The Bridge

by Rachel Lou

  “I’ll get started there.”

  Bryce began to leave, and Everett remembered the witchtale volumes and his borderline-obsessive collection of paranormal books.

  “It’s okay. You really don’t have to. Have a cup of tea and crackers or something,” Everett insisted, about to stand—and do what? Physically hold Bryce back?

  “I’m not going to steal anything. You can trust me.”

  “I just feel bad you’re doing all this and I’m sitting here. I’m fine. I’ll go with you.”

  Bryce brought a box into the bedroom and drummed a slow beat against the walls. If he focused, Everett could hear a familiar rhythm.

  Everett put his tea mug on his computer desk and discreetly checked the status of his bookshelf. He hadn’t thought much of Bryce going through his books until now. With Buzz’s scream in mind, he wasn’t sure he wanted Bryce to see anything witch related.

  “We can begin with clothes. My grandfather and I want to start sleeping in the apartment as soon as possible, so let’s get the necessities down.” Everett emptied the closet, tossing his clothes at Bryce’s feet.

  “You’re moving to an apartment? Why are you downgrading? Is your financial situation worsening?” Bryce removed the clothing from the hangers and folded the clothes into neat rectangles.

  “Not at all, but moving will help with our budget. My grandfather owns a shop in Sundale. It’s a mixed-use building, so there’s an apartment on the second level. We already have a buyer for our house and won’t have to waste money on fixing it up. I’m going to Greenford next year, and it’s closer to Sundale, so I won’t be commuting as far. It’s almost a win-win situation.” All that was left in the closet were mementos from his parents. “I also need a push in the grieving process. I’m still in denial of my parents’ deaths. Seven years of denial.”

  Everett stared at a small vintage chest in the corner of a closet shelf. He had no memory of it, but its five butterfly latches spoke of untold importance. He’d have to wait for Bryce to leave until he opened it. He closed the closet.

  “I know how you feel. My mom died when I was ten in an accident. It was… brutal.”

  “My parents died when I was ten too.” Everett considered the obliviousness of his tone and bit his tongue. “I mean to say I’m in the same boat.”

  Bryce played with a hole in a ratty knit sweater.

  “They never found their bodies, so I’ve always thought they were out there somewhere.” Everett helped Bryce fold the rest of the clothes. “You don’t have to fold my undergarments. Point at them and I’ll take them out.”

  “It’s just underwear.” Bryce tossed a pair of boxers on Everett’s lap.

  Their short talk about their parents had darkened the atmosphere. Everett worked inefficiently through his undergarments. Bryce’s expression had the ghostly, contagious remains of grievous pain.

  Everett remembered waiting for days, weeks, and months for his parents to return, never losing hope, even when his grandfather told him it was almost impossible they were alive. There were countless stories about families miraculously reuniting, and he had believed he could be part of their elite group. He could defy the odds; he was a witch after all.

  And then he had dipped into witch superiority.

  His parents were witches, therefore they could survive anything humans couldn’t. They were more apt to survive any situation. They had spells on the tips of their tongues. They were skilled adventurers who could handle anything.

  He still believed his parents were alive, but he knew they were dead. It was a strange paradox that nevertheless felt logical in his mind.

  He and Bryce filled the first box with all of Everett’s clothes. Everett put his grandfather’s clothes in the second box, and Bryce put towels and toiletries in the third box.

  “You’re going to Greenford?” Bryce asked, as if there was something hard to believe about it.

  “I turn eighteen soon. I’m a summer baby.”

  Bryce pushed his box into the hall. “I just graduated from Greenford. It would have been cool to go with you.”

  “What’s your degree in?”

  “Business. Just like my dad and mom.” He scratched his head and smiled. “Like both my sisters.”

  Was he going off to a four-year college in the fall? The closest one was a thirty-minute drive from Sundale. The majority of its attendees were locals or lived within several hours of the county, but Bryce deserved to head out, travel far, and explore different cities and towns.

