by Micah Keel
The first thing I did when I got back home was smash my cell. I drove over it with the car seven times in the driveway. I went inside at 3am to my mother, who was unsurprised to have lost me and unsurprised to have me back. She said I was my father’s son. The prayer candles were still lit in the window. I fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning I rode my bike to June’s house even though she didn’t live there anymore. I knew April from school. We’d actually been pretty friendly even though she was two grades above me. She had made sure the cops hadn’t come after us when we disappeared. In return, I’d given her as many updates on the situation as I could. I actually found it really difficult to explain the situation to anybody who wasn’t there. June didn’t know I was talking to her sister. Neither of them knew I was on my way to her.
When I was riding over, I saw colorful shapes at the edge of my vision. The visuals stayed with me the entire ride, some of them forming into moving shapes at the edge of the trees. I kept mistaking them for other things, mostly gnomes. I assumed it was sleep derivation exacerbating the condition. I still felt like shit.
I rolled up to the front door of April’s house in the same clothes I’d picked up Lola’s dead body in. The blood was discolored to not even resemble blood anymore, so I didn’t think much of it. I knew I looked bad though, because April - who also looked bad - told me I looked bad. She had clearly just woken up and her hair was sticking all out on ends. I’d arrived so early that her uncle hadn’t even left for work yet. I didn’t want to explain the situation to an adult. He seemed to realize this and did not push the issue. In retrospect, I can’t believe this. I wonder what the hell was wrong with our parents all the time. But that’s what happened. April pulled me into her room.
I tried to condense what had happened in the last 24 hours as best as I could. Explaining anything about Lola seemed like a no-go, even though everything revolved around this. I didn’t even mention that she had been mortally wounded - why would I? She just came back ten minutes later. All that I thought would matter to April was that the two of them had left and didn’t want to be followed.
April asked me if I thought I would ever see them again. I said yes and that she would too, in all likelihood. It’s not the kind of thing that goes away.
April told me she was moving to New York City at the end of the month. She was turning 18 and was going to live with her old best friend. April still had a New York accent where June did not. She was still homesick.
I didn’t want her to leave because she was one of the only people who knew what had happened and I didn’t want to draw other people into the loop. I gave her the fair warning that Lola was likely wanted and now had fugitive status, that me and June were likely guilty by association, and that she should be aware of her surroundings because of this. April listened but did not seem to think much of it. She was getting ready the entire time I talked to her. She was dressing for her shift at the cafe. I didn’t have a job. I was tired. I told her not to text me cause my phone was broken and I biked back home.
I spent the next couple days being unable to distinguish my dreams from reality. I was sleeping a lot to try and catch up on the time I missed while out in the woods, but it felt like I had never left. I was always surprised to see my own room around me instead of the cabin. I felt the same sense of dread to be waking up alone and at twilight. I was still rigged nocturnal.
The visuals were getting steadily worse. Some of it I could account for. There were more fairies at the border and more spirits in the sky. I’d been expecting them because it was clear the veil was lifting at that point. There were other things that I knew could not actually be there, even with my belief suspended. Those usually happened within the house. I saw wolves passing by through my living room at witching hour and figures huddled in the corner. I saw Lola often, in dreams and while awake. I mostly saw her as she had been on the forest floor with her spine cleaved. I counted myself lucky she did not try to speak to me.
I kept running into myself as well. I would see my own body disappearing behind corners or walking past doorways at the edge of my vision. One night, I woke up to see him laying on the ceiling right above my bed. His eyes had been hollowed out and his mouth hung open like the jaw had been broken. I turned the light on and he did not disappear so I just slept in the living room instead. I didn’t know what to make of these visions, whether they were symptoms of worsening psychosis or a kind of psychic attack. It was worse now than when I’d been ignorant about the occult. I tried to rationalize them into the framework I now knew existed and it failed more often than not. It would be easier to explain it to a stranger who believed in SSRIs than it would to someone like Ezekiel, who would tell me that parts of it were actually true and that I should look closer at the screaming faces I found within the wood grain.
The only break I really got from these episodes were in the daytime with April or on insomniac nights with my mom. They were the only two people I saw for that entire week. And I didn’t see my mom very often at all. She worked at the hospital most of the day and slept most of the night. But sometimes she roused too and sat with me in the nighttime. The kitchen was lit up with candles and the fire from the stove as she poured tea. I’ve decided not to say much about my parents, which seems to be the choice the others are coming to as well. The less exposed they are, the better. I will say that my mother is a very patient woman. She has put up with my seizures all my life. This was the third Lola-fiasco she had sat through – and she handled it with the same grace she’d had for the others. I breathed a little easier on those nights, but I was still scared of the dark.
It was easier for me to be out in the sunlight, but I didn’t like to be in the open. There was a higher likelihood of encountering threats and them not registering as anything more than a hallucination. I almost got hit by a pink Cadillac because I thought it was too tacky to be real. Still, I made the trek to April’s house twice that week. We smoked cigarettes on the deck outside of her window. She was playing bedroom pop from the speaker and the LEDs that lined her room were the only light source for several blocks. I couldn’t believe how clear the sky was on those days. We didn’t talk much because I wasn’t very good at talking just then. April was eager to leave the state. She never seemed to be doing anything else when I came over. She made me feel strange. When I looked at her, I always felt like I was missing something. My mind couldn’t put the pieces of her together. I hated the feeling of noncomprehension very powerfully. I felt it as a kind of phobia.
I still felt at my worst after leaving. I had to walk home in the dark and close to the train tracks. They were better lit than any of the wood paths, but were always deserted. It was easy for my mind to play tricks on me with the shadows and the lights. I was on the path home when the sky split open and began to pour. If I had been thinking clearly, I might’ve realized how strange the abrupt storm was. I had been stargazing with April only moments before and there had been no clouds in the sky. But I was not thinking clearly then and was mostly caught up on the mist and reflections of the orange light on the pavement. I felt my eyes moving erratically and involuntarily, as they did sometimes. I was focused on trying to get them straight, but they were drawn to the crest of the hill.
I knew it was him instantly. He was standing on the railroad tracks, all obscured but for his silhouette, and I knew it was him. I thought about running and could not bring myself to. I walked past him. From the corner of my eye, I saw him coming down the hill.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to do to me,” He called from a few paces behind me. His voice was even, but he was clearly straining to keep it that way, “I thought you were dead.” I kept walking, ignoring him as easily as if he'd been another hallucination. He caught up at my side, placing a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away from him and I guess I looked crazier than I thought because it was first time I saw concern across his face.
“Did you think I was going to hurt you?” His voice softened like I was a frightened animal. There was no good answer. I wasn’t afraid of him, really, but I had been shaking all week and the rain didn’t help. I didn’t pull away when he put the back of his hand against my forehead, in the same way my mother had done. I kept my eyes downcast.
“We can still fix this,” He said, mostly talking to himself, “We are going to get you out of the rain and you are going to tell me where she’s gone. And then we are going to go get her before she hurts herself.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it. “I have no idea.”
“Micah,” he smiled back like we were in on the same joke, but his eyes were dark and crazed. “Go pack. For as many days as it will take you to find out. I’ll wait outside.”
He walked me back to my place. I wasn’t really thinking about running anymore, but he still kept close. I asked him if he wanted to meet my mother, which he did not. She wasn’t home, anyway. I had to leave her a note.