The Game of Boys and Monsters (4 page)

“I don't want to go home yet,” I said, surprising myself.

“Okay,” Ben said easily, “where do you want to go?”

I wanted someplace where we'd be all alone, someplace that felt apart from every place else.

“The Thorn Bridge,” I said.

He looked at me sideways, and I worried for a second that I'd thrown him. The Thorn Bridge had a reputation for being a place where people drank and hooked up, a place where you could get away with a party and no one for miles around could hear.

It was too deep in the woods, in an unincorporated part of town, for the police to bother with it, and if they ever decided to patrol, it'd be easy to hear them coming a mile away.

“Do you like that place?” he asked. A charged question.

“I like how old it is. I've only been there once or twice, with Evy,” I said. “We took pictures. In the daytime.”

He exhaled and smiled again. Oh God. For a second, Ben Grable thought I was too wild for him.

“What's going on with Evy?” he asked, and I stiffened. “Is she on drugs or something?”

When I didn't answer right away, he said, “God, that was rude, Les, I'm sorry. I don't really think she's on drugs, I . . .”

“No, I know that's what people think.” It was the only real-world explanation that made sense. That the Marsh boys were dealers, or at least users, that they'd drawn Evy in. Some people said she was trading sex for drugs. Some people said I was a bad friend for watching that happen and not stopping it.

“She's not on drugs,” I said. “I don't think I— Evy doesn't tell me everything the way she used to.”

“I'm sorry,” Ben said. I'm sure he could hear the emotion in my voice.

“I've . . . I've been really lonely since the Marsh boys came.”

He reached over to put his hand on my hand and squeezed.

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “I know you and Evy . . . That sucks.”

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and made myself focus on the warmth of his hand. “It really does.”

He turned down the narrow road that would take us to the Thorn Bridge. It had been a bad idea maybe, to take him to a place I associated with Evy and the Marsh boys. What was I thinking? It was like asking to make the day turn sour and sad.

But I wanted to be there, to see the place and to see, I don't know, if there was anything, any sign, of what happened down there. Anything I could use.

We pulled up to the Thorn Bridge,
not
onto it. There were no warning signs or guardrails, but the bridge didn't look sturdy enough for a car. And there wasn't any reason to drive across—the road beyond the bridge had been reclaimed by woods long ago.

The bridge, of course, was supposed to be haunted. By the ghosts of a pair of lovers who'd committed suicide because they couldn't be together. By the ghosts of children who had died as the bridge collapsed under the weight of their wagon. People said if you parked on the bridge in neutral, ghost children would push you to safety with their little hands, but no one would risk their car to test that theory, so of course it stayed true.

Ben opened his door first. I hadn't expected to feel so off balance here.

The place felt like Evy. When the wind rattled the dying leaves of the big oaks and maples that arced across the river, it reminded me of Evy's fingers shredding bay leaves for a tea. Where the water reversed itself against a huge boulder near the bank, the shiny chaos made me think of Evy's hair.

Evy was haunting the Thorn Bridge.

Ben and I stood at the opening. Weirdly anachronistic graffiti decorated the walls, but at the bridge's center, darkness swallowed all detail, allowing a crosser to slip back in time.

We stepped onto the bridge, and I imagined the wood bending under our feet, giving way. A lot of the graffiti was vulgar, but there were love messages too, including one deeply carved heart with initials that were supposed to belong to the lovers who haunted the bridge. I traced that one with my finger and said, “It's supposed to be good luck.”

So Ben traced it too, meeting me at the heart's point and taking my hand.

He pulled me to face him, and I put the finger that had traced the heart on his chest, traced his heart while he watched.

“You're different,” he said, in a whisper.

“What do you mean?”

I locked eyes with him, and the life in me, my overflowing life, danced in the space between us.

“This. You're . . . less shy. You're . . . well, you're all lit up,” he said.

I reached for his lips with my lips, and he met me. His were warm and firm, and he tasted like fall.

