The Summoning

XX - High Water

It was about a five hour drive to Nanterre, France, where the tour was starting off. I was buzzing with excitement and nerves. I had never been to France before. The only place outside of the United States of America I had been to was Britain and it was briefly, during a time I would rather have not remembered. 

While II and IV took a nap, Vessel and III took turns playing a game on a Steam Deck. I didn't know what game it was they were playing, but I was sure tilting the console side to side didn't help. Sometimes, III would move his whole body as if he could change the trajectory of the game by doing so. They were curled up together on the couch opposite of me, Vessel laying his head on III's arm to get a better look at how III was doing. III bounced his leg up and down while his wide eyes tracked the screen keenly. 

The towns and roads we passed were wholly unfamiliar, but I watched as the morning light broke over the buildings and passing cars. After a while, I pulled out the camera and fiddled with the controls nervously to make sure I really knew what I was doing with it. Looking back at the videos I had taken, I went back to the video of the band practicing. The dark, knowing look in IV's eyes as he watched Vessel. Did he know what had happened to Elizabeth Davies? 

Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe this man across from me had nothing to do with this woman. But I recognized Vessel's face in the missing person's article and in the photo standing with Elizabeth. If it truly was an accident, why wouldn't they tell me? Clearly, III didn't want to talk about the woman he loved and had to leave behind, but was it the same? The article said that Elizabeth left the party with her boyfriend. 

Vessel seemed to have been though a lot of pain, suffering and loss. It would make sense that he wouldn't want to talk about it, especially when he could just make raw and personal songs about his suffering. Getting up to get the laptop from the cubby, I sat back down and hid the screen away as I searched for more about who Vessel truly used to be. 

Oliver Moore didn't have any sort of social media handles, but when I searched his name, there were a few tagged pictures of him from others that had gone to university with him. Most were candid pictures of him in the university hallways or at some other dorm parties. He didn't smile in any of them. One picture I came across from a now deleted account sent goosebumps over my skin. Oliver's eyes were red when he glanced up at the camera as if caught off guard by the picture, but Elizabeth seemed to be glaring at him as she came up behind him in a large hallway, probably at the university. He was much thinner in these photos, gripping the strap of a backpack on one shoulder as his hair fell over the sides of his face. In the light of the camera flash, I was sure I could see bruises near his neck. 

In the search to compare the man in the picture to the man in front of me, I glanced up to find him watching me again. My breath caught, but I showed no outward appearance of being intimidated as I kept his eyes and clenched my jaw. Curling up further into the couch and pulling the laptop closer as if he would jump up and snatch it away, I closed out of the browser and cleared the history just to be safe. 

Around midday, II and IV woke from their naps as we were arriving in France. The butterflies in my stomach now felt like a swarm of bees. Could I really do this?

The boys filed out of the van first as I slung my backpack over my shoulder, IV waiting at the door for me. The van was parked at the back of the venue and we were greeted by Sam at a back door. The four of them had put their masks on together before opening the van's door.

"Welcome to France!" He called to me with a wink and a smirk as he clapped a hand over III's shoulder, leading us into the venue. 

Vessel draped his arms over II's shoulders as they entered the building, struggling to keep his feet in pace with II's in front of him. II went off somewhere with Sam after we were led to the dressing room and just the dressing room itself was huge. There was a table of food and water, along with a row of Redbulls and soda.