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Cellar Dwelling Witchcraft
#1
Cellar Dwelling Witchcraft
 
by Chase TheQueerXXX
 
Forward
 
This story was requested by @CellarDweller
            For those of you who don’t know Chuck (CellarDweller), he’s a big fan of the 1998 paranormal drama series Charmed. He suggested I write a story about him that was like a Charmed episode. One where he is a male witch whose powers are activated, and he battles a demon. I’m afraid I haven’t seen that many episodes of Charmed, but his suggestion stuck with me. So, 20,000 words later, I have driveled away at my keyboard for the past couple of weeks since he suggested it to create a story.
            Special thanks to @andy for all that he does in creating, maintaining, and running this forum. Many thanks to my readers, @Bookworm and @Cridders88 , who surprised me with their encouragement. To @Meebs, @LJay , @InbetweenDreams , @Insertnamehere , @Bhp91126 and my other friends for helping each other out in making GS a supportive online refuge. The biggest thanks goes to Chuck. When I told him how my story about him had evolved into something serious, he gave me permission to write whatever the muse tells me and go ahead and share it.
            I must say though, I can’t really call the main character the same Chuck as CellarDweller. As I wrote this story, I began to realize just how much I don’t know him. This is especially true given the fact that I decided to base the story around him gaining his witchcraft at the age of 15. It is hard for me to write a fictionalized version of someone at 15, when I don’t even know who I was at 15. So don’t make any judgements about the real Chuck based on this character. If anything, this character is more me than him, but I wouldn’t say that, either.
            One more thing – Chuck asked for a story about him battling a demon. You will find the antagonist of this story to be a far greater evil than a demon on an episode of Charmed. So, I must give a warning.
 
Warning: This story contains adult language and depictions of homophobia, bullying, violence, and the 1980s AIDS scare that some readers may find disturbing and triggering. Reader discretion is advised.
 
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This work is written in first person from the perspective of a fictional character. All views, beliefs, and opinions expressed are those of a fictional character and not the author.
 
Prologue
 
No magic will ever break what my first love gave to me. I’m 51 and it’s been 36 years, and that ghost still haunts me. Such a cruel fate, to be given the powers of the universe, but live without my first love.
            I lay on my bed, checking my favorite forum over my phone. GS is slow today. I’ve held the win of the Last Post Wins thread for over an hour. I should be happy – I have the win! Yet no one is chiming in, making me feel lonely. I refresh the page. Cridders88 just stole the win from me. I’m tempted to cross the pond right now and give him a piece of my mind!
            That would be something. Me just poofing into his bedroom and telling him it’s my win. The look on his face would be priceless! Well, I suppose it would be trespassing. Maybe I’ll just pop in front of his front door and give him a knock. No, it’s eleven at night right now. I don’t know how many hours ahead the UK is, but it’d be that more creepy, that more suspicious.
            I check the dating websites. I’ve been messaged by a man who looks like the adult version of my Alex. I check my inbox – it’s a picture of his you-know-what. I click block. Maybe something could have worked out, but if he looks like my Alex, I need him to be serious for me.
            Time for bed. I see a hornet crawling on my bedside lamp. I snap my fingers and it drops dead. I snap my fingers again, and the corpse of the vile thing disappears.
            If only my memories of Alex could disappear. If only. Time for bed.
 
Chapter 1
 
I’m not sure I want to go to summer camp. It was fun when I was in grade school, still fun in middle school, but I’m not so sure about it still being fun in high school. Ever since I found out I was gay, I’ve had to be a lot more careful. It’s like I woke up one morning and realized I had a secret that could kill me if it got into the wrong hands. It’s like? No, it is. If the guys at camp find out, I’m dead.
            Out the window, I see a sign that says Welcome to Pittsburg, New Hampshire. We’re almost there. We’re in the middle of nowhere. All I see out the window is trees. Maybe if I bug mom enough, she’ll take me back home. “Mom,” I say, “I told you, I don’t want to go to camp.”
            “But your father and I are going away too,” she says. “Your father’s company only booked him a one bed hotel room. There isn’t enough room for the three of us. I can at least rent a car, but if you go with him, you’ll be trapped in the hotel while he’s working. I don’t want him going away alone, and I don’t want you at the house alone.”
            “I’m fifteen, mom. I’m old enough to stay home alone.”
            “This is the only summer camp we can afford to send you that lasts the entire summer,” says my mom, “so you’re going, and that’s final!”
            I grumble. I don’t want to go to summer camp. I like the outdoors, but I’m just not in the mood for it. I turn on the radio.
            “Il fait beau,” says a French voice over the radio, “il y a du soleil.” I spin the nob on the radio. It’s more French.
            “Oooh,” says my mom. “We must be close to the Canadian border. I guess New Hampshire borders the French part.”
            Out the window, all I see is trees. Trees, an occasional hunting shop sign, trucks with New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine plates, sedans with Quebec plates. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and I can’t even listen to the radio because I don’t understand French. Mom finds a French jazz station and starts humming to the tune. I see the trees clear, and over a railing, a dark blue lake. We turn down a dirt road, the lake disappears, and we’re surrounded by trees again.
            The dirt road is bumpy. The highway sliced through the woods, but this road is inside the woods. It’s a lot spookier inside it. The bottom branches aren’t leafy or needled because they’ve been deprived of sunlight.
            We drive into the camp. It sits in a clearing in the woods. The facilities are in several large, log cabin style lodges, and the sleeping quarters are all in a Smurf village of tiny wooden cottages. An American flag flaps high in the center of the camp, a direct defiance to the Québécois that blasts the airwaves.
            My mom drops me off and leaves me stranded. I go to my assigned cottage. My summer roommate is already unpacked. He looks hot. He’s a lot taller than me and looks a few years older. I’m tempted to imagine him with his shirt off, but I have a feeling he’s not gay, so I better not think about it. “Hi,” I say, “I’m Chuck.”
            “Hi Chuck,” he says, “I’m Kyle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”
            “It’s my first time,” I say. “Not my first time at a summer camp though. I used to go to this other camp in Pennsylvania, but it only takes kids up to fourteen. I’m fifteen now.”
            “We’re all high schoolers here,” says Kyle. “You have a funny accent, where’re you from?”
            “New Jersey,” I say, trying my best to sound as standard as possible.
            I change into my camp uniform. It looks pretty close to a Boy Scout’s uniform (thank God it isn’t). I talk with Kyle. We have some similar interests. We both like Super Friends, but he isn’t as big a fan as I am. He’s 18 and is considered a Scout Leader. He tells me the ins and outs: Although we’re in New Hampshire, the camp is called Camp Connecticut, after the Connecticut Lakes, but everyone calls it Camp C, and us C-Scouts. The pecking order is based on seniority. None of us student campers can buy booze here in New Hampshire because the drinking age is 20, but it’s still 18 in Vermont, so the seniors sometimes hitch rides there and back, and if you’re nice to them, they might share some with you.
            “What about you?” I ask, “do you drink?”
            “Yeah,” says Kyle. “It’s a pain in the ass to get it, though. I charge freshman ten bucks plus the price of their booze.”
            Yikes! Ten dollars is a lot of money. Mom didn’t leave me with any money. I guess I’m not drinking. We don’t say much until it’s time to eat.
            “Let’s go to the mess hall,” says Kyle. “You first.”
            I open our cottage door and step forward. I trip.
            “Rrrarre!” snarls a cat.
            I look up and see a huge cat the size of a German Shepherd. It’s practically a lion. It prances off into the woods. “What was that?” I ask.
            “One of the witch’s cats,” says Kyle.
            I stand back up and brush the dirt off my knees. I have a feeling Kyle knew I might trip. “The witch?” I ask.
            “She lives nearby,” says Kyle. “She’s a crazy cat lady. She lives in a big shack that’s off the grid with tons of cats. Be careful, according to legend, she eats C-Scouts. Boils us alive in one her cauldrons in her shack. She can put a curse on you if you’re not careful.”
            “Is that why that cat was so big?” I ask. “Magic?”
            “No,” says Kyle. “That was a Maine Coon. She has tons of them, and they all sneak around camp like they own the place. Don’t mess with them, it’s said if you step on one, the witch will put a curse on you.”
            “But I just did,” I say.
            “Sucks to suck,” says Kyle. We go to the mess hall. Already, I feel the effects of the curse, as there’s been an accident in the kitchen, delaying dinnertime for a few more hours. Outside, Kyle meets up with more senior boys.
            “It sucks that they make us share a room with the freshies,” says one of them.
            I can tell I don’t belong with them, so I walk away. I walk around the camp, feeling like an outsider. I see a trail run through the woods with a sign saying it goes to the camp’s beach and docks on the First Connecticut Lake. It’s funny, we’re in a town called Pittsburg, but it’s the opposite to the city of Pittsburgh; we’re still in the states, but French is all over the radio; we’re in New Hampshire, but the lake has Connecticut in its name. I walk the trail.
            I come to the lake. It’s beautiful. The beach isn’t sandy, it’s rocky and muddy. The water looks calm, with Jell-O-like ripples giggling across the surface. I see a boy who looks my age standing on a rickety pier. He’s in the same uniform as I am. I go to him.
            I stand behind him, and he continues standing there, staring at the lake. He turns around and stares back at me. At once, I feel my heart sink. He looks so cute, with boyish good looks and a mop-top of hair. His socks are pulled up to his shorts, kind of dorky, but he pulls it off. He sighs and turns back to the lake.
            “Is something wrong?” I ask.
            “Huh?” he says. He turns back to me. “You can see me?”
            “Of course I can see you,” I say. “What? Are you supposed to be invisible?”
            “Well, yeah.”
            I laugh. I touch him on the shoulder. “I think I’m supposed to be invisible, too.”
            “You can touch me too?” he asks.
            “Sorry,” I say.
            “It’s okay,” he says. “Who are you?”
            I tell him my name. “But you can call me Chuck,” I say. “I’m 15 and from Jersey – or Joisey, as it’s also called. I’m 15 and it’s my first time here.”
            “I’m Alexandre Duplantier,” he says, “but you can call me Alex. I’m 15 too and from around here.”
            “So is this your first summer at Camp C, too?”
            “No,” he says.
            I talk with Alex. He’s very agreeable. It’s not like talking to Kyle at all. Kyle just has this attitude that he’s my senior, so I need to be thankful for his existence. Alex on the other hand just comes across as a guy who feels more lost than I am. Maybe it’s because he’s a local, and all the other guys are mostly from big cities.
            I see Alex slouch his shoulders. I can’t see his neck because he’s wearing that silly camp-issued neckerchief, but I can tell he’s almost trying to expose it to me, as if I’d go for his jugular. I feel like I can tell him anything, and he’d just be a shy little wallflower and not tell anyone else. I start unloading my secrets on him. I don’t tell him I’m gay, but something about him makes me feel like I could.
            “And sometimes I just burst out laughing at the most crazy of things!” I say.
            Alex giggles. “That is . . . unfortunate.”
            My stomach growls. I put my hands to my stomach. “I’m so hungry. Let’s go check if dinner is finally ready in the mess hall.”
            “Okay,” say Alex. “You go ahead, I’ll meet up later.”
            I ask him if he’s sure, and when he says he is, I head back to the main camp. I feel like I shouldn’t leave him there, but I’m really hungry. Back at the mess hall, most seats are already taken. The only seat available is next to Kyle and some other senior guys.
            I sit next to Kyle and say hi. Kyle rolls his eyes and says, “My roommate.”
            That was uncomfortable. I guess Kyle only prefers seniors, but I guess I can’t blame him. I mean, the seniors are practically adults. If this is summer camp, that’d make them high school graduates, wouldn’t it? Well, at least I made friends with Alex.
            I look around the hall, trying to find Alex. I can’t see him. It’s hard because we’re all a bunch of clones in the same dorky scout uniform. I take a good look at all the guys with mop top hair, but don’t see Alex.
            “Are you trying to find someone?” asks Kyle.
            “Oh, just this guy I met earlier. He’s my age. His name is Alex.”
            “I think we have three Alexes here,” says one of Kyle’s friends. “Alex who?”
            “Alex … Alex something French,” I say, “Alex-an-dray Dew-plant-tay, or something like that, but he goes by Alex.”
            “What?” says Kyle’s friend. They all give me a funny look. “Alex Duplantier? He’s dead.”
            “But I just met him on the lake.”
            “Well,” says Kyle, “that’s probably where his ghost would be. He was a freshman scout who killed himself by drowning himself in the lake. Took a canoe and jumped in with rocks in his pockets. His body had to be fished out. That was years ago.”
            “But I just saw him,” I say.
            “Either you saw a ghost or someone’s pulling your leg,” says Kyle.
            “Or you’re pulling our legs,” says one of Kyle’s friends.
            I drop the subject. I don’t want them thinking I’m trying to fool them. Alex doesn’t strike me as a liar. Maybe Alex is a cousin or little brother to the Alex who killed himself, that’d explain why he looked sad. Or maybe it’s a common name up here. We’re on the Quebec border, maybe there’s a lot of them living around here, and it’s a common French name. I don’t know, I don’t know much about this area.
            Dinner ends. I go through a few orientation programs. I sign up for a class that’s supposed to teach me how to make a fire from scratch. I go to a picnic area with other freshman boys and a scout master teaches several techniques for starting a fire with no matches, lighters, or kerosene. It’s a real pain the ass!
            I bang some rocks together over some birth bark and my little pile of bark and moss catches on fire. I’m the first one to do it. I feel like a superhero – I can make fire from scratch! The other guys praise me. Praise ends and they go back to toiling away, banging rocks and rubbing sticks together like cavemen.
            I guess I lucked out. I have a lot of spare time on my hands, now. Maybe I should use it go find Alex. I’ve been sweating all day though; I want to shower. Crap, there wasn’t a shower in my cottage. Do I have to shower with the others? Probably, these places always have showers you have to share. I better go now before it’s crawling with naked guys. It’d be quite the sight to see, but I have to be careful here.
            I go to the showers, wash the bug spray off, and return to my cottage. I read a comic book I packed. Kyle comes back. We don’t say much. Kyle asks me if any of my comics are nudie mags, and is annoyed when I tell him no.
            “Maybe you should go to bed now,” says Kyle, irritated.
            “Uhh, okay,” I say. I crawl under my covers. I start to shiver. Why is it so cold? I know it’s nighttime now, but it’s almost June. We can’t be that far up North. I close my eyes and picture Alex. His cute face, his mop top hair, his bashful demure, the dorky way he wears his socks. I wish I shared a cabin with him, not Kyle. Maybe he is a ghost, or maybe I’m the one who’s the ghost, or maybe, just maybe, we both are.
 
