Chapter Text
“I’m scared,” Yewon tells her a week after they finished tenth grade. They’re sitting on the roof of her house, watching as the sun slips past the horizon, hands intertwined where they lie on the dirty shingles. It’s June but it’s not so hot. It never really gets that hot where they live. “There’s nowhere else I can go. I don’t know what to do.”
She doesn’t know what to say. She never does in these situations. The first time Yewon had come to her like this, her clothes were ripped, bruises scattered her skin, and she wasn’t crying. All Kyungwon could do was hold her, not trusting her mouth enough to let herself speak.
So she squeezes Yewon’s hand and doesn’t take her eyes off of the sunset. “You will always be safe here,” she says quietly. “I will never let anyone hurt you.”
Yewon refuses to let the tears fall as she musters up the energy to give a sad smile. She pulls her knees up to her chest and sniffles quietly, rubbing her free hand against her dripping nose. “It’s okay, Kyungwon.”
And at this moment, Kyungwon realizes that she will never know. She will never know what Yewon knows. She will never feel what Yewon feels. There will come a time where she will not be able to protect Yewon and she will never forgive herself.
A flock of birds lift out of the tree across the street, circling in the sky before flying off into the park behind them. A gust of wind pushes through Kyungwon’s hair and she can smell the salty marinade from the barbecue down the street.
Their world is so small, Kyungwon realizes, but there are so many things about it that she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand why Yewon’s father does this to her. She doesn’t understand why there are no explanations available for her. She doesn’t understand why time moves so quickly, barely granting a second to stop and look around. The world spins, untethered from rhyme and reason, and Kyungwon can’t control that. Kyungwon can’t control anything.
She brings Yewon’s hand to her lips and kisses the bruise on her wrist, savoring the short moment of serendipity that they managed to share. Maybe, Kyungwon thinks, she can find a way to stay by Yewon’s side forever. She can gaze as far into the future as she’d like, but she cannot imagine herself without Yewon. And maybe, she thinks, she won’t have to.
“No, it’s not.” She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, any other words she had planned on saying falling between them and rolling down to the front lawn.
Yewon reaches bloody fingers up to caress Kyungwon’s cheek lightly. “I know.”
Kyungwon closes her eyes, squeezing Yewon’s hand so hard she thinks that she must be leaving bruises there herself.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Three days later, Kyungwon is not at all ready when Minkyung throws pebbles at her window. It’s late at night and moonlight is beaming in through the blinds. She looks down to see her three friends standing on the sidewalk. Minkyung stands tall, her leather jacket hanging off her shoulders, long pale legs stretching out under her. Yebin’s arms are crossed over her chest, her hair pulled out of her face with a bright red scrunchie and her limp backpack hanging off one shoulder. And Yewon waits behind them, clad in long sleeves and jeans with a grin spread across her face.
Kyungwon slides her window open to squint down at them. “What in God’s name do you idiots think you’re doing?”
“Oh, I’m just here to nail your mom and eat your ice cream,” Yebin calls up dryly. The sarcasm dripping off of her voice could almost be toxic and she snorts when Kyungwon glares at her. “We’re going on an adventure, dumbass, get down here.”
Yewon shushes Yebin, reminding her that there are people trying to sleep, and Kyungwon can’t help but smile at the familiarity of it all. “Guys, you know, I really can’t,” she says regretfully. “My mom took away my bike after she caught me sneaking out last time. She’s going to have a brain aneurysm if she finds out.”
“You got your bike taken away by your mom?” Yebin snarks. “What are you, twelve?”
Kyungwon glares down. “Yeah, your sister said I was a twelve out of ten last night when I fucked her.”
“Oh, wow, real mature, Kyungwon,” Yebin snaps, her eyes narrowing.
“Thanks, I have a naturally high aptitude,” Kyungwon shoots back. “I’m not going on a dumb adventure with you, okay? My mom is going to kill me.”
“I guess we’ll just ask your new neighbor girl to join us then,” Minkyung says, juggling the pebbles in her hands. “I’m sure she’s ready for a midnight adventure.”
Before Minkyung can make another move, Kyungwon is grabbing her shoes and a jacket and climbing out her window. Yebin lets out a quiet but encouraging whoop as Kyungwon lowers herself from the roof to the planters on the side of the house.
“I can’t believe you guys are making me do this,” she mutters.
Yewon grins, leaning back on her bicycle with casual ease. “You’d do anything as long as it gives you a good adrenaline rush,” she points out. “Come on, you can climb on the back of my bike, just hold tight onto my shoulders.”
“Where are we going?” Kyungwon asks, doing as Yewon told her. “I hope it’s not another one of Minkyung’s little adventures. My mom will actually murder me if she has to pick me up from the police station again.”
Minkyung only laughs as she pushes back the kickstand of her bike with her heel. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to get caught this time,” she assures her. “Yebin picked out the place this time. She says no one else even knows about it.”
“Well, gee golly, I sure have faith in what Yebin says,” Kyungwon drawls.
Just as they’re about to head off, Yebin screeches to a halt and the rest of them turn to hush her but she waves them off frantically. Kyungwon follows her gaze to the house directly across the street from hers. There, on the porch, is dark hair tucked under a baseball cap and a brightly colored windbreaker and her stomach drops.
“Hi. You’re Nayoung, right? You just moved in a couple months ago?” Yewon’s soft voice cuts through the silence and falls somewhere in the air between them. There’s no response and she gulps, glancing back at Kyungwon, who just shrugs. “Please don’t tell your parents.”
Nayoung just stares at them, her expression unreadable. “What are you doing?” she asks eventually, her voice strong and clear. “It’s, like, two in the morning.”
“We’re going on an adventure.” Yebin says this as monotonously as she can, insinuating that it’s not a joke in the slightest. When Nayoung’s expression becomes even more incredulous, she raises her eyebrows. “Do you want to come?”
“It is two in the morning,” Nayoung repeats, her tone just as flat.
Minkyung rests her forearms on the handlebars of her bike. “Look, we need to go. You can come with us or you can stay, but don’t keep us waiting.”
Nayoung opens her mouth to say something but Yebin waves her off. “Get on the back of my bike. Let’s go.”
Kyungwon leans down on Yewon’s shoulders. “We’re sixteen. Should we have a car by now?”
“What, and defeat our aesthetic of being teens in a small town, hunting down mysteries and monsters? I don’t think so,” Yewon says, cracking a smile. “And Yebin failed the driving test twice, so she can’t go in to take it again for a month or two.”
“Our friends are useless.” They watch as Nayoung attempts to balance herself on the spikes of Yebin’s back wheel, making very little progress. “We should run off together. We could make it, you know, just the two of us.”
Yewon laughs a little. “I know we could, but I don’t want to. I love them and I know you do too.”
“Everyone always says shit about staying out of the forest, it’s dangerous and haunted and stuff like that,” Yebin is saying, cruising down the wide streets that lead to the edge of town. The other girls are on either side of her and Nayoung is clutching her shoulders like she might die if she lets go. “But, as you all know, I don’t actually care if I live or die, so the other day, I just went in, and you know how there are always little, like, thirteen year old boys hanging around doing dumb shit? There were none that day, which, in retrospect, was weird, but anyways, I found this weird little cottage thing, old and broken down and moldy and shit, and there was a rusty old ‘keep out’ sign on the door, which is a pretty clear indicator that it must have been a little secret hide out hang out place for some of the dipshit boys for some amount of time at one point.”
“Okay, but why would you go into a gross old house that had a ‘keep out’ sign? Are you serious?” Yewon asks incredulously. “You’re basically asking for death.”
“I’m not smart, sunshine,” Yebin says casually. “And I have always wanted to get into adolescent summer hijinks, so that’s why I went into a gross old house that had a ‘keep out’ sign.”
They reach Lightbreak Bridge, the barrier that connects their town to the rest of the world. On one side of the bridge, you’re in Little Grave Lights. Take fifteen steps across, and you’re in God’s hands. Various foot trodden paths lead down to a gushing river and a heavily tree populated forest spreads out for miles. The girls all get off their bikes, Yewon the only one bothering to set hers up on its kickstand, and peer down over the railing.
