When Lark returns with the tea, it’s obvious Sadie’s done with me. She has a new favorite now.
“I’m going to bed now,” I say.
“Good night,” Lark and Sadie say in unison, then turn to each other and giggle at their synchronization.
As soon as I leave the trailer, I feel a weight lifted off me. It’s only around Sadie that I feel so heavy. Everyone else here—Doff, Maria, Joseph, all the kids—they demand nothing from me that I don’t want to give. They give me my own space to be sturdy. With Dylan, it’s the exact opposite, but in a way even nicer. With him, I feel weightless, like I can’t even feel my feet on the ground. Part of me suspects this may not be a good thing. But part of me doesn’t care.
I decide to go up to the house one last time before bed. A few people are still on the patio, passing around a joint. They see me coming and try to hide it.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I won’t tell on you.” It’s pretty comic, adults trying to hide their pot smoking from a teenager. Somehow it doesn’t seem so illicit here. How much trouble could a few stoned people really get into in the middle of a farm?
I poke my head into the kitchen. No one is there. Most people have gone to bed by now. I climb the stairs and see a light on in the office. Maybe Dylan’s there, doing his mysterious “administrative” work. I feel my heart pounding as I approach the slightly cracked door, and I hear typing on the office computer. I knock softly and push the door open. “Hello?” I say, and I can hear the hope burning in my voice.
“Hello?” It is not Dylan’s voice. I open the door to find Old Glen, his long gray hair hanging down the back of the office chair. He spins around and greets me with a grin. “Hi there, Max,” he says.
“Oh, hi,” I say, doing little to hide my disappointment. “I thought you were Dylan.”
He chuckles like a movie Santa Claus. “I’m afraid I’m not that young and strapping,” he says.
“Do you know where he is?” I say, trying not to sound too interested. “I haven’t seen him the last few days.”
“He’s been out making deliveries. He should be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh,” I say. I want to hug him for that news, but I restrain myself. I feel like I should say something else, but I don’t know what. “Well goodnight then,” I finally say.
“Goodnight, Max.”
As I walk back to my yurt in the darkness, I remember that a man named Tim is the one who usually makes the vegetable deliveries in a big white van. I wonder what other deliveries Dylan could be making with the green truck.
But who really cares? Not me. All I care about is that Dylan’s coming back tomorrow.
It is June 21. The summer solstice. Apparently this is a big deal for hippies. It’s like the biggest hippie holiday, as important as Christmas is for people who like to shop.
Dylan was supposed to be back by now. I’ve been hanging out around the house all afternoon waiting for him, even though I knew that meant I’d get roped into helping get ready for the party. So instead of swimming or taking a nap after shoveling shit all day, I’m moving chairs and hanging lights for a party I don’t even want to go to.
As I’m arranging dried wildflowers in canning jars for centerpieces, I feel a hand on my shoulder. My breath catches. But I turn around and it’s just Lark.
“Hi, sweetie,” she says.
“Hi.”
“Thanks for helping.”
“No problem.”
“Hey,” she says, leaning in like we’re conspiring something. “Don’t tell Sadie about this, okay?”
“About what?”
“The party. She’s almost well enough to start getting back to normal, but the doctor says to give it another couple of days to make sure her fever’s down for good. She’s already chomping at the bit, you know?”
“Uh huh.”
“There’s no way she’d stay put if she knew there was a party.”
“Okay.”
“You’re great, Max,” she says, squeezing my shoulders.
“Thanks?” I say, but she runs off before the word has time to reach her.
The weirdness of this place has grown on me, and I’ve found that I like quite a lot of it, but tonight takes it to a whole new level. As much as she’s pissed me off lately, I really wish Sadie were here for this. I so badly want to hear her running commentary; I need her laugh right now. But instead I have to sit here and watch the madness unfolding, alone in my witnessing quite possibly the strangest party I have ever seen.
