Midnight Lily

  I'd wanted to laugh out loud, but I hadn't.

  Then several men had come to the edge of the woods with flashlights. I'd just watched them from behind a spruce tree. I hadn't even had to work to hide.

  Staring unseeing into the leaping flames of the fire, I wondered again about the man. He'd almost gotten himself speared by a pig today. If that low-flying bird hadn't caught his attention, he wouldn't have even known the pig was running right at him. I pressed my lips together, untangling a knot at the end of my hair.

  Who in his or her right mind would leave someone obviously incapable of taking care of himself out here? Alone.

  The man had spotted me a few times and I wondered if he would tell anyone about me? Would they believe him if he did? It seemed to me a case could be made that he was off his rocker. I'd watched him stumble around the lodge—I could see him outside on the deck and inside through the tall, uncovered windows, too. And he did a lot of yelling and ranting at no one in particular. And then the day before yesterday he'd stumbled halfway down the outside stairs before he'd caught himself and fallen on the ground half-moaning/half-laughing. I'd waited to make sure he could actually stand up before leaving. Yes, most likely, he was insane. I supposed there was some kind of irony in me pointing out his insanity, being that I was locked away in a mental institution and all.

  But anyway, he was handsome; I'd give him that. More than handsome, beautiful even. Could men be beautiful? Well, he was. Evidently he knew it, too. He’d ranted about that a whole lot out on the deck by himself. I myself might have found him appealing if he wasn't so obviously crazy and useless. I shook my head, my brush running through the partially dry locks of my long hair, the rhythm and the fire putting me into some sort of mild trance as I thought about him.

  What was it about him that made me so curious despite his obvious lunacy? I laughed quietly to myself. Okay, so, maybe he wasn't a lunatic, but there was definitely something wrong. The thing was, he wasn't only crazy, he was sad, too. He seemed very . . . alone, and not because he was actually living a solitary existence, at least for the moment. For some other reason I couldn't understand. But I could relate and perhaps that was why I was drawn to him. Yes, maybe that was it.

  "Why is he so sad?" I whispered to the fire. It was late August, and the night was only mildly cool, but it was so drafty in here. So big, so cold. The warmth felt nice. The fire snapped as if in answer to the question I'd asked, a log rolling over suddenly and breaking apart, a small spark jumping out and landing on the rug at my feet. I used my brush to smash it out and then went back to brushing my hair, wondering where the man was right now—inside or outside? Howling up at the moon perhaps? I smiled to myself.

  How long would he stay? I assumed the lodge in the valley was more a vacation home than anything, used primarily in winter when the ski slopes were open. Although why he wanted to vacation all alone during any season, I wasn't sure. I wondered again what the man who'd called out his own name—Holden Scott—was doing right that very second.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Holden

  I was vomiting. Again. Kneeling on the floor and gripping the porcelain bowl, I emptied the contents of my stomach and then groaned in misery as I fell over onto the floor, resting my cheek on the cool tile. "Fuck me," I moaned hoarsely.

  I closed my eyes, but the room started spinning and so I opened them immediately, staring at the baseboard in front of me. You can't keep going like this. You can't keep living this way. Brandon's words came back to me and I groaned again, pulling myself up. "Jesus, I know, okay? I know."

  I made my way into the living room and flopped down on the couch, keeping my eyes fixed on the enormous, bronze chandelier hanging from the beamed ceiling above. I was just so tired, always so tired, but I could never sleep for very long. Outside the window, the first light of dawn was shading the sky a thousand hues of gray. If only I could sleep . . .

  I didn't see the kid sitting on the ground on the side of the bleachers, his head in a book, until I practically tripped over him. "Darn, sorry," I said, hopping quickly to the side, righting myself and switching my football helmet to my other hand. The kid looked up at me, revealing a large black and blue mark on his right cheekbone, the eye on that side of his face red and partially swollen shut. "Whoa, what happened to you?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

  He frowned and then reached his fingers up to touch the bruise lightly as if I'd just reminded him it was there. "Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered, shaking his shaggy, dark blond hair so it fell over his forehead into his eyes, hoping I'd go away.

