I.
The Woods
It was Caleb who told us about the church in the woods. Caleb knew every urban legend in town.
Me and his twin sister, Beck, would go along with him in search of proof and a glimpse of the supernatural.
There was the lizard man, the haunted frog pond, and the murder house on Ash Street. There was the abandoned sanatorium, where a cult performed black magic and human sacrifices, and the Bunny Bridge, which was said to be a portal into hell.
They were all easily debunked.
The lizard man was arrested for illegally owning and selling exotic wild animals. The haunted frog pond wasn’t haunted, but it was disgusting. It was full of algae, condoms, cigarette butts, and who knows what else.
The Ash murder house was the scene of a brutal family murder but no longer exists, as it was demolished a few years ago and transformed into a memorial garden.
The sanatorium, while incredibly creepy, housed no cult, just a group of acid-dropping goths who were happy to share their drugs with us.
And the Bunny Bridge was not a portal to hell but the home of territorial wasps who had taken the bridge as their own.
And then there was the Church in the woods and the cemetery surrounding it.
The legend in town said a powerful witch lived there, surrounded by the graves of her children. They said if she caught you trespassing, she would steal your soul and keep you for eternity as her child.
It was interesting, sure, especially as try as we might, we could never find the church. There was a ritual you had to perform, and of course, none of us knew what that entailed.
We figured it was just the adult’s way of scaring us into staying out of the woods.
When Caleb talked about the other legends, it was with harmless fascination. The church was different.
He spoke about it in hushed reverence.
He wanted to be the first to find it, and he vowed he would.
“I’m going to find it,” he said one night as we ate pizza and watched movies.
“Sure,” Beck said, her mouth full of sauce and cheese. “You do that, Caleb.”
“I am,” he said, uncharacteristically serious.
“I’m going to find it, guys, I will, and then I’ll show you.”
Beck and I shared a look, and she shrugged.
“Okay,” she said. “We believe you.”
❧
I saw little of Caleb for the rest of the year, and I forgot all about the church.
The school year had started, and as a senior, I was so busy that I had no time to think of urban legends.
Instead, I focused on my AP classes, college applications, counseling meetings, applying for scholarships, midterms, finals, and prom.
As busy as we were, me and Beck made time for one another. We had been dating for five years, and I was a regular fixture at her house, as mine was hectic because of my four younger brothers.
That was the night that changed everything.
It was a typical Friday night with Beck and me eating pizza and watching some crappy horror films.
I asked her how Caleb was doing, as his absence was pronounced tonight. He would usually join us.
“Is he okay? I haven’t seen him around lately.”
“You wouldn’t,” Beck said. “He’s basically on house arrest. Dad found out he’s failing three classes and might not graduate. He’s allowed to go to school and the bathroom, and that’s it.”
She said this casually, but I knew that she was worried.
“What’s going on with him, Beck?” I asked.
But she wouldn’t look at me, and I changed the subject.
❧
We were fully engrossed in the movie when Caleb burst into Beck’s room. His eyes were wide and manic, and with his wild hair and untamed beard, I barely recognized him.
“Lourdes! Beck! You guys, I did it! I did it; I finally found it!”
“Stop it, Caleb,” Beck said sharply. “Get out, or I’ll call dad.”
Caleb ignored his sister and set his attention on me. He was trembling in his excitement. “I found it, Lourdes. I found the church!”
I was confused at first, and then realization dawned on me.
“You found it?” I said in genuine amazement. “How?”
Caleb went into a long-winded explanation that I didn’t even attempt to follow.
“The trees! I figured out that you have to trust the trees. And then the crows follow them, but not the bats; the bats are liars. And the grave! The baby’s grave. It’s there; it’s all there!”
He babbled nonsensically and paced back and forth.
He looks crazy, I thought. He looks possessed.
Was this what he had been doing this entire year? Talking to trees and following crows?
His obsession had pushed him over the edge.
“Will you come, you guys? Please, you said you would come.”
“No,” Beck said.
“Sure,” I said.
We looked at one another.
I had to admit that I was curious. Nobody had ever found the church, and this would probably be the end of our search for urban legends because, in a few months, we would head off to college.
Beck looked tired. She gnawed on her bottom lip.
I squeezed her hand gently.
Come on,” I whispered. “We said we would, after all.”
She rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her choppy hair.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Fine. If we do this, and he sees there’s nothing there but his delusions, maybe he’ll finally wake the fuck up.”
