With a shaking hand, Penelope dragged her finger across the screen of her phone to answer the call.
"Penelope?" came Daevon's voice from the other side. When she didn't immediately answer, his voice came again. "Penelope, are you there?"
"Y-Yes," she replied, finally, her voice barely a whisper. Her whole body was shaking now. It had been less than two weeks since she had last seen him, just before he had posted his video, but it felt like ages and now the distance that had grown between them was immense. She didn't know what to say to him. He no longer felt like someone she knew.
"Are you okay?" Daevon demanded. "Where are you? You haven't been answering my calls, and when I went by your house, no one was home!"
A sudden spark awoke inside her, angry and hot. It spread through her, flaring out until it reached the tips of her shaking fingers, stilling them as her grip tightened around her phone. She ground her teeth together.
"Why do you care?"
"You're my girlfriend," Daevon said like it was obvious. "Of course I'd care!"
That stunned Penelope into silence, dampening the flame for a moment. "You... You still think I'm your girlfriend?"
"What? Why wouldn't I?"
"Because you... You blindsided me by uploading that video! You gave me no warning before blowing up my life! You ruined everything!"
"I wanted to tell you, I really did, but," he sighed, "everything just happened so fast. That's why I was looking for you, so I could explain it all..."
Despite the heat that flowed through her, her heart panged. Maybe he isn't some conniving liar, maybe he had a good reason to do this... "Explain what?"
"I'd like to do this in person," Daevon said, matter-of-fact, the emotion gone from his voice. "Where are you? I'll come meet you."
"I'm out of town."
"When will you be back?"
Penelope paused. She suddenly remembered why she had pulled out her phone in the first place—to call her dad so they could leave this damned town as soon as possible. But talking to Daevon only reminded her that going home was just as bad, if not worse.
Where would they go now?
"I don't know. I'm in hiding," Penelope said, her voice small and sad. The flame inside her was dying. "Because everyone kind of hates me right now." As she said it, she felt her phone vibrate in her hand as the next wave of hate found her, each one buzzing against her head as it arrived. She pulled the phone away from her ear and put Daevon on speaker instead.
Daevon sighed again, his voice crackling over the speaker. "I didn't mean for that to happen."
"But it did," Penelope said, the flame sparking to life again, smouldering like coal. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell people that I was innocent—that Ihad no idea what you were doing? They blame me, you know. They think I made you do this."
"Like I said, it all happened so fast—"
But as the heat spread again, her words got away from her. "Why did you do it?"
"It's hard to explain, but someone found out and I had to... It wasn't..." he stopped himself and growled with frustration. "See, this is why I wish I could see you—"
"No," Penelope said, cutting him off. "That's not what I'm talking about. Why would you fake my evidence?"
"I did it for you," Daevon said. To Penelope's surprise, he didn't sound sorry, he sounded defensive.
"What? I never asked you to!" she snapped. "You knew how important this was to me. You knew I never wanted it to be fake. So why?"
"Because our channel was going nowhere!" Daevon snapped back. He sounded angry now, too, like he had any right to be. "You might've been happy with your pathetic little EVPs, but I wasn't. I thought you would be more thankful... We've got millions of followers now."
Penelope shrieked a half-laugh. "Thankful?! You knew I never gave a shit about fame—about followers!"
"For someone who doesn't care about followers," Daevon sneered, "you seemed pretty happy with your popularity."
"That's because I thought everything we'd done was for real!" Penelope shot back. "I was excited to share that with people!"
"Well it doesn't matter anymore," Daevon said, his voice cold. "You can go back to your EVPs and if you don't want your followers, I'll take them."
The call was cut out. He had hung up on her.
Penelope stared blankly at her phone, her mouth open, for several moments. Then, with an angry scream, she whipped her arm around and her phone went flying, sailing through the air towards the lake. It skipped across the surface before cutting beneath it and disappearing. As Penelope watched it sink, the adrenaline rush of her outburst soon faded into shame. Her phone was gone. Along with it, her messages, her contacts, whatever remained of her former life...
Good riddance, she thought bitterly.
At least there was a phone in the cabin. She could use that to call her dad. Hopefully, that nosy mayor and Liam had gone their separate ways by now. She turned to head back, then froze with a gasp.
Once again, someone was standing at the mouth of the path, blocking her way.
Liam.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked.
He stared back. For once, the hardness was gone from his eyes. "Long enough."
She realized then that he must have heard some—if not all—of her call with Daevon. "How much did you hear?"
"I didn't mean to eavesdrop," he added in a rush.
"How much did you hear?" she repeated.
Liam finally averted his gaze. "Enough."
Penelope closed her eyes. It was embarrassing, but lately, everything was embarrassing. She no longer cared.
"Whatever," she said and strode towards him, meaning to push past and make her way back to the cabin. She still had to call her father.
He stepped back as she bore down on him. She marched past without a word, until—
"Wait!"
She stopped on the path and half turned her head back towards him.
"I came to apologize," Liam said.
"Oh, yeah? Apologize to a fake like me?" Her anger with Daevon hadn't quite subsided.
"I didn't‚" Liam began, then paused. "Regardless what I thought of you, I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean to make you cry."
"Yeah, I guess it's a lot easier to spew hate online where you can't see the effect your words have on the people on the other side, right?"
Liam frowned. "I never spewed hate at you online."
Penelope turned away again. "Well, congratulations. You're one of the few who haven't." Penelope thought of her phone, at the bottom of the lake. It was waterproof and she wondered if it was still buzzing away with the messages that continued to pour in. They couldn't reach her anymore.
There was a beat of quiet before Penelope heard the sound of steps. Liam was approaching her. She spun around again, ready to warn him to stay away—she had heard enough. But he didn't look like he was going to continue his confrontation.
"I am sorry," Liam said, his voice surprisingly soft. He was close, and at this distance, his dark eyes looked velvety rather than hard.
"Thanks," Penelope muttered, angling herself away from him again.
Silence stretched between them. Penelope, not sure what else to say or do, took a step to make another attempt at leaving, when...
"So Daevon lied to you, too, huh?" Liam said.
Penelope stopped again and closed her eyes, her shoulders sinking. "Yeah." Her voice was small.
Liam gave a small laugh. "Then I guess you feel just like the rest of us do, huh?"
"The rest of us?" Penelope asked, frowning as she turned to face him again.
"Your subscribers," Liam said.
Penelope blinked at him. Liam smiled sheepishly back.
"You were a... subscriber?" she said.
"How do you think I know who you are?" Liam said, waving his arms wide.
Penelope narrowed her eyes at him. Liam wasn't the kind of person she'd peg as a follower of hers. Her stats skewed young and female, and Liam seemed like he'd stick to commentary channels or science and tech news—more likely to be a skeptic than a believer.
Liam seemed to feel the scrutiny in her stare. He narrowed his eyes right back. "What? Don't believe me?"
"I didn't say that."
Liam shook his head. "Right." He looked away. "Surely you know what it's like to want to believe, after someone..." His words trailed off.
The long bright hall from her dream came to mind.
She did.
The fire spat sparks into the sky as a log shifted and collapsed. The weather had turned in the afternoon, the heat of the morning condensing into heavy clouds. The weather advanced with a cool wind, so Liam had built a fire in the stone pit to keep them warm. Penelope was thankful for her hoodie.
"I'm actually a junior," Liam said, prodding at the fire with a long stick and feeding it another log. "I was named after my dad—Liam Junior—and I went by just Junior for the first twelve years of my life. But after my dad died, everyone just started calling me Liam. Like because there was only one Liam now, there was no need to make the distinction."
Penelope nodded. She was sitting on the rocks, the log at her back, to be closer to the fire. She remembered the same odd shifts her life made after her mother was gone. How at first it was like everyone felt the same pain as she did, but as time moved on, people pulled back and moved on, too. In some ways, it felt like a betrayal, because she couldn't. She still felt everything.
"Why didn't you ask them to stop?" she asked.
"Because in a weird way I liked it," Liam said, smiling, his dark eyes reflecting the flame of the fire. "Because every time someone called me by his name, it made me think of him. Though, at the beginning, I'd think they were calling out to him and I'd turn, expecting to see him..."
Penelope nodded. She knew that well. "I call those 'sucker-punch moments.'"
"Sucker punch?" Liam repeated.
"Yeah, ‛cause for one brief moment the pain subsides and you manage to forget and then—" she mimed a punch to the cheek, "—pow. It all comes rushing back.
