Little Hidden Darknesses

When Alejandro told me we were on top of the lacrosse field, I didn’t believe him. It resembled a lush, green meadow, its grass reaching almost to my knees and with wildflowers scattered about. The lacrosse lines had long ago faded, and the goal boxes lay tipped over and buried in the overgrowth. Even the surrounding pavilions had fallen prey to rust.

“And all of this sprouted over break?” I asked as I manoeuvred my way through the grass. A soft breeze emerged from the forest on our right, sailing all the way down the length of the field toward the town. Save for our rustling feet, the only sound was that of screeching beetles.

Alejandro broke off a shard of grass and popped it in his mouth. “I suppose so. It certainly didn’t look like this before break. In fact, I’m quite surprised. The whole field’s gone.”

“I blame the fog,” I attempted a joke, yet my eyes drifted to the billows in between the nearest trees. At this point, anything was possible. If it made my insides glow, it could certainly cause grass to grow. But, then again, the ground could simply be really, really fruitful.

Yes, that made more sense.

“Eira,” came Alejandro’s concerned voice, and I realised I had stopped. Having cleared the field already, he waited for me in a concrete clearing by a pair of metal doors, a frown split between his brows. “Did you see something out there? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I just got distracted.”

The shards of grass sliced at my ankles and arms as I sprinted across the field toward the clearing. Their touch enflamed my skin, making me itch. Great. Yet another series of bumps.

Alejandro glared at me when I cleared the field and met up with him. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I said I’m fine, Alejandro.” I bit the inside of my cheek, cringing at the frustration in my voice. He didn’t deserve to be snapped at, but I was desperate for something to go right.

“Alright. I was only making sure.” Alejandro raised his hands in defence, then spun and marched to the doors. I thought about apologising – about explaining my ever-growing confusion – but the opportunity to do so passed once he tried the doors and they wouldn’t budge.

“Locked?” I asked in my most darling tone.

“Maybe. Maybe stuck.” Alejandro tried one last time, then cursed and put his hands behind his head. He stood this way for a moment, studying the length of the building, before he muttered something in Spanish and set off to the right. “Come on. I know another way in.”

I scurried after him, my movements stiff and inelegant. He ran around the largest pavilion, then entered a type of tunnel in the centre. I heard him mutter something about a beam, and only understood what he meant when I bashed my forehead against it.

“Ouch,” I groaned, but Alejandro merely sighed.

“I tried to warn you.”

“Yea, well, your accent’s hard to understand sometimes.” I narrowed my eyes at the end of the tunnel. While I couldn’t see much, the two red doors at the end were hard to miss. “I don’t know about you, but those look pretty locked to me. Where do they go anyway?”

Alejandro brandished his hands as though unveiling a magic trick. “They’re locked alright,” he said. “But little do you know, I was water boy to the lacrosse team for four long years.”

“That’s not exactly something I’d brag about ...”

“Maybe not. But luckily for you, I learned a few tricks along the way.” Alejandro grabbed the handles and yanked back, then suddenly thrusted upward. The doors creaked, then something clicked and he pushed from his chest. The doors both flew inward, bashing against a stack of chairs on the other side. “Oops. Maybe I got a little too excited there.”

I rolled my eyes at him and proceeded inside. “It seems your good for something after all.” As soon as I finished my sentence, my face contorted and I gagged. The place reeked of urine.

“Welcome to the boys locker room,” Alejandro announced with too much pride not to be concerned about. He moved a stack of chairs out of my way, then wove in between the lockers.

“Yuk. Doesn’t anyone ever clean in here?” I hissed, plugging my nose with my fingers.

“I’m sure they do,” he replied as he pushed open the door to the outside corridor, and vanished.

I hopped over a bench, swivelled by several team uniforms on a wire suspended between the lockers, then leapt into the corridor after Alejandro. Except what met me on the other side was arguably worse than the smell of urine. I walked straight into stringy mesh.

A sticky, icky spiderweb.

And the entire corridor seemed laced with it.

“Alejandro,” I hissed, “I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.” With my skin crawling and my hair on end, I made through the webs to a line of windows up ahead. Luckily the webs lessened along the way, though the dust only seemed to thicken.

I sneezed.

“Bless you,” said Alejandro as he emerged from a door to my right. “So, where do you want to start?”

“The principal’s office.”

