by Mary McCoy
“I know you,” Wallis said. I saw the doubt on her face as she tried to reconcile what she knew to be possible with what she saw before her. She saw me, she knew me, and yet, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it aloud.
“Where are my friends?” she asked instead.
“Not far from here,” I said. “They’re safe.”
Wallis looked at me, and I cannot say that I liked the sensation one bit. I was accustomed to being listened to. I was accustomed to the certain amount of authority that comes with my station, one of the few perks of the job. It had been a long time since I had been subjected to the scrutiny of anyone, and I can’t say I liked being on the other side of things.
What did I look like to her?
When I’m spinning a tale, I always imagine myself looking like one of those fireside storytellers with bits of day-old stew in my beard and a walking stick that conceals a sword and a glass eye that I pop out of its socket from time to time, just to unsettle folks and fascinate small children. I like to imagine that if you saw me the way I see myself, you wouldn’t be a whit surprised to hear that I could fly short distances or conjure and speak to the dead.
But, of course, in saying all this, I’m only postponing the inevitable.
“You’re Eurydice Horne,” Wallis said, gripping the wall as she studied my face, the chains that bound me to the stone bench in the middle of the cave.
“It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.”
I watched my words sink in and take hold, and for a moment, Wallis looked as though she might cry, overwhelmed by the terror, the whiplash of the last few days—a long, reeling path through the wilds of Camp So-and-So that ended with me.
“Why are you here?” whispered Wallis.
I mustered my dignity, drew myself to sit upright, and fixed the girl with my one-eyed storyteller stare.
“Because I am the Narrator. I am here to tell the story of what happens to all of you.”
CABIN 3
THE HERO’S QUEST
[SCENE: From the meadow, THE GIRL WITH BEADS IN HER HAIR and RENATA see a column of fire rise up into the sky above their cabins.]
The flames roared and crackled and hissed like a living thing, and though they were at least a half a mile away, it sounded like it was right on top of them.
A Note from the Narrator: Cabin 1 was, at this moment, safely across the lake, preparing for the equestrian event of the All-Camp Sport & Follies. Wallis was at the cave, the whereabouts of the rest of her cabinmates unknown. The girls from Cabin 4 had just been separated from one another during their search for the soul mates, and you don’t need me to tell you where Cabin 5 was.
The sky above their cabins was on fire. The girl with beads in her hair and Renata exchanged a glance, and without discussing the matter any further than that, they began to travel as fast as their legs and wings would carry them toward the cabins. They went up the long, unnecessarily winding road until they reached the mess hall, then took the path that forked left into the woods, already thick with smoke.
When they emerged into the clearing where the semicircle of doorless, wall-less cabins stood, they saw a column of fire at least three stories high burning hot and thick. The fire raged loudly, but even so, both of them could hear the screams coming from the other side, where Cabin 5 stood.
The girl with beads in her hair grabbed an overturned ash pail by the fire circle and ran to the latrine to fill it up with water from the sink. Then she ran back down the hill and heaved the water into the flames, before racing back to do it all again.
As the girl with beads in her hair worked, Renata scanned the clearing for any signs of life, frustrated that she could not do more. All of the other cabins seemed to be deserted, and even the animals had fled at the first whiff of smoke. Then she caught a flash of movement in the branches of a fir tree and looked up to see another raven perched in the branches.
Long ago in some elementary school science class, Renata remembered learning that ravens were scavenger birds—that, like vultures, they congregated around things that were dead or dying. Years after that in English class, she learned they were widely considered to be an ill omen.
That wasn’t how being a raven made Renata feel, though. She’d tried to explain it to the girl with beads in her hair back in the woods, but it hadn’t come out right. The truth was, Renata felt better about being a raven than she’d ever felt about being a girl. Renata knew she was not a great beauty—her hair was lank, her face round and cratered with acne. That wasn’t what bothered her, though. There was nothing wrong with her face, nothing wrong with her body, but Renata had never been able to shake the feeling that she was in the wrong one.
And now she wasn’t.
Since the change had happened, a tiny, glowing hope had kindled in her brain: that it would last, that she would get to stay like this.
But when she saw the raven in the tree, another idea took hold of her. She flew up to the branch where the bird was perched, and hovering before it, flapping her wings frantically, she said, “I’m Renata.”
The raven on the fir branch cocked its head and considered her for a moment. Then it opened its beak and croaked, “Renata.”
Renata looked down at the ground where the girl with beads in her hair continued to battle the fire, pouring bucket after bucket of water on the flames. It was brave, but hopeless. Alone, it was all she could do to keep the small blazes contained, and she wouldn’t be able to do even that much longer.
Renata told the raven her plan.
“Renata,” it croaked again, then spread its wings and left the fir branch swaying in its wake.
A terrible amount of time passed, during which terrible things happened.
The wind picked up and the flames rose, raining down a shower of sparks. As the girl with beads in her hair tried to smother a small fire with her ash pail, a puff of wind goaded it up her leg, and her jeans ignited. She panicked for a moment and started to run, but only made it a few steps before she came to her senses and dropped to the ground, rolling to extinguish the flames with her own body.
