Carl had long been aware that other people in town looked at Everett with suspicion. His dyed black hair, his ‘Satanic’ T-shirts, his shyness. Carl overheard a guy at the store say that Everett was a shooting spree waiting to happen, like those Columbine guys. Carl thought that if they were worried about Everett taking revenge on the town that had ostracised him, then maybe they should be nicer to him and bring him into the fold. But he also understood that wasn’t how people, in their infinite capacity for cruelty and stupidity, worked.
But then Carl had begun to despise Everett himself.
All because of Fox.
It hadn’t taken long for Carl to discover who Nikki’s secret new friend was. One afternoon, after she’d left the cabin early again, he’d followed her, tracking her through the woods as she walked back to Penance. She kept looking over her shoulder, but he was good at hiding now, at camouflaging himself.
She was, he soon realised, heading to the junkyard. What the hell was she up to?
That was when he remembered. This was where Everett Miller lived with his dad.
Carl almost vomited when he saw Everett come to the gate and let Nikki through. He felt sick to see the way she smiled at him, touching her hair and laughing at something Everett said. He was the town weirdo and this hot girl was into him.
It was the first time Carl truly understood how it felt to hate someone. The burn of bile in his throat. A pain in his stomach. Ice and fire competing in his veins.
He watched Everett and Nikki walk side by side across the junkyard to the house, disappearing from sight, and he tormented himself with visions of what they were going to do inside. Everett was seventeen, two years older than Nikki. Why did girls always seem to go out with older guys? It wasn’t fair. Everett was a loser, a freak. Nikki was meant to be Carl’s. Just because he hadn’t gathered the courage to ask her out yet . . . He had been building up to it, waiting for the perfect moment, and Everett had swooped in and snatched her away.
Now, here, like a gift from the gods of the forest, was Everett’s bandana. Carl stuffed it into his pocket.
He could close down the campground and get rid of Everett at the same time. After that, when Nikki saw how clever he was, and with Everett out of the way, she would surely fall in love with him. Especially if they had a shared secret. Something they could never tell anyone else.
Yes, that was the final piece of this puzzle. Something like this would bind them together forever.
He looked to Abigail for approval.
She shimmered before him, a smile on her face, and told him what he would need to make it work.
Almost twenty-four hours later, Carl, Greg and Nikki stood together by the lake. Night had fallen and the sky was an inky black, only starlight illuminating the Hollows. It happened to be a new moon, which felt like another good omen. Everything Carl had done today to prepare for tonight had gone even better than he’d hoped, everything slotting into place. It was as if by dreaming up his idea, he had unleashed the power of these woods, this sacred, special place, setting in motion a chain of events that could not be stopped.
‘Are you ready?’ Carl asked.
Nikki looked so hot tonight. Pale and nervous, but he couldn’t imagine any girl being more beautiful. He wished he had the courage to kiss her.
After tonight – with their shared, terrible secret – he was sure that she would kiss him.
They each held a cup in their hands. Greg sniffed at the liquid and wrinkled his nose.
‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked. ‘It’s not going to make us sick?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Carl replied. ‘Abigail gave me the recipe herself.’
She had directed him to it, tucked inside the book A Sacred Space. They all knew that Abigail had often come into the woods alone, to meditate and commune with the spirits of the forest. They had stumbled across her once, when she was in the middle of one of these vision quests. She had been wild-eyed and spaced out. She had hugged all of them and Carl had noticed how her pupils covered almost her entire eyes. It had been kind of frightening to see her like that, sweat beading her brow, her mouth a little slack. The way she kept staring at things they couldn’t see. Later, she told them she had taken a potion that she had cooked up herself, made from flowers and plants she had picked in the woods. Herbs and berries that were easy enough to find, though it had taken Carl all morning to gather them.
‘What’s in it?’ Nikki asked.
‘That doesn’t matter. Just drink it.’
Nikki and Greg exchanged a glance. ‘I’m not sure,’ Greg said.