Chapter 31

The Fire Pit

Wyatt picks me up at eight o’clock on Friday night and the drive to Jen’s house only takes a minute because I live a mile away from her, on the same street. Connor’s car is parked in Jen’s driveway, up close to the garage. Ryan’s is behind his.

A centuries-old forest stands next to the right side of Jen’s garage. The primeval woods are dense, scary and dark, even during the day. This New England version of a jungle goes back for miles, and like most of the heavily-wooded areas in Eastfield, the trees thin out gradually to reveal part of the great Hockomock Swamp.

On the opposite side of Jen’s house there’s another house close to hers. If she doesn’t pull down the shades at night, her neighbors can see into her living room.

She has a big backyard with a ramshackled wooden swing set that her parents haven’t taken down yet, even though Jen’s eighteen and an only child. She also has a tree house where we still have sleepovers in the warm weather and there’s an old above-ground pool but it’s closed for the winter now. The large half-oval of her yard is surrounded by woods three-quarters of the way around, across the back and on the right. On the left stands a section of wooden fence separating her yard from the too-close neighbor’s.

In the center of this outdoor space sits a large, round iron fire pit, ablaze with thick logs. The smell is heavenly. Wyatt and I join the other two couples, who’re sitting down in the white plastic lawn chairs circling the fire. Our front sides stay all toasty and our backs are cool. Before the four of us arrived, Jen and Connor collected six long, thin sticks and stripped the bark off the ends of them, for toasting marshmallows. The sticks’ bare ends are still greenish, the best kind for cooking over a fire.

“Hey, great sticks! Thanks you, guys!” Wyatt grabs two of nature’s cooking utensils and hands one to me.

“I brought some hotdogs and rolls over, too.” Connor thought of everything. Even though we’ve all had dinner already, everyone plays a fall sport and consequently none of us can ever get enough food. Jen and Meg are on the volleyball team and Connor’s on the golf team. They never ride in the carts, either, so they’re out walking around in the fresh air every day.

We start with a first course of hotdogs on rolls and sodas and then move on to marshmallows and chocolate on graham crackers. Even Wyatt feels stuffed after about an hour. We gossip and tell jokes and stories about pranks and other stuff.

Ryan has a great story about making a submarine sandwich with cat food and leaving it in the refrigerator:

“I wrapped the sandwich up in the same kind of white waxy paper sub shops use, so it looked like real take-out. Next, I put a sign on it that said, ‘Glen, do not eat!’ Then I waited for my older brother to get home from football practice. Sure enough, Glen took the sign for a personal invitation, like he always does. He woofed down half the sandwich in three bites before I told him he had just eaten Fancy Feast.”

Connor cracks up. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He finished the sandwich.”

We laugh our asses off.

My brothers have played so many pranks on me throughout the years; it’s hard to choose one. I’m not proud to admit that I fell for every one of their stupid tricks, too. If I was squeamish about reptiles or insects, my life would’ve been a living hell. Clem and Joe were always putting some poor turtle that crawled up from the swamp, under the blankets on my bed, along with a frog or two.

I tell everyone about the time my mother punished my brothers for putting two praying mantises into a box of my favorite cereal:

“Joe found them in my mother’s garden and they were doing it. He brought them in and showed them to Clement.”

“Ew!” Jen yells.

“It was Clem’s idea to put them in the cereal box. I poured the poor things out into a bowl and my mom started screaming about endangered species.”

Wyatt smiles. “Hey, praying mantises are very beneficial to the environment. They eat harmful insects. I can just picture your mom.”

“Her hair got really wild ’cuz she was shaking her head and her glasses slipped down to the end of her nose. Joe and Clem got screamed at for ten minutes straight. Clem put those poor bugs back outside in her garden and we snuck out and watched them for a while, to see if the female really bites the male’s head off when they’re done. It never happened. We kept going out back to check, but they just hung around on the same plant all day, doing what they were doing. The next day they were both gone.”

Finally, Wyatt starts in with the ghost stories. He tells a disturbing tale about a young girl who committed suicide.

