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There’s a scratching noise at the window, and I don’t care if it’s branches or leaves.
Wind’s howling. It’s like something’s angry out there. Everything’s covered in that gusty, late-fall vibe that’s whispering about Halloween being around the corner. I’ve got my covers circling my body like I’m in some sort of cocoon. Only up to my neck, though, because however much I’d like to trap in all the warmth, I can’t stand having my face covered up.
However, no matter how much I stay ducked inside, it doesn’t drown out the scratching.
Unfurling my hands, I peel back my blankets. One foot follows the other, sinking into the carpet, teetering me to the window.
Sure enough, I see a glitter in the slit of the drawn curtains- the silver of buttons, the glimmer of sharp eyes.
My hands slip as I undo the latches. She’s already talking before the window’s fully up.
“Heyy, Krismas!” She’s doing her casual military salute she’s so proud of. Her eyes are wild in that way they usually are when she’s bored.
“Dess…?” My voice is clawed with almost-sleep. It’s not uncommon she’d float around here, even at this time of night, but…
I sigh while heaving the window up past where the moisture has made the wood swell. “...Asriel’s not here. He’s spending the night at Pizzapants’ place.”
She slumps against the opening, her antlers scraping into the frame. It’s starting to look like tally marks are being left for every time she haunts the window. There’s too many to count.
“Awwww… bummer. Also, not his name.” Her eyes are closed as she pauses, letting the autumn air drift in and make my room parody the refrigerator. She’s got this pricey-looking trucker jacket that’s probably making this kind of weather way easier for her. Me in my t-shirt, I’m keeping my hands sternly at my sides- if I rub my arms or shiver, she’ll say something about it.
Her eyes crack open with the twinkle of a proposal. She’s now up-to-something.
“...Since Azzy’s not here, you wanna hang out instead?”
I’m thinking about the cold, the quiet, the time of night. Asriel’s digital clock on his nightstand was blinking in angry red about some time in the A.M. It’s dark, and I can’t ever really know if my parents are gonna be in one of their distractible or ‘sniffer dog’ moods. But Des won’t care about my abilities to get caught or not. She doesn’t get caught. Or, when she does, she knows how to not make it matter.
All that comes out as a graceful: “Um.”
Her hands creep onto my windowsill, like she’s a spider-puppy crossbreed begging me to let her creep in. “Aw, c’mon, Kris!” Her voice comes out in a whine. “Come hang out with the big kids!” Her giddy smile turns challenging, as she sizes me up a second time.
“You’re a big kid now… right, Kris?” Her fingers arch, like she’s telling a scary story. She’s adding effect. I know what this means.
And my face is flushing, now. I think about all the excuses and discomfort I thought about reflexively just a moment ago, and weigh them against her piercing gaze. Were Asriel here, he’d listen to her like he always does. Sure, he’d pitch a fit and throw all sorts of protests at her, but he’d eventually cave. Because he gets it too, right? No matter what kind of standards or expectations you might be holding on to, letting her down isn’t worth it. And not even because she’ll be put out by you, or call you chicken…
…But because she’ll let you know she didn’t need you to have fun, anyway.
It’s somehow worse.
…But I also don’t wanna be chicken.
She’s pantomiming like she’s already slinking back into the forest when I tell her to wait up for me.
I scramble to my nightstand, feeling around in the dark. Like how my mother always keeps reading glasses by her armchair, I’ve got my own prosthetic.
Slipping my horns onto my head, I feel more like I can do whatever’s about to happen. They make me a half-inch taller, give an accent of color against my dumb, greasy mop of hair, and most importantly… they make me real.
“Still wearing that headband?” She’s leaning against the siding, shooting a cheeky grin at me.
“Shuddup,” I deflect quickly.
She shrugs her shoulders, batting away my defensiveness. “You don’t even need it! They’ll grow in soon enough!”
I’m halfway climbing out of the sill when I pause, hearing that. A reminder she’s not like the other monsters who’re always staring at me with this stupid, kindly pity. She’s weird, sure, but she’s got her head screwed on. Even if I’m lanky, and sporting more skin than fur, she sees what I really am. She’s always been able to squint sideways at the world and call it on its bullshit, like that.
