His mom didn’t understand that people could be pure and good.
Before they retreated inside, on a Saturday in fall, Abigail had taken them on a trip.
He’d had a vague idea that, right now, this time of year, was when tourists flocked to Maine to see the famous foliage. To him, the explosion of colour in September and October was normal – beautiful, yeah, but kind of boring. The way people talked about it on TV, though, made him picture the rest of the country and the world as a place that must be permanently grey and drab. Concrete and evergreen leaves.
He was fourteen. He really didn’t give a damn about leaves.
But Abigail changed his mind.
That late September morning, as they drove north in Abigail’s car, a 1984 Plymouth Voyager, pale brown with what looked like a wooden plank running along its sides, she talked to them about the history of this place and about the spirits that lived here, that resided in the trees, the earth, even the rocks. Fox sat in the front passenger seat and he sat beside Goat in the back, as they sped through the orange and gold landscape, Abigail talking so fast her words tripped over one another. Some of what she said went over his head – words with loads of syllables that he would never know how to spell – but the general gist got through. This land, the place where they lived, was sacred.
She thumped her hand on the wheel, her voice alive with passion. ‘And we’re allowing people to ruin it.’
She must have had a dry throat because she coughed and couldn’t stop, even after drinking from the bottle of water Fox passed her.
He was worried she might have to pull over, but she finally got hold of herself and they drove on. Abigail put the radio on. A rock station.
‘Oh, man,’ Abigail said as a Led Zeppelin track came on, and soon they were all singing along. Next up was a track by Iron Maiden, ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’， and Fox made them all laugh by screeching along, doing her best Bruce Dickinson impression. Then Bon Jovi came on.
‘Urgh,’ Goat groaned. ‘This isn’t real rock. This is pussy music.’
Abigail shocked him by saying, ‘I love Bon Jovi. He’s hot.’
Fox giggled and agreed.
And then they were all singing along to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’。
They were his best friends. Even though, if he passed them in the school hallway, Goat and Fox would ignore him without even a glance. It hurt at first, but he figured he was new; he still needed to earn their trust. And he hadn’t even been given a name like theirs yet.
Abigail hadn’t yet discovered his spirit animal.
He looked at Goat. He was quiet, as always. Kind of passive but big and strong, with hormones exploding out of him in a riot of pimples and peach fuzz. His skin was pink and meaty, and he smelled of cheap deodorant. Goat lived with his grandparents in a trailer on the other side of Penance. There was a rumour that his dad had beaten his mother to death and was serving life for it.
Fox, on the other hand, lived in a nice house in the richer part of town, though nowhere in Penance was really rich. She was a rebel who claimed to hate her parents and she was pretty sure they hated her back. He wondered if there was something crappy going on in her house. If her parents were absent and neglectful like his mom, or if it was worse. She was always reading, usually books Abigail had given her, books about spirituality and history. Fox had a book of spells that she’d bought at the hippie shop in town, the one that sold crystals and incense sticks, and she would often have her pretty nose buried in it. He wondered if the book contained any love spells.
Because he would have done anything to make Fox fall in love with him.
As he thought this, Fox turned around like she’d read his thoughts, and his cheeks must have gone pink.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘Just . . . I was wondering when I was going to get my name.’
‘Soon,’ Abigail said, smiling in the rear-view mirror, and then she coughed again, setting off a volley of further coughs, and he thought she was going to lose control of the car. Fox had to grab the wheel to keep it straight.
Abigail slowed the car and pulled over by the side of the road.
‘Are you okay?’ they all asked, and she nodded, trying to smile even though she could hardly speak.
‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘I mean, we have to go on foot the rest of the way.’
He looked towards the trees. Here they were. The pines that Abigail said had been here for over three hundred years. She got out and the others followed until they were all standing at the foot of the path that led into the forest.