The pit lay hidden beneath a bewilderment of wild vines and lush undergrowth, concealed amid the shadows of beeches and hemlock, as cool and damp as a fresh grave.
The two girls knelt at its edge, peered down.
Neither girl knew what the pit was for or how it came to be. Neither cared. The pit was theirs; they’d found it fair and square while exploring this part of the woods their parents had forbade them to ever enter. The lure of the woods and pits, and the possible secrets they might reveal, an arrowhead or dinosaur fossil, proved too alluring to resist.
Toads had fallen into the pit. They squatted sullen in the muck at the bottom as crickets sprang and trilled around them. Other creatures had fallen prey to the pit as well, their frail skeletal remains and desiccated carcasses scattered in the mud.
In the darkest corner, a knot of baby snakes pulsed and writhed like a malformed heart.
The girls remained unafraid.
Together, they could brave whatever peril came.
They lay on their bellies now, inched backward over the edge of the pit to hang from its lip, fingers clawing into the earthen edge. Their feet dangled, and their bony arms tensed as they hung straight down beside each other, looked into each other’s eyes, whispered one two three, and let go to drop the final few inches with horrified shrieks, as if they were plummeting a thousand feet to their deaths.
They squealed as cold mud squished between their bare toes and the gamey, milky, reptilian odor of the snakes bloomed around them.
Their skinny legs stuck out straight as pins as the girls sat at opposite ends of the pit, facing each other, the bottoms of their bare feet pressed against each other as their pink fingers picked away at the earthen walls in search of a remnant mystery of the past. Today, however, there was another mystery to reveal.
Lucinda’s heart skittered with excitement. She’d waited forever to hear Sally’s secret. “Tell me,” she pleaded as she slapped a mosquito on her cheek, the insect sticking to her skin with a splat of her own warm blood.
Sally smiled. Her teeth glowed in the murk. A ray of sun lanced down through the thatch of leaves above to light up a lens of Sally’s thick eyeglasses.
“Can you keep a secret?” Sally whispered.
What a ding dong question. Of course Lucinda could keep a secret, especially Sally’s secrets. Didn’t they always? That’s what friends were for, to tell each other secrets, and to keep them. And Lucinda and Sally were best friends and would always be best friends. Forever. So of course they told each other everything. And the whole entire reason they even came to the pit was for Sally to tell Lucinda, show Lucinda, the secret. But Sally was teasing. And it drove Lucinda crazy when her friend did that.
“Tell me,” Lucinda said, “don’t tease.”
Sally leaned in, still smiling. Except now her smile seemed plastic and freaky, like a smile on a crazed clown doll.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Lucinda said.
“You can’t tell, anyone,” Sally whispered.
“I won’t.”
“Ever.”
“I won’t. I said I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Hope to die. Come on.”
Sally leaned in, cupped a hand around Lucinda’s ear, and whispered the secret.
Lucinda yanked away and pushed herself back, deeper into her corner of the pit, her heart knocking. She looked up at the snarl of branches and vines concealing them, listening, eyes darting, searching. Each noise now, each play of shadows and light in the trees high above a threat that sent a tremor of terror through her bones.
From above came the sharp snap of a branch.
Lucinda gasped.
“Shhh,” Sally said. “He’ll hear us.”