Still, my voice comes out uncertain. “...Y’think so?”
She laughs as I slip out the rest of the way, landing on my feet like I always do.
“...Sure.”
She starts walking without looking over her shoulder.
I follow.
—
She’s decked out as usual, steel-toed boots and flashlights for the both of us and an unflinching stride. She knows these woods won’t hurt her with a conviction like the Angel itself floated down and told her it wouldn’t. Thing is, though, I think if the Angel was the one who told her, she’d tell it to take a hike.
She’s been telling me vaguely about a “secret” she’s about to show me. She’s got a lot of those, and they’re like a pot of buried treasure every time. Like some late-night music video from some band sourced out of a garage, a backdoor way into a roped-off building, or the weird leaves she’s got in some mint tins. Asriel begged me once not to tell Mom about that last bit; I asked him why he was so nervous when it wasn’t even his own stuff. He didn’t say anything, just sweated bullets.
She always makes her excitement bleed into you- you’ll try things you never would’ve, otherwise.
My steps are weighed down by water from all the soggy leaf piles I’ve sunk into. I never seem to be walking quick enough to walk beside her- she doesn’t match anyone’s pace, always a few steps ahead. And me, I’m just…
“How come we didn’t go get Asriel to come?” He’d match my pace better. Trail just a ways behind me.
“‘Cuz he’s lame,” she says, like talking about the weather.
…Guess that makes sense. Asriel’d come, but he would’ve complained about five times by now, saying we should head back. Dess has fun with it from him, but from how she talks about her parents, she doesn’t seem to like it when people fight her on things too much. It’s not cool to be a nag.
But…
“Why didn’t Elly come?” She’d trail behind me too, but holding my hand while she did it. I’d forget about the dark by having her freak at any random shadow I’d point out to her. A push and pull, her distrusting me to not scare her, but then running back if I went too far ahead all the same.
“...She’s not grown up yet.”
I stare at the back of her head, watching her ears twitch around at the sounds of the woods. “...But we’re the same age.”
She’s still not looking back at me. “...Elly’s different.”
And I guess that makes sense, too, says the pride swimming in my stomach. But…
“...Dess, are you high?”
She finally turns back to look at me. Her eyes are wild and defensive. “What?! No!” Thing is, it really is hard to tell, sometimes. She’s always got this energy going through her- makes me wonder how much it really does for her. She probably doesn’t need it- she doesn’t need anything, really. She’s said she needs music, though. That’s her real drug, she says.
…Cool.
She coughs, redirecting me. “Oh look! We’re here!”
The woods have spat us out into a small clearing to the south of town. At the center of it all is this raised hole- an in-ground shelter with bright red doors that are catching the cold light of our flashlights in small flashes. There’s vines creeping from that grassy heap covering the top, slimy as they crawl back down towards the earth.
We’ve been here before, it’s a bit of a ways from the graveyard. It was during the peak of noon, though, and everything looked much smaller.
Like this, the shadows tread longer, and the trees framing the clearing lean towards us like they’re listening in. The birdsong’s silenced, almost everything’s silenced. Almost everything, because now there’s this humming I’m hearing that I know I haven’t heard before.
It’s coming from behind the doors.
Everything’s listening to it with held breath.
My face feels greased with sweat, and I’m pulling at the hem of my t-shirt. I want to be gone. The adventure’s dried up, and I’d rather just be back home.
“Um. Dess? Can we go home now?” I still don’t know why she’s really brought me here.
There’s a moment’s pause, and I still have enough in me to feel a little jolt of worry that she’ll get upset.
…But then her hand goes over mine. She smooths out the fist I didn’t realize I was clenching, and her hand is so warm. It feels like a promise, curling over each finger, and pulling it closer to her side. My gaze slides up to her face.
…Her eyes are anything but warm.
She’s watching me, closely.
“You’re a big kid, yeah?”
Her hand is so warm.
“I need you to be brave for me, okay?”
It feels like a prison.
