Riffling through the files, while loose paper filled with my own rabid scribblings was common to find, loose paper with someone else's was not. I encountered them as I was flipping through one file to the next, research I had apparently done on the Limbo Kingdoms, a whole novel's worth of loose paper spilled to the floor before me. Standing on the ornate carpet, I stared at the mess.
Sighing, I set the files I had been holding aside on my desk among the water rings. As I knelt, my knees creaked and all I could think was that I was too young to be complaining about my knees. Taking some of the papers in hand, I straightened them. That's all I had intended on doing, but then my eyes met the words. All it took was the first line and I couldn't look away. Sitting on the floor next to the mess, I guess I lived there now because there was no way I was putting that down. Reading each line, I didn't recognize the voice of the narrator, who was that?
But then, as my eyes widened on the text, I realized.
Salem Willow?
I thought I had all the narrators, their novels sitting strewn about my study, but maybe there were more that I didn't know about. Eyes drifting to the mess of papers on the floor, I wondered how many more awaited me. Gaze returning to the papers in my hand, I closed my eyes and took a breath, preparing myself for what I was about to endure.
If Salem was the narrator, I knew I was in for it.
I Knew
My life began and ended with him.
Running around the corner of the hall in my abysmal elementary school, I was surrounded by the bleak boxy walls that separated me from him from when the sun was high in the sky until it sat, sleepy, just above the horizon. Shoe catching, I didn’t stop as I stumbled into the double doors at the end of the hall. The push handle clicked as my teeth grit, shoving against them with everything I had. Barely able to slide through the opening, I ran into the the outside. Fall had found us, and though my eyes locked on a distant tree, they weren’t on the leaves. A breath escaping me through my smile, it was then that I saw him.
The one and only love of my life, my beginning, my end, my everything.
Running forward, the cloud of my breath only obscured my view of him for a moment as I barreled on.
Though I was only eight years old, I knew.
It didn’t matter how much my breath stung my throat or how hard the ground was beneath my shoes, no matter how tired my muscles became or how my ears rang, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop, not until I was with him.
I knew that no matter what.
Shoes meeting the grass, I pushed myself as hard as I could as I ran toward the boy sitting beneath the tree.
No matter where.
Jumping, he turned around.
No matter how.
When his eyes met me as I ran toward him, he flew to his feet.
I was going to spend the rest of my life with him.
Running up the little grassy hill, I stopped just a couple feet from him. Eyes searching him for only a moment, that was all I got before a cough took me. Turning away from him, hand to my mouth, my heart pounded against my ribs, blood dropping from my head. But despite that, despite my muscles screaming and my sour stomach, despite the acid in my veins and static in my ears, I still smiled.
Turning back to him as I tried to tame my cough, it was hard when I started to laugh. Brows furrowed, hands extended toward me, his bright boyish brown eyes and spiky golden blond hair, his faint freckles and missing tooth, he was adorable no matter what, even when concerned.
“Are you okay?”
Nodding as I coughed again, my body still racing, that was all I could do. I’m sure my face was red from running, but that wasn’t the only reason as he lowered his hands, shifting his weight as he looked me over, comically obvious concern still sitting on his features. But as if he were only capable of only one thought at a time, another one visibly crashed into him, as if it were a physical force as he jumped. If I hadn’t been choking on my own breath, I would have laughed as he ran his hands through his hair, looking down. He never was one for nuance.
Straightening, I was about to say something when he beat me to it.
“Salem, I, I uh, I, well I,” eyes dropping askance, his reddened pale face matched the colors of the letterman jacket he wore, even back then, “I have a question for you.”
Wind blowing by us, it brushed my bangs in front of one of my eyes.
Framed in the roaring reds of fall, the orange sunset behind him, Hugo Kloven stood, king of the moment. Nine years old, he was in the grade above me, but that never mattered to him. Nothing ever did, not what the adults said about his brother, not the way the sport boys made fun of him, not the trouble that he got in when he stood up for others, not even the way the kids looked at us as we sat together beneath that tree.
My life started the moment we met, the day Colin and his friends cornered me, the day Hugo shoved them away, the day they dropped him for it, the day he stood up afterward, the day he turned around and smiled at me until he realized his nose was bleeding and flipped out. It was the day I made my first friend, the day someone stood up for me, the day someone fought back. Nothing before that mattered, not to me. Because none of that could hold a candle to every moment since.
Nothing could rival the way his eyes landed on me, his hands up to his bleeding nose, and the blush that rushed over his face. Nothing could mean more than when he fell into step with me at my side, leaning over, hands in his letterman pockets as he laughed while talking with me. Though we were young, there was something about the way he hugged me, something about the hesitation to let go, something about watching the clock tick away until I could see him every day, that felt so much older than us.
I always thought we must have known one another in a past life.
“A question?” My nerves frayed a bit as I took one last shaking breath, trying to pull the words in English into my mind, “Is something the matter?”
Eyes flying to me, Hugo tensed, taking a step back, “No,” when his eyes met mine, they jumped between them and I watched the contact physically weigh on him until he looked away again, “I just, well, I…”
Staring at him as a smile tugged up on my mouth, I looked him over. Shoulders tense, face ablaze, he was trying so hard, whatever it was he wanted to say must have been important. Absolutely dumb as shit, I had never met someone as stupid as Hugo. But that was the thing about him, even though he had all of three brain cells, he still somehow managed to be the smartest person in the room. Innately brilliant, he didn’t even have to try. It wasn’t obvious, but once you saw it, it was evident in everything he did.
Hand raising to my mouth, I tried to not laugh, but I couldn’t help it, especially when he jumped, complaining at me for laughing. Opening my eyes as my smile held, the tears in the corners of them blurred everything out except him. With a huff, he straightened, clearing his throat as he looked away. His left hand slid into the pocket of his jacket as he took a breath. Taking something from his pocket, he closed it in his grip. Looking up to me again, the determination that lit in his eyes stopped my heart. Lowering, he dropped to one knee. Looking up to me, the struggle to remain composed endearingly displayed in full view on his boyish face, Hugo brought his left hand up and opened it between us.
“Will you marry me?”
The fall breeze blew by us, filling the moment with the rustling of leaves.
As my hair fell back into place, eyes wide, mouth open but breath hitched, it must have been the first time in my life that I found myself speechless.
Eyes drifting away, his bold front started to falter under his obvious nerves as he knelt there, a little black banded ring in his hand, “I asked Les what you do when you, when you…” teeth clenching, his breath hissed through them as obvious embarrassment washed through him. But despite that, despite how red his face was, despite it reaching the tops of his ears, he looked back up to me, “when you love someone, and he said you marry them, so, Salem,” standing from his knee, he took a step closer to me. Taking my left hand in his right, his skin was always so rough and tattered, covered in bruises and scuffs from standing up for people, but I never minded. Struggling with his lack of dexterity, it was a visible fight for him to hold the ring between his fingers. Sliding it over my ring finger on my left hand, his fingers lingered there for a moment before he let go of the band. Keeping my hand in his, he looked back up to me, “will you marry me?”
Taller than me, I was left to stand there and stare up at him.
Though I was eight and he was nine, though we were but children standing on a hill beneath a tree in the yard of our elementary school, as Hugo stood there, his hand holding mine, I knew he was serious. I could see it flash before my eyes in that moment, our entire lives. I could see the future in which we grew up together, where we met each other’s parents, where he got a car and we got caught on a lover’s lane, one where we went to every dance together, a future where we graduated and went to the same college, a someday with a house and a cat, with Christmas mornings and road trips, with dinner parties and dancing. I saw it all, I saw everything except a wedding, because back then, it wasn’t legal for us to marry. But that didn’t matter, not to him, not to me. As my next breath came to me, it brought a smile with it. Tears budding in my eyes as I looked up to him, able to feel his radiant warmth even from a step away, my heart steadied in my chest.
