Little Hidden Darknesses
Fifteen:

“What are you doing?” Alejandro enquired. He stared at me, staring at myself in a turned over spoon. While I couldn’t distinguish much, I noticed bags under my eyes and spots around my mouth. Perfect. Ever since I arrived, I’ve had the biggest breakout of my life.

“What does it look like?” I replied, not paying much attention.

Not on purpose, of course, except he didn’t know that. He likely thought I was angry with him, as I hadn’t said a thing since we sat down a few minutes ago. My oatmeal had gone cold, whereas his was all done, the leftover bits already starting to dry out.

“Like you’re looking for something?” Alejandro guessed.

“Looking at something, actually.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, visibly exhausted of playing games. Or maybe just exhausted in general. I couldn’t exactly tell. “What’s going on, Eira?” he pressed. “You can tell me.”

But I couldn’t.

“Rather not. You wouldn’t believe me,” I said, relinquishing my spoon and dropping it in the bowl with a splash. It slid down, down, down until it vanished under the oatmeal.

Plop. An air bubble surfaced.

Alejandro cringed at the sight of it. He nonetheless forced a smile. “Try me,” he insisted.

I shoved my bowl away and propped my elbows on the table, supporting my chin on my hands. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I ended up following Branka and Aillard into the fog. Once there, I fell and cracked open my head.”

“What?” Alejandro gasped. His eyes flicked across my face to my hairline, and I was suddenly glad I decided to wash my hair again this morning. “Open, as in, with blood and stuff?”

I nodded. “Yep, you should see the towels in my room. Oh, and I might’ve gotten some on the deck out there. Maybe in the parking lot too. I couldn’t see much in the dark last night.”

“Eira,” Alejandro hissed, more serious now. “If you’re hurt, you’ve got to get checked out.”

I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “That’s the thing, you see. When I got back to my room, I was cleaning my wound when ... I don’t exactly know how ... but it healed.”

“Healed? What do you mean?”

“Like it was never there.”

I briefly thought Alejandro might burst into laughter, maybe scold me for messing with him, but he simply blinked a couple times and pursed his lips, his eyes swerving about the canteen. They paused a moment on Henry – reading the Evermist Gazette in the exact same spot as yesterday, and wearing the exact same coveralls – then returned to my face, my eyes.

“You know,” he said, surprisingly with a grin, “you’re about the strangest girl I’ve ever met.”

“Is that ... a compliment?”

Alejandro rubbed his hands across his face and sat back. The chair creaked as he shifted his weight, its legs scraping across the tiles. “It might be, depending on how you look at it.” He paused a moment to observe my reaction, and when I merely rolled my eyes at him, he sat forward again. “Anyway, didn’t I tell you not to mess around with the Vinsants?”

“Yea, and I didn’t. They were the ones messing around with me.”

“I’m serious, Eira.” He really was. “They’re a powerful family, more than you possibly realise. They’ve got money, connections, and have everyone wrapped around their fingers.”

This made me sit upright. Whether or not he actually believed the story about my wound, I couldn’t tell. But he believed in something alright. The same thing I did: that the Vinsants weren’t who they seemed. Founding family or not, they smelled more of fish than the ocean.

“Okay, I promise to be more careful from now on.” I waited for Alejandro’s brows to relax before I attempted so much as a smile. It didn’t take long, though, and he even tossed in a head-tilt – one that made me laugh, and for a reason I didn’t exactly understand.

“Tell me,” I said in an attempt to break the growing silence, to nip it in the bud before it tumbled into tension. “Why don’t the Vinsants have you wrapped around their fingers?”

Okay, maybe not the preferred tension-dissolving question, but it at least kept us talking.

Alejandro toyed with the zipper on his hoodie. “Dalmatian boy for starters. And, well, you remember what my mother said last night? About my family having arrived here as slaves?”

“Yes?”

“The truth is, the Vinsants were the ones who owned us.”

Owned. The way he said that made it seem as though his family was nothing more than a pair of shoes. Replaceable objects with degrading value, doomed to a future at the bottom of a bin. I didn’t know what to say, how to relate to him, when the very people who had wronged his family were my ancestors – whether or not the Vinsants acknowledged this.

My eyes must’ve revealed my thoughts, as Alejandro unexpectedly smiled and tried to playfully knock my chin off my palms. “Hey,” he said, “that was all a long time ago.”

I sat up and rolled my wrists. “I know, but still. This town has some deep and twisted roots.”

“Yep.” Alejandro placed my untouched bowl of oatmeal into his empty one, then pushed back in his chair and rose. “But that’s what happens when everyone’s trapped in a small space.”

His words stayed with me, even as we left the canteen and entered the reception, where he pecked his mum and she sent us off with a, “You be careful! And don’t go near the fog!”

“We won’t, mamá,” Alejandro promised as we left the motel and set off toward the centre of town.

I braced myself for yet another confrontation with one of the Vinsants, only I couldn’t spot them anywhere. Not under or behind any of the gazeboes or booths, nor around the statue, which was now draped with fairy lights and surrounded by a thousand candles.

While a part of me was relieved, another, much more paranoid part wondered why they weren’t there. I pictured them gathering in their drawing room, plotting my brutal end. An outlandish notion, of course, except it didn’t feel so outlandish last night when I fell. When they had accused me of something before chasing me off their property. We know what you’re up to, Eira. We know why you’re in town. We won’t let you get away with it.