Renata began to wonder if the raven had even understood her message, much less passed it along.
Worst of all, she could no longer hear the girls from Cabin 5 screaming.
When Renata looked down, she saw that for every small fire the girl with beads in her hair had beaten out, two more had sprung up. Was this where their quest had led them? she wondered. To be swallowed up by a forest fire, to stand by while five girls burned to death, knowing there was nothing they could do about it? They didn’t have a phone to call for help. They didn’t have so much as a garden hose.
Hope was lost, and then Renata heard something in the distance. It sounded like one wet sheet after another being snapped smooth and flung over a clothesline. It grew louder and drew nearer.
Within moments, every inch of the sky was filled with thousands and thousands of ravens.
Her message had gotten through.
Now, if only it would work, Renata thought as she flew up to join them.
As she did, the first platoon of ravens flew over the pillar of flame and hovered there, the flames almost licking at each bird’s talons. There, it was joined by another. And another. And another. And another. Then the sky above Cabin 5 was so thick with them that they blocked out the sun. Aside from the flapping of their wings, they didn’t make a sound. Not a caw, a squawk, a bark, or a chirp.
Once the first group was in position, Renata’s voice rang out, “Now!”
All at once, the ravens opened their mouths and streams of water fell from their beaks into the fire. This accomplished, they flew straight up into the air while another platoon of birds took their place.
Wave after wave of ravens flew in, a hundred birds in each platoon, letting loose a cascade of water onto the flames. Each wave flew in a circuit over the treetops, the mess hall, the meadow, until they dipped down over the lake and skimmed up as much water as their gullets could hold
, water to pour over the fire and extinguish the flames.
From where the girl with beads in her hair stood, it seemed like too little. How could a few mouthfuls of water put out a four-story tower of fire? And yet, somehow it did, beak by beak by beak. Under Renata’s command, thick gray smoke began to rise from sections of the wall, and eventually, the flames died down. As the smoke began to clear, the only sign that a wall of thorns had once stood there was the circle of ash that surrounded the blackened eaves of Cabin 5 and some rather curious artifacts: half-melted tarps mounted on sticks, shingles bent into shovels, a rope made out of bra straps. It was odd what burned and what didn’t.
Of the campers, there was no sign at all.
A few of the ravens were overwhelmed by the smoky air and fell out of the sky like downed fighter jets. The girl with beads in her hair did her best to dodge them as she ran toward the cabin, looking for some indication that there were survivors.
“Hello?” she called through the cabin doorway, hesitant to run inside. The structure looked as though it might crumble to ash at any moment. There was no answer, so the girl with beads in her hair went carefully up the concrete steps and stuck her head inside the door, but it was impossible to see through the haze.
“Hello?” she called again, more frantic this time. She stood there for a full minute, but the only sounds she heard were the pops and hisses of the last remaining embers and the caws of ravens, retreating in search of cleaner air.
The girl with beads in her hair ran down the steps and circled around the back of the cabin. She got down on her hands and knees and peered underneath. They were here, she thought. They hid under here. They had to have hidden under here because there was nowhere else, and because if they weren’t here, that means they’re— Before she could finish the thought, the girl with beads in her hair crawled underneath the cabin. The air was dank and earthy, the ground littered with decades’ worth of camper debris and rotting things. It was also full of holes, dens, and burrows for whatever creatures lived under there. The girl with beads in her hair ran her fingers over every inch, not caring whether she was scratched, cut, or bitten so long as she brushed up against a hand, a sneaker, a leg.
She crawled from corner to corner and back again twice before giving up, before lowering her head so that her braids fell forward like a curtain around her face and her arms began to shake beneath her.
There was nothing left of the girls from Cabin 5.
Inch by inch, the girl with beads in her hair forced herself to crawl out from under the cabin, and rose weakly to her feet. The moment she looked up, she gasped and stumbled backwards, scraping the backs of her singed legs against the remains of Cabin 5.
Standing there before her, her face gray with smoke and ash, was Robin, the counselor-in-training. Robin, the closest thing to an authority figure they’d seen since arriving at camp. Robin, who’d taunted them, then abandoned them to be slaughtered by the beast. Robin, who might have had something to do with their entire predicament, if what the kelpie had said had even a shred of truth to it.
The girl with beads in her hair tried to collect herself, but the moment she opened her mouth to speak, the words stuck in her throat.
“They’re all dead,” she said at last, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.
If Robin was rattled by this news, she did not show it. Instead, she unclipped a walkie-talkie from the waistband of her shorts and held it to her lips.
“Cabin 5 clean-up crew, I need you here yesterday,” she barked, over an eruption of static. “All hands. This is a code red situation here.”
A soot-covered Renata glided down to earth and perched next to the girl with beads in her hair. Like her friend, she had been scanning the clearing for signs of life, and likewise had found none.
“What happened?” Renata asked Robin, who was clipping the walkie-talkie back on her belt.
