“Right. And then we can . . . figure out what to do. Together.”
“Right.”
We keep sitting there, not speaking. I do not think I would describe this as a comfortable silence. I think a more accurate description would be that it’s a terrifying silence in which my boyfriend is possibly thinking secret thoughts about being mad at me and how maybe I am not quite worth all this demon baggage that I seem destined to drag around forever.
“We okay?” I ask, not looking at him.
He sighs, and for a second I stop breathing entirely. Then he reaches over to take my hand. “Yeah, we’re okay. I’m sorry. I just . . . really hate demons, you know?”
“You and me both, mister.”
We fall into silence again, but he’s still holding my hand, and so that makes it much less ominous. I think this time we’re just not ready to rejoin the regular world quite yet.
“How’s the show?” Ryan asks.
“Oh, my God,” I tell him. “It’s amazing. I mean it’s really amazing. Demon or not, he’s really talented.”
“Well, that’s good, at least. I guess. I mean, I was hoping. You’ll have to tell me what it’s about and everything.”
“Is Scarlet Pimpernel all that you dreamed it would be and more?”
He pinches me lightly on the arm. “Shut up. It’s only the first day. But yes, so far, everyone seems really great.”
“I heard the chorus singing as I came up here. They sounded pretty good already!”
He gets up and then turns and takes my hand again.
“Let’s go to lunch. I want . . . to not think about demons for a little bit. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He pulls me to my feet, and I grab him in a spontaneous hug. And then I have trouble letting go.
“Hey,” he says, hugging me back. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise. Whoever this guy is, he can’t be worse than Mr. Gabriel, right?”
“Right.” God, please let that be the truth.
I force my arms to disengage from their slightly too-tight embrace and hold his hand again instead. Then we start walking down the hill.
Jules has saved us both seats at lunch.
She looks at Ryan with poorly concealed concern/curiosity but doesn’t ask any questions. We try to get caught up in the ongoing conversation about everyone’s first rehearsal and who already has a crush on someone in their cast and which directors are new and who wishes they were in a different show already.
At least half the camp appears to have a crush on Peter.
“Is he as delicious up close as he is from a distance?” Ryan’s friend Toby, who is rather delicious himself with his perfect ebony skin and perfect dancer’s body, asks this while peering toward the other end of the dining hall, where Peter is sitting at an over-full table with some of his many admirers. Toby was cast as Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He’s sitting next to Maria, who is playing viola in the Brigadoon orchestra. I’ve been glad to discover that Ryan’s group of friends at camp is not entirely made up of superstars like him and Jules. I mean, he is friends with several of the other kids who often get leads, but plenty of his friends are chorus-level or musicians or backstagers. They’re all really nice. Like his friends back home. He’s got good taste in friends, that Ryan.
I glance at Jules. My inevitable and immediate thoughts about her being the exception to this rule aren’t really fair, since she’s been nothing but nice to me. I just . . . can’t like her. Or how close she and Ryan are. Or how much shared history they have. I think it’s just not physically possible for me to like any of that.
Toby pokes me in the arm for taking too long to answer.
“He is a very attractive young man,” I confirm. “That is my objective opinion.”
“I’d like to give him my objective opinion,” Maria says.
Toby pokes her now. “That doesn’t even make sense, love.”
Maria shrugs. “Everyone knows what I meant. The exact syntax was irrelevant.”
Everyone is curious about Peter’s show, and I oblige them with a description of the plot and assurance that the music is incredible. Ryan’s friend Belinda, who is in the chorus of Aftermass, walks by just as we’re talking about it and joins our conversation. “Did you tell them about the drama?”
“What drama?” everyone asks at once.
Ryan stares at me, clearly thinking about the demon-related drama, but I give him a tiny shake of my head. “I didn’t see very much, but someone named Darleen may or may not have pushed another girl off the stage?” I look at Belinda for confirmation. Everyone else does, too.
