Violeta supposed that there was a first time for everything, but she had never expected to have a first time as a murder witness. Yet there was the corpse lying on the asphalt, half illuminated by the white headlights of the Prius, its driver shouting expletives as she climbed out. Violeta wasn’t sure what was expected of her in this situation, but she figured that someone should move the body before another car came speeding around the curve. She pushed back her glittery blue headband and hurried down the steep hill she’d been ascending toward home. In her haste, she slipped on a bit of slate rock embedded into the dirt road and almost tumbled down into the patch of trees that surrounded the Book family’s home.

“Woah, there’s a-a girl over there,” the passenger-turned-accessory-to-murder pointed to Violeta.

“Shit! I didn’t see him, I swear on my fucking grave,” the driver-turned-murderer shouted to Violeta. “That goddamn kid just came out of nowhere. He shouldn’t have been wearing dark fucking clothing if he was going to walk around in the fucking dark! Fuck!”

“I know,” Violeta called back, moving toward the boy. “I heard him scream like a fisher cat before he leaped out of the woods. I thought he was a fisher cat for a second. Like a mutant one. How terrifying would that have been?”

The dead boy’s long frame was wrapped in an oversized sweater and pants that were more holes than jeans. Long, dark hair covered most of his face except for his mouth, open wide to release a scream that would never come. As she moved in closer, she noted that there were no obvious pools of blood or limbs lying at impossible angles. Perhaps the cause of death was more internal she mused. Crouching down, she extended her hand and placed it lightly on his arm. He was so thin that her hand gripped mostly fabric. She gave him a quick shake. He did not stir.

“H-hey! Is he ok?”

“Carv, why the fuck would you ask that? He just got hit by a fucking car!”

“Ok, I’m t-trying to st-stay calm, but you are re-eally stress-sing me out.”

Violeta brushed the corpse’s hair away from his face and watched as two yellow orbs rolled up to look at her.

“Boo,” the corpse whispered.

“Wow, man!” Violeta cried out in surprise, stumbling backward. The corpse (well, ex-corpse) jumped to his feet and yanked Violeta’s headband from off her head, taking strands of hair with it. The boy cackled and slipped it on himself as he raced into the dark shelter of the forest that loomed on the opposite side of the road.

“He’s alive. He’s alive! Thank fuck!” the driver crowed.

Carv, the passenger, took a few steps toward the forest. “Where d-did he go?”

“Who gives a shit? He’s fine and I’m not going to jail!”

Violeta stared at the gang of pine trees that the boy had disappeared behind. However, the dark of a Vermont countryside night is as thick and deceiving as fog; the headlights and moon offered Violeta limited assistance in dispelling the shadows within the forest. The trees shifted in the wind, making it difficult to distinguish their movement from something more human.

“Hey, y-you should get o-out of the road.”

Violeta turned her gaze toward the passenger who had begun to approach her as one approaches a stray cat. As he moved in closer, the glow from the headlights brushed the shadows from his soft features. Curtains of black dreadlocks framed his face.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

“You’re in my astronomy class,” Violeta replied. “Carv, right?”

He stopped moving.

“I’m Violeta, the only freshman in the class,” she added.

“Oh. H-hey. So, you ok?”

Violeta nodded and Carv held out his hand to her. She brushed some gravel off of her right hand and let him help her to her feet. After giving her a small smile, he looked over toward the forest and Violeta checked out a scrape on her right knee.

“That guy didn’t have a nose,” she said finally.

“What?”

“Well, he had one, but it wasn’t, like, formed right...”

“Was he bleeding?”

“...and he had yellow eyes. He must be deficient in--”

“We killed him.” Carv slowly turned and walked back toward his companion. “That guy i-is gonna d-die out there.”

Emma snorted. “Sure, Carv.”

“That girl just said his n-nose is busted a-and his eyes w-were crazy--”

“That sounds like rabies to me. You farmland freaks get that like the rest of us get mono, right?”

“Emma...”

“Ok, well, if he was so hurt, how come he got up and sprinted into the woods like fucking Bambi on steroids?”

Somewhere buried in the orchestra of crickets in the nearby bushes, Violeta swore she heard someone snickering. Her gaze locked onto slight movement in the leaves before she realized that they were moving with the autumn breeze.

Walking toward the Prius, she asked, “Do you think that was Mr. Shadow?”

