17. BONFIRE FUN
LEESA AND RAVE WALKED arm in arm back to her dorm. For the most part, they walked in silence. Exhaustion had caught up with Leesa, and there was little more to say, anyhow. She knew Rave loved her, and she also knew he had to leave. She would miss him, of course, miss him terribly. But he would be back, and she hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
She would have plenty to keep her busy over the holiday break. Her family was going to have a real Christmas for the first time in years—maybe even a white one, she hoped, if the weatherman cooperated. Also, she would be helping her mom and Bradley find an apartment. Her mom had decided she was well enough to take care of herself and Bradley, and felt they had imposed on Aunt Janet and Uncle Roger’s hospitality long enough. It was time to get their own place, and Leesa was more than happy to help.
Rave usually said his goodbyes outside the dorm, but today he accompanied Leesa up to her room. The Red Bull Leesa guzzled for breakfast had worn off and her lack of sleep was weighing on her heavily. She could barely keep her eyes open as she fumbled with her keys, trying unsuccessfully to get the right key into the lock. Rave gently took the keys from her hand and opened the door. She managed a small smile for him as she stepped inside.
She shrugged off her parka and let if fall to the floor, too tired to bother hanging it up in the closet. Rave picked it up and draped it over the desk chair as she limped across the room and collapsed onto her bed. She looked up and saw Rave watching her, his beautiful eyes filled with tenderness.
“Will you lie down here with me until I fall asleep, please?” she asked. She did not want to have to say good-bye to him, and knew it would be easier if he left while she was asleep.
“Of course,” Rave replied.
He lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. Leesa nestled her cheek against his chest and quickly fell fast asleep.
A loud bang woke her. She opened her eyes to darkness, her heart racing once again. At least it wasn’t from a dream this time. Her mouth felt parched and her eyes were gritty and burning. For a long, panicked moment, she was confused about where she was and what time it was. Why was she on top of her covers, fully dressed? And what the heck was that explosion?
Slowly, things began to come back to her. She remembered her talk with Rave after her exam and falling asleep in his arms. She had obviously slept for hours—it had barely been noon when she went to sleep, and now it was dark. Rave was probably half way to New Hampshire by now. The thought made her sad. She turned her head and checked the clock. The blue digits read 6:35. Six hours of exhausted sleep. No wonder she felt like she did. She was probably having Red Bull withdrawal on top of everything else.
That still left the bang that had awakened her unexplained. Another one exploded, close by. She could tell it came from outside, maybe from the courtyard behind the dorm. She listened more closely and heard the muffled shouts of a crowd outside. What the heck was going on out there?
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes, not quite ready to attempt to make it to the window. She could not believe how wiped out she felt. No more all-nighters for her, she vowed.
Three knocks sounded at her door. She pushed herself to her feet and limped across the room. When she opened the door, she found Cali, Stacie and Caitlin looking in at her. They were all wearing coats and carrying hats.
“Wow, you look like crap,” Cali said, grinning.
“Thanks a lot,” Leesa replied, stepping aside and letting her friends into the room. “I just woke up. I crashed after my physics final.”
She reached behind her head and let her bun out. Her hair fell across her shoulders in a tangled mess. She tried to fix it with her fingers, but with little luck. This job was going to need a brush, at least.
Another bang sounded outside.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked.
“They’re having a bonfire out in the courtyard, to celebrate the end of finals,” Stacie said. “It’s getting crazy out there. Kids are burning books, even some furniture.”
“And someone brought fireworks,” Caitlin said. “Sounds like a couple of M-80’s to me. My dad used to let me set some off on the Fourth of July.”
“C’mon, Lees, get dressed,” Cali said. “We’re going to join the party.”
“Give me a minute,” Leesa said. “I’m still waking up.”
She bent over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. That helped some. She toweled off and wrapped her hair back into a bun. If she was going outside, she would need a hat, so it didn’t matter what her hair looked like.
She grabbed a clean flannel shirt from her closet, leaving the same jeans on. While she dressed, her friends gathered at her back window and checked out the action below.
“Wow, that thing is really blazing,” Caitlin said. “This is gonna be fun.”
“I’m not burning any books,” Leesa said as she grabbed her parka from the back of her chair. “Those things are too damn expensive. I can sell ‘em back to the bookstore.”
“Don’t worry,” Cali said. “We’re not burning any books, either. We’ll let the crazy kids do that. We’re just gonna join the fun.”
They rode down the elevator with two other girls from Leesa’s floor, Cheryl and Ashley. Cheryl had a canvass shopping bag filled with paperback books slung over her shoulder. The ones Leesa could see looked pretty old and worn.
“Fuel for the fire,” Cheryl said, grinning. “I’ve been meaning to get rid of these for awhile now. This looks like the perfect opportunity. And it will be a great excuse to buy some new books!”
“Cool,” Cali said.
“Burn, baby, burn,” Caitlin added.
They let Cheryl with her load of books step out of the elevator first, and then followed the two girls across the lobby. Cali pushed the door open for them.
Outside, the cold hit Leesa immediately, waking her up even better than the water she had splashed on her face. She put her blue ski cap on her head, tugging it down over her ears, and grabbed her gloves from her pockets. Her friends similarly fortified themselves against the chill. Cali’s hat was a funky brown fur thing, complete with a chin strap and a pair of ears sticking up from the top that resembled wolf ears. The edges of both ears were torn ragged, making it look like some wild animal had gnawed on them. Leesa could barely keep from laughing.