She squeezes in to sit down next to Jules. “Oh, my God. Cyn, did someone tell you the backstory? Those two have been fighting for, like, ten years now. It’s crazy that they ended up in the same show this year.”
Toby rolls his eyes. “Belinda likes to exaggerate.” It’s her turn for a poke in the arm. “Ten years ago they were six years old, Drama Queen. It’s more like five years of mutual hatred.”
“Six,” Belinda insists. “They were nine. I remember. I was here that year.”
“But why?” I ask. “What happened?”
“Well,” Belinda says, “what I heard is that Darleen got the lead in the Lower Campers’ production of Cinderella, and Celia was the understudy, which made her crazy mad. And then she tried to arrange it so that Darleen had an ‘accident’ so that she could go on in her place.”
“That’s not what happened,” Maria says. “They were nine! It wasn’t anything so violent. Celia was just really mean to her, and she turned a bunch of the other girls against her.”
“There was definitely some violence, though,” Toby says. “I heard that Steven had to physically pull them apart after opening night because Darleen jumped Celia the second the curtain went down.”
“However it started,” Jules says to me, “they totally hate each other now, and something always happens before the end of the summer. This is early, though! Usually we get through at least a week or two before things blow up.”
“That’s our camp,” Ryan says. “Drama onstage, drama everywhere else, too.” He points back and forth between me and Belinda. “You guys will have to keep us informed.”
Belinda waggles her eyebrows as she gets back up with her tray. “Of course!”
The conversation drifts on to other shows and other famous feuds between campers (although everyone agrees that there is nothing that comes even close to rivaling the Darleen-Celia thing) and then to what everyone has scheduled for the afternoon. Some days there’s a second rehearsal period, but other days there are electives that we all chose ahead of time. Ryan tried to get me to sign up for improv with him, but I just couldn’t imagine that being anything but terrifying. Yes, sure, I want to learn and grow as an individual, but not by making a fool of myself in front of others. I signed up for archery and painting instead.
I have brief second thoughts as I watch Ryan and Jules head off to improv together (of course), but I turn determinedly away and head for the archery field. Lisa R. bounds up beside me on the way. “You picked archery, too, right? I’m so glad. No one else I know signed up for it.”
She barely knows me, but I refrain from pointing this out. “It sounded like fun,” I say instead. “And a nice break from set construction.”
“I hope I don’t shoot someone’s eye out!” she says cheerfully.
I laugh before I can help it. I like Lisa R. She reminds me a little of Leticia.
That gives me a twinge. I miss those girls already. I resolve to write them all long letters tonight after dinner. In which I will say nothing about demon campers. Especially not to Annie. I just want her to be happy and have delightful falling-in-love times with sweet, sweet William and not have to think about anything scary or upsetting in any way. Besides, it’s not like there’s any reason she needs to know. Even if Peter does turn out to be evil, he’s stuck here, tethered to me, and
so poses no danger to Annie whatsoever.
Unless he was lying about that part. Which, if evil, he totally could have been.
But I’m not going to go down that road. Watch and wait. That’s the plan. I’m going to stick to the plan. It’s a good plan. Easy.
The rest of the day passes with no more demon revelations or even any eyes getting shot out during archery. I am starting to get the hang of this camp thing, I think.
After dinner and evening activity (a performance by the extracurricular musical improv troupe, followed by solicitations to sign up and join them, which I decline), I walk with Ryan and some of his friends to the point where we have to go in different directions to go back to our bunks.
“Good night, sexy,” I whisper, kissing him perhaps a teeny bit longer than is really tasteful for a public leave-taking, but screw it. I had a rough day.
He rewards me with one of the smiles that justifies me calling him that, which I hold carefully in my mind to gaze upon with my inward eye when I get into bed.
Everyone drifts off to their bunks, and I walk the final length of the path alone to number 6.
Just as I’m reaching the door, a shadow moves beside the path.
A big shadow.
I stop, looking back over my shoulder, but everyone else is out of sight already.
