“—and the second time,” Marisol said, “he came back through the floor.”
Nobody laughed, because nobody was supposed to.
They did this every year. Four women, one fire, the kind of stories other people told to feel a manageable kind of scared. These women told them to remember they were still here.
Dee went next, voice flat as a knife. “Mine never had a face. Just kept walking the same speed no matter how fast I ran. Like it knew I’d get tired eventually.” She turned a marshmallow over the flame, watched it blacken. “I did.”
“But you’re here,” said Priya.
“I’m here,” Dee agreed, like it surprised her too.
Brenda hadn’t spoken yet. She was the newest, found them only eight months ago, still had the look — flinching at branches snapping, sleeping with a light on. The others had stopped flinching years ago. Mostly.
“You don’t have to,” Priya told her.
“I want to.” Brenda stared into the fire like it might tell her how to start. “Mine’s not finished.”
The fire popped. Not one of them moved.
“What do you mean, not finished?” Marisol asked.
“I mean I never found out how it ends.” Brenda looked up, and for the first time all night, she wasn’t the youngest, or the newest — she was just tired, in the specific way all of them were tired. “It’s still out there. I checked, before I came here. It’s still out there.”
Dee stopped turning her marshmallow.
In the treeline, something that might have been wind moved through branches that didn’t sway with it.
Nobody looked. They’d learned that part already — the not-looking. It never helped, but they’d learned it anyway.
Priya reached over and put another log on the fire.
“Then we wait,” she said. “No splitting up, drinking, drugs, or sex, this time.”
©2012 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
Leave a Reply