“Alright. It’s this way.”

Before I could say or do anything else, Alejandro grabbed my hand and hauled me down the corridor he just had emerged from. As it didn’t have as many windows, the corridor darkened the farther we travelled. And as the light went, the reek of mould and dust only grew.

“This place looks like no one’s been here in quite some time,” I said as I ran my finger along the wall, only to remove it caked in dust. Dust and lint and bits of crumbling paint.

“Well,” Alejandro replied, “break isn’t that long.” While he had let go of my hand, his fingers every now and then grazed mine, sparking them with electricity. He didn’t seem to notice, though.

Not like I did, anyway.

“The building’s just old, I guess,” he finished, then paused and gestured for me to enter the room on his left. “Here we are, the headmaster’s office. I hope we find what you’re looking for.”

Me too. But I didn’t say it out loud. With everything that had gone wrong so far, I couldn’t risk jinxing it. Not that jinxes were real. Or that anything I said would change the outcome.

I took a deep, dusty breath, then rolled back my shoulders and pushed open the door. It creaked on its hinges, giving way to a surprisingly small office with a mahogany desk and line of metal cabinets along the furthest wall. The blinds were drawn, although streaks of sunlight fell across the cabinets, almost as if beckoning me toward them.

My feet kicked up dust as I closed the gab between the door and cabinets. As simple as an act this was – searching for files – my heart nonetheless sped up. Because we weren’t just searching for files. No. We were searching for proof. Searching for my mum’s existence.

“Alright,” I said, more to myself, as I ran my hands down my sides. “Let’s find the files and get out of here.”

“Agreed,” replied Alejandro by the door.

While he roamed about the office – flipping through books and figuring out the blinds – I scanned the alphabetised cabinets. Q-T. Nope. U-X. Bingo. I reached out and latched my hand around the handle, only to nearly dislocate my shoulder when yanking back to nothing opening. Locked. Perfect. I pulled and pulled and pulled, alas in vain.

“Eira,” said Alejandro as he rounded the desk toward me. “I don’t think it’ll magically unlock.”

“Shit.” I stepped back and ran my hands through my hair. Even though I had washed it multiple times in the last day, I already felt a renewed layer of grease. Had my mum been here, she’d have scolded me for touching it too much. “Did you see a key somewhere?”

“Not that I could remember.” Alejandro rifled through the desk’s drawers while I checked under any and all papers. We both came up clean. The office was entirely key-free.

“Shit,” I repeated. “We can’t go home empty handed. This was my only shot at finding proof.”

“There might be a key at reception,” Alejandro suggested.

“Yes. That’s great.” I spun and pushed him into the corridor. “Lead the way, dalmatian boy.”

“Watch it,” he warned, but I could tell he was kidding.

The corridor only lit up as we approached the reception area, its walls consisting mostly of windows. They were all murky and full of stains, some even riddled with cracks. The tiled floor switched to hardwood, and our footsteps echoed throughout the space.

On the farthest wall, underneath the windows, hung an array of framed photographs. They were mostly black-and-white, save for the bottom-most row. As we came closer, a mix of emotions overcame me. Angst. Excitement. Sorrow. A tiny bit of confusion.

There, on the wall, hung a picture of a girl. She had blonde hair, fair skin and crystal blue eyes.

“Eira,” Alejandro began, for a moment unsure, “is that you?”

“No.” I might’ve been, in a different lifetime maybe. In this one, however, I knew exactly who it was. And the plaque under the photo confirmed it. “Piper Vinsant. That’s my mum.”

Ever as beautiful, ever as striking. I blinked, thinking perhaps I was imagining it, but she was right there, her eyes drilling into mine, sparkling as if she actually took note of me.

At last, this was all the proof I needed. More than enough, as under her name stood something that surprised even myself: Student Body President, 2000. The very year she ran away.

“Come on,” said Alejandro, lightly touching my left elbow. “The receptionist’s desk is behind here.”

“Right.” I had to peel myself away from the photo. Not just because it displayed my mum, but because – strangely enough – it was the final frame in the line. They hadn’t put up another photo in twenty long years. Maybe they did, just not here. But why change spots?

It didn’t seem normal.

“Alejandro,” I started to ask, but my words transformed into a yelp when I rammed face first, mouth open, into the stickiest spiderweb ever. It suspended from the arch that led behind the receptionist’s desk, all the way down another, shorter corridor with toilets at the end.

