7/9/17
Last night I spent the night in the trailer in the empty field. I didn’t realize it was possible to miss people you’d just met as much as I missed the circus. But I did. As August moaned about Evelyn’s resting place in Hell, I wondered if I’d ever see the Circus in Black again. I hope so. The Crow’s letter was promising.
This morning, I tried to open the old steamer trunk August had buried his treasure in. Of course we had no key, and all the hinges had rusted shut. I decided to load it up in the car and open it at home. Before we left I drew August’s card, the Five of Swords. August gets this card often. It’s a ghost’s nature to self-destruct, or it’s their fate. His mind is breaking down, an inevitable consequence of having nothing solid to contain it.
Once I had the car loaded up I drove to the beach. I was sad, missing the new friends I’d found and lost in speculation at their sudden, cryptic disappearance. So I guess that’s why I didn’t notice what August was doing. We stood on the beach, watching a storm roll in with the waves.
I keep a knife in my bag, mainly because I don’t like guns. Knives can’t accidentally discharge in supermarket and kill a grandmother of ten who was just about to enter her hand-knitted afghan into the state fair and makes a killer key lime pie. August knows this, he knows everything about me.
“It’s all your fault, you know,” he said moodily beside me.
“What’s my fault?” I didn’t look over at him, I knew his weird, haunting smile would be painted like a scar across his face. I heard the velcro case the knife was in rip open and glanced over. “I didn’t know you could open velcro.”
“Evelyn’s in Hell because of you,” he said.
“No, you know now that Evelyn is in Hell because of me. We don’t know why she’s there. And, it doesn’t sound like it’s as bad as you’re thinking.”
Then, there was blood. My blood, running down my forearm and painting the sand crimson. Confusion and adrenaline must have kept the pain at bay, because I felt none. Nothing registered but panic.
“August!” I screamed and stumbled away from him, holding the three inch gash he had opened up in my arm.
But he didn't move, he floated above the sand, holding the knife up to his face. I watched, blood seeping from under my hand and running down my arm.
I tentatively took my hand off the wound, it was deep. I’d need stitches. Keeping an eye on August I got into the back seat of the car and grabbed a dirty shirt I’d thrown back there. I sat in the back seat and wrapped it around the wound. August had still not moved, he stood there with the bloody knife two inches from his face.
“August?” I yelled to him.
“You need medical attention. That’s excellent.” His voice was hard and cold.
“Give me the knife.”
He floated to the car and put the knife on the dash. He turned to me, that smile splitting his face.