Of course I said yes.
Sitting beneath the tree, Hugo leaned into me. Watching the sunset, his hand on mine as it sat between us in the dying grass, his grip tightened. Humming a little as I looked to him from the bleeding sky, I was met with more red. Brow quivering over his eyes, conflicted determination slanted the line of his mouth as his shoulders tensed. Gaze lowering from mine for a moment, it jumped back up to my eyes.
The ring on my finger caught the last warmth of the sunset as it poured over us.
When he closed the space between us, when his lips met mine, when the sun dipped beneath the mountains against the horizon, I knew, as I closed my eyes and kissed him back, that we’d make it to that someday.
Searing screamed in my chest.
My eyes flew open.
Vision violently blurring, I coughed up blood, my hands flying to the dagger in my chest.
Standing before me, smile on his face, the red of his eyes glowed, their color catching in the tears bellowing down his jawline. The darkening glow of the summoning circle beneath us casting a shadow over his features, the others stood around, frozen, as our ritual fell apart. He pushed the dagger in further, sending blood pouring from my mouth. Spiral horns atop his head, his crown knocked to the floor between us, becoming in his Halloween costume I had ripped from him what felt like a lifetime ago, the love of my life, my everything, Hugo.
My life began and ended with him.
If we could have gotten married, I always wondered who’s last name we’d take.
Vision blurring out, my body went cold as I tried to raise my hand to his face. I wanted to tell him that I knew this wasn’t him, that this had to be the demon, that if he was somewhere in there watching this, a hostage in his head, that I loved him, and wouldn’t hold this against him. But as my shaking breath left me, so did my strength, body betraying me. Vision blurring into nothingness, I felt it as my hand dropped, the moment I collapsed into Hugo.
He was so cold.
I had spent so long thinking about dying, I thought I’d be ready. But as my vision blurred back, a vacuum in my chest, I didn’t want to die, not like this. Eyes focusing before me as something fell into view, they wanted to close but I wouldn’t let them. Not as they met with Hugo, laying on the floor in front of me. The light of the summoning circle began to dim, obstructed by the blood pooling on the floor between us.
This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
This wasn’t the ending.
It couldn’t be.
Tears took my eyes as Hugo started to reach for me.
I was supposed to save him.
Though I couldn’t feel my arm, it entered my view as I reached for him too.
Hand meeting his, one last sob echoed through me as his eyes closed.
I couldn’t feel him.
When we were still in Russia, my mother told me that I must have been destined to die, that was the only reason she could fathom that I’d be born so sick. But despite that, she told me she’d find a way, do anything she could, to prolong my life so that when the moment came, my death could hold meaning. So much was out of my control, but she wanted me to have the choice, to allow me one ounce of autonomy in my life. Born to be a sacrifice, I was more than happy to die for Hugo.
But when I died, when the moment came that everything went cold, when my hemorrhaging heart beat for the last time and my final breath shook like a rattle in my chest, when my vision blurred away, turning Hugo into nothingness in my eyes, there was no meaning to be found.
Inconsequential, that’s all I’d ever be.
A senseless tragedy.
Eyes flying open, a gasp took me. Pins and needles raced over my frame, taking my every inch, causing me to seize up as I laid on the floor. Eyes too blurry to see, body too cold to feel anything but the floor against my face, I coughed. Teeth grit, I pulled my extended arm back in, forcing the other to the floor beneath me. Shaking as I pushed myself up, my senses slowly started to return, like an ink, dripping into my blood, expanding. On my knees, hands on the floor to brace myself, I closed my eyes as they fought to focus.
Opening my eyes, when they pulled into focus, they blurred again.
Was that…me?
Frozen, I stared at the ground beneath me, the drying pool of blood, and how it stained my hair as I laid there. Motionless, my body rested, arm still outstretched, hand in Hugo’s over the summoning circle seared into the floor beneath us. Covered in blood splatters as they grew dark all over me, my dead eyes remained open, locked on Hugo. Gaze dropping to my knees, I couldn’t see all of my legs as they sat, phased into my body’s back. Jumping away, I didn’t have any breath to yell with as I flew back, landing on my tailbone on the floor behind my body. Hands splayed on the ground behind me, the cold air stung with iron on the way down as my breath shook.
There was so much blood.
Something shifted.
Eyes lurching up, they met with Jack as he laid motionless, dead eyes open on Hugo, hand extended. Even though Hugo reached for me, even though Hugo probably didn’t have a clue, Jack still reached for him, spending his last moment loving someone who never even knew.
Sitting up from his body, a second of his form came to rise from nowhere. As he coughed, one hand up to his throat, the other to his mouth, he was a bit transparent. Eyes wide, unable to even breathe, I watched as he pulled himself from his motionless solid form, hand sliding up his face, shoving his glasses out of place.
Was Jack…A ghost?
Eyes dropping to my dead body on the floor in front of me, they widened.
“Salem?” Jack’s voice cracked, earning my eyes again.
Staring at him a he sat there, partially still phasing out of his dead body, I didn’t get to say anything because that’s when something shifted next to him, making us both jump.
Flying up from his body, Edgar crashed into Jack, taking them both down. Breath finally coming to me as Jack tried to pry his brother off of him and Edgar’s laugh turned into more of a sob, my heart began to race in my chest.
Each breath was shorter than the last as I stared at Hugo’s body as he laid, dead in the middle of the darkened summoning circle. A cough came from behind me, but I didn’t turn to look at Ash as I heard them shifting. Jack and Edgar’s bickering fell quiet, but I didn’t look up to them. Ash’s panicked steps approached me, but I didn’t look at them as they stopped at my side, hand landing on my shoulder.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Not until Hugo came back to me.
I heard Jack’s breath hitch, I heard Edgar’s word die half-way though, I heard Ash scoff.
I heard everything, everything except Hugo move.
But he had to move.
Crawling toward him, I phased through my dead body. Kneeling at his side, I reached for his other hand as it sat, limp at his side. But when I made contact, I went right through. Locked up, eyes wide, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t blink, my vision shaking.
“I told you this would happen,” Edgar’s tone was almost unrecognizable, a far departure from the act he usually kept up as he scrambled up to his feet, “you’re lucky that was an illusion like last time and that no one was hurt,” stopping at Hugo’s side, he dropped to his knees, his hands outreached for Hugo, “I told you we needed to free the demon, that you wouldn’t be strong enough to-” When his hands went right through Hugo, his voice cracked, turning his words, his anger, into smoke. Slowly pulling his hands out of Hugo’s back, watching them phase back into view, they shook with his voice, “Hugo?”
Walking up to Edgar’s side, Jack looked around, eyes jumping from one body to the next, gaining momentum, panic visibly taking hold, until they landed on Hugo. Eyes widening as he stood there in his lab coat, costume soot smudged on his face and glasses, Jack stopped breathing. Slowly lowering down to a knee, hand extended toward Hugo, it was just as it had been the moment he died. But then, this time, Jack hesitated, a moment from making contact.
Eyes raising from Hugo, they met mine.
Staring back at Jack, I saw it, the moment the realization hit him, the moment it made sense. But then, as the cogs turned behind his eyes, I saw something more, the moment they came to a screaming halt, the moment they broke his heart.