I swallow.
“...okay.”
And now her grip’s unflinchingly firm.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll be alright, because I’ll be with you… and you’ll be with me.”
She can always pull out lines like that at the drop of a hat- she’s so good at it. She’s so good with words. She’s so good at being strong.
She pulls us forward, her hands on the heavy steel handles so quick. They open, and there’s this rush of air like someone let loose a hurricane from inside. She wipes black ink on her trousers- I don’t know where it came from.
And then there’s nothing.
There’s so much nothing.
Our flashlights aren’t working, and my t-shirt’s not working, and my skin isn’t working to keep the cold out. Things just get darker and darker, and I only remember I’m real from the hand that keeps pulling me closer.
After a while of that, I start to see again.
Her shapes’ different, she’s longer, she’s… it’s like she’s made of wood from the darkest forest there could ever be.
But I don’t change- I’m still only me.
And I’m not a big kid.
And I can’t remember anything more beyond fragmented scenes.
Awash with gray and black, released hands and apologies and running. Promises made in desperation and abandonment. Whispers and screams. Feet pounding down slick surfaces and eyes blinking from shadows. Pleas.
My lungs are clawing at me, and I’m running from nothing while going nowhere. I’m not trailing after anyone anymore, and I know she’s gone, gone, gone, and there wasn’t anything that could’ve been done, but maybe there was and I just missed it-
Somewhere along the way, a white glimmer saw me off- the only thing my eyes recognized for days afterwards- a floating speck in the corner of my vision. This small light only I could see, letting me know how completely alone I was in this place. I left it, too, not caring for its reassurances.
…When I could feel again, I was walking in the center of the street, the church before me. The Angel’s looking down at me, judging me for something I can’t recall or understand. I’m not cold anymore, with a trucker jacket two sizes too big for me snug around my shoulders, but I’m still quivering. I find my voice, and it’s small- too small to be from me.
“...De-ss…?”
There’s nothing.
I try again, and I wait a little longer, expecting her to jump out from behind one of the trees. She’d gloat about how she really got me, the spooked look on my face being priceless.
There’s nothing.
“...Dess…”
Behind one of the trees.
I should… go back.
She needs me.
But I’m still standing rooted in place. There’s no hand dragging me forward, now, dragging me back into that place.
…
With empty hands, I crawl back into the window in my room. I’m moving slow like I’m wading through molasses. The sun’s peaking out over the horizon, waking up the world. I nestle myself back into my bed, and cover my face with the jacket.
…The jacket’s one of the first things I’m questioned about, from the police… and my brother.
He’s the roots of this chaos- he somehow keeps track of where her many things end up, and he knows that jacket wasn’t out for lending. She liked it too much- off limits for anyone who wasn’t Noelle.
It was a day and a half later, when the missing person’s report was finally submitted. It wasn’t the first time she disappeared, but it was the first time none of her militia gear went with her.
It was the first time she hadn’t let it slip to Noelle that she was going “camping” again.
I still couldn’t remember anything, and I keep seeing shapes from absent shadows jumping out at me from my peripheral. My eyes are darting around at the table, and my dad’s being real patient with me while asking me question after question in his slow, drawling tone- but he’s still got that mannerism he’s got whenever he’s in uniform, where his eyes are far-off and he just wants everyone to go back to being happy again.
I’m stopping everyone from getting back to being happy again.
I talk with other people, too, and it’s starting to frustrate Mom. She sweetly reminds me not to lie to the police, since they’re only trying to help, and everyone’s just confused, and no one’s going to be mad, so let’s all work together-
No one’s satisfied when I keep telling them she got lost in the dark.
The cops have checked the shelter, the woods around it, the church, the shelter again, the graveyard, the shelter once more, and there’s nothing. There’s nothing there.
…I’ve checked the shelter. Scratched at the door, like it’d let me in again.
I keep telling them that she was lost in the dark, even when they’re keeping me at an out-of-county hospital for an hour, telling me to draw what I’m feeling about the incident.
No one is satisfied with this; I’m not, either.
I didn’t want any of this.