“I’m not so thrilled about going into the woods,” Nayoung says hesitantly. She tugs her windbreaker tighter around herself. “It’s dark and it’s easy to trip on things and animals are always crawling around all creepy-like. This is a new jacket and I’m wearing pajama pants.”
Yebin takes her backpack off and sets it on the railing to open it up. “Don’t worry, daddy long legs, I packed a heck load of flashlights. I also have a first aid kit, just in case you get hurt, and you can just bang some sticks to keep the creepy crawlers away.”
She tosses a flashlight to each of the girls. Kyungwon taps hers against the railing a couple times before it turns on.
“These are fucked,” she remarks. “They’re going to die on us and then we’re going to get fucked up, and we all know your first aid kit is filled with cheese puffs.”
Yebin snatches the flashlight back. “It’s not filled with cheese puffs. It’s got my inhaler, Neosporin, and some bandaids. The cheese puffs are in a ziploc bag.”
“Don’t you think your backpack is a bit too bulky?” Minkyung asks, watching as Yebin rummages through it. “I’m just going to get you a fanny pack. Or a utility belt.”
“Bitch, one thing you will not catch me doing is wearing a fucking utility belt,” Yebin scoffs. “Out here looking like fucking Batman.”
“Are we going to just stand here arguing for the whole night or are you going to take us to your creepy old house?” Yewon interrupts softly. She has her flashlight on and she’s staring down the hill. “Where even is it?”
Yebin hops over the railing and the rest of the girls follow her. “It’s not so far from here. You know the huge tree right on the edge of the river? It’s a couple meters in from there.”
“On this side, right?” Nayoung rests her hand on a tree so she won’t slip. “I’m not trying to go across the river. These shoes are new too.”
“Yeah, it’s on this side,” Yebin says, smiling slightly. “Quit worrying.”
Yewon reaches out to grab Kyungwon’s hand and their fingers immediately lace together. There’s some sort of security in that, being able to hold someone’s hand, to know that you’re safe with them no matter what. Even with the flashlights, it’s still hard to see where their feet are going to land, birds are hooting up in their branches, followed by the leaves crunching underfoot, but Kyungwon isn’t worried as long as she has Yewon.
They get to a certain point, the huge tree right on the edge of the river is right in their line of view, and Minkyung stops.
“Hey, you alright?” Nayoung asks. She shines her light in Minkyung’s face. “What’s wrong?”
There’s obvious tension that they can all feel but none of them want to address it. Yewon tightens her grip on Kyungwon’s hand. Minkyung just keeps staring ahead, like she’s seeing something that they can’t.
Eventually, she snaps out of it and blinks blankly at Nayoung. “Nothing. I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Yebin gives Kyungwon a look before trekking on. It’s a look that means ‘don’t let her go.’ Maybe if they knew anything about Minkyung, they would have understood why she was hesitant to continue, but they don’t. They don’t know anything about her, her home life, what her life was like before she met them. There’s nothing on the table, just her name, her personality, and her bike. She zones out sometimes and they lose her for a bit and Kyungwon is determined to not let that happen tonight.
Yewon nearly trips a couple times as they make their way down, but Kyungwon is always there to catch her. Yebin is rattling off about something or other and Minkyung and Nayoung occasionally cut in to tell her to shut up.
“I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but this isn’t it,” Kyungwon says when they come to a stop. The cottage is definitely small, maybe a couple rooms. It’s made out of thin wood and there are plants growing all over it. As promised, there is a sign nailed to the door that has the words ‘KEEP OUT’ emblazoned on it in bright red letters.
“This is like an old found footage movie,” Yewon remarks. She looks around the side of the cottage. “Like one of those shows where people go into old haunted houses with night vision cameras and yell at walls.”
“Oh, man, you mean like Kyungwon’s mom last April?” Yebin snorts. "Thought your house was haunted, straight up was about to call a priest to cleanse it. She talked to my mom about how to improve the feng shui of your house for, like, a million years."
“Shut up, she heard footsteps in the attic, the house keys went missing, furniture was rearranging itself during the night,” Kyungwon snaps. “You want to tell me that’s not a ghost?”
“That’s just your brother being an ass,” Yebin says.
“What exactly did you bring us here to do?” Minkyung asks, cutting into the argument before it gets too heated. “Like, are we going to go inside? I don’t really want to go inside.”
“I didn’t join you losers in this dumb adventure to not go inside,” Nayoung states. Kyungwon stammers out a protest but Nayoung ignores her, looking to Yebin instead. “Anything I need to know before I go in?”
Yebin grins. “Yeah, I’m not into biting -”
“Let’s not do that, Yebin,” Yewon says.
Nayoung walks confidently up to the door and kicks it in before stepping inside. The other girls look at each other before following her.
“Holy shit,” Minkyung mutters. “Is that blood?”
Nayoung nudges a pile of clothing with her foot, squinting at it. “When I asked if there was anything I needed to know, that included a trail of bloody clothing leading out the back.”
“I would have told you if sunshine here hadn’t cut me off,” Yebin says.
“You were being gross,” Yewon says in her defense.
Kyungwon crouches down and grabs a stick to poke at the clothing with. “This is so scary.”
“Guys, what the fuck is that?” Minkyung’s voice wobbles and they all follow her beam of light to a huge graphic painted onto the wall.
Nayoung takes a step closer. “It’s a huge fucking ouija board.”
“On the wall? That’s dope as hell,” Yebin says. “That was not there the other day.”
Yewon looks at her with wide eyes. “You mean someone came here and drew that within the past few days? Someone has been coming here?”
“Precisely, my dear girl,” Yebin replies, putting a hand on Yewon’s shoulder. “We have some fishy business happening here.”
Kyungwon gets to her feet and narrows her eyes at the ouija painting. When she moves her light to shine on it with Minkyung’s, the light warps.
“Oh, oh my god, guys.” She grabs Yewon’s arm. “What the fuck?”
Nayoung quickly shuffles back to stand with Minkyung. “Is that a planchette?”
“What’s a planchette?” Yewon asks.
“The little piece that you put your fingers on that moves,” Minkyung answers. “How is it there?”
Wherever Kyungwon moves her flashlight, the planchette shadow follows. “What are we supposed to do with this?”
“We have to fucking - we have to leave!” Yebin exclaims, backing away. “That’s a fucking spirit board on a wall, I don’t want to fuck with that!”
“You’re the one that brought us here in the first place,” Minkyung snaps.
“Yeah, for an adventure, not to unleash a fucking demon!” Yebin insists. She pulls on Minkyung’s arm desperately. “We live in a small town in Maine, that’s already enough to make our lives a fucking Stephen King novel, I am not about to make it worse!”
Nayoung frowns at the board. “Kyungwon, turn off your flashlight.”
“What?”
“Turn it off.” Nayoung grabs the flashlight from Kyungwon’s hand and switches it off. The planchette shadow remains on the wall. “Okay, fuck this, I’m with Yebin.”
Minkyung remains staring at the wall while the rest of the girls turn to leave. “Wait, don’t go.”
“Minkyung, please, I’m scared,” Yewon pleads.
Then, just like that, the door slams closed. Yebin screams and pulls Nayoung towards her. Kyungwon flinches and squeezes Yewon’s hand. Minkyung doesn’t move.
“I don’t think it wants us to leave,” she says.
Yebin lets out an exasperated breath. “It? What the fuck is it, Minkyung?”
“The spirit or whatever. It wants to talk to us, I think it wants to tell us something,” Minkyung continues.
“I don’t want to hear it, though,” Nayoung snaps. “I want to leave.”
“Well, you can’t.” Minkyung looks at them. “I don’t know about you, but I have a feeling that door isn’t going to open anytime soon. What the hell else are we supposed to do?”
“Break it down,” Nayoung says. Yebin cowers behind her, looking between the two with premonition. “It’s summer. We’re teenage girls, we should be having a movie night or stargazing, not fucking with a ouija wall.”
“Stop!” Yewon’s sudden outburst shocks all of them. She glares at Minkyung. “It’s moving.”
