give my hand a squeeze and I bucked up my courage and my performer self, and I laughed.
"Sure, because ghosts and demons and witchcraft are all real." I deadpanned it and then let the silence linger. In the back of my head I heard Demella warning me to let them all piss their pants and to be smart, but I was always responsible, always sticking to my plan, and this whole day had turned into a lesson in curve balls. I watched them look at each other trying to decide if I was serious, and then… I laughed again. This time I let out the crazy. I pulled out all the stops, letting it roll around the fire until I could tell everyone was as uncomfortable as I had been not too long ago, and then I went silent at a sudden stop. The only sounds were the creaking trees, the wind, the fire- snapping and popping… and then me, quite, almost too quiet.
"Some people don't believe in witches, and demons, and ghosts, and the supernatural, perhaps some of you are among the unbelievers…" I watched a few of the guys, Jeff included, try and look tough, like I hadn't crawled under their skin with my being here and the act I was putting on. "I think I should warn," I continued, my voice chilly clam, still quiet enough they had to strain to listen, "In certain times, and in certain locations, the unbelievable does happen." I was getting into it now. I couldn't help it. My own fear seemed to be feeding into making sure they felt it too. I could feel Kyle's hand tighten on my own, whether to stop me, or encourage me, or if I'd gotten under his skin too, I didn't spare the thought to decide, "Dudleytown is just an abandoned place, but we've all heard the stories. The woman who killed herself after every one of her children and babies died, and now goes searching for replacements. The man they say was sick in the head and poisoned the little water they had to drive the rest of them mad, who's shadow lurks about the trees, hungry for more screams of insanity." I took a breath, and could see the fright on some faces now, "The stories of travelers out camping, who followed a mysterious light on the full moon, and were found blubbering and mad, if they survived the night at all."
"Of the coven of witches that use this place to cast dark arts and spells," my eyes narrowed at him, "And how do we know who among us has been spun into their web and have become willing participants to their dark magic." I let my eyes cast around, as if it wasn't me and I was searching for faces of witches among our company. "We've all heard them, but none of us believe them, right?" I cast my eyes around their faces and let them land solidly on Jeff, "We ought to be careful in places such as these… no sense in looking for trouble, besides, sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted." I let my voice raise then, just slightly and sat back, as if comfortable, and completely at ease, even though something in me had stirred and I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with how much I enjoyed it, "Of course, it couldn't happen here. Could it?" There was a sudden fluttering of bats or birds, disturbed in the night, a snap of some branch out in the dark, and several screams and shouts from the group.
While I was still looking at Jeff, I let my mouth make movements without sound for a moment as everyone was distracted and was pleased to see the blood drain from his face, before Kyle tugged on my hand to draw my attention. He kept his voice low, "Enough Jules. I think you proved your point." I took a breath and realized that I had spun quite the web of fear as my eyes went from his worried face to those around us and back again. I swallowed, hard, and nodded. "Yeah, you're right."
Someone brave enough started making whooping noises and someone else pulled out a speaker and their phone and started playing music and we all went back to being teenagers in the woods for a while. Though, I got a lot less looks of one kind and a lot more of another as I sat with Kyle.
Sooner than later though, the creeping feeling started coming back to me, the one from before I told the story and my wrist started to itch. I scratched at it and saw the bracelet Demella had put on me, my eyes narrowed on a bit of leaf bound up in the cord and I shook my head. She'd put in something she knew explicitly would make me itch and that I was a little more than mildly allergic too. Kyle noticed and asked about it and I told him I'd be fine, but after about fifteen more minutes of itching he took it from me. The creeping feeling got worse and so I reached instinctively into my bag for the second one Demella had sent. He almost took it before I gave it a good inspection and declared there wasn't any more of the plant.
I noticed he slipped the other one on the hand that wasn't near and holding mine and I pulled out the charm necklace she'd said was for him as well and held up and tried to laugh off my feelings of unease as I explained it was a gift to ward off the things that go bump in the night. We laughed a little, but he noticed I was still itching.
"Let's go back, we don't have to stay." I looked around at everyone and back at him with a raised brow. "I'm the only one that has a flashlight that works, remember?" He smirked and shrugged, "Serves them right for not checking their batteries. Phones and possibly torches will get back the ones that weren't planning to stay out until sunrise."
I was surprised that that had ever been anyone's plan, but reminded myself that none of them had Demella planting seeds of fear and loathing of this place in their heads for years like I had. When the itch moved from just around my wrist up to my elbow I finally caved and Kyle made his short goodbyes. I felt the creeping fear even worse when he walked around to the other side of the fire and I found myself spinning around to peer into the darkness beyond the firelight.
For a moment, I was certain I saw eyes peering back at me, but then I blinked and Kyle's hand was on my shoulder, gathering my attention again. He took my hand and when a few of the others saw us leaving, and knew I had the flashlight, they decided they weren't staying either. Still, Kyle pulled me ahead to the trail and told them we wouldn't pace them too far as they scrambled to grab things.