  "You sure? ’Cause that looks like a real shiner. How'd you get it?" I knelt on the grass next to him. His expression was confused as if he didn't know how to react to someone talking to him.

  "Uh, I walked into a door by accident," he said.

  I tilted my head, considering him. He was lying. He'd probably gotten into a fight. I raised my eyebrows. "Nah, you can come up with a better story than that. That one's been used a million times." He looked surprised for a second, and then he made his expression go blank again.

  "Story?" he asked.

  "Yeah, like, you know, you gotta be more imaginative." I tilted my head and looked up at the sky, thinking until it came to me. I looked back at the kid. "That creepy janitor who always just happens," I set my helmet down and used my fingers to make air quotes, "to be walking through the locker room when we're changing tried to abduct you, but you fought him off with the Ninja skills you learned from the old Chinese guy who manages your apartment building when he's not growing bonsai trees."

  The kid looked at me silently for a couple seconds and then said, "I don't live in an apartment building, I think you mean Japanese, and that story is not imaginative at all—it's a clear Karate Kid rip-off. And also, it could get an innocent janitor in a whole lot of trouble—maybe even fired from the job he might need to feed his three foster kids."

  "That guy has three foster kids?" I did a fake shudder.

  He shrugged. "He could."

  "See, that's what's wrong with social services. They give foster kids to guys like him. I hear, like, the whole system is a joke."

  The kid narrowed his eyes—well his one good eye at least—and stared at me for a few moments. Then his lip tipped up slightly and he laughed a short laugh. When he stopped, he looked . . . bewildered. Yeah, bewildered. That was the word. And it'd just been on a vocab test the week before. I took a moment to pat myself on the back for using it.

  "I'm Holden," I said. "Holden Scott."

  He paused for a second before reaching out and gripping the hand I held out to him. "Ryan Ellis."

  Two guys from my team walked by and I heard them snicker under their breath. "Hey, Holden, dude," Vince Milne said, "is it adopt-a-loser day and no one told me?" He ribbed Jeremy Pratt who was walking next to him and Jeremy laughed.

  "Yeah it is, Vince," I called. "Are you already taken?"

  "Eh, fuck off," he muttered under his breath before walking away. I hated that asshole. And he was a suck-ass football player, too.

  I turned back to Ryan who was trying to look like he was busy organizing his backpack and hadn't heard anything Vince and I were saying. I could tell he had though because his face was hot and bright red.

  "Anyway, what way do you walk? I'm headed home if you are, too."

  "Uh, I walk toward Bridgetown Road," he muttered.

  "Me, too. Come on." I stood up, gathering my helmet, and he stood slowly as well. We were about the same height, although Ryan was real skinny. He zipped his backpack and hefted it onto his shoulder.

  "Your backpack looks like it weighs two hundred pounds."

  Ryan smirked. "It does. It's how I got all these muscles."

  "Ha. So what grade are you in?"

  "Seventh, same as you," he said.

  I nodded, feeling bad that he obviously knew who I was, but I'd never noticed him before. I cleared my throat. "So, hey, do you want to stop at Skyline and get a couple Coneys? Are you hungry? I'm
starving. I go there after practice a lot. Some of the other guys might be there, too. The cool ones."

  He shook his head. "No, I can't. I have to be home."

  "Oh, okay. Another time then."

  As we started walking, Ryan said, "So you, uh, obviously play football."

  "Yeah, I love it. Man, it's my life. I'm number twenty-two. I'm gonna go pro someday," I said excitedly. "I'm gonna live in a big mansion and date celebrities, and have my own personal chef, and drive the coolest cars." It was all I ever dreamed about. "Do you play at all? Even just for fun?"

  Ryan shook his head, sticking his hands into his pockets. "Nah. I like watching, though. I like the Cowboys."

  I turned to him. "That's my favorite team. Holy shit, they're awesome!"

  Ryan smiled and nodded.

  "If you like football so much, why don't you play?"

  He pressed his lips together and stared down at his shoes as we walked. "My dad . . . the gear and stuff, you know. It's just . . . not in our budget." His face turned kinda red. I nodded so he would know I understood.