Two weeks after she got lost, I’m lying in my bed again, curtains drawn tight. Asriel’s making muffled sobs across the room, like he’s been doing a lot lately. I heard Mom asking about Noelle over the phone to Mrs. Carol, and it sounded like she’s been in a similar state. I lie there, listening distantly to my brother, wondering how long it will be until he tuckers himself out.
There’s a slip of fabric as he climbs out from the bed, and softly comes over to mine. My whole body stiffens, and I keep staring at the ceiling. He sits down delicately at the foot of my bed, on the floor.
“Please… you have to say something,” he says, like I’m trying to hurt him. “We just need to know if she’s safe, and you’re the closest… she didn’t… there’s no note…”
My mouth feels loose. “I don’t know if she’s safe.”
Asriel’s upon me in a moment, his hand gripping tightly onto my shoulder. His heavy paw is too padded, it’s too much, and it feels like I’m melting out of my skin.
“Please, Kris. You can’t just say that like it doesn’t mean anything.” It does. It means something. “You know, I know you saw something, but… why won’t you… she put you up to it, right? You don’t… you shouldn’t listen to her, she…”
I think back to before- her hand upon mine, smoothing out the tenseness in my clenched fist, telling me she’ll be with me. That I’ll be safe. That I was the one person who could see it with her- whatever it was.
My mouth is dry.
“She… she didn’t put me up to it. I went with her. She was with me, when we went in the dark.”
Asriel’s face is screwed up, like he’s trying not to cry again.
“Didn’t she… say anything to you?”
She said lots of things, but I know that’s not what he’s asking. I don’t want to tell him, I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stand him crying like this.
“When… we went in, she was holding my hand. It was getting darker, things were changing, and…” I take a breath. “...she said she was sorry.”
“...For what?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to know.
Asriel leans into my bed, looking thoroughly deflated. His long white ears drape across my covers. It’s like all will has left him.
His voice comes out like a desperate creak. “How can you just… not even cry? This isn’t… a joke, Kris.”
Something in my chest stings.
“I know it’s not.”
A pause.
Asriel sighs deeply, before slinking back into bed. He doesn’t say anything else to me.
I lay there for hours more, taking note of all the things I can still see while in the dark. I can make out my bed, the faint shape of my brother, illuminated by the glow of his clock, a faint glow from the hallway light seeping through the crack in the door, my horns sliding from my head as I shuffle against my pillow. I’ve not been taking them off at all, this past week. I feel like I can’t. Giving the jacket back to Dess’ parents was bad enough. I didn’t want to. I wanted to hide it away with me somewhere no one could find it or me. I know it’s wrong to feel that way.
I don’t like closing my eyes, now.
…But I don’t have a choice.
In my dreams, I’m back in the darkness.
“Heyy, Krismas!”
Her voice, echoing around. I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, because there’s no here, either. I’m spinning around on my feet, as though by looking into the nothing from all directions, I’ll find it.
“You won’t find me by standing in one place like that, c’mon.”
I take some hesitant steps forward into the dark. Her voice doesn’t sound like it’s getting any closer.
“Taking your sweet time, huh?”
I’m trying to find you, I’m sorry I left you. I didn’t mean it, you know. I know I was chicken.
“No need for the dramatics. Chill out. You’re blubbering like your dork brother.”
But I’m not crying.
“Suuure. And here I was, calling you a big kid.”
You could be hungry, or hurt somewhere. Nobody knows how to get to you. I don’t know how to get to you, but I’m the best chance.
“I mean, you don’t have to be a hero. We both know I can handle myself just fine. Right?”
…Right.
“Then you’ll get here when you get here. It’ll happen eventually. There’s no way of getting out of it.”
And it makes sense. Even if I can’t find it now… knowing there’s something like this out there… it’ll probably find me again. You can’t outrun a darkness like that forever.
“...Don’t let Elly get lonely, yeah? I’ll bust your ass if you do.”
…
Her voice is silent now, but I keep walking forward.
…There’s a tree, here, and nothing else.
Then, I wake up, still understanding nothing of what I’ve seen.