“She became this shrieking ghost who could shatter windows with her loud, high-pitched voice. Once the window was broken, she’d float into your bedroom and smother you unless someone heard your cries for help and came in to turn on the lights. Then she’d disappear, blow herself out through the broken window in a howling wind, and go looking for her next victim.”

Right as Wyatt finishes telling the story a cold wind blows out of the dark forest at our backs and sends sparks and flames flying out of the fire pit. All three of us girls scream, but Ryan screams louder than anyone and jumps out of his chair. We laugh like idiots for about five minutes straight.

“Okay, now no one can say that Ryan screams like a girl, because none of us girls screamed that loud,” Meg announces.

Jumping into her lap, he complains that he’s scared and needs a hug. She groans because he’s too heavy, so he switches places with her.

Our laughter dies down and Connor starts to say something, but I warn, “Shh.”

Then I look around the semicircle, with my finger placed against my lips to signal the others. Wyatt makes eye contact with me. His eyebrows scrunch together in a silent question.

Keeping my voice low, I warn, “I heard something.”

“What?” He mouths the word.

“A branch snapped, like someone walked on it.”

No one here but Wyatt knows the whole truth about what’s been going on in my life. They might’ve heard rumors about my dad shooting at coyotes in the middle of the night or prank phone calls to my cell phone. Maybe they’ve noticed that Wyatt’s sticking closer to me than he normally does, but they don’t know about Mike Donahue. Meg closed the door on the whole Wild Wood incident right after we presented our movie in class last year. We haven’t mentioned what happened in room 209 to each other since then.

So only Wyatt goes on high alert because I heard a noise. Everyone else thinks the ghost story has affected my nerves.

Jen teases me. “Maybe you should crawl up in Wyatt’s lap if you’re that scared, Annabelle.”

Wyatt doesn’t laugh; he just turns to face the deep, untamed forest and peers into the darkness. I hold my breath and listen as hard as I can. Silence there and nothing more. Then an owl hoots soft and mournful. The New England woods are never completely quiet for long.

The weather’s been pretty cold, so we can’t hear any insects chirping or frogs croaking. But other nocturnal creatures are creeping around, uttering sporadic howls and screeches.

After the first frost, the evenings grow quieter, sometimes perfectly silent for short verses of time. Only random noises here and there puncture the stillness, usually announcing an encounter between a predator and its prey.

Tonight, it’s cool and quiet, but not silent. The owl’s call drifts on the night breeze again and then fades. A car cruises by out front. The fire crackles. The wood on the top shifts and falls lower. Connor gets up and puts another hefty log on top. I feel grateful for the warmth. Then I hear leaves shuffle behind me. I meet Wyatt’s eyes to see if he heard it too. He did. He stands and looks at Ryan.

“Did you bring a flashlight, Ry?”

“Nope, why?”

“I heard some leaves rustling. I want to go back there, into the woods, and have a look around.”

“It was probably a rodent scurrying away from that owl we keep hearing.”

“Yeah, but I want to be sure.”

Then he throws me under the bus.

“Annabelle’s getting spooked. I want to go back there; make sure there are no coyotes or anything.”

Jen speaks up. “I have two flashlights right here.” She reaches down between her chair and Connor’s. Wyatt takes the flashlight out of her outstretched hand, turns it on and heads into the deep dark woods.

“C’mon, Ryan, we can’t let Silver play the hero alone. Let’s go.” Connor grabs the other flashlight off the ground and he and Ryan head into the woods together, a few steps behind Wyatt.

Jen and Meg get up and we three move our chairs around to the other side of the fire, so we can face the woods. We settle in close together, with me in the middle. As we stare quietly into the fire and listen to the rustle of the boys in the woods, Jen grips my right hand and Meg clutches my left. The owl hoots again, louder this time.

Meg whimpers and tightens her grip on my hand. Someone screams. We jump out of our chairs. Mine falls over; onto the ground behind me. Standing stock still, we huddle together, with our arms around each other, and look toward the woods. Connor barges out of the dark; a shaft of light bobs in front of him as he sprints toward the fire still holding the flashlight. Ryan’s close behind.

