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“We didn’t kill it, you know.”
Beatrice looks up from her laptop, where she’s fiddling with presets in her drum machine program. “What?”
“The thing in the hole. It’s still there.”
“Oh, that.”
Mae rolls over and sits up on the attic floor, leaning on her futon where Beatrice is sitting. The winter light streams in through the window, cold and gloomy. Perfect for Bea. Mae clears her throat.
“I’m not kidding, dude. I’ve been doing some thinking and, uh… it sounds dumb, but I think I’m getting a better grasp on what it was, exactly.”
Beatrice clicks around, the laptop stopping its soft synth beat. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm still pretty sure that it was a bunch of redneck cultists chucking people into a mineshaft for no reason. The idea of a thing in a pit that eats people for good karma is... nuts. Don't tell me you actually believe them?”
“Nah,” says Mae. “I mean, I kind of do. But it’s more like… I believe myself, I guess. You know that whole fall after I came back, I had those crazy dreams. Right?”
“I remember,” says Bea.
"They’re still happening. They’re different, but they’re not gone. And I’m… I’ve been thinking about what happened at, you know, school, and I… There’s this feeling ...”
Mae drifts off. “Never mind. I lost it. I’m sorry.”
Beatrice sighs and pushes her laptop off of her lap, bringing her legs up onto Mae’s futon. “No, I kinda know what you mean. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything, but I’ve been having dreams too.”
Mae cocks her head back to look at Beatrice. “Yeah? Any about trains? Or musicians?”
Beatrice shrugs. “Sure. Kind of. It’s more... okay, it’s like… it’s music.”
“Yeah, it’s music.”
“It’s this rhythm that you feel, all the time, and the dreams just put music to it.”
Mae stares off into the corner of the room. “....Yeah.”
“Remember when I went to New Cape with my mom, Junior year? To visit my uncle?”
Mae laughs, uneasily. “I don’t think we were, uh--”
“Right, right. We weren’t talking then, sorry. Anyway, I left town for the first time in… I don’t know, maybe five or ten years. And as soon as we left city limits, I got carsick. Had to keep my eyes closed the whole way there, and then spent most of spring break sleeping. It was-- like, something felt wrong, Mae, I don't know. Something was missing. It was probably nothing, but it might have been the… the rhythm, you know. Of the town, I guess, or that thing in the hole.”
Beatrice pauses. “That sounded real fucking dumb. I’m sorry.”
Mae shakes her head. “No, no! That… sums it up pretty well. I felt the same way, I think. With the... the rhythm.”
There’s a long pause between them. Beatrice rests her snout on the window sill. “Are you sure I can’t smoke in here?”
“Not unless you want to open the window in the middle of the coldest winter we’ve had in years.”
Beatrice snickers, and then stops, and then gets kind of choked up. Mae can hear it in her throat when she speaks.
“God, Mae, if this stuff is all real… Do you think we killed Possum Springs?”
Mae pauses, unable to find words. “I don’t… I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” She climbs up onto the futon beside her friend and tucks her legs underneath herself. “That’s, like, the kind of shit that keeps me up at night these days.”
“What the fuck can we even do about it, though? Toss some more teenagers into a mineshaft?”
“Stitch some new cult robes together? Give each other creepy codenames?”
Beatrice sits up and punches Mae in the arm. “Jesus, don’t even joke about that.”
“You started it, not me! I’d rather die than do that, Bea, genuinely.”
“Yeah, same. But these days I’d rather die than do a lot of things.”
“Amen to that.”
The two girls turn to look out the window at their tiny town, surrounded by woods, covered in a sheet of ice. Mae pats Bea on the back in a weird show of solitude, and leaves her arm around Beatrice's shoulders. Beatrice sighs.
“I’m really glad we’re friends, Mae. I know I’m not Gregg, but I think we get along okay.”
“Who said I needed another Gregg?” replies Mae. “You don’t gotta be another Gregg.”
Beatrice snorts. “Thanks for the reassurance.”
“I’m for real. Nobody needs more than one Gregg. I’m lucky I have a Beatrice.”