Minkyung stumbles back to stand beside Kyungwon. The shadow planchette is slowly making its way across the wall.
“Yebin, give me your backpack,” Minkyung says. “Kyungwon, hold my flashlight.”
Kyungwon keeps the flashlight pointed at the wall while Minkyung pulls out a pen and an old receipt from Yebin’s backpack.
“Why is it doing that?” Yebin asks, close to crying. “Oh my god, what the fuck?”
Minkyung holds the receipt against her hand, looking up to to watch where the planchette goes.
“This is a long ass message,” Nayoung remarks cautiously. “What has it said so far?”
“‘The wild do,’” Minkyung mutters. “Doesn’t make any sense, but it’s not done yet.”
They stand in relative silence while the planchette keeps moving. Yebin holds onto Nayoung’s arm, biting her lip to keep from whimpering. Yewon keeps a brave face but she’s close to crushing Kyungwon’s hand. Nayoung stands steady and tall, the only one that seems more angry than scared.
“‘The wild dogs cry out in the night,’” Minkyung says finally. She takes the flashlight back from Kyungwon and passes Yebin’s backpack back to her. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we should leave,” Yebin whines. “Come on, we haven’t even tried the door yet, maybe it was just the wind.”
“I agree. It made its point, we can leave now, right?” Kyungwon says.
“We have to say goodbye first,” Yewon tells them. “So the spirit goes back to sleep or whatever.”
Minkyung holds her hand out and Kyungwon gives her her flashlight. She moves the planchette to goodbye and then switches it off. “I guess we go now.”
Nayoung is the one to open the door and they all rush to get out. Yebin lets out a deep breath and leans against a tree, pressing a hand to her chest.
“I thought I was going to die,” she says. “Holy shit.”
Minkyung pats her shoulder. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”
Nayoung leads them on their way back, her feet falling heavy on the dirt. “That was the dumbest thing I have ever done in my life. What if we’re haunted now? I moved here two months ago and now I’m going to die.”
“I just want to get out of here,” Yewon says, shivering. “I need a shower. I feel like I have cooties.”
“Cooties - have you been sleeping with Kyungwon’s mom too?” Yebin asks, pretending to be hurt. “God damn it, I thought we had something special.”
“You thought you were going to die, like, two seconds ago, why are you back on the mom jokes?” Kyungwon complains. “Just shut up.”
“The grind never stops,” Yebin says solemnly.
Kyungwon lets out a pained sigh. “I regret meeting you so much.”
“And did you know that this town was once home to an Indian tribe?” Yebin can’t stop rambling. “We could get massacred by freaking Indian ghosts. Have you guys seen Poltergeist ? All the houses in Poltergeist were built on top of an Indian burial site. I’m not trying to get sucked into a fucking television. Also, a fucking spirit board? This isn’t some helpful Charmed spirit board, it’s some Witchboard shit. We’re going to die. We’re going to die! And I haven’t even fucked Kyungwon’s dad yet. Actually, you know what, this is like Stephen King’s It . Stephen King! I already told you guys that we live in Maine! And we just found a haunted fucking cottage. Remember what happened in It , have you guys ever seen It ? Tim Curry murders a fuck ton of kids. He fucking ate them, he ate a bunch of kids! We’re going to get murdered and eaten by Tim fucking Curry!”
“Yebin, shut the fuck up!” Minkyung snaps. “We’re not going to get murdered by whoever this Tim Curry is and your references make no sense because I don’t know what any of that shit is. Just shut up.”
Kyungwon tightens her grip on Yewon’s shoulders when the bike wobbles a bit. “Also, stop trying to have sex with my parents.”
“Tell them to stop being so hot,” Yebin shoots back.
“I will knock you out,” Nayoung says flatly. “I’m going to knock you out and you’re going to fall off your bike, and you know what I’m going to do next? I’m going to steal it.”
“Watch your fucking mouth, I could throw you off just by braking too fast,” Yebin scoffs.
“Why do you guys cuss so much?” Yewon asks. “Don’t you ever get tired of being disrespectful to your parents?”
“I literally never get tired of disrespecting my parents,” Yebin says. “My mom might slap me, but the pain just turns me on even more.”
“Okay, it’s worse when you talk about having sex with your own parents,” Minkyung groans. “Just keep fucking Kyungwon’s mom.”
Kyungwon frowns. “No. Stop. Don’t do that.”
“That’s not what your mom was saying last -”
“Shut up, Yebin!”
Yebin snickers and barely avoids a smack from Nayoung.
“Hey, is anyone up for going to the library tomorrow?” Minkyung pipes up casually.
“It’s summer, why would anyone go to the library?” Yebin says. “Hell fucking no.”
“Why do you want to go to the library anyways?” Yewon asks. “You got summer homework or something?”
Minkyng shakes her head. “I never have homework. I want to use the computers to look up the message from the ouija wall.”
“No, dude, we are not going to continue with that shit,” Kyungwon says. She doesn’t understand why Minkyung is so hellbent on doing this. They’re all scared shitless. None of them want to keep going. What does Minkyung know that they don’t? “I am not welcoming evil spirits into my life.”
“Who says it’s evil?” Minkyung counters. “Maybe it’s just trying to ask for help. If I was an unrest spirit, I would want to be helped. We can’t just leave it.”
“You think that maybe there weren’t any thirteen year old boys around that day Yebin found it because the spirit had killed them all and kept their bloody clothing in its cottage?” Nayoung points out. It’s obvious that Nayoung is the main offender. She doesn’t want to continue and she has a solid point. She’s done. “I find it hard to believe that it’s just some benign spirit.”
Yebin whines and almost falls off of her bike. “Oh my god.”
“I don’t see any ‘missing kid’ posters,” Minkyung says. “No bodies have been found. Maybe the clothes have nothing to do with the spirit.”
“Then why the hell were they in the cottage?” Kyungwon chimes in, leaning forward over Yewon. “Who drew the ouija wall? How can you not believe this thing is evil?”
“You don’t have to come with me,” Minkyung tells them flatly. She’s apathetic. She’ll do it whether or not they go along. “But I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
Kyungwon sighs and rests her head on Yewon’s. “What do we do?” she whispers.
“I don’t want her to do this alone,” Yewon whispers back. “We have to do it with her.”
“This is dangerous,” Kyungwon argues. “I can’t let you - I won’t put you in danger like this.”
“I don’t need you to protect me.” Yewon’s voice is trying to be angry but she can’t muster up the strength.
Kyungwon sighs. “I know.”
“I’ll go to the library with you,” Yebin says, cutting through the tense silence. She huffs our a nervous laugh. “You didn’t really think I’d let you do some dumb shit without me?”
Minkyung’s soft smile speaks more than any words could ever. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Yewon pulls up in front of Kyungwon’s house. Yebin and Nayoung are bickering across the street and Minkyung already left them to go home.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kyungwon says, holding her hand over Yewon’s on the handlebar.
Yewon nods, looking at the ground. “Yeah.”
Yebin says something loudly and Nayoung yells at her.
“What?” Kyungwon says. She ducks to look Yewon in the eye. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared,” Yewon admits. “I don’t want to go home.”
Kyungwon looks over her shoulder at her house and then turns back to Yewon. “You don’t have to. You can stay here for the night.”
“If my dad finds out I wasn’t at home, he’ll kill me,” Yewon says regretfully. “I have to go.”
Yebin calls out a goodbye and Nayoung slams her door closed.
Kyungwon rugs on Yewon’s hand. “Come on. I won’t let that happen. Just stay. For me.”
Yewon sighs and pushes down the kickstand on her bike. “Okay.”
“Oh, what the fuck, you’re having a sleepover without me?” Yebin yells from across the street. “You’re really about to make me go home by myself? Right after we unleashed a demon? This is always how they die in movies, when they’re alone.”
“Shut up, Yebin,” Yewon calls back. “Go home.”
Kyungwon laughs. “The sun is coming up anyways. Be careful. We’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, yeah. Kyungwon, tell your mom she can call me anytime she wants -”
“Go home, Yebin!”
