One

I SAID IT STARTS WITH FIRE. And fire led me to the end, too.

I made a little goodbye backyard blaze. Scraps of paper, splintered drumsticks, fliers for some upcoming shows. I cleared a space in my dad's barbeque and set it all burning.

By the time I'd gotten home that terrible day it was near dusk. There was serious weather coming in, the first real storm of the year.

I'm used to snow, but this felt different. The cold was colder. The wind was meaner. And the skies, when the clouds swirled off, had this weird red glow. A wild sunset, with big churning masses of purple and scarlet streaks like bloody sword blades.

First I got the crumpled pages of Relly's lyrics burning. Then I added some dead leaves and the Scorpio Bone fliers. As the paper caught fire, the pictures on the fliers twisted like overcooked bacon. I put on Butt's broken drumsticks, some leftover charcoal, and then a piece of wood that had blown off our sugar maple.

The wind pushed at the fire, threatened to snuff it right out. But the little red and orange flickers grew. And soon the wind kind of joined the blaze rather than fighting it and breathed in life. I collected more sticks and some scrap wood out of the garage.

Soon enough I had a real wind-whipped bonfire.

The last thing I added was my notebook. Inside were my favorite poems from Mount Hope, and drawings and scribbles. There even was one page stained purple and wrinkly where Relly had spilled some of his Panther Blood.

This was hard. Maybe even harder than calling Knacke that last time. Even if Scorpio Bone never played again, the notebook would be proof that we were real once upon a time. We never recorded even one song. And I guess soon enough all the kids who'd seen our shows would forget. Other bands would come along. Still, the notebook would tell me that I hadn't made the whole thing up.

I paged through it one last time and came to a poem that we'd never worked into a song.

Death, like a flooding midnight stream,
sweeps us away, our life's a dream.
an empty tale, a morning flower,
cut down and withered in an hour.

Yeah, I could go back to Mount Hope and find all the graves again. Only it wouldn't be the same without Relly. We collected these olden-day words together. They weren't just mine. They were ours.

I held the notebook to my chest one last time, trying to squeeze the words into myself. Then I said goodbye and laid it on the fire.

The flames rose and ate the notebook. The wind swirled around, making a whirlpool. Heat, intense heat. Then the notebook was gone and cold returned. I was crying. I only noticed because the tears were freezing to my face.

When only ash was left, I went inside the house.

There was a message on the machine. While I was at the fire, Knacke had called. The little crimson dot pulsed like a bug full of blood. On, off, on, off.

I hit the play button.

"Come tonight," Knacke said. "You know where I live. And Relly will be set free."

OK, so I was going to Knacke's house that night. But what then? Would we all vanish in a puff of magic smoke, now that the tetrad was together again? Fly off to some other world where we'd rule as gods? Or would it be back to school again? A secret life there. Homework and assemblies one day. Hanging around with horrible old men the next.

I didn't now. And I guess I didn't really care. I was going to save Relly. That's all that mattered.