Don't Fear The Reaper

{xiii. ghost in the machine}

❝If heaven's grief brings hell's rain, then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday.❞

-'Just One Yesterday' by Fall Out Boy

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Within a half hour, the sun has set over Lake Placid. It's only around 5:30, but the valley is quickly filled with shadows as my passengers and I enter the festival and receive our lanterns. Within the fairgrounds, I feel like I've stepped into some east coast Coachella. There's a line of hipster food trucks to my left, and a huge stage to my right, and in the far corner, a large white Ferris wheel. People have set up blankets and fire circles, and everyone in the here is our age or only slightly older, with the most elderly and youthful persons I see being a frazzled 40-something mom being dragged by her pre-teen daughter to the fried chicken truck.

It's a world of flannel and denim and booties and floppy hats, with friends cheering craft beers and girls taking group pictures even in the middle of the path. If it were summer, I can only imagine the lace and leather and flower crowns that would decorate the crowd. Inexplicably, it smells like maple and cologne, even with the food stands that dot the edges of the field.

Each of us receive a lantern, although Mor easily gives Macy's his, at her begging. At the gates, they tell us that we'll set the lanterns off at quarter to 7 - which gives us about an hour and 15 minutes to do... whatever it is they do at functions like these.

I feel a bit lost among all these people. This isn't the crowd I'm used to - some part of me yearns to go back to Warped Tour and find my old friend Erika again - but Veronica, Macy, and Trevor fit right in. The first of these is who takes the lead, directing us to a spot near the artisanal ice cream stand, right next to the edge of the woods and a giant gray boulder.

I have two old blankets in my trunk: one red and gray with little black pawprints, another with the logo of the Jackals on it, both made by Mrs. Nyquist for some football boosters fundraiser a few years ago. Taking them in with me, I lay them down where Veronica directs, and watch Trevor's eyes light up ever so slightly at the sight of the Crimson and Ebony.

Gingerly, I set my lantern down. My three human companions do the same, then Macy jumps up and claps. "I'm going to go get ice cream."

"Have you actually eaten anything real today?" Trevor asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Are you trying to tell me ice cream is fictional?" Macy puts her hands in the pockets of her denim jacket and grins. "If you come with me, maybe I'll get some funnel cake or something too. Does that count as real?"

"Babe, I'm not saying you need to eat super healthy. I'm just saying maybe you shouldn't get dessert first. It might make you sick."

In response, Macy merely sticks out her tongue at him. And then she walks away, presumably to get ice cream. Trevor makes a face, like he's an annoyed mother dealing with an insolent child, then runs to catch up with her.

That leaves Veronica, Mor, and I, and for a moment, I don't feel awkward at all. Veronica and I both chuckle as the couple runs away, and then she shakes her head and says, "I swear, she has the spirit of a 10 year-old and he has the soul of a 70 year-old. I don't know how they do it."

"Yeah, but he's always been that way," I say with a laugh, not realizing what I'm doing. "Remember that time in 8th grade, when he didn't see we were having a fire drill because he was too deep into his textbook? We came back to class and he was just sitting there at his desk, doing quadratic equations in his notes."

Veronica's chuckle grows into a laugh too, but then we look at each other, and my skin goes cold. Although I'd like to become civil with the Ice Queen again, I'm not about to start acting like we're best friends and just let the way she's treated me all these months slip by unnoticed. It looks like she's not done treating me that way, anyway, because instantly, her cheeks lose their color and her eyes narrow. She gives me a deathly look, then grumbles, "I'm going to get a drink."