Chapter 2
 
I wake up. Mornings at the camp feel like a drag. I got away with showering alone last night, but I can’t get away with it in the morning. I hurry up and get dressed and run to the mess hall. After I’m done eating, I’m told I have to go to the main lodge to listen to a sermon.
            “I thought this wasn’t a religious camp,” I say.
            “It isn’t,” says Kyle, “but priests and pastors still sneak in by calling themselves guest lecturers.”
            I go to the main lodge. The guest lecturer is an obvious pastor with a King James Version bible. I sit back and listen to the sermon.
            “One must be born again,” says the pastor. “As it is said in One Peter, One Twenty-Three, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
            The sermon goes on for a few hours before it finally ends. Outside the main lodge, I stretch. It was long and boring, but the King James Version verses were very poetic. Every single line had to have been carefully crafted. It makes me want to start writing poetry myself. That sounds like something I could do.
            “What’d you think?” asks Kyle.
            “It was kind of boring,” I say. “I liked how poetic it was, though. I think I might start writing poetry.”
            “Not me,” says Kyle, “poetry is kind of gay. I’m not as religious as that pastor, but I doubt God cares if I’m kissing his ass twenty-four seven. You only go to Hell if you’re a murderer, a rapist, or a faggot or whatever.” Kyle makes a strange, emotionless face. I don’t know what kind of face it is, but it creeps me out. He looks in my eyes and asks, “You’re not a faggot, are you?”
            I gulp. “No,” I say.
            Kyle glances around at the crowd of scouts. “Good,” he says. “There’s always at least one here. Always at least one. You gotta sniff them out.”
            I leave Kyle feeling nerve wrecked. I’m supposed to sign up for at least one camp activity for the day, but I just don’t feel like it. I run into the woods. I run deeper and deeper. I come to a plaster of signs that tells me I’ve reached the Canadian border. I’m tempted to illegally cross the border, but the signs all warn of harsh fines. Mom and dad would be pissed if I got caught by a Mountie and dad had to end his business trip early. I turn back around.
            I come to the lake. I see Alex walking along the muddy beach. I run to him. “There you are,” I say. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
            He looks down at the ground and slips his left hand up his right sleeve. “Sorry,” he says, “I wander off sometimes.”
            I feel my heart quiver as I talk to him. “Do you like Super Friends?” I ask.
            He giggles. “I guess you could call me a fan.”
            “How do you feel about The All-New Super Friends Hour?
            “I . . . never heard of that,” says Alex.
            I laugh. “Some fan you are.” I see a strange duck bobbing on the lake. It’s mainly black with white spots. A cute duckling is hitching a ride on its back. It has red eyes. “That’s a funny duck,” I say.
            “It’s a loon,” says Alex. “They’re not ducks, they’re their own thing.”
            I laugh. “A loon! If it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck!”
            The loon cries in a high pitch. “AAAAHH EEEE AAAHH EEE EEE!”
            Alex laughs. “That doesn’t sound like a duck.”
            I laugh and shake a mock fist in front of him. “Watch it, you! Okay, it’s not a duck. Man that call was annoying.”
            “Not all loon calls are bad,” says Alex. “Their call can be beautiful.”
            I smile. “You’re beautiful,” I say. I feel my heart thud at the realization of what I just said. I can’t believe I just said that aloud!
            “Thanks,” says Alex. “Um, you are too.”
            I see him blushing. I want to hug him, but I don’t know if it’s okay. “Thank,” I say.
            “Do you want to go for a walk with me?” he asks. “Through the woods?”
            “With you? I do.” I walk with Alex through the woods. To me it’s more of a hike, but that’s what I love about it. I really do love the outdoors. I also think I might love Alex.
            Alex won’t come with me to the mess hall to eat. Maybe it’s a good thing, because Kyle would see me drooling over him. By nighttime, I return to my cottage. Kyle gives me his goodnight eyeroll and grunt, and in the dark, I put my hands on my heart and think of Alex.
 
Chapter 3
 
I feel time rushing by me. I wake up, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to Alex, eat lunch, go to Alex, eat dinner, go to Alex, shower, go to sleep, repeat. I don’t know how he gets away without eating. He’s a skinny dangly thing, but he isn’t a skeleton. He says he’s a local, so maybe he’s allowed to eat at his parents’ house, if that’s nearby somewhere.
            I’m not sure what month it is now. It can’t be May anymore. It could still be June, but it could also be July or even August. I don’t care because I just want to see Alex. I finish my dinner and march back towards the lake. A hand grabs me by my neckerchief and yanks me back. I turn around and see a scout master. I don’t know him, but I notice his name, Earl, sowed on his uniform.
            “Chucky,” says Earl, “I noticed you haven’t been signing up for any activities.”
            “Oh, sorry,” I say. “I’ve just been doing a lot of hiking. I really like hiking.”
            “That’s great,” says Earl, “but you don’t have to do it alone. We have hiking groups, you know.”
            “I haven’t been doing it alone. I’ve been hiking with Alex.”
            “Which Alex?”
            “Alex Duplantier.”
            “That’s not funny,” says Earl. “He was a real boy, like you. I signed you up for archery today. Show up or you’re in trouble.”
            I go to the archery group. It’s a group of three other freshman, two sophomores, no juniors, but Kyle and three other seniors. I’m given a bow called a compound, and I find it a hell of a lot harder to fire arrows than in the movies.
            “Put some muscle into it, Chucky!” says a senior named Bill.
            I grunt as I pull the string back on a loaded bow, release, and my arrow lands a ring away from the bull’s eye. “Not bad,” says Kyle.
            “Thanks,” I say, but I know it was sheer dumb luck. We continue practicing for another hour or two. It must be getting late, but the sun is still out, it is summer, after all. As dusk kicks in, we stop archery and just hang out.
            Eric, one of the seniors, runs to his cottage and comes back with a 30 pack. “My treat guys,” he says. “Just don’t rat. The freshies can have some too.”
            One of the freshmen, Nate, says, “But, but the drinking age in New Hampshire is 20.”
            Eric repeats back the sentence in a mock baby voice, “But, but the drinking age in New Hampshire is 20.” He spits on the ground. “Yeah, and I heard next year they’re raising it to 21. I said don’t rat.”
            “Yeah,” says Kyle, “don’t be a little bitch.”
            I’m handed a beer and I accept it. I don’t feel good illegally drinking, but I got a feeling something bad is going to happen to Nate. The seniors continue leading the group conversation.
            “I don’t want to go to college,” says Eric, “but my old man is making me.”
            “My dad’s making me go to Harvard,” says Kyle. “He pulled some strings, so I can’t say no. It sucks.”
            I sigh. I wish my dad was rich enough to send me to Harvard, never mind pull some strings for me. I really wish I was with Alex right now. Not with him with these guys, though. I’d hate for him to get picked on like poor Nate is right now.
            “So Nate,” says Bill, chuckling, “tits or ass?”
            Nate groans. He looks uncomfortable. “I, I don’t know,” says Nate.
            Kyle laughs. “How could you not know? What are you, a fag?”
            “No,” cries Nate.
            I’m tempted to tell Kyle guys have butts too, but I resist. I see a tear start to run down Nate’s cheek. I feel like a monster not saying anything. I take another swig of beer, hoping it’ll wash the guilt away. The guys all start to make fun of Nate as he cries. Nate runs away sobbing.
            The group laughs hysterically. It reminds me of hyenas I saw on a nature show. Kyle mockingly wipes fake tears from his cheeks. “Boo hoo!” he cries. “What a little bitch. I hope the reason he doesn’t know is because his balls haven’t drop yet, and he’s not a fucking faggot.” He points at me. “What about you, Chuck, tits or ass?”
            I’m tempted to say ass, but I think I’m safer with tits. “Tits,” I lie.
            Kyle laughs. He’s had four beers so far and is clearly drunk. “What kind of tits?”
            “Um, big ones,” I say.
            Eric laughs. “No shit!”
            Kyle downs another beer and says in a drunken voice: “There’s always at least one faggot here! Always at least one!” He crushes the beer can, tosses it, and points to the other two freshmen. “Which one of yooz is it?”
            “Isn’t it Nate?” says one of them.
            Eric hiccups and says, “Nope. He can’t know if dudes give him a boner yet cuz that little bitch’s balls haven’t dropped yet.” I cringe on the inside. I don’t know how far into puberty Nate is, but I’m pretty sure he at least started it. Kyle’s joke had apparently turned into a fact. That’s something I never understood – how people turn jokes into reality.
            “I’ve seen hair on all your peaches in the showers,” says Kyle. He has that creepy look on his face again. It’s like a little switch is going off in his brain. “Tits or ass?”
            “Speaking of the showers,” says Bill, “I heard a rumor there’s a dude who always has a boner in there.”
            Kyle spits on the ground. “Fuck. See, I told you? There’s always at least one. Do we know who it is?”
            “No,” says Bill. “Too bad. I’d like to drown that faggot in the lake. Does anyone here have any idea who it might be? No joking, this is serious. I don’t want to get butt-raped by a queer or catch its AIDS.”
            The group starts speculating. Thankfully I’m not hearing Alex’s name come up. One of the sophomores is saying he has a hunch it’s a guy named Jack, and a freshman named Tylor thinks it’s a guy named Patrick. Kyle digs his hand into the 30-pack box. Despite charging ten bucks for beer runs, he seems pretty entitled to his friend Eric’s generosity. He comes up empty handed and starts stomping on the box. “FUCK!” he screams. “Ugh.” He points at me. “What about you Chuckles? Who do you think is the queer who’s popping a boner in the showers?”
            “Uh, I’m not sure,” I say. I really don’t know. Thankfully, I at least know it can’t be me. I’m in and out of the showers.
            “Hey Chuck,” says Tylor, “home you’re not in the showers that long? You always seem to rush.”
            Kyle looks at me, and I see that switch go off in his brain. A shiver runs down my spine. I swear to God, there is just something about that look. I gulp. “I, I don’t know,” I say. “I guess, I guess I just don’t like –”
            “It’s you, isn’t it?” says Kyle.
            “No,” I say, “I’ve never had a . . . I’ve never had a boner in the showers.”
            “I mean you’re the fucking queer,” says Kyle. He points at me. “There’s always at least one. There’s always at least one!”
            “I’m not,” I say. I back away. I feel myself trembling. Kyle starts stumbling towards me. I feel a raccoon trying to break out of my chest. I run. Run off into the woods.
            Big mistake. I shouldn’t have run. Now, it’s obvious. I should have just kept lying. It’s too late now, though, because I am running, and Kyle and the rest of the gang is chasing after me.
            An arrow whizzes past me. Jesus Christ, they’re firing arrows at me! Why did I run into the woods? I should have run to one of the lodges, where a scout master could save me. Would a scout master save me? The seniors are technically adults and they’re trying to kill me. No, I’m not safe. Not with the secret of me being gay. It’s not a secret anymore though. I don’t think I’ll ever be safe again. Kyle’s voice echoes through the woods: “COME BACK HERE YOU FUCKING FAGGOT!”
            I see a wooden house ahead. There’s no lawn, it’s just a house in the woods. Maybe they’ll be a phone. I can call the cops, or at least mom and dad to pick me up. Fuck, I don’t remember the number they gave me for their hotel!
            I run into the house. I hate to be trespassing, but they’re going to kill me. I’m in the middle of nowhere, some gun-crazy rednecks might live here and shoot me to death, but that’d be better than whatever Kyle and the others want to do to me. I try locking the door, but there’s no lock. I can’t see much inside. It’s getting dark outside because the sun is setting, and inside there are no lights. I crawl under a table.
            Kyle and the gang run into the shack. Kyle shouts, “Where are you, FAGGOT?”
            I put my hand in front of my mouth, trying to contain my panting. I hear Tylor’s voice ask, “What is this place?”
            “It’s the witch’s house,” says Bill.
            “Rrrearrr!” snarls a cat. In the darkness under the table, a huge mass of fur brushes over me. The paws of a heavy cat sink into my stomach, making me want to squeal.
            “Fuck,” says Eric. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Hurry up before we see her.”
            “What about the queer?” says Kyle. “We can’t let him go. He’s supposed to be my roommate. I don’t want to get butt-raped in my sleep.”
            “The witch will get him now,” says Eric. “Fuck this place. I’ve got the creeps.”
            They leave, and I’m left alone in the dark house. My breathing slowly returns to normal. I can’t see anything, but I hear one of the Maine Coons purring. And another one. And another one. Now I don’t know how many of them there are, but I’m surrounded by a pride of huge cats. I don’t know what to do. If this shack is supposed to be off the grid, I guess that means I can’t use a phone.
            What if the guys tell the scout masters I’m gay, and the scout masters tell my parents I’m gay? Will mom and dad still love me? It seems like being gay is the worst thing in the world. Maybe I can sneak across the border. Live as a drifter in Canada. Keep going north until I reach the arctic, and freeze to death. I crawl forward.
            Creeeeeeeeeeeek. The front door opens. A sliver of moonlight enters the house. “I’m home,” says a raspy, female voice. It’s the witch.
 