“What’s going on?” Edgar sat back from Hugo, studying his shaking hands. “Why isn’t Hugo waking up?”
“He’s not asleep,” Jack turned to Edgar, looking at his brother for only a moment before looking further behind him to their bodies, “none of us were.”
Eyes widening on Jack, Edgar turned around. Locking up when he saw his body, dead face still twisted in rage, I watched the moment everything came back to Edgar. I didn’t witness it, but from the looks of things, Edgar didn’t go down without a fight. Jumping, he turned back around, eyes landing on Hugo. As his brows dropped, turning his glassing eyes dark, I think I saw through it, his act, just for a moment.
Eyes dropping to Hugo as he laid there, my breath sat, suspended in my chest.
“Hugo,” voice barely there, I took my hand from his, phasing back out, “Hugo please, please come back.” Hand hovering over the back of his head, it stopped, unable to bare it if it went through, paralyzed by the thought that I’d never feel the texture of his hair again, “You can’t move on without us.”
Ash’s exhale was sharp, turning the room toxic from behind me, “Maybe he’s in hell.”
The air dropped.
Maybe Jack saw it, the way I tensed.
Flying to my feet, I pivoted on my dress shoe, taking all of two steps toward Ash before I shoved them back. Coughing as they hit the wall, their hair disheveled, falling into their face. But as I stormed toward them, I could see it, their wide eyes through the cracks in their hair. Taking their black robe into my grip, I shoved them into the wall harder. I wasn’t sick anymore, more alive than I had ever felt.
They opened their mouth to say something, but they didn’t get the chance.
“You must have put him up to this,” Shoving Ash into the wall harder, I didn’t care that my voice was raised, I didn’t care about the glass in their eyes, I didn’t care about anything. The only thing I had ever cared about laid on the ground, dead. “You used him.”
Shoving me off of them, Ash managed to overpower me, “He deserved it.”
I probably would have hit Ash, had I not been yanked back. Struggling against unfamiliar hands, I tried to free myself, tried to rush toward Ash, but in the mess of muddled steps and the scuffle, I couldn’t. Stronger than I gave him credit for, Edgar held me back as Jack ran between Ash and I. Arms extended, his lab coat obstructed Ash as they coughed behind him, but I could see them, just a bit, as they stared at me over Jack’s arm.
When Jack’s eyes met mine, I could tell.
Teeth grit as I kept struggling with Edgar, my hair thrown from its style, the tears budding in my eyes stung as my voice broke as I raised it, “You all knew, didn’t you?” Trying to rip myself from Edgar, it was pitiful, just how unsuccessful I was, “How could you let him do that?” Voice faltering as my strength started to fade, I kept struggling the best I could, “Did you want him to die?”
The moment Jack’s eyes lit was the moment the world stopped, “You’re not the only one who loved him.” The pause that followed held the echoes of his raised voice before his shaking breath shattered it, his eyes dropping with his volume, “Of course I didn’t want him to die.” Lowering his arms, I could sense it, his barely contained composure. Though whether he was one step away from shattering or exploding, I couldn’t tell, “Hugo knew exactly what he was doing.”
Too weak to struggle against Edgar any longer, I stood, panting, glassy eyes low, jaw tight, hair hanging in my face, “What?”
“Hugo wanted to save you.” Edgar’s voice made me tense, because despite the strength of his grip on me, his tone, it was so soft, “Ash suggested the ritual, but Hugo agreed.”
Head jerking up, some of my hair flew from my face as my eyes locked on Ash as they stood a step behind Jack, peaking out around him, “You’ve always hated Hugo,” Trying to pull myself from Edgar one last time, he barely had to tighten his grip to keep me back, “you just wanted him dead.”
Stepping up to Jack’s side, their long reaper robe flowed with the movement, “I wanted to save you.”
I had never hated someone before, not really. But as my lowering brow darkened my eyes, tunneling my view on Ash, I became acquainted with the feeling. Teeth tight, every muscle tense, I wanted to kill Ash but Hugo already had, “I didn’t want to be saved.”
Ash took a step toward me, the reverberations of their voice like razors in my ears, “I don’t care.”
I tried to yank myself toward them, but it was obvious, even in full health, I was too weak.
Jack’s hard exhale set the air on edge as he gently pulled Ash away from me, “There was no other way.” Eyes low, hand remaining on Ash, Jack couldn’t look at me, “You would have died in the ritual before you could have purified Hugo, he said it would have been too much for you.” Forcing himself to look at me, his brow quivered over his green eyes as they met mine, shining in what little light there was, “He knew the only other way to defeat Nolan was to die, he was a willing sacrifice.”
Blood congealing, my eyes jumped to Hugo’s motionless body on the ground, “No,” unable to breathe, every bit of tension dropped from me, “that wouldn’t,” Edgar let go of me as my knees gave out, “that’s not how blights work, he needed to be purified.” Crawling up to him, I knelt at Hugo’s side, hands raising to the sides of my head, lacing in my hair, “That’s why he’s not here, the demon must have taken him.” Mind racing through the pages of my books, each ritual flashed behind my eyes, until it landed on the one, the one I hid from Hugo. I knew it well, every word, but apparently I wasn’t the only one. Turning, when my eyes met Ash, they took a step back. “You knew that too, you read the ritual.” Slowly raising to my feet, I faced them, opposed to those I wanted to call friends, to the people Hugo cared about, “You said it just now, didn’t you?” Taking a step toward them, only Ash took a step back, “Hugo’s in hell.”
Not even the ticking of the clock could fill the silence that followed, as it had broken when it fell from the wall, shattered, perpetually stopped, marking the last moments of our lives.
“I-” Jack tried to speak, but it caught in his throat as he stood, eyes on Hugo, “I don’t think so,” walking by me, his steps were gentle as he approached Hugo, “If we operate the under the assumption that he died before we were killed, and that person who attacked us was Nolan who just used his body as a vessel, I think it’s more likely that Hugo,” stopping, Jack slowly lowered to a knee at Hugo’s side, eyes not raising as he struggled to get his next words out, “I think Hugo moved on.” When no one said a thing, he took his hand from the pocket of his long white lab coat and brought it toward Hugo’s head, “As far as he knows, he saved the person he loved, he atoned for his sins, achieved redemption, finally proved that he wasn’t a,” voice catching, he took a moment, tensing as his composure threatened to break, “proved he wasn’t a monster.” lowering his hand, he was careful to not phase through Hugo’s head, hovering, just a bit above his hair, “Of all of us, he’s the only one who would be able to move on.”
My breath shook as I stepped to the side to look down to him, tears starting to take me as I shook my head, “No,” taking a step back from everyone, my shoe didn’t make rings in the pool of blood beneath me, “he’s in danger, he needs our help.”
Looking up at me, tears falling from his eyes, Jack didn’t say anything as he stood. Backing up toward the door, my gaze jumped between our dead bodies, over the transparent forms of the people I wanted to call friends, to the ritual book sitting on the floor near the table.
I stopped.
Taking a step forward, eyes on the book, I needed to get to it. There had to be something, a ritual to help Hugo, to find him, to open a portal, to summon Nolan back, anything. My next step was more of a dash, a desperate bolt, but as my knee gave out on the one after that, I fell into somebody. Arms wrapping around me, he was a lot warmer than I had expected, his pine cologne meeting me. Dropping his head into my shoulder, Jack held me, keeping me from falling. The softness to Jack’s usually intense features, the shake to his next breath, the tremble I could feel beneath his skin, that’s what did it.