I smiled at her, and she smiled back, but it was strained, and I saw fear flickering in her eyes.
❧
Beck drove, and Caleb talked nonstop the entire ride to the woods.
He told us about the twisted trees and the talking animals he encountered.
He spoke about the faces in the fog and the cemetery with sunken headstones.
I looked at his reflection in the rearview window. His eyes were wild, and there was sweat on his upper lip. His hands gesticulated wildly as he talked.
Before we left, Beck pulled me aside as Caleb went to his room to bring the supplies. Whatever those were.
“Are you sure you want to do this? He’s been freaking me out, Lourdes. It’s beyond obsession now.”
“Let’s do it,” I urged. “We both know that we won’t be doing this anymore after we graduate. I know you’re curious because I am.”
Beck said nothing. She was still biting her lip.
“I am,” she admitted. “But I’m also scared. What if this is a trap?” She said, “Like the real Caleb is gone, and this Caleb is leading us there to feed us to the witch.”
“Beck,” I laughed. “That is the plot of the shitty movie we just watched.”
“I know, but Lourdes, he’s been so weird this entire year. I mean, weirder than usual.” She fell silent again, clearly weighing the options in her head.
“Okay, fine, alright, let’s go, but don’t die and have your ghost come crying to me because I told you so.”
After seeing Caleb like this, though, Beck’s uncertainty about the situation made sense.
As if reading my thoughts, Caleb stopped mid-sentence and met my gaze.
He smiled at me and bared his teeth. A trickle of dark blood ran down one nostril, and his eyes rolled back into his head, exposing wet empty sockets.
I gasped, but when I blinked, the blood was gone, and Caleb looked at me curiously. His eyes were tired but completely normal.
I smiled nervously and turned back to face the road.
“Are you okay?” Beck asked, glancing at me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just excited.”
It had just been a trick of the light, I assured myself. Nothing else.
But for the rest of the ride, I felt him looking at me, and I knew he was smiling.
❧
The woods aren’t woods so much as it is a groves.
It’s relatively big, and the paths are confusing; if you aren’t familiar with the area, you’ll get lost.
Exploring the woods is a rite of passage for the kids in town. We grew up splashing in the dirty creek and digging in the ground, looking for gold. All we ever unearthed were fat earthworms and clusters of pill bugs.
At night, we would run through it under a blanket of black sky and silver stars. We played tag, climbed trees, and waded in that gross water.
I live close to the woods. You could technically call it my backyard.
Beck parked on the curb by my house. It was completely dark outside.
Good, I thought. Everyone was sleeping or out for the night.
I wasn’t sure which, so just in case, I gestured to Beck and Caleb to be quiet, and we tiptoed to the backyard.
There was no point, though, because the gate screeched as I opened it, but the lights blessedly remained off, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
We approached the woods, me and Beck hesitated while Caleb walked ahead.
I held Beck’s hand, and she smiled at me, and then we followed Caleb into the darkness.
We had a witch to find.
Maybe it was because my imagination was running wild, but I swear that when we entered the woods, it grew significantly darker.
The tree’s branches swayed in the wind, sprinkling us with droplets of rain, and the ground was thick with mud.
We said nothing while we followed Caleb, but I could tell that Beck was annoyed. Her body was tense with frustration, and her lips were thin as she chewed on the words she was dying to spit out.
It was nearly midnight, and the sky was pitch black. There were no stars, just the moon, dim and yellow.
Honestly, I was disappointed. With us learning that the church and witch were real, I thought the woods would change into a landscape of phantasmagorical horrors, complete with thick fog and disembodied whispers warning us to leave.
It was creepy, but the same woods I had walked in hundreds of times before. The only difference was the volumes of sound that had increased tenfold–the babble of water, the chirp of bugs, and the low hoot of an owl.
This was the soundtrack of the night.
Caleb was quiet, a dramatic turn from how talkative he had been the entire ride here.
His lips were pinched and white in a determined grimace, and his eyes were serious.
We had been walking for around ten minutes when he suddenly stopped.
I nearly stumbled into him, and Beck glared at his backside as though, with her gaze, she could set him on fire.
We were at a junction that divided itself into many paths. The left led to the highway; the right led to the creek, and the centermost one took you to the farmhouse, an abandoned, dilapidated relic that the county pretended didn’t exist.
Caleb was muttering to himself. He took out a pouch, opened it, and poured its contents onto the ground.
I saw bits of wheat, corn, raisins, and sunflowers. It was birdseed.