Then we hugged. He held me and rocked me on the Thorn Bridge, and I put a hand out to brace myself against the wall, needing to feel something steady. I was sobbing.

“What's wrong?” he said. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing. You're wonderful. It's just—I'm happy. And I—I would talk to Evy about you, about this. She's the
only
person I would talk to,” I said quickly, not wanting him to think I was the kind of girl to kiss and tell. “But I can't talk to her anymore.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he said, and he held me tight and kissed my tears, and then we kissed some more.

I still felt so alive, so full, and to feel that way, in spite of losing Evy . . . well, she made her choice, and doesn't life go on?

I don't know what I'd expected to find on the bridge: Evy's initials with H. M. or J. M. carved with them? A trace of blood or fur?

There was nothing solid there, nothing to give me a hint of what she and the Marsh boys got up to at night.

“I'm sorry,” I said to Ben. “I'm really happy to be here with you. But it's a place that reminds me of Evy. It probably wasn't the best place to come.”

“You do what you've gotta do,” Ben said. This was a guy I could love.

“I want to do something stupid,” I said. “You don't have a pocketknife, do you?”

“We've only just begun,” he said, kind of joking, but I put him at ease.

“It's not for us. It's for me and Evy. I just—I want to leave something here.”

“Hang on,” he said. “I've got a Swiss Army knife in the glove box.”

He fetched it, and I picked a spot on the wall that hadn't been touched. On it, I carved, very small, an E. and an L., and I made an infinity symbol looping around them. “Forever,” I whispered, “however long that might be.”

Not long after that, Evy stopped coming to school.

The Marsh boys were there, but they didn't have any answers for me.

“Evy's fine,” Jack said. “She's outgrowing this.” He gestured in a wide circle.

“What? School?”

He tilted his head, and it reminded me of the day he had scared me so badly.

“She's outgrowing . . . me?”

“Why didn't you try harder?” he said.

“What?”

“Evy asked me and Hap, just the other night. She said, ‘I'm almost grateful. If Les had tried to pull me back, if I thought she needed me, I might have had to stay.'”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, ‘Les is changing too.' I said, ‘Les doesn't need you. She's
becoming
you.'”

I stood there, not looking at him but at his shirtfront.

I was not becoming Evy. But I was changing. I was becoming more myself.

“It's not too late,” Jack said, “if you want her back. She might listen to you.”

When I looked back up at him, his smirk told me what he thought of me, of my change.

I didn't defend myself. I didn't argue. I walked away. And all day I thought about what he'd said.

All day, while the Marsh boys were at school and Evy wasn't. Where was Evy?

Maybe she did need me, needed to hear from me that I wanted her here. That I wanted us back how we were.

But I didn't. I wanted Evy, my friend—of course I wanted her—but I didn't want to go back to how I was.

I'm the witch. I'm the witch, and Evy's the ghost.

Almost.

A hand gripped my shoulder, shaking me, and I stifled a scream. This was school. School was safe.

It was Ben. Just Ben. He beamed down at me, and I smiled up at him, and I forgot for a little while about Evy.

That night, Ben and I made pizza at my house. He knew how to toss the dough. We got flour all over the kitchen, but Mom smiled. Dad and Ben talked about all of Dad's old bands, which he couldn't believe that Ben knew.

I thought about calling Evy, but Ben was there, and then it was late, and then, then, she'd be out with Jack and Hap, wouldn't she? She wouldn't want to hear from me.

Those are the things I told myself.

The next day Evy didn't show up at school again, and the Marsh boys didn't come either. With them gone, it was like a dam burst on my worry. I pictured Evy huddling in the dark while the Marsh boys laughed, Evy pale as the moon, her eyes blank and hungering.

All day, she haunted me.

Ben found me at a break between classes. “What's happened?” he asked.

But I shook my head. “Not now. I can't,” I said, and walked away.

I tried visiting her house in the afternoon, but all the lights were out and nobody answered.

