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19

Tales Told, and a Covenant Invoked

So, with Matty and Lauren back, the five of them sat around and told scary stories, as was the way. Not just ghost stories, either, but local weird folklore shit—the Ratfinger Man of Dark Hollow, the glass house cannibals of Haydock Mountain, the eerie ghost lights of Hansell Road, the haunted quarry at Ramble Rocks, even the 120-year-old orchard cult of Henry Hart Golden. Hamish tried to get Lauren to tell them more about her neighbor’s house, which was supposedly haunted—Owen knew a little of it, since her neighbor Scotty (who was older than them by a few years, already off to college) told stories about all his electronics coming on at weird times in the night and how he sometimes heard what he called “angels singing” inside his walls. But she didn’t want to tell anything. She just sat there on a fallen log, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped so tight around her shins it was like she was trying to disappear inside of herself. Lauren had found her tie-dye sweatshirt and put it on, too, and she peered out from the darkness of its hood. Sometimes smiling, but not in an okay way—and not at anything they were saying or at anything going on around her. Matty, on the other hand, joined in with the rest of the group, laughing and telling stories. Acting even louder and happier than usual. Like he’s putting on a show of it, Owen decided.

All that meant something was up between Lauren and Matty.

They had come back out of the woods not too long after they went in—upon return, their energy was different. Matty came out ahead, Lauren a good ten steps behind. He seemed troubled then, and she seemed…almost venomously carefree, arms swinging, chin up, but eyes decidedly down . She plonked herself at the fire and snatched the bottle from Owen’s hand and drank a good glug of the whiskey before giving him a wink and a sneer.

“You okay?” he had asked her.

Whiskey in one hand, she gave him a thumbs-up with the other.

“Aces and eights,” was all she said.

But since then, that energy had shifted. Matty had seemed off—but now he was on, on, on, like he was emceeing the whole thing. Lauren, on the other hand, had fallen into her own quiet darkness. Withdrawn into the sweatshirt. The fire danced in her eyes as she stared into its heart.

Owen felt happy because those two weren’t getting along.

And then he felt shitty because he felt happy.

He wanted her to be happy—

But then, a smaller, meaner, and all the more selfish voice whispered, But you want her to be happy with you, isn’t that it, Owen?

His happiness, then: a big red balloon, blowing up, up, up, all big and bright and bold, but empty inside, airless and hollow.

Hamish was telling a story at this point. Something about some creepy book called the Voynich manuscript—bound in human skin, five hundred years old. “It’s, like, written in code, right? A, a, you know, a whatsitcalled, a cipher. And it has all these photos—hah, no, I mean, shit, drawings, it has all these fuckin’ drawings of weird plants and animals that don’t exist and these naked preggo ladies in, you know—” He used his hands to mime the shape of something oblong. “ Vats. Or whatever. And—”

“ Jesus, ” Nick said. “You tell a story like Phish plays a song.”

“Shots fired!” Matty said.

Hamish laughed. “You fucker. I’m just high.”

“All right,” Matty yawped, clapping his hands as he stood up. “Let’s do it.”

“Do what?” Nick asked. “Insult shitty jam band Phish some more? I’m down, but we might hurt Hamish’s fee-fees.”

“No. Let’s go back to the staircase.”

Owen’s blood turned to ants, his veins their tunnels. He shivered as goosebumps prickled his skin. “I dunno. It’s dark, and you said it wasn’t safe…”

“I might be too high to fuck with a staircase,” Hamish said.

Nick shrugged. “Yeah, man, I’m comfy here, and there’s a fire, and there’s beer, and I don’t wanna get up. Besides—” He pointed his lit cigarette across the fire toward Lauren. “I don’t think she’s all that interested.”

No response from Lauren except a single middle finger thrust out and up.

“Whatever,” he said.

“So you all are little scaredy chickenshits,” Matty said, holding up both hands in a kind of faux surrender. “Okay, sorry, I didn’t realize you were all a big batch of sad soggy pussies.”

“Fuck you,” Nick said.

Hamish waved Matty off. “Whatever, dude.”

“It’s just dark,” Owen said again, defensive.

Lauren said nothing, gaze remaining fixed on the fire.

“I’m invoking the Covenant,” Matty said with some finality. He shrugged and threw up his hands as if to say, Well, that’s that, what choice do I have?

Something passed between them all—jaws eased open, brows furrowed, bodies shifted uncomfortably. Like they couldn’t believe it, an eerie, ozone electricity buzzing in the air. Matty? Invoking the Covenant? Now, over this?

It was the end of an era. They all felt it. The sea change.

And then came the eruptions of discontent.

Hamish: “That’s not—no, you can’t—dude, Matty, dude, c’mon—”

Nick: “What the fuck, Matty.”

Owen: “Matty, Matty— Matty .”

Lauren, loudest of them all, and with more than a little anger dosing her words: “Not how the Covenant works, bro .”

She was right.