Chapter 4
 
Candlelight starts to fill the room. I see the witch’s legs from under the table limp back and forth across the shack as she lights candle after candle. She has a ragged dress that goes down to her knees, hairy legs, and homemade moccasins for shoes. One of the lynx-like Maine Coons that’s snuggled up to me scurries over to her and makes a bird-like chirp. “Rreh reh, reh reh.”
            I hear the witch say, “What is it Precious?”
            “Rreh reh, reh reh.”
            “Ooh,” says the witch. “Yum. I haven’t had C-Scout stew in a while.”
            “Meow.”
            “Alright,” says the witch, “but only because he’s your friend.” She limps towards me. I feel that raccoon trying to tunnel out of my chest again. She bends over and I see her face. “Hello,” she says with a smile.
            Her face is old and wrinkled. She has all her teeth, but they’re discolored. Not rotten, just discolored. Despite being a woman, she’s balding. I didn’t know old ladies could go bald. I curl into a ball and say, “Um . . . hi.”
            The woman stands back up and continues limping around her shack, lighting candles. I stay curled up under the table, not sure if I should feel scared, silly, guilty, or embarrassed. Another Maine Coon joins me under the table, and I start to feel claustrophobic. I crawl out from under the table and stand up.
            In the candlelight, I see most things in the shack are homemade. There’s a fireplace made from stones that look just like the rocks on the lake beach. The floor is uneven, and in the center, there’s a tree stump with a book on it. All the furniture is handmade from the local shrubbery, not polished or treated with polyurethane, but covered in bark. The only thing that doesn’t look homemade are the countless Mason jars that cover the shelves. Half of the glass jars are filled with pickled vegetables, and the other half are filled with dried flowers, dirt, pebbles, and small mummified animals. There’s a large cauldron in the fireplace.
            I need to stay rational. Witches don’t exist. This is just an old lady. This house is weird, but maybe she’s Amish or something, or so old she’s stuck in a different time – or a crazy old lady who lost her marbles. “Ahem,” I clear my thought, “I’m really sorry.”
            “Sorry for what, dearie?” asks the old lady. She goes to the fireplace. She throws some sticks under the cauldron. She grabs a fire poker, stabs the sticks, and a fire lights up under the cauldron. She starts throwing sprigs into the cauldron, grabs some carrots, and starts chopping them into the stew.
            That was scary. It’s almost like she lit that up with magic. There must have been hot embers under the cauldron. I hope she’s not making C-Scout stew. “Sorry for trespassing,” I say.
            “You weren’t trespassing,” says the old lady. “You were following the way. The way is strong in you.” She says the way like Ben Kenobi and Yoda say the force in Star Wars. She limps away from the cauldron, picks up a dark brown brick, and carries it over to me. “Acord bread, eat.”
            The acorn bread looks gross. It sounds gross, too. Bread made from acorns? Yuck. I broke into her house though; I shouldn’t disrespect her. I try a piece. It tastes sweet and hearty. She goes to the book that’s on the stump. She flips it open and arranges candles around it. “Thanks for the bread,” I say, “what book is that?”
            “It’s a grimoire,” says the old lady.
            “What’s a grimoire?” I ask.
            “It’s my book of shadows,” says the lady. “Well, it’s your book, now. I have no more use for it. Come, read.”
            I step towards the book and read what’s on the first page. It’s hard trying to read it in candlelight. It’s written in an old fashion cursive calligraphy. The Power of the Way.
            “Aloud,” says the old lady. “Read aloud.”
            I read it aloud: “The Power of the Way. By the goddess’s light, by the god’s sight, let the cauldron bubble and the demons trouble. Let the wolves howl and the werewolves scowl. My soul belongs to the way, my songs to the fay. I do not crave to be rich, for till the grave, I am a witch!”
            My vision becomes blurry. I am no longer in the shack. All around me, all I can see is gusts of light. A warmth runs down my spine. All throughout my nerves, I feel myself getting tickled, but I can’t burst out laughing because I can’t move. The tickling, the warmth, and the gusts dies down, and I am back in the shack. The old lady is laughing. Her laugh is a mock cackle, like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz.
            “Oh my god,” I say, “are you a witch?”
            She continues her fake cackling. “I am sweetie, and now, so are you!” I run to the door. I run outside, hearing her shout “Wait! You forgot your book!”
            Outside, it’s gotten darker. In the woods at nighttime, I can barely see the trees around me. I run through the woods, not sure what direction I’m going. Shrubs, twigs, and branches whip into to me as I run. My face gets whipped by what feels like an evergreen branch, and I start to shield my head as I run.
            I hear a howling through the woods. “Ahhh whoooo woo! Ahhh whooo woo!” It’s a howling unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Is it a wolf’s howl? It’s like a ghost, wailing. “Ahh whoo woo! Ahh woo woo!” It sounds so unnatural and out of this world. Only two things I can think of could possibly make it – wolves or ghosts, and neither sounds good.
            I see the artificial light of a flashlight ahead of me. I don’t know if I should run to it or not. It could be one of the C-Scouts, out hunting me. I run away from it, but the holder of the flashlight runs after me. A male voice shouts in French: “Arrête ! Halte! Vous arrêtez!” In a thick accent, he shouts: “Stop! Stay!”
            He must be a French-Canadian border guard. I must have crossed the border. He could have a gun, I better stop. I stop, and the border guard catches up to me. I stand frozen as the border guard pats me down. He takes a good look at me, pinches the embroidered C-Scout symbol on my uniform, and says something in French over a walkie talkie. His accent is so deep and rugged, it sounds nothing like Pepé Le Pew. I guess I don’t know anything about French Canadians. He grabs my wrist and says, “You come with me.”
            “Where are you taking me?” I ask.
            “I take you home,” he says. “Back to camp.”
            Oh God, I can’t let him take me back to the camp. I’d rather rot in a Canadian prison. “No,” I cry. “Please don’t take me back there!”
            “You go back,” he says. He starts pulling me by my wrist.
            I’m yanked forward by his pull. He’s very strong. I try to run away, but he only pulls me harder. “Let go of me!” I shout. The guard only grumbles and continues pulling me. “PLEASE DON’T TAKE ME BACK!” At random, the guard’s flashlight blows up.
            The artificial light is extinguished. Sparks fly from the bulb. The guard lets go of my wrist and stumbles back. “Christ! Tabarnak! Câlisse!”
            I run away. How did that happen? I don’t know, but I need to run away. I can’t get taken back to camp. Tree branches keep whipping into my face as I run. That chilling, phantom howl fills my ears again: Ahh whoo whoo! Ahh whoo woo! It can’t be wolves. I’m one hundred percent convinced now it’s a ghost. Worst than a ghost, probably some sort of demonic banshee or something. Fuck!
            A blinding light shines on me. A standard American accent shouts: “Stay right there, son!” I stop and the man catches up to me. He has a uniform that looks close to a police uniform. My eyes adjust to his blinding flashlight, and I see from his badge he’s an American border guard. “Are you Chuck?” he asks.
            “Yes,” I say.
            “Thank God,” he says. “We were seconds from calling in the choppers. The scout masters at Camp C are worried sick about you.”
            “Am I in trouble?”
            “No. You don’t get in trouble for getting lost. You did get lost, right?”
            “Um . . .” I don’t know what to say. I am lost, but I was running away. I can’t tell him that though. “Yes,” I say.
            “Try not to next time,” says the border guard. “Come with me.”
            The guard takes me to a border patrol station. I sit down in a room that has an American flag and a huge portrait of Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s portrait is so big, it’s bigger than the flag. I’m given a piece of paper and told to fill out as much personal information as I can. I scribble my address, parents’ names, date of birth, and try to remember my social security number. Meanwhile, the border guard speaks French over the phone.
            “Nous l'avons trouvé . . .” says the American border guard, “Merci beaucoup . . . Nous sommes désolés.” His French doesn’t sound anything like his French-Canadian counterpart. That accent was so rugged, I envied it.
            One of the guards drives me back to Camp C. My palms are sweating like crazy. I feel like passing out. I get back to camp. I’m greeted by a group of scout masters. They take me to a lodge. I keep expecting them to kill me. They keep asking me questions, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, because my heart is beating so fast, all while I’m super tired. I fall down. A scout master plops me on a chair. He puts his hands on my face and bites his lip.
            “Ewe,” he says. Oh God, he must know I’m gay! “His face is all scratched up. He looks sick as a dog, no wonder he got lost. Get the nurse, asap. Hurry up, this has a lawsuit written all over it.”
            A camp nurse comes. She’s half-dressed in her nursing uniform and half-dressed in her pajamas. She’s yawning and looks tired. “Alright boys,” she says, “give us some privacy.”
            In private, the nurse examines me. As she sticks a popsicle stick down my mouth, I mumble “I wanna go home.”
            The nurse yawns. “Me too.” She takes the popsicle stick out and sticks a thermometer in. I move it under my tongue. Maybe if it’s high, they’ll have to send me home. I close my eyes and hope and pray it’ll be high. “Holy crap,” says the nurse. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that high. Looks like someone has a fever.”
            She stops examining me and lets the scout masters back in. She tells them my results. “It was like magic. One moment it was normal, the next it shot right up.”
            “Does that ever happen?” asks scout master Earl.
            The nurse gives a long yawn. “I don’t know, but he should probably be separated from the other scouts in case he’s contagious.”
            “We’ll put him in North Cottage D,” says Earl, “and have his food delivered to him until he gets better.”
            I put my hands to my forehead. I don’t feel that hot. “North Cottage D?” I ask.
            “It’s an empty cottage on the north end,” says Earl. “It’s supposed to be for scout masters, so it has its own bathroom, lucky you. Not so lucky is the fact that most don’t go near it. People think it’s haunted, even some of us scout masters. You’re not superstitious, are you?”
            I remember that haunting, demonic howl I heard in the woods earlier. It was horrifying – but Kyle is more horrifying. I lie and say, “No.”
            “Good,” says Earl, “because we already tried your parents and they aren’t answering. I’ll have your things moved in. Is there anything you want me to tell your roommate?”
            I shake my head no. Earl tells me to wait while they move my things and prepare my cottage for quarantine. The other scout masters move away from me, hoping to not catch whatever I have. I hear them talk as I wait:
            “I saw old lady Evelyn foraging mushrooms the other day. I think I saw her eating them, too. I’m not a mushroom expert, but they didn’t look safe.”
            “It’s a sad situation. I tell ya, when my mother gets up there, it’s straight to the nursing home. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
            “Her cats at least clean the mice out of my barn. One of ‘em got in the house this morning. My wife thought it was a mountain lion.”
            My new quarters are finished. Earl takes me to North Cottage D. We stand in front of the steps and Earl says, “Don’t let the haunted rumors get to you. If you hear something go bump in the night, just tell yourself there’s no such thing as ghosts. I always find reciting the Lord’s prayer helps.”
            The otherworldly howl echoes around us. “Oh my God,” I say, “I think I just heard a ghost.”
            “I don’t hear no ghosts,” says Earl. The howling continues echoing around us. “It sounds peaceful to me. You should leave the window open. It’ll help you sleep. You’re just imagining things because you’re sick. No get to bed, chop chop.” He starts clapping his hands and gesturing me into the cottage like I’m a dog. I scurry in, and he shuts the door. I notice a lock on the door and immediately lock it. Thank God, at least now I’m safe from Kyle and the other C scouts.
            Compared to the cottage I was sharing with Kyle, this one is bigger, but it’s still simple. There are several rooms. I’m in the entryway, which looks like it might also be a small kitchen. There’s a hallway that goes to the backdoor and separates the bathroom from the bedroom. I go to the backdoor and lock it. I go to the bedroom door, open it, and see two twin beds. One is empty, the other has Alex sitting on it.
            Alex is somberly staring down at the floor. His mop top hair is dangling over his face, but I can tell he’s sad. “Oh my God,” I say, “Alex! What are you doing here?”
            Alex looks up at me. “What? Chuck? Why are you here?”
            “I’m sick,” I say. “They put me here so I don’t spread my germs. Why are you here? You might catch what I have.”
            “No,” says Alex. “I think . . . I think I have the same thing you have. I am . . . sick too.”
            I run to Alex and hug him. I start to cry and hug him tighter. Alex hugs me back. I’m not sure if Alex is crying too. I’d love to look in his face right now, but I love wrapping my arms around him just as much. “They want to kill me, Alex.”
            “I know,” says Alex. “They wanted to kill me, too.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
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Cellar Dwelling Witchcraft continued