What the hell is he doing? I thought. Beck opened her mouth, but Caleb held up his hand.
“Please,” he said, still spreading the birdseed. “I can’t have anyone interrupt me.”
This was the Caleb I knew. Intelligent and methodical.
He stood still for a moment. It had become very quiet; even the wind had stopped. I could only hear Caleb’s heavy breathing. It looked as though he were steeling himself for something.
He nodded and then pulled something out of his bag. And it took me a moment to realize that it was a knife.
Before I could say anything or even react, Caleb held his hand out and slashed at his palm.
I gasped, Beck shrieked, and Caleb was silent except for his blood dripping onto the ground.
Beck was pissed, and she rushed toward him.
She stopped in her tracks as Caleb looked at her. His eyes were wild and angry.
She gawked at him but didn’t say a word.
Beck was the oldest by nine minutes and was the stereotypical tough, bossy sister, while Caleb was her opposite; he was shy and sweet. I had never seen him like this before, and Beck hadn’t either.
Dark blood streamed down Caleb’s wrist; and dripped off his fingertips like rain.
I felt sick but watched transfixed as each droplet of blood-stained and seeped into the bird seed.
We heard them before we saw them.
It was a low buzzing, like an annoying fly invading your personal space but times that by one hundred. The buzzing crescendoed into deep guttural croaking.
Beck and I looked at one another and then stared at the sky.
Even in the darkness, we could see it, a dark cloud coming closer and closer.
There is no fucking way, I thought. What the fuck?
They were crows, dozens and dozens of crows flying towards us, their maniacal cawing so loud that I temporarily went deaf.
There were so many of them they blocked out the faraway moon. We were plunged into absolute darkness, and now deaf and blind, I could only feel their presence. Their feathers struck my face.
A group of crows is called a murder, I thought wildly.
Murdermurdermurdermurdermur
And then my senses returned to me. The moon reappeared, and I watched as they flew towards Caleb and descended onto the birdseed hungrily.
It was silent except for the clicking of beaks.
“What in the absolute fuck?” Beck muttered. “Caleb, what the fuck is going on?”
Caleb turned his gaze away from the crows he had been watching with interest.
They ate the birdseed until it was gone and then, in complete synchronization, took flight toward the path on the left.
Caleb looked at us with a slight grin on his face.
“I told you we must follow the crows,” he said.
“Dramatic much?” Beck said under her breath.
Caleb ignored her. His eyes tracked the crows. “Let’s -“ he said, and then he stopped. He looked scared.
My stomach dropped as I followed his gaze, and my heart pounded so hard it hurt.
Two shadowy figures emerged from the thicket of trees ahead of us, and I felt the hate, the evil emanating from them.
They staggered toward us, hands outstretched, reaching with long, thin fingers. And I know that this is the witch and her minion, ready to gouge out our eyes and eat our souls.
I screamed. Beck screamed. Caleb screamed.
And then, shockingly, his shriek cut off and turned into laughter.
“Oh, you guys came! You made it!” He said gleefully.
I blinked, and the shadows came into focus. The moonlight unveiled them.
A boy and a girl around our age stared back at us. The girl’s full lips were twisted into a sly smile.
What was she doing here? I thought.
“Oh god, not you.” Beck said, her voice dripped with disdain.“What are you doing here?”
The girl in front of us was still smiling. Her pretty brown face was arrogant, and her hair was long and woven into tiny braids.
She pushed a braid out of her face with one long, lacquered nail.
“I could ask the same of you, Rebecka.” She said snidely. “Why are you here?”
“Caleb is my brother, dumbass. I don’t have to answer you.”
“And Caleb is my boyfriend, Rebecka. I don’t have to answer you either.”
Beck turned to Caleb, enraged.
“You told me you guys broke up!” She said, and Caleb had the grace to look ashamed. He looked down at the ground, his cheeks burning.
“Well, we did, but then Madeline -“
Madeline sauntered over to Caleb and wrapped her arms around his waist. She glared at Beck.
“Why do you think we must tell you everything about our relationship? What’s it to you?”
The two started to bicker, and Caleb attempted to calm them down, but they ignored him as if he wasn’t there.
“Who are you?” I said to the boy, who looked like he would love nothing more than to disappear back into the trees.
He looked like a pale version of Madeline with bright red hair.
“Ezra, um, I’m Ezra,” he cleared his throat. “Madeline’s brother.”