“What the heck is that thing?” she asked.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Cali said. “I found it at a garage sale last year. Just because I need to be warm doesn’t mean I can’t make a statement at the same time.”
“Yeah, and your statement is ‘I’m one very weird chick,’” Leesa said, laughing.
“You know what they say,” Stacie added. “There’s no accounting for taste—or lack of it.”
They all laughed.
“You’re all just jealous,” Cali said, “because I have style.” She flipped one of the ears ostentatiously with her hand. “C’mon, let’s go join the party.”
Leesa guessed there were close to a hundred people already circled around the fire, with more streaming in by the minute as word of the impromptu party spread across campus. The driving beat of a hip-hop song she didn’t recognize blasted from the open window of a nearby room. Kids were dancing, singing and throwing things into the blaze—anything to blow off the accumulated stresses of final exams. The flames snapped and crackled, leaping at least fifteen feet into the air. Leesa could see the charred outlines of two wooden desk chairs and a square table outlined inside the dancing flames. She shuddered to think what else might be burning in there.
A string of fire crackers exploded from within the fire, their staccato bangs sounding like a series of gunshots, and a loud cheer erupted from the crowd. Leesa and her friends moved to within twenty feet from the fire—even from here she could feel its heat. She pulled off her gloves and rolled her cap up above her ears.
Another loud cheer burst from the revelers, and she watched as the crowd parted for two bare-chested guys wearing only jeans and sneakers running toward the fire carrying a small, very ugly couch.
“Go! Go! Go!” the onlookers chanted as the two guys used the momentum from their run to toss the couch into the center of the fire. Golden sparks shot upward into the night as the upholstery ignited. The guys bowed happily as the crowd applauded. Leesa suspected they would rue the loss of their couch in the morning—she hoped it belonged to them, and not to someone who had neglected to lock his or her door—but the two guys were certainly having fun tonight. One of them took a long chug from a bottle of Tequila, and then handed it to his friend, who did the same. The crowd cheered again, and the bare-chested pair launched into a crazy, alcohol fueled dance. They bounced up and down, sometimes linking arms and spinning around in a circle, throwing their other arm wildly into the air without apparent rhyme or reason. It reminded Leesa of a scene from one of The Lord of the Rings movies, when two of the hobbits—Merry and Pippin, she thought—were drinking and dancing wildly atop a table.
Something about the fire made her miss Rave. It was stupid, she knew. He had only been gone a few hours, and she was used to going days without seeing him, sometimes even longer. This time was different, though. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing him for some time, and that caused an empty space inside her.
She glanced over at her friends. They were all watching the fire and the dancing guys. Cali and Caitlin bobbed their heads to the music, while Stacie seemed to be studying the whole scene, like she was going to write a term paper or something on it later.
Someone passed Cali a red and brown bota bag of wine. She lifted it up in front of her face and shot a stream of red liquid into her mouth. She noticed Leesa watching and offered the bota to her. Leesa shook her head. She wasn’t much of a drinker, and alcohol was the last thing she needed right now, with the way she felt.
Cali gave it to Caitlin instead, who took a long drink before passing it on.
“Pretty fun, huh,” Cali said to Leesa.
“It’s wild, alright.”
Cali looked at Leesa more closely. She sensed something was not right.
“What’s wrong, Lees? You don’t look like you’re having as much fun as the rest of us. You still feeling wiped out?”
“A little, but that’s not it. It’s Rave. I miss him.”
Cali grinned. “So, what else is new? I told you not to get involved with a guy without a phone or car.”
“I’ve gotten used to that. This is different. He’s gone for a couple of weeks, at least. They’re all gone.”
Cali linked her arm around Leesa’s, a concerned look on her face. “What do you mean he’s gone? That they’re all gone?”
Leesa hesitated, trying to think of something she could tell Cali that would not reveal Rave’s nature. “All the Mastons are gone,” she said after a moment. “They left today. Went up north somewhere.”
“All of them? The whole clan? Why?”
“It’s some sort of pilgrimage thing. It has something to do with the winter solstice. I don’t really understand it,” she added, to keep from having to explain any further.
“Pilgrimage, huh?” Cali said. She grinned. “Are you sure it’s not for some secret human sacrifice ceremony?”
Leesa smiled back. When she had first told Cali she had met one of the Mastons, Cali said there were stories they performed human sacrifices.
“I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with any sacrifices, human or otherwise,” Leesa said.
“They’ve always been strange and reclusive,” Cali mused, “but I don’t remember all of them disappearing at once. The solstice happens every year. I’m sure we would have noticed.”
Cali had grown up in East Hampton, which was one of the closest towns to the Maston’s isolated settlement. She would know this was something different, so Leesa decided she could safely tell her friend a little bit more.
“Yeah, I know. But there’s something special about this solstice. Rave said it happens less than once every hundred years. Like I said, I don’t exactly understand it.”
That seemed to satisfy Cali.
“And he didn’t say when he would be back?” she asked.
“No. He said he didn’t know. It’s not up to him. It’s up to the elders.”
Cali grimaced. “That sucks. But at least he’s coming back eventually, right?”
“Yeah, he is,” Leesa said. “I hope.”
Cali squeezed Leesa’s arm. “He’ll be back, don’t worry. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. There’s no way he won’t be back.”
Leesa smiled. She had seen it, too, of course. But she did not know if it would be up to him.