Carv sighed. “Which senior told y-you about that?”

“None. My neighbor and his son have seen him. And Mary at the Fuel-N-Food.”

Carv shrugged. Emma looked back and forth between the two of them. Violeta thought she looked like one of those tiny blonde characters in young adult novels who was always sickly and only spoke to remind the main character how wonderful they are.

“So, either of you wanna tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?” she asked.

Violeta nodded. “We’ve got some local ghosts.”

Shaking his head, Carv turned from them to stare into the woods again.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Oh yeah?” Emma arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Mrs. Stitches and Mr. Shadow.”

“What’s their story?”

“Well, they appeared in the woods around town a few years ago. Mrs. Stitches was married to Mr. Shadow, who abused her. She fell in love with another man and made plans to run away with him. But, on the night she was leaving, Mr. Shadow came home early from work and found her packing. He went insane with rage. He cut her open, filled her with rocks, stitched her up, and threw her in the river that runs through town. He then killed himself by stabbing his heart with an ice pick. People who’ve seen her say that you can still see the long black stitches on her body. She’s real thin but she walks like her legs are made of iron. If you see her, you’d better run, because Mr. Shadow is still really jealous. And he still has that ice pick…”

A wandering gust of wind caused the trees around them to shiver.

Violeta added, “Interestingly, there is a real unsolved case of a missing couple in the town up the river from us. You can Google it. I’ve even driven by the house.”

“Cool story, bro.” Emma snorted. “Your ghosts fucking suck.”

Violeta furrowed her brow in confusion.

“I hit one with my car,” Emma explained. “Either they’re ghosts who don’t know how to use their goddamn powers or you all can’t tell the difference between supernatural creatures and drug addicts. Carv, will you stop looking for him? He’s fine! He’s a fucking forest psycho apparently.”

“What if he gets a-attacked by a bear?”

“Oh my god,” Emma groaned. “Do you want to go search the goddamn woods for him?”

“E-excuse me f-for being worri-ied--I’ve n-never hit anyb-body before!”

Another gust of wind blew through, this time carrying an echo of the snicker that Violeta heard before.

“Can I get a ride home?” Violeta shivered.

“Duh. I’m not leaving you here after that Blair Witch fuckery,” Emma replied.

Violeta smiled gratefully and crawled into the backseat of the car. She breathed in faint hints of lavender and popcorn. Carv climbed into the passenger seat and Emma also got into the car but she didn’t turn it on. She turned to look back at Violeta.

“I’m Emma, by the way,” she said. “I just moved here.”

“I’m Violeta.” Violeta narrowed her eyes. “Are you actually legally allowed to drive?”

Emma laughed. “I know, I look like a fucking twelve year old, but I’m a junior. I actually got held back a year. First grade was rough.”

Violeta nodded. A screech owl cried out from a tree very close to the Prius.

“Do you think he’s still out there? Dicking around?” Emma asked.

“I don’t want to know,” Violeta replied, sinking down into the seat.

“Em, let’s go,” Carv insisted.

Emma snickered and opened her door. She stood on the edge of her seat to pop her head up above the roof.

“Hey Shadow Asshole!” she shouted. “Next time, remember to apparate!” She then calmly slid back into her seat and closed the door. Violeta was so relieved when they finally peeled away from the roadside that she didn’t say anything when she thought she saw a pale face peek out of the trees.

…

Violeta was usually one of the Ignorables in her school, but every so often she would be granted a week’s worth of infamy. The first time had been in second grade when she had found what she thought was an empty hornets nest and brought it into school for show and tell. She’d prepared so thoroughly, looking up facts about hornets on the internet and rehearsing in front of her mami, papi, and their dog Courage. She tried to get her little sisters involved but they spent the whole performance trying to throw mud at each other. The next day she brought in the nest, took it out of the blue tupperware, and watched in horror as hornets began to crawl out and fly around the classroom. Apparently she had been faster in capturing the nest in the tupperware than its residents had been able to come out and tell her that they were, in fact, still living there. The class had spent the rest of the day in the cafeteria.

This time, everyone at Maplewood Middle/High School found out about the rabid hermit with no nose who had attacked Violeta, and how Carv and the new girl had saved her by hitting him with her car. Well, they couldn’t seem to agree on whether it was a hermit or Mr. Shadow, but they all seemed to be certain that Violeta had a gruesome wound that she was refusing to share. As the day went on, she discovered that it was Emma who had been the one to spread the rumor because Emma told her so.

