A New (and True) Friend
It was the end of April and Marie had been somewhat happier since the previous summer as her father granted her permission to help out after school at the Mashenburgs’ horse farm. Mucking stalls wasn’t fun, but Marie delighted in grooming the horses. She fell in love with an Arabian mare and got to ride her twice a week. Yet still, against her father’s wishes, Marie continued to haunt around where there was trouble to be had, in particular with three girls who habitually sought mischief. A year or two older than Marie, the girls appeared to admire her, but this was a ruse as they merely wished to make selfish use of Marie’s decisive cleverness which none of them could match. Their names were Bettyann, Tilda and Trish.
“The Greenbrook Motel?” said Tilda, the most aggressive of the three. “The place that burned down years ago? Where all those families died?”
“Creepy,” added Trish.
“Yeah, but it’s rebuilt,” explained Bettyann, the heavyset and intimidating ringleader. “New folks are gonna’ be moving in next week. It’s the perfect place.”
“How are we gonna’ do this?” asked Marie. “Make ghosts come to life?”
It was Wednesday, a week after Marie recalled having memory of her mother. She now sat with her friends inside an old tree house someone had built long ago in a field near Cricket Park. Outside, the warm air had begun to turn the leaves green. Mayday, May 1 was a week away, which many in town regarded as a date of superstition almost as much as Halloween. They were certain events far stranger than the usual would soon be occurring: And they were seldom disappointed.
“Fruit loop, were you awake during Science today?” answered Bettyann. She was lighting matches, one at a time, flinging them to the tree-house floor, then stepping on them. “The films of those ghost places the teacher showed today has me thinking.”
“Man, that was pretty cool,” said Trish. “With the lights out, it really looked … haunted!”
“That’s right,” said Bettyann, striking a new match, holding it aloft in front of her face. “If we had that projector and the films,” she continued excitedly, “just think of the scares we’d get from those new families moving in.”
“You mean—point it right into their windows!” said Tilda, catching on. “Wild! They’ll already be looking for haunts and stuff in that motel!”
“Oh, dig it!” said Trish with her usual, wholly annoying cackle. Her laughter wilted as a thought occurred. “Wait,” she added sheepishly. “How do we get— We’d have to break into the school.”
“That’s right, dummy,” said Bettyann, flicking a burnt out match at Trish. “At night.”
“How?” said Trish. “We’ll never get inside.”
“Yeah we can,” interjected Marie. “I can get in, easy.”
The next day, Marie was true to her word. In late afternoon, about an hour before sundown, they stood outside the back of their school. In their hands were some simple tools and a baseball bat.
They all stared into a window’s newly shattered hole Marie had just made. She then slipped a screwdriver through it, motioning at Tilda to whack the screwdriver with a claw hammer. Tilda missed, whacking Marie’s thumb instead.
“Oww!” hissed Marie. “Fidleedee, give me that hammer!”
“Would you stop saying that stupid word!” said Tilda.
Marie grimaced as Trish handed the tool to her. She tapped the screwdriver with the hammer, forcing open the locked latch from inside.
“Even if we get hold of the projector thing,” asked Trish, fearfully peering around them, “we still have to figure out how to use it.”
“That’s why we keep Marie around,” said Bettyann.
“That so,” asked Marie, already annoyed. “Is that the only reason?”
“Isn’t that enough?” answered Tilda sharply. “Finish the job, before you get us caught.”
Marie turned, facing Tilda, who glared back through the habitual hair over her eyes. Marie then searched the faces of her other two friends with the same result. She felt a tingle of anger: the times they had already been caught by the sheriff were because one of them had become careless, not her. For the first time it occurred to Marie that maybe their friendship, if that’s what it ever was, wasn’t quite what she thought.
Then, something caught her eye behind her three phony friends. A sight that forever changed Marie and the course of her reckless life ... .
A tall, gangly girl with jet-black hair and glasses too big for her face sat on her bike watching them. Her oversize spectacles magnified sparkling, green eyes.
Curiously, a wave of calm assurance swept over Marie as she peered at the girl, who quietly stared back at them. That is, until Bettyann, Tilda and Trish turned on her.
“What do you want?” said Bettyann. “Beat it, creep.”
“Scram, you freak,” said Tilda, “or I’ll wrap those dudley-doof glasses around your neck.”
“Yeah, run back to your mother, since your daddy doesn’t want you anymore,” said Trish. It was clear they knew this girl.
But she sat firm, showing no reaction. She appeared about their age, give or take a year.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “Leave the school alone.”
“Don’t tell us what to do, you filthy jerk,” said Tilda.
“If there’s anything resembling a brain inside that Neanderthal skull of yours,” responded the girl, “use it for once in your life. Go home, open a book if anyone in your house owns one, and learn something constructive.”
Bettyann and Tilda looked at each other, unsure what to say. Bettyann clenched her teeth in anger, along with the baseball bat she held. “You got five seconds to start running—”
“—Wait,” said Marie, staring at the spunky new girl. “Who is she?”
“The weirdo who transferred from Woldred a few weeks ago,” answered Trish.
“How come I haven’t seen you in school yet?” asked Tilda. “My mother said you just wander the streets, ‘cause your father is a wife-beatin’ drunk who ran off.”
“It doesn’t matter, Tilda, they’ll send this pantywaist right back to Woldred,” antagonized Bettyann, “with the rest of the dippy’s.”
