Betwixt

by Tara Bray Smith

  When they passed the same patched army tent the third time, it was clear that they were walking in a circle.

  “Nix.” She stopped and tugged at her father’s Gore-Tex she had lent him. It was a gesture that made her feel young, like tripping after Ralph in the hardware store, and that feeling, combined with the realization that they had no idea why they had come or what they were supposed to be doing — besides not knowing a soul — made Ondine feel powerless. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to stay. It was that whatever she’d thought she would find at the Ring of Fire — answers to questions she hadn’t yet formulated about mirages, the party, Nix, Moth, whatever — seemed hopeless: a girl’s fantasy.

  “Nix! Hold up!”

  “What?” He looked irritated and barely slowed, so she had to scamper to catch up with him.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Does it look like I know? I’m trying to find Moth. Like I’m supposed to. I don’t know any more than you. But unless you walk a little faster or help me find him, we’re never going to know. Is that what you want, Ondine? To just stay like this?”

  The look on her face must have exhibited a fraction of the hurt she felt, for he quieted then, though his mouth stayed gripped and his hands remained jammed into his pockets, not looped in hers as they usually were when they stood close.

  “Look. I think we just need to find Moth.”

  “Okay, it’s just —”

  “It’s just what?” He was a few paces from her, but his voice was more tender.

  She swallowed a sigh. “It’s just … this doesn’t feel right.”

  “What does? What does feel right? Or should I put it this way: have you ever ‘felt right,’ Ondine? Because I sure haven’t.” Nix’s voice hushed. “I thought that’s what we were doing here. I thought that’s why we were trying to find Moth.”

  A distant crack and, a few seconds later, faint light in the sky, and she knew they were in for a full storm.

  “I mean this isn’t safe,” she said over the crunch of their feet against lava dust.

  “I’m not sure it’s meant to be.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She stared at him.

  “Nothing,” he mumbled, and kept walking.

  Behind Nix, she checked her watch. Time had passed, and the storm that had threatened them all morning was now a reality. Branches tossed, wind howled, thunder rumbled. Ondine was no Girl Scout, but she knew that a tent in a clearing under a tree wasn’t the place to be during a storm. Nor was the path back to the car. They had hiked a ways into the forest already. Nix had the tarp, the flashlight, and a blanket in the rucksack he carried.

  “Let’s set something up here. You have the tarp. We can wait out the storm and see if Moth shows up.”

  “We’ll have to find some twine —”

  “It will be a good chance to speak to someone.”

  For the first time that day she linked her hand with his, and he took it, and squeezed it, and didn’t let it go.

  MORGAN SAW THE GIRL WITH FANGS outside her car window — a Japanese girl with long, shiny blond dreads — as soon as she woke up. She had fallen asleep soon after she’d arrived at the campground, late from getting lost somewhere around Bend and spending two hours retracing her route along winding mountain roads, still icy at the edges from the late spring snows. At a truck stop she’d almost turned around, and if it weren’t for the leering fat-ass down the counter she might have, but a glimpse of his swollen face reminded her that she had zero to lose by going to the mysterious party-gathering-concert-whatever-it-was, and talking to Moth. The heated words with the strange boy at Ondine’s still puzzled her, as did the resurgence of her night walks since meeting him. It wouldn’t be so bad if the Ring of Fire were some kind of a rich-boy, culty thing crawling with Moth’s higher-end clients. Maybe she’d meet someone from Penwick. A weirdo who liked parting with his cash for a few spankings or whatever. Rich boys were always into freaky shit.

  But this was too idiotic: A short chick with fake vampire fangs staring into her window? To sell T-shirts or bumper stickers or bottled water or programs or fucking glow sticks? Or maybe, if it was just Morgan’s luck, to beg for cash. Got a dollar, lady? I need to buy a hash brownie. When had her Lexus turned into the vermin motel? And what ever happened to manners?