  "My parents are on a budget, too. I know what you mean. My dad had to pick up extra hours so we could afford for me to play."

  Ryan nodded, looking like I'd made him feel better. "I go to all the school games. I think I've seen your parents at them, too—holding up number twenty-two signs."

  I nodded. "Yeah, that's them, all right." I rolled my eyes. "The one's dressed entirely in our school colors, waving pom-poms, foam number-one fingers, and holding up signs with my number. It's so embarrassing." I kept talking. I always talked so damn much. Like my brain had no off switch. All my thoughts just flowed right out of my mouth. "My parents thought they couldn't have kids. They tried for years and nothing, then, boom! When my mom was forty-nine, she found out she was pregnant with me. You should see her, when she tells the story, she looks all dreamy like God himself came down and knocked her up, you know? So they kinda go overboard with the whole parenting thing. Like I'm their miracle child."

  Ryan smiled a small smile. "I guess you kinda are."

  "Yeah, I guess," I said. "So what about your parents?"

  Ryan stiffened and stared down at his shoes again. "It's just me and my dad." I waited, but he didn't go on. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as we walked in silence for a few blocks, getting up the nerve to ask the question I really wanted to know.

  "Did your dad do that to you?" I asked as casually as possible, nodding to his eye when he turned his head to me. His expression was surprised for a second, then he looked kinda mad, then he closed his eyes and looked ahead, deciding to answer honestly.

  "Yeah."

  I was quiet for a minute, wondering what it was like to have a dad who hit you in your face. What did a kid do to deserve something like that? "Your dad sounds like a real asshole."

  "Oh, so you know him," Ryan said sarcastically.

  I breathed out a small laugh. "Hey, you know, so, why don't you come over sometime? We could watch a game. And it would give my parents someone else to fall all over."

  Ryan looked like he might be just a little bit mad about the offer, but then he shrugged. "Maybe. Hey, this is my street. I gotta go."

  "Okay," I called after him as he walked away. "See you tomorrow then."

  He didn't turn, but I heard him mutter, "See you tomorrow."

  I woke up with Ryan's name on my lips. I sat up abruptly and groaned at the pain that throbbed in my head. I was sprawled on the couch in the living room, the morning sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I'd fallen asleep at dawn so I couldn't have been asleep for long. But I'd dreamed. For the first time in a really long time. I lay back down. Something about the dream niggled at my brain, but I couldn't figure it out. Something felt off. But it'd left a lingering feeling of . . . happiness. That was it—I'd had the first happy memory of Ryan. I laughed softly to myself. Maybe there was something to this feng shui after all. And maybe, just maybe, I'd venture out into the woods again to look for my ghost. Something in me was having a hard time believing she didn't exist—I'd seen her. Besides, what the fuck else did I have to do? Wild boars be damned.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Holden

  Late that afternoon as I sat outside in the fresh mountain air, drinking a steaming mug of coffee, I felt a little more alive. I'd taken a pill—just one. Just to take the edge off. I'd woken from my dream . . . hopeful I guess, and I'd tried to go without today, but the nausea was just too severe. I'd wean myself off . . . I'd take fewer and fewer until . . . I let out a long sigh. I'd tried that before and it hadn't worked. But maybe up here it'd be different. You have to be the one to make the choice . . .

  The girl . . . if she was out there, what was she doing right now? Was she in those woods? Alone? She must be well equipped to take care of herself, which made me feel even more lame for having let a pig put the fear of the devil into me. Hadn't I been fearless once upon a time? Hadn't I? Why had I run? I couldn’t remember now. But then again, I couldn't remember a lot these days.

  Sitting there on the deck, staring into the forest, the vague hint of hope coursing through me, I made a decision. I was going back in those woods today, I was going to find her, and I was going to solve the mystery of who she was.

  An hour later, feeling that same excited resolve I'd felt when I'd first set out to find her, I entered the woods.