The night starts normally enough with dinner, except everyone’s dressed up. And by “dressed up,” I mean they look like something out of a Harry Potter movie, with long flowing dresses and robes. The women and kids all have ribbons and flowers in their hair. Old Glen is wearing a blue robe and some kind of horns on his head. His dinner prayer is longer than usual. He goes on and on about abundance and purification and positive energy, and all the adults are nodding and closing their eyes meaningfully, and all the kids are running around like lunatics.
After dinner, Old Glen lights a big bonfire by the lake, and a bunch of people start drumming. The kids run around the fire while the adults take turns throwing in herbs and saying prayers under their breath. I’m sitting off to the side, watching it all from a safe distance, and I’m pretty sure my mouth is hanging open in shock. Doff is banging on some bongos and doesn’t look quite as crazy as the others, but most everyone else is spinning around in circles with possessed looks on their faces.
I so wish Sadie were here. I consider going to get her, dragging her out of the trailer in her smelly pajamas so she can witness this. She would love it. We’d have weeks’ worth of material to laugh about. I’m just about to get her when I see Lark in the corner of my eye, away from the group, in the shadows of the trees on the right side of the lake. Marshall is holding her hand, and I can tell they’re giggling. They look back at the crowd one last time before they run into the trees. I look at Doff and he is happily drumming away, completely oblivious to Lark’s betrayal, and I want so badly to hug him, to let him know someone thinks he’s wonderful. Now I definitely can’t get Sadie. The first thing she’d do is look for her mother. And knowing Sadie, she would probably find her.
Maria and a few other parents start rounding up the children. Old Glen says something about the holiness of youth, and everyone waves goodbye to the yawning children as they’re led to their beds. As soon as they’re gone, people start passing around clay bowls full of some kind of hot tea. Old Glen throws some herbs in the fire and calls on the magic spirits to lead them safely into the other dimension, and that’s when I decide it is definitely time for me to go.
I walk down the path toward my yurt as the intensity of the drumming increases and the group starts chanting. Without someone to laugh with, the night is just embarrassing instead of funny.
As I’m passing Dylan’s cabin, I hear a “Psst!” My heart jumps in my throat. I peer into the darkness and see his outline in the shadow of his doorway, camouflaged by the night.
“Hi,” I say. I take a few steps in his direction.
“You’re not enjoying the party?” he says. I can hear the smirk in his voice.
“Are you serious? I think they’ve all lost their minds.”
“Yep,” he says.
“What are you doing?” I say, stepping closer. I can make out the details of his face now. His sharp features emerge from the darkness.
“Watching,” he says. I turn around to face the direction he’s facing. I see the bonfire lighting the sky, the figures dancing around it. Bats dart around them, and the scene looks like something out of a fairy tale.
“They look like witches,” I say.
“They think they’re witches.” Dylan laughs. “But they’re a bunch of middle-aged, out-of-touch fools.”
“They’re having fun,” I say, feeling a little protective of them.
“Have a seat,” he says, and I enter his darkness without hesitation.
As
soon as I sit, he hands me his flask. I take a swig and feel the whiskey burn down my throat.
“I think they’re on something,” I say. “They can’t be sober and do that without laughing.”
“Mushrooms,” Dylan says.
“What?” I say. “I was kidding.”
He chuckles. “Seriously. Psilocybin. Did you see them passing around some tea?”
“Yes.”
“Did you drink any?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
Maybe.
“I have some,” he says. “Enough for both of us.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Secret.”
“You have a lot of secrets.”
“I also have a lot of mushrooms.”
I’ve been looking for Dylan for days, but now that he’s here I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know that I even want to talk. I just want to be near him, to feel him next to me.
“Well?” he says. He pulls a plastic sandwich bag out of his pocket. It is full of gnarled brown twig-looking things.
“What do they taste like?”
“Honestly, they taste like shit,” he says. “But we have this to wash ’em down.” He holds up the flask, full of whiskey that also tastes like shit.
