Lucas/Mari

Lucas stumbled, grunting as his knee slammed into the hard dirt of the Durn Forest Hill path.

He checked his pocket for the hundredth time, sighed in relief, then brushed at the dirt and grass staining his brown corduroys.

~~~

“What are you reading?”

It was the beginning of summer, and Lucas was alone in the park, reading.

He looked up from the page at the girl standing there, hands behind her back, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, pale eyes peering out from beneath neatly trimmed black bangs.

“It’s a book about ghosts,” Lucas said.

“Can I see?”

“Sure.”

She plopped down beside him, and he shifted the book so they could both read.

At the end of each pair of pages, Lucas glanced at her; she nodded, and he turned the page.

“Mari,” the girl suddenly said.

“Lucas.”

“Let’s be friends.”

“Sure.”

~~~

Strange, high pitched wails mocked him from the darkness between the trees, just like Mari had said they would.

“Don’t listen to them,” she’d said between coughs. “They’ll try to discourage you. Same as when they possess the people in town.”

The sound thinned into the wind.

Lucas gathered himself and pushed forward, limping slightly as he continued to ascend the hill.

~~~

“Is this really going to work?” Lucas asked as he fiddled with the straps of the backpack outside of the old Dearborn House.

“Of course,” Mari responded confidently. “It’s what The Forgotten Book said would get rid of the restless spirits.”

“How come you never let me see the book?”

“I told you. Boys aren’t allowed to look at it.”

“Yeah.” Lucas shrugged.

“Come on,” Mari insisted. “Let’s get started.”

Lucas set the backpack on the ground, and together they mixed vinegar, peppermint oil, bay leaves, and cayenne in a bowl.

When they finished, they dipped jumbo cotton balls into the pungent mixture and tossed the soaked things into every corner and crevice of the small, rundown house.

Two nights later, when Lucas and Mari returned, the skittering and scratching of the restless spirits was nowhere to be heard.

~~~

Lucas and Mari sat on the bench, watching raindrops strike puddles and ripple outward.

They were hunched over, faces hidden beneath the hoods of their raincoats.

“I heard my mom and dad arguing again,” Mari said. “They don’t know what to do with me. Guess I really am a burden.”

“You aren’t a burden,” Lucas said quickly. “You’re my friend.” He kicked a pebble toward a puddle. “My only friend,” he added quietly as the tapping of the raindrops echoed inside his hood.

~~~

Lucas reached the top of the hill and saw it.

~~~

“There has to be something I can do,” Lucas whispered.

Mari sighed and looked at him with tired eyes.

“Maybe something from The Forgotten Book,” he continued.

“There might be,” Mari said. “But before I tell you, you have to promise me something.”

Lucas nodded eagerly.

“Promise that you’ll never hate me.”

~~~

Lucas looked at the rock Mari had told him used to be an altar to a very old spirit, forgotten by the town.

It took the form of a crow, she’d said. Or a raven. Or sometimes a squirrel.

Lucas removed the shiny bauble from his pocket, placed it on the rock, and, like Mari instructed, made his wish, turned his back to the offering, and took ten strides away.

He remained very still, just as she’d told him to, and waited for what felt like ages.

Then he heard it.

A flap of wings.

A caw.

A tap of a beak.

Scraping.

Another caw.

Wings fading into the distance.

Lucas ran.

He tore down the hill, branches whipping at his arms. He ran past the staring townsfolk, through the hissing sliding doors, past the nurse who reached out to stop him, and into Mari’s room.

The shout rising in his throat dropped like a stone into his stomach.

Through wet and blurring vision, he looked past Mari’s weeping parents to his still and silent friend and saw the green mountains had gone flat.