I built my first bonfire when I was ten years old. My granddad and I set four logs into the cobblestone fire pit behind our family’s cabin in Camp Verde, making a nest of twigs and newspaper and two torn up cereal boxes in the center. I wanted to find more things to burn, so I wandered a ways off the wooden patio and started picking up pine cones.
When I returned, my granddad snatched them out of my hands and tossed them back over the short flagstone wall. “Never burn pine cones, Ginny,” he said.
I pouted. “Why not?”
“They make too many sparks.” He went to retrieve a box of matches. “You’ll start a forest fire that way.”
We lit the kindling and stoked it with the antique cast iron poker that lived in the cabin since before I was born. Behind me, my uncle Roy started up the grill, already on his second vodka screwdriver. Me and my two cousins, Phil and Kayla, gathered around the fire to roast marshmallows—or rather, they roasted marshmallows, while I just set mine on fire because I thought it was funny. My mom, ever the quiet type, sat watching us in the old wicker chair in the corner, her bright red hair contrasting against the dusty, sun-bleached cushions. Her acoustic guitar rested in her lap, and with her acrylic pink fingernails serving as picks, she strummed a slow and gentle tune which would eventually become the soundtrack to my most bittersweet childhood memories.
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don’t never shine
I shiver the whole night through
Fourteen years later, I find myself pulling into the driveway of that same summer cabin. I crank the gearshift of my red ‘95 Camaro into park, pull the emergency brake up so it doesn’t roll down the hill, and step out into the cool mountain air. It looks more dilapidated than I remember—the wooden lattice beneath the deck is rotted out, and the oak handrails on the stairs are too dry and splintered to touch. I grab my groceries out of the trunk and climb the cobblestone steps leading up the hill, winding around to the back door.
The key is hidden beneath a loose flagstone on the back patio wall, same place it always has been. I let myself in, and my gut clenches, twisted by grief that I didn’t know I felt. It’s dustier than I remember, although I suppose that’s to be expected when no one visits a place for two years. A bland IKEA couch occupies the center of the living room, a cheap replacement for the now-broken striped mid-century modern sofa that once stood in its place. No one wanted an IKEA couch—including the aunt who bought it—but after the Great Recession, we didn’t have any other affordable options.
When I finish putting my groceries away, I make the small trek down to my car and continue unloading. I packed light, only having planned to stay up here for a weekend—a few changes of clothes, some basic supplies, my iPod Nano, and my guitar. My dinner is a humble meat and potatoes medley, seasoned with the few spices I find in the pantry and fried in an cast-iron pan. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, I spend my evening hours making myself at home, drowning my thoughts out with music so I don’t have to be alone with them.
As I finish off the remaining bland chunks of ground beef on my plate, my iPod freezes. I frown, then tap the buttons a few times. The song plays, but starts skipping after less than a second. The song it’s stuck on is Misery Business by Paramore, looping the same 1 second clip over and over again.
To steal it all away from you—to steal it all away from you—to steal it all away from you—to steal it all away from you—
I tear my headphones out of my ears, yank the cord out of the audio jack, and toss it on the couch. I thought I could at least get some catharsis from a song about jealousy, but apparently I’m not even allowed to have that small pleasure in my life anymore. The memory of hearing her voice on the radio is like a rattlesnake bite, flooding my veins with envy. My eyes burn until I can see steam, and soon I’m sobbing, lava-hot tears streaming down my face.
It was supposed to be me. I wrote that song four years ago in these very woods. In my family’s cabin, with my guitar, and my lyrics, dedicated to my mother. I perfected it hardly a few months after she died. And now Melissa was making millions off of it.
After wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I get to work outside. The firewood is stacked under the windowpane where the back wall meets the patio, most of it bone dry from this year’s drought. I pick a few that are about the same size, then arrange them the way my granddad taught me. Using a few torn up bits of my paper grocery bags as kindling, along with some twigs from the surrounding area, I stoke the fire until it reaches a comfortable blaze. When I’m done, I collapse into the wicker patio chair, a cloud of dust puffing out of the cushions.