Read the following post before this one. See the first post for warning and disclaimer.

CHAPTER 5
 
I wake up. I’m a mess. I’m still in my clothes from last night. I don’t see Alex. His bed is unstirred. I check the kitchen-entrance and bathroom, and he isn’t there. I peek out the window and see C-scouts outside scampering about their day. I hope he’s safer than I am out there.
            I go the bathroom, shower, and change into a clean uniform. When I come out of the bathroom, I see a lunchbox on the table. There’s a note left on it: Finish your chicken, greens, and fruit salad before eating the pudding. Try resting. Please don’t lock the door, we had to go through a hundred keys before finding the right one! – Scout Master Earl & Nurse Carol.
            I must have not heard them while I was in the shower. I eat. The packed food isn’t as warm and fresh as it is in the mess hall, but at least I don’t have to go outside. Everyone in camp probably knows now. I finish the food and go back to the bedroom.
            I feel depressed. I don’t know what to do. I’d like to at least go outside and get some hiking in, but I know the C-Scouts would kill me. I climb in bed and read a comic book. I already read all the comics I brought with me, but there’s nothing better to do. Time goes by. Nurse Carol comes back. She peeks in my room and I pretend to be sleeping. “How’re you feeling?” she asks.
            “Sick,” I say. I don’t feel like I’m lying. I feel sick on the inside. She tells me to eat the dinner she brought me and go back to bed. She leaves, and I go to the table, eat, and go back to the bedroom.
            By nighttime, Alex comes back. Without making a sound, he just sneaks right back inside. I look up from my comic book and am startled to see his cutie-pie face looking at me from the other twin bed. “Woe!” I say. “You startled me. What did you do outside? You had me worried the guys out there were bullying you. You have to be careful. My ex-roommate was literally firing arrows at me last night.”
            “The guys used to bully me all the time,” he says, “so I became invisible.”
            “I’ll say. You’re a little ninja.”
            “What’re you reading?” he asks.
            “Wonder Woman #312 – Escape from Cloud-Cuckoo Land. Want to read it with me?”
            He says yes and moves from his bed to mine. As he snuggles up to me, I feel a critter trying to tunnel out of my chest again, only this time it feels good. It doesn’t feel like a raccoon in distress, it feels like lovestruck Pepé Le Pew. We finish reading it. I want to ask him if he wants to read another one, but his hair brushes against my face, and I want it to last forever. An eternity passes by, and he asks, “Want to go outside with me?”
            “What about the other C-Scouts?” I ask.
            “It’s nighttime,” he says, “most should be inside now.”
            We go outside. The moon is bright. I feel nervous. Kyle could spot me at any moment. We go to the lake and stare out onto the water. At the docks, there’s a canoe. Alex gets in it. I hop in, not thinking. Alex just sits there, staring caringly into my eyes. I unhook the canoe, grab the ores, and start paddling.
            As I paddle out into the center of the lake, it grows brighter as we’re surrounded by more moonlight reflecting off the water. His eyes sparkle like the stars above us, and I feel my heart floating up to outer space. I stop paddling and hug him. In the northern breeze, his body feels warm against mine. I close my eyes and let myself drift away.
            That spooky, phantom, alien howl fills my ears again, and I return to Earth. “Ahhh whoooo woo! Ahhh whooo woo!” I squeeze Alex as tightly as I can and start shivering.
            “What is it?” asks Alex.
            “Don’t you hear that? It sounds so scary. I think it’s a demon.”
            “You mean the howling?” asks Alex. “That’s just the loons.”
            “What?” I ask. “The loons are making that? It sounds like a wolf. A spooky wolf.”
            “Nope,” says Alex. “It’s just the loons, singing to each other. Isn’t it beautiful?”
            I calm down and listen. A chorus of loon calls sings around me. I start to relax. “Huh,” I say, “you’re right. Once you know it’s being made by those silly looking duck-things, it’s not so bad. I guess people just fear what they don’t know.”
            Alex sighs. “Yeah. I think it’s worse when people don’t fear when they don’t know, but would fear if they do. The difference between a wolf in sheep’s wool, and a sheep in wolf’s fur.”
            “Well that was deep,” I say. “Alex, can I kiss you?”
            Alex nods his head. I kiss him. It lasts a second, and I haven’t had enough. I kiss him again, and this time, he kisses me back. We kiss as an opera of loons sings around us.  We stop and go back to hugging. I start to cry. I cry mixed tears of sadness and joy. I cry tears of sadness over the realization that I can never again deny me being gay, not even to myself – especially to myself. I cry tears of joy over my first kiss, my first love, my first moment of pure bliss.
 
Chapter 6
 
I have become nocturnal. Nighttime is the only time I can get away with going outside with Alex. I spend my nights canoeing with him, walking the lake’s beach, skipping rocks, and just being silly. As childish as it sounds, we play tag together. Maybe 15 is too old to be playing tag, but with Alex, nothing is too old. We have to do it away from camp though. We’re not the only ones who prowl the night. Seniors, including Kyle, go on their beer runs.
            Sneaking past the sleeping cottages and drunk seniors is both horrifying and exhilarating. Once we’re out of the main camp area, we’re free. I chase Alex through Camp C’s fields and tickle him when I capture him. The moon waned, but the stars and fireflies replaced its light. The stars are so much brighter up here than they are back in Jersey. Whenever I see my Alex surrounded by swarms of fireflies, he’s like an angel surrounded by a halo of light, or a prince surrounded by fairies.
            I sleep during the day. Nurse Carol doesn’t know I turned nocturnal, so seeing me passed out after a night-long game of tag and tickle-fights helps maintain the charade of being sick. I even got Nurse Carol to stop complaining about me locking the door by making up a lie on how dangerous my neighborhood back home is, and how important it is for me to maintain the habit of locking up for the night. “Well okay, Chucky. I don’t know what it’s like down in New Jersey, but just remember you’re safe up here. Coyotes don’t know how to open doors.”
            I realize I am living a lie, but my whole life has been a lie. I’m sick and tired of pretending to be straight. I just can’t wait any longer. I want to hold hands with Alex in public like wives and husbands do. I want to go to parties with Alex and introduce him as my boyfriend without it being a big deal. But I can’t, because for whatever reason, it’s somehow considered the worst thing in the world. Spending time with Alex at night with the loons is the closest thing I can come to that dream. Guys like Kyle just keep puking up this lie that I want to somehow rape him, and if he can lie, so can I. Kyle lies because he hates, I lie because I love.
 
Chapter 7
 
It’s been a long night of me and Alex. We went canoeing and had to have circled the entire lake. I’m walking back to North Cottage D with him. My arm is slung around his shoulders, and I feel as if I’m floating back with him. The sun begins to rise, and I realize I’ve been out too late.
            “Uh-oh,” I say, “the sun is almost up. We gotta run before the camp wakes up.” I take my arm off him and break into a run. As we run, I hear a gang of voices. We run behind a cottage.
            “What the fuck, Eric?” says the voice of Kyle. “That was a long ass walk.”
            “Quit bitching,” says the voice of Eric. “You’re the one who wanted beer.”
            “You two fight like an old married couple,” says the voice of Bill.
            Shit. Me and Alex are hiding behind Eric’s cottage. I get on all fours and peek through the cottage’s crawl space. The three each have 30 packs of beer that they carry up the wooden plank steps of the cottage. They go inside, and I whisper to Alex: “Now’s our chance, hurry!”
            I’m tempted to break into a run, but I think that would be louder and draw more attention. I try to creep away as fast as I can. As I break into a jog, I hear Kyle’s voice shout: “Hey! Look outside! IT’S THE FAGGOT!”
            I stop and turn around. Kyle is standing on the steps of Eric’s cottage, pointing at me. Bill and Eric jump out and see me. The three run towards me, and I run for my life.
            I look around me, trying to see where Alex went, but I can’t see him. Maybe it’s a good thing, they don’t even know he exists, and I don’t want them to find out he does. I don’t know if they know I’m in North Cottage D. Whether they do or not, I can’t risk leading them to Alex. I run into the woods.
            I’m so exhausted from being up all night. It’s the time I normally eat breakfast as dinner and go to bed for the day. They’re gaining on me. I don’t think I can outrun them. Kyle screeches at the top of his lungs: “GET BACK HERE YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKER!”
            I see the witch’s house. Last time they were too chicken to find me in there. I don’t want to go back in there, this time around I know for a fact she’s a witch. It’s the witch or Kyle, and I choose the witch. I run into the witch’s shack.
            The shack just has shutters for windows, no glass panes. This time, all the shutters are open. The light of the rising sun fills the shack. I see the same table I hid under last time. I run for it, but am yanked back. I feel myself getting choked as Kyle pulls me back by my neckerchief.
            I’m gasping for air. I have to fight back. I stomp on Kyle’s foot. He lets go and shoves me to the ground. Kyle starts stomping on me. I roll away from his stomps and jump to my feet. Bill punches me in the face, knocking me back down. I’m outnumbered.
            “Let’s make this faggot’s ass bleed,” says Kyle. I look up and see pure hatred in his face. He grabs the fire poker from the fireplace. Kyle rubs his hand up and down the metal pole, and I see a switch go off in his brain. His rage turns to pure joy. He smiles and kisses the tip of the fire poker. “Turn him over.”
            I don’t feel an animal trying get out of my chest – I feel Superman trying to break out of it. Superman trying to fly away from Earth, abandoning it and everything he believes in, as an asteroid made of pure kryptonite comes hurdling towards Earth. Bill and Eric grab me by my arms. Alex walks inside the shack. I scream as loud as I possibly can: “ALEX! RUN! RUNAWAY ALEX! RUN!”
            The three seniors look around the shack, each with a funny, dumbfounded face. “Fuck Jesus, Chucky,” says Kyle. “Trying to convince us there’s a ghost, again? It ain’t gonna work. Alex Duplantier is a dead faggot, and soon you will be, too.” He kisses the tip of the fire poker. “Not after some fun, that is.”
            Kyle come towards me with a fire poker. Alex pushes a chair across the floor. Kyle drops the poker and jumps back. Bill and Eric let go of my arms and start looking around the room. “What the fuck was that?” asks Bill.
            Alex goes to a shelf and clinks the jars together. He steps on a creaky floorboard and jumps up and down on it, making it creak. Crrrreak, crrreak, creeak. He goes to Bill and Eric and rubs his hands up and down their backs.
            “Oh Jesus!” shouts Eric. “I just felt a chill run up and down my spine!”
            “Me too!” shouts Bill.
            “You two are fucking babies,” says Kyle. “Let’s go back to the queer before he butt-rapes us and gives us AIDS.” Kyle bends down to pick up the fire poker, and Alex kicks it across the floor. Alex goes to the witch’s shelf, grabs a jar of what looks like pickled sea urchins, and spills it on the floor.
            “Ewe!” shouts Eric. “We need to get out of here! This place is haunted.”
            “There really is a witch!” shouts Bill.
            Alex goes to the cauldron and starts kicking it. Cling, clang, cling! Doonggg!
            Eric and Bill run out of the shack. Kyle looks nervous, but he’s still not as terrified. He growls. “Ugh! I don’t believe this! Fuck, I’ll take care of you myself, you fucking faggot!”
            “Rrrreaarrrrr! Hsssss!” One of the witch’s Maine Coons jumps through the open window. I think it might be Precious. The huge cat hisses and snarls at Kyle. More of the Maine Coons pour into the house. All of them the size of mountain lions, all of them hissing and snarling at Kyle. Kyle gives up and runs out of the shack.
            I pant on the floor. I want to cry over what almost happened to me, but I can’t believe it. Believing Alex is a ghost is more believable, and I’m beginning to believe he truly is. The Maine Coons purr against me, and Alex hugs me. The idea of being hugged by a ghost should terrify me, but the idea that it is Alex doesn’t. “Alex, are you a . . . ghost?
            “He is,” says a woman’s voice, “and you’re a witch.”
            I let go of Alex, stand, and face the old woman. It occurs to me that I don’t know her name. My closest guess is she’s the lady the scout masters were talking about when I was brought back by the border guards. “Is your name Evelyn?”
            “That was my old name, before I devoted myself to the way. I am Meadowsweet Snowshoe Hare now, but that is my secret witch name, so you may call me Eve.”
            “Can you see Alex?”
            “Of course,” says Eve. “All witches can see ghosts, especially after we’ve taken the vow.”
            Before us, Alex starts fading away. He becomes translucent and then disappears. I scream. “ALEX!”
            “He’ll be back,” says Eve. “He interacted with mortals. It exhausted his essence. He’s not a witch, like us. His interactions with this world are limited. Our powers on the other hand are infinite.”
            “When will he back?”
            “The next full moon,” says Eve.
            “But I don’t know when that will be,” I say, “it could be weeks.”
            “Which means you’ll have no distractions and can start reading your new book.” She points to the grimoire on the stump. “Your Book of Shadows. You can read it while you’re waiting for him to return.” She drops her seriousness and pinches my cheek. “You and that little ghost are just the cutest thing.”
            I take the book and return to North Cottage D. I sneak in through the back door and catch Nurse Carol dropping off my breakfast. From having no sleep last night and everything that had happened, I must look sicker than I normally do.
            She sighs. “Keep fighting it, Chucky, keep fighting it.”
            I’m tempted to tell her what Kyle, Bill, and Eric attempted to do to me. I’m not sure she’d believe me. I still don’t believe it myself. At least I was saved, and it wasn’t done. A thought drips into my consciousness – what if it happened to Alex? What if that’s why he killed himself and is a ghost now? The nurse leaves, and my hope walks out the door with her.
            I lock the doors and wonder if it’s even enough to save me. I’m not sure if I should even bother saving myself anymore. I wonder if I should do what Alex did, fill my pockets up with rocks and drown myself in the lake.
            I set the book down on the table and flip through it. Maybe I am a witch. After everything I saw, I can’t really deny it. I could be crazy, but so could everyone else. It sounds crazy to think you aren’t the crazy one, it’s the world that must be crazy, but after everything I’ve experienced, I think I’m ready to be crazy. I’d rather be a crazy gay witch who loves a gay ghost, than whatever Kyle is.
 