What broke me.
Hugo couldn’t be gone, I wouldn’t accept it. But as I wrapped my arms around Jack, as my composure shattered and my breath shook, as tears took hold and my grip tightened, I felt it. A gaping hole where he used to be, the boy I followed everywhere from the moment we met, Hugo Kloven, no matter where he was, he wasn’t here.
I hung around him, always keeping him in sight, even after he forgot about me in grade school. I watched him make friends with Colin, watched his smile fade, watched the boy I knew fall apart, becoming a shell of himself by fifth grade. I purposefully crossed our paths just to catch his attention in middle school, signing up for every single elective he was in, never running away from him, even if it ended in a bruise or two.
I went to each game he played in, sat in the bleachers and watched as he raised in the ranks, even before high school. I applied to the same private school and worked my ass off for scholarships just so that I could join him there. I caught the curtain on fire the day he was expelled, and followed him all the way to Juniper High.
I watched as he became an instant sports sensation, watched every game, every play, went to my classes with him every day. Even as the violence escalated, even as I could see the boy I knew start to fade out of his eyes, I couldn’t stay away. We had our dance, our little game, and perhaps I was obsessed, I even grew to like it when he hit me, but I knew, I just always knew, that there was something more going on.
There wasn’t a single day that had gone by since the one we met in which I didn’t think about Hugo.
And now, for the first time, he was somewhere I couldn’t follow him to.
A pounding came to the door making me jump in Jack’s arms. His grip tightened on me, as he jumped too.
“Hugo!” When Miss Castle’s yell came, muffled through the door, we all went stiff, “Hugo, sweetheart, please,” the door knob started to jiggle, “please don’t do this.”
Edgar ran past us to the door. Wrapping his hands around the knob, despite being a ghost, he held it tight, keeping it from turning. Looking back up to us, the furrow of his brow, the tragedy that painted his features, he didn’t have to utter a word for me to hear what he was saying. Stepping back from Jack, my eyes drifted over the horrific scene around us. We couldn’t let her find us, not like this, not him.
“Hugo!” Colin’s voice came through the door, and though it was a yell, it cracked on the way out, “I swear to god Hugo don’t you fucking die on me-” a thump shook the room as Colin’s shadow closed in on the door, body slamming it.
Edgar looked at me like I’d know what to do.
Shoving past Jack and I, Ash stumbled to a stop at Hugo’s side. Eyes searching him, teeth grit, their breath hissed on the way out. Colin slammed into the door, making us all jump. Eyes flying to the door past me, Ash stared at it. As I stood there, staring back into their eyes, I realized it was the first time I had been able to look at them when they weren’t looking at me. Messy hair and rusty deep-set eyes, as they darted back from the door to Hugo, I saw something in them. Though what it was, I wasn’t sure.
As another thump came to the door, Miss Castle and Colin’s muffled yells making it through, Ash dropped to a knee. When I saw their hand reach toward Hugo, I lunged toward them. Choking as something snagged on my shirt, I was yanked back. Looking up to Jack as I coughed, I was about to snap at him when Ash rose from their knee. Turning toward us, their eyes didn’t meet me, but remained low. Following their gaze down as Jack let go of my shirt, my breath hitched.
Grasp closing over the handle of the dagger, Ash looked up to me.
As Colin slammed into the door another time, Ash ran from us and toward their motionless body as it sat, slumped up against the right wall of the club room. Dropping to a knee, they stared at their body for a moment before reaching for their own hand. Sliding the dagger into their dead grip, they closed their fingers over it. Hand lingering over theirs for a moment, they stood, staring down at their dead form.
“Salem, Jack, Edgar, Ash,” Colin’s voice cracked, pulling my gaze back toward the door, “are you okay? Say something, please-” As Colin’s shadow backed up from the door, all I could do was stare at it as it closed in again.
The cracking of wood split the air as the door flew from its hinges, passing right through Edgar, before flying into the wall at its side. Miss Castle and Colin stumbled into the room, running through Edgar, sending him tripping back. Foot catching, Edgar fell to the ground, half-way phased through the door as it barely hung onto the bottom hinges.
Dust clearing from the air, their shoes splashed as they stepped into the pool of blood on the floor. Colin looked up, right at me, though he didn’t see me, no, he looked right through me.
Miss Castle took a step back, reaching for the light switch. I wanted to do something, to stop them, but as I stood, Jack’s arm around me, I knew there was nothing I could do.
There was a reason no one had been able to prove the existence of ghosts.
The light flicked on.
Eyes lowering, Colin’s gaze met Hugo.
The way Miss Castle screamed, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.
Pulling me back, Jack and I stepped out of the way and toward the rear of the room. Edgar scrambled up, pulling himself to his feet before running to Jack’s side. Ash running to mine, they stopped, a few steps away. Standing at the head of the summoning circle, we were unwilling witnesses as Colin fell to his knees, reaching for Hugo.
Though the papers would say five people died that day, I knew better, because as I watched the light extinguish in Colin’s eyes, I bore witness to the sixth. I didn’t like Colin, but he didn’t deserve this, no one did. He didn’t deserve the way he yelled, pulling Hugo into him, the blood staining the white pants of his knight costume. He didn’t deserve the tears that tore through him as Miss Castle stood, hands to her mouth, frozen. No one deserved yelling the name of their friend, over and over and over again, clinging to their bloodied lifeless body, until they lost their voice.
Standing there, none of us moved, we couldn’t.
Not as other faculty came rushing up.
Not as people yelled for an ambulance.
Not as Colin shook his head, surely knowing it was too late for that.
Not as Miss Castle ran around to each of us, checking for a pulse,
Not as she tried to breathe through the tears as she found none.
Not as the sirens approached.
Stepping into each other, we stood, back to the table shoved against the wall, as the room devolved around us. The clicking of cameras surrounded us, cornered by the flashing lights as they documented every inch of our tragedy.
“We’re really ghosts?” Edgar stood next to Jack, but not as close as he usually did as we watched forensic agents methodically try to capture every inch of our club room, pieces for a puzzle that they’d never be able to solve, not in any way that would be true.
Jack leaned back against the table, a bit too blasé, as he crossed his arms over his chest, eyes low, “Ghosts don’t exist.”
Turing his head, Edgar’s eyes were sharp until they met Jack, a word dying in his throat before it made it out. As he stared at his little brother, I watched the shift take place in him. Straightening, Edgar’s eyes dropped. My gaze drifted from Edgar to Jack, and I too was left to stand there and stare. He had been saying that the whole time, but now I understood.
Jack was right.
My eyes moved to the doorway as a quiet washed over the room.
We didn’t exist.
Landing on a couple as they stood in the threshold, I didn’t recognize them.
Not really.
Jack’s breath turned sharp as he huffed through his clenched teeth, turning away. The couple standing in the door fell all over themselves as they looked into the room, the woman of warm tone and the man of cool. Edgar brought his hand up to his eyes, slinking into his robe, his other arm wrapped around his middle as he turned away too. Tripping as they bolted into the room, they ran to Edgar’s lifeless form on the floor. Looking between Jack and Edgar, my eyes widened when the realization struck and they flew back to the couple. Sobbing over Edgar’s body, they were told not to touch him. But as they struggled against the forensics agents who just begged them to identify him, they were inconsolable, both of them. I could feel it in the air, the tension that came to rise in Jack, the tightening of his grip on his folded arms.
I didn’t know either brother very well, but as I watched Jack’s parents not even look at his dead body, too occupied with Edgar’s, I came to understand them a bit more.