  She rolled down the window and the girl edged back. She was pretty enough, solid and curvy, with black eyes and a ripped T-shirt that slipped over a tanned left shoulder. Outside it was a gray, rainy afternoon, and Morgan thought she heard thunder somewhere in the distance. She moved to open the door, but her seat belt restrained her.

  The girl with the dreads smiled, not quite nicely.

  “Excuse me, do I know you?” Morgan said through the crack.

  The girl said nothing, but her hands fell to her sides, and Morgan noticed she had a tattoo on her wrist, a little blue X. She felt like she’d seen something like it before, but wasn’t sure where. The girl didn’t move and kept staring. Morgan thought she detected a high-pitched whine coming from her throat.

  “What the fuck? I said, Do I know you?”

  Great, Morgan thought. She’s rolling and wants to make friends.

  Though the girl’s face didn’t look friendly. Her nostrils flared and her eyelids fluttered every time she inhaled. Was the chick smelling her?

  Morgan wished she didn’t feel so disoriented. She’d been up since five because of the toad incident, and though there wasn’t anything going on in the half-empty lot, she should have checked out the scene earlier. The remnants of a slippery, bothersome dream knocked around in her head. Something about a cave, or a tunnel. She was walking in darkness toward a dull yellow light, but the memory of what was there kept floating away from her. She was reaching toward a wall, which gave way to an adjacent room. Each time Morgan grasped, she fell farther into thick black nothingness. She reached once more —

  She unbuckled her seat belt and glanced at her cell. Moth’s one-word text of TODAY was still there on her screen, so she deleted it and clicked back to the clock. It was three. Whatever was supposed to be happening at the Ring of Fire had probably already started. It irritated her that she was late. What irritated her more, though, was the freak standing outside her car.

  “Go away,” Morgan said to the rain-slicked girl. “I don’t feel like company.”

  She didn’t move, though her eyelids still fluttered and the weird humming heightened. Thunder clapped and a brief burst of lightning illuminated the afternoon sky.

  “What are you, a fucking ’tard? I said go away!”

  What was the bitch doing? That sound she was making. If she didn’t stop, Morgan was going to have to —

  She opened her car door. She tried to be careful but it bumped the girl anyway. Not that she was sorry, though she mumbled an apology while she flipped through her keys for the alarm. She was cut short by a sudden flurry of movement. Morgan turned and there the girl was, in front of her, on her haunches, grabbing for her ankles like a demented dog.

  “Fuck!” She moved back, trying to disengage. “You are not what I need right now, bitch!”

  She wouldn’t have kicked the weirdo had the girl not held one of Morgan’s ankles in her grasp. It seemed that she was trying to drag her toward a line of scraggly trees at the base of what looked like — was that a volcano? Where the fuck were they?

  “Stop it!” Morgan yelled, still kicking.

  She started to walk in the other direction, but the girl — Morgan couldn’t believe her eyes, but it was happening — the girl was grabbing for her other ankle in an obvious attempt to keep her rooted. In one swift motion Morgan grabbed a handful of dreads and pulled. Then she swiped, hard. She had never hit another person before — well, besides K.A. and her mom — and when she felt her palm meet her opponent’s cheek, then the ragged, serrated bump of fingernails, her own, scraping into flesh, she was surprised how good it felt.

  She only had to whisper.

  “I said
, don’t touch me.”

  The freak was breathing hard now, whimpering. Morgan pushed her to the ground, scrambled with her backpack, and headed for the dimming trees. There was music in there. She could hear it. She turned back and saw the girl watching her leave, still holding her cheek. Morgan looked down at her nails, which she could swear were an inch longer than they had been in the morning, and coated with a red-violet shimmery substance she figured was blood mixed with the freakazoid’s makeup. Man! What is going on today with the slime? She wiped her hands on a passing weed. Heading down the rocky trail, she concentrated on the sound of her heart pumping. Loud and quick and even. She didn’t much feel like thinking.

  “EXCUSE ME.”