  “Could you take me on a campus tour?” Everett said.

  “I could introduce you to some friends too.”

  Doubtlessly they wouldn’t be like the library hermits Everett had befriended in high school, but he believed Bryce wouldn’t introduce him to the sort of people he didn’t get along with.

  Bryce pushed Everett’s box into the hall to join the other two.

  “Want to do books next?”

  Everett pretended to double-check the boxes. “Sure. I’ll hand over the books and you pack them.”

  He could give Bryce the books in piles. If Bryce stored them in stacks, he wouldn’t see the witchtale volumes. They looked like antiques and didn’t have titles, but the engraved designs on the covers were giveaways to any witch. Not that Bryce was a witch, but if Buzz’s painful scream and subsequent abandonment of the house were anything to go by, Bryce had to stay away from the volumes. But if Buzz had left Everett behind, maybe there wasn’t much to fear.

  Everett gave Bryce the books in order of the largest cover sizes to the smallest. The witchtales belonged somewhere in the middle, and they’d be sandwiched between multiple books.

  “You really like paranormal books,” Bryce noted.

  “Reality is boring. Fantasy isn’t.” Everett stacked three ghost-hunting books together.

  “You escape with books about—” Bryce looked at the back of one of the books. “—real life ghost hunts?”

  “It’s interesting.” Everett placed the book stacks in a row.

  Bryce rushed to pack them all. “You’re going so fast.”

  Everett put the witchtales in different stacks, sandwiched between two books of similarly colored covers. Bryce split the books up to slot them in the narrow gaps between the stacked books and the walls of the box, putting one of the witchtales away after a short glance. Everett released a huge breath he’d been holding in.

  “Hey, we need another box,” Bryce said and put the other volume off to the side. He looked at Everett. “Can you get it for me? My leg is kind of cramped.”

  When Everett returned with the next box, Bryce was flipping through the unboxed witchtales volume.

  “Did you find something you like?” Everett asked.

  “What is this?” Bryce flipped through a few pages.

  Everett recognized the story as the one about a witch who cast a spell on a man to make him fall in love with her. She was punished with imprisonment for three decades—one decade for every year she held him under her spell.

  “It’s an old fairytale book. It’s fragile. Please be gentle with it. Some pages are starting to tear.”

  “It’s like a Bible for witches.”

  Everett couldn’t control his rapid heartbeat. “Isn’t it interesting?”

  Bryce flipped to the last page where the moral code was summarized in a numbered list. “Do you believe in this?”

  “Do I believe in witches?”

  Bryce gestured to the book. “In everything.”

  “Do I believe in the book’s events?”

  Bryce looked at Everett. “Are you Pagan?”

  “That book’s not Pagan. It’s something else.”

  “Do you do rituals and stuff?” Bryce closed the book. “I’m not going to judge you. I just want to know what your relationship is to this book.”

  “You’re acting like this is a life-or-death situation.”

  “Because it is. Are you a witch?”

  All the warmth left Everett’s body.
He could say he wasn’t that type of witch, but what difference did it make?

  Bryce didn’t wait for an answer before he went on. “My dad has this book. He has a bunch of other ones actually, but I’m not allowed to read them. Anyone who follows this book—shit.” Bryce rubbed the stress crease between his eyebrows. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Not again.”

  “Bryce?”

  “I need water.” Bryce went to the kitchen with heavy feet. A cabinet opened and closed, and the faucet ran on a full torrent.

  Everett flipped through the book and stared blindly at the faded ink.

  Chapter 15

  EVERETT WENT to the kitchen where Bryce stood at the sink. He had forgotten to put the witchtales down, so he held it to his chest and hoped Bryce wouldn’t ask to see it.

  “Don’t want to waste your bottled water,” Bryce said as he filled a glass with tap water.

  He swished a mouthful down his throat. His skin was slick with sweat and his bangs were damp, as if he had splashed water on his face. His knuckles were scabbed again.