When I called Evy's cell, I got her message. It hurt to hear her voice, recorded months and months ago, sounding so Evy, so alive. When it beeped, I almost hung up right then, but I listened to the silence for a second or two, and then said all I knew for sure to say: “It's me, Les.”

When I called Evy's house, her mom seemed confused—maybe she was drunk, but I didn't think that was all. She said, “Evy? I don't know who you're talking about. Are you . . . Are you a prank caller? I report prank callers.”

I hung up, and I didn't call back.

That night, I borrowed Mom's car, told her I was going to study with Ben, and drove down to the Thorn Bridge. I parked with the high beams on to light up the dark tunnel at least partway, and I grabbed Mom's giant Maglite from the glove box.

I found I didn't want to make any noise even though the lights blazoned my presence, and I left the door hanging open so as not to have to slam it shut. I stepped onto the gravel road and listened.

The forest animals were having a party. There were chirrups and rustlings, singsongs and creakings. A barred owl called his “Who-who-huh-WHO-owl!”

On any other night, I would have answered the owl's call, to bring him closer, keep him going, but this night, my voice froze in my throat.

The sheer amount of noise told me no one else was near.

I had to step onto the Thorn Bridge.

At night, with the headlamps picking out every bit of moisture swirling in the air and making the shadows darker, it felt even more haunted. But it wasn't just the light. The place had an aura about it, extra energy—it was simply the feeling, I realized, of another person, or persons, present and watching. That no one—no one visible—was there made the feeling uncanny.

With my first step onto the bridge's wood floor, a wave of vertigo made me put a hand to the wall. The planks where I stood lay over solid earth—safe.

I steadied myself and kept going, letting my fingers feel along all the carvings in the wall. When I got to where I thought my carving should be, I started searching with the Maglite.

It was right in front of me, the sideways figure eight with an E. and an L. inside.

Except something had changed.

The swooping curves of the infinity symbol, which I had been so careful to make curves and not slashing straight lines, were wet, shiny, and black under the harsh light.

I reached up and touched the shape I had made. Against my skin, the blood showed up for what it was. But whose?

Evy's? Had she found my gesture and signed it in blood?

I wiped my finger against the rough wall, the blood mingling with dust—not really coming off, just blending.

I rubbed my finger against my jeans.

And then a rush of air made me swing my light to the opposite end of the Thorn Bridge.

They stood in a row, the three of them, Jack and Evy and Hap.

Each one had a wide stance, and their faces—at this distance, the light couldn't show me details, but their faces seemed sharper, eyes blacker. There was no reflection of light, I realized. Their eyes soaked it up.

“You came,” Evy said. “To see me off? That's sweet.”

Her voice was hoarse, shredded, but she sounded more alert than she had in weeks.

I felt self-conscious about the blood on my finger, as if she could tell from that distance, see in the dark, scent across space, or read my mind. Who knew what this new Evy could do?

“Where are you going?” I said dumbly.

Evy smiled, and I tried to see her teeth.

Within a second, she was on me, had taken the light from my hand and tossed it behind her to Hap, who caught it without even taking a step and then switched it off.

“The light was too bright,” she said, close to my ear. “I can see in the dark now.”

“I can't,” I said. I blinked, trying to adjust, trying to make out the contours of her new face. As if she could read my thoughts, she took my hand, the one I had used to touch the blood, and lifted it to her face.

She led my fingers along her cheekbone, higher and sharper than it should have been, and—this was what made me flinch, try to pull away—downy with . . . fur. It was as soft as the hair on her head, a smooth, short coat close to the skin—so fine I hadn't seen it at a distance—but it wasn't right.

She held my hand tight until I relaxed and then drew my fingers along her cheek, farther than seemed possible. Her jaw protruded. The fur thinned close to her mouth, where her skin felt normal. Her lips seemed like normal lips, but her teeth . . . She flexed back her lips to allow me to feel.

She had fangs.

“What are you?” I said.