“I started it,” Emma confessed to her in a chance bathroom meeting. “This school is so goddamn tiny, it’s mad easy to fuck with.”

“Why?” Violeta asked.

Emma grinned and sang: “‘F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me! N is for anywhere and anytime at all!”

Violeta pursed her lips and held back her opinion that Spongebob would tell Emma that that spreading a rumor was an incorrect use of fun and of that song. Instead she left the bathroom and made a mental note to never confide personal secrets to Emma. Carv seemed to be enjoying the rumor as much as Violeta; she saw him during their sixth period Astronomy class. He had planted his head face-down on his desk and constructed a wall around it with his arms. Violeta had swallowed the disappointment that she felt about not being able to wave to him. He’d had to lift his head once the lesson began, but he put his hands on either side of his face like casual blinders. Throughout the class, tiny folded notes were passed to him and his table partners poked him, but he’d remained immovable. Once class had ended, he’d all but raced out of the room. Violeta chased after him.

“Are you ok?” she asked as she landed in step with him.

“No,” he muttered. “H-have you heard th-the rumor?”

Violeta nodded. “I haven’t gone to a class today where I haven’t been called a liar. A few people even Googled how to say it in Spanish. And some other words that made me expect to see my mother’s chancla boomerang its way through the room to smack them.”

“Really?” Carv’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry you go-ot wrapped up i-in this. Emma doesn’t think ab-bout the effects of what sh-she does. I mean, she almost k-kills this guy and then m-makes fun of him. If he’s hurt...”

“If it helps, he looked okay to me,” Violeta replied.

Carv furrowed his brow. “You said hi-his nose was broken a-and his eyes w-were messed up.”

“No, I said his nose wasn’t properly formed and his eyes were yellow. I wonder if that was from birth, but it could’ve been an illness--maybe both?”

Carv shook his head and ran a hand down his face. “I’ll s-see you aro-ound.”

He walked away in the opposite direction. Violeta watched him disappear into Mr. McGrath’s room before she rounded a corner toward the back staircase. The bright sunlight of the outside attempted to shine through the windows of the school, but the faded colored tiles and fluorescent lighting seemed to defeat it before it could get much further than three feet past the window. Violeta jumped off the last step into the school office lobby. The echoing strains of a harmonica being played brought her attention to the main entrance. Usually at this time of the afternoon, the only people coming through that entrance were seniors carrying fast food from off-campus excursions and the cigarette scented office workers. However, standing before the doors were a large group of freshmen and sophomores. She pushed her way through the entrance and slipped into the crowd.

“Oh my god, oh my god!”

“What the shit?”

“It’s a prank.”

“That’s the dumbest prank.”

“No, it’s fucked up. That’s blood!”

“What?”

Intrigued by the crowd’s commentary, Violeta snuck her way around them, over to the edge stretch of grass that lined the side of the school. Parked on top of the four square court was a small blue car, cheerfully reflecting the sunlight...where it wasn’t covered in something that looked thick and red-brown. All of its doors were open and the speakers were blasting a vaguely familiar 90’s song.

“...But you! Why you wanna give me a run-around?”

The principal, Mr. Ethan, and the custodian with the sparrow tattoo on his neck were standing at its front end, staring at the windshield. It took Violeta a moment to spot Emma between them, fervently shaking her head. Violeta began to cross the grass toward them. She could hear the group of students behind her begin to talk about her. Some of them called to her but she didn’t turn around.

“...And shake me and my confidence about a great many things.”

She started to recognize shapes scratched into the dried brown substance. There were pine trees and stick figures with ‘Aaaaahhhh’ etched in around them.

“But I’ve been there, I can see it cower like a nervous magician waiting in the wings...”

The windshield finally came into view.

“You’ve got no idea who might’ve done this?” Mr. Evans asked Emma.

“No, sir.”

“...of a bad play where the heroes are right and nobody thinks or expects too much…”

The windshield was mostly spotless. Neatly painted upon it in the same dried blood that coated the rest of the car were the words “Can’t run, can’t hide.”

“...And Hollywood’s calling for the movie rights singing, ‘Hey, baby, let’s keep in touch.’”

Carefully placed at the front, like a hood ornament, was Violeta’s glittery blue headband.

“Hey, baby, let’s keep in touch.”