“Where’s Wyatt?” I’m almost crying.

Suddenly, he comes crashing out of the woods.

“Annabelle! Are you all right?” he shouts and rushes toward me.

“I’m fine. Someone screamed, though. What happened?”

“I thought it was you.” Wyatt pulls me into his arms.

Connor owns up. “I was looking around, pointing the flashlight into the woods when two green eyes glowed at me, in the pitch dark, from only about two feet away.”

“Yeah, I saw it too. So we both ran, but only Connor yelled. I knew it was probably just a raccoon or something.” Ryan has no right to brag about not screaming. He came barreling out of the woods, looking just as panicked as Connor.

I can tell that Wyatt’s fuming, so I warn him with my eyes to chill out. No one needs to know why he’s so concerned for my safety.

* * * *

Finally the last of the logs glows orange before it fades into ashes and crumbles. The lingering scent of wood smoke does nothing to calm my fears. It’s almost eleven o’clock and I’m shivering with cold and nervousness. I can’t shake off the feeling there’s a human pair of eyes out there in the woods and the owner of those eyes intends to harm me. I grab Wyatt’s hand and pull. We stand up from our lawn chairs.

Wyatt drapes his arm across my shoulders and thanks Jen for having us over.

Jen wishes us a goodnight and then says to the others, “Let’s all go inside and play video games for a while.”

I’ve had enough and can’t wait to get home. The four of them will be up until at least one in the morning, probably, and I could never last that long. I’m exhausted. Plus, I’ll feel safer at home. The woods behind Jen’s house are seriously creeping me out.

Wyatt and I head over to the Land Rover and the other two couples walk toward Jen’s house. Ryan has his arm around Meg as they hurry to get out of the cold and Jen looks like she’s getting pretty cozy with Connor for someone who has big plans to stay single. She’s clutching his right arm and Connor looks happy to have it clutched.

Wyatt opens the door of the car for me, and after I climb up and in, I kiss him. He leans in and fastens my seat belt for me, kissing me back as he clicks the buckle into its slot. Then he dashes around to the driver’s side, jumps in and backs out of Jen’s driveway. We’re at my house within a minute.

Neither one of us wants to say goodnight, but I do have an early practice and I can tell by looking at the house that my parents have already gone to bed. Only the kitchen windows glow yellow. All of the other windows, upstairs and down, are black. Outside, the lamp over the door closest to our driveway illuminates the short walkway. I hop out of the Land Rover and stand still, in the driveway, breathing in the cold air and looking up at the night sky. Wyatt gets out and wraps me up in a big, warm hug.

It’s a clear night and the dark sky looks infinitely deep. Zillions of stars upstage the curved slice of new moon with their brilliance. Awed into silence, Wyatt and I stand locked together. He nuzzles me and murmurs into my neck, “Do you think anyone was in the woods tonight? Do you think it was him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was spooked by your story. Maybe I did hear something, but it could’ve been a raccoon, the same one that scared Connor and Ryan.”

“Yeah, I suppose so, but I want Mike Donahue caught. I want him gone, locked up. I’m sick of worrying that he’s going to hurt you.”

“He won’t get a chance. You guys have got me covered every step I take. No one can come near me.”

Wyatt insists on coming inside and double-checking all the locks on the doors that lead into my house. Finally, he goes down to the cellar to make sure the door to the bulkhead’s locked, while I stay in the kitchen and gulp a glass of ice water. The salty hot dogs and super sweet s’mores made me thirsty. He emerges from the basement and announces that everything’s locked up tight.

I remind him, “I told you my dad would never leave anything unlocked. He’s as paranoid as you are about my safety.”

Wyatt gives me one more kiss goodnight at the door and then leaves. Standing outside for a second, he makes sure I lock the door behind him. I turn off the light in the kitchen and leave the outside light burning so Wyatt can turn his car around without hitting the Prizm. Our driveway’s long and hard to back out of, especially in the dark. After he’s gone, I click off the light, tiptoe upstairs, brush my teeth, set my alarm and lay my tired head down on the pillow. Soon I fall into a deep sleep.