4
That night I lay back in bed, unable to keep my thoughts from drifting towards my revelation at the park.
Climbing out of bed as noiselessly as I could, I padded over to the door of my closet. It stood only slightly ajar, but it was wide enough for me to reach into the neatly folded stacks of my clothes and rummage around for what I was looking for.
A few moments later, I withdrew my arm and in my hand I held a ratty blue plushie that used to resemble a rhinoceros. Though the stuffing inside was clumped into uneven chunks, the cashmere fur was still as soft as I remembered it to be almost ten years ago.
When I climbed back into bed, ready to sleep, I sat Horace the Rhino down beside me. It’d been so long since I held my favourite stuffed animal. Up until today, I had no use for it.
I settled into my bed covers and lifted Horace again, only to place him down on my collarbone. The familiar tickling sensation I felt on my neck and chin was hugely nostalgic.
“It’s been so long. I almost forgot about it,” I whispered into the air.
I closed my eyes, and as the darkness slid like a sheet over my sight, the memories came flooding back to me, and I allowed myself to succumb to them.
Iliadys Camping Site. I spent every summer there with my mom and dad. I loved that camping site with all of my little kid heart, everything from the clearings where my dad would hammer down that tricky tent of ours, to the rusted metal grate where my mother would stick marshmallows on sticks and roast them for me, since I zoned out too much to keep them from burning. Even the too-crowded lake and its shores where I could never really move around as freely as I liked felt like a second home to me.
When my parents filed their divorce papers the year I turned six, I was scared about two things: my mother’s cheerfulness disappearing, and never being able to return to the camping site.
I hadn’t needed to worry about either of those issues. My mother’s eyes still crinkled in the corners when she smiled and her laugh was as happy as it had always been. In the year after the divorce, my mother had insisted that we make the two-hour drive to Iliadys, and that was where we met Jacoby and his family. That was where I had my first encounter of something genuinely strange.
Said camping trip was all right, really. I managed to soak Jacoby from head to toe when we grappled with each other, having kept my balance while he tumbled into the shallow part of the lake. I remember cackling like a little witch when he came out spluttering, his red-brown hair plastered to his head and water streaming down his face.
What had truly scared me took place the year after that.
My mother had sent me off to play with Jacoby while she snagged a nap inside our tent. Despite the sense of pride I felt about getting his name right, my steps were still grudging when I trudged over to the Harolds’ campsite and found Jacoby bouncing around a tiny rubber ball striped with all the colours of the rainbow.
-
“You again,” he growled. He snatched his bouncy ball away the minute I stepped within arm’s length as if he were afraid I would steal his toy and scamper away with it.
“I’m not happy to see you, either,” I retorted. I found it hard not to ogle the dandelions and small white flowers that surrounded him. Dandelion was the only flower, or rather, weed, I knew the name of, since my mother spent a whole lot of time in our garden muttering to herself while ripping them out of the ground.
“Why are you here, then?”
I winced inwardly at his verbal stab. Instead of letting my face crumple like I would with anyone else, I shrugged my small shoulders indifferently. “My mom’s taking a nap so she made me come here.”
Dark green shoots burst through the ground, replacing the white flowers and dwarfing the dandelions. My eyes were drawn towards the new plant I had no name for. There were no flowers among the leaves.
Why are they fuzzy? I thought, wanting to reach out and touch it. I imagined it would tickle at first, but it looked so soft, like Horace.
Jacoby threw his rubber ball ferociously at my shoes and it ricocheted off my toe and bounced away into the underbrush.
“Ow!” I yelped. I scowled and raised my foot off the ground, nursing it. “What did you do that for?”
It was Jacoby’s turn to shrug. “Where did my bouncy ball go?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere there,” I said, pointing in the general direction the rainbow ball had bounced to.
“Well come on. Help me look for it,” he said impatiently.
With a huff, I placed my foot back down onto the ground and tramped into the bushes after Jacoby. His mother called out and told us not to wander too far.
We both crouched down on the ground and squinted at the greenery. The bouncy ball should not have been hard to find. Amidst the green and brown colours, that rainbow ball would stand out like a beacon.
“Where is it?” Jacoby grumbled, leaning forward on his toes and narrowing his eyes even further, huffing because we had searched all over but hadn’t found it.
