Before she could continue, Robyn pressed forward and told Michaela she could shove her list somewhere where the sun didn’t shine and grabbed my arm to pull me away. I had no objections to this method of escape. Insults weren’t my forte, which was surprising since I’d had them thrown at me for much of my life. Apparently, I was the catch and release type; I never bothered to dwell too much on what was said to me. Now I wished I’d tucked some of them away to use in situations like this. Luckily, we had Robyn. She produced insults the way a rabbit produced offspring.
Michaela shouted something nasty at us but I didn’t hear her. I was trying to forget about that note she held in her hands. I know it was stupid to be upset about it but I couldn’t help it. I knew exactly who had been voted as the least likely ever to have a boyfriend, and I knew why. It was me, and the reason was because I was so very strange. No matter how hard I tried to blend in, some part of my weirdness always seemed to seep out.
“Forget them Meg!” Robyn hissed. “They are a bunch of girls with no self-esteem and no brain cells. What do they know?”
I nodded. Robyn was right, and today was Halloween. It was my seventeenth birthday and I wasn’t going to let some stupid, fake cheerleader ruin it. We would go to the dance tonight just to make an appearance, then we would go off and have Robyn’s bonfire. Yes, it meant I was that weird kid I didn’t want to be, but at least I would be among friends.
* * *
After school, I turned down Robyn’s offer of a ride home.
“Are you sure? You’re not planning on taking out Michaela and her posse, are you?”
I snorted. “No, I just think a long walk would do me some good. I’m going to take the trail through the swamp.”
It was the truth. I pretended not to care about Michaela and her stupid list, but deep down it hurt. I didn’t want my friends to know about it though. They would only want to comfort me, and although I appreciated their concern, I wanted to shake the feeling off on my own.
The wind rustled through the tall eucalyptus trees and I was practically humming as I headed across the football field and track behind the school. I found the trail that cut through the trees and ended up on a back road that led into the swamp. From there it would be easy to find the horse path that ran behind my backyard.
It was a rather pretty afternoon, the sky clear blue and the sun warm. The weather usually stayed that way through late November. I drew in a deep breath, truly reveling in the smells of autumn. I couldn’t tell you what it was about the fall that made me like it so much. Maybe it was the idea that the year was coming to an end and soon the cycle would start all over again. Maybe it was the smell of hay and the earthy colors that accompanied the harvest that appealed to me so much. Maybe it was because my birthday arrived on the cusp of fall. Whatever it was, I liked it.
After passing through the tall trees, I cut across a side trail that had been worn through the layers of leaf litter and stepped out onto a quiet street. I pulled my cell phone out of my backpack and popped in my headphones. I searched my music list, looking for something that would match my mood. I decided to go with some indie rock today. I twirled a strand of my dark hair with my index finger and kicked at acorns on the ground as I walked. My butterfly antennae bounced with the rhythm of the current song and the yellow in my wings caught the sun of the autumn afternoon, leaving splotches of color along the road.
It took me half an hour to come to the end of the road. I easily climbed over the barrier that stated motor vehicles weren’t permitted any further and descended deeper into the small wilderness that rested behind my home. The thatch of willows up ahead told me that the water was near, but I wasn’t too worried about mosquitoes or getting wet. I would be through quick enough, and by this time of year any significant amount of standing water was all but gone.
It was while I was crossing the small bridge of land that stretched beneath the low canopy that I first noticed something strange. I had been so busy humming along to my music that I missed it at first. A flash of something dull green, then the jerking and swaying of the reeds and brush ahead of me forced me to stop and pull the headphones out of my ears. It was as if an army of gophers had suddenly decided to devour the shrubbery around me. I would’ve dismissed it as merely some small animals foraging for food, but there were just too many of them and now that I didn’t have music blasting in my ears, I could hear them too.
My skin immediately began to crawl, the way it did when my mind started playing tricks on me. It almost sounded like laughter, maniacal laughter; like some demented puppet from a horror movie had been let loose in the swamp. I swallowed only to find my throat had gone dry. And then I saw one of them. The creature was small and warty like a toad, with beetle-black eyes and teeth that protruded from what I could only assume was a primitive mouth. Reddish, bedraggled hair fell from the top of its head and trailed down its back like a horse’s mane. Another one pushed the first creature out of the way, this one a little more gray than green, its hair paler. If I were to name them, I’d say they were gnomes. But they couldn’t be, because gnomes didn’t exist and I wasn’t living in some fairy tale. The past seventeen years of my life were proof to that.
I took a deep breath and started moving once more. It was really happening again. The voices, and now I was seeing things. I guess I hadn’t kept my fingers crossed long enough. I wondered if I should tell my parents this time. But that meant more visits to the psychiatrist and more medication. I wasn’t even sure if Dr. Morgan still had her practice.
A sudden squeal behind me made me jump. I shot a glance over my shoulder. From the thrashing of the reeds and splashing of water, I could tell some of the things had gotten into a fight. Then a few of them tumbled out onto the trail. Several more joined them a few moments later. They were all hideous, gray and green and brown with warts and those strange manes running down their backs. They were only a foot or so tall, but they had vicious looking claws at the ends of their fingers and toes, and they seemed to be strong for their size.
I guess I stood still for too long, because one turned and spotted me. It let out one of those shrill, fingernails-scraping-a-chalkboard cries and threw itself down the trail towards me. My heart leapt into my throat, but I turned and took off, running up the sandy trail that would take me home. I might have been tall and gangly, but thank goodness I was fast. I put some distance between us, my backpack thumping painfully against my spine, my delicate butterfly wings snagging against stray branches. I never looked back, just pushed harder despite the deep sand. And I had been worried about mosquitoes.