In my attempt to untangle myself, I failed to notice the ever so little step on the other side of the arch. Surely enough, my toes hooked it and I toppled, about the hit the floor when –

Alejandro caught me.

“Woah!” he gasped with his breath in my face. It didn’t smell like much, other than maybe oatmeal.

We stood like this for a moment, me hanging limply in his grip and he staring down at me.

I parted my lips to say something, when he started awake and brought me upright again. Except he didn’t let go right away. His arms were wrapped around my back – one on top and the other too low for a pair of platonic friends – and my hand rested on his chest.

“T – Thanks,” I finally said.

Alejandro grinned, and for the first time I noticed how his dimples perfectly aligned in the centre of his patches. His teeth also had a shine to it, and his lips an appeal I only briefly noticed before. They drew me toward them, attracting me. I felt starved for their touch. For the feeling of him pressing me against him, and holding me as if nothing else mattered.

Not my mum.

Not the fog.

And certainly not the Vinsants.

“All in a day’s work,” he said, and it seemed we both had the same idea, same desire. He leaned in, his attention on my lips and his topmost hand travelling down my spine.

I began to shut my eyes, our lips about to touch, when –

“What the heck?” I blurted out.

Alejandro abruptly let go of me. “Oh, uh,” he stammered, “I thought –”

“No, it’s not that,” I chimed in, subtly pushing him aside to get a better look at the photo on the wall behind him. A class photo. Taken in the year 2000. “Who’s that person right there?”

Alejandro scooted in next to me. “Wow.”

“I know, right?”

“That looks so much like me,” he said. “Although the photo’s too blurry to make out anything.” He scanned the photo. “And it can’t be me, see. Isn’t that your mum right there?”

It was.

“Woah,” I breathed.

My mum stood cradled in the arms of a lookalike Alejandro, along with fifteen other students. I barely scanned their faces, as I was too focussed on the absurd resemblance.

“Wait,” I said after a moment’s thought. “Alejandro, I think this guy here might be your dad.”

He considered this for a moment, then said, “It must be. I mean, you saw him last night. I resemble him just as much as you resemble your mother. But why are they standing –”

The words stilled in his mouth, and I at once knew why. There was only one reason a boy would cradle a girl like that, and in a group photo with various other people nonetheless.

“I think your dad might’ve been the person from my mum’s love note.” I spoke before I considered it, immediately regretting it. This was Alejandro’s dad. Husband to his mum.

Late husband, to make matters worse.

But Alejandro didn’t seem to mind. “That would certainly explain why she hid out at the motel. And why she was able to check out without anyone asking questions about the key.”

We both stared at the photo, silence absorbing us.

My mum’s face properly beamed, her cheeks plump and rosy. I had never seen her so happy in my life, so absolutely, undoubtedly in love. Then a slightly disturbing thought crossed my mind: if she had chosen to stay on the island, and ended up marrying Fernando –

“You and I could’ve been brother and sister, you know,” said Alejandro, reading my mind.

“Please don’t say that,” I pleaded. The mere notion of wanting to kiss my own brother proved enough to snap me back. Both of us, in fact, as Alejandro reversed a little. He rubbed his brows with his thumb and forefinger, his eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them.

He exhaled a deep, rumbling breath.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yea, yea. Of course,” he insisted. “It’s just a bit unexpected, you know. My dad and your mum.”

I expelled an awkward chuckle. “Yea, it’s pretty weird.”

Although weird wasn’t exactly the word for it. Unusual, maybe. Surprising, most definitely.

Several more questions filled my mind. Did my mum ever regret leaving him behind? Did Fernando ever find the note in her room? Did he ever manage to get over my mum?

I scolded myself for that last question. But then another thought crossed my already overflowing mind. Maybe Mrs. Perez did remember my mum, but cherished a grudge against her.

No. How absurd.

“We should get the key,” I started to say, but then a crashing sound echoed from the corridor outside. Voices soon followed it, a pitched hiss mixed with low, scratchy whispers.

“Benjy, you idiot!” the pitched voice repeated.

“I’m sorry, Freya,” replied Benjy, one of the whispers, “but I couldn’t see so well in the dark.”

Alejandro and I shared a glance.

