The digital clock on the van’s dashboard read 10:44.
His mom usually slept in the very back of the van, where the van’s bed was longest and she could lie down. She was still out with Olivia for the night but Albert and Fred were in the car. Fred slept softly, reclined all the way back in the seat behind the driver's side. Albert was reclined as well in the passenger seat, but all he’d managed to do was stare at the tan, carpeted ceiling of the van.
It started imperceptibly, how she was on his mind. He’d only just talked to her so that was normal. That was ok.
She said she liked his name.
No one had ever said that, except maybe his mom. No one liked that he insisted on using all three of his names. Everyone shortened it to just the first name or even the first syllable. He’d even had people try to shorten it to ‘Bert’ but he hated that one the most. Sure it was a simple compliment, but he didn’t get a lot of compliments. Actually, he wasn’t sure when the last time he’d gotten a compliment was. Was it a side effect of not having friends? Or were compliments only something girls did? He didn’t know much about girls.
It only became a problem when he realized she could hear his inner monologue.
Not really, she wasn’t there and she wasn’t psychic, at least he thought she wasn’t psychic. Still, every thought he had, even the abstract ones, became sentences. Sentences that were spoken in his mind as if he were speaking them out loud, speaking them to her. Without being able to stop, he was pretending he was talking to her. Telling her about what he was thinking and his first impression of her and why. Telling her about how he thought his own first impression had been, reexplaining what he’d said and how he’d acted with the clarity of hindsight.
He couldn’t seem to stop no matter what else he thought about or focused on, he’d just ended up describing that to her. Eventually, he was just telling her about himself. About his life. He told her about the road, the van, and his mom and his brother. He spilled his guts about the church that had been so pivotal in his life, and holding his sister for the first time. He imagined what she’d already know and what he’d have to provide more details about. He pictured her reactions to the inside jokes he described to her, the many many states and schools he’d seen, and the countless kids he’d met. He was ashamed whenever he realized what he was doing, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.
What was happening?
It wasn’t until his brother mumbled at him to be quiet that he realized he was speaking out loud. Talking to the open air as if she could hear. He told stories to the empty space of the driver's seat just to hear what they would sound like to her. He even responded to himself, testing what it would sound like to hear what he imagined her response to be.
What was happening?
Didn’t crazy people talk to themselves? Did it count as talking to himself if he was pretending it was someone else? Was he so lonely he was imagining conversations with imaginary friends? He didn’t feel lonely, but what explanation was there? It wasn’t like he had anyone else he could speak to when it came to things about himself. After the second time his brother yelled at him to be quiet he decided he’d better step outside to get some air. He was never going to get to sleep.
The night had fallen on the woods in black and silver. It cooled the air enough to chill the skin that was exposed by his tee-shirt and shorts, but not cold enough to make him shiver. The woods were completely different at night, with different bugs and different birds, and even different smells.
It felt different.
He was filled with this energy. This excitement. It kept him up and kept his mind running and running with things to think about, things to tell the girl. He’d only talked to her once, It was just once. He paced outside the van just to expel the energy a little. The expanding excitement in his chest demanded he run and jump and flip and do something. It was a passion he didn’t have in the daytime when things were normal. When it was warm, and when he could see when people were around.
He wasn’t just speaking now as he marched back and forth, eventually just walking in brisk circles around the van to avoid having to break stride and turn around. He was picturing things now. He could see it so clearly in his mind's eye. What it would’ve been like if he’d gone with her. Wherever she was going so late at night. What would’ve happened if she’d stayed and hung out a while longer. Would he have told her about the van and his life then? Or would that have been weird after they’d just met?
He’d called her weird, and she’d said thank you.
“What does that mean?” He asked the trees as he paced. Was she still out there now? He glanced into the pitch-black forest and shook his head. No, it had been hours, there was no way she was still out there. He could see light up the trail where the bonfire was. He supposed that was where his mom and sister still were. Was she there? Or had she gone back to her own van? or tent or lean-to? Was she still awake too? Was she talking to him?
No, he supposed normal people probably didn’t do this.
Eventually, he got tired of walking in circles around the van and made his way up the path to the bonfire. He made sure to stay behind the larger shower building so he was out of sight. He was supposed to be in bed, after all. The grownups sat in chairs, listening to old music and laughing in the distance. They shared drinks of all shapes and colors from their coolers. He could see his mom, silhouetted in the light of the large fire against the dark of the woods. Olivia dosed against her shoulder from her perch on their mom's lap as she sat in a woven hammock. He turned to walk around the long side of the shower building and almost shouted as he saw the two blurred shapes scurry out of his path. He watched with haunted eyes as they disappeared into the bushes, suddenly faced with the dark stare of the ghost of his waking thoughts.
The girl looked just as surprised as he was, but she put a finger to her lips and grabbed his arm, dragging him around the building and into the shade of the trail, a bit farther from the adults.
“What are you doing out?” She whispered. “I thought you were afraid of the dark.”
“I’m not-” He whispered hoarsely before he cut himself off. He gestured to himself. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not afraid so can you stop that?” he demanded under the guise of a question. The girl snickered very quietly and nodded.
