She Dims the Stars(37)

“Damn. There’s a fence. Guess we have to turn around and leave now—“ Cline begins to turn just as Elliot lifts his phone again, using it as a flashlight straight ahead. Like some sort of sick joke, there is a massive hole cut right in the middle of the links. Fog is still rolling out of it, and right as I step off of the asphalt onto the grass in front of the opening, the temperature drops a few degrees.

“Nope. Not worth it. This is some voodoo shit right here, Byrdie. Is that really a cemetery we’re supposed to cross?” Cline’s eyes are silver reflections of the moon as I step through into the cemetery.

“We have to cross a bridge, too,” I call over my shoulder.

“Fuck. No.” I can hear him saying it, but he’s right behind me, following and pulling September along with him. She’s whispering something to herself, and after a second, Elliot is directly by my side.

“What is she saying?” I ask him when he gets close enough.

“She’s reciting The Lord’s Prayer,” he answers back before he stumbles a bit and stops cold. “I’m sorry. That was a grave. I stepped on a grave. Fix it.” His eyes are huge.

I push the little cement piece back into place and do a curtsy. “Our apologies.”

“That’s not how this works!” Cline is freaking out behind us, and suddenly I feel his hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward as he pulls September along, and Elliot is running alongside all of us. There’s a sound in the trees to our right, and he quickens his pace before moving his girl next to me and shoving us both in front. With one final nudge, we’re in the trees, and Cline is fumbling for a flashlight on Anderson’s keychain.

“We have got to come prepared next time,” he says through gasps of breath. The light from the tiny flashlight hits the small curved bridge that my mom had written about, and he mutters for us to keep moving, so we do. Within minutes, the trees suddenly grow sparse, and the night sky appears once more, the moon in full view above our heads.

There, right in front of us, surrounded by nothing but tall, thick grass, is the biggest tree I have ever seen in my entire life. At least, what’s left of it. The roots are enormous, exposed and expanding fifteen feet or more in each direction. It’s just as my mom had described it, though older and more worn. The top is gone, but still stands almost ten feet tall. The base looks like you could fit furniture inside of it and hang a television … make it a living room. At least the kind of living rooms we’re used to seeing at college.

We move around the front to the side, and there, as promised, is the carved out opening. The door to The Confession Tree.

“What time is it?” I ask, looking over to see Elliot staring down at one of the larger exposed roots.

He glances at his phone. “It’s just about 10.”

“Perfect. Who wants to go first?” I ask, knowing that no matter who answers, I’ll have the final say. My mind is racing and every nerve is on edge. This is it.

“I’ll go first with Cline,” September offers. Her smile is sly, and my hands begin to sweat, wondering what she has to say, but glad that he’s going to have something sweet to remember about this night if I end up ruining everything.

“Cool. Head in,” I say and point to the entrance. We’ve gone over what the tree is for. The rules have been established. Once they’ve disappeared, I step away so that I can’t hear what’s going on. I need to focus anyway. Plus, what they say is none of my business.

Elliot sounds so far away, but when I turn to find him, he’s barely a foot to my right.

“What did you say?” I ask.

His eyes are gazing upward at the moon, and his jaw is set before he speaks again so I can hear. “Are we going in? The two of us, I mean. Did you decide you had something to confess to me?”

“I said we were going in if you had something to say to me.”

A small smile plays along his lips and he nods. “Then I guess we’re next.”

If time could stand still, it does in those minutes that we are outside the tree, and yet, once the other two emerge and it’s time for me to go inside with Elliot, I’m suddenly feeling like I need more of it. There’s a glow about September, and Cline’s smile is a mile wide, but I’m being weighted down more by the second, even as we move through the door and stand inside the dilapidated tree to face one another, toe to toe.

My heart is beating so fast, but I force myself to look up at Elliot’s face as it tilts down to mine. His shoulders look so broad all of a sudden in this intimate space. I study the curve of his nose, the thickness of his lips, those moles on the side of his face. Then I close my eyes and take in the deepest breath I can gather.

“I didn’t bring you on this trip so I could use your story for my game.” His confession comes rushing out faster than my brain can keep up with it.

Eyes open again, I am staring up at him, calm as can be, his truth spoken in the air between us. I’m a little shaken by his words.

“Yes, you did. Why else would you do it?” I ask.

He shrugs, those shoulders rising upward while he shoves his hands in his pockets. “My dad did a bunch of great things while he was alive. I haven’t done anything. I think, in the moment, I figured that by helping you find out about your mom, it would be me doing a good thing for someone else. But if I told you that, you wouldn’t have accepted it. I wanted to do a selfless thing, I guess.”