Yebin rides back down the street and Kyungwon helps Yewon climb up the side of the house to her window. When they get inside, Kyungwon puts the screen back in and closes the window. Yewon is already sitting on the bed, hugging a teddy bear to her chest. Kyungwon sits down next to her.
“Do you think Nayoung is right?” Yewon asks. “Do you think we’re in danger?”
Kyungwon shrugs. “Maybe. I want to believe Minkyung, but Nayoung’s got a strong argument.”
Yewon rests her head on Kyungwon’s shoulder. “I don’t want to get hurt. If there’s a demon, we could face a fate worse than death. I don’t want my life to become a Stephen King novel.”
“Don’t let Yebin get to you,” Kyungwon says. She wraps an arm around Yewon’s shoulders. “She’s dumb, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to you, or anyone else, for that matter.”
“Okay.”
Yewon grabs Kyungwon’s hand, intertwining their fingers. The moonlight is shining through the window, casting a shadow of a grid onto the floor. The only sounds are the chirping of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl.
They remain like that for a while, connected in body and soul. Kyungwon doesn’t want to talk about the ouija wall, doesn’t even want to think about it, but if it’ll help Yewon, she’ll do it. She would do anything for Yewon. Yewon falls asleep eventually, her head pressed awkwardly against Kyungwon’s upper arm. Kyungwon maneuvers her so that they’re lying down.
The first time Yewon slept over, they were both six years old and Kyungwon’s mom made her sleep on a mat on the floor so Yewon could sleep on the bed. When they were twelve, they just slept in the living room on the couches so no one would have to sleep on the floor. Now that they’re sixteen, they just share the bed.
Yewon starts to snore softly and Kyungwon stares at the ceiling. Maybe, she thinks, the spirit isn’t bad. Maybe Minkyung is right. Maybe the spirit came to them for help and maybe it could help them too.
Maybe it could help Yewon.
When Kyungwon was younger, her parents forced her to go to church. There’s a special Korean service because of the oddly large Korean population in Little Grave Lights. Their church is old school Catholic. The priest doesn’t try to relate to the kids, he just says what he needs to say. In the later half of every service, they’re given time to kneel in the pews and pray. Kyungwon used to pray for her health, good fortune, and a happy life. She always reserved a bit of time at the end to pray for Yewon. She wanted them to stay together forever even when she was only six.
Kyungwon hasn’t gone to church in a while. They only go on Christmas and Easter. But, even though there is no longer a designated time to pray, Kyungwon makes sure that she does everyday. And she makes sure that Yewon is always a part of her prayers.
There was never a time when they were not together and Kyungwon prays that there will never come a time when they will. It’s been them for longer than the world’s been spinning, them and Yebin, them and Yebin and Minkyung, now them and Yebin and Minkyung and Nayoung.
This spirit thing, demon, whatever it is, if it tries to break them apart, Kyungwon isn’t sure what she’ll do. She can’t live without Yewon and she can’t live without Yebin or Minkyung but she knows that they can live without her. She could disappear and the world would go on without her.
“Are you serious?” Kyungwon flicks through catalogue cards aimlessly. The library has fans set up in every corner, but body heat and the concentrated light makes it just as hot as it is outside. “You couldn’t make any connections at all?”
Minkyung plops on the carpeted ground. “It’s an obscure fucking phrase, Kyungwon.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Yebin asks. She bites at a lollipop idly, leaning her shoulder against the cabinet. “Go door to door and ask people if they know what it means? ‘Hey, Mr. Hapstein, the wild dogs cry out in the night. Does that ring a bell for you?’”
Yewon rounds the corner with a book in her hands. “Anything just about wild dogs? Maybe dogs with rabies.”
“Yeah, sure.” Yebin puts the lollipop in her mouth and grabs the book from Yewon. “What is this shit?”
“I was bored and it looked interesting,” Yewon says, snatching it back.
“Why are you even trying to read?” Yebin asks.
Yewon rolls her eyes. “Just because you don’t know how to read doesn't mean -”
“Guys. What if it’s a line from a poem?” Kyungwon suggests. She tiredly puts the catalogue cards back to where they belong and steps back from the cabinet. “Ask the librarian. Maybe it’s some old people shit that the internet doesn’t know yet.”
“That’s some fucked up old people shit,” Yebin snickers. “What are the wild dogs? Kyungwon’s mom?”
Kyungwon smacks Yebin and Minkyung sighs, pushing herself to stand up. “Can you guys be quiet? We’re in a library.”
“Hey, remember that one old French musical?” Yewon says. “ Les Miserables ?”
“The fuck is that?” Yebin mumbles out around her lollipop.
Kyungwon gives her a look. “An old French musical, you dingus. Do you ever listen?”
“Absolutely not,” Yebin states. She turns back to Yewon. “You may go on, sunshine.”
“The girl who dies sings a song that says something like the tigers come out at night,” Yewon continues. “Our line says that the dogs cry out in the night. What if that’s what it means?”
Minkyung narrows her eyes at that. “And what exactly does that mean?”
“Oh, heck if I know.” Yewon opens her book. “I’m not the smart one here, that’s for you to go after.”
Yebin snorts. “Thanks for that.”
Kyungwon snaps her fingers and points at Minkyung. “What if it’s from a song?”
“Maybe,” Minkyung says, shrugging. “It would take forever to find out, though. We can’t just sit around listening to the radio and waiting for matching lyrics to come up.”
“Oh! I got it!” Yebin raises her hand excitedly. “Let’s go to the CD store. They always have lyrics in those little pamphlet things in the cover.”
Kyungwon glares at her. “You are not taking me to the CD store, Yebin.”
“Whatever. Minkyung and I can go in,” Yebin says idly. “You and Sunshine can go get some ice cream or something.”
Yebin grabs Minkyung’s arm and drags her towards the door. Kyungwon groans and lets Yewon pull her along after them.
Summer in Maine, Yebin informs them, is nothing compared to the summers she used to experience when she lived in California before this.
“It’s barely eighty degrees,” she says, casually pulling her hair up into a ponytail. “You guys are fucking weak.”
“Yeah, you’re probably used to the heat because you’re from Hell yourself,” Kyungwon snaps. She drags her flip flops along the concrete sidewalk slowly. “Little miss ‘I complain when temperatures drop below sixty.’”
Minkyung laughs and Yebin hits her.
In Little Grave Lights, all of the amenities anyone needs can be found in one part of town, so the trek from the library to the CD store isn’t too long. Anyone they pass by gives them a polite greeting and they respond in a likewise manner.
“The rest of the teens are up at the drop off,” Mr. Keats informs them as he sticks a doorstop under his door to advertise that his store is open. “Where are you all off to?”
“Going to the CD store.” Yewon stops to talk to him and Kyungwon waits for her. “There’s a new Destiny’s Child album that I’ve been dying to listen to.”
Mr. Keats chuckles in a fatherly manner, like an old man who doesn’t understand his kids but doesn’t mind the progress. “Be sure to tell your father that his prescriptions are ready.”
“Of course. See you later, Mr. Keats.” Yewon takes Kyungwon’s hand and they continue after Yebin and Minkyung, who are already opening the door to the CD store.
The CD store slowly became a staple part of town when compact discs had their booming revolution. It’s a popular hang out spot for teenagers and, while business is sometimes slow, it’s steady. A bell rings when they walk in and the employee at the desk gives them a half nod.
“I guess we should just go alphabetically,” Minkyung suggests, looking at the rows and rows of CD’s. “It’s the most efficient way to check.”
Yebin bites on her lollipop, cracking it in half. “Oh, God fucking loves me. Look who scored a summer job here.”
Kyungwon follows her gaze to see the tall, tan back of none other than Nayoung herself. There are bulky headphones covering her ears while she files CD’s in the movie soundtrack section. Yewon winces when she sees Yebin’s grin.
“She doesn’t want to get involved, just leave her alone,” Minkyung hisses. She tries to grab at Yebin, but she slips away and makes her way over to Nayoung.
“What are you listening to?” Yebin pulls the headphones off of Nayoung and puts them on herself. “Oh my god. The Spice Girls? I didn’t think you had good taste in music, what the fuck?”
