Briony's favorite class was creative writing because she got to sit behind Gen and doze for forty-five minutes on the small desks. Gen liked it for entirely different reasons, namely that there were only six people in the class and that the teacher let her write about anything she wanted. Even if that included conspiracy theories about strange fires in the woods behind her family's house.
But somehow she couldn't seem to write it well. Something about her inability to depict the creeping sensation of being watched, or the eerie stretching of the shadows before she saw the figure. It raised the hair on the back of her neck in a way that her words couldn't.
The girl next to her, Samantha, was writing about vampires.
Gen leaned across the aisle and glanced at her page. The words dark and blood showed up a lot.
"How would you describe a purely fictitious man lurking in the woods?" she asked. Samantha looked annoyed at having been interrupted.
"Was he hot?" she asked.
"Does it matter?"
"Oh yes," Samantha responded sincerely. "It determines whether he's brooding or just creepy."
Gen thought it was awfully unfair to determine whether someone was creepy based purely on facial construction.
"Perhaps tortured?" Gen suggested in compromise. Samantha looked inspired and scratched the word into her writing. Maybe Gen should just write vampire fiction.
She leaned back and rested her head on Briony's desk.
In a whisper she asked, "Briony what would you say if I said we should stake out a clearing in the woods tonight to see if any spectral figures come a lurking?"
Briony didn't lift her head from her arms. "I would say that you might consider slightly saner Friday night activities. Perhaps street racing or brutal alcohol abuse?"
"That seems very illegal."
"But think of the opportunities for starting crime rings." Briony cracked open her dark eye. "Are you actually serious or is this like the film club conspiracy?"
"No," Gen retorted. The president of the film club still hadn't forgiven her for revealing that their Polish surreal film marathon was in fact a cover for their coed sleepover in the library last spring. "Besides that turned out to be true. Will you please come– Piggy gets scared?"
"No."
"But you're the only person I know who believes in stuff like this."
"Stuff?" She pretended not to know what Gen was talking about, just to make Gen say it.
"Remember when we first became friends in sixth grade and I went to your house?"
"Yeah, my grandmother made you help her burn the sage to ward off the spirits." Briony laughed as if to say, "look at how stupid I think this is."
"And she told me that if I ever needed a little extra protection I should ask her for one of those," Gen pointed at the string that hung around Briony's neck. Briony briefly touched the little pouch that rested beneath the neckline of her uniform.
Last summer they had gone to the beach and Gen had hidden the pouch as a joke when Briony went swimming. When she had gotten back she freaked out, rifling through her bag and feeding her fingers through the sand around them until Gen had shamefully pulled it out of hiding. It would have been alright if Briony had just gotten angry at her—she did that enough anyways. But she had been scared as well, which Gen still felt guilty about.
"It might be time for extra protection," Gen said, thinking of the figure just feet away from her.
"Okay," Briony said. "Come by my grandmother's house after school." Her expression darkened. "We'll have to put off the fox sightseeing for today."
YOU ARE READING
Wilt
ParanormalThere's a town where no one dies. For as long as Gen could remember Haslemere had been the same. Growing up in a sleepy New England town frozen in time, Gen dreamed stories of lives she'd lived long ago, and the boy who she loved every time. Bu...