“Ok, you’re not scared. You came out here to prove it?”
“No,”
“Why then?”
He paused. How did he explain the creepy, complicated, borderline-crazy reason he was out of bed?
“Couldn’t sleep.” He shrugged, deciding it was a valid interpretation. “Why are you out again?” He shot the question back.
“I was just coming back.” She explained.
“You were gone the whole time?” He whispered, a little too loudly, and she pulled him farther away.
“Yeah, It takes a while to get there.” She said, looking up into the branches of the trees. The stars were visible so far away from the fire.
“Get where?” He asked, unsure what she was looking at but gazing up anyway. She looked into the woods, seemingly unsure how to answer for a few moments. Finally, a wry smile spread over her face and she looked him in the eye again.
“Wanna see?” She asked. He looked into the woods and thought. She just said it was far away through the woods in the dark. She couldn’t be serious about going back just to show it to him.
He’d wanted to show her things he thought were cool, things he knew about.
He was supposed to be in bed, but she wasn’t. He was supposed to play outside during the day, but she walked around at night because she said it felt different. It did indeed feel different, and he wanted to feel it more. There was an undeniable energy in his chest. An excitement that blossomed and ballooned inside him and demanded he move, run, do something. It dragged him physically forward by his lungs and made his legs move to keep up. It felt fantastic, like leaving his skin, like the sensation of flying but just shy… and he wanted to follow it. More than anything he’d ever wanted or any identity he’d ever had, he wanted to follow this feeling.
He was afraid to go out in the dark, afraid to disappoint his mom, and afraid to follow a stranger. He was afraid to tell her the things he told her in his mind. The things he told no one. He was afraid of how quickly it had happened. How in just one day, one person, had been enough to change everything. He was afraid of this girl with the dark stare and the unpredictable words and the bare feet that walked upon stones and thorns of the forest as if they were the ones in need of protection. Albert was afraid to go with her.
But Albert was brave.
Before he’d even known he nodded he was following her down the trail, away from the center of the commune. She led him off the path to the left where there was a break in the trees. He took a deep breath and with one dry sneaker and one damp sneaker, he stepped into the pitch-black forest.
The fear was what hit him first. The ominous sensation, like walking past a graveyard at night. The rational knowledge that something bad isn't going to happen was swallowed by an uncontrollable certainty. That if something were to happen, it would be right here tonight. Yet as they walked the feeling faded. His eyes adjusted to the dark and the light of the full moon lit the forest like a second sun. It really was the same forest as it was in the sun.
When the fear had dulled from an unnamed dread to mild discomfort, the silence was what hit him next. As they walked over bushes and under branches, the sounds of the cars and the laughter and the bonfire gradually dimmed until all that he could hear were the distant insects and the crunch of young feet on the leaves in the woods. He walked with her and they said nothing, just focusing on making it through the beaten trail, her in front and Albert close behind. Eventually, he noticed the solitude. Not the kind of lonely solitude that came with never having friends longer than a few weeks. The peaceful solitude of knowing there was no one for miles. Something he didn’t get often while living in the van. It was the comforting solitude of being the only person in the world.
It took too long for Albert to realize he wasn’t following her aimlessly, they were walking a deer trail. Trodden by the animals and taken through the roughest parts of the woods. He followed her for years, it seemed, and she never slowed. Never even breathed hard as she took the trail like it was the first road she'd ever learned to walk. It was all he could do to follow her as she dragged him through the thicker and thicker forest. His clothes got caught on the thorns and his arms and legs were scraped. He'd been so upset earlier over a little brush burn but now his body was in far worse shape just from a girl.
This girl.
He felt the excitement leave him as he fought his way through the woods to keep up. The deer trail ended, and they were just pushing through now-untrodden woodland. He felt his spirit return to his body after a night of flight. He felt his eyelids become heavy, and his movements become sluggish in the quiet. He felt himself becoming less and less determined until finally, he felt like he'd never make it all the way there. The thorns grabbed his clothes and dragged him back until he couldn’t take another step, caught in their claws. It was that thought, that doubt, that seemed to make her turn around. She smiled at him, evil and toothy and with such anticipation.
She took his hand. Not in a cute way or even a friendly way. She took his hand in hers like she was going to pull him from the water and into the last lifeboat from a sinking ship, stranded without a lifejacket and kept afloat only by his own power. She took his hand as someone might reach for a friend in the wreckage of a building. She reached for him as if she could somehow pull his body from his open grave, lift him from his life to a place beside her where she seemed to stand above it all.
His heart stopped in fear and fascination as gently, she led him by the hand through the last yards of weeds and gripping thorns before they spilled out into a clearing. Onto a cliff.
They stood atop an enormous cliff overlooking a creek that ran down into it. The current swirled in the belly of the massive crater and churned in a roaring noise of water. The trees swayed in ripples as the wind blew past them and Albert could see them reflecting the moonlight as they waved.
The light reflected off the water and the trees and the jagged black stones. The starlight pooled in the streams that rushed over the rocks like the restless hearts that pounded in the chests of children. The lights danced and the night felt different and for just a moment the world was a place of magic. Actual magic.
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