I debate running. Or screaming. But I really don’t want to be the crazy girl who ran screaming around camp the third night. And maybe it was just a shadow. A harmless, totally non-demony —
“Hey.” The shadow is closer. And it is talking to me.
“Uh, hello?” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m whispering.
“Come here.” The shadow moves around the side of the bunk.
Nope! I head for the door.
Something grabs me and pulls me off the path.
“Hey!” I shout. But I’m still sort of whispering. It’s something about the dark and the trees and all the nature.
Stupid nature.
“Leave Peter alone,” the shadow says menacingly.
“What?” I’m still trying to make out features of some kind. It could be a bear for all I can see.
The shadow leans closer, and I see a face in the darkness. Not one I recognize. Also, not a bear. He’s a teenager. Human. Just . . . very large.
“Leave. Peter. Alone.”
“Who are you?”
“Hector.”
Ah. Peter had neglected to mention that his human helper was here at camp.
“I’m not doing anything to Peter.”
“You’d better not. He worked really hard to get here.”
“No, he didn’t! He — well, you know how he got here.”
“You don’t know how hard it was for him. How long he’s wanted to escape. What he had to endure! You don’t know anything. And you don’t have to. You just leave him alone, that’s all.”
Well. Peter certainly has a devoted friend in Hector here. That’s nice for him.
“Sure, fine. Whatever you say. Now how about you leave me alone, okay? I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll be watching.”
“What?”
The shadow hesitates, seeming to realize how that sounded. “I mean, not watching you go to bed,” he amends. “I just mean . . . you know what I mean.”
“Sure,” I say again. “Have a good night, Hector.”
I go inside.
“Hey Cyn,” various voices say.
“There’s a letter on your bed,” Sasha adds.
I can see immediately that it’s from Annie. No one else uses quite so many unicorn stickers on an envelope. She must have mailed it on the day I left for it to have gotten here so fast.
I’m smiling as I pull it gently open. This is what I need. No more demons or overprotective shadowy bear-shaped human helpers. Not for the rest of the night, at least.
I lie back, happy to see it’s a long letter. Good old Annie.
Dear Cyn, it begins. Are you already having the best summer ever????????
I make a tiny chuckling sound that is also almost the sound of a quiet desperate sob.
Yup, I think back at her. No question. Best summer ever.
Sure.
Annie’s letter is filled with adorable descriptions of things William has done and said in the very short time between when I last saw her and when she started writing. There are also several stick figures depicting Annie’s ideas of what camp is like and what Ryan and I are doing whenever we get alone together. I make sure to find a good hiding place for the letter before I go to sleep. No need for the other girls to know my best friend is a horrible pervert.
Sleep is slow in coming, however. I lie there in the dark, listening to the shifting of Caroline on the bunk above me and someone (Hana?) snoring quietly from across the room. I’ve been doing my best to not freak out all day, but now that I’m out of immediate distractions, I feel the freaking out starting to happen.
Because, you know, demons.
Again.
Well, one demon, anyway. And way less terrifying than Mr. Gabriel. At least so far. But then, Mr. Gabriel was less terrifying in the beginning, too. I try to take comfort from the fact that Peter doesn’t give off any trace of that same creepy vibe I felt right away from the librarian. I try to believe that he’s telling the truth about not wanting to kill anyone. I keep trying to believe it as I lie there for what seems like hours until I fall asleep.
Sleep fails to be the escape I was hoping for. All night long I see red halos, flashing everywhere and then vanishing as I try to see who they belong to. I run down corridors after bear-shaped shadows that turn when cornered and reveal glowing red eyes and pointy needle teeth and tentacles where the arms should be. I run screaming for help, to find Ryan, to find anyone, but everyone I see has a red halo now, and no one can help me. I’m alone. And running out of places to hide.