A grin spread across my face as I extended my hand, fingers splayed, and gave his back a shove. He toppled onto his front with a grunt, head landing in a tuft of wispy greenery.
Bang!
I gave a start as a firework appeared out of nowhere and exploded in a burst of stars.
Jacoby was on his feet in a split second, towering over my crouched form. His mud-streaked face was impassive, but more fireworks were banging and crashing against each other as he took a step towards me.
Mreeow!
Cat? No, it’s a weird orange flower.
I scrambled back on all fours like a crab, but he crushed me in an instant, yanking at my hair and making me yell and pummel him as hard as I could.
“Get off me!” I shouted as he pushed my head back into the dirt.
“Say sorry!” Jacoby yelled back, his hands balled around my shirtsleeves as I managed to get my feet under his chest and pushed him up and off. He did not lose his grip on my shirt and I tumbled forward with him.
The momentum sent us flying into the air and we hit the ground with a thump.
“Oomph!”
“Let go, Jacoby!” I screamed, sinking my fist into his cheek and hearing my knuckles crack upon contact.
“Argh! You’re going to pay for that, Jasslyn!” He got a hold of my hair again and yanked even harder than before.
Our struggles sent us through the dirt again, and before either of us knew it, we were plummeting over a small drop in the forest ground. We clung on to each other tighter than ever, all traces of fighting gone as we rolled down the slope.
When we finally came to a stop, we let go of each other and lay on the forest ground, panting. Jacoby sat up and started brushing the dirt off his face. I raised myself onto my elbows and stared at the dirt on my clothes and skin. I glanced at Jacoby. He had leaves and pine needles in his hair.
“A-Are you okay, Jasslyn?” he asked in a shaky voice. He reached a hand out to me and picked off a clump of dirt from the back of my shirt. A tiny dark green plant started growing next to his foot. It curled upwards and sprouted leaves that were of the same colour. It was the same fuzzy plant I’d seen moments ago.
“I’m okay,” I lied in a whisper. It hurt everywhere. My shoulders ached from rolling over fallen branches and my bare arms smarted from where rocks had embedded themselves into my skin. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, too.” His elbow was bleeding, but he paid no attention to it. Small little pops filled the air, and I looked around for the source of the sound. Little rockets were shooting into the air. They sounded like a sheet of bubble wrap being crumpled into a ball.
“Do you think my bouncy ball is somewhere here?” he asked in a small voice.
“Maybe. I want to go back, though,” I said.
“Okay.”
I stared at him. “Aren’t you going to make me stay and help you look for your bouncy ball?” I asked, frowning.
“No. My elbow hurts and we’re both kinda dirty,” he mumbled.
I nodded and scrambled to my feet. I was eager to go back to our tent and change into something clean.
“Jacoby, come on,” I called. When there was no answer, I turned around.
He was sitting there rigidly with a dazed look over his face. His position had not changed since I’d gotten to my feet.
“Jacoby?” My eyes drifted away from him, only to settle on a bedraggled-looking man. I screamed, a short and shrill burst as he raised a hand.
I ran forward and started tugging on Jacoby’s arm. He was as immobile as a statue, and all his muscles were stiff. I started to panic.
“Jacoby!” I yelled. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him, waved a hand in front of his face, shoved him. Nothing worked.
I looked at the man and found that I could not suppress the fear rose up from my chest and into my throat. Then I realized that it was the tears that were choking me.
As I opened my mouth to scream a second time, a fog clouded my vision. I was vaguely aware that I had dropped my hands from Jacoby’s shoulders and struggled to find his hand. I squeezed it tightly, a silent plea for him to make it stop, whatever it was.
I could barely respond to the pressure he returned, because it was my turn to be immobilized.
A whooshing sound roared in my ears and the forest before me melted away to reveal a different scene. The colours were bright and vibrant, and there was a soft drip-drip-drip of water trickling from rocks into a little stream. The greenery was lush and bursting with life. There were people there. A lot of people. Some that were trailed by gigantic flowers and plants, like cooler versions of Jacoby, and others that had birds twittering away on their shoulders, snakes curled around their necks and shoulders, hissing and eyeing anyone that passed. There was even a man with a tarantula perched upon his baseball cap.