Edgar’s scoff congealed my blood as he pushed himself from the table.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” storming up to his dead body, he stopped a step short, staring down at his parents, a bite to his words I had never heard before, “turn around, look at him, your son, your youngest son is over there, he’s dead too.” Reaching for the man, Edgar tried to shove into him but went stumbling right through, tripping to a stop between his body and Jack’s.
A hiss through his teeth followed him as he whirled around to face them again, hand extended back toward Jack’s body, “I gave you no reason to love me, he did everything he could,” reaching for the bag over the woman’s shoulder, Edgar’s hand went through, “forget about me, just,” his anger started to devolve as the stood there, watching as the forensics team begged the parents to identify the other son, “please, just look at him,” reaching for her bag again, his hand closed over the strap and to everyone’s surprise, he yanked her around. Stumbling back, his crumbling composure paused as he stared at his parents. They stared right through him, that was, until their eyes landed on Jack’s body.
Raising to her feet, the woman who Jack took after stepped up to his side. Eyes low on him and his outstretched hand, she followed it with her gaze until it met Hugo. Teeth tight, her sharp exhale married her eye roll as they landed back on Jack. Kicking Jack’s arm, she sent it away from Hugo, limply landing at his side. Surrounding officers yelled at her, but she didn’t seem to care as she took a step back. With a curt nod, she turned back toward the blond man, his eyes blue like Edgar’s. Collapsing into his arms, her sobs ripped through her, her back to Jack’s body, her eyes on Edgar’s body.
I saw it, the first tears that fell from Edgar’s eyes as he stared at his parents.
The lights flickered, startling everyone.
Shoving himself up from where he had been leaning, Jack started toward Edgar, intent in every step. Throwing his arm around Edgar, he pulled him back along with him to us. When they returned to my side, without a word between them, Jack just pulled Edgar in close. It was quiet, the way Edgar cried, as if he was the only way he knew how.
Ash didn’t react much when an older woman came to identify them moments later, not even when she screamed. But it was then, when I could make out the name that the woman was yelling, that I realized why. That wasn’t Ash’s name. Teeth grit, tension took me. Taking a step forward toward the woman, I was stopped, a gentle hand clasped over the fabric of the back of my shirt. Slowly turning, my eyes met Ash.
Eyes low, Ash let out a shaking breath that was somehow louder than the woman’s screams, “They’re probably going to burry me in a dress.”
Edgar’s profane exhale as he stood, hand up to his face, leaning into Jack, chilled the room.
Eyes on the doorway as cops came in and out, the unease began to become apparent as they attempted to piece together what happened. Gaze lowering to Ash’s body, the knife in their hand, it didn’t take much extrapolation to figure what picture they were going to see. Eyes raising to Ash as they stood, leaned up against the desk an unusual distance away, arms crossed over their chest, I wondered why they did it. If they hated Hugo, why would they take the fall?
It was their fault, as far as I was concerned, but I didn’t expect them to see it that way.
Someone scoffed, earning my eyes as they stepped through the door. Breath catching as I stared at them, it was a shock to see them in the flesh and not on TV, Hugo’s parents. I had seen them in person all of once, at Kasper’s funeral as I hid, a few steps outside of the tent, peeking in. And as I watched the way they walked up to Hugo’s body, the apathy in the clicks of Hugo’s mother’s heels, the reflection of his son’s body in Hugo’s father’s sunglasses, my blood went cold.
Chewing gum, dressed to the nines, Mrs. Kloven shifted her weight as she looked around. Thinly plucked brow raised, she looked to Mr. Kloven as her red lips twisted up in disgust. Sighing with the musty wind of a cigar bar, Mr. Kloven brought his weathered hand up to his short, well styled blonde hair. Lowering it, his thick fingers met his sun glasses. Pulling them down from his square face, when his eyes became visible, I couldn’t look away. Hugo looked just like him. Heart starting to stumble in my chest, my brow quivered, desperately trying to maintain my composure. As Mr. Kloven quietly spoke with one of the officers, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, not over the static in my ears. That’s what Hugo would have grown up to look like if I had just stayed away from him.
As the woman he spoke to shifted her weight in her lengthy white lab coat, her silver hair caught the light as it sat in a bun atop her head, “Yes Sir, my division will be taking over from here.” With a wave of her hand, it didn’t matter that she was profoundly short, an entire team of darkly dressed agents flooded into the room, corralling the normal officers out at her command. “We don’t believe there to be an active threat,” her silvery eyes watched as the agents struggled to get Colin to leave, “so we’ll finish up here and then take these kids with us.”
Nodding, Mr. Kloven turned from the woman, arm finding its way around his wife, “I’ll leave the rest to you, Abraxas, I can’t be late to my meeting with Mayor Colburn.”
“Yeah yeah, send him my warm regards from hell,” Turning back toward us, I watched the agent look us over, a yawn taking her as her eyes drifted around. But then, mid-yawn, she tensed, “Wait,” turning to look back at the agents as they forced Colin out of the room, the other normal cops nowhere to be seen, “did anyone identify that one?”
Lowering her hand from her yawn, her finger extended out toward my body. My breath caught as I stared down at my dead form, the body that had no family that could come to mourn me. Eyes jumping up, I looked around for Miss Castle, but she was gone. She was the only one, the only adult in the whole world that would know me.
“Salem Willow,” the world stopped, every syllable of my name sounded frigid from Hugo’s mother’s mouth as she stood in the threshold of the room. Not turning around, she kept her head held high as she went on, “he was the boy my son was sure he was going to marry someday, never stopped going on about him.” Turning, her eyes met my body, “We even put him in football to straighten him out,” turning, the clicks of her heels stabbed me with every step she took away, “but it appears it didn’t matter.”
The way Jack’s eyes jumped up from the floor, the violence in Edgar’s step forward, the weakness that took me, the silence between us suffocated every moment punctuated by the fading clicks of her heels. Sighing, the lady in the lab coat waved her hand and just like that, more darkly dressed individuals came rushing through the door, stretchers between each pair. Forcing everyone else out, Edgar and Jack’s parents fought the whole way, the woman who came for Ash didn’t. After the agents got them all out, the door closed itself. Standing in the middle of it all, the lab coat lady just looked around, bringing her fingers up to the bridge of her nose.
“Be careful with him,” Edgar’s shout startled me into looking over at him. Staring toward the people lifting Jack onto the stretcher, Edgar was about to say something else but it was it off when Jack’s glasses slid from his face. Lunging to catch them, they fell through Edgar’s hands and upon hitting the floor, they cracked. Dropping to his knees, he was left, sitting there, hand still extended, eyes on Jack’s glasses on the ground. He didn’t look up, not as his body was lifted to a stretcher.
The creak of the door startled me, earning my gaze. Eyes flying up, they darted over the other stretchers. My body looked so small on the stretcher as they placed my arm at my side. Ash didn’t look up from the floor as the agents covered their body with a sheet and took them from the room.
“Don’t touch his hands,” the woman who Hugo’s father had addressed as Abraxas said as she walked toward the agents struggling to lift Hugo’s body to a stretcher, “he’s probably blighted. This looks like some Nolan shit.”
The air dropped when Jack and I looked at each other.
She knew?
Looking back to her as she watched another couple agents come over to lift Hugo, my eyes narrowed on her. She looked so vaguely familiar, as if I had seen her in a book somewhere. But that couldn’t be right. The books I read were so old, the only one on something even remotely recent was the one I had been reading on Jinx, but I never got to finish it.