Then, as if we shared the same thought as well, he hauled me down the web-infested corridor and into the utility closet across from the toilets. Darkness enveloped us, the reek of dirty mops filling our lungs. My back pressed against what I assumed was a trolley similar to the one at the motel, and my front against the warm, sturdy chest of Alejandro.

My breath thinned to such an extent, I thought I might suffocate. Alejandro, on the other hand, huffed as though he had just run a marathon, and without having trained for it.

“Stop breathing so much,” I scolded him, “you’re using up all our air!”

When he turned toward me, he must’ve misjudged the distance between our faces, as our noses suddenly collided. Neither of us jerked back, though. “What is Freya doing out there?” he asked, bypassing my command. “Do you think they were following us?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Why? She can’t possibly know what we’re after.”

“It doesn’t matter. She only cares about preserving the family’s lie, and doesn’t want me lurking around anywhere.”

When after moments the voices in the corridor trailed off – “Great, now you idiots made me lose sight of them!” – Alejandro dared to open the door on a screen. With the coast deemed clear, he grabbed my hand and we set off down the corridor to the locker rooms.

The two of us skidded to a stop around every corner, careful not to run into Freya and her lackeys. And all was going great, too great, until we emerged beyond the pavilion.

Freya and her two hulky friends waited for us, their arms crossed and her foot tapping on the concrete. She wore an emerald sundress with her hair pinned up and nails painted red. She rapped them on her elbow, her matching lips pursed into an unflattering knot.

“Freya,” I began to say.

“Fancy seeing you two here,” she forestalled me. “Last time I checked, Eira, you weren’t enrolled here.”

“And it’s closed,” added one of her lackeys.

“Yea, closed,” snapped the other.

Freya glared at them and they shuffled back a bit. Then, she returned her attention to me, hardly even noticing Alejandro by my side. “I could call the police. Tell them you broke in.”

“We were only looking for proof,” I replied, except I couldn’t muster the appropriate tone.

Freya, however, had no problem in that area. She sneered, “Proof about what, exactly?”

“About the fact that you’re all lying.”

A scoff.

“You are. I know it. There’s a picture of my mum in the school. She did grow up here in town.”

Freya didn’t reply right away. Her eyes glinted with mischief, her mouth upturned in a smirk. She motioned for her lackeys to approach, then stepped forward, almost to trample me.

While I wasn’t really frightened by her – not in the traditional way, at least – I nonetheless started to reverse. Alejandro reversed along with me, all the way to the edge of the pavilion where the forest met the lacrosse field, and the fog lapped at our ankles.

“Come on, Eira,” said Alejandro, surprisingly put together, “we don’t have to listen to this.” But as he grabbed my hand and tried to veer past, Freya’s lackeys blocked our path, their arms crossed and jaws set. One of them cracked their knuckles, while the other cocked his head. Alejandro’s reaction when he did this made Freya chuckle in delight.

She said, “Oh, no, my dears. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Why are you here on the island, Eira?”

I rolled my eyes. Not this again. “I’ve already told you. And besides, I don’t have to answer anything.”

This made Freya angry. She whipped back her arms as she lunged forward, almost right up to me. Against me. Her nostrils flared, and for a moment she lost all sense of composure. Even her gums showed as she hissed, “How would you like a trip into the fog, eh?”

I looked down at the billows by my feet. It resembled a pool of placid water, only it wasn’t water, nor was it placid. “I’d quite like it, actually,” I replied with too much confidence.

“You might,” Freya went on, “but your boyfriend certainly won’t.”

As difficult as it was to admit, she was right. I spotted Alejandro in the corner of my eye, his face pale and body tense. Whether or not he quivered, I couldn’t tell, though the odds were good. He had never touched the fog before, and in his mind, he lost his dad to it.

If Freya tossed him in, it might break him entirely.

“Are Branka and Aillard in there?” I found myself asking.

Freya withdrew. “What?”

“Are they waiting for you to push us in before they kidnap us? Kill us?”

I watched as Freya’s face turned from amused to horrified to confused – to a mix of it all. She rolled her jaw and inhaled, ready to spit another threat my way, when I stepped back.

Right into the fog.

“Freya?” I heard one of her lackeys ask. The other muttered something, his voice uncertain. Shocked.

“Alejandro, go!” I shouted.