“Half-brother,” Madeline corrected, pausing her fight with Beck. She stared daggers at Ezra.
Ezra rolled his eyes. “Right, her half-brother. Madeline needed a ride here and didn’t want to go in alone. She failed her driving test again and-“
“Shut up, Ezra!” Madeline screeched.
He smirked, and I did too. “Right, sorry. She did not fail her test for the 3rd time; she just needed a chaperone.”
Madeline looked murderous.
I laughed. I liked Ezra already.
Caleb and Madeline had been dating on and off since 7th grade. Mostly off because of Madeline.
She and Beck had once been friends, but then something had shifted, and the once besties were now enemies.
“Why were you guys hiding behind the tree?” I asked. “Why were you trying to scare us?”
Ezra had the decency to look ashamed, but Madeline burst into peals of laughter.
“We got you, didn’t we? Whew, the look on your faces was so funny!”
“No, it wasn’t funny, Madeline, you stupid cow,” Beck snapped. “You’re lucky if I don’t dropkick you.”
That started a fresh round of bickering. My head was starting to hurt.
“Uh, guys,” I said. “Can we keep moving? I want to go to sleep before dawn.”
They stopped, and Beck said sorry. She sheepishly came to my side while Madeline hugged Caleb’s waist.
“Lead the way,” Beck said somewhat resignedly. “We’re all here, so time to meet this witch.”
Caleb smiled and gestured toward the trees where the crows perched.
They flew towards the tree, and the trees parted. Some bent, and others uprooted themselves. Their branches arched, and their trunks twisted to reveal a hidden path.
A path that shimmered in a kaleidoscope of patterns made up of colors I have no name for.
I don’t think there is a word to describe how I felt at this moment, but if I had to settle on one, it would be enchanted. It deepened with every step I took.
What is this place that ceremony, blood, and crows have revealed?
I’m tripping. Much harder than the time I took acid in that rotting asylum.
I liked it, though.
I could see the air moving, and the wind was calling my name.
The trees whispered to one another, and the crows again perched themselves on their waving branches, silent and staring.
They saw everything.
This is it, I thought giddily. This is where I want to die.
I do not know where that thought came from, and I don’t care.
There was a rumbling underneath me that made my entire body shake, and without looking, I knew those crooked trees had straightened and returned to their respective roots.
I know that the path behind us has closed.
❧
The bats were following me, and they told me horrible things.
“Somebody died in the creek, you know–a young boy,” one whispered.
“His body was swollen and blue when they fished him out,” another bat sneered. “And when they placed him on the dirt, his stomach burst and was full of maggots.”
“Don’t you want to know what the farmer’s wife thought as he bashed her head open?” The third bat giggled. “Oh, the things your mind says as you’re dying. You’d be surprised, oh, you would be surprised.”
The bats are liars, Caleb had said. Okay, but a boy had drowned in the creek. We had been friends, and I remember seeing the police officers trudge into the woods and come out holding a large black bag, looking pale.
And the farmer in that farmhouse had murdered his wife and then shot himself with his shotgun after.
Not lies, truths.
I wondered if anybody else was experiencing what I was. I looked around me, and Beck was pale, Madeline’s eyes were wide and afraid, and Ezra’s cheeks were wet with tears, and when - he looked at me, I saw that his eyes were red.
Only Caleb looked unperturbed.
Maybe Beck was right, I thought. Perhaps he had made a deal with the witch, and we were his sacrifices.
“She won’t take your eyes,” the bat said, so close to my ear that its fur tickled me. “She’ll rip out your heart and make you eat it, and then she’ll bury you alive.”
“Stop,” I muttered and shooed it away. “Go away, you little shit.”
I tried to focus on where I was and where we were going. Beck’s hand was warm and soft in my own, which grounded me.
It’s quiet, and the crows unfurled in the sky like streaming ribbons. Occasionally, they shed a feather, and it drifted
down
down
down
I caught one and marveled at its beauty. It shimmered in my hand; it was embedded with dark jewels.
I turned it over for further inspection, and when I did, the jewels shifted and crawled over my wrist. They trailed down my arm and crept up my neck; they burrowed themselves into my hair.
I dropped the feather and pat meted myself as if I were on fire. I itched all over.
They fell off me like raindrops and scurried away on the rainbow trail. Those aren’t jewels, I thought, feeling sick. They’re bugs.
Beck looked disgusted. She said nothing, but I knew she wanted to.
The deeper we walked into the woods, the trippier it became.