Nayoung frowns and takes her headphones back. “Can you leave me alone? I met you literally hours ago, stop acting like we’re friends.”
“We found a fucking evil spirit demon together. We have progressed well past friends,” Yebin replies. “Have you noticed any lyrics that have to do with the ouija message.”
The rest of the girls have joined them by now and Nayoung sighs, setting her headphones down on the table. The girls watch her in anticipation as she rubs her face tiredly.
“Not that I was specifically searching for anything,” she starts and Yebin makes a small victory fist pump. “It’s a dumb song and I can’t figure out how it’s related to the demon but yes. I recognized the phrase in the lyrics.”
“Hook us up, beanpole, show us what you got,” Yebin says, slapping Nayoung on the back.
Nayoung looks at her for a bit. “Yeah.”
She leaves her cart and walks over to a radio, grabbing a CD that was set aside from the racks. Minkyung nudges Yebin as they follow her, giving her a look that says ‘shut the fuck up.’ Yewon lingers to look at some soundtracks but remains close behind. Nayoung puts the CD into the radio and closes it before pressing play and skipping a few songs. The intro of the song starts playing and Kyungwon can’t help but snort.
Nayoung glares at her. “I’m helping you. Don’t laugh.”
Minkyung squeezes her eyes shut and starts mumbling softly to herself, like she’s trying to remember something that’s on the tip of her tongue.
“You have got to be kidding,” Kyungwon argues, crossing her arms. “ Africa by Toto? Why the hell would a demon give us a line from that song?”
“Oh, I’m digging this,” Yebin says, nodding her head to the beat. “This evil spirit knows how to fucking party. Pull up at the club with this song and you’re golden.”
Yewon comes up beside Kyungwon, who shifts to let her in. “This is actually a pretty emotional song when you really listen to it. The harmonies are really powerful.”
Minkyung opens her eyes and she stares at the radio like it just told her to jump off a cliff. “I’m so stupid,” she says quietly. “My brother loves this song.”
Yebin and Kyungwon look at each other in bewilderment. They both know that something important just happened. They’re not sure what it is but they know it’s important. Minkyung never tells them anything. After knowing her for five years, they never knew that she had a brother. But she hears this song, this ridiculously wonderful song, and she tells them that her brother loves it. Something important just happened and Kyungwon is going to figure out what it was.
When the song finishes, Nayoung takes the CD out of the radio and puts it back in its case. “Got any theories?”
“Evil spirit can fuck with me,” Yebin says. “Let me buy this CD.”
Nayoung sighs and hands it over to her.
“I can’t figure out why the evil spirit would use that as their message,” Kyungwon says. “I mean, the whole dramatic bloody clothes and ouija wall, and the message is a lyric from a Toto song?”
Yewon takes the CD from Yebin and pulls out the lyric book. “Think about the lyrics. It’s about fighting tooth and nail to stay with someone you love. Maybe the spirit is hanging onto someone who’s still alive. They’re not ready to leave.”
“Oh, look at you. ‘I’m not the smart one’ my ass,” Yebin says, nudging her with her elbow.
Kyungwon leans back on the rack. “So, what now? We’re supposed to find out who they’re staying for? We don’t have a lot of clues here.”
“We have to go back,” Minkyung says suddenly, breaking her bout of silence. “We need to find out more.”
Yebin huffed out a laugh and pointed at Minkyung. “No, no, no. We do fucking not.”
“Tell me that you’re not curious,” Minkyung says, turning to Yebin. “This spirit might never be saved and we have the chance to help it.”
“Why are you so motivated to do this?” Nayoung asks. Minkyung blinks at her. “We’re all scared out of our minds. None of us want to die and, considering what happened last night, that’s a very real possibility. We don’t even know if it’s a good spirit. It could be pulling us into a trap.”
Kyungwon looks between the two. They’re polar opposites. Nayoung feels no need to continue this investigation - she’s actively protesting it. She has her reasons, and good reasons at that. Minkyung keeps insisting that they have to help this spirit, but she won’t tell them why. Maybe she has a good reason, maybe she just wants to do it.
“I agree with Minkyung,” Yewon chimes in, surprising all of them. Yebin frowns and moves to respond but Yewon stops her. “This spirit needs our help. We don’t know why and we don’t know how to help it, but we can’t ignore it. I can’t just keep living life like nothing is wrong when we know that there’s a soul out there that needs help. I want to go back. I have to go back.”
Kyungwon sighs. “Me too.”
“Okay, spineless, but you always blindly agree with Yewon,” Yebin points out sharply. “You would follow her if she jumped off a boat with weights tied to her feet.”
“That’s not true,” Yewon says, frowning.
“No, she’s right,” Kyungwon says.
Minkyung shifts her weight impatiently. “Nayoung. Are you coming with us or not?”
There’s a brief moment of silence as she glares at them and then she sighs. “I fucking hate you guys. My shift is almost over.”
Yebin whoops loudly, throwing an arm over Nayoung’s shoulders. “The gang’s all back together!”
“We were literally together this morning, we were never apart,” Minkyung tells her.
“Okay, but who voted you the mayor of No Fun Town? Shut the fuck up.”
The Grave Digger is a classic fifties diner that’s located right in the middle of town. There’s a blinking neon sign above it and it’s filled with Little Grave Lights memorabilia.
The girls are sitting in a booth near the back, a section unofficially designated as a teen hangout spot.
“We have to wait until it’s night before we go back,” Nayoung says. “It has to be dark for us to use the ouija wall, if it’s even still there.”
“What do you mean ‘if it’s even still there’?” Kyungwon asks, frowning. “Where the fuck would it go?”
“There’s a spirit there, anything could have happened,” Nayoung snaps.
Yebin pouts and grabs a french fry from the basket in the middle of the table. “I don’t want to wait, I’m hyped right now. I’ll be too tired by the time it gets dark and I’ll pussy out.”
“Well, we can’t exactly make the sun move faster, Yebin,” Minkyung drawls.
“It’s actually the Earth that’s moving, not the sun,” Kyungwon points out.
“No one fucking asked, though,” Yebin says.
“Guys, stop,” Yewon interrupts. “There’s nothing we can do but wait, Yebin.”
Yebin furrows her brow in thought before snapping her fingers and pointing at Kyungwon. “We could hold a seance.”
Kyungwon stares at her blankly. “No.”
“Come on, your mom has, like, a bunch of candles, right?” Yebin insists. “We could totally do it right now.”
“I’m not going to hold a seance with peach fucking bellini candles,” Kyungwon says. “And definitely not in my house. We already have Gertrude messing with my mom.”
“Gertrude?” Nayoung asks.
“The ghost from last April,” Kyungwon tells her. “She’s not hurting us but she never left.”
Minkyung groans and runs a hand over her face. “A seance wouldn’t work unless the spirit is in the area and I think it’s been established that the spirit is in a dinky old cottage.”
“So let’s do the seance in the cottage,” Yebin suggests. “I don’t see why this wouldn’t work.”
Nayoung sips her milkshake and shrugs. “I am not participating in a seance. If you’re going to be sitting around some candles and chanting or some shit, I do not want to be involved.”
“But Nayoung,” Yebin whines. “You’re our navigator. You found the lyrics and you yell at Minkyung. We need you.”
“I do not need to be yelled at,” Minkyung says, glaring at Yebin.
Yewon frowns a little. “Yes, you do. You’re kind of crazy.”
Yebin snorts into her drink and Minkyung smacks her.
“Well, hey, Minkyung,” Kyungwon says suddenly, leaning forward. “Your brother loves this song. Why don’t we ask him? Maybe there’s some kind of weird cult, hippie meaning behind it all that could help us out.”
All eyes are on Minkyung and she shakes her head, sinking down into her seat. “He can’t help us.”
Kyungwon looks at Yebin, who raises her eyebrows and shrugs. They’re close but not quite there yet.
“We can just hang out until it gets dark,” Yewon says, putting a hand on Yebin’s shoulder. “That way you won’t take a nap or get too tired while we wait.”
“Yeah, also, can we befriend someone that has a car?” Kyungwon asks. “I’m so tired of biking around town. We’re fucking sixteen. It’s sad.”