Then suddenly all the faces merge and change into that of Mr. Gabriel. He looks at me, smiling his too-wide demony smile, wings and horns stretching outward as I watch in horror. I try to back away but his dark swirly black-hole eyes have caught me and something is wrong with my roachy resistance because I can’t run, I can’t break free, he’s got me trapped. He steps closer, still smiling, and I see that he’s covered in blood. He smiles even more when he sees me noticing this.
“They’re all dead now,” he says, jerking his head back to make me look behind him. I gasp at the pile of bodies. Ryan. Leticia and Diane. My parents, my teachers, as soon as I think of someone I see them lying there, dead eyes staring at nothing, mouth slack, limbs motionless. But not Annie. She’s not there. I grab on to a sliver of hope.
“You didn’t get her,” I tell him. “You will never get her.”
He laughs, and keeps laughing, and then Annie is there beside him, laughing, too. “You never saved me,” she says. “He’s had me all this time. He will always have me. I’m damned forever, damned for all time, and it’s your fault. All. Your. Fault.” Her laughter turns to screaming. “Why didn’t you save me?” She runs at me, shrieking, tentacle-claws waving.
I wrench myself awake, swallowing the scream that wants to rip from my lungs. Just a dream, I tell myself over and over. Just a dream. Mr. Gabriel is dead. You killed him. You killed him, and Annie is fine. Annie is more than fine. Annie is safe at home, canoodling with sweet, sweet William and drawing pictures of me and Ryan doing naughty things on the backs of unicorns in the woods.
I lie back down, willing my heart to slow to a normal kind of rhythm. I don’t go back to sleep.
Later, I walk slowly to breakfast, trying to make small talk with Susan about orchestra rehearsal. There is a cute oboe player in her rehearsal group, apparently. She still doesn’t seem to appreciate how awesome it is that she’s in the pit orchestra for West Side Story. I feel I should try to educate her, but I have bigger things to worry about right now. Even shaking off the dreams for what they were — just dreams, dammit — I am still faced with the very real issue of Peter and what to do about hi
m.
I always assumed that if demons ever reared their falsely attractive heads again somewhere in the human world around me, there would be an obvious threat, a clear enemy to pit myself against. Peter . . . does not fit the expected criteria. Is it possible that he’s really telling the truth? That he’s not evil? That would be nice to believe. I certainly don’t want to fight demons if I don’t have to. With Mr. Gabriel, there was no choice — he was brainwashing Annie and killing people and doing so many very bad things that required immediate action and eventual fighting to the death. But if all Peter wants to do is create amazing shows with outstanding music and production value . . . where’s the bad there? Wouldn’t the bad thing be depriving the world of his talent? What if he could go on to usher in the next golden age of musical theater? Do I really want to stand in the way of that?
Susan seems to sense that I am not focused on her descriptions of the oboe player. “Earth to Cyn,” she says, nudging me. “Are you in there?”
I force myself to smile at her. “Yes, sorry. Just . . . thinking. But also listening. Have you talked to him yet?”
She looks at me, incredulous. “Of course not. What would I say?”
“How about, ‘I like the way you play that oboe, mister’?”
She laughs. “You clearly have never had a crush on an oboe player.”
“Are they so different from the rest of us?”
“Completely. Like aliens, really. I need to take things really slow.”
“Well, let me know if I can help. I may not know about oboe players, but I know about crushes.”
“But . . . isn’t Ryan your boyfriend?”
“Yes. Now. But first he was a boy who made my brain evaporate every time he was in the room.”
Susan considers me with renewed interest. “So how did you make that change?”
“Oh, he still makes my brain evaporate.”
“But how did you start talking? How did you, you know . . . get closer? Make things happen?”
Oh, easy. I got him to follow me into the library where we caught the new librarian in demon form. Fighting evil together is a great way to form romantic bonds! “It . . . took a while. But it definitely got easier once I actually started talking to him.” I hesitate, then add, “I accidentally tackled him in the hallway once, near the beginning. That turned out to be a good icebreaker.”
Revenge of the Evil Librarian Page 6
