Winterwood

And if he is, I don’t know what I’ll say. Maybe I’ll scream and thump my fists against his chest. I’ll tell him he lied; I’ll tell him he killed someone that night and kept a pocket watch hidden in his coat. Or maybe I’ll turn and leave, unable to find the right words. But I need to see his face, the gentle curve of each eye, the kindness I once saw in them, and maybe I’ll know. I’ll really see. A monster. A villain. Or the boy I remember from the trees.

I clench my hands at my sides and step through the doorway.

Nearly the whole camp is here. Boys hold wineglasses and champagne flutes filled with dark liquor. To my right, several boys play a game of flip-cup on the dining room table, shouting loudly. Drunk. A fire burns brightly from the massive fireplace to my left, logs haphazardly tossed onto the flames, too close to the salmon-colored living room rug—the edges already singed.

I slip past a group of boys, and no one seems to notice me. Already too intoxicated. Standing atop the coffee table is a boy wearing a green wool blanket as a cape, shouting about how his dad swore he’d only have to stay at the camp for two months but it’s been six. His eyes glaze over me, but he doesn’t seem to register the girl among an ocean of boys. My feet knock into empty beer cans littered across the floor, and a portable stereo sits on a long table beneath a window, blaring country music from some distant radio station—powered by batteries or maybe a windup crank at the back.

The boys have broken into the Wilkinsons’ summer home.

And they’re going to destroy this place.

The air buzzes against my ears with heat and laughter, and the scent of spilled beer is nauseating. The flickering candlelight throughout the room creates the illusion of human ghosts climbing up the walls. Long spiny arms and legs. Insect people.

I scan the faces but don’t see Oliver. And maybe he wouldn’t come here, with all these boys from camp, if they really aren’t his friends. Unless he lied about that, too. About everything. A lump lodges itself in my throat and I feel sick, standing among all these strange faces. Boys I don’t know.

One of them eyes me, a boy in a green shirt with blond hair and a nose ring. He’s standing only a couple feet away, his mouth sagging open, and he looks like he’s trying to speak but his soupy mind can’t form words.

I shouldn’t have come, I think suddenly. This was a bad idea.

I start to turn away, to weave back through the crowd, when I see her: Suzy. And my stomach sinks.

She staggers toward a set of stairs and grips the railing, leaning against it, smiling. She’s drunk. And the same rush of guilt pours through me.

I bite down on the urge to flee, and instead cross the room toward her, threading through the crush of boys. The boy in the green shirt and nose ring winks at me but still doesn’t speak—his voice lost to the booze. Another boy with freckles, smoking a cigar he surely pilfered from the house, arches his eyebrow at me and says, “Hey, moon girl.” A few others glance my way but don’t say anything. Maybe they’re afraid of what I might really be. That the rumors might be true.

Suzy’s cheeks are flushed pink when I reach her, and in her hand is a silver beer can. She sloshes a little onto the floor when she sees me, pushing away from the stair railing. “You came,” she says flatly, as if I received an invitation—foil-embossed card stock delivered in the mail, covered in glitter. Please join us for a winter bash at the Wilkinsons’ home. Just let yourself in, because we sure will.

“You guys shouldn’t be here,” I say. “This is someone else’s house.” It’s not what I intended to say, not at first. I meant to apologize. Or say something about not knowing who to trust, about sleepless nights and finding the watch and that I didn’t mean to say she wasn’t my friend.

Still, Suzy grins widely—already forgetting our earlier fight. “Who cares,” she answers.

“The camp counselors are going to find out,” I add. “They’ll realize most of the boys are missing from their cabins.”

Suzy’s loose, mushy smile doesn’t break, her eyes watering with drunken happiness, and she laughs. “The counselors don’t care what the boys do,” she says, tossing a hand in the air. “It’s not like they can kick them out of camp—we’re all stuck here.”

Her eyes drift closed and whip open again. She frowns at me, like she just remembered how mad she is, that I’m the last person she wants to talk to.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have said all those things. I’m just—”

A boy bumps into me, spilling dark liquid from a red cup onto my shoe. “Sorry,” he mutters, glaring at me like it was my fault.

He staggers away, toward the kitchen, and I turn back to face Suzy. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened,” I say.