***
Long before they reached the trailhead, the three girls could make out the bobbing sparkles of lanterns and flashlights. It was only just full dark, but it seemed they were the last to join the party walking into town for the Festival. Sophie retreated into her regret that Hollis had again refused to join them, but she was yanked back into focus as they approached the lights, which reverse-faded into dark silhouettes and finally the recognizable forms of their friends. At the sight of them, the two Thatcher boys inhaled sharply, Julian at the sight of his outrageously gorgeous baby sister (artfully set ablaze by Hollis’s skillful hand and about half a pound of glitter) and Adam at the sight of Sophie in all of her deathly glory. Several of the others surrounded Jenn and overwhelmed her with compliments; while Sophie had swept her raven hair into a slick twist behind her head, Hollis had painted a scrolling spiderweb that began at her left temple and extended across her face and down to the neckline of her dress. Even her bare forearms and the backs of her hands were covered with the henna-like swirling pattern. She was exotic and striking, and for the first time Sophie had ever seen, she walked with her back straight and looked at the others with a sparkle of confidence in her eyes.
As she walked toward Adam, Sophie attempted to make her stride as casual and non-weddingish as possible. “Hi,” she greeted him lamely.
“Wow,” he answered. “I’m feeling a little underdressed here.” He laughed at his own costume, black work pants and a faded red t-shirt, with a too-small plastic Spiderman face mask dangling from a string around his neck.
“You look great. I’m the one who’s overdressed.” She glanced over at Jenn and then at Sparrow, who was listening to Julian lay down the evening’s ground rules with a petulant expression on her face. “At least I’m not the only one. Leave it to Hollis, right?”
The party began walking in a large group down the trail that led through the wooded corner of the property onto a wide dirt road, which eventually connected to a side street in Wyndback. It was a route that all of them knew backwards and forwards, a short hike of thirty minutes or so. Sophie had always felt that it was an absurdly short distance to separate their life in the commune bubble from the rest of civilization, but she had more occasion to travel it than most of them did. Between the market trips and errands for her mother, she saw more of the outside world than anyone else her age. And that wasn’t even accounting for her communications with Wren. Maybe it just seems shorter to me.
Adam cleared his throat. “So…would I sound like a complete creep if I told you that you look insanely pretty tonight?”
“Yes.” Sophie laughed and took his arm. “But thanks just the same.”
They had fallen behind the rest of the group when Sparrow circled back to get her brother’s attention. She grabbed his hand to pull him forward and beckoned him to tell Jenn and Emma Arlen a joke he’d told her earlier. “I don’t tell it right. Please?” she begged.
“Go on,” Sophie said as she pushed him toward his sister. She noticed that two kids from one the neighboring farms had joined the party, their flashlights adding to the constellation that floated along the path. She hadn’t realized, in the dark, how close they were to the dirt road already.
Adam relented and allowed himself to be towed to the group in front of Sophie. They were no more than five or six yards away from her, but the blackness seemed to swallow up the sound of their jovial laughter. Sophie sighed, grateful for the moment of insulating silence, and slowed her step. She watched their twinkling lights recede.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the shadow move somewhere in the trees to her right. She searched the area with her flashlight but saw nothing. Ahead of her, her friends seemed not to have noticed anything, or even that she had fallen farther behind. This is no time to begin seeing things and getting worked up over nothing, she decided.
Then she saw it again. This time, as she half-expected it, Sophie caught sight of the movement directly. It was the faintest motion of a black form on black background, but it was there. She directed the beam of her light off of the path and onto the forest floor, and it illuminated the shape of a dark boot mid-step.
Sophie’s breath caught, and she lifted the beam higher as she increased her pace. Revealed in the path of her flashlight, she saw the figure of a man wearing dark clothing and a stark white mask that covered only his eye on one side and most of his face on the other. He threw up his hands to shield himself from the light just as Sophie stumbled over a root across the path.
“Shit,” she mumbled as she tripped forward on the hem of her dress. She righted herself quickly and looked up toward her friends. They were closer now, but they still seemed not to have noticed that she had fallen behind. She used her flashlight to peer out into the trees again, but she found nothing.
The beam of light quivered. Am I imagining things? No, she was certain she had seen a man walking through the forest. She had seen him so clearly.
“Are you alright?” a voice whispered from behind her left shoulder.
Sophie whirled around and nearly fell again. This time, a cool hand enveloped her wrist and pulled her back to standing. She attempted to scream, but she was inhaling; the noise came out as a guttural gasp that carried little sound. With her free hand, Sophie shot the beam of her flashlight directly into the stranger’s face.
“Whoa, whoa—I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he exclaimed as he stepped back, again shielding his eyes from her light. “Will you please stop doing that?”
“Well, you did frighten me. What were you doing out there, with no light? And how did you get to me so fast?”
“I’m on my way to the Festival, as I presume you are. I ran to help you because you appeared to be falling on your ass.”
“Well thanks,” Sophie spat, pulling her wrist from his grasp and continuing on the path. “With no light?”
“I could see perfectly well until you blinded me,” he responded, and he kept pace with her step for step. “Twice,” he added with a feigned flourish that reminded her heavily of Hollis.
“Uh—” she stuttered, unsure whether to apologize or run.
“What’s the matter? Did your mommy warn you not to speak to strangers?”
“Uh, yeah. Something like that.” She looked up toward the quartet of lights that she knew to be Jenn, Emma, Sparrow, and Adam.
“Well, I tell you what. My name is Damon.”
“Damon?”
“Yes. And as soon as you’re ready, you can tell me your name. Then we will no longer be strangers, you will no longer be without an escort in case you fall to death over that ridiculous dress, and I will no longer be without a light—which I need now that you’ve blinded me.”
“Twice,” she reminded him and suppressed a giggle despite herself.
“Exactly,” he said.
The two walked in silence for a few paces, and Sophie took the opportunity to calm her breathing and look over the stranger—Damon—who had joined her. Is it possible that he was who I saw this morning?
“Sophie,” she finally spoke into the darkness.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m Sophie.”
He stopped on the path and made a show of shaking hands with her. “Hello, Sophie. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She took another step forward and surprised herself by hesitating to see if he followed. “So…do you walk in the woods often, Damon?”
“Is that an attempt at a pick up line?”
Sophie glanced up in time to catch his amused smile behind the open half of his mask before he turned his face away. “No! I just…I’ve never seen you out here before.”
“Sometimes,” he answered. “I wouldn’t say often.”
“Ever make it as far as the farm?”
“Which farm do you mean?”
She braced herself. “The Terrance Olds farm. You know…the commune?”
“Commune?” he repeated, and Sophie could see the muscles in his forehead knit as if he raised a h
idden eyebrow. She was struck by a sudden desire to see behind his mask.
“So…I guess it’s safe to assume that you aren’t from around here.”
Damon chuckled. It was a dark and easy sound that unhinged something deep inside of her belly. “Yes, I guess it is, Sophie.”
Just as she had turned her attention away from the friends ahead of her, she saw their lights stop abruptly, turning onto the dirt road just a few feet in the distance. Two of the lights stopped altogether and awaited their approach. As these grew brighter, Sophie steadied herself for what was likely to be an awkward introduction. Damon, these are my friends, Adam and Sparrow Thatcher. Adam and Sparrow, meet Damon—the weirdo I just met in the middle of the pitch black trail. Except maybe I saw him earlier, too, sneaking around under the goblin tree.
But when she looked back to go through with it, Damon was gone.