The Dark Corner

We did not bring outsiders to our place.  

That was the fucking agreement.  

Yet, there she was, all primped up in slicked-on jeans and too-large hoodie, hand hooked around Mackie’s bicep.  

The shock of it, of her, was a sudden hollowness in my chest I was a second late in hiding.  

Mackie saw it. I could tell by the way his lips curled.  

Molly started protesting and I joined in. Subtly and then not so. Mackie argued back. But this, but that, the smirk never lifting off his face.  

God, that smirk.  

That was what did it. In the end I said, “Fine, whatever. Jesus.”  

* 

We trudged in a single file deeper into the woods.  

Mackie and the new girl were behind me so I couldn’t see what they were doing but I heard the sharp squeals and giggles, and once, a shriek so blood-curdling Molly actually took a step off the path to eyeball them.  

That shut them up for a while.  

E.T. and Jonesy set the pace as if the rest of our bickering was none of their business. They hung their heads, avoiding eye contact. I could tell Molly was pissed off with them both for their lack of vertebrae. I expected very little from them, these days. 

I focused on the sliver of pearly skin visible under Molly’s ponytail.  

If I didn’t see the new girl, hear the new girl, or feel the way her presence made my chest crumple like an empty can, did she even exist? 

* 

E.T. got a sputtering fire going within the soot-blackened circle of rocks. Jonesy spread the blanket on the ground, smoothing it over the twigs and pebbles and mulch. For some reason we couldn’t remember anymore he’d become responsible for taking care of the blanket. Bring it with, take it home. I bet his mom was only too happy to wash it, her lanky baby finally useful in one arena of life.  

“He was bound to find his purpose,” Molly mused, once, head hanging off the side of my bed, feet up against the wall. “Nature abhors futility.”  

Molly often got philosophical when she was high.  

* 

Above and around us the pines reached up and up and up, rustling their needles in the evening wind. The new girl stood with Mackie, his upper body turned towards her like they were somewhere private and not with a group of people who, hello! did not want to see that shit.  

It occurred to me then that the hoodie was so big because it belonged to Mackie. A manky sort of taste arrived on my tongue. I turned away but not before I caught a glimpse of the girl’s eyes, narrowed like a cat’s, tracking me over Mackie’s shoulder.  

* 

“Okay, guys. Cough up.” Molly was the first to unload her catch into the communal pile. She’d brought port, like always, her mom silently replacing the bottles she never had the chance to drink.  

I’d managed two miniature whiskies and four cans of fancy IPA, pilfered from Dave’s stash in the garage. The first time I did it, he said he wouldn’t tell Mom if I promised that it would be the last time. Since then, he pretended not to notice so as to avoid the conflict. Conflict was bad for his blood pressure.  

The boys each had two six-packs of beer, the green of the bottles flickering emerald in the firelight. 

The new girl? 

The new girl brought nothing.  

“At least he could’ve told her to bring a sharer,” Molly muttered, and I agreed, unable to stop staring at the girl’s thin, pale fingers as she reached for one of my cans and nestled it against her chest.  

* 

E.T. and Jonesy perched on tree stumps, and I went to sit where I usually did, on the blanket between Molly and Mackie.  

“No, no, no, no,” he said, fanning his arm out to swat me away like I was a stray cat, or maybe a raccoon. “Guests get the blanket.”  

There was a little intake of breath. Mine, maybe. Molly seethed as she made room for me on her other side. The new girl tried to look as if this development didn’t greatly please her.  

Doesn’t matter, I tried to say to Molly, but my jaw was stiff and so I didn’t. I stowed my left hand in my pocket, rubbing the fingers against the palm and swigged beer from the can in my right. Everything was bigger than could comfortably be held in my head, and it seemed to creak, like it was about to split open with the pressure of my thoughts. 

I looked up, then, to find Jonesy staring, and even though I widened my eyes at him like, ‘what?’ he kept looking until E.T. bumped into his knee and he spilled his beer, the bottle dangling too loose by the tips of his fingers.  

* 

I drank quickly to keep up with the others. I cleared two of the bottles after an IPA, and when Molly resumed possession of the port we went back and forth, just the two of us, swigging mouthfuls of the stuff, the sweetness clashing with the hoppy aftertaste of the beer.  

A trail of port trickled from the corner of Molly’s mouth. In the warm light it looked like blood.  She said something, I couldn’t hear what, and all the while the blood dribbled down her chin. I couldn’t stop looking at it.  

“Shit, man, don’t just stare. Say something.” She wiped her mouth.  