The sky was red; I saw no moon or sun; everything was burning.
The flat ground transformed into crumbling cobblestone, and I know I shouldn’t be amazed after everything I’ve experienced so far, but oh, I was.
My body vibrated with every step, and it thrummed with energy. It felt good; it felt really, really good.
The air changed; it smelled sweet but unpleasant. It reminded me of the smell of rotting fruit.
The trees were breathing. Slow inhales and loud exhales that made their branches quiver.
Everything around me was shimmering, and I was blinded by sensations and colors
My vision distorted, and what I saw was terrifying. Beck’s eyes were large black pools, and her mouth was wide and screaming.
Madeline’s mouth was stretched from ear to ear like a smug Cheshire Cat. Her teeth were very sharp.
Ezra’s red hair was on fire, and when I looked at him, I saw that his eyes had burst and ran down his face like yolk.
Caleb turned to look at me, and he was bloated and blue. When he opened his mouth to speak, wriggling maggots dribbled out.
His mouth kept moving, but I couldn’t hear him. All I heard was a high-keening whistle.
It grew higher and higher, and I felt something hot and wet drip out of my ears, and when I touched it, my fingers came away smeared with dark red blood.
My blood clumped together and then broke apart.
It transformed into ruby red jewels that then turned into bugs.
They climbed up my arm and chewed through my neck. They dug into the whorls and spirals of my brain.
My skull burned, and I heard screams.
Bloodcurdling screams that made the leaves on the trees curl and fall to the ground, smoldering.
The screams went on and on, and more blood leaked from my ears. It sprayed from my nose like a geyser and trickled from my eyes like tears.
I couldn’t see, hear or breathe. I was drowning in blood.
And then everything went black, the screaming stopped, and the world was silent.
I opened my eyes. I was on the ground. The sky no longer burned; it was black and starless.
Beck and Ezra’s terrified faces loomed over me. Beck’s skin was milk-white, and she was crying.
“Are you okay?” She asked after they help ex me up.
“I’m fine,” I replied, but my voice shook, and my hands were trembling and smeared with dried blood.
“What is happening? What happened?”
Beck didn’t answer; instead, she whirled on Caleb. He stood to the side with a scared-looking Madeline. His face was blank, and Beck’s contorted in rage.
“We are done.” She spat. “I don’t give a shit about any of this anymore, Caleb! Lourdes is bleeding from her fucking ears and eyes and nearly didn’t wake up, and you’re just standing there! You cut yourself like some goddamn sacrifice. I’m done. We. Are. Done.” She repeated. “Fuck you, and fuck this fucking place and this so-called witch. You can stay, but we are out.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me down the path from whence we had come.
“The path’s closed,” Caleb called behind us. “You can’t get out that way. I’m the only one who knows the way. I know what to do to get in and get out.”
Beck’s shrieks were incomprehensible.
“Then tell me how to get the fuck out, Caleb, you fucking asshole!”
“Besides,” Caleb said, ignoring her. “We’re already here.”
“What?”
Beck and I looked at one another and then turned around.
I gasped, and Beck muttered more curses.
It was there. We were there.
❧
There were faces in the fog of all ages and genders. The only similarity was their eyes. They’re closed as though they were sleeping.
The church loomed in the distance on a hill.
It’s made of crumbling, white brick weathered by time and lack of care.
Its door was painted a dull, dirty grey, and on top of its small structure was a steeple. It housed a church bell that swayed gently in the breeze.
Surrounding the church were dozens of old headstones; they jutted from the ground like crooked teeth. The fog rested there like a blanket.
Beck and I had rejoined the group, and we stared at the scenery before us.
“I can’t believe it’s real; it’s fucking real,” I heard Beck mutter.
I looked at Caleb, and I was shocked to see him kneeling on the ground, crying.
“Hello,” he sobbed. “I’m here again.”
Yeah, this was weird.
I understood, though.
The church and its cemetery were hauntingly beautiful. The scenery reminded me of a fairy tale, a macabre fairy tale, sure, but a fairy tale nevertheless.
The sky was cloudless and light blue, and the sun beamed down on the church seraphically.
Everything was beautiful. This was where the witch lived?
Caleb had finally stopped crying and swiped at his wet cheeks; he stood up.
He turned to the rest of us, his smile wide and familiar.
I had missed that smile, and a sudden wave of sadness washed over me. It had been so long since I last saw that smile.
“We’re here, you guys! We’re finally here! Didn’t I tell you? Isn’t this amazing?”