Beatrice smiles in a weird way that makes it look like she’s trying not to cry, and awkwardly pulls Mae into a hug. It’s weird, and sudden, but it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to Mae in a long time. She closes her eyes and leans into her friend, glad to be receiving positive physical contact-- especially from Beatrice, the super cute goth gator girl who smells like wood shavings and cigarette smoke.
“I’m not sure whether I want to die here or move away and never look back.”
“I know what you mean,” Mae mumbles into Bea’s shoulder. “On one hand, this place kind of sucks. Like, objectively.”
“But on the other hand,” Bea says, pulling away, “This place is like, our home. You know? My dad’s here, all my-- well, you’re here. Gregg and Angus are here. For now, at least. And there’s the-- you know.”
“The rhythm?”
Beatrice nods. “I think we should definitely do that road trip. That shit you said about me-- about this being “home enough” or whatever-- I kinda want to see if it’s true. I want to try and get the hell out of here, at least for a while, and see where it goes. I like you a lot, Mae. I think we could totally do it.”
Mae bites her lip, trying not to laugh. Beatrice’s wistful mood is replaced by a defensive one.
“What about that was funny, you dick?”
“Sorry, sorry! I just… You sure you aren’t gay, Bea?”
Beatrice snorts, looking back out the window and answering in her usual sarcastic deadpan. “Maybe a little bit. Just for you, kiddo.” She pulls a pack of cigarettes from her dress pocket before Mae can say anything in response. “But since you’re gonna be a jerk about it, I’m smoking in here. And you can’t fucking stop me.”
Mae’s playful smugness vanishes immediately. “Aw, dude, no! My parents will kill me.”
“Not my problem.” She lights one of the cigs with a plastic lighter and the toxic smell of tobacco fills the air. She sighs the smoke in and out, kicking her feet up onto Mae’s lap, and Mae steals Bea’s laptop in retribution. She looks up a song she’s had in her head lately-- something Beatrice would like, she thinks. She hums along to the bassline and watches the cigarette smoke dance upward into the rafters.
“This is a stupid question, Bea, but are you really… uh…?”
“Gay for you?”
Mae blushes and averts her eyes. “I mean, that’s probably not the best way to phrase it, but--”
“Maybe. Are you? ”
Stammering, Mae tries to think of a response. “I, well... I’m, uh. Yes? I mean, maybe? I don't want to, um. I just, uh.”
Beatrice smirks, tapping ash off her cigarette. “See? It’s hard to think of a response to a question like that.” She takes one long, final drag and exhales the smoke, snuffing out the rest on Mae’s windowsill. She offers her hand, and Mae takes it.
“C’mere, Mayday.”
Mae is pulled, smoothly but nervously, to the other side of the futon. Beatrice presses her snout against Mae's mouth, and kisses her. Mae kisses back. It tastes awful, but that's okay. It's still Bea. Mae makes a chain of kisses down her long, toothy jaw, ending on her cheek right under her eye. She pulls back, and the girls look at eachother for a second or two.
"...Cool," says Mae.
Beatrice smiles. "Yeah, cool."
Mae wraps her arms around Bea’s thin waist and rests her head on her shoulder, sinking back into the familiar smell of ash and wood. Beatrice sighs and puts her arm around Mae, and the two enjoy each other’s company to the music piping from Bea’s laptop.
“You know?” says Mae. “Even if the hole and the "rhythm" and stuff is all real-- and, like, I’m only maybe 80% sure that it is-- I don’t think we killed Possum Springs.”
Beatrice plays with another cigarette, not sure whether it's worth smoking or not. “You really think so?”
“It was already dying, man. If anything, we just cut off its life support. If your shitty hometown is doomed, then it’s just doomed. Right? It happens all the time, all over the country. And nobody throws teens into a mine shaft, they just move out. Or they stay there and die.”
“Depressing but... ultimately true, I guess.”
“God, it is depressing. I wanna think about something else.”
“You and me both,” says Bea, scratching behind Mae’s ears. Mae can still feel the steady beat of the Possum Springs, but it feels different. Like it’s reverberating through Beatrice. She debates trying to explain the sensation, but she just closes her eyes and enjoys it instead. Beatrice rests her jaws on the top of Mae's head.
“...So what do you think, huh? Am I still "home enough" or whatever?”
“Yeah,” purrs Mae. “Home enough for me.”