  After twenty minutes of walking, Ondine stopped in front of the first person who met her eyes: a handsome, dark-haired boy who sat with his arms around his knees, surrounded by a few other hollow-eyed kids on a blanket under a tarp. The boy did not return her smile but nodded to show that he was listening, and Ondine, motioning to Nix, who had found a nearby tree and was now unpacking the blue tarp, continued.

  “My friend and I, we’d like to set up our camp. Do you have some twine?”

  A few words passed between the boy and the group behind him in what sounded like Spanish. He dug into a nearby bag and handed her a roll of brown twine. He smiled this time, and nodded, but still didn’t speak. Even weirder, he kept his eyes on the ground as he passed her the rope, as if he didn’t want to see her.

  “Habla inglés?” She tried again, pissed that her scientist father had encouraged her to take Latin. “Do you know when the band starts? Mi amigo and I —” She gestured to Nix again. “We want to see the band. La música.” Ondine did a little desperate dance and snapped her fingers. “La música? La Flama?”

  Nothing. The boy continued to look at the ground.

  “Gracias,” she said, frustrated, and trudged back to Nix.

  “They could only speak Spanish.” She shrugged. “Weird. I didn’t know the Flame was popular with Mexicans.”

  “They might not be Mexican,” Nix corrected her peevishly, taking the twine that Ondine passed him but continuing to look at the small group, who were now in conversation with each other, their backs turned.

  “Oh sorry. Maybe they were from Béleeth. Or Guatémala. Jesus. What is your problem?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ondine sighed and shook her head. She didn’t feel like fighting. “Anyway, they were kind of shy,” she added, trying to bridge the gap that had opened between them, but Nix stayed silent, concentrating on their temporary arrangements. She watched him go through the motions of hanging the tarp. Lightning struck again, closer this time, and she ducked under. When Nix had finished, he too crawled under the low ceiling, his face a pallid blue, his eyes squinting in the dimming light. Despite his proximity, she felt desperately alone.

  “I’m going to return the twine,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Whatever.” She watched him walk down the path. She lay on her back and looked above her. Rain pooled in the center of the blue square, forming a circle. She aimed one of the flashlights toward it and it illuminated a watery nimbus, shaking with every splash. She flicked her flashlight on and off, thinking.

  She was disappointed. Though she was sure there were a few more kids somewhere among the rocks and trees, the much-whispered-about Ring of Fire, by her reckoning, was a party of no more than a hundred kids. No alcohol, no dancing, and a storm. What was everyone waiting for? For it was clear, from the hush that had fallen in the forest — only somewhat enlivened by rolls of thunder and the cracks of approaching lightning — that everyone was waiting for something. The Flame? There was no way the band was going to play. Not with an electrical storm close by. So this soggy affair on a Wednesday in June: this was the rave that everyone was talking about? The momentous occasion she and Nix had dreamed about side by side for the past three weeks?

  Whatever. The whole thing was a bust. That she had expected something different, something shocking, was pathetic. What she got was yet another confirmation of her father’s advice to never trust what you can’t observe. Things are as they seem, Ondine. Yes, things were as they seemed: wet and gray and dull. Nothing to do now but wait for it to be over. She would have asked Nix what he was feeling, what he thought, but he was returning the twine, and, she noted, taking his sweet time. She sat up, cupping the flashlight in her palm.

  One by one, lights were being extinguished in the scattered tents. Despite the storm, Ondine thought she saw fireflies twinkling in the moist air. Her jeans were soaked so she took them off and rolled them neatly into her backpack, leaving just her hoodie mini on. She leaned back against a tree and closed her eyes. Just for a second, she thought, but when Nix’s face appeared in the dim blue of their lean-to, she realized she must have dozed off, for his flashlight was on and behind him the sky had darkened to a smoky black. The rain had stopped but the thunder had not, and every so often the sky was lit up by viscous yellow.

  “The Flame,” he said. “They’re playing.”

  She scrambled up, her heart beating.