As the agents finished covering Jack’s body in a sheet, they started to take him from the room. Edgar remained on his knees, watching, unable to do a thing. Eyes drifting to my body as they covered it with a sheet, I couldn’t help but it wonder what was going to happen to it, there was no one to claim me. Eyes remaining on the open threshold, they didn’t leave, not even as my body was no longer visible.
I felt bad for the coroner who was about to find the excessive amount of marks Hugo and I had left on each other.
Gaze dropping, it met him.
I would have stared at him forever, but they pulled a sheet over his head.
My heart stopped.
It took four of them to lift his stretcher from the floor.
Pushing myself up from the desk, I ran toward them as they started to walk him out of the room.
No.
Jack called after me but I didn’t hear what he said.
They couldn’t take Hugo away.
Reaching for the stretcher, my hand went right through.
He was all that I had.
Frozen, I stared at my hand as they started to take him out the door.
Footsteps raced up behind me.
I bolted forward.
Yanked back, my yell was cut short.
Watching as they disappeared through the door with Hugo’s stretcher, my vision blurred under the glass. Pulling against Edgar as he held me back, something tugged in my chest, something unseen, but compelling as Hugo grew further from me.
It hurt.
My teeth grit as I struggled.
Pulling myself away from his grip, I raced toward the door, but before I got there, three sets of hands met me. Looking over my shoulder with enough bite to break my own neck, my eyes met with Jack, Edgar, and Ash. Tears in their eyes, their grips cautiously tight on me, I knew they were doing what they thought was best. That they knew I wouldn’t want to follow Hugo, not where they were taking him, not with what they were about to do to his body. But as the tug in my chest turned into a strain, like something in me would snap if we got any further apart, my exhale shook, turning my words into a hiss.
“Please let go of me.”
Pulling me back, I could feel Jack’s grip on me the most as it tightened.
Turning from them, my eyes lowered to the summoning circle seared to the floor as I yanked against their grip, “Let go of me.”
I never thought myself to be one who would raise their voice, especially to those they claimed as friends. But as tension came to rise in me, as the strain turned to pain in my chest, as Jack’s grip tightened, as Edgar and Ash remained unwavering, as everything closed in and the culmination of the events of that haunted night came to rise in my blood, I became that person.
“Let go.”
As my yell cracked, the summoning circle lit beneath us. The air shot cold, so sharply that I felt the singe in my bones. A gust of air exploded form the runes below my shoes, throwing the others from me. Before they had even hit the surroundings, my feet carried me toward the door, pulled by a force beyond me. As Jack slammed into the bookshelf, I didn’t turn to see if he was alright. As Edgar tumbled into the table, I ran out the door. As Ash fell from the wall, I met the first step.
Lights flickering above me, the stain of the glow of the summoning circle coming to life still burned into my eyes, I blindly barreled down the stairs. Tripping, my hand reached for the guard rail but missed. I only saw the steps as I fell for a moment before impact. Hitting each harder than the last, I possibly could have stopped myself, but I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
Ears ringing, my world spun out as I met with the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Laying on my back, eyes barely open, the blurring lines of the ceiling danced in the kaleidoscope of my view. Despite tumbling down the stairs, despite the screaming ache that radiated over every point of impact, despite my head hitting the floor and the ghost of Hugo on my skin, none of it hurt, not compared to the pull in my chest.
Shaking as I pulled myself up, footsteps echoed in my dizzy ears as I fought to stand up. Stumbling into the wall, my hand met it as I could barely stand. Lifting my head, my eyes wouldn’t focus, but they didn’t need to. I could tell the shape of the agents as they carried Hugo’s stretcher toward the door. Pushing myself from the wall, I ran. Steps sloppy, it didn’t matter, I just needed to get to Hugo. A cold front took me as the doors to the school creaked open. Eyes starting to pull in again, I reached toward the stretcher as they stepped out the doors and toward the front stairs.
About to make contact, I knew that once my hand met him, I was never letting go.
Not again.
Crashing into something, I was thrown back. Landing on my tailbone, screaming seared up my spine. Trembling under the pain on the floor, I couldn’t give myself a moment to feel it. Striking clarity returned to me through the pain, forcing me to my feet. Staring out the open front doors, I watched as the agents started to descend the stairs with Hugo’s stretcher. Struggling with every step under his weight, they were slow, careful. Running up to the door, my eyes were on Hugo’s form under the sheet until I ran right into something again. Stumbling back as footsteps echoed behind me, my eyes jumped over my surroundings. Raising my hand, I approached the open door.
It met something.
Staring out through the clear threshold, my hand sat, flatly pressed into what felt like a cold wall, though there was none to be seen.
Eyes widening as the team of agents made it to the bottom of the stairs with Hugo’s stretcher, my dead heart skipped a beat.
Jack, Ash, and Edgar stopped at my sides, saying things I couldn’t hear. As I stood there, hand pressed against an invisible barrier, eyes on Hugo as the pull in my chest grew with every inch put between us, everything faded in that moment, dulling as my pulse slowed. I had always wondered why some ghosts haunted just one place, as if they were trapped.
Someone ran up to Hugo in the parking lot as the agents approached the open back of a large black van.
Something about Les told me he also wasn’t one to raise his voice. But as his yells broke through the static in my ears, he too became that person that day. Watching as agents held him back as he fought to get to Hugo, I heard a heart break. It sounded like a man who raised two kids just to outlive them both, like the way his yell cut when his hand flew to his chest, like the concerned agents as some came running around the van to his aid, but most of all, it sounded like the silence as he shook his head, on his knees, in the shadow of Hugo’s stretcher.
Sliding Hugo into the back of the van with the rest of us, when they closed the door, the click flattened the moment.
Slowly lowering my hand, I think it must have been then, the moment that I knew.
Watching as the van drove away, the tug in my chest strained. Hand meeting my button down above my heart, it ached like it did in life, but something about it was different.
Hugo was out there, he had to be.
Hand tightening over my shirt, I watched as the van pulled around the corner of the school and disappeared.
I knew he was out there.
Turning, I didn’t look at the others, but past them and up the stairs.
And I knew I had to find him.
Running by Jack, I accidentally brushed into him as I did.
Hugo wouldn’t move on without me.
He couldn’t.
Eyes scanning over the pages of my spell book, I didn’t know how many days had passed, there were no windows in the club room. Standing in the middle of the ritual circle seared into the floor, books strewn about, I must have read every single page thrice by that point.
But I wouldn’t give up.
I couldn’t.
Muttering an incantation that had been long since scrawled onto the thin pages of the dense book, I stood in pause. Silence met me, despite the crime scene cleaning team having finished their work ages ago, the school never did replace the clock. A deep breath escaped me as I turned the page. One of these had to work, something had to bring back the demon. If I could summon him, maybe I could find out where he took Hugo. It didn’t matter how much time passed, the ache in my chest raged on.
Though at a point it stopped getting worse.
Perhaps Hugo had been laid to rest.
Eyes snagging on the next incantation, I knelt to adjust the placement of one of my candles. Fingers going through the candle, I stared at it. Sighing, I closed my eyes for a moment. Kneeling there in my black robe, heavy spell book in one hand, I had to focus. I’m sure everyone thought about what it would be like to be a ghost at some point or another. As I knelt there, trying to focus on making contact with the candle, I had expected it to be a lot more intuitive than it was. Fingers meeting the candle, I was able to slide it a bit to the right, centering it on the rune. Straightening, I looked back to the incantation.