  The day was mild and the forest floor was cool and misty under the thick canopy of trees. I walked what I thought was the same path I'd walked the last time. Determined to shake off the strangeness and the fear of my last trip into these woods, I made a concerted effort to appreciate the wild beauty around me, bending to look at hollowed-out logs and clusters of wild mushrooms.

  For a Midwestern boy like me, these woods were all new and different and for the first several hours, I was again caught in that lost place of boyhood adventure. As a kid I would have loved this forest—building forts out of rocks and sticks, pretending to be an explorer. I'd been filled with life and hope and excitement once, hadn't I? I must have—I couldn't grasp the feeling now, but I knew I had been a happy kid, a boy who’d dreamed anything was possible and found joy in simple things. Maybe even a boy who should be mourned, because he was gone now, replaced by the wastrel of a man I'd become.

  I called out for the girl but with a little less enthusiasm. It'd been hours and I was starting to doubt myself again.

  I walked for a while longer, before I finally decided to give up and go back. I was getting cold despite the mild weather outside this thick forest, and I hadn't brought the proper layers, underestimating the temperature drop as the day wore into evening. And I was feeling sick again. I needed a fix. My ears were ringing slightly, and my skin felt strange like it did when I hadn't taken a pill for a while: pulsing and electric. I hated it. And I was disappointed, depressed even. I hadn't even seen a whisper of the girl.

  I started back the way I'd come but suddenly realized I'd been walking over flat ground for a while—not uphill like I'd done the other day. Then it had been easy enough to get a feel for direction, because I'd simply returned downhill. But now, looking around, worry began fluttering through my gut. A crack of thunder cut through the trees. "Fuck," I muttered. Surely I wasn't lost. I started walking back the way I thought I'd come, but I felt turned around, unsure, my heart now pounding out a staccato beat in my chest. Branches swayed in the mounting wind and a sudden bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, for a brief instant lighting the forest an eerie, glimmering white.

  And then the rain came.

  The muted light shining through the trees dimmed even more as dark clouds moved across the twilight sky, casting the forest in silvery shades of gray.

  I pulled out my cell phone, trying to get a signal, but it was useless. Of course there wouldn't be service up here in the midst of this thick forest. "You're in the middle of fucking nowhere, idiot," I mumbled to myself. Walking again, I moved more quickly, fighting brambles that seemed to reac
h out and grab me, twisting away from branches that snagged my clothes, tripping over things I could no longer see at my feet, falling once and feeling sharp pine needles and pieces of fallen bark dig into the flesh of my hands.

  "Motherfucker!" I yelled, standing up and stopping, turning in a full circle. What in the hell had I been thinking? I'd tried this before and been beaten then, too. Why had I imagined it was a good idea to give this another go?

  Because of her.

  I was such a stupid fuck sometimes. So now I had to face the facts: I was alone in the woods, no shelter in sight, in a hostile environment that had already gotten the best of me in more ways than one, in a fucking rainstorm.

  Out here it didn't matter that I had millions of dollars in the bank. It didn't matter that I was a superstar in some people's minds, or a tragic fuck-up in other’s. It didn't matter that I had a Super Bowl ring or a fleet of cars.

  It didn't matter because the forest didn't care.

  And truthfully, it didn't matter in general. None of it had brought me happiness, not one single bit. And what were you supposed to do when you had everything in the world and not a goddamned bit of it brought you joy? Where did you go from there? What was left to offer any hope?

  I'd tried it all . . . I'd tried it all. Goddamn, I'd tried it all. I sat down heavily on a large boulder, looking around bleakly, hardly able to see anything through the heavy sheets of rain. I was going to die here, either of exposure or by being skewered by a wild boar. Or maybe worse. Probably worse. And I cared about the dying, but I wasn't sure if I cared about being dead. There was peace in death. Quiet.

  I was lost, my hands bloody and abraded, out of breath, nauseated, and so damn . . . sad. I was so fucking sad. I felt stripped bare, and all that was left was fear and such terrible sadness. I tilted my head up to the rain and felt it mixing with the hot tears running down my face. Christ, now I was crying? This forest had unmanned me in ways I didn't even want to think about, especially now when I was directionless and alone.