Chapter 8
 
I miss Alex. Days go by, and I miss him. I’m trying to read the grimoire. It’s hard because not only is it handwritten in old fashion cursive, but it’s filled with rhymes and metaphors. I wonder if I can use magic to defend myself from Kyle and the other C-Scouts, but it’s hard to practice any of it when I’m trapped inside a cottage.
            I read it on the table: As a child learns how to speak, a witch learns how to cast her spells, but as a child learns how to walk, a witch learns her power. Some casts fires that will burn down shires, some see futures through the sutures of time, some move objects without touch or rhyme . . .
            The doorknob jiggles. Nurse Carols walks in. “It’s nice to see you’re up, Chucky.” She sets a lunchbox on the table. “Or not so nice. You look exhausted.”
            I close grimoire and say “I’ve been having problems sleeping.”
            “Why is that?” she asks.
            Because all I can think about is Kyle and a bunch of the other C-Scouts breaking in and doing things to me that I don’t even want to think about. “Because I’m still sick.”
            She takes my vitals. As she sticks the thermometer in my mouth, I close my eyes and prey for it to be sky high. “Jesus,” says Nurse Carol, “maybe it’s time I take you to the hospital.”
            “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
            “I’m the nurse and when I say you need to go, you need to go!”
            “NO!” I scream. “I’M NOT GOING OUT THERE!”
            “Is that what this is about?” asks Nurse Carol. “Are you faking this so you don’t have to go outside? This is a camp, the whole point in being here is to be in the outdoors.”
            “NO!” I bang the table. “How can I fake being sick? You just took my temperature yourself. It’s not like I have a cigarette lighter in my mouth, see?” I pry my lips open with my fingers and show her my mouth.
            She sighs. “I’m going to try your parents again.” She glances at my book of shadows. “What’s that?”
            “Nothing,” I say. “It’s, um, summer reading for school. It’s, um, literature.”
            “What kind of literature?”
            “It’s, um . . . I don’t know.”
            “You don’t know?”
            “Uhh, yeah, that’s why I’m studying it. I need to learn it before school starts. That’s why I packed it with me.”
            Nurse Carol shakes her head. “Well maybe if you weren’t reading those silly comic books, you’d have learned it by now. At least some good can come of this.” She leaves.
            I chuckle. Another victory. Maybe it’s my magic that makes the thermometer go up. Maybe heating things up is my power that I learn as a child learns how to walk. I open up the lunchbox and unwrap a sandwich. It’s cold and would taste so much better if the bread were toasted and the cheese was melted.
            I move my hands over the sandwich. “Warm,” I say. Nothing happens. “Come on! Get warm! Melt!” I growl. The sandwich catches on fire. I jump back. I quickly dump the other food out of the box, run to the sink, fill the lunchbox up with water, and dump it on the fire. Smoke fills the cottage. I cough. I open one of the windows, being careful to do it without opening the curtains, revealing myself to the C-Scouts outside. My sandwich is burnt to a crisp.
            Fresh air blows into the cottage. I take a deep breath and sit down. Magic, I just did magic. It exists, and I did it. I smile – that sandwich could’ve been Kyle! It could’ve been anyone – maybe not Alex if he’s a ghost, but I’d hate for it to have been poor Nate. I hope things settled down for him. Maybe me getting outed helped take attention off him.
            I don’t know. Nate’s out there, and I’m in here. All I know is magic exists and I have it. It sounds weird to call myself a witch because I’m a guy, but that’s what Eve and this book are telling me. I’m a witch, and I know I am.
 