After a few minutes I finally made it to my house. I jumped off the trail and cut up the slope, pumping my legs hard to reach my backyard. I dug my hand into my backpack and fished out my house key. It seemed to take forever, but once I found it I jammed it into the keyhole of my sliding glass door and pulled the door open. As soon as I was in, I slammed it shut and locked it, leaning on my knees as I caught my breath. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to look out into our backyard, secretly wishing it didn’t open out onto the woods surrounding the swamp.
There wasn’t a single creature in sight. I was confused, for I had heard them right behind me, even to the point of stepping onto the flat expanse of my yard. A flood of relief washed over me then. As real as it all had seemed, I had been imagining them. Thank goodness.
Standing up straight, I took my hair down and walked into my bathroom. I looked like a mess. My face was all sweaty and dirty from the extra effort of running the last five minutes home, and I felt grungy. I decided on an early shower, hoping that the hot water would not only wash the dirt and sweat away, but would also cleanse away the images of those strange creatures from my mind as well.
The dance wasn’t until eight, so as soon as I was clean, I was going to take a nice long nap and try to resettle my mind. I just hoped that my dreams wouldn’t reflect what I had just been through.
Samhain
I didn’t dream during my nap, something I was very grateful for. If I had dreamed, I’m sure it would have been full of toady little creatures with sharp claws and black eyes.
I woke up to some Halloween-themed song playing on my radio alarm.
Appropriate
, I thought. I threw the covers back and dragged myself to my bathroom, casting a quick glance at my sliding glass door as I went. I breathed a sigh of relief. No little monsters staring at me from beyond the glass; no scratch marks running up and down the door.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I sought out my costume once again. This time, instead of black jeans and a T-shirt, I pulled out a black dress I had worn to a wedding once. It had spaghetti straps and the skirt started above the waistline and fell to just above my knees. It was a little more formal than my daytime attire and the color ensured that I could still be a butterfly for the dance. After applying more makeup than usual, I glanced up at the clock. I had an hour before the dance started, so I grabbed my bag with a change of comfortable clothes for our bonfire, then made my way upstairs to wait for Thomas. Since his parents were taking his siblings around their neighborhood in Nipomo to trick-or-treat, he got to use the van for the evening, and since it seated more than Robyn’s car, he was to be our chauffeur to and from the dance.
I climbed my stairway only to step out into a living room alive with chaos. Apparently my brothers were taking their costumes a bit too seriously. Bradley, dressed as some grotesque species of alien, was chasing after Logan with a laser gun. Logan, who had the bright idea to be a cheeseburger this year, was trying, and failing, to get away. It was just too hard for him to be quick in such a bulky costume. Aiden, like me, had invented his own costume, a super hero of sorts complete with a green cape and a mask. His favorite color was green, and every year his costume had to include that color.
My mom was trying to get the twins settled. She was dressed as a witch. Real original, I know, but she claimed it was easiest, classic, and matched her personality when at work. She and my father always dressed the twins to match. This year they were a pair of sock monkeys. I had to admit, they looked pretty good.
Dad wasn’t dressed in a costume yet. He had just come home from his job at the local power plant, but if I knew my father, he had some surprise costume hidden away. He wouldn’t dare reveal it until he was ready to take the boys out trick-or-treating.
“Oh, look at you Meg!” Mom cried out over the ruckus.
I shrugged and did a quick pirouette. I shouldn’t have. That drew the attention of the alien, and soon I was the target of Bradley’s wrath. Eventually, I managed to grab a quick bite to eat and get out the front door without being captured or mutilated. Suddenly remembering my strange ordeal from that afternoon, I peeked around the corner of our house towards the end of our street only a dozen feet away. No sign of creepy gnomes anywhere. I breathed a mental sigh of relief.
I walked to Tully’s, my nerves frazzled the entire way. All throughout the neighborhood, parents were trailing after their costumed kids as they darted from door to door seeking candy. It was getting dark, but I could still see clearly enough to keep a check on the shrubs that lined the street. It wasn’t the dark I was afraid of, but what might be hiding in it.
Meghan, it was just another figment of your imagination, remember? It wasn’t real, so stop being so paranoid.
Oh if only I could believe what my conscience told me.
Thomas’s van was waiting in the driveway when I arrived. He was wearing his zombie attire again, and Will had added some gel to his hair to get that sexy vampire look. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his glasses kind of cancelled out that effort. Tully had on a dress similar to mine, but the skirt and sleeves were longer. Robyn was already in the van, her dark Celtic goddess costume looking the same as it had at school earlier that day. Once we were all buckled up, Thomas popped in a Halloween mix CD and we all started singing like idiots. Robyn merely snorted and mumbled something about desecrating the Celtic New Year.
The school was abuzz with activity when we pulled into the parking lot. We piled out of the van and headed towards the gymnasium with everyone else. It was soon clear that some people had changed their minds about what to wear that night. Many of the costumes were far more disturbing than what I’d remembered from earlier that day, some just flat out lame. A few people had tried to be clever, dressing as a cereal box killer or their interpretation of an infomercial ad. I wasn’t surprised to see most of the popular crowd wearing something I wouldn’t wear in my backyard to get a tan.
Robyn snorted in their direction and said with no small amount of sarcasm, “Because freezing to death in a skimpy costume is
so
attractive.”
I nodded my agreement, my butterfly antennae bobbling with the movement.
The dance, just as I had thought, proved horrid. The music was too loud, the strobe light gave me a headache, and if we weren’t being ignored, we were being approached by the freshmen boys who hadn’t yet learned that associating with us would ruin their reputations forever. We didn’t even stay an hour. We quickly changed in the locker rooms and ended up leaving thirty minutes after we walked through the doors, sneaking past the teachers who tried to keep us corralled like a bunch of sheep heading off for the slaughter. I had no desire to be slaughtered that night.