Minkyung looks at her tiredly. “We can’t pull another person into this mess.”
“Really? You don’t seem to feel bad at all about pulling me into this mess,” Nayoung points out. She pokes at Yebin. “This one didn’t even give me a choice.”
“Fuck off, gigantor, you’re the one who insisted on going in the house,” Yebin shoots back.
“And then I wanted to leave! We should have left!” Nayoung says.
“And we can’t go back and change any of that,” Yewon cuts them off, glaring at them. “Arguing will just make it worse.”
“Do not start talking shit about how ‘it’s trying to tear us apart’ before anything has actually happened,” Kyungwon says. “Let’s just help this fucking spirit so we can get on with our summer.”
“Ooh, I’m taking this drink from you because I swear it must be spiked if you’re yelling at Yewon,” Yebin hissed, snatching the plastic cup from Kyungwon. “You fool.”
Kyungwon sighs heavily. “Shut up, Yebin.”
“Anyways, it’s fine,” Yewon says, though the resign in her voice is obvious. “We’re all tightly wound because Yebin led us to our inevitable death by unleashing a demon. It’s understandable.”
“Oh! I defend your honor and then you turn it around against me!” Yebin says. “I see how it is.”
“Shut up, Yebin,” Minkyung groans.
Yebin lets out a noise of aggravation and crosses her arms. “Okay, what is this? National Bully Yebin Day?”
“That’s everyday,” Kyungwon informs her.
“I swear to god, Kyungwon, I will fight you right now, you fucking -”
“Yebin Kang," a new voice says, breaking up the argument. "Didn’t you see the ‘no lesbos allowed’ sign on the door?”
Yebin’s countenance immediately changes and she looks down at her fries. “No.”
Eunwoo sneers and rests her hand on her hip. “Why aren’t you all out at the drop off with everyone else? Weren’t you invited?”
“You know damn well we weren’t invited,” Minkyung snaps, her eyes narrowing. “Why aren’t you there? Were you not invited either?”
“As a matter of fact, I turned down the invitation so my dad could take me to buy a new car,” Eunwoo tells them. Se glances out the window to the mostly empty parking lot. “Looks like you guys still don’t have one.”
“Not all of us are dripping with money, Eunwoo,” Nayoung says calmly. “We’re just having lunch, it shouldn’t bother you.”
Eunwoo looks at Nayoung. “Quite a little gang you got yourself here. The lesbian hypochondriac, the homeschooled freak, the two-dollar whore, and Kyungwon. If you’re that desperate for friends, you can just come to the drop off like the rest of the normal kids.”
“The fuck you mean - you don’t have a clever little nickname for me?” Kyungwon asks. “I’m just Kyungwon?”
“I have so much shit to say about you, I really don’t think you want anything more than just your name,” Eunwoo says. Kyungwon nods and looks at Yewon, slightly impressed. Eunwoo turns her attention back to Nayoung. “You’re really pretty and smart. It’s a shame to see you murder your reputation. Come back with me.”
“Thanks but I’d rather not,” Nayoung says. She gestures for Eunwoo to leave with her drink. “Bye.”
Eunwoo blinks and Kyungwon fails at stifling her laughter. Yewon hisses for her to shut up but it makes her laugh even harder.
“Suit yourself,” Eunwoo says, sending a glare to Kyungwon. “If you ever change your mind, you’re always welcome to come by.”
She leaves and Yebin lets out a sigh of relief. Minkyung puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“What was up with that?” Nayoung asks, looking at Yewon. “Why did she call you a two-dollar whore?”
Yewon shrugs nonchalantly. “Someone started a rumor that I sleep with teachers to get good grades and then they started saying that I also sleep with some of the guys at school.”
“Do you?”
“Of course she fucking doesn’t,” Yebin says sharply.
Nayoung nods. “Okay.”
“God, I fucking hate Eunwoo,” Yebin continues, munching angrily on her fries. “She thinks she’s cool. It’s like she’s never been to a school assembly. Bullying isn’t cool.”
“You’re right,” Kyungwon says flatly. “We should start an anti bullying campaign at our school.”
Yebin pushes her. “Don’t make fun of me. That’s bullying.”
Kyungwon snorts. “Okay, Yebin.”
“Day two. Once more into the breach,” Yebin says, her voice dramatically deep. The anxiety that Eunwoo brought upon her earlier is gone. “Let’s fucking get it.”
Nayoung slides a bit and grabs a tree to stabilize herself. “You need to, like, stop talking. Forever. Effective immediately.”
“Okay, I’m recognizing this annoying, recurring motif where you guys keep telling me to shut up,” Yebin says. “You’re going to need to stop that, it’s going to get old.”
“Oh my god, whatever,” Kyungwon says.
“If you guys keep on arguing, I’m going to initiate a quiet rule,” Yewon tells them. “Your bad vibes are making it worse.”
Minkyung nods in agreement. “What Yewon says is the law. You better listen to her.”
“Fine, but only because I love my little sunshine,” Kyungwon gushes, wrapping an arm around Yewon.
Yewon laughs and pushes her off. “Stop calling me that.”
“But it’s true,” Kyungwon insists. “You’re the light of my life. The one good and pure thing left in this terrible, stinking world.”
Yebin sputters. “Excuse me? Am I not good and pure enough for you?”
“Are you joking?” Minkyung snickers. “You talk about fucking Kyungwon’s mom daily and you want to ask why you’re not good and pure?”
“I hate you,” Yebin says.
Minkyung grins and pinches Yebin’s cheek. “And I love that about you.”
Yebin snorts. “Shut up, I’m gay.”
A branch behind them snaps and they all instinctively move towards each other, Kyungwon’s hand finding Yewon’s in the dark.
“What the fuck was that?” Minkyung whispers, her hand gripping Nayoung’s jacket.
Nayoung points her flashlight in the direction of the sound and they see nothing. “Probably just an animal,” she says, but it doesn’t sound reassuring at all. “Just creeping around.”
“I’m going to fucking cry,” Yebin says. “Why do animals have to play me like this?”
“They’re animals, Yebin,” Yewon says softly. “They’re not trying to hurt you.”
There’s more rustling behind the trees and another branch cracks. Yebin nearly jumps into Kyungwon’s arms.
“Okay, maybe we should just go back,” Nayoung suggests. Her voice is wobbly. “We can come back later.”
They stand in silence, Nayoung’s flashlight flickering into the woods.
Suddenly, a body comes falling down from the trees and bounces back up, its neck bound to the tree by a rope. The body hangs limp and a cloth sack is covering its head. Kyungwon’s mantra of “ What the fuck?” over and over again is overpowered by Yebin’s shrill shrieks.
Just as Nayoung pushes the rest of the girls behind her and tells them to run, the body falls to the ground. She yells out and stumbles backwards.
Yewon trips, crashing down onto the leaves, and Minkyung pulls her to her feet.
The body slowly stands up and starts staggering towards them.
Nayoung is screaming at them to run.
Kyungwon is still shrieking.
Yebin starts hyperventilating.
The girls scramble down the hill, kicking up dirt and leaves as they run away. Minkyung is practically carrying Yebin, who has become hysterical. Kyungwon turns back for a brief moment and sees the body chasing after them, pushing off of trees and sliding in the leaves.
“What the fuck is that?” Minkyung yells at her.
“I don’t know!” Kyungwon yells back.
Nayoung runs off to the side, comes back with a branch in her hands, and hits the body in the stomach. It falls back and lands on its back.
Yebin’s hand is gripping Minkyung’s shoulder so tight her knuckles are turning white and she’s wheezing, her breath coming out in ragged huffs.
“Her inhaler, get her inhaler!” Yewon says, moving to grab Yebin’s backpack. She pulls the inhaler out of the front pocket, puts it to Yebin’s lips, and presses the trigger, holding a hand on the back of her head to keep her steady.
Minkyung and Yewon worry over Yebin while Kyungwon and Nayoung look down at the body.
“Is it undead?” Kyungwon asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” Nayoung replies. “What should we do?”
Kyungwon shrugs. “I don’t know.”