Once we were in the dark, I moved to flick my flashlight on, but instead he pulled me round to face him and kissed me. I was surprised at first. I hadn't expected it, and had at the same time, and I smiled and he pulled back. "That bad huh?" I smirked and shook my head, "You could have said you wanted to leave for this," and I pushed up on my toes and kissed him back. This time, he was the one that smiled. "That bad?" I mirrored and he grinned and shook his head, "No, as good as I've thought it would be since we were little. I've been waiting a long time for you to want me back."
My eyebrows rose and he kissed me again, this time, both of us were ready, and this time it lasted until he heard the others coming our way. He reached down and flicked on the flashlight, underlighting his face and making a grimace. I chuckled and then he started down the path. "Some act you put on back there by the way. I think Jeff will steer clear of you… maybe everyone else too." I grimaced this time and glanced up at his taller stature, "Yeah… I don't know what got into me honestly. Once I got started…. It was almost hard to stop." I shrugged and tried to pull a joke, "So long as you weren't scared off."
He glanced down at me and steered me around a fallen tree in the path, "Naw, I've known you were a witch since we were four." I jerked to a stop and my head pulled back, my hand starting to pull from his before he snatched it again. "I'm joking… sort of…" His face looked regretful and then he continued, quieter, "I mean… you've always bewitched me." As fast as my anger had flared, that cooled it and I smiled and blushed, but rolled my eyes, still a bit uneasy to the fact we'd finally just fallen together, or were pulled together, drawn like magnets that finally stopped fighting our natures. I was about to kiss him again, when the most blood piercing scream tore through the trees and the darkness and I jumped into him instead, his arms going around me as we both jerked around looking for the source.
"That… that sounded like Tiff." I looked up at him and swallowed, ignoring the flare of jealousy at the nickname and the fact he knew what she sounded like.
"You think they're trying to get back at me?"
But before he could answer, there was another scream, and another, and they were behind us and I could have sworn even one in front of us on the trail. We looked at each other for a moment, at a loss and he pulled out his phone to dial for help as he started dragging me down the trail, the flashlight at an odd angle as he tried to hold it and the phone at the same time. I took it to try and keep us going, and heard him swear. "No service" he said and we slowed. "It… it sounded too real. Do we… do we go back?"
His voice was trembling and I could feel my own body starting to shake. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. He took a breath and looked down at me, "I'm going to go and look, keep going, I'll meet you by the pillar where the old bridge used to cross Furnace brook. Call for help." I grabbed his hand, clung to his arm and shook my head. "No. Don't." I managed to gasp out. He took a breath, "They're probably just being jerks, I bet their flashlights going out was all part of this, Jeff, trying to get back at you for Silvia and Stephanie. Besides, your legs are short and stumpy and mine are fast, I'll catch up quick."
I swallowed and shook my head but he just kissed me again and then turned and ran, pulling his arm from my feeble grip before I could protest more.
I turned the beam of the flashlight on him, trembling and watching until he was swiftly out of it as I finally managed to call out, "Don't step off the path," as if the words were ripped from me, a warning that had to be said. And then... cowardly, I turned and ran. I ran like the devil was chasing me, and it certainly felt like that. The charm around my neck felt heavy and I almost let it snag and yank off on a branch, but something stopped me and I untangled it before starting to move on again.
I strained to hear any sounds besides my own heavy breathing and the thundering of my blood in my ears. "He'll come. He'll come. He'll come." I told myself. A mantra that he'd be fine, this was all some big joke, there were no creatures going bump in the night… but there were plenty of real things, black bears, and snakes and coyotes. I could feel my chest tightening with the panic and the effort to keep running when I saw the pillar flash in my bobbing flash light.
I practically ran into it and fumbled around as I leaned heavily on it, the beam of my flashlight pointing back toward the way I'd come, darting around as if I knew something was right behind me and only the light was keeping it at bay. I shoved my shaking hand down into my jacket pocket for my phone to pull out, but it wasn't there.
I felt my panic ratchet up a notch as I cast the beam around, as if it had just fallen out of my pocket and would be right at my feet if I just looked. Then I heard… something… not a scream, but more of a lament, a cry.
I strained to hear, and thought I heard speaking, possibly chanting, and a scream torn from a deep low voice and I jumped to my feet, tears springing to my eyes, and Kyle's name stuck. Choking me as I couldn't scream and I couldn't swallow it, and I was frozen. Frozen.
I stepped forward hesitantly, ready to go back up the trail. There was a sickening thud, a squelch, what sounded like the croaking of a deep bellied toad. My mouth opened again, no sound escaping. I stepped forward, and before I could stop myself, or realize what I was doing, I was racing back up the trail, the flashlight slashing light back and forth as my arm pumped and my head swiveled to find the sound… and my feet took me crashing through the brush and trees and off the path. Demella's terrified face flashing before my eyes as she silently screamed 'Stay on the trail'.
But already… I knew I was lost.
The next thing I remember was waking up to a blurry face standing over me and screaming before I realized it was my mom.
I clamped my lips between my teeth and my eyes started to look around. I wasn't in my room… maybe the guest room of our house? No, the colors were wrong. That room was cream, this one was a blue so pale it was almost white. I tried to sit up but my hands, something was around my arms or wrists and I laid back and looked down.