I sigh. What the hell? I’ve spent my whole life being careful, haven’t I? I’ve always been the one to make sure everything’s under control. But what if I don’t have to be that person anymore? What if I get to be the crazy one for a change? What’s the worst thing that could happen?
“Fine,” I say. “Just a little.”
The mushrooms really do taste like shit. I gag with every swallow. Dylan laughs at me.
“Am I done yet?” I choke. “How many do I have to take?”
“That should be good,” he says, then throws an extra handful in his mouth. “Yummy!”
We sit there for a minute watching the bonfire in the distance. “Now what?” I say.
“You have to wait.”
“For how long?”
“About an hour.”
“An hour!”
“Are you in a hurry?” he says. “Do you have someplace you have to be?”
I don’t respond. What are we going to do for an hour?
We sit. And we sit. It seems like forever. “How long now?”
“Jesus, girl,” Dylan says. “You seriously need to work on your patience.”
“I’m bored.”
“Boredom is not very Zen.”
“Who said I was Zen?”
“Patience, grasshopper.”
“Where were you?” I say. “The last few days.”
“Around.”
“Around where?”
“Around Nebraska.”
“Around Nebraska doing what?”
“Delivering.”
“Delivering what?” I hear my voice rising. I think Dylan enjoys doing this to me. He enjoys being infuriating.
“Things.”
“What things?”
“Secret things.”
“Fuck you!” I say, and I shove him. He falls over and starts laughing, faceup on the ground.
“Ooh, you are so tough,” he mocks, grabbing my wrists and pulling me down. I am lying on top of him. My face is so close to his I can feel his breath on my lips. If this is his version of foreplay, this insulting me and making me mad, it sure seems to be working.
“I am tough,” I say.
“Of course you are.” And he pulls me tight against him.
We kiss. And we kiss. Somehow he ends up on top of me. I don’t know how long we kiss, but pretty soon it turns into something else, something not kissing, something even better, and suddenly it’s like my whole body is kissing him, like every pore of my skin has its own pair of lips.
“Oh my God,” I breathe into his mouth.
“Do you feel it?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I say. “I feel it.”
I feel it like a sound in my body, like a vibration, like God is playing music through me, and it sounds like these kisses, and I am the music, and Dylan is an instrument, and we are playing together. We play and we play, and the crescendo shakes the earth, and suddenly we are so loud the whole universe can hear us. All the gods have perked up their ears. They find us by the light of the bonfire. And they join our singing with their own, but theirs is so much bigger, so much louder, and it enters us, and I don’t know where the gods stop and I begin, and it’s too loud inside my body, the vibrations are too strong, and I have to make the music stop, I have to turn it off, I have to come up for air, I have to breathe, so I break away, I stop singing, I open my eyes and it is dark.
“I’m blind!” I scream.
“What?” Dylan says, and he sounds like he’s still in me.
“I can’t see!”
“Open your eyes.” His voice a cacophony, like out-of-tune violins.
“They are open! I can’t see. Everything is black!” I am falling. I hear the whoosh of gravity around me. I am scared. I am going down and down and deeper and deeper, into the earth, into this giant body, and the music is too loud, it sounds like rocks breaking, like mountains dying, and I shouldn’t be here, I’m not ready. I’m not ready.
Then stillness. I’m in a tunnel. Where is Dylan? Where is the bonfire? Where is Sadie? I’m too alone. I know the ground was on my back once. I know a boy was on top of me. But now I’m in a cave of earth. I’m still blind. I reach out my arms and feel wet mossy rock around me. I walk, but I don’t know if I’m going forward or backward. It’s cold here. I’m sick. I’m full of poison. The pressure of the walls around me squeezes it out. It squeezes and squeezes until there’s nothing left. I taste the poison in my mouth. I hear it. It is coming out of my stomach, through the tunnel of my body. It is out. I am empty. I am clean.
“Gross!” someone says at the end of the earth. I follow the voice.