  “You look unwell,” Everett said.

  “It’s just the little panic I had about the book.” Bryce held a hand out for the witchtales. “Since I’m here, can I read it? This is the best opportunity I have.”

  “What did your father say about the book?”

  “Anyone who follows it is a danger to me.” Bryce rolled his dark eyes, irritation shining in their black pools of frustration.

  Everett twirled a strand of hair around his finger in a tight spiral so his hand would stop trembling. “How are they dangerous?”

  “I don’t know. My dad’s crazy sometimes.” Bryce leaned against the sink counter and reached for the witchtales. Everett handed it over, praying to the gods for his hands to stop sweating and for Bryce to be nothing more than the oblivious son of a paranoid human.

  Bryce flipped to the first story. “‘The Black Cat.’ Sounds like a Halloween story.”

  Calling a witchtale a Halloween story was a common insult, but Everett didn’t think much of it when it came from Bryce’s mouth. Bryce could insult witches, call them fake and whatever else he wanted, so long as he remained ignorant.

  Witchtales had the same qualities as horror stories. They had witches, demons, ghosts, and every paranormal creature one could think of, plus more. Just as there were unknown creatures at the bottom of the ocean, there were unknown creatures of paranormal descent.

  They went back to Everett’s bedroom, Bryce flipping through the volume as he followed behind Everett. Thank goodness the hall was short. Everett sat on his knees and packed the rest of the books, his arms covered in gooseflesh. Bryce held an intimate part of his life and flipped through it as if it was a common book.

  Where did they stand on the witch topic? Everett hadn’t made it clear he was a witch, but his lack of a proper response indirectly confirmed he believed in the witchtales.

  Witchtales weren’t the witch version of Bible stories, but many families used them for the purpose of instilling morals and teaching the Law—as the Bible did for Christians. There were arguments over whether the witchtales were to be taken literally or figuratively, but they were on no level comparable to the arguments over the Bible.

  Finally Bryce gave Everett the volume to pack away. Everett closed the box on the remaining books and grouped it with the others. They could transfer the food in the refrigerator and pantry cabinets to the apartment, but Bryce would discover his new address. Bryce already knew Everett was moving to a multiuse building in Sundale. If Bryce’s father was an enemy of witches, the disclosure of the shop’s exact location would defeat the purpose of moving homes.

  The goose bumps spread to his legs. A chill ran over his flesh like a blanket of rippling air. Everett hadn’t been careful.

  “What are we packing next?” Bryce appeared behind Everett.

  “Dinnerware would be good. We can use bubble wrap and packing peanuts.”

  Everett brought out his mother’s small dining set to be packed first. The family had only used it for special dinners, such as birthdays and holidays. Everett didn’t remember the last time they served food on this dining set. He imagined it had been on the New Year’s Day after his tenth birthday.

  He covered the dining set with the tablecloth from last week and emptied the cabinets of the casual dinnerware.

  “These look ancient. The designs are faded and you can see scratches.” Bryce rubbed a finger on a prominent scratch.

  “These plates are older than I am. We’ve had them for a long time,” Everett said.

  “You can’t afford to buy new ones?”

  “My family values functionality over appearance. If it can work as a plate, we’ll keep it.”

  Bryce looked at the bottom of the plate, then scrutinized the other plates. He wrapped them as a stack, and when he turned to the box, Everett went to the kitchen and took a pinch of salt.

  Strip his aura.

  Bryce’s body went rigid. His aura faded, and all that was left was a confused human boy. He shook his head before returning to the box.

  Everett leaned on the counter, dazed more than he should have been. It was a simple spell cast on a single human boy.

  Bryce put the plate down, and when he saw Everett propping himself against the counter, hurried to his side. His hands hovered in front of Everett, unsure where to land. “You all right?”

  “I’m sleepy.”

  “Already? We haven’t done much packing.”

  Smiling was like dragging Everett’s lips through hardened mush. “Do you want to eat lunch? I have frozen food we can heat in the microwave.”