It tries to get up and Nayoung whacks it again for good measure.
“Hey!”
A light shines on them and Kyungwon holds her hand up to squint at where it’s coming from.
And it’s Eunwoo, accompanied by a cackling Vernon. Nayoung drops the branch and watches as the body takes the bag off its head to reveal Seungcheol, his face contorted in pain.
“You couldn’t have picked a smaller stick?” he groans, rolling to his feet.
Nayoung walks up to him and punches him square in the face. “What the fuck was that?”
“It was just a joke,” Vernon scoffs, still grinning. “You should have seen your faces, that was gold.”
“It wasn’t funny!” Minkyung snaps. If looks could kill, Eunwoo would be dead by now. “Yebin had a fucking asthma attack! She could have died!”
Eunwoo rolls her eyes. “But she didn’t.”
“You guys need to calm down,” Seungcheol says. He climbs up the hill to stand with Eunwoo. “It was literally a joke.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Kyungwon says. “You guys are fucking crazy, this wasn’t cool. You know the forest is haunted.”
“That’s just a myth, stupid,” Eunwoo says. “People tell that to their kids so they don’t come out here. Evil forests don’t exist.”
“Why did you even follow us here in the first place?” Yewon asks. Her voice is wobbling but she’s seething.
Vernon gets a kick out of that. “Aw, baby, are you scared? You want daddy to come comfort you?”
“You want my foot up your ass?” Nayoung looks about ready to fight all three of them. Seungcheol snickers and punches Vernon in the arm. “If you don’t get out of here now, I swear, you never will.”
She glares at them as they walk away. She’s tall and powerful, and in the darkness of the forest with the wind in her hair, she’s almost terrifying.
“Are you okay?” Minkyung asks Yebin.
Yebin swallows and presses a hand to her chest. “Yeah.”
“Guys.” Yewon’s soft voice draws all of their attention. “When did we get to the cottage?”
She’s pointing her flashlight at the cottage, in its rusty, mossy glory. The ‘KEEP OUT’ sign is still at its prime.
Minkyung hesitates before running inside. Kyungwon and Yebin share another look and rush in after her. Nayoung is the last to join them inside, ushering Yewon in front of her.
“I know it’s you!” Minkyung says loudly, turning around. Her flashlight is shining all around the room and her movements are frantic. “I’m here! Tell me what to do!”
“What the fuck is she doing?” Nayoung whispers to Kyungwon.
Kyungwon makes a noise of general confusion. “Hell if I know.”
“Please, I’m here now.” Minkyung falls to her knees in front of the ouija wall. “I’m here.”
“Who are you talking to?” Yebin finally asks. “What is going on, Minkyung?”
Minkyung touches the wall. “It’s my brother.”
Kyungwon loses her shit. “Your fucking what? ” she yells, pulling Minkyung away from the wall. “Your brother is the evil spirit messing with us? He’s the one that sent us a lyric from Africa by fucking Toto? You knew this the whole time and you just decided that you didn’t want to tell any of us? We’re all scared shitless! We thought we were going to die, Yebin thought we were going to get eaten by Tim Curry! This is all because of your fucking brother?”
Minkyung whirls on her and she stumbles back a couple steps. “What do you know about anything? You have no idea what my life was like! Five years and none of you know!”
“Well, now would be a great time to enlighten us,” Yewon says. She steps forward and puts her hand on Minkyung’s shoulder. “We can’t help you unless you let us.”
Minkyung breaks down.
“Why did you have to yell at her?” Yebin asks quietly. “She’s fucking crying.”
“I was upset,” Kyungwon replies. “And confused and angry.”
“You guys are terrible friends,” Nayoung says. She pushes through them and kneels next to Minkyung, putting her arm around her. “It’s okay. We won’t hurt you. It’s going to be okay.”
Minkyung is sixteen. She’s been sixteen for nine years. When they met her during the summer before sixth grade, she had cloaked herself - she grew up again with them at her side. She came to Little Grave Lights in the summer of 1989 with her twin brother, Mingyu. Mingyu was always the better one. He was tall, tan, and handsome. He was a bit of a klutz but he was sweet and smart.
He had a three year old Subaru XT coupe and they had packed enough supplies for four days of camping. They stopped at the Grave Digger for lunch and asked the waitress if she knew any good hiking trails. She was young and pretty at that time, in her early twenties. Minkyung still sees her around the diner, only now she owns it.
The residential area where Yebin lives used to be a part of the forest. Her house sits on the top of the hill that they had hiked up. The hiking trail ends at a cliff, the drop off where Eunwoo and her gang hang out now. It used to be a small patch of gravel with a skinny tree growing in the middle.
Minkyung can still clearly remember when they reached the drop off. Her backpack was heavy on her shoulders and she was sweating. Mingyu got there before her and he had tossed his backpack to the foot of the tree before going too close to the edge and letting out a shout of triumph. Minkyung grinned and set her backpack down next to his.
“Did you bring the camera?” Mingyu asked, turning to look at her.
“Did you bring the camera?” Minkyung mocked him, doing a poor imitation of his voice. “What the hell else would I bring a backpack for?”
Mingyu didn’t let her sarcasm affect his happiness and just held out his hand for her to hand it to him. The camera wasn’t anything fancy, just a blocky old polaroid.
Mingyu pulled Minkyung to stand next to him and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. As he held the camera out to face them, Minkyung pressed her smiling face against his and put up a peace sign.
Mingyu pressed the shutter button and it flashed at them. They took a couple more pictures and then they sat down to eat the sandwiches that Mingyu had packed for them.
“When we’re done with school,” Mingyu said, “I’m going to travel and I’m going to hike through all the famous forests. Yosemite, the Appalachian mountains, Hawaii, New Zealand. I want you to come with me.”
Minkyung laughed. “Oh, no. No. I do not like hiking.”
“But you like nature,” Mingyu pointed out. “Days in the wilderness. We could work for National Geographic.”
“I’m going to become a writer,” Minkyung said. She picked the tomatoes out of her sandwich. “I write novels. Not articles about volcanoes.”
Mingyu sighed. “Well, whatever we do, promise that we’ll stay together.”
“You think I’d ever leave a klutz like you alone?” Minkyung retorted. “Hell, I’d be surprised if you made it five feet without tripping and breaking your face. That would be a real shame, considering it’s the one thing you’ve got going for you.”
“Sometimes people ask me if I wish I was an only child,” Mingyu said. “I’ve always said no but now I might think twice.”
Minkyung laughed and pushed his shoulder. “Shut up, trash mouth.”
The next two days were a mystery. Minkyung couldn’t remember a bit of what they did until the third day. Mingyu woke her up in the middle of the night and motioned for her to keep quiet. They could her stomping outside the tent and something growling. It was a bear, they thought. It wouldn’t hurt them, maybe take some food, and then leave.
The noise stopped and they stared at each other with matching expressions of terror. Mingyu, always the braver of the two, unzipped the tent opening. Mist wafted into the tent and they couldn’t see a thing outside.
That’s when it got them. Minkyung still isn’t sure what it even was. It was too foggy to tell. She knows that it was huge and slimy, and had rows and rows of sharp yellow teeth.
It tackled her first and she screamed, pushing it away with her hands. The teeth scraped up her arms and blood ran down, staining her shirt.
Mingyu body slammed it and it fell off of her. She got to her feet and started backing away, watching as Mingyu wrestled with the mist.
“Go!” he yelled at her.
Minkyung was close to crying. “I’m not going to leave you!”
“You have to!”
He fell to the ground and it hovered over him, slobber dropping into his face.
“I’ll come back,” Minkyung said. “I promise. I’ll come back for you.”
She ran back down the trail, tripping over rocks and hardly packed dirt. The open wounds on her arms were burning and sticks were scratching her legs but she most painful thing was the regret. Her brother, half of her soul, half of her life, was dying. She had left him.
The mist eventually thinned out and she could barely make out where she was going in the dark.
And then she tripped over something and went down hard, her face smashing into the ground. She pushed herself up to her knees and when she turned to see what she had tripped on, a scream clawed its way out of her throat.