“Tell me, Tilda,” said the girl with a sting of sarcasm, “How is Jack Salento doing?”
All their eyes shot toward Tilda, whose face tightened, clearly indicating this was uncomfortable subject matter.
“What do you know about him?” she asked, with an audible sizzle in her voice.
“Only what you blab to everyone, and what everyone else talks about,” answered the girl boldly. “But does he even know you exist?”
Tilda stood, fuming, unable to verbalize a response, though it appeared she was also a bit embarrassed. She quickly decided to return the emotional blow. “And what happened to your father? Tell the truth, or are you too ashamed of him?”
The girl bit her lower lip, suppressing some past deep emotion. “He died when I was young,” she said.
“He did not, liar,” said Trish. “I heard he ran off into the woods and never came back.”
“Why don’t you go run off too?” added Bettyann.
“You got no friends here,” said Tilda. “And you never will, so go get lost in Spookyhollow.”
“Shut up, Tilda,” said Marie sharply. “Maybe you should get lost.”
She took a step toward the victimized girl, as if to deflect her friends’ cruel insults. Since the night before, Marie had relapsed into wholly forgetting about her mother once again— leaving her with a muddled sadness, especially after hearing of someone losing a parent.
“Hey, Marie,” said Bettyann, “you can beat it too.”
“And you can shut up,” Marie shot back.
Marie further approached the girl, now noticing an oval-shaped scar at the top of her forehead. Something within Marie wanted to reach out to her. “What did happen to your father?” she asked.
“He died in war,” said the girl. “Fighting for what he believed in.”
Marie thought about the war her own father watched every night on the news and how irate it made him.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” consoled Marie. “I never had a mother. My father is all the family I’ve got.”
“Perhaps we understand each other a bit,” said the girl.
“Hey, beanpole,” said Bettyann, “if you tell anyone about this, like the sheriff, I’m gonna find you and bust your head open.”
The girl engaged the kickstand of her bike and got off. She defiantly stepped forward.
Bettyann raised her bat. Tilda yanked something from her back pocket. With a flick of her wrist, she revealed a switchblade.
“Just remember something,” said the girl, “you can do whatever you like, but they’re always watching you.”
“Who’s watching?” asked Trish, nervously glancing around.
The nameless girl simply lifted a finger and pointed toward the outskirts of the village and the edge of the woods. “They are. And one day, they’ll get you.”
Tilda’s fingers tensed around her knife. “You are a freak,” she said.
“I challenge each of you to prove how tough you are,” said the girl.
“I’ll prove it right now,” said Tilda, furiously. She came at the girl until they stood face to face. Tilda dangerously stuck the blade of her knife at the girl’s neck. But the girl leaned in yet closer. Both stared long moments into each other’s eyes. Either was not about to back down … until the bully relented from her adversary’s defiance. Through her disheveled locks of hair, Tilda blinked first.
“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” said the girl. “I dare you, right now to go up into the woods with me.” Bettyann and Trish glanced at one another.
“You’re so bent on frightening others,” continued the girl, “to use a tragedy years ago where many people died, to now scare more people. Well let’s see how brave you are. Let’s go into Spellhollow Wood.”
Tilda lowered her knife and stepped back. Marie was stunned, seeing this plucky girl emotionally turn the tables on her cruel friends. She stepped up, grinning. “I’ll go.”
“What are you doing, Marie!” said Trish. “No one goes into Spookyhollow. No one, unless they’re out of their mind.”
Marie stood directly in front of the three nasty girls. She stuck her index finger straight in Bettyann’s face. “Admit it,” she said. “You’re scared stiff!”
“And you’re not?” asked Bettyann.
“Nope,” answered Marie, “My father told me there’s nothing to be scared about the woods anymore than Halloween. It’s just baloney, so let’s go now, all of us!”
“You’re full of it, Marie,” said Tilda. “Everyone knows what happened to your mother a couple years ago. You act like everything’s normal, but it never was and you and your idiot father are living a crazy, fat lie.”
“My mother?” said Marie, oblivious. “Whose mother? What are you talking about?”
“Let them run back home,” said the girl calmly, “while you and I go into the woods.”
Marie walked up to the clever, outspoken girl and extended her hand. Apart from her forehead scar, there was something odd about the girl’s face.
“I’m Marie.”
“My name is Courinn,” answered her new friend.
Marie turned back to face what were now her three opponents. “You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You’re all more scared of the woods than anyone. Well, fidleedee, you’re not getting away with this. You either come with us now, or I will tell everyone in school tomorrow how you chickened out!”
This was too much for an overbearing bully like Bettyann to contemplate very long.
“What about stealing the projector and our plan?” she asked.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” said Marie.
Bettyann took a deep breath. “Okay, Marie. You lead, we’ll go.”
“I’m not going in there!” cried Trish.
“We’ll go together,” said Tilda. “We’ll show both of these morons that—”
“—No way, I WON’T!” shouted Trish. With that, she leapt upon her bicycle and rode off like mad. After a long moment, the four remaining stared at one another. The sun was beginning to set. The day would soon end.
“One down, four to go,” said Marie.
“There’s not much sun left,” said Bettyann. “Let’s go tomorrow instead.”
“The sooner we start,” said Courinn, “the sooner we’ll come back out and call it a day.”
The four of them got on their bikes, rode out from the schoolyard and headed for the dark edge of the trees. For the very first time in their lives, they were going to enter Spellhollow Wood.