Nobody knew what to say. I mean, what is there to say?
We were here, and it was pretty amazing. We had finally found truth in an urban legend. Well, partial truth. We had yet to see the witch.
Beck, who had also been gazing at the church in stunned awe, shook herself out of it as though she just remembered how mad she had been at Caleb ten minutes ago.
She scowled.
“Great, yeah, incredible. It’s amazing. So when are we going? How do we get out?”
Caleb’s brow furrowed as if he didn’t understand what she was saying.
“Get out?” He repeated, puzzled.
“Yeah, Caleb, get out. This has been fun and everything, but it’s getting late or early,” Beck glanced at the sun. “Can we go?”
“But we just got here, Rebecka! We haven’t even seen the witch!”
“Do you not see how creepy this is? How weird it all feels?”
“It feels just fine! God, I am so tired of you bossing me around. We only do what you want to do!”
Caleb was wrong, though. Beck was right. It doesn’t feel good here. It was beautiful, but everything was wrong. My skin prickled with goosebumps.
Ezra and Madeline looked as uncomfortable as I felt. Madeline stared at the church as quietly as a mouse; her mouth was ajar.
“How do we leave?” Beck asked again. “You said you know how.”
“I do,” Caleb said.
“Then do it.”
“No.”
“Then tell us!”
“No!”
Beck grabbed Caleb’s bag, snarling, and Caleb slapped her hands away. She bit him, and he yelped. They slap-fought one another, and she put him in a headlock until he dropped it.
Beck picked it up, and she stuck her tongue out at him and opened it. She pulled out a notebook, frowning.
She flipped through its pages and then threw it at him.
“It’s fucking empty, you asshole!”
“I know!” Caleb shot back, and he rubbed his bruised arm. He tapped his head. “It’s all up here, I told you. “
“Tell. Me.” Beck said through gritted teeth.
“No. Come on, we have to find the witch, and you guys will see!”
Caleb turned on his heels and walked towards the church, but he wasn’t looking at where he was going.
He didn’t notice the small grave marker that poked out of the dirt. If he had, he surely would have stepped over it. And if he had tripped and the bigger headstone behind it wasn’t there, he would have just landed face-first in the dirt.
But none of that happened, and that grave was there, and as much as I have wished to change the past, it’s already been written and set in stone.
When Caleb tripped over the grave marker, I saw the look of surprise on his face. He looked ridiculous at that moment like he wanted to say oh shit, this is going to hurt.
I shut my eyes, but it was too late. It wouldn’t have done me good, anyway. The sound of Caleb’s neck breaking would haunt me forever.
The quiet that followed is the longest I have ever experienced. I never knew silence could be so loud.
And then the air was ripped open by Beck’s raw, guttural screams.
She ran towards Caleb, and we followed her numb.
Ezra helped as we turned him over carefully while Madeline danced around us, squealing in a small voice: “Don’t move him! Don’t move him! Oh, you’re not supposed to move him!”
We do, and Madeline looked at him and turned her head to vomit.
I took a quick intake of breath.
Caleb’s head was bent to one side, and his eyes were open and blood-red. They were moving and flitted from me to Ezra to Beck. They fixed on Beck, and his lips quivered as though he was trying to smile.
Beck was patting his hand and crying while telling him he was good and fine. We’re going to get help for you, okay? You’re fine, you’re fine, you’ll be okay. I love you. I love you. Don’t leave me like Mom. I love you. Please. Please.
And then Caleb’s eyes stopped moving. They stared up at the sky.
His hand went limp in Beck’s hand, and she grabbed onto him even tighter; her screams were animalistic and primal. She refused to let go of him.
I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t breathe.
I felt robbed of all my senses.
How is it fair that, in a second, life could change everything so drastically?
He was just here. He had been talking and fighting with Beck. He had been smiling.
This was a dream, I thought frantically. Wake up, Lourdes.
Wake up.
But I was awake; it was Caleb who was asleep.
I am so full and heavy with grief that, temporarily; I forget where we are.
The church bell reminded me.
The wind picked up, and the bell slammed against the steeple walls so hard that I thought it would crack.
The sky was darkening with a convergence of clouds. They overtook all the light of the sun.
The wind was furious and blew my hair into my face. But in the wind, I heard a disembodied voice. It was Caleb, and his words made my blood run cold.
“I’m the only one who knows how to get out of here,” Caleb had said. “It’s all up here.”
Oh, no.
This was very bad.