It was her own body, lying mangled and broken at the foot of the hill. There was no doubt that is was her, the shirt, the shorts, the shoes, they were all hers. The worst part, the horrifying part that she could never forget, was how all of the life had been drained from her body. It couldn’t have been more than a day that she was dead, but it looked like it had been weeks.
Minkyung ran back through Little Grave Lights, across the bridge, and didn’t look back.
Until one day, four years later, she remembered her promise. She came back to Little Grave Lights. She met three small girls: one with an inhaler and a mouth that worked quicker than her brain, one with long legs and a shameless laugh, one with a bright smile and yellow bruises. She made a new family. She grew up again with them at her side.
“You don’t believe me,” Minkyung says.
The girls are staring at her, all with varying degrees of bewilderment in their faces. Kyungwon can’t bring herself to say anything. Of everything she expected to be in this forest, a big slimy mist monster was not one of them.
“I can’t -” Nayoung closes her eyes and rubs her face. “What are you even saying? Are you dead? What’s up with your brother?”
“If you’re a ghost, how come we can see you?” Yewon asks. “Everyone in town can see you.”
“I’m not a ghost,” Minkyung says. “I’m just dead.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Yebin mumbles under her breath.
“Can we leave this fucking forest?” Kyungwon asks. “It’s obviously messing with all of us and I don’t want to wait around for whatever the hell ate your brother to get us too.”
Minkyung blinks and shakes her head. “You don’t believe me.”
“This is all just happening way too quickly,” Yebin says. “Usually, horror movies are insidious, they take longer. There’s a build up before this shit starts happening. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to think. I’m close to having another asthma attack.”
“Our life isn’t a fucking horror movie, Yebin,” Nayoung says angrily. “This isn’t a game. Tim Curry isn’t going to eat you, we’re not going to be brutally murdered by Indians, none of Stephen King’s monsters are going to come after us. Minkyung’s brother told us to listen to Africa by Toto.”
“Come with me.” Minkyung gets up and leaves the cottage.
Yewon stands up and pulls Kyungwon with her. “Do you believe her?” she asks quietly.
Kyungwon shrugs. “At this point, I’m ready to believe anything.”
Minkyung takes them out of the forest. It’s about midnight and the town is silent. They don’t have the mind to keep on the sidewalk and simply walk in the middle of the street. There are no cars around anyways.
Yebin is cleaning Yewon’s face with baby wipes as they walk. There are a couple scratches from when she fell while they were running and Yebin is muttering about how dirty the forest is, that she could have gotten an infection.
Nayoung forlornly picks at the rip in her precious windbreaker and Kyungwon slowly drags her feet.
The library is closed when they get to it, but Minkyung has no problem picking the lock and ushering them inside.
“What exactly are we doing here?” Yebin asks, shoving her first aid kit back into her backpack. Minkyung turns on the lights. “Why are we back at the library?”
“Because this is where the proof is,” Minkyung says. She takes them to the section near the windows, between adult fiction and magazines, where the newspapers and town records are. “It’s been here all along, since 1989. Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
She pulls a binder out and sets it down on a study table. After flipping through the laminated news pages, she gets to the front page of the edition of Little Grave Lights Herald from July 16, 1989.
The headline is ‘ Young Woman’s Body Found on Grave Hearts Hiking Trail.’ Under it is a picture of what unmistakably has to be Minkyung, her rotten body exactly as she had described t.
Kyungwon feels like she’s about to be sick. She knows all about death, she knows about people who have died. Her grandmother died when she was younger and she had been present during all of the ceremonies. There was something different about this. Minkyung is standing right next to her, except she’s not. Or maybe she is. Kyungwon has no idea what’s going on but she can see clearly that her friend, her best friend, is dead. She’s been dead. All these years and none of them knew. They played in the river together, they snuck into the movie theater, they spent hours at the arcade, countless sleepovers, birthday parties. She was there when Yewon told them about her dad, when Yebin came out, when Kyungwon got on the varsity volleyball team, when Yebin decided she wanted to learn how to play the drums, when Kyungwon snapped her arm falling from a tree, when Yewon learned how to ride a bike.
But she wasn’t really there, this isn’t her life. She lost her real life nine years ago.
“Okay.” Yebin’s voice is high-pitched and stretched thin. “Alright. What do we do now?”
Everything Yewon has been doing lately seems to surprise the rest of them. She quietly leaves the study table and comes back with another binder, this one filled with stories written by second graders. Kyungwon recognizes it immediately
“What are those?” Nayoung asks.
“We were supposed to write short fictional stories,” Kyungwon explains. “They could be about anything, as long as we finished them.”
Yewon pulls a paper out of its sheet protector and puts it down beside the binder. “Ashley Braddock wrote The Monster in the Mist. This was in 1989, three months after you and your brother were killed,” she says, looking at Minkyung. “She went missing two days after we handed this assignment in.”
Kyungwon remembers when that happened. There were posters of her all around town as if everyone wasn’t already out looking for her. She was a sweet little girl from a nice family. There was no reason for her to run away, nowhere for her to go. After a year, the police declared that she was dead. Her body was never found.
“Fuck, that’s terrifying,” Yebin remarks. She leans over the table to read the story. “Oh, gross, it’s even illustrated.”
“Don’t say gross, a little kid drew that,” Nayoung says.
“Yeah, a kid like that fucking clairvoyant girl from Children of the Corn ,” Yebin shoots back. “It’s scary!”
Minkyung bites her lip as she reads the story, her brow furrowed in concentration. It tells, in haphazard handwriting, the tale of a family that lived in a forest. They cleared out some trees and built a house. Everything was fine and dandy until winter came. Frostbite killed the whole family except the eldest daughter. Struck with grief and anger, she locked herself in the house and never left the forest. Since then, her soul has left her physical body but it remains in the forest, trapped in the mist. She is kept alive by feeding on anyone hopeful and foolish enough to stay in the forest. The souls of the people she eats stay forever in the forest and they can never leave until she is vanquished.
“Bitch didn’t leave instructions on how to kill it,” Kyungwon says. She flips between the two pages that are stapled together. “Thanks for nothing, Ashley.”
“Exactly, like, what are we even supposed to try?” Nayoung adds. “It’s the fucking mist.”
Yewon nudges Yebin. “Got any Stephen King references that can help us out?”
“Fuck you,” Yebin retorts, but her slight grin lets them know that it’s all good. “He did write a novella called The Mist , but the mist wasn’t the monster, and the characters didn’t defeat it. And that definitely doesn’t help.”
“You guys don’t have to help,” Minkyung says.
“Yes, we fucking do,” Kyungwon counters. “You’re our best friend but this also isn’t just about you. That monster is still out there and it’ll keep killing people until someone stops it.”
“Why don’t we just sleep on it?” Yewon suggests. “Look, Yebin’s talking a mile a minute but she’s already got her tired eyes and I don’t know about you guys but I’m running on five hours of sleep from the past two days. We need some rest.”
“You jest, baby cakes,” Yebin says. “Check your watch. It’s only midnight.”
“That’s past your bedtime anyways,” Kyungwon points out.
“Fucking whatever.”
Nayoung herds them back out of the library and makes sure to turn the light off before closing the door.
“Where do you go at night?” Yebin asks, bumping her shoulder against Minkyung’s. “And whenever you’re not with us. What do you do?”
Minkyung shrugs. “I don’t know. I just hang out, I guess.”
“Do you sleep?” Yebin asks.
“No.”
“So, you just pretend to sleep at our sleepovers?”
“Yes.”
“Can you walk through walls?”
“No.”
“Can you float?”
“No.”
“Can you go invisible?”
“No.”
“What did you do during the four years you weren’t here?”
Minkyung hesitates to answer and Kyungwon smacks the back of Yebin’s head. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, halfpint? Butt out of her life.”
“Fuck off,” Yebin scoffs, pushing Kyungwon away from her.
“Guys, shut up,” Nayoung groans. They quiet down but Kyungwon still sends a glare in Yebin’s direction. “Kyungwon, I’ll ban you from our adventure if you open your mouth, I swear to god.”
“I didn’t even say anything!”