Muttering it, my mother once told me that the louder you said it, the stronger the power. She warned me to start off with a whisper to gauge the reaction before increasing the power. Though I had never had to raise my voice above that, because the three times it worked, a whisper was more than enough.
When nothing happened, I just stood there, staring at the book. My hair had fallen from over the top of my head where I had styled it for the dance, falling over one of my eyes. I didn’t mind it that way, because it always fell to the side when I looked up, and he was the only thing worth looking at. But now, as I stared down at the book, looking down was all I ever did.
Turning a page, I repeated the process, every ritual, every incantation, every candle position, something had to work. But it took a long time, doing it all on my own. I hadn’t seen the others in so long, I wondered if they had found a way out of the school and left. Or perhaps they resolved their attachments, moving on without me.
A sharp breath hissed through my teeth as I struggled to make contact with another candle.
Wouldn’t be the first time someone I cared about left me without regard for the aftermath.
With every incarnation, every moment of silence following, every time my fingers phased through the candles, my movements became sharper. Every time I retuned to the center of the ritual circle, my jaw was a little tighter. I could feel it, my fuse, though exceptionally long, begin to reach its end. Slamming a book down on the table after reaching the end, I stood, hand on its cover, tension ruling me. A curse under my breath, I snatched the next book from the floor. My cloak flailed out behind me as I stormed back into the circle.
Opening the book, its binding creaked with the force. Eyes meeting the page, my breathing stopped. It was the ritual I had done in the forest the night Hugo stalked me. Fucker followed my car for almost an hour and somehow thought I wouldn’t notice. My fingers met the page, slowly tracing over the words. That was what started it all, the night I saw the Hugo I knew for the first time in years, the night I fell in love with him all over again, his face on the floor beneath my shoe. I can’t believe he did that, actually groveled.
When I laughed a little, it shook, eyes glassing over, blurring the page before me.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes for a moment. Cleared as they opened, I read over the incantation. Taking a deep breath, grip tight on the book, body tense enough that one good shove would shatter me, I looked up. This was the first ritual that worked, after years of trying, years of failures, it was the first time I saw a ritual circle light.
I joked back then that I had been successful in my endeavor of summoning a demon because Hugo was there.
Opening my mouth, I could only hope it would work again.
Whispering the incantation, nothing happened.
Of course nothing happened.
Nothing ever happened.
Not until Hugo.
Grip tightening on the book, I spoke the incantation a little louder.
Silence met me.
Again, I spoke it, louder than before.
Nothing.
My voice raised more.
Nothing.
Teeth grit, grip so tight on the book it felt as if it were about to rip as I stood in the center of the quiet club room, there wasn’t even dust in the air to witness me as I unraveled. Sterile after they cleaned the crime scene, I wondered if it felt like where my parents were.
Why wouldn’t it work.
Taking a shaking breath, I slammed the book closed.
Tension ruling me, about to boil over, my body was too small for these feelings.
Raising the book above my head, my eyes flew up, brow trembling beneath the weight.
Yelling the incantation, my voice cracked.
I threw the book to the floor.
Black flashed.
The air whipped around, nearly knocking me from my feet. Hair blown into my face, eyes wide, I was nearly blinded by the black glow emanating from the summoning circle seared into the floor. Bringing my hand up to my hair, I ran my fingers through it, holding my bangs atop my head as I looked around. My robe whipping in the wind, the lights flashing on the ceiling, the air bit, but whether it was hot or cold I couldn’t tell. The intense sting of smoke ripped down my throat, making my eyes water, but I couldn’t close them. Gaze dropping to the book on the floor, I stared at it
It worked.
Growls echoed around me, making me jump and look up. Stepping around, I remained in the inner most ring of the circle on the floor, watching as the room around me became obscured with ash and smoke. The time it lit before, it was red. But as dark black light consumed everything, something about this felt scarier. Red felt like chaos, black felt like calculation.
Choking on the toxic air, I brought my other hand up to my mouth, the lengthy sleeve of my robe catching in the whirling wind. Though my eyes stung, they caught on a scene that started to form around me. Cave-like walls, a dark, black pulse glowing through the cracks, a shadowed figure stood a ways away from me before the dark outlines of a throne. Tall, built, the shadow reminded me of another. Though it couldn’t be him, because their head, christened with a floating crown and horns, was hung low.
I wanted to call out to them, to whoever that demon was, so that maybe they could tell me how to find Nolan. But as I tried to yell, my breath caught in my throat and turned into a choke. Stumbling forward, sleeve up to my mouth, I caught myself before I tripped in the noxious haze. I had to get to them, had to court their attention. If they were crowned too, then maybe they’d be able to help if I traded something.
The figure started to turn toward me.
Reaching forward, I took my next step, choking on the air, barely able to see anything.
About to face me, the figure turned to smoke before my eyes when my hand disturbed the image. Stumbling forward as smoke swirled around me, blinding me. Running into someone I couldn’t see, for a moment I thought it could have been that demon, but then I heard it, the softness to his exhale.
Smoke dissipated from the air around us as Jack held me. Left standing in his embrace, eyes wide on the door, they started to sting. Tightening his grip, he held me for a moment longer until he loosened it and stepped back. His hand remained on my shoulder as he looked me over. Image turning to a blur in my eyes, I only saw Jack for a beat until the tears won. Grip tightening on my shoulder, it was friendly, silent, as I failed to compose myself. Hand raising to my eyes, the book on the floor between us as we stood, surrounded by the summoning circle and extinguished candles, I couldn’t keep this up.
“Hey, are you alright?” Jack leaned down a bit to catch my gaze, “I could hear your yell from all the way downstairs.”
A stifled sigh escaped me as I shook my head, wiping my eyes.
He stood with that for a moment, slow, thoughtful, as always. Hugo made the wrong choice when he fell in love with me, Jack was obviously the better choice. If I had just left him alone, then maybe he would have noticed that Jack was at every game, too, that Jack bet on him every single time, that Jack had a notebook dedicated just to theorizing about Hugo’s play calls. Maybe he would have overheard Jack defend him when people talked shit about him in the stands, maybe he would have asked Jack to tutor him for him to have some excuse to talk to him. Maybe they would have become more, maybe they’d both still be alive, and I could have just died alone in the woods. At least then my death would have been the only waste.
It was my fault.
I started to shatter again.
All my fault.
And nothing I did could fix it, no ritual would bring him back, nothing could satisfy the tugging ache in my chest.
Shaking his head, his smile soft, Jack wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Leading me out of the circle and toward the table, he gestured for me to sit. Taking to a chair, I rested my elbows on the table, planting my face in my hands. I didn’t look up as I listened to him rat around, collecting my candles and book, putting them away in one of the drawers along the wall.
Silence made its home between us as he worked, but something about silence spent with Jack didn’t feel like silence at all. I’m not sure how much time passed us by, it could have been a moment, it could have been a day, it all felt the same.
Eventually, I found my voice. Not looking up to him, my hands tightened in my hair as I broke the silence. “You’re handling this exceptionally well.”
Quietly, gently, Jack sat next to me.
“It’s not my first rodeo, so to say,” Jack leaned back in his chair the same way Hugo had when he fell, taking a few more moments than usual before he kept on. “And everyone engages with the impossible differently. Edgar, for example, has perfected the art of moving things around and has been properly terrorizing the school. He has Coach Liam with an inch of committing himself.”
Despite myself, a smile started to take me as I kept my face in my hands. Another silence drifted between us, growing heavy once more.