“Something that wasn’t supposed to,” Robin said, not batting an eye at the talking raven.
Renata surveyed the remains of Cabin 5, the circle of char and ashes that surrounded it. Then she looked at the girl with beads in her hair, at her crumpled face, and at the tears in her eyes.
“So they’re—”
Renata could not finish the question.
“It looks that way,” Robin said. She sighed heavily, then turned and began to walk away.
The girl with beads in her hair exploded.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked, running after Robin. “Don’t you care? This isn’t just something that needs to be cleaned up. People are dead!”
Robin got on her walkie-talkie again.
“Cabin 5 crew, report immediately. Anyone not reporting in the next thirty seconds will be severely punished.”
Ignoring glares from the girl with beads in her hair, Robin began to walk around the perimeter of Cabin 5, casting her eyes back and forth over the ruined earth. At one point, she bent down and picked up a pair of binoculars that had been warped almost beyond recognition by the heat. With a primal shriek, she whipped them over her head by the strap and flung them into the forest.
Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute. Whoever Robin had tried to summon on the walkie-talkie was not coming, never mind the consequences.
Renata flapped her wings and caught up with the girl with beads in her hair, who was still stalking after Robin, waiting for answers.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Renata asked, landing on the ground in front of the girl with beads in her hair.
The girl with beads in her hair stopped in her tracks and stared down at her friend. Looking like she’d been struck between the eyes, she slumped to her knees.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
If there was anyone left at Camp So-and-So who could answer that question, it was Robin, but why would they believe anything she told them?
When she called after Robin, her throat felt raw from smoke and tight with anger.
“You left us,” she said. “Back at the cave. You just left us there with the beast. If we hadn’t killed it, would you be calling for help to clean up what was left of us?”
Robin stopped walking but didn’t turn around.
“That wouldn’t have happened,” she said wearily. “I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
The girl with beads in her hair sprang up on her toes, and in an instant, she had caught up with Robin. She tackled her from behind and pushed her to the ground, pinning a knee in the small of her back and twisting one of the counselor-in-training’s arms behind her back.
“I don’t believe you,” she grunted, giving Robin’s arm a sharp tug so the counselor-in-training hissed in pain.
This was where the quest had been leading them. It must have been. They were in evil times where darkness threatened day, and Robin seemed to be the cause. There had probably been more “accidents” like this one all over camp. The girl with beads in her hair thought about her friends, about the girls who’d ridden through the forest on horseback the night before. Where were they now? Were they still alive, or had Robin picked them off one by one?
Renata had followed her and now hovered at the girl’s shoulder as she dug her knee into Robin’s back.
“What are you doing?” she asked, horror filling her raven eyes.
“In evil times when darkness threatens day,” said the girl with beads in her hair through gritted teeth, “one soul among you must hold it at bay. I’m the soul. She is the darkness.”
“Please,” Robin pleaded. “The prophecy, it’s not what you think.”
“How would you know?” asked the girl with beads in her hair.
“Because I wrote it. First you must slay the beast inside its lair,” Robin said, gasping for breath. “And then set free the one imprisoned there.”
The girl with beads in her hair eased some of her weight off Robin’s back.
“I’m the one who left the so-called prophecy in your cabin and sent you off on your so-called quest,” she said, coughing into t
he dirt. “I didn’t know you’d all take it so seriously.”
The girl with beads in her hair felt her head spin.
The doubt she’d harbored from the beginning was true, but it was all so much worse than she’d feared. The monsters and the talking animals and the magic were all real, but none of that mattered. The quest wasn’t real. It was a hoax, a thing made up by their counselor-in-training. And while they’d been sucked into it, terrible things had happened all around them. People had died, and they’d been too busy—risking their lives on a quest that didn’t matter—to save them.
And Robin was so nonchalant about the whole thing. She appeared to feel remorse about what had happened, but it was the way you’d feel about the death of a gerbil or a houseplant you were fond of. Maybe Robin hadn’t wanted it to happen, but she also wasn’t appropriately, humanly upset about it.
Of course she isn’t, thought the girl with beads in her hair, suddenly realizing the truth. Robin isn’t human.
While the girl with beads in her hair processed that, Renata, who saw things in a different way, had arrived at a conclusion that was completely different, but no less correct.
She landed on the ground and perched next to Robin’s head, giving the girl with beads in her hair a pointed look until she took her knee off of Robin’s back.
“What are we supposed to do?” she asked the counselor-in-training.
Robin sat up and dusted off the front of her shirt. “After you killed the beast, which, by the way, I knew you would, you were supposed to go inside the cave. After all, the prophecy did say you were supposed to ‘set free the one imprisoned there.’ ”
Renata spread her wings and turned around, showing off her plumage as if Robin might have missed it earlier. “Was this supposed to happen?”
Robin considered this for a moment.
“You were supposed to free someone, not something. Of all the casks you could’ve brought out, you picked that one. Then again, the cave is full of all kinds of things. Trust me. There are worse things than turning into a raven.”