At first I wasn’t sure whether he had heard me, but then footsteps rang off the concrete, followed by the sound of Freya’s lackeys cursing. I imagined them grabbing at Alejandro as he slinked past them and set off through the field. Hopefully he didn’t come back for me.

I didn’t think he would.

“Get him, you idiots!” Freya commanded. “Hurl him into the fog for all I care, just catch him!”

My heart leapt in my throat and a rush of adrenaline pumped through my arms into my hands. I had to do something. Freya was nuts, an absolute psychopath by the sound of it.

“Leave him alone!” I cried.

Then, before I knew what was happening, I grabbed a hold of one of Freya’s lackeys and yanked him into the fog with me. He yelped as I did so, one of his hands walloping me in the gut. I fell backward, then heard him scurry away while mumbling about not wanting to die.

“Bobby!” cried the remaining lackey, Benjy. His voice was soon accompanied by his hefty frame as he launched into the fog after his brother. From what I could see, he held his elbow in front of his face, as if in an attempt to protect himself. From what, I had no idea.

As Benjy and Bobby’s footsteps trailed off, I scrambled upright. I used the glow of my skin to guide me through the thicket, the sound of wailing guys serving as my beacon. The entire time, I scanned the trees for either Aillard or Branka – just in case they really did hide somewhere, ready to pounce on whoever entered.

But they were nowhere to be seen. Nowhere to be felt either. It was just me and the two brothers.

And I no longer felt them either.

They must’ve cleared the forest on the other side. Yes. And they couldn’t have gone far along the beach. I upped my pace, dodging and skipping over stones and shrubs and branches. My skills have certainly improved, that much I knew. Within minutes the scent of the ocean reached my nose: saltwater and fish. The sounds: seagulls and waves crashing onto rocks.

I cleared the trees and looked around. No one. The beach lay abandoned, save for a pile of seaweed mangled in plastic. Several seagulls set upon it, pecking away at whatever.

“Benjy, Bobby!” I called out with my hands around my mouth. “Hello, are you out here?”

No reply.

My heart sank. They came through here, they had to. If they had still been in the fog, I’d have felt them. And they weren’t in the sea either. The waves lay particularly peaceful today, allowing me to easily see for miles. Nothing and no one. Not even a fishing boat.

After glancing about the shore one last time, I turned to re-enter the forest. But then something caught my eye by the foot of the outermost tree. A bundle of clothes. Two bundles, to be precise.

A bit of bile rushed up my throat. My knees buckled as I strolled toward it, my hand already extended. I scooped up the closest piece of clothing. A shirt. The same off-shoulder tank that Benjy was wearing. And the shorts. Two pairs of identical ones, both belonging to them.

I gathered the clothes and looked around again. Why would they have taken off their clothes?

Unless they were forced to ...

“Branka! Aillard!” I hollered into the trees. “I know you’re out there! I know you’ve taken them!”

I didn’t wait around for an answer. If they thought they could get away with this, they were sorely mistaken. I knew what they were up to, and the incident now only proved it.

With their clothing still in my hands, I traversed the forest. I tried to sense them, to feel their location as I did the previous night, alas it didn’t work. They weren’t in the fog. Or maybe the adrenaline in my veins had dulled my other senses, made me blind to their presence. The mere thought of them – Branka and Aillard – murdering two guys as large as those two ...

It sickened me.

When I emerged from the fog onto the lacrosse field, I was surprised to find Freya exactly as I had left her. Alone. A part of me felt relieved, considering Alejandro had gotten away, whereas another part wanted him to be there. To be with me as I faced her, a possible murderer.

“What have you done to them?” I demanded to know.

Freya paid little attention to me. She had her phone to her ear and a tissue clutched in her fist.

“Branka and Aillard, where are they?” I pressed on, this time chucking the clothing at her.

Freya’s eyes followed the tank as it fell. She shut them, then puckered her lips and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, they were full of tears. Fake tears. I knew because her mouth was turned up, and she licked across her teeth with delighted malice.

“Hello, Chief Constable Salameh,” she said in distress. “It’s Freya. I – I’m at the school. No, with Eira, the strange new girl in town. She,” – a fake gasp – “pushed two boys into the fog.”

“No, she’s lying!” I cried, then set off toward her to snatch the phone. Alas it was too late.

“She murdered Benjy and Bobby.”