My mouth opened but my mom just soothed my forehead and shhed me and I fell back asleep.
The next thing that registered was what I assumed was nurses in the hall. I caught snatches, "missing a week" "that poor Peters boy." "The Olsens are already gone" "terrifying" "blood". I didn't want to hear anymore. I didn't want to hear "poor Peck boy" come out of their mouths. "He'll come," I told my brain before I passed out again.
Demella was the first concrete and lucid thing I remember, and the room was near dark. My eyes had instantly gone to her, sitting in the corner near the window in the room, black leaves sliding with a shlick shlick shlick sound along with splatters of rain. I knew without knowing that I must be in a loony bin, or dreaming the most vivid dream of my life. She put a finger up to her mouth and quietly got up and moved over to my bed. "I sent your folks to get something to eat. I thought you might come around about now and I wanted to be here when you did."
I know I looked confused and she glanced at the door and back to me, and before I could ask what happened words were spilling out of her mouth, almost too fast to understand, and certainly too much to comprehend. "I thought I'd helped, but The Wanting got you. I had hoped that root would scoot you on your way before it could take its hold on you, but I should have just stopped you. That thing and that place gobble up girls like you. So full of want and desire, it just can't help it." I shook my head and my voice came out in an unrecognizable croak, "You're not making sense."
She tried again, with more words, different words. All I understood was that Jeff Peters was either dying or dead, Tiffany Olsen's family had already taken her and left our sleepy town, and something about mangled for life, and that everyone had been hunting for me since Halloween night and it was now a week into November. None of it made sense. It had been minutes, maybe hours, since I'd run back up the path from the pillar to go looking for Kyle.
I finally managed to swallow around the gravel that was my throat and ask, "Kyle? What about Kyle?" Demella's brow furrowed and she looked at me funny, and for so long that my parents came back in. I repeated the question to them, and they all looked between each other as if I was speaking some foreign language they couldn't understand.
It was making me feel crazy, and obviously they already thought I was, but I needed to know if he was okay, if they'd found him too, to know what happened, and not from some other crazy person that kept talking about 'The Wanting' like it was some creature of the black lagoon, but for our very own woods. "Kyle Peck. Where is he? Is he okay? We were coming back together and we heard…" I couldn't find my words but I saw my mother's face go extremely pale and my father pull her in close. "What happened to him?! Is he dead??" My mother started to cry and turned her face away and my father's face got stern.
There was a knock at the door and two officers came in. It was all too much. Everyone started talking to each other around me, and about me, and no one would tell me what happened to Kyle.
I gripped my fists, took a deep breath past the pain in my throat and screamed at all of them, Demella's eyes darting to the fluorescent bulbs above my bed that had flickered while I screamed and the rest of them went silent. "Someone needs to tell me what is going on, what happened, and where Kyle is, right now or I'm going to start screaming and not stop again."
My mother couldn't seem to bear to look at me and the officers looked at a loss. Demella seemed to melt into the shadows near the window, so it was left to my dad. Who came up and lifted his hand to put it on my leg in a comforting gesture, then just let it fall to his side. "There was… some kind of attack on Halloween night, up at Dudleytown…" I saw a look pass between my parents and the police, "A bunch of kids were hurt, but… Jeff Peters is in critical condition and they aren't sure he's going to make it, he lost a lot of blood before they got him out. Tiffany Olsen.. Well, her face won't ever be the same, and she'll have some scars on her arms. Most everyone else that got hurt was stitches or scrapes, a few burns…" The screaming, I remembered the screaming. "What about Kyle? He went back for them. We were coming down the path, we left first, and we heard screaming. He went back and sent me to the pillar to try and call for help, but I thought I heard him and so I ran back and…"
One of the police officers stepped slightly forward, "And?" I tried to think, my eyes glossed over as I searched my memories, tried to remember what happened, but I shook my head, my brow furrowed. "Darkness… I… I don't know. Then I was here. Please. Please. Someone tell me if Kyle is alright."
More looks passed between my parents and my mother looked ill and terribly upset, and she wouldn't look at me. My father touched the back of my hand lightly, but the touch didn't linger. "Julie… When we found you… you'd been missing for nearly a week… when we found you, you were muttering, incoherent… and you were covered in blood. What happened at Dudleytown?" I shook my head, trying, trying to understand, but my thoughts just kept going back to Kyle. "Jeff, he was there and Tiffany, they were behind us. Kyle and I were coming down the path first, there was screaming. There were weird noises, maybe an animal... a creature... That's what I remember, and Kyle. He went back. That's all I remember. Ask him. Or find him. You have to find him, he could be hurt."
Again, that look between the others before my dad looked back at me and shook his head sadly, "Julie… Jules... Kyle Peck has been gone since you were four. He wandered off the trail in front of his parents when they went out hiking. Everyone looked for weeks… months... but he's gone. Kyle has been gone for years, Jules."
My eyes went to the window and the black shadowy leaves plastered against the window and where two blue eyes I'd known my entire life, had gaze at as I talked to him, had seen filled with glinting happiness what felt like mere hours ago, were peering back at me, and a mouth… that was smiling.
I shook my head, my own eyes wide, "No. He came back."