“Both,” I said. I want it all, I want everything.
Micah had wanted the normal stuff. A coffin, a hole in the ground. But he wanted a yellow tie. I remember that specifically, because I remember picturing it: a tie made of sunshine.
I wonder what Micah remembers. I wonder if he remembers the same things, or if he remembers the other parts. There must have been other parts. We must have walked back—what had that been like? Stumbling and laughing all the way back under streetlights. I should ask him later. We’ll lie on X-marks-the-spot and piece together the memories.
That had been a good night.
Tonight will be a good night too.
I don’t even get out of the car. The next one is a fast clue, just a bunch of sparklers. Besides, Micah is all jittery around cemeteries now. I don’t think he’ll stay long, and he doesn’t. I see him half jogging out of the cemetery and jumping into his car. I take a breath that pulls all the air in my car into my lungs, and then I roll down the windows and follow him.
Down the road, to the school, and farther. To the forest on the far side of the quarry that was supposed to be cut down and made into a nice neighborhood full of picket fences, but they ran out of money almost as soon as they started. So now it’s just this cluster of trees that desperately wants to grow into dark fairy woods, and once in junior year, Micah and I went there with a bunch of sparklers. No reason, really. It was finals week and we needed something beautiful. We sent them high, and the embers rained down and burned our bare shoulders.
By the road to the quarry, Micah goes straight and I make a left. He’ll go to the forest and find a pair of paddles sticking out of the ground and a rock from the Metaphor balanced on top, and he’ll know where to go. I have to beat him there.
It’s dark now, aggressively dark, and I open my window and stick my head out to make sure there are stars. It’s freezing and I’m prepared to be annoyed, to huff and puff at the sky and blow the clouds away, but no, there they are! Baby stars blinking and waking and stretching. Don’t be shy, baby stars! You can shine. You can even fall, if you want. Just not tonight. Tonight is mine.
I take a deep breath. I feel the darkness in my lungs and it feels right. I start toward Old Eell’s barn, filled to the brim with the night. The barn is farther down the shore than the Metaphor, and it’s unfamiliar territory in the dark, and unfamiliar is terrifying, so I pee before I go.
What? Fear makes my bladder wonky.
Old Eells is the ghost who lives in the barn and drowns the faint of heart, and I know he’s not real because Alex Brandley always brings girls here on first dates and he should have drowned a thousand times over by now. He brought me here sophomore year and tried to go through three bases in a minute, and I told him I’d kick him in the balls but they were too small to find.
But he did show me the boat, so I guess it was worth it. I’ve taken over the barn now. Micah and I have a stash of alcohol behind the rusty tractor, and it makes me feel terribly grown up. I ignore that tonight, since Micah is bringing the special peach vodka I left for him. I go to the back corner instead, where the boat is. It’s not heavy, but it’s still heavier than I’d like it to be. I kick it and lug it and then something rustles over by the tractor and it’s probably a starved wolf so I run, hauling the boat behind me, until I’m at the edge of the quarry. I leap into the boat and wrap my arms around my legs and squeeze my eyes closed. No spiders no rats no snakes no bats no wolves. Nope nope nope.
“Janie?”
I scream.
Micah yelps too, and he drops everything he’s holding, and I’m out of the boat and his flashlight is in my face and I’m screaming again, screaming, “Did you break the vodka? Is the bottle broken?”
“Jesus Christ the vodka is fine I am having a fucking heart attack!” he yells back, and then we’re in the grass and laughing, and everything is okay, okay, okay.
“You took forever,” I tell him when I can breathe again.
“Yeah, I wandered around that goddamn forest for a while. You couldn’t have done this, like, during the day?”
Well, we could have, if you were home. But I don’t say that. I say, “But it was more fun in the dark,” and he shakes his head and smiles and says, “I guess.”
“Well, we’re not done. Come on. Last clue,” I say impatiently, trying to tug both of us back into the boat. But Micah digs his feet in.
“Wait,” he says. “That’s the boat from the barn.”
“Get in the boat, Micah.”
“I’m not getting into the boat. No. No way.”
I consider stomping my foot. Overload? Overload. I glare at him instead. “Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t really want to drown tonight.”