As the twilight fades, the glow of the bonfire illuminates the patio in shades of red and gold, its gentle warmth banishing the crisp night air. My eyes flutter closed, and I breathe deep, turning my attention to the crackling and spitting of the fire. Fleeting images and half-snatched memories echo in my mind, a cacophony that invades the silence like a virus. I see Melissa’s face, and my jaws clench as if I’ve swallowed pure arsenic.
I gasp and open my eyes. I have to expel this poison. When I pull out my guitar case, one of the stickers for Melissa and I’s former band, Manic Pixie Drug Mules, catches my eye. I scowl, then rip it off and throw it in the fire. I take a deep breath, then another, then another. Finally, I throw open the latches.
It’s a Gibson Dreadnought acoustic guitar, once belonging to my mother. She gave it to me after the tremors got too intense for her to play anymore. On Christmas morning that year, I woke up to find it placed on its stand next to the tree with a red ribbon tied around the neck. It filled me with a number of emotions I couldn’t parse at the time. With shaking fingers, she gestured to it, her smile painted over a black hole of grief. Seeing the deep loss behind her eyes brought something out of me that I had never experienced before. It forced me to reckon with the truth—that I really was going to lose her.
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I pull it out of the case, then sit back, placing it in my lap. I don’t need a pick—like her, I’ve learned to use acrylic nails. As I tune it, I close my eyes and focus on the vibrations of each note, listening as the hearty tones pulse through the night air. E, then A, D, G, B, E. I strum them all at once when done, then begin to play.
I wrap myself in a blanket of sound, a chord progression I’ve come to know more intimately than my own voice. E major, 6/8 time—E major, A7, G major, B7, back to E.
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
I gaze into the fire, feeling heavy in my chair. The flames dance seductively, growing brighter until everything else fades around them. The progression repeats, E major, A7, G major, B7, back to E—
In the pines, in the pines,
Where the sun don’t never shine
I shiver the whole night through
As the notes whisper through the trees, something inside me vanishes. I feel as though my soul is rising out of my body, leaving behind a leaden husk. E major, A7, G major—
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
The hot air warps around the embers as they glow and flicker, curl and beckon, B7, back to E—
To the place where the cold winds blow?
My eyes sting. I can’t close them. The red coals wriggle like worms on a roadkill vomitorium, reveling in rot, E major—
In the pines, in the pines
They pulse like intestines, A7, G major—
Where the sun don’t never shine
The heat desiccates my eyes, dissolving them into ash, B7—
I shiver the whole night through
I let the last E major chord ring out, and the night swallows it. The woods are dead silent. No crickets, no owls, no rustling of leaves. Somewhere along the way, I fell out of reality, and into this liminal space.
I glimpse a trace of motion, and I try to look to its source, only to discover that I can’t turn my head. Instead, I have to strain my eyes to track it. At last, I find its source—a single hand, black as the void, rests on the trunk of an old pine tree. A shadow with nothing to cast it, reaching out from the dark. It taps its fingers on the bark, and the glow of two red eyes pierces the murk.
I’m petrified, at first. But something reaches inside me and erases any fright I might have felt. I realize at once that it means me no harm. Without thinking about it, I place my guitar back in its case, letting my hands hang limp at my side. Reduced to a husk, I submit to whatever awaits me.
My vision twists, flickering like skipped frames on a video tape and trapping me in endless vertigo. The fingers of flames reach for my face, showering it with butterfly kisses, then grip my eyelids and climb inside.
The embers twist into red coils, bright and loud like the curls of Melissa’s hair. I seize up with envy, wracked with convulsions which tangle my ribs together. I choke and sputter, trying to draw air into my constricted lungs, but each vision of her face renews my hatred. As I fight to close my eyes, I’m subjected to scenes of the first night we spent in this very cabin, jamming together, writing songs—memories that might have been happy, were they not poisoned by her treachery. Every time she smiles, a brand new blade twists into my gut.