“Let’s get out of here,” I think I say.
“Chew this gum,” the voice says. An offering on my tongue, a sacrificial wafer. The ritual of receiving. The taste of a clean soul.
“Thank you,” I say. “Amen.”
And then we run. The tunnel is long but I am fast. The rock turns into a labyrinth, a maze of corn like they have at Halloween, but this one’s like a woven basket all around us. I still can’t see, but I can feel the tall stalks slapping my face. I can hear my body thrashing through them. I can hear the sad souls hiding behind them, everywhere I turn, broken spirits lost in the maze, moaning ghosts guarding the tunnel. But because I’m blind, I can’t see them and I’m not scared. They can’t trick me with their pyrotechnics. I know I can pass right through them. I know they’re no match for me.
We wander for hours, days, years, eons. We are holding hands. We are on this journey together. Then in the darkness comes a light. A tiny pinprick on the horizon. God poked a hole in the tunnel just for me. I let go. I am running toward it. The light is mine. It was made for me. It was put here to teach me something. I know that now. All this time I’ve been running, I haven’t known what it was for. I only knew my feet had to keep moving, even though I was tired and sick and wanted to sleep, to float, to have the darkness take me. But here’s what I have to do. I have to follow the light. I pass all the lost souls. I untangle myself from their grabbing hands. I follow the light and find the one I’m looking for.
Mother, you should not be here. You are not dead yet. I know your body is still alive, even if you wish it weren’t. You are only part dead. You are only visiting here. This is not a good place for a vacation. This place is work. You thought you could come here and mingle with death. You thought you could hide from life in the darkness. You thought you could be safe here from pain. You thought no one could find you.
But here I am. I have found you. You ran from the world when your legs stopped working, but I can run faster. I escaped the tunnel. I caught the light. I caught you. But now maybe I’m stuck. Maybe I went too deep. Maybe the tun
nel is closed, the ghosts built a wall of sadness to trap me with you.
“Dylan!” I cry.
“What?”
“Are we stuck here? I don’t want to be underground.”
“We’re in a cornfield, Max. Open your eyes.”
“I want to go home.”
“Calm down. It’s okay. Trust me. It’s okay.”
“I don’t want to be stuck.”
“We’re not stuck. This is freedom. Don’t you see?”
Freedom.
What if I just let go? Let go of everything, let go of myself, let go of you, let go of everyone I try to love, let go of everyone I want to love me? What if I just gave up trying to clutch everything so tight? What if I let go of the fear of losing it all? What would be left? What does the soul look like when it’s alone, without all its ornamentation? What do we look like without all these illusions we attach to ourselves to make us look bigger?
I am big enough.
This soul. This perfect, pure thing.
I am enough.
I open my eyes and everything is clear. The night is still, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I am surrounded by corn. I may be lost, but I am not scared. Nowhere is always somewhere if I am in it.
Dylan is behind me, thinner and lighter than I’ve ever seen him. He is not as strong as I thought, not as sharp. I realize now his coolness is an act, a costume stitched out of fear. Now here he is in front of me like a wet cat, his fur flattened to show how small and how vulnerable he really is. I see him for the first time. He is lost like me. He is terrified. He is running, reckless, from himself and into nothingness. I don’t want to follow him. I don’t want to go where he’s going. But maybe I can help him, maybe I can pull him in the other direction. Maybe he needs me like Sadie needs me. Maybe I can keep him safe. Maybe I am the strong one.
He reaches out his hand for me, and I take it. I put my arms around him and squeeze, feel his frail, brittle bones against mine. I will take care of him. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what he needs.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
“I thought I lost you,” he says.
“I think the road is this way,” I say into the night. I turn around. I start walking. I follow our trail of destruction through the corn. Dylan follows, not letting go of my hand. We reach the road and the sky opens up. The world is huge, and I am in it. From here, I can see everything. I see the bonfire of the farm. I follow the light back.