“Are– are you okay? It’s just that you were staring into the abyss and all…” Lukas waved his arms around stiffly to further accentuate the weirdness of my internal mental collapse. He chewed on his bottom lip, causing it to turn even rosier than before.
“I– it’s nothing. I’m more concerned about you though, Luks.” This was true, something akin to guilt, and fear threatened to choke me out. It was getting hard to breathe. “ What just happened was… more than a lot.” I rubbed my knuckles, twisted my fingers, I just felt uncomfortable waiting for him to ask about what happened, demanding answers. Maybe I wanted him to be just as wildly unstable as I was and we could work through this together.
“So..?” It looked as if Lukas was asking me permission to continue, like he’d need to be invited to say whatever it was that made his sandy eyebrows crinkle. I said nothing, only angling my shoulders to him. He took that as an okay signal. “Is Mr. Wilkinson really–”
“Don’t say it.” I interrupted.
So much for letting him ask questions. “I don’t want to talk about that.” I hugged myself, trying to squeeze myself okay again. As if the physical sensation of my arms around me was enough to hold it all together.
“Well…” I murmur, half fearful, half eager to switch topics to literally anything other than this. “I bet you’re still thinking about– about the woods, and the… animals in there.”
“Do you know anything about them?” Lukas asked, his eyes growing rounder than quarters. “That fox– it seemed to know you, and remember how I said I was sleeping late because of my videogames? I lied, I’ve been having nightmare of the same fox and–”
Hold up. What? The fox was in Lukas’s dreams too? Mrs. Takoda didn’t mention anyone else being at risk of the spirits…
“You’ve been seeing the fox too?” I demanded, desperately hoping it was a silly coincidence and not for the same reasons as me. His pained and shocked expression shattered any hope that non–supernatural evils were behind his version of my nightmares. A not-dad-approved word floated and then banged around my head, I felt… angry.
Angry because that fox really was just toying with us.
Angry because almost everyone who’s talked to me in the past two days is somehow at risk.
Angry because it’s been a really long day, and too many things have happened, which is petty and feels inconsiderate and small, considering that Tamara and Tyler Wilkinson don't have a dad anymore and don't even know it yet.
“Aven dear?” Mrs. Takoda’s voice wafted from the kitchen, “Lukas? I just want to let you know that both of your parents are stopping by to drop off your things, is that okay?”
Lukas and I both echoed half heated “Yeah, thanks.” before letting silence fill space between us. Like a corpse.
“I thought that Aven was the only one with nightmares.” Rowan spoke, softer than usual, so I hadn’t even heard the first part of what he’d said.
“What are your nightmares like?” I looked to Lukas’s green eyes to try to disarm him. He never talked about this sort of stuff with me, all the other boys called it “hippie jumbo,” or whatever and thought it was cool to squish bugs under their shoes.
Lukas gulped, and Rowan tried to hand him a glass of water but his offer was shot down with a weakened scowl.
“My nightmares, huh? Well, at first it was just a fox, and I was in the woods– looking for you and that one tree house that fell last summer and became more of a shack and–”
“Stay on track please.” Rowan tried, wincing slightly, as if fearing Lukas’s reaction, but my best friend complied, albeit without acknowledgement. I was just thankful this didn’t turn into anything.
“Everytime, I’d be in search of the rocks first, because you’re always hanging out there. The fox, uhh, it kinda followed me. Then it started talking, and making noises, and being just… creepy. Eventually I started running away from it. It felt right. Like before, I couldn’t tell that it was evil, but now…” He trailed off, looking almost thoughtful for a full second before shaking his head vigorously.
“Anything else?” I pressed, squinting my eyes, as if trying to find words in his eyes written in invisible ink.
“The fox couldn’t walk on the rocks?” Lukas supplied, “I didn’t really get to test it but–”
“It was the same in my dreams too!” My anger was replaced by sparking eagerness to compare notes. Maybe we could even find a weakness!
Comments (0)
See all