I closed my eyes, anchoring myself to the crackle of the flames and the pit of emptiness in my stomach so I wouldn’t disappear.  

* 

E.T. put on his movie soundtrack playlist and Jonesy hovered over the speaker, disgruntled, as usual, for never being allowed to choose the music. Should’ve said something earlier, I wanted to say to him. Now it’s too late.  

It was always too late. 

My head spun.  

In the corner of my eye, Mackie was whispering in the new girl’s ear. Her eyes went round and darted in my direction. A low heat began to spread over my chest and up my neck, like an engine had started up somewhere in the pit of my belly, spitting exhaust fumes.  

What did you say? What did you tell? I imagined myself screaming at Mackie. The image dissolved when that insufferable smirk appeared on his face. 

* 

Molly cleared her throat and I knew she wanted to say something about her dad’s scans. E.T. sat up, eyes glittering, his intentions obvious and greasy, like dishwater he forgot to drain from the sink, just pooling there in his face.  

I forced my gaze to fix only onto Molly and braced to scaffold her while she explained what the updated prognosis meant.  

Before she could, the new girl squealed.  

In the space that the noise created Mackie’s expression shivered. It was there for a second, no more, that intention laid bare. Then he whispered to the new girl, lifting his voice so it’d carry to the rest of us: “—a special place. Just through the trees, that way.” 

* 

There was a collective hiss as we all inhaled, our little campsite suddenly a void, lacking oxygen. I squeezed my left fist, still in the pocket, into a tight pebble. Molly had gone pale, apart from her lips that were still stained red with the port. She recovered first. She shushed him, not even angry at being cut off, and Jonesy said, “That’s enough now, mate,” which was rare for him. He didn’t like to “get involved.” That had been his excuse to me, at least.  

But the new girl wouldn’t let it go. She touched Mackie’s shoulder and asked, “What makes this place so special?”  

“More like who,” Jonesy muttered but I didn’t think the new girl heard. She was making googly eyes at Mackie who was now tracing the angles of her face with his gaze, letting it linger a moment too long on her lips.  

The girl tittered. I tasted bile in the back of my throat.  

“Jesus, guys, get a room,” E.T. said, and Jonesy laughed, like E.T. had intended him to.  

Mackie, aware of the attention, of the space around him widening, showing him there really were no rules at all, not for the likes of him, turned to the girl and said, “It’s not something we usually show people.” He left a moment of silence while the words landed, and then said, “But if you wanna see it just say the word.”  

* 

My gut was hollow, the solid base of it scooped out. The blanket beneath me shifted as Molly turned to me. I raised my eyebrows, archly, to show her I didn’t care, whatever the cost it had been worth it, I could live with my choices, look: I was doing it now.  

With a little nod she agreed and I was grateful, so grateful.  

But my belly pulsed with rage.  

* 

In the flames of the fire the girl’s cheeks had already been flushed pink with the drink and the cold, but I could swear the red deepened as the boys whistled. That red was what stopped me, I realized, later, when it was all done; the self-satisfied, smug red that said she was better than me.  

That she was being chosen. 

“Jasmine, catch,” E.T. grabbed the last can from the pile and threw it at her. I watched it fly in a low, lazy arc into her hands; she grabbed it, her nails shimmering pearlescent in the firelight, cheap silver rings banded around the pinkie and the index.  

She cracked the can open, sucking the foam that spluttered out. Standing up, she laid a hand on Mackie’s shoulder. Looking at the rest of us sideways, she said, “Alright Mac, let’s go.”  

E.T. hollered and even Jonesy’s face held something sly and curious in it.  

But Molly; Molly’s hand threaded mine around the bottle of port, yanking me closer to her, nuzzling me to her side. She was holding me back, or holding me up, I wasn’t sure which. I never did, with us. 

* 

Mackie didn’t even look at me when he pushed himself off the ground. He brushed down his jeans and spread his arms as if to embrace us all, equally, like all of us mattered the exact same amount. “Peace, motherfuckers,” he said and offered his arm to the new girl.  

She was slow, or she hesitated, I didn’t know which and wouldn’t, later, when I pressed the image of that moment flat and smooth in my head so I could look at it properly. See its discrepancies. Could she really have wanted it? Or had it just gone past the point of turning back, the bluster already turning into a reckoning?  

In the end it didn’t matter, because her hand was cupped around his arm, the perfect shape of it nestled there like an image from a bridal catalog. I watched their backs retreat into the trees and tried not to hear the howls of laughter and the things E.T. was calling out after them. I did feel Jonesy’s eyes on me again, a kind of sticky weight, waiting to see if I would say something.  