  “They told you?” Remembering the way the boy with the twine had remained so silent.

  “No, no. I just heard it. I checked it out. There’s a clearing by the crater. That’s where they are. Everyone’s going over there. Come on.”

  She was watching Nix so intently she didn’t realize she, too, heard the music playing. A faraway seasick sound, like a carnival heard from down a country road.

  “Come on, Ondine. It’s time.”

  It was … time? Nix barely allowed her to think before he turned and started walking down the sloping crunchy path, following the skipping flashlights ahead of them. Maybe there were more than a hundred people. Ondine could see at least that many lights in front of her, moving down a hill and then up another, heading toward where she imagined the lake was, at the top of the crater. There were quiet murmurs of song and then the ever-louder beat of a single, deep bass drum. The Flame. She and Nix came to an opening, and below them a sort of crater, rudely lit by a few bonfires, opened up. The lake, she figured, must have been just above them.

  “I guess we’re in the right place.”

  She looked down at the plateau. A stage was surrounded by a hundred or so people, undulating like water rocked by the passage of a boat, and another hundred hung around the edge or near the fires. The figures on the stage itself were hidden by lights and smoke — liquid nitrogen? — and Ondine couldn’t tell how many they were, what they were doing, but she could hear their music now.

  Hurry — hurry — hurry! — ring of fire —

  Ring of fire! Spin round, ring of fire —

  So it was a concert after all. Though a lingering fear tugged at her, a voice whispering, Don’t go down there, they had come all this way, and what was she going to do now? Go back to the car? A crack of lightning behind her nudged her farther.

  “Come on. We’ll be safer down there,” Nix said, pointing to the rock formations that poked out of the sides of the bowl-shaped crater, like gargantuan fingers protecting it from the wind and — she hoped — from the lightning.

  This time he smiled. A smile that Ondine remembered.

  “You ready?”

  All she could manage was a halfhearted shrug.

  He turned back to the scene in front of them, his eyes glowing in the light from the bonfires. That’s when she knew she was scared. Everything had gotten just a little too weird. She looked at Nix, holding the flashlight, smiling as if a party in an electrical storm in a volcano in the middle of the wilderness were the most normal thing in the world. She had known the boy for three weeks. Knew no one else at the concert, if that’s what it was. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and was relieved to see it still showed a few bars. She tucked it away before Nix turned back toward her.

  “All right.” He tried again. “Tell you what. You wait here. I’ll go find Moth. I’m sure he’s here now. See that
fire?” He pointed to one near the middle of the gathering. “I’ll meet you there. Or if you want, go down there and I’ll find you. Stay near the front left of the stage.”

  Ondine could tell Nix was feeling antsy, and though she didn’t want to be left alone, she didn’t feel like running after James Motherwell, either.

  “Okay,” she said. “Front left of the stage.” She called after him as he started to lope down the hill, a raggedy figure in black against a ruddy, firelit night. He didn’t answer. Maybe he was going to do dust, she thought, but buried the suspicion.

  “Front left,” she called out again, louder.

  “Front left!” Nix shouted back.

  It was how they said good-bye.

  CHAPTER 10

  MOTH SURVEYED THE CROWD. Things were coming together nicely, he thought, though he stayed hidden under an outcropping of rock, away from the light rain and roving eyes. They would be looking for him and they would be confused, as they all were, as he had been the first time. They would have to wait. Preparations still had to be made: the finial had to be raised, liquid nitrogen placed, and it was crucial to maintain the illusion of normalcy now, before everything started.

  They couldn’t have asked for a better storm. The lightning was strong from the recent warm front, yet without the torrential rain that sometimes accompanied such gatherings.

  Two hundred or so had come from around the Pacific. Even a few from South America. A VW bus was one thing, an airplane, quite another. It was a bigger gathering than Portland had ever seen, and one ring would be initiated. His. Or to put it more precisely (Viv was always telling him he needed to be more precise): Ondine, Nix, and Morgan.