“Just the fire then,” George said. “At the very least, how can you argue with a bunch of light?”
Ricky didn’t want to concede. He knew that if he conceded, George would keep pushing until he got his way.
Before he could object again, Amber weighed in.
“I’m okay with fire,” she said.
“Amber,” Ricky said, rolling his eyes.
“What? That part is solid. Let’s build a fire. At least we won’t have to rely so much on making sure we’re pointing our lights in the right direction.”
Ricky tried to object, but George called a vote. The measure passed, two to one. Ricky didn’t bother to point out that it would take forever to collect enough wood to make a decent fire. He held that thought to himself. They moved as a group away from the door, towards a deeper part of the woods.
“Romeo pulled up his four wheeler over here,” George said. “I figure there must be a decent path, and where there’s a path…”
“Trees have been cut to keep it clear,” Amber finished.
“Exactly,” George said.
Ricky was disappointed to see that his brother was right. They pushed under the low limbs of a pine tree and saw a pile of wood that had been cut and cleared from the path. One of the trees had been cut into four-foot lengths that would be perfect. Ricky moved as slow as he could, delaying their efforts since they decided that they should all stay together.
They moved back and forth between the brush pile and the tunnel, laying a decent stack of wood in less than a half hour. Ricky and Amber watched over him as George collected enough small sticks and bark to use as tinder. When everything was set, Ricky had one last flash of hope.
“We don’t have anything to use to light it,” Ricky said.
“I do,” George said. He dug in a pocket and found a lighter.
While George knelt down to light their fire, Amber used a branch like a rake so she could clear a circle. Ricky gave in and helped by collecting rocks to make a ring. He didn’t know what the purpose was, but it made the whole thing look official. As the flames grew and the light rolled out, Ricky had to admit that the fire chased away some of the tension and fear that was haunting him.
# # #
“Hey,” Amber said, moving up next to Ricky’s side.
“Hey.”
“You remember that smell, down in the pit?” she whispered.
At the mere mention of it, Ricky had a physical reaction. His chest tightened. That smell had been so strong that it had made his lungs ache.
“Are you kidding? It’s almost like I can still smell it on my clothes.”
“Almost?”
Ricky looked at her and then cut his eyes around at the surrounding trees. A breeze pushed the smoke from the fire off to the north, away from them. The smell on the wind was stronger than the smoke. It was the decay and death that they had smelled down in the pit. George, a couple of steps away from them, seemed oblivious to it, and Ricky had to admit that he hadn’t noticed it until Amber had said something.
“Is it… Is it real?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she whispered over the crackling fire. “Maybe not, but if I had to lay money on it, I would say that he’s close.”
Ricky nodded.
George approached them. The firelight lit up his face, but his eyes were locked onto the display of his phone.
“Can we just try the ceremony?” George asked. “I think I have the parts memorized. All you guys have to do is stand around the fire with me and you have a couple of response lines. I can teach you in no time.”
Ricky looked at Amber. She gave him a tiny nod and he thought he understood what she intended to do. The trick would be whether or not they could convince the thing lurking in the woods that they weren’t paying attention. He had to be cunning—he was too old to be easily fooled.
“Yeah,” Ricky said. “Teach us the lines.”
“Good. We only have ten minutes or so until the moon is right, so we’ll split these us. That way you each only have to learn a few lines.”
Thirty-Eight: Amber
Ricky had taken the spot with his back to the other headstones. That was the position that Amber wanted, but he had gotten there first and stood his ground when Amber tried to claim the spot. She knew that she could feel the presence out in the woods. She didn’t have confidence that Ricky could feel it as clearly, and he wouldn’t know when it was approaching.
“Okay,” George said, checking his phone again. “Once I start this, I’m going to have to finish it. I will point when you have to respond. You both remember what you’re supposed to say?”
Amber and Ricky nodded.
They locked eyes over the fire.
George started speaking in that weird ancient language. The syllables were meaningless to Amber, but she could understand the gravity of what he was saying. Somehow the sounds conveyed deep power and they resonated through the trees.
Amber thought that she could feel the currents of disruptive energy around them. Ricky had told her about the people who gathered at the other point of the geographic triangle. Those people had believed that there was a force that was the opposite of entropy—an organizing force from which all life sprang. This place, this corner of the triangle, was dedicated to pulling life apart and letting the energy dissolve back into the sky.
With each word that George said, it seemed like the currents were growing stronger. If they didn’t have the fire at the center of their circle, she was sure that they would have been swept away into the night, unable to keep their footing in the world.
When George pointed to Ricky so he could deliver his first line, Ricky started speaking automatically. His voice was a low drone that rolled from his tongue