Chapter 9
 
I wake up and stretch my arms. I sit up in bed. Alex is sleeping on the twin bed across from me. He looks so cute when he’s sleeping. His shoes are off and I want to grab his feet. He has his arms wrapped around a pillow like it’s a teddy bear. “Alex!” I dive on him and hug him. “Alex! You’re back! You’re finally back!”
            Alex wakes up. He hugs me back. “I am back. How long has it been?”
            “A week,” I say. “Where did you go?”
            “Nowhere,” he says.
            “Then, where were you?”
            “Nowhere. I was nowhere.” He makes his hands into fists and opens his palms again. “Poof! Into nothing. I’m back now.”
            “Please don’t ever disappear on me again,” I say. “I love you!”
            “I love you too,” says Alex.
            We stay there together, hugging each other. I want it to stay like this forever. I tighten the squeeze of my hug and say “I mean it, Alex! Don’t ever disappear on me again!”
            “But I had to do it,” he says, “they were going –”
            “They were going to eventually kill me,” I say, “and then I’d be a ghost, like you.”
            Alex sighs. “Being a ghost isn’t what you think it is.”
            We go to the kitchen. I eat some food that’s been dropped off while telling Alex about how I learned how to make things catch on fire with magic. “Want to read the grimoire with me?”
            “No,” he says. He smiles. “I’d rather read one of your comics.”
            We go back to the bedroom and lay down next to each other on one of the small beds. Alex picks a Superman comic I’ve read a million times. I don’t really want to read it because I know everything off the top of my head. Instead, I just let Alex read it, and I feel like Superman as his head lays in front of mine, and I flip the pages for him. We come to a page that has Superman disguised as Clark Kent together with Lois Lane. “I wish we could be like Superman and Lois Lane,” I say. “I wish we could hold hands in public and go out to restaurants together without pretending to be just friends. I just wish people didn’t mind that we love each other.”
            “I think I know a place we can go where people don’t mind,” says Alex. He wiggles out of my arms and stands up. He kisses me. “Come on, follow me. It should be late enough for you to go outside.”
            We sneak out the back door. The sun is down, and the moon is in full shine. Chirp chirp chirp. Bzzzzz. Crickets fill the night air. Fireflies buzz around like flying Christmas tree bulbs. We sneak through the camp.
            “I’m getting eaten alive,” says a voice.
            “Crap, I already washed off the bug spray,” says another voice.
            Alex and I take cover behind a tool shed. I peek out and see a group of C-Scouts. They look sixteen to seventeen. “Watch this,” says Alex. “Don’t worry, I can’t disappear during the full moon.”
            He runs to the group of C-Scouts and starts tapping them on their shoulders.
            “Hey guys,” says one of the C-Scouts, “is anyone else getting this weird feeling?”
            Alex giggles and slaps the back of the tallest C-Scout. “Oh Jesus!” shouts the scout. “I’m definitely getting that feeling.”
            “Let’s go back to bed,” says one of them. “This camp is super haunted and now’s the time the ghosts would be coming out.”
            They run back to their cottages. Alex goes back to leading me to wherever it is he’s going. I laugh. “Do you enjoy doing that?”
            “Not normally,” he says. “It always used to make me feel bad how I would freak people out just by being near them, but ever since I started being with you, I think I’m having fun being a ghost, for once.”
            We enter the woods and walk the trail that goes to the camp’s section of the lake. As we walk, I expect to hear the howling of the loons, but instead hear a mishmash of musical instruments and chattering. “Is there some sort of carnival nearby?” I ask.
            “Yep,” he says. “A carnival, a festival, something like that. It’s for ghosts, so the C-Scouts won’t see us.”
            We walk out of the woods to a city of tents and shopping stands. There are tons of people walking around in clothes from all cultures and time periods. “Alex, are you sure no one can see this? There’s so many lanterns, and the noise is sure to wake somebody up.”
            “Nope. Not unless they’re magic like you. Whenever there’s a festival here, the living don’t go near it. You saw those scouts run away from me, just imagine them in this place.”
            I squint my eyes at what looks like a toga wearing ancient Roman walking by us with a hippy. “So, all these people are dead?”
            “Yep.” Alex holds his hand out. “They don’t care anymore.”
            I take a deep breath and grab his hand. No one notices or cares. Alex isn’t moving, he’s just holding my hand. He nods his head. I step forward and walk into the festival holding another guy’s hand.
            There are food stands everywhere. We walk up to a stand offering soft doughy pretzels with sauces to dip in. “I wish I had money,” I say.
            A cackling enters my ear. “A ha ha! It’s all free, dearie!” I turn around. Eve is standing behind us. Her balding old lady head is shining in the lantern light, and she’s smiling like she does not give a fuck. She pinches my cheek. “On a date?”
            “Yes,” I say.
            Eve laughs, her real laugh and not her mock cackling. “Don’t stay out past bedtime!” She runs away from us, as fast as an old lady can run, down the aisles of food and craft stands.
            Alex giggles and points back to the pretzel stand. I grab a large braided pretzel and take a bite. It tastes delicious but doesn’t fill me. I let him have some bites. I take some more bites but am surprised it doesn’t fill me up. “You’re not hungry, are you?” asks Alex. “Ghost food doesn’t fill up the living.”
            “Did you read my mind?” I ask. I laugh. “No, I’m not hungry. I guess that means I can eat all the food here.”
            “We can,” he says.
            I eat the pretzel and break it down to the last weave. I hold it to his mouth, and he nibbles it. I put it back to my mouth, and he bites the other end. We nibble it down from both our ends until our lips meat, and kiss with food in our mouths. I laugh. “Wow, that was a lot less romantic than it looked like in Lady and the Tramp. Maybe we should try it with spaghetti like they did.”
            Alex laughs. “Maybe we should try all the other food.”
            I grab Alex’s hand and we go to the other food stands. We try foods from different cultures. After a million dumplings, we try the gelatos. I still haven’t filled up. I laugh. “Oh my god, Alex, we need to stop. This is going to get me addicted to food and make me get super fat once I have to go back to normal food.”
            We leave the food stands and continue exploring. We come to a stand that has odd trinkets hanging up against a wall. A cowboy hat is hanging from a hook. I point to the cowboy hat. “Oooh, is that free?”
            A man standing behind the counter laughs. “Nope.” He points to a target board. “You only get a prize if you hit the bullseye.” He puts a basket of small balls on the table. “Three balls a visitor.”
            I grab a ball. “Alright,” I say, “time to win me a cowboy hat.” I throw the ball and miss. The man behind the counter laughs. I throw another and miss again. I grab my third, chuck it as hard as I can, and hit the outer rim of the target board. “Does that count?”
            “Nope,” says the man behind the counter. “Tough luck, kid.”
            “Let me try,” says Alex. He grabs a ball, closes one eye, and throws the ball. It whips into the bullseye of the target board, knocking it down. “One cowboy hat, please.”
            Alex grabs the cowboy hat from the man behind the counter and puts it on his head. “How do I look?” he asks.
            I laugh. “Like a cute cowboy.”
            Alex giggles. “I think it’d look cuter on you. I’ll trade you a kiss for the cowboy hat.”
            “I’ll trade you all the clothes off my back for a kiss,” I say. I kiss him. I kiss him in the crowd of festival goers, and no one is gasping, no one is screaming or swearing, no one is even staring. As I kiss him, Alex takes the cowboy hat off and places it on my head. I wrap my arms around his to lock them in place and keep kissing him. I stop the kiss and hold him in a hug. “I love you, Alex.”
            Alex takes a deep breath. “I love you, Chuck.” The feel of him in my arms, the feel of his breath against my face, is so real. He’s supposed to be a ghost, but he’s so real. Then again, ghosts are real, and that makes Alex real.
            I unlatch Alex from my arms and hold his hands. “Where do you think Eve went?”
            “I don’t know. She normally collects food at these things for her cats. Cats can eat spirit food, I think. Wanna go to a dance with me?”
            I chuckle. “Of course I wanna dance with you.” I straighten the rim of my new cowboy hat. “Any square dances for a cowboy?
            Alex giggles. “I don’t know. Let’s look around.”
            We stroll the spirit festival together. We come to an area where there’s a small crowd in front of a platform. “Who’s playing?” I ask aloud.
            “Elvis,” says a woman standing near us. She’s dressed up like a Medieval queen.
            “An Elvis impersonator?”
            “Nope,” says the woman. “The Elvis.” Despite possibly being a queen, she starts screaming and jumping up and down like a teenage girl at a boy band concert. A man who must be the ghost of the Elvis walks out onto the platform.
            “Ugh.” I grumble. I don’t like Elvis.
            “What’s a matter?” asks Alex.
            “I’m not an Elvis fan,” I say.
            “Neither am I. Wanna do something else?”
            “We might as well stay for a few songs,” I say. “I just want to dance with you, Alex. I just want to dance with you.”
            Alex and I dance to an Elvis song. I don’t know how I’m supposed to dance to it, so I just jump around and move my arms and legs in any direction I feel like. That’s what everyone else is doing, and that’s what Alex is doing. I dance with him. He’s hopping in front of me like a bunny rabbit. I steady my cowboy hat as it shakes on my head and lasso Alex in with a hug. I close my eyes and kiss him. Elvis finishes the song, and the crowd cheers. As I kiss Alex, I feel as though the crowd is cheering me on. For all I know, they are. They probably don’t care, and I care for them all because of that.
            Elvis’s voice enters my head: “Thank you, thank you very much.”
            I open my eyes and stop kissing Alex. Elvis starts singing a slow song. The ghosts around us start slow dancing. I don’t know if I should put my hands on Alex’s shoulders or waist. We alternate positions as we dance. I don’t know how to dance, and I’m starting to think there is no way to dance, but just move your body the way you feel the music tells you to.
            “We had a real good evening,” sings Elvis, “now all our friends are leaving. Soon we’ll be alone . . . ‘Cause this is our dance. Darling remember, it’s our dance . . . And nobody knows just what tomorrow will bring, so let our dance begin.”
            Tears start to drip down my cheeks. Alex starts crying too. We rest our heads over each other’s shoulders. I don’t know if I’m dancing or just wobbling around with him. I see the queen I talked to earlier dancing with a man in a metal suit and a feathered hat. They’re both crying too. I don’t know if she’s Queen Elizabeth the first, or Mary Queen of Scotts, or Queen Victoria. I don’t fucking know, and I don’t fucking care. I care that she’s crying, because even though she’s a queen and I’m a nobody, even though she’s straight and I’m gay, even though she’s fucking dead and I’m alive – we’re both feeling the same thing.
            I go back to staring into Alex’s eyes. The song ends, and we kiss. We dance through song after song. None of them are songs I’d normally listen to, but all of them are songs I would to dance with Alex. The concert ends and we go back to the festival streets.
            Glowing, flame filled balloons float above us. I point up and ask, “What are those things?”
            “Lanterns,” says Alex. “Spirits from all over come to this. Sometimes they bring those things. Let’s check it out.”
            We go to the beach. Ghost are writing their names on lanterns, lighting them up, and releasing them into the air. We pick out a lantern and write our names on it. “How are we going to light it?” I ask.
            Alex giggles. “Well, they’re passing around matches, but why don’t you use your magic, mister witch.”
            I stick my hand in the lantern, light it up with magic, and pull my hand out. Alex picks it up as the balloon engorges. The firelight sparkles in his eyes. “Let’s release it together,” says Alex.
            I put my hands on it. “Okay, on the count of three. One, two . . . three!” We each let go, and the lantern floats up into the air. I see the glow of our names written on it as it flies over the lake. We kiss and return to North Cottage D holding each other’s hands.



TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST
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Cellar Dwelling Witchcraft, continued

WARNING - THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF A STORY. DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE PREVIOUS POSTS. TRIGGER WARNING AND DISCLAIMER FOUND ON FIRST POST.

https://gayspeak.com/Thread-Cellar-Dwell...#pid704378

Chapter 10

I am as comfortable as I could ever be. Just like the lantern from the festival, I am drifting with Alex up into the night sky. I don’t really know where I am right now, and I don’t care. All I know is I am with Alex. I think he’s in my arms right now. Nice and safe in a tight hug. My way of letting him know he’s safe, and his way of letting me know I’m not alone. As I float up to outer space, I hear a knocking. A voice radios me: “Chucky! Chucky, are you okay?”
            I wake up. Alex isn’t in my arms, it’s just the extra pillow. I sit up and rub my eyes. Alex is on the other twin bed. There’s another knocking. Nurse Carol shouts, “Chucky, are you decent?”
            The door swings open. Nurse Carol walks up to me and puts her hand on my forehead. “Decent but not better,” she says. “You fell asleep in your uniform? Well at least you couldn’t have gotten it dirty.” She slips a thermometer in my mouth. I tap it with my tongue and the reading magically shoots up.
            “How come you’re hear at three?” I ask. “Didn’t you take my temperature at eight this morning?”
            “I wanted to surprise attack you,” she says. “Just in case you’ve been pulling some trick on me.” She checks the thermometer. “Ugh, what the heck. Still high. Don’t worry Chucky, I finally got ahold of your parents.”
“What?”
            “Yep,” she says. “Sorry I couldn’t take you to the phone. We didn’t want you spreading your germs, and it was an expensive phone call. Your parents are ending their trip early and are coming to pick you up. It’ll take a few days. They can only leave the island they’re on by ferry, and the next one doesn’t leave until tomorrow. Then it’ll be a two-day flight because the only one they could book on short notice was a stopover. Then it might be another day if it’s too late for them to drive all the way up here from New Jersey.”
            Alex sits up in bed and curls into a ball against the wall. He buries his head into his knees and moans.
            “NO!” I say. “I don’t want to go home!”
            “I’m sorry, Chucky,” says Nurse Carol. “I know it must be awful to be sick on summer vacation, but there’s always next year. Besides, it’s August, there’s only a few more weeks left, anyway. Come on, I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re already dressed so put some shoes on.”
            “NO! I’m not going outside!”
            “Ugh, enough,” says Nurse Carol. “Your brain isn’t working right. Either it’s from being sick or being cooped up in here all this time, or both.” She crosses her arms and shivers. “It’s cold in here.” She holds the thermometer in the air. “Oh Jesus, it’s eighty. Now I must be getting sick too. Come on Chuck, hospital, now. Either you walk to the camp van with me or I call an ambulance, and the paramedics carry you there. Let’s not make a big scene when we don’t have to.”
            I put my shoes on while Alex stays quiet. She grabs me by my wrist and starts pulling me. Before I can ask if we can slip out the back door, she pulls me out through the front. As I’m pulled out the front door, several other C-Scouts see me, and my heart stops.
            The ground I am walking on is shaking. There must be an earthquake. One C-Scout whispers something to another. Another one points at me. By the grace of God, I don’t see Kyle, Bill, or Eric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t see me.
            The nurse takes me to a camp van. Scout Master Earl greets us and offers to drive me so the nurse can stay in case she’s needed. The van hits the road. Scout Master Earl keeps asking me questions, but I can’t answer him. All I hear is me thinking: They know where I sleep now. They know where I sleep now. They know where I sleep now. Kyle might not have seen me, but someone will tell him, and even if they don’t, someone else will try to get me instead.
            I’m taken inside the hospital. I’m asked questions but I can’t answer them. Someone, a nurse or a doctor, I can’t tell, sticks a thermometer in my mouth. I quickly use magic to heat it up. They tell me I have a fever, and I’m relieved.
            Phew. They still think I have a fever, thank God. Funny how being told you have a fever can be good. I laugh. As I laugh, the people in white lab coats around me start shaking their heads and biting their lips.
            I’m taken to a chair that looks like a baby’s highchair. A man in a white lab coat and medical facemask rolls up my left sleeve. “What are you doing?” I ask.
            “Just taking your blood, son.” He pinches my upper arm and pierces a needle into it. I watch in horror as my own blood is sucked from my arm. “ALEX! I scream. “ALEX help me!”
            The front pocket of the man’s lab coat catches on fire. We both scream. He jumps back, whips his lab coat off, and stomps the flames out.
            “What just happened?” asks a nearby doctor.
            “I’m okay but my coat caught on fire,” says the man who drew my blood. “It must have been my cigarette lighter. I had it in my pocket.”
            The doctor shakes his head. “I’ve been telling you smoking’s gonna kill ya for years. I didn’t think it’d try to kill ya that way.”
            Time passes by. I’m given papers to fill out, but I can’t write anything down. A doctor gives me a bottle of pills, tells me to take one in the morning and one at night, and tells me I can return to camp.
            Scout Master Earl drives me back to camp. In the nurse’s office, he says to Nurse Carol: “The doctors said it’ll take a week for his test results to come back for the blood tests. They think it might be Lyme Disease.”
            “He’ll be home by then,” says Nurse Carol. She bites her nails. “Did they, did they test him for the . . . the you-know-what?”
            “No,” says Scout Master Earl. “I asked, but they said it’ll be a year or two until we have a test for that. Besides, I doubt he has the gay plague. He’s not a Sodomite.”
            “Welp,” says Nurse Carol, “back to North Cottage D in the meantime.”
            I’m taken back to North Cottage D. I quickly lock the two doors and check the bedroom for any signs of Kyle or other C-Scouts. I go to the bathroom to check it. The shower curtain is closed when I normally leave it open. I bite my lip, put my hand to my chest, and slide the curtain open. A figure is on the shower floor, I scream and fall backwards.
            It’s just Alex. He’s in his C-Scout uniform, curled up in a ball, crying on the shower floor. I crawl over to him and hug him. “It’s okay Alex. No one except me can see you. You can live with me in Jersey. No one will ever know, not even my parents. We’ll be together forever.” Alex doesn’t say anything and continues crying. I try to kiss him, but his face is buried in his knees. I kiss the top of his head and say, “You can live with me, Alex, honest.”
            “I can’t live with you,” cries Alex.
            “Why not?”
            “Because I can’t leave this place.”
            “What? Why not? Can ghosts not ride in cars? How’d all those ghosts come to the festival? How’d Elvis get to New Hampshire? I don’t think he died up here.”
            Alex snivels. “I can’t travel to different places like Elvis can.”
            “What? Why not?”
            “I don’t know,” cries Alex. “Elvis is just a different kind of ghost than me. He lived a fulfilled life, and I . . . I killed myself.”
            I kiss his head again and try to pry open his knees and arms. “But that’s not fair.”
            “Nothing is fair,” cries Alex.
            I pry his arms from his knees and hug his waist before he can curl back up. “We’ll figure out a way,” I say. “With magic or no magic, we’ll figure out a way.”
 
