1970

Chapter seven: Night falls

After helping Corbat settle into the spare room—Husky's dad had long since given up pretending these impromptu sleepovers were anything but routine—Valerie lingered in the doorway, watching her brother's chest rise and fall in the gentle rhythm of sleep. The house creaked around them, old wood settling in the cooling night air.

"Val."

She turned to find Quinn in the hallway, his journal still clutched in one hand. The overhead light caught the copper in his hair, making it look almost like fire. "He'll be fine," she said, gently pulling the door nearly closed. "He always sleeps better here anyway."

"That's not—" Quinn stopped, ran a hand through his hair in that frustrated way he had. "Are you okay? Really?"

Something in his voice made her look at him properly. In the dim hall light, she could see the tension in his shoulders, the worry lines around his eyes that reminded her too much of how he'd looked after his sister—

"I'm fine," she said softly, reaching out to squeeze his arm. "Just got spooked, like I said."

"You don't get spooked," Quinn said. "Not without reason."

Before she could respond, Husky's head popped around the corner, a grin splitting his face. "Are you two having a moment? Because we're about to start the movie, and I've got dibs on Val."

Quinn rolled his eyes, but Valerie caught the slight relaxing of his shoulders. "You can't call dibs on people, Husk."

"Watch me."

—---------

Husky's room was a comfortable mess of band posters and half-finished mechanical sketches pinned to the walls. The TV balanced precariously on his dresser, casting blue light across the scattered pieces of what might have been a radio on his desk. Loch and Hailey had already claimed spots on the floor, surrounded by a nest of pillows and blankets. Hailey's purple-streaked hair caught the TV's glow like strands of twilight.

"Finally," Loch said as they entered. "We were about to start without you."

"No, we weren't," Hailey said, too quickly. She was braiding and unbraiding a small section of her hair, a nervous habit she'd picked up freshman year. "I mean, what's the point of movie night without everyone?"

They settled into their usual positions: Husky sprawled across his bed with Valerie's head in his lap, her legs stretched across Quinn's thighs. The familiar weight of Quinn's hand on her ankle, Husky's fingers absently playing with her hair—it felt safe, like coming home.

The movie played, some horror film they'd all seen before, but Valerie found her attention drifting. Through the window, she could see stars scattered across the dark sky like salt spilled on black velvet. They seemed brighter than usual, almost like they were watching back.

"You know," Hailey said during a quiet moment, her voice thoughtful, "if there really is something weird going on... shouldn't we try to figure out what it is, I mean we did say it was our project.."

"Here we go," Loch muttered, but there was a fondness in her voice that took the sting out of the words.

"I'm serious!" Hailey turned to face them, her eyes bright with excitement. "If what Quinn found in those newspapers is real, if what Val saw today wasn't just her imagination—"

"Which it wasn't," Quinn interjected.

"—then maybe we should start investigate. Starting with the lake-river."

A heavy silence fell. Valerie felt Quinn's hand tighten slightly on her ankle.

"The river," Husky said finally. "If we're doing this, we start with the river. That's where most of the stories come from anyway."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," Hailey continued, gaining momentum. "We could pack a lunch, make a day of it. My mom thinks I'm babysitting for the Hendersons anyway, so—"

"You want to lie to your mom?" Loch raised an eyebrow.

"It's not lying if I'm just... adjusting my schedule a bit."

"I'm in," Quinn said quietly. Everyone looked at him in surprise. He rarely went near the river, not since— "If something's happening, if it's starting again... we should know."

Valerie felt Husky's fingers still in her hair. "Val?" he asked softly.

She thought about the man in the clinic, about Corbat's words: The shadows are getting wronger. About the way Quinn's voice shook slightly when he talked about the river, and how Husky's hand had found hers without either of them acknowledging it.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'm in."

"Well," Loch sighed dramatically, "someone has to keep you all from getting killed by imaginary river monsters."

"They're not imaginary," Quinn started, but Loch threw a pillow at him.

"Tomorrow then," she said, and something in her voice made it sound like a promise. Or maybe a prayer.

They turned back to the movie, but Valerie knew none of them were really watching anymore. Their minds were already on tomorrow, on the river, on whatever answers—or questions—they might find there.

Tonrar watched them from the doorway. The dog's eyes seemed to glow in the television's blue light, and for just a moment, she could have sworn she saw something ancient and knowing in their depths.

But then Husky made some ridiculous comment about the movie's physics, and Quinn launched into an explanation of why he was wrong, and Hailey threw more popcorn, and everything felt normal again. Or at least, as normal as things could be when you're planning to chase monsters at sunrise.

The night deepened, and in the spare room down the hall, Corbat dreamed of shadows that danced like living things, of water that sang with voices older than memory, morning would come soon enough.