If I would stop them. 

* 

“You good?” Molly’s face appeared in my line of sight.  

I blinked. “Yeah.”  

“Beer?” 

“Sure.” 

“And, hey,” Molly said, looking where they had disappeared, more serious than I’d seen her for a long time, “Fuck them. Fuck them both.”  

* 

I had another beer, then some more port. At some point E.T. started rolling joints, and I shared one with Molly. The soundtrack of Halloween came on and I saw a dozen masked faces in the trees, watching us. They evaporated into the night when I stared at them too long. Maybe there was one that held my gaze, daring me to rush at it. Maybe it drifted closer.  

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again that one was gone, too, like it was never there. 

* 

Mackie and the new girl didn’t come back.  

I drained a miniature whiskey.  

* 

When something upbeat finally came on, Molly sprang up and started to dance. She wobbled and fell on her arse.  

“My leg’s dead! Pins and needles!” she cackled, letting her head hang back, her neck open and vulnerable.  

E.T.’s gaze feasted on the dip of her throat, and he said something, I couldn’t hear what, but had the fleeting thought that tonight might be the night he’d finally make his move. I’d seen it growing, burgeoning in him, the sleek bit of him that was still a boy roughening into a blurry image of something else, something more dangerous.  

Besides: he’d watched the back of Mackie’s muscular neck as he went into the trees with the new girl. He knew there were liberties he could take. He knew the world would change its shape to accommodate him.  

* 

The fire, the music, the weed, the beer, god, all the beer, coalesced into a pressure point in my stomach, squeezing my bladder.  

“I need a piss.” I stumbled to my feet. Jonesy traced me as I got up, but I ignored him, as I ignored Molly when she called something after me.  

The world swayed with me at its center, holding it fixed. Somehow, I managed to get my phone out, turn on the flashlight. I followed its quivering beam into the dark wall of trees.  

Deeper in the forest the music grew more distant and then died down altogether. Its place was taken by the thick, unceasing rustle of night-life, the things that lived in the trees, the breeze feeling its way through thickets.  

And something else.  

* 

I stopped, cocking my head.  

Sniffling.  

It came from somewhere off the path, beyond the ancient fir trees. 

I followed the noise, sweeping the branches aside. The flashlight beam lurched from side to side, making me nauseous. For a second, I worried about the bright spot landing on a masked face, a face that shouldn’t be there, white with empty black eyeholes.  

And then I found her.  

* 

Jasmine was curled up on the ground, cradling her left hand. Something dark and viscous covered her fingers.  

My tongue was an inert slab of meat in my mouth. I tried to speak but it lay there, a dead weight blocking my voice.  

Jasmine flinched from the light. She scrambled away, but clumsily. If I was a predator I’d already be feasting.  

I caught the moment she realized it was me. Her face changed, the terrified grimace slipping as if her features were melting.  

She began to cry in earnest. “Help me. He—”  

* 

I knew already; of course I did.  

I let the flashlight slide down so it framed her left hand. She’d kept it pressed to her chest like something small and precious, a live thing with a heart of its own. Now she lifted it so I could see.  

The flashlight washed all the color out of her skin. It glowed white, almost luminescent.  

But the blood was a startling, bright red, like a dream of blood, the metaphysical essence of red manifest on her hand. It ran down the side of her palm and wrist.  

I counted: the thumb, the index, the middle, the pinky.  

The ring finger: a gristly, bloodied nub.  

* 

I turned around, scanning the trees for Mackie.  

“Please, please, please.” Jasmine was rocking now, back and forth, back and forth, looking at the hand, the finger that would now never wear a wedding band.  

“Mackie?” I called.  

“Don’t, don’t!” she hissed. “He’ll be back!”  

* 

Even now, even here, I couldn’t fully stop the swell of condescension. 

Because he wouldn’t be back. That was the point.  

* 

“Mackie!” I shouted into the trees again. The emptiness in my gut was solidifying, knitting together into a new shape.  

My left hand was a tight knot in my pocket.  

Inside it, the tip of my thumb was moving in circles over the blunt end of my ring finger, still tender where it had been cut, not so many months ago.   

“Mackie!” I screamed.  

* 

“Better than an engagement ring,” he’d said to me, lips to my ear, shears glinting, the trees above us swaying, swaying.  

But to the boys, later: “Collector’s item.”  

Heidi Marjamäki grew up in Finland, studied in Scotland, and worked in Oxford and London before making her home in Berlin. Her short stories have been published by ergot., Crow & Cross Keys, and others. She’s the Associate Fiction Editor at Okay Donkey Magazine.