Chapter 11
 
I lay on my back on a bed, combing the pages of the grimoire. Alex lays on top of me, and I hold the grimoire in front of him. It’s just like reading comic books to him, except instead of a light paperback, it’s a hardcover that’s heavier than a textbook. My arms are growing tired from holding up the book. I rest the book on top of Alex and take a breath.
            He always has his silly uniform on. I wonder if that’s part of being a ghost – wearing the same clothes you died in. I haven’t read anything on how clothing works in the ghost world yet. He did wear that cowboy hat before he gave it to me, so I guess they can wear new clothes. I really want to ask him if he can take his uniform off, but I already know Alex will know what I really want to ask.
            Alex takes the book off and sets it aside. He rolls off me and faces the wall. I touch his shoulder and ask “Alex, what’s wrong?”
            Ales moans. “You know what’s wrong.”
            “It’s going to be alright, Alex. Even if we can’t find a way, I’ll beg my parents to send me back here next year. I don’t want to see you only in the summer, but after I graduate, I’ll move up here, and we can be together forever.”
            “You’ll grow older, until someday you’ll be too old for me.”
            “I’m going to figure out a way,” I say. “There’s always a way. What about Eve? Do you think she’ll be any help?”
            “Eve is kind,” says Alex. “She would have already found a spell to bring me back to life if there was one, or at least give me the power to leave this place.”
            “What’s the farthest you can go?”
            “Not far. I can’t cross the border, and I can’t cross the highway. I’m sandwiched in.”
            I hug him. I’m tempted to suggest killing myself, so I can be a ghost like him, but I know Alex would never approve of it. I love him that much, but he loves me too much to approve of me doing it, and I can’t break his heart.
            I go back to the grimoire. I stop reading it line by line, and instead just start scanning it. I finally find a section on ghosts. There’s a tree drawn that separates spirits into different types. Fairies, angels, and other nice-sounding names are at the top, and spooky-sounding names like demons, wraiths, and banshees are at the bottom. “What kind are you?” I ask.
            Alex points to a branch in the middle with the word Phantom Walker. I scan through the pages until I get to a section on Phantom Walkers. It sounds very depressing. I read a line that says A spell to save a phantom walker.
            “Oh my god!” I say. I smile. “Alex, look! This is it! A spell to save you!” I jump off the bed. My heart is beating fast.
            “Are you sure?” asks Alex. “You need to be careful with magic. Maybe you should ask Eve first.”
            “Screw that old hag,” I say. “She wrote this book, didn’t she? And look, a spell to save you is right there.” I hug him. “Come on. Let’s read it.”
 
O ghost who walks the night
Thou art cursed from thy plight
A new body will be given to thee
For thy soul shalt see
The gods desire joy
Be thou a girl or a boy
Or one who is other
Hence, thou shalt be born to a new mother
The world has given thee treachery
So the gods shall wash thy memory
Thou will be faced with new strife
But thou shalt be given a new life!
 
            I read it aloud. I finish and say “A new body. That’s good. What does it mean about getting a new mother though? And washing thy memory?”
            “Oh no,” says Alex. “No.”
            “What?” I ask.
            Alex moans and hugs me. “A new body, a new mother, a new life. Don’t you get it?”
            “Not really,” I say.
            Orbs of light start dancing around Alex. It’s like when we’re outside at night and he’s surrounded by fireflies, except we’re inside and it’s not nighttime yet. Alex starts crying and says “I love you Chuck.” He kisses me. I feel warmth. I kiss him back. Alex disappears, and the firefly lights disappear with him. My arms squeeze into thin air, and I fall to my knees.
            “Alex? Alex? Where’d you go? Alex?” I look around me and can’t see him. “No. No!” I look under the beds, stand up, and run around the cottage looking for Alex. “Alex! Alex!”
            A new mother, faced with new strife, a new life. I get it now. The spell I read brought him back to life, but not as I had wanted it. The spell to save phantom walkers – was a spell to reincarnate them.
            I am shaking. I am breathing uncontrollably. I scream and drop to the floor. I begin to sweat. My own snot is dripping into my mouth. I rip off my neckerchief and blow my nose. I see the cowboy hat Alex had given me at the festival. I put it on my head and crawl into a corner between a bed and a cabinet.
            Time passes by. I just stay in the corner, crying. I lost Alex. I can’t believe it. It can’t be. He was the only one who ever loved me. I never even met another guy who liked guys like I do before. Now, even if I ever meet another one, I don’t think it’ll be the same. It’ll never be the same. Alex was my true love. He loved me, and I will forever love him.
            As I cry, there is loud banging. I don’t care what it is. I lost Alex. Alex is all I care about. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Someone is banging down the cottage door. The banging stops with the sound of a door being ripped open. I don’t know why I ever even bothered locking up. I keep my head down, blinding myself with my cowboy hat, hunched in a tight corner, crying. Floorboards creak. Footsteps fill the room.
            “Well, well, well,” says the voice of Kyle. “What have we here? A faggot cowboy?”
            I look up and see Kyle, Bill, and Eric. I put my head back down. I don’t feel like fighting back. I’m cornered anyway, so I can’t run away. Any second now, they’ll start beating me up and doing God knows what to me. A moment passes, and none of them are coming at me.
            “Get up,” says Kyle. “Come with us.”
            I look up. “What?”
            “I said get up and come with us,” says Kyle. “Don’t make us touch you. We don’t want to catch your AIDS.”
            I stand up, and they usher me out the back door. Outside, they walk me through the woods along the camp. Bill leads the way and Eric watches for scout masters. Kyle keeps his eyes on me with that cold, unforgiving glare of his.
            In the woods, we meet up with Nate, the first year who Kyle picked on the night I was outed. Nate has two large, red, plastic, gas cans. Nate smiles and says “I got the gas, guys.”
            “Nate, you fucking retard,” says Kyle “why’d you only get two?”
            “Well, well, they were really heavy,” says Nate.
            “It’s plastic,” says Eric, “not metal jerrycans.”
            “Ugh, whatever,” grumbles Kyle. “Come on, to the witch’s house.”
            They march me forward. Bill says “I hope the witch isn’t there.”
            “I do,” says Kyle, “two birds with one stone.”
            We come to Eve’s shack. Kyle kicks the door open, and I’m pushed inside. The three eighteen-year-olds and little Nate enter and start pushing away Eve’s furniture. Eve’s huge cats enter and start hissing at them. Kyle, Bill, and Eric kick them all away.
            I’m shoved onto the ground. Nate tries to pour one of the gas cans around me, but he’s struggling from its weight. Eric grabs the gas can and shoves Nate away. “Get out of here, you little bitch,” says Eric, “you’re getting in the way.” Nate runs out of the shack, and Eric dumps the gas around me.
            Kyle stretches out his cheeks in a wide grin. He grabs the other gas can and starts dumping it directly on me. My clothes become drenched in gasoline. The smell fills my nose and mouth. I can even taste the smell of it. Kyle holds the nozzle up to my mouth. “Drink up, faggot. Just pretend it’s a big, cum filled cock to suck.”
            Drops of gasoline are dripped into my mouth. Before Kyle can start guzzling it down my throat, Bill says “Stop! We’re almost out. We need to leave a trail to light him up at a safe distance.”
            Kyle grunts and stops pouring it into my mouth. He hands the gas can to Bill. Bill drips a straight trail of gasoline from me to the door. Kyle bends down and faces me. His cold, heartless stare. He stares into me and I see nothing but pure hatred. I see that it burns him. Burns him more than the burning that will soon happen to me. He shakes his head, and his enraged face turns to pure joy. He smiles, his beautiful, handsome, dimpled face smile. He laughs and says “You’re a faggot. A cock sucking, cum guzzling, queer, butt fucking, AIDS ridden faggot. Now you’re going to die, so you can never butt rape anybody again. You can never molest little boys again. You can never give anyone AIDS again. You’re going to die, faggot, you’re going to fucking die! And when you die, you’ll go to Hell, where you’ll burn forever. Try to enjoy getting burned, Chuck, because when it’s all over, you’ll only get burned again in Hell – forever!”
            Kyle walks out of the shack. He stands in the door and pulls out a wad of matches from his pocket. He lights a match, holds it in front of his face, and his eyes follow the flame like a kitten’s eyes would follow a flashlight. He throws the match.
            The match lands on the floor inside the shack. The trail of gasoline combusts. Fire runs towards me and surrounds me. I am surrounded by fire. I haven’t caught on fire yet, but with my clothes drenched in gasoline, it’s only a matter of time.
            Smoke fills the shack. Eve’s homemade furniture catches on fire. Through the flames, I see Kyle, huffing in the fumes as if it were the freshest air in the world. “Don’t fight it Chuck,” says Kyle. “Jump in and catch on fire already. You’re only going to burn in Hell, anyway. Die already, so your AIDS can die with you, and we can go back to having fun. At least until another faggot comes along, and we have to take care of him, too.”
            No. It can’t be like this. Killing me is one thing, but I can’t let him do this to others. There could be another Alex out there. The reincarnation of Alex, or anyone else. “NO!” I shout. “NO!” I stand up and swish my arms. The flames around me swirl forward. Flames crash into Kyle, and he is consumed in fire.
            Kyle screams and runs away from the shack as his body burns. Eve’s shack is still burning, but whatever I just did left a fire-free path out the door. I run outside. Kyle is screaming and still burning. Nate is long gone, and Bill and Eric look horrified. Kyle flails his arms as he burns and wobbles towards his friends. Bill and Eric run away, deserting him.
            I look around me, seeing I’m alone with an enflamed Kyle. I have never seen someone burn before. Watching Kyle burn is horrifying. If this is what Hell is, I can’t believe in it, because I’m not sure if even Kyle deserves an eternity of this.
            “Oh my god!” I scream. “Somebody help! Somebody please help!” Kyle drops to the ground, and the flames on him die down. I run to his charred body. Behind us, Eve’s shack is burning like it exploded. I can’t look at the burning shack though, because all I can look at his Kyle’s body.
            There are no more clothes on Kyle, and no more skin, either. He is charred and molten. His beautiful handsome face is no longer recognizable. Through the slits left where his nose was, I feel air coming out. He’s still alive.
            I start to cry. I did this. I will never be able to live with myself. I want to run into Eve’s burning shack and die, so I don’t have to live with myself. Living without Alex is already painful enough.
            A hand touches my shoulder. I turn my head and see Eve. She isn’t smiling. I think it’s the first time I ever saw her not smiling. She was always a happy, albeit crazy, old lady to me. “Stand back,” she says.
            I stand back. Eve crouches down next to the burnt, almost dead body of Kyle. She sinks her hands into Kyle’s molten skin and chants:
 
“Great gods who sit upon the clouds
This boy’s pain crowds
Let it drain from him
Put it into me is my whim
For my life has waned
And his wickedness has reigned
Leave him cursed
So that he may never put himself first
Let him feel the pain of others
As it should be between brothers
For he has sowed a long night
His heart shall be given sight.”
 
 
            Kyle explodes in flames again, and Eve catches on fire too. I stumble back and put my arm in front of my eyes to shield them from the light and heat. A bonfire dances over Kyle and Eve and stretches higher than the treetops. It goes out in a flash, and left in its place is a burnt corpse, and the naked, unburnt body of Kyle.
            Kyle stands up. He looks as if he was never even burned. His naked body is as beautiful as I imagined it’d be when I first saw him, but there is something different about him. He stands in his nakedness looking ashamed, embarrassed, and vulnerable.
            He looks down at Eve’s burnt corpse and gasps. He looks at me and says in a whimpered voice: “Chucky?”
            “What?” I ask.
            Kyle covers his groin with his hands. He looks back down at Eve. Tears start to swell up in his eyes. He runs off into the woods.
            I go to Eve. I kneel on the ground and look into her burnt face. “Eve! Eve! Uhh . . .” What was her secret witch name again? Something Sweet, Something Hare? I feel terrible that I can’t remember it in a time like this. “Eve, are you alright?”
            Eve coughs. “Yes,” she says.
            “You need to go to the hospital,” I say. “Is there any magic I can do to save you?”
            “No need,” says Eve. “I have lived a long life. I will join the spirits soon.”
            “Are you sure?
            “Yes. You’ve already seen walking proof there is a world hereafter.”
            I cry. “Oh, but Eve! Alex is gone! I accidentally did this spell that I think made him reincarnated. Is there a way to bring him back?”
            “No,” says Eve. “You have set him free. He will live a new life. That is the will of the way.”
            “When will he be reborn?” I ask. “Where will he be reborn? How will I know it’s him?”
            “It does not matter,” says Eve. “All that matters is you have set him free.”
            “Please tell me!”
            Eve doesn’t say anything.
            “Please!” I say. “Anything!” I try to feel Eve’s pulse. There is none. Eve is dead.
            Her burning shack is instantly extinguished. Her pride of Maine Coons crawl out of the bushes and encircles me. They all stare at me with their whiskered faces. They say nothing. They leave, marching into the forest, either out to live out the rest of their days in the wild, or find a new home.
            I return to the camp. When I get to North Cottage D, I see Nurse Carol standing in front of the busted down doorway. “Chucky,” she says, “are you alright? What happened?”
            I enter the cottage without saying anything to her. She comes inside and questions me, but I don’t say anything.
            Scout Master Earl comes over and asks me what happened. “Kyle ran into camp butt naked and crying. Do you know anything about that?”
            I say nothing. They give up and leave me alone. A caretaker comes and fixes the door, but I don’t bother locking it when it gets fixed. In solitude, I lay on my bed, crying until I run out of tears.
 