Others did not seem as odd. They basked in the sunlight dappling the forest grounds and occasionally emitted long sighs of contentment and relaxation. Little children were running around, playing hide and seek with each other.
There was a small group of people off in the corner. A man was standing in the middle entertaining the crowd around him. One moment he would be laughing giddily with a smile that looked like it would shatter his face, then the next, his entire visage would turn red, and he would start swearing and making rude gestures. After a few seconds of one emotion, he would move onto another. His last trick was to sink to the ground and burst into hysterical sobs, tears cascading down his cheeks and splattering the ground.
The people in the crowd cheered and laughed, and the man rose to his feet, an astonished expression on his face. He felt his cheeks, looking confused when his fingers came away moist with tears. People surged forward, but instead of hailing the man with their money, they pressed them upon a woman that was standing off to the side, leaning against a tree with her arms folded. She grinned and accepted the money with a nod of thanks.
I was just beginning to think that I was part of the scene when it disappeared, as if it had been a curtain all along and someone had yanked it back to reveal the rather empty and dull stage.
I blinked slowly as I readjusted to the forest scene. I cast my gaze around the familiar, but at the same time, unfamiliar forest, and utter bewilderment washed over me. I struggled to place what had just happened.
“Leave us alone! We don’t know anything!” Jacoby was shouting. “Get away from us!”
Mrrreeeowww!
His hand was tight around mine, and when the man took a step towards us he started to shove me towards the uphill. “Go, Jasslyn. Go!”
My breath hitched and I scrambled up the bank, Jacoby following close behind. He kept my hand held securely in his, and when he ran past me, it felt like my arm was going to be pulled out of its socket.
He was moving too fast. I barely kept up, stumbling and tripping over my own feet. His own breath came out in pants, yet he continued to surge forward, pulling me along while saying, “Come on, Jasslyn, come on…Keep running.”
When we finally made it back to his campsite, neither of us could breathe properly. Jacoby collapsed to the ground, tugging me down with him. I flopped onto my back and tried to catch my breath. Jacoby clutched a stitch in his side.
“You…” he panted. His voice came out in rasps that I could barely understand. He spluttered something about ‘shut up’ and ‘nobody’.
I frowned and looked at him, trying to tell him to shut up and stop wheezing. But I could barely get my own words out.
“Go back to your tent,” he managed to say in the end after sucking in a giant breath. He struggled to his knees, then his feet, abandoning whatever he had been trying to say before. He grabbed my arm and shoved me towards the tiny two-person tent that was opposite his. “Don’t come back here,” he growled, though when I looked down, the same unknown plant sprouted and crawled forward towards me, its fuzzy leaves beckoning, curling themselves inwards.
-
“Remember that, Horace?” I sighed, running two fingers over his ratty head.
We never found that rainbow ball. And ever since, I’ve been wary of Jacoby. Wary of his odd flowers and vines. I’ll admit I’ve searched up flowers and their meanings, trying to put an end to my curiosity. It seemed ridiculous, though. In what society did people have flowers following them? Everywhere they went, too? If getting Jacoby’s secret out of him meant losing the comforting routine I had in my life, and being dragged into his world of creepy men hiding out in the woods, I would rather live without knowing. But that didn’t mean my curiosity was conquered. Not at all.
“Remember the ones with the insects?” I whispered to my rhino. Sometimes, though I would rather die than tell anyone else, I wished he would give a nod or a shake of his head in reply. I wasn’t deranged, not really; I just wanted someone to offer an answer to the whirlpool of questions I had swirling into everything involving Jacoby.
The man had been covered with creepy-crawlies, insects from his nose to his toes. And try as I might to point it out to my mother, she had been completely oblivious to it. After tugging on her hand and pointing out the gross man several times, and after she’d told me it was rude to point at people, I’d given up. She just couldn’t see the bugs.
There was a knock on my door.
“Come in!”
My mother peeked into my room and looked at me with a funny expression. “I thought you threw that toy out a long time ago.”
I instinctively clutched Horace closer to my body. “No way! How could I ever throw Horace out?”
It seemed like the mention of my childhood friend’s name triggered some kind of exasperation switch in my mother that rendered her incapable of forming a coherent sentence. She shook her head a couple times before saying, “Thank you for behaving maturely today on the picnic.”
I gave her a tired smile before she backed out of the room and said good night.