Branka and Aillard’s words sent chills down my arms.

“The festival’s tomorrow night, right?” I asked in an attempt to gather my out-of-control thoughts.

Alejandro nodded and replied, “Yep, the 1st of November.”

“Oh. What does it entail, exactly?” We strolled by May’s bookstore, in front of which stood a table arranged with bibles, bookmarks in the shape of a cross, and other biblical memorabilia. Just then, May waddled out the door with another box in her hands, overflowing with books.

“Well, as you can see, the local businesses all have booths set up in case someone wants to buy something. The festival itself, though, is basically everyone showing up for mass” – he pointed at the block of chairs lined up in front of the statue and make-shift stage – “after which they’ll march to the cemetery to place candles on their loved ones’ graves.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, heck no.” A chuckle escaped Alejandro’s lips. He grabbed the lamppost to his left and twirled once around it before launching himself forward and down the sidewalk again. I jogged to keep up. “The real fun only starts after they’ve all returned back here.”

He stopped in the centre of the square, right in front of Ariel’s café. A couple more tables had been put out front, all the way across the square to the pharmacy. The waitress marched in between them, securing the black, glossy tablecloths with cross-shaped weights.

I held my breath as we wove in between the tables to pass her by. “Morning,” I accidentally said.

The waitress paused with what she was doing and glanced up. She studied me for a moment, then grinned and greeted me with a tiny wave. “Why, hello there. Table for two?”

“Oh, no. We’re just passing through,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Thank you, anyway.” Actually, she didn’t deserve to be thanked. Not when, once again, pretending as if my arrival didn’t happen. As if she didn’t drop a teapot and made everyone stare.

Alejandro must’ve noticed me tensing up, as he unexpectedly grabbed my shoulders and wheeled me around. “Anyway, we’ve got to get going. The square’s looking good, Blair. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out at the festival,” he said, then courted me away.

The waitress – Blair – called out something in reply, though I couldn’t hear her above Alejandro whispering into my neck, “It’s not worth it, Eira. Be grateful she’s nice now.”

I relaxed, not because of his words, but because of the way his breath felt against my skin. Soft. Welcoming. Ticklish, almost. He stepped around me and let go of my shoulders, and I tensed up all over again. Only this time, instead of Blair, he actually caused it.

And it wasn’t all that bad.

“So,” I went on, “you were about to reveal the fun part of the festival?”

“Oh, right.” Alejandro glanced back at the tables. “When they all return, they have a feast. Food, drink, dessert. Everything you could possibly want. Boy, my mouth’s watering now.”

“Impossible. You just had breakfast,” I teased him.

Alejandro squared his shoulders, and for the first time I noticed how broad they were. His hair fell away from his face, but he didn’t adjust it. This made me smile, as it meant he felt comfortable. Like he didn’t have to conceal himself. “Hey, I’m a growing man, alright?”

“Yea, a proper man. I can see that.” Before I could stop myself, I reached out and patted his belly – or the lack there of. The density of his abs surprised me even more than his shoulders. It affected me more as well, considering my cheeks started to sear and I broke into a cold sweat.

I quickly yanked away, which prompted Alejandro to scratch behind his head and say, “Yea – uh – and just before sunrise, everyone disperses to the last spot in which they saw their loved ones. There, they talk to them. You know, tell them about everything they’ve missed.”

“Oh,” I replied with a frown. “Why, though?”

“Why not is a better question. Most people believe spirits roam the fog. Everyone that fell prey to it.” Alejandro veered left down the alley next to the laundromat. The very one he had pulled me down the previous day. Except instead of turning left at the end, we turned right.

“Why?” I repeated. At this point, nothing Alejandro could say would surprise me anymore.

“Over the years, people in town have seen multiple glowing figures roam the fog at night.”

Okay, maybe he could still surprise me.

“What?” I blurted out, and only when Alejandro frowned did I try to compose myself. Whether or not it worked, I didn’t particularly care. I just wanted him to answer me.

“Restless spirits,” he clarified with hesitation.

Restless spirits my ass. Those glowing beings were Branka and Aillard most likely, maybe even Lilith, Freya or Genevieve. Now me too. Except I still had no idea what was going on.

“Eira,” said Alejandro and slowed down. When I didn’t, he caught up again. “Do you know something I don’t?”

His question made me flinch. So much so, I nearly veered off the road and into the brick wall that surrounded someone’s backyard. The wall stretched all the way up the path, splitting the suburban living area from the slightly worn road that led to a building far off.

Evermist High, by the looks of it.

“N – No,” I replied, “why would I know anything about spirits? I don’t even believe in the fog.”

Alejandro surveyed me for a moment. Luckily, he seemed to accept my excuse, as his gaze soon returned to the road again. Except his jaw still worked, and he didn’t speed up. “But yea,” he said after a while. “That’s why we celebrate All Saint’s Day around here.”

“To make contact with your loved ones,” I finished his sentence, though merely to keep him from picking up on my doubt. The very doubt that had doubled in the past few minutes.

Tripled, even.

It seemed the more I found out about this town, the more I learned about the powerful Vinsants and their influence. Perhaps they’ve orchestrated it all. Perhaps they’ve been running a twisted scheme of fooling the townsfolk into thinking the fog was deadly, when in fact they kidnapped everyone who entered it, only to murder them for sport.

Another chill ran down my spine at the thought of it. The possibility of it. As farfetched as it sounded, it explained everything in my mum’s letter. And why she ran away.