Page 70 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
The movie’s some kind of tragic romance dating back years ago, and Abigail’s right: It isn’t scary at all. I think there’s a dog involved. And maybe a boat. I don’t really pay close attention, if I’m being honest. As the colored images move over the screen and the soundtrack plays, my eyes are drawn back to Julius. Like instinct. Like always.
It’s easier to watch him while he’s watching the screen. Though I’m not sure how much of it he’s actually absorbing; he doesn’t laugh or gasp when the others do. He just stares ahead, his expression blank.
I study his features carefully, hungrily, like I’m piecing together a puzzle. I can’t prevent myself from drinking in the sight of him. From hating him and wanting him all at the same time, one point of tension bleeding into the other until it’s impossible to separate the two. The blue glow of the projector sweeps over the curves of his cheekbones, and even though I’ve sworn against it, I feel a rush of fierce, reckless longing. I imagine going to him now, after all the ugliness from this morning, after he made me cry. I imagine stroking his hair, his cheek, his collarbones, the way the shadows do, then wrapping my hands around his throat.
Without warning, he turns his head a fraction, his eyes cutting to mine like the crack of a whip.
I flush. Look away. But I can sense his gaze on me for the rest of the movie.
It’s the longest movie I’ve ever seen.
Dinner is a combination of roasted marshmallows and chicken kebabs and creamy potato salad.
It looks so good that even though I don’t really have an appetite, I join my class around the campfire, stacking my paper plate with as much food as it can physically carry. Then I drape my cardigan over the log and sit down on it, inhaling the sweet smoke and the scent of the lake nearby, content to chew and stretch my legs out and lick the melted sugar off my fork.
The teachers are meant to eat with us outside too, but Ms. Hedge is the only one of the three who appears. She’s barely sat down when her face pinches, her skin turning a concerning shade of green, and she dashes off in the direction of the cabins, a hand covering her mouth.
“What’s up with her?” Ray asks.
“Must’ve been the raw salmon from earlier,” Georgina says, with the firm authority of someone who’s suffered through food poisoning multiple times in the past. “On my way out, the other teachers looked like they were dying too.”
Sympathetic murmurs travel around the tight circle, but nobody makes a move to check up on the teachers. Instead everybody relaxes in the absence of any adult authorities. The air seems to lighten, the conversations around me rising in volume, whispered jokes and muffled giggles turning into full-body laughter. It feels less like a school retreat and more like a massive party—except, unlike the one at my house, I can almost bring myself to enjoy it. To eat the melted marshmallows and watch the sun start to slide its way down the horizon, lending a pink glow to the sky.
“You know what the moment calls for?” Rosie speaks up.
“Spin the bottle?” Ray says instantly.
I drop my fork.No. Absolutely not.I think I’ll die if I have to kiss Julius again, and I’ll die if I see him kiss someone else. “How about scary stories,” I suggest, with perhaps more fake enthusiasm than I’ve ever summoned in my life.
To be honest, I expect Rosie to shoot down my idea right away and call it childish, but she considers it for a second, then nods. “Sure,” she says, crossing her ankles elegantly, as if the log is a throne. “Do you have one?”
“Oh . . . I guess.” I straighten, trying to make something up on the spot. “Okay, okay, here’s one: Once there was a girl called . . . um, Skye. She was very smart and very organized. She had a habit of keeping all her homework notes and certificates and important files in a special compartment inside her locker. Then one day . . . she discovered that her locker was empty.”
This is meant to elicit gasps of shock and horror, but all I get are blank, perplexed stares.
“Sorry, is that meant to be scary?” someone asks at last.
“Her certificates aremissing,” I emphasize, frowning. “Her records of achievement aregone. She may have to redoall her homework.”
“Okay, do we have any non-homework-related stories?” someone else asks.
“I have a ghost story,” Julius offers, and all heads swivel to him. He lowers his voice so it’s just barely audible over the dry hiss and crackle of the campfire. “Arealghost story. Actually, it’s set right in the woods, not too far from here.”
“Sure it is,” I mutter.
But everyone’s already listening closely, hanging on to his every word.
“There used to be a house in these woods,” he begins, soaking in the attention. “A young couple and their two children: a boy named Jack, and a girl named Scarlett. The boy was healthy and always happy; everyone who saw him adored him. But Scarlett was born . . . strange.” He drags out the word in a whisper. “As a baby, her father claimed that her eyes would flash red. It was quick, so quick it could’ve been confused for the light, but it happened too many times for it to be a coincidence. He even took her to the doctor once, wondering if it was some kind of rare disease, and the doctor said there was nothing wrong. Nothing that they could find anyway.”
On the other end of the circle, one of the girls shivers and wraps the wool blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“There were other things too,” Julius continues. “Like she would be running, and her shadow would disappear. Or she would throw a tantrum, and within an hour, a bird would drop dead outside their yard. Or she would get into a fight with her little brother, and he’d wake up in the middle of the night claiming someone was choking him. Over time, her parents started to suspect that she was cursed. Perhaps a demon incarnate, or a monster.”
It’s a silly story. Typical. Certainly no better thanmine, which is rooted in realism. But in the falling darkness, by the crimson light of the fire, I can’t help the pinch of fear in my gut.
Julius catches my eye across the circle, and one side of his mouth lifts, as if he can read my mind. “On Scarlett’s thirteenth birthday, there was a sudden, terrible storm. It was as if the sea was falling from the sky. The whole house was flooded. The parents didn’t even have time to pack; they just grabbed what they could and fled into the night. But whether by accident or not, they forgot about Scarlett. When they came back, almost everything was destroyed. The wood was rotted through, the furniture in pieces, the windows shattered. They looked around, and they couldn’t find any sign of Scarlett. There was no body. Not even any of her old clothes or toys. It was as though she’d never existed.”
He pauses for dramatic effect. In the same instance, a heavy wind picks up, blowing through the trees, and more than a few people startle and glance around them. The sky is no longer rose pink but graying, clouds forming in the near distance.