My blood runs black with toxic sludge, a rage so violent it makes me nauseous. My hands clench and twist, and I desperately wish they were wrapped around her neck. Never have I understood why people murder each other until this moment. Whatever force is keeping me glued to my chair right now is the only barrier between me and a killing spree. I ache to drain her blood and hack her to pieces.
The feeling subsides, snuffed out by the shadows. The creature steps out from between the pines. I’m still unable to turn my head away from the embers, but I can see it better now. Its arms are stretched out and slack like melting rubber, and I see the silhouette of long pointed ears, or perhaps horns, on its head. It makes no noise, but I come to understand that these visions are its attempt to communicate. It knows what Melissa did, because it remembers her. The nights she and I were here, it was here too. As if to confirm this, I see another flash of her face in the fire, sitting in the very same wicker chair that I’m chained to now.
Its long black fingers gesture to the fire, and a new odyssey begins. I see myself playing solo on a dive bar stage, singing a song I’ve never heard—no, a song I have yet to write. And it’s beautiful, haunting, commands the attention of every person in the room. The embers roll through more visions—me and my band performing at 924 Gilman St, recording a new album, selling out stadiums. A marquee that reads “Genevieve Durand” in flashing lights. A poster, with me as the headliner, and Melissa as the opener.
The vindication tastes like white wine. I imagine how much it would sting to be her in that timeline, to make a career being an untalented hack, then be shown up by the person she stole from anyway; to realize she was so hungry for fame that she was willing to exploit the death of her best friend’s mother; to know she had whored herself out to her most shallow and disgusting impulses. All for nothing. The thought gives me a buzz, and a thirst for more. For months I’ve wondered how she’s able to sleep at night, knowing what she’s done. But if this future became a reality, I wouldn’t have to wonder. I could make damn sure she lies awake at night stewing in her own shame.
As the visions fade into the flames, the silhouette next to me sits on another patio chair and crosses its legs, its red eyes gazing patiently at me. I understand what it’s saying—it can give me the revenge that I ache for, the blood I long to taste. I think of the last moments I spent with my mother in hospice, holding her trembling hand, her veins visible through her translucent, jaundiced skin. The memory Melissa stole, just to make money off it.
The black figure anticipates my next question before I ask it. The embers twist again, and I see myself standing at an empty crossroad. Across from me is a man sitting on a bar stool, with a broad-brimmed hat and an acoustic guitar in his lap. He smiles wide, then plays a riff I recognize—the beginning of Cross Road Blues. I realize the man in front of me is Robert Johnson, the blues guitarist who sold his soul. At once, I know what the black figure wants in return.
I consider it, and to my surprise, I don’t mind it as much as I expected. Stories about musicians doing the same thing in exchange for fame are part of the glamor. Perhaps I’m still drunk on visions of revenge, but it adds to the appeal. It’s a legend that will last long after I’m gone.
Something tears my shirt open. I yelp as it draws a razor sharp claw down my chest, splitting my flesh from between my collarbones down to my solar plexus. It cracks my sternum in half, prying my ribs apart, and I bite back a scream. Fingers wriggle their way into the opening, and I realize with mortification that they’re my own. I already know what I’m searching for before I realize it, grabbing it with conviction. It’s wet and pulsing in my hand, the slimy texture making me gag. The veins and tendons stretch and snap as I pull it loose, then hold it up to the fire. It’s still pumping, each beat growing ever slower as it leaks blood down my arm.
I hold my heart over the fire. I’m sweating from the heat, and I feel dizzy. I want it so badly. I want to make her hurt, and witness the look on her face when I do it. But something else speaks to me. A distant voice at the back of my mind, an echo of a memory.
Never burn pine cones, Ginny. You’ll start a forest fire that way.
I swallow. The black figure taps its fingers on a nearby tree. I hear a low rumbling noise, then it lumbers back out into the woods, slinking into the shadows while I stare at the beating heart.
I blink, and all the sounds and sensations of the woods return—the crickets, the wind in the trees, the smell of pine. My shirt is intact, my arms are no longer covered in blood. And in my hands, I’m holding a small pine cone.