  “I ate before I came. Did you? Or did you only have a cup of coffee?”

  “I had breakfast and coffee.” He shouldn’t have had the coffee. He crashed hard with too much caffeine. “I usually don’t have visitors, so my schedule got a bit skewed.”

  Bryce smiled, but his eyes were dark with concern, their corners smooth with no laugh lines. “You seem like someone who’d have a lot of book buddies over.”

  “I don’t have buddies.” Everett bit his tongue and, upon seeing Bryce’s pitiful frown, went to unfreeze a frozen meal.

  Bryce leaned on the opposite side of the counter. “You don’t have buddies? None?”

  “I have a few. My grandfather, a schoolmate, you.”

  “That’s it?”

  Everett didn’t have an issue with his tiny circle of friends. He was a witch, and witches kept their distance from nonwitches, just as humans kept their distance from humans of other classes, races, religions, and other distinct groups.

  Aside from Bryce and his former schoolmate, Sunny, there was nobody in his life who wasn’t a blood relative or a nonwitch.

  “I don’t mind it. I prefer small, tight groups over large, loose ones.”

  “But you don’t have a group. You have separate friends who don’t even know each other. And your grandfather is a family member. He doesn’t count as a friend.”

  “I hate this extrovert ideal.” Everett ripped into the box of a frozen macaroni and cheese tray.

  “Even introverts need friends.”

  “I have friends. I just don’t have as many as others. And I do have acquaintances. It’s not like I have no one when you, my schoolmate, and my grandfather are taken away.” Everett slit the plastic covering with the provided plastic fork.

  “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just don’t see the appeal in a small group of friends. I mean a tiny group of friends. You should have more close buddies. I’ll introduce you to mine at Greenford. They’ll like you. You might like them. They’re kind of obnoxious, but don’t you introverts like to observe people and take notes on them?”

  “I’m not a freak.” Everett set the microwave for two minutes.

  “I never said you were.” Bryce fingered the divot in the counter that Everett had made when he attempted to make a bridge for a dead ant. The concentration of energy had melted a point into the counter. “W
hat’s the name of your school friend?”

  “Sunny Jenkin.” She wasn’t a true friend. They just ate lunch together to avoid looking like loners.

  Bryce looked up, eyes round with recognition.

  “You know her?”

  Bryce nodded and didn’t seem happy about the coincidence. “Her dad is friends with my dad.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “I don’t know. Sunny’s real shady. No offense.”

  Bryce had a connection to witchcraft through his father. His father was friends with Mr. Jenkin, who was the father of Everett’s friend.

  “Coincidence?” Everett said.

  “It might be. Are you a witch?”

  Everett stopped breathing midbreath.

  He cast an incomplete spell, one that didn’t have a focused result. There was nothing to expect, but paranormal residue flickered on Bryce’s right hand.

  “When you say witch, what do you mean?”

  Bryce’s gaze probed him, poking everywhere his eyes went, daring a reaction. “A literal witch. You do rituals and cast spells.”

  Strip his aura.

  Bryce shook his head like he had a tick. He ran a hand through his hair and frowned, biting his lip.

  Again, all that remained was a human boy.

  Bryce cocked his head, eyebrows squishing together. “Everett?”

  Strip all of it. Break any barriers.

  Everett’s energy depleted quicker than a blink. He disregarded the double film of his vision and strained to think about anything other than the blankness of his mind. The world was bright, faint like someone had taken an eraser to all the colors and outlines. And it was cold—so cold. He blinked, and it took an age to open his eyes and see the kitchen floor, a socked foot stepping toward him.

  “Hey! Everett!”

  Hands grabbed his arm, squeezing painfully tight, but he slipped through, his legs nonexistent, and he fell into a white world.

  He opened his eyes, and Bryce swam into view through the watery film over his vision. “Bryce?”

  “Right here. I’m right here.” Bryce cupped Everett’s cheek. His hand was a warm comfort.