Page 24 of The Staircase in the Woods

And meanwhile, she’d get out of this empty house. Her mother was away again—this time, a trip to the Poconos to one of those trash-ass resorts with the big tubs that looked like cocktail glasses. Off with, who was it this time? Brett? Brad? Some B-name d-bag. Boyfriend Number Thirty-Seven. Mom was never home, which meant Lauren came home from school every day to an empty house, had to make her own microwaved dinners half the time, had to clean up, feed the cat, empty the litter box, take out the trash. All this stupid adult shit. Always doing it alone. Alone, alone, alone.

Well, not this weekend. This weekend, it was the woods, it was the good drugs, it was getting away from this home and going to her real home, which was wherever the crew was hanging out.Thatwas home to her.

Time to not be alone,she thought.Time to go home.

15

A Walk in the Woods, Part One

It was a climb to Highchair Rocks. Not literally a climb—the journey was not vertical and required no rappelling. But the trail, starting at the west gate of Remington Dover State Park just north of Harrow, gradually grew steeper and steeper until the incline made your legs burn and your Achilles tendons feel like guitar strings about to snap. Most hikers had to reach out along the path to grab at trees and rocks along the way to help haul themselves forward. (Just don’t grab for the thick fuzzy ropes of vine hanging down—those who made that mistake walked away with a nightmare case of poison ivy, the kind that got between your fingers and blistered on your palms, rendering your grip both useless and itchy. So itchy, in fact, you’d probably rip the meat of your hands open just to satisfy the constant needling urge toscratch.)

Those who braved the trail—and who could manage such an unpleasant ascent—were rewarded with a rocky pocket of forest rimmed at the south edge by a handful of glorious vistas. One could look out and see the tops of an old pine and spruce forest running the length of Black Creek, or in the other direction, you might see the old mill and the raw red planks of the covered bridge beyond. On a clear day, youmighteven see all the way to Haydock Mountain (not a mountain, really, just avery impressive hill), and even spy the cobbling of the boulder field of Ramble Rocks Quarry near it. Extra bonus: A person could see one helluva sunsetandsunrise here, given the way this southern edge jutted out, offering access to both the eastand the west. Sun went up, sun went down, and Highchair Rocks was gilded by the growing light of day’s advent, and the fading glow of day’s demise.

Which meant it was a pretty excellent place to get high.

Or drunk. You know, whatever.

So that is why five teenagers—each sixteen or seventeen years old, all of them soon to be seniors at Central Bucks North High School—headed into the woods that Friday. They wanted to be high up. They wanted togethigh, high up. They wanted to laugh and feel shit and tell scary stories and bust one another’s balls. Really, they wanted to be with one another in a world that did not seem to care very much about them. School was out. Fuck yeah.

They did not know what they would find up there.

Or what they would lose when they found it.

—

Here, then, was how a crew,thiscrew, came together.

It was survival, at first. A way to survive at school, yes, but also a way to not be athome.

Lore was always alone at her house, a latchkey kid for years now. Owen knew the people at his house didn’t want him there, not really—his father hated him, his mother kept quiet. Hamish’s parents fought like you wouldn’t believe, always yelling and throwing things. His father was fire, his mother was gasoline, and Hamish just wanted to be away from it. Nick loved his father, they all assumed, but his mother had left long ago, and Nick needed people other than his dad to hang out with, even though everyone loved his dad. Matty was the only one who didn’t really hate home, or so he said. His parents loved him, but everyone knew that their love for him was conditional. They pushed him—too hard, sometimes.Get good grades. Join this club. That team. Try out for the play.Matty couldn’t slip, or they’d freeze him out. He never said as much. But everyone saw it. No way not to see the pressure they put on him, the cracks it formed.

They found one another through the years, not all at once. Lore and Owen in elementary school. Then Hamish. Nick and Matty injunior high. They were each the other’s respite. A safe space, a found family, arealhome, existing wherever they each were at any time—they could always shelter in place with one another.

They were more than just a clique, more than just fellow wanderers. They were the crew, bound by their Covenant.

—

Owen in 1998: just a slip of a kid, really, nearly insubstantial, like he was painted upon the world, a streak of dark ink, human eye shadow. Wore jeans, never wore shorts, and everyone was glad for that, too, because Nick always said, “Your legs are so pale, Zuikas, looking at you is like looking at a solar eclipse, all dark but somehow still bright enough to burn the eyes out of your head.” Shirt was a Black Flag tee, which was maybe weird because Owen didn’t really listen to Black Flag. They were too, what, aggressive for him, maybe? NIN was aggro, too, but in a softer, more vulnerable way. Less pure rage and more…spasms of animosity and injury. Didn’t matter, really—Owen’s NIN shirt was in the wash. The clothes hid scars others couldn’t see. The pockets hid the chewed pens and pencils. Even if they didn’t hide the hangnails or chapped and bitten lips.

He wasn’t exactