I don't know how this town survives. Where these people eat, where these people work. What these people do. I suppose I'm not one to comment on that last one though, I don't do anything.
————
The next week I managed to stall my mother long enough to arrive late. I didn't want to be stuck alone with the twins again, so it was best if I showed up while class was already in session. It's not like I was missing much. She wasn't very happy about it, and she complained and grumbled the whole way, but, I'm here now, and it was worth it, because Callie and Carson are not standing outside of the building looking at me this time.
Eillie looks up in surprise when I enter the classroom.
"Darcy! You're late!" She calls out. She says it as if it's something I don't already know, like it's a helpful tidbit of information to remember for next time.
"I know." I reply.
————
We're actually starting to work on exercises now, to develop our art skills. I think you probably have to have skill in order to develop it, and I do not. I just have another picture of a door. We're working on shading techniques today though, so this one is crosshatched.
I still hate it.
Eillie says we won't have to share anything yet until at least next week. Another setback in the doomsday clock, but each step back comes with two steps forward. Armageddon creeps closer.
I think I'll actually finish this door before I start scribbling it out. The crosshatching doesn't look the worst, it gives it a dark feel that I think suits it. I think there's something behind this door, and so I start drawing it. I'm not sure what it is yet, a tendril of some kind, a tentacle maybe. I was always fascinated by myths of the kraken as a child. Maybe that's what was behind the door, just a big, giant-
"Hey Darcy. What're you working on?" Rana's voice nearly makes me jump out of my skin, and I slam my notebook shut. I must not have noticed her approaching and sitting down next to me, I don't know how. Too busy thinking about krakens I guess.
"Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I'm sorry." She says. I relax a little, but still, she should not have seen anything. Why was she here? Interacting with me? I was even wearing my jumpsuit today and everything.
"It's alright." I say. She looks at me for a second, like she's waiting for me to say more, but I don't.
"Ok, ok." Says Rana. It means nothing, it's just sounds. But it puts the ball back in my court, conversation wise. It's a smart move, and I respect the play.
"What are you doing over here?" I ask, glancing around the room. The twins are keenly eyeing us from the other side of class, and Gabe is hunched over his own sketchbook on a desk near the front, frantically working with coloured pencil crayons.
"Well, honestly, I think you're a bit weird." She says, gingerly. She expects it to be something that will hurt me, she doesn't know how I'll react. But she says it anyway. I have to appreciate that honesty, and it doesn't hurt at all of course, it's exactly what I want to hear.
"But I saw the twins dragging you off last week, and well..." She continues. "You didn't look very happy about it, so I thought I'd offer you a way out. Just so you don't have to deal with that again."
"What are you proposing?" I ask.
"Well, me and Gabe were gonna go hang out by the lighthouse after class, you're welcome to come along if you like. You can tell them you've got plans already, just, don't bring them with you, please."
I could tell them I had plans if I wanted anyway, just lie to them, and I was going to point that fact out to Rana too, but something stops me, the words catch in my throat. I look over at the twins, still staring at me with matching smirks, and then back to Rana, looking expectantly for an answer.
"Yeah, it sounds good." I say. Rana flashes a quick smile and claps me on the shoulder.
"Alright cool." She says. "And not that this is about you owing me anything but I hope if they ever come after me you'll do the same."
She scampers back across the room to Gabe and sits back down. I'm about to go back to opening my book, finishing and then drawing over my door, when Gabe raises his hand. It takes Eillie a minute or two to notice, but he just stays there, holding it up until she does.
"Gabe?" She asks. "You have a question?"
"Um... yeah." Says Gabe. "Can we come back to me now?"
"I'm sorry?" Eillie looks as confused as I feel.
"In the icebreaker, we never got back to me. Saying what I like." Gabe explains. There's a pause where Eillie looks like she's trying to piece together what she's going to say.
"That was three weeks ago, Gabe." She says.
"Yeah." Gabe replies. He doesn't say anything more.
"Um, of course then I suppose, go ahead." She says finally. Gabe turns around to the whole class and takes a deep breath. Everyone's eyes are on him, even the twins. He has the attention of the whole class. Even if it's just five people, it may as well be the world.
"I like rocks." He says. "Diggin' em. Finding em."
Then he turns around and sits back down. The class is silent, not quite sure what to make of this development. Finally Eillie says something, even though Gabe has long since gone back to his sketchbook.
"Awesome, thanks Gabe,"
————
I make an effort to leave class earlier this time, the twins always like to leave last, or second to me, and if I want to ditch them, I'm going to need to be quick. I get the obligatory goodnight and pat on the back from Eillie on my way out the door, then hurry downstairs and wait around the corner for Rana, out of the usual sight line for anyone coming down, but I'd be able to see them. As I'd feared, the twins come down first, almost definitely looking for me. I squish myself as far back in the corner as I can go, I may as well be praying that they don't see me. But, it turns out I don't have to go that far, as after a second, they give each other a strange look, and leave.
I hurry out to catch up with Rana and Gabe, as they come down a few minutes later.
"Darcy! You're coming!" Rana says. She sounds surprised.
I shrug. "Yeah. I said I would be, right?"
Gabe waves at me awkwardly. I wonder if he ever does anything not awkwardly. "Hey man." He says.
The lighthouse is so far out on the beach that I had nearly forgotten the town even had one. I still wasn't sure why it had one, there weren't, and had never been, any large ships out on the lake. But it was here nonetheless, imposing and old, and had been here as long as anyone can remember. One of the oldest in the country, the plaque said. The town really went out of its way to make that in big letters, probably because it was the only interesting thing about the town, and it was barely within its borders.
We walked for what must've been at least forty five minutes to get there, trudging through the snow. I had protested my mother making me wear a coat this morning, but I was glad for it now. Rana and Gabe chatted about nothing, and I was happy to follow along behind and listen. Listen to Rana talk about her summer cabin, to the crunch of our boots on the untouched snow, to the whistle of a bird somewhere in the distance, to Gabe humming to himself. They weren't sounds I was used to, but they were sounds enjoyed. Like discovering a new album for the first time.
The beach is much harder to walk on than the sidewalks, as the snow is thicker and fluffier, nobody had been out here in a long time. I suppose all the old folks would have some difficulty navigating this, hell, I'm having difficulty navigating it and I'm only sixteen. It helps that I let the other two walk in front of me like trailblazers, packing down a path for me to follow. I feel a bit bad about it, making them do that, but it is a long shot better than if it was me in front. I text my mother on the way, and she's delighted to hear I'm spending time with friends of my own accord. I put my phone away, I don't want to hear any more about it.
Finally the form of the lighthouse emerges from the fog of falling snow, a huge spire of ancient blackened brick and stone. The light isn't going, it hasn't been operational since long before I moved here. Still, every time I saw it as a kid I imagined what it must've been like, back in it's day. Something grand, shining. A beacon of progress for what was to come. It's a shame that what came kind of sucks.
We find a bench to sit down on at the base of it, Rana and Gabe still chatting. I tune them out and listen to the wind. The lighthouse is an interesting shape, it makes the wind move around it in interesting ways. All new kinds of sounds, like howling and whistling. In the distance the waves on the lake hit the ice, the chatter of seagulls blends with the chatter of my companions. Occasionally in the distance, I hear a car pass. It all comes together to create a very unique soundscape. And then there's Rana, saying my name.
"Darcy! Why don't you talk a bit? Not in a lame icebreaker way like Eillie wants, just, you know." She says. "You've been silent this whole time, you might as well hang out with us while you're hanging out with us, right?"
Uh oh. Batter up, time for me to say words. The raffle ball in my brain clinks around in its cage, and finally rolls out my mouth.
"Hey, you ever think about what magicians would do if you sleeved their marked decks?" I ask. Wow, I really don't know where that one came from.
"Huh?" Asks Gabe.
"You know, like, card sleeves that collectors put on their Pokémon cards and stuff so they don't get damaged. But you also can't see the backs of the cards." I explain. "What if you put those on the cards a magician was trying to trick people with?"
There's a long and silent pause. Gabe looks like he's wrestling with this concept. Rana has a weird kind of smile on her face. She speaks first.
"Well damn, Darcy. I guess they'd be totally screwed."
It should bother me that I didn't weird her out, but it doesn't.
————
The conversation continues for a while, although I manage to tune in a little more. I learn about Rana's distrust of Italian food, about how Gabe always wanted to live in a desert. He seems a bit sad when I tell him he is definitely not in the right place for that. I share a few things about myself too, although I'm careful about how much I let slip. I mostly just talk about my mice, which Rana seems interested in, although Gabe rolls his eyes whenever I bring up the alpha male.
Soon the talking dwindles, with several long pauses where I feel like someone should be saying something but nobody does. After a while, Gabe goes off to dig through the snow on the beach, occasionally pulling out a flat stone and proudly presenting it to us.
"He likes rocks." Rana says.
"I heard" I reply. There's another long pause, as we watch Gabe digging. This one doesn't feel quite as awkward, though. The sound of Rana's breathing, and the water lapping against the icy shore in the background, tune out my thoughts of what horrors the twins could be up to, of what could be behind that door. Finally Rana perks up again and pulls one of her notebooks out of her bag.
"Hey, wanna see some of my art?" She asks. "I know we're not there yet in the class, but I saw yours earlier so I figured it's only fair that you get some of that in return, you know?"
I shrug. "Yeah, ok, why not?"
"This is the one I was working on today." She slides a little closer to me on the bench and flips to one of the later pages. On it is a very detailed sketch, of two faces I don't really want to see right now. They are, however, much more tolerable on paper. Near-perfect likenesses of Callie and Carson grin back at me from the page. The style isn't exactly realism, but somehow it captures their energy perfectly, their sparkling eyes trying to bore a hole through me even from the confines of the page.
"That's really good." I say.
"Thanks. It's a bit creepy you know, but hey, so are my references." She laughs. I silently nod in agreement. There's a short pause before she adds; "For what it's worth, I like your door picture too."
"I don't." I say.
————
There's another long pause. We watch Gabe prancing around, getting further along the beach. I can feel the heat from Rana's body next to me, I wonder if she can feel mine. Sometimes I forget I have body heat. That bodies have heat. I'm always too cold.
"What's the deal with him?" I ask. I don't know why I did, it just came out of my mouth. And, scarier still, I found I actually wanted to know the answer. That wasn't right at all.
"Hm?" She says, coming back to attention. Apparently she was the one spacing out this time.
"Gabe." I say. "What's his deal? How do you know him? What's he all about?"
She shrugs. "I dunno, I don't, really. I met him the same day you did. Maybe you should ask him what his deal is."
I frown and try to find the right words. "But you just... talk to him." I say. They weren't the words I was looking for at all. Gabe finds another exciting stone in the distance, he's getting further away, his lime green jacket the only part of him visible now with all the snow.
"Yeah, I think I'm pretty good with people." Says Rana. "He seemed shy, and nervous, and like a nice dude, so I went over to talk to him. It's kind of the same thing I did with you."
She turns to look at me as she says this, and my mind reels. Do I seem shy and nervous? And worse still, like a nice dude? That's surely not at all the impression I want to be giving. I think back on the twins saying they like me, on my wardrobe choices, on the things I've been saying.
"Do you think that about me?" I ask.
"I guess I'm not sure yet." She says. "But I'd be surprised if you weren't."
God, I need to re-evaluate. I need to do something, anything, now. This is not the right way to think about me, she's got it all wrong. But I can't bring myself to do anything bad, she doesn't deserve that. My mother made me dress up today, to look 'good', and I barely even protested, what's happening to me?
"Hey do you want my coat?" I ask.
She frowns. "What?"
"My coat, do you want it?" I repeat. "I'm too hot."
"No, I'm ok, I've got my own, are you sure you're hot? It's pretty cold out."
I need to get this jumpsuit out into the open. I stand up and start unbuttoning my jacket. "Yeah, take it." I say.
"Darcy, are you alright? You look kind of..." She never gets to finish that sentence, because it's cut short by something in the distance, a deafening wailing sound, slicing through the calm soundscape like a knife, sending chills down my spine. The snow is falling hard and fast now, it's almost back to the whiteout conditions of last week, and the wind is whipping at my face. I do the buttons of my coat up again.
"What was that?" I ask.
Her eyes are wide. "You think I fucking know?" She hisses.
Something lime green is barreling out of the blizzard towards us, it's Gabe. He's panting hard, and running. He grabs my shoulders as he reaches us and uses me to steady himself.
"Guys there's something... out there." He huffs.
"What the shit is it?" Rana asks, standing up and stuffing her books back into her bag.
"I don't know. I don't know." Gabe says, still panting and leaning on me. Suddenly the sound rings out again, much closer this time, a horrible screech that makes the hair on my neck stand up and my teeth feel numb, like fingernails on a chalkboard.
"Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!" Gabe says, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the bench. "We gotta go."
Rana grabs onto my other arm so as not to be left behind as Gabe charges forward. "Gabe! Where are we going?" She yells.
"Just follow me!" He shouts back. The sound goes off again, like the whistle of a train combined with the scream of a wounded animal, it sounds shocking, and primal, and like it's right behind us but I can't see anything through the snow.
Gabe leads us around the base of the lighthouse to a small rusted metal door with a heavy padlock on it. He's fumbling for something in his pocket, it's... a key? He jams in into the padlock and twists it off, the door swings open with a quiet creak, letting out the smell of dust and decay. I decide it's best not to question my blessings at the moment and quickly oblige as he ushers us all inside. He turns to face us, holding his finger tightly to his lips in the universal 'shut the fuck up' gesture. I'm certainly not going to argue with that. Then he closes the door behind us, and everything turns to darkness.
The inside of the lighthouse seems pitch black at first, before my eyes adjust to the low light, and even then it's not much better. The only light pours in through tiny slit windows several stories up, glimmering off columns of dust that must have been kicked up when we entered. I can feel stairs behind us, we must be at the bottom of the spiral staircase. The sounds from outside are muffled by the thick walls, only the faintest sound of the wind and our own panicked breathing can be heard. I don't hear whatever is outside again for several minutes, all of them spent staring wide eyed at the place where I know the door and Gabe are with an intensity that would make the twins jealous, Rana clinging to my arm like a baby monkey to its mother.
Then, right as I'm about to relax just a little, I hear the loud crunch of something moving through snow, just outside. I feel Rana's grip tighten suddenly, it hurts a bit. It continues, for about a minute, before moving away at a painfully slow pace. Finally, when I can barely hear it anymore, it lets out one last agonized cry, receding into the distance again.
I don't know how long it is before anyone speaks, it felt like it could have been a year. Finally, when nobody could take any longer, the still silence is broken.
"What. The fuck. Was that." Rana whispers.
Gabe shuffles over to us. "How am I supposed to know?"
I frown at him. "How'd you get us into the lighthouse?" I ask. "This place has been locked up forever."
"THAT is your question right now?" Hisses Rana. Gabe ignores her.
"My dad owns this place. It's been in the family since forever." He explains. "We're not supposed to be in here, but. Well, um. I figured it was kind of an emergency."
"Well. Seems like you figured right." I say.
————
I don't know how long we stayed holed up in that lighthouse, only that when we left it was dark outside, the snowstorm was gone, and I was starving. I wanted to call my mother, but my phone died hours ago. Batteries don't do well in the cold, it turns out. Gabe somehow still had a charge, and he managed to call his father to come pick us up.
We don't talk much during the ride home. I'm not sure what there is to say. Gabe's dad seems pretty angry about the lighthouse, and it's implied that Gabe will have a stern talking to waiting for him when he gets home. I'm sure he doesn't mind, it sure beats the alternative. We drop Rana off first, as she's on the way. She says nothing as she gets out of the car, but gives me a weird look as she closes the door. I don't know what to make of it.
I'm next, I feel bad about leaving Gabe with his dad but it's not like there's much I can do about that. My mother's worried frown seems to have tripled in intensity while I was gone, and she nearly cries when I come in. I guess I must've been gone for a while. I don't tell her anything that happened. She's going to be mad at me, but that's ok. There's nothing there she needs to know.
————
That's the last time I ever hung out at the lighthouse.