“I heard the funeral was beautiful.” Jack paused when he must have heard my breath catch, “Hugo was laid to rest between you and Kasper.” He brought the chair back down with a breath that appeared to be a cleverly disguised sigh, “They made Colin the quarterback, can you believe it? He couldn’t handle being a wide receiver half the time.”
Turning my head to the side, I rested my cheek on my hand, looking to him, “Even though I went to all the same games you did, I still don’t know the first thing about football.”
Laughing, Jack looked down to me as I slumped there, “I don’t blame you, you were there for one reason only and it wasn’t to pay attention to the game.”
Rolling my face away from him, I folded my arms on the table before me burying myself in them, “So were you and you still know how it works.”
That time when Jack laughed, it was softer than the last, though he didn’t say anything in reply, not for quite a while. “I want to show you something.” He pushed out his chair, “Let’s get you out of this crime scene.”
Standing, he loomed over me for a moment before I stood with him. Exhausted, my every step dragged as we walked through the club room. Eyes on the ground, they traced over the summoning circle as it sat, seared into the floor. Phasing through the door that they had to be completely replace after Colin broke in, it made my every inch squirm. Following him down the stairs we all used to walk up together, the stairs I pulled Hugo up by his tie, the stairs I fully intended to never walk down again after the ritual, every step felt like a failure. Walking past the spot Jack let on how he felt about Hugo, it felt like a lifetime ago. Passing by the door to the main office, I didn’t look up to it or that spot Colin had pinned me while Hugo anxiously watched through the blinds. I couldn’t look up, not as we passed Hugo’s locker, because if I did, all I’d see were ghosts of him, but not the kind of ghost I wanted.
As I followed a few steps behind Jack around a corner at the end of the hall, I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Stopping, my gaze flew up. Heart racing in my chest as I held my breath, I looked around. Eyes darting from the trophy case to the lockers, from the doors to the water fountains, I searched for something, anything.
Taking a few steps back, Jack landed at my side. “What’s up?”
Staring at the door to the locker room at the other end of the hall, nothing was there. “Nothing.”
When Jack started back down the hall, I lingered there for a moment longer before turning to follow him. Bringing my hand up to my chest, I could feel it, that tug on my soul shift, the pressure changing. It must have been because I was walking around, not just staying in one place as I had been. I was right, Hugo had been laid to rest.
As my eyes met the ground again, a couple steps behind Jack, I wondered what the funeral was like and who paid for my burial.
Jack stopped before I noticed, and I walked right into him. Stumbling back, an apology was on my breath, but then it was stolen from me. Staring at myself, probably ten feet tall as I hung up on the wall, I took a step back. Edgar, Ash, Jack, Hugo, and I, there we were, the photo Miss Castle took of us for the club hanging from the wall outside the library. A massive banner, it took up the entire wall, shifting slightly with the draft. Eyes lowering, they were met with a huge collection of flowers, candles and other small items. Below Hugo’s image my eyes caught on a singular football as it sat among the flowers.
Eyes raising to Hugo, I stared at his big, dumb, goofy, surprised smile as Edgar shoved Jack into him. The way the brown of his eyes made even the stupid overbearing fluorescent lights shine, the boyish spike to his hair, the way his red and white letterman jacket hung from his frame above a black t-shirt, through it was just a picture, I could still see it all, feel it all, and before I realized it, tears started to take me.
“Where was all this love before we died,” Edgar’s voice startled me, making me turn to look at him.
Standing on Jack’s either side, Ash and Edgar met me.
Laughing, Edgar smiled at me before looking back up to the banner, “It is sweet, though, all the same.”
When my eyes met Ash’s, they looked away.
Turning from them, I looked back up to the picture as a deep, shuttering breath took me as I wiped my tears.
Taking a step toward the display, hundreds of messages met me, written on the lower portion of the banner. Stopping right below my image, my eyes met one of the many messages written there.
The handwriting was clumsy, barely readable, but as I brought my fingers up to the message that did its best to say that they missed us and wished we could have been friends, I didn’t know how I knew who it was from, but I just did.
“How’s Colin?” I turned to Jack, “You said he’s the quarterback, but is he okay?”
When Jack didn’t immediately reply, when no one did, their eyes just lingering on the image of us, my heart sunk.
But then, behind them, I saw a dart of movement.
Red and white, it was too fast for me to see properly, but it looked just like-
The tug in my chest shifted.
Bolting, I ran past the others, nearly tripping. Footsteps followed me as I ran down the hall, retracing the way we came. Stopping at the fork in the hall, I looked back past our lockers and the main office, and I saw it again, a flash of movement, disappear toward the stairs. The others just caught up with me when I went running again.
They may have called out to me, they may have pleaded with me to slow down, they may have asked what had gotten into me, but I didn’t hear anything other than the racing of my heart, I didn’t feel anything but that tug in my chest start to ease. Reaching the base of the stairs, I looked up them but didn’t see anything.
Starting up the stairs, my shoe caught, sending me falling forward, but I didn’t stop, clawing my way up a couple more steps as I fought to return to my feet. Jack tried to help me up but I didn’t stop, I couldn’t stop, not as every step lessened the pull on my soul. Falling up the last step, I stumbled onto the next story. Standing there, panting, my eyes met with the club door. The others raced up to my sides, asking me what was going on, but I didn’t reply. Running up to the door, I stopped at the other side, one step short of phasing through it. Hand meeting my chest, my fist closed over my shirt.
When Jack stopped at my side, brow furrowed in question, his eyes met mine from behind his glasses. A look exchanged between us, no words filled the moment before his eyes lit up.
Holding my breath, closing my eyes, I took my next step. Phasing through the door, my foot landed on the other side, breath suspended in my chest. Eyes opening, I stared straight ahead. Chest heaving, eyes wide, I was met with nothing. The others followed me, stopping at my sides, but I couldn’t turn to look at them, no, not as my eyes sat, locked on the back wall, unmoving, breath trapped in my chest.
I thought…
I really thought…
When I heard Jack’s breath hitch, I turned to look at him. Hand to his mouth, glass in his eyes, his gaze sat, low. Though, I could see it, from behind his hand, his smile. Brow dropping, I looked to Edgar and Ash, but their eyes were low, too. Turning back to Jack, my eyes followed his and that’s when everything stopped.
The lights flickered.
The clock on the wall started to tick again, moving forward for the first time since we all died.
Kneeling, hunched over, face to the floor, right in front of me, just out of sight as a sob ripped through him, in his red and white letterman jacket, horns atop his head, it was him, really him.
Starting at him, the breath I had been holding since we began the ritual finally left and with it, came my smile.
I knew.
Stepping around him, the others watching, Edgar’s hands up to his hair, Jack trying to stay quiet as he cried, Ash’s mouth open, I was light on my feet as the room grew cold. Stopping right in front of him, I was about to drop to my knees, about to pull him into a hug, about to shatter in his arms, but then I realized that the view was quite similar to the night in my cabin, the night that started it all, the night he apologized, the night I made him blush again and I just couldn’t help myself.
My smile turned up my exhale.
I knew that no matter what.
Bringing up my shoe above his head, I only let it hover for a moment before bringing it down.
No matter where.
Pressing his face into the floor, I saw it, the shock take the others.
No matter how.
Tense, halfway through a sob, Hugo sat with that for a moment before slowly turning his head to the side. Red eyes wide, they met mine through his disheveled bangs. Smiling at him as I raised a brow, I watched the realization bloom.
“Good boy.”
I knew, I always knew, that I was going to spend the rest of my life with him.
Phantasmal
Which Narrator Do You Want Next?
Nolan
Les
Edgar
Oliver
Comments