Liam nodded. "That's a good name for it. What were yours?"
"I used to take my phone out," Penelope began, thinking back, "to send my mom a text. Sometimes I'd even start typing, get out full messages, before I remembered. And I felt guilty for forgetting, but also it felt nice to—even just for a moment—feel like I could still reach her, somehow."
"Is that how you started?" Liam asked. "Looking for a way to reach her again?"
Penelope nodded. Her vision blurred but she blinked and it was gone. "It didn't quite work, but I kept trying. Maybe if not her, then someone, y'know? Something. Anything. At least to know that something was out there in the... beyond." She waved her hand through the air.
"Same," Liam said. "That's how I found your channel. I wanted a sign, any sign. And you seemed like you actually cared. Until Daevon..."
"Until Daevon," Penelope echoed with an angry huff. "Guess there's a lot more fakes out there than I had wanted to believe there were."
Liam snorted. "Oh, there's plenty of them. Like Gunnar."
Gunnar. Penelope had almost forgotten about him. She pursed her lips. "Is that why you hate him?" Not that she blamed him.
"I hate Gunnar for a lot of reasons," Liam said, his voice dipping low. "Shit boss. Smug asshole. General nuisance. But, yeah, a major one is because he's a shit-eating liar." The last word was almost a growl.
"Of course, he is," Penelope said with a scoff, leaning back against the log. She thought of the Mayor's offer—of how excited he was when he thought that she might be able to help him forge more evidence. Definitely a liar. "To be honest, I'm so not surprised the Raven is fake."
"Hey, I never said that," Liam said. "I just said that Gunnar was a shit-eating liar."
Penelope snapped her head up and frowned. "You believe the Raven is real?"
"Some of the Raven evidence is bullshit. Okay, most of the Raven evidence is bullshit," Liam said. "But some of it, before it got all gussied up for tourism, is pretty interesting."
"Oh, really?" Penelope said, raising her eyebrow. "Like what?"
Liam shrugged like it suddenly wasn't that big of a deal. "First hand accounts from reputable sources."
"Like who?"
Liam narrowed his eyes again and they glinted the firelight, making them all the sharper. "You're not making a video, are you?"
"No!" Penelope snapped. "No, of course not. I'm done with that. I just want to know. I'm curious." It was her turn to shrug and pretend like she didn't care.
"Still?" His eyes stayed low but his one eyebrow raised.
"What do you mean, still?"
"You still want to believe?"
Penelope stared at him. "Of course, I do," she said. "Don't you?"
"Then maybe you should make a video about the Raven," Liam said, poking at the fire again.
Penelope noticed that he hadn't answered her question, but she didn't push it. "A video?"
"Make a video about the Raven," Liam said again. "Tell the story but cut through all the bullshit. Use your platform to dig out the liars and focus on the good stuff."
"No, no, I can't," she sputtered. "I mean, to start I-I don't have any of my stuff—"
"You don't need most of that shit," Liam said with a snort. "Daevon just used all that equipment to fake it all. And no one is going to believe you if you come back all slick and overproduced. These days, a phone will be enough."
"Well, I don't even have a phone," Penelope said, pointing towards the lake where her phone now rested in its watery grave.
"It might surprise you," Liam said with a sarcastic edge, "but there are places in Ridgestone that sell phones."
"Everyone hates me," Penelope added.
"So?" Liam said. He didn't seem like the person to care whether or not he was widely liked. "That's only because no one knows the truth of what Daevon did. So maybe you should tell them."
She scowled. "It's not that easy."
"It could be," Liam said, but his gaze drifted away, over the lake.
The clouds were closer now, and darker.
"Think about it," Liam said, standing up from his log and reaching for the bucket of lake water sitting nearby. "But I think we should head in." He poured the water over the fire, sending a pillar of thick smoke into the air.
As Liam headed back to the path, Penelope stood up and lingered at the lake's edge, watching the storm advance. It had been a while since she'd experienced a proper storm. Just like he asked, she thought about his request.
He was right. She did still want to believe... That's why she was so curious about the Raven, to begin with. Maybe it was the thing that would indelibly prove that there was more out there, beyond the expected.
Maybe you should make a video about the Raven, Liam had said.
Maybe she should.
What do you think of Daevon?
What do you think he's up to?