Chapter 12
 
I wake up groggy and drained. My sleeping patterns have returned to a daytime schedule – a normal schedule. Nurse Carol comes over to deliver my breakfast.
            “A nice old lady who lived nearby died yesterday,” she says. “It turns out she was a secret benefactor for the camp.”
            I pierce a cold fried egg with my fork. Magic drips from my fingers, through the fork, into the egg. The egg steams and I take a bite. It tastes warm, but it still tastes bland. “What’s a benefactor?” I ask.
            “A rich person who gives lots of money away,” says Nurse Carol. “They’re doing a service in the main lodge. Want to go? I’ll take you.”
            “I can go by myself,” I say.
            “Well then you can be my little date,” says Nurse Carol.
            A date. I want to hate this woman. As if getting babysat by her can compare to Alex and me on a date at the spirit festival, or us canoeing on the lake in the moonlight, or me chasing him through the fields with the fireflies.
            I tell her I’m not hungry. She takes my vitals. I forget to use magic on the thermometer. She’s startled by the normal finding and jumps up in joy. She takes my temperature again to double check. I use magic to make the thermometer scolding hot, and I watch in pleasure as the nurse’s joy in my health is replaced with disappointment.
            She takes me to the lodge. The C-Scouts are all gathered. They point at me, whisper, and stare. Some who sit near me scoot away, scared over the lie that I have AIDS. Bill and Eric see me, and they run out of the lodge, scared over the truth that I could burn them to smithereens with magic if I wanted to.
            The so-called guest lecturer from my first day at Camp C walks to a podium. “I would like us to commemorate Evelyn Rose Williams née Dubois. Evelyn was a nice, generous lady who lived in a house outside of camp . . .” The guest lecturer rattles on. He goes over Eve’s life. She lived to be 90. She grew up in Boston to a socialite family. She married a wealthy man who owned a cosmetic company. They had a son, but he died in WWII. After losing their son, Eve’s husband committed suicide. Once Eve lost her son and became widowed, she sold everything and moved to northern New Hampshire. She made generous donations to the camp, allowing it to offer financial aid and reduced rates. The pastor doesn’t mention anything about witchcraft.
            “I would like read to you all a Bible passage,” says the guest lecturer. “As it says in Psalm one hundred and three, verses fourteen through sixteen: For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
            As the pastor rattles on, I feel as though it were a funeral for Alex, not Eve. The pastor finishes. Nurse Carol takes me back to North Cottage D. Thank God, because I was ready to burn the entire main lodge down to the ground.
            Left alone again, I continue to mourn my loss of Alex. I just feel too conflicted. He’ll have a new life. He might have a happy life, but it won’t be with me. I wonder if he’ll be gay again in his next life. I hope he isn’t. I hope he lives a straight, happy life, and not go through what he went through in his old life.
            Lunch comes. Nurse Carol tells me she just got a call from my parents. “They’re in New Jersey,” she says, “at least when they called, and will be here by late evening.” She hugs me. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, Chuck. I wish I could tell you there’s always next year, but the staff has been talking, and we don’t know if they’ll a next year now that our main benefactor died.” She leaves, and I whip my lunch out the back door for the birds.
            There’s a knock on the front door. I go to it and open it. It’s Kyle. He’s not naked anymore, and he’s not in his uniform either. He’s dressed in casual summer clothes. “What do you want?” I ask.
            “Chucky, I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
            “Sorry for what?” I ask. “Sorry for trying to shoot me with a bow and arrow, sorry for trying to stick a fire poker up my ass, or sorry for trying to burn me alive?”
            “I’m sorry!” cries Kyle. “I, I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t explain it. I just, I just have this terrible feeling. This terrible feeling where I keep thinking about what I tried doing to you.”
            I roll my eyes. “You mean you feel guilt?”
            “Is that what guilt is?” asks Kyle.
            “Is this some sort of joke?” I ask. “Kyle, I fucking hate you. I felt guilty when I burned you, and that was in self-defense, but right now, I want to burn you alive again.”
            “I’m sorry Chuck,” says Kyle. “I really don’t know what’s wrong with me. Please, just tell me how to fix myself.”
            “I don’t think you can be fixed,” I say. I glare at him. He looks like the same Kyle, but he looks like a sad puppy. “I’m probably not even going to be able to come back here because of you. Not that I want to.” I can’t believe this apology of his. Even if it’s genuine, he could have been the one who drove Alex to suicide.
            “Just tell me where to start,” says Kyle.
            I point out the door. “You can start by leaving me alone.”
Kyle walks away like a dog with his tail between his legs. I don’t know if I can believe Kyle or not, and I don’t care.
            By dinner time, my parents still haven’t arrived yet. It starts raining. I go outside. In the downpouring rain, no one is outside. I walk to the lake. I walk to the pier where I first met Alex. Thunder booms. I look up into the cloudy sky and see lightning bolts where me and Alex’s lantern once flew.
            A canoe is tied up to the docks and bobbing up and down on the water. The shore is covered in rocks. I close my eyes and picture myself filling my pockets with rocks, canoeing out into the middle of the lake, and falling in. I open my eyes and see Eve standing before me.
            “Are you a ghost?” I ask.
            “Something more,” says Eve.
            “Why does it have to be like this?”
            “Because there’s something more.” Eve’s spirit disappears, and I’m left alone again.
 
 
Epilogue
 
I wake up from a long night’s rest. I grab my phone on my nightstand. I go to GS and check my win status on the Last Post Wins thread. Bhp91126 stole my win! I reclaim what is rightfully mine and get ready for work.
            I grab my cowboy has as I walk out the door, get in my car, and drive to work. Traffic is a nightmare. I don’t know why I didn’t just use magic to teleport myself instead. I get to the office, taking my hat off as I walk in, and greet my coworkers. I sit down at my desk and grind through one Excel spreadsheet after another.
            Lunch comes, finally. I’m not going to make the same mistake I did this morning and get caught in traffic again. Let’s see, where should I eat. Hmm . . . ooh, I know, I’ll eat waffles in Belgium!
            I grab my hat and go to the bathroom so no one will see me and snap my fingers. I appear in an alleyway in Brussels. In the streets, I see a stand offering sugary, fattening treats. I put my hands on my gut – I better not. My powers have grown vast since I activated them at 15, but I can’t let my waist grow any bigger. I snap my fingers, disappear, and reappear in northern New Hampshire.
            I am standing out in the open near a highway. The area is so rural, I don’t even have to worry about where I poof in and poof out. I take a deep breath of the fresh air. The weather is just right. Trees are all around me. I put my left hand on the paper-thin bark of a birch tree, my right hand on the chunky bark of a pine tree, and run my hands up and down the two trees. I feel the smoothness of the birch, and the stickiness of the pine’s sap.
            I go to a small restaurant and order a salad. I eat on a deck made of logs, finish it, and check the time. I still have plenty of time until I need to get back to work.
            I go to the First Connecticut Lake and walk the beach. My dress shoes are getting muddy, but I can just use magic to clean them before I get back to work. I walk past a camper lighting fire with kerosene.
            Cheater! Of course, I’m no one to talk. I probably used magic that time I lit a fire from scratch on my first day at camp. Then again, it was before I took that vow to the way, I guess I did light it from scratch. I saw Alex before I took the vow, though. I didn’t need magic to see him. True love doesn’t need magic, it’s a far greater power.
            I come to docks that look familiar. There is a man standing at the end of the pier, looking out onto the lake. He’s looks younger than me, maybe in his early or mid-thirties. He’s in a camp uniform. That’s funny, Camp C was closed down after Eve died.
            I go to him. “Hi,” I say, “sorry to disturb you. Is there a camp around here?”
            The man faces me. He looks far different from my Alex. His eyes are darker, but for whatever reason, they remind me of Alex. “It’s alright,” he says. “Yes. Camp Williams. I’m a counselor at it. I’m John.”
            “Hi John, I’m Chuck. Camp Williams? Is that where Camp C used to be?”
            “You mean Camp Connecticut? Yeah. I don’t know much about the old camp, it went out of business the year before I was born.”
            “That’s funny,” I say. “I went to camp just before it closed. That was back in 1984. That’d make you . . . 35?”
            “Yeah,” says John. “I know, I’m old. How old are you?”
            I laugh. “Let’s just I’m, uhh, a little bit older than you.”
            John raises his eyebrow. “A little bit?”
            “Okay, I’m 51.”
            “Oh, well that’s not a big age difference,” says John.
            I feel my heart pounding. He says age difference as if we were potential partners. Maybe he’s gay too. It’d be too awkward to ask him, though. “So,” I say, “a camp counselor, that’s interesting. What drew you to it?”
            “I’m a social worker,” says John. “I only live up here during the summer, and live and work back in Jersey during the rest of the year. Camp Williams has a program that offers free programs for disadvantaged children. When I was in Jersey City, I started referring my younger clients to this camp. When I saw how much good it did, I decided to work here.”
            I smile. “That’s great,” I say. “It’s so great to do something good like that.” It’s so great to do something good like that – why did I say that? I must sound like an idiot to him! Better keep talking. “So why is it called Camp Williams?”
            “I didn’t choose the name,” says John. “There’s a million Camp Williams out there. The kids call it Camp W. A wealthy man named Kyle Thomas came up with it. He went to the old Camp Connecticut, like you did. He had an untimely death this year, but he still left most of his money with the camp, so I’ll be here for a long time. Well, every summer for a long time, anyway.”
            “You know,” I say, “I live back down in Jersey too.”
            John laughs. “It’ll always be home, huh? I like your cowboy hat. Are you here on vacation?”
            “No,” I say, “just up here for lunch.”
            John laughs. “You’re quite the smartass.”
            We talk more.  I find out he’s gay too, and we exchange phone numbers. He has the same bashful demure as Alex – and he likes Super Friends too! He walks back to his job, and I poof back to mine. We exchange text messages all throughout the day, and by bedtime, we’re arranging our first date.
            I lay back in my bed, too giddy to sleep. It will technically be my first date with John, but in my heart, I feel it won’t. Magic can’t tell me, only my heart can tell me – John is the reincarnation of Alex. Even if he isn’t, I know Alex would want me to try things out with John. For Alex has been reborn, and so has my heart.



THE END
[-] The following 4 members Like Chase's post:
  • andy, Bookworm, CellarDweller, LJay
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#4
OMG! Loving this so far!

I checked GS this morning, and I'm supposed to be working, but at least had to read the first post! @Chase, the first post was amazing!

I'll be back to read the rest as soon as I can get here!
[Image: 51806835273_f5b3daba19_t.jpg]  <<< It's mine!
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#5
I've finished the first post too, to the end of chapter 4. I'm having a breather.

I'm really enjoying it so far. The fast-paced narrative is driving the story on nicely. Thumbgrin

I won't say any more right now, just to avoid any spoilers. 


I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes next  Smile
<<<<I'm just consciousness having a human experience>>>>
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  • Chase
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#6
I'm not going to post anything that would be a spoiler, but damn, I loved this story!
[Image: 51806835273_f5b3daba19_t.jpg]  <<< It's mine!
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  • Chase
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#7
Finished it now.

Wow, that was an emotional roller-coaster! I loved it!


Biggthumpup Bow
<<<<I'm just consciousness having a human experience>>>>
[-] The following 1 member Likes Bookworm's post:
  • Chase
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#8
WoW!! That was intense and written so well! One of those stories that you can't stop once you start. And that is just what I did!  Very well done! When does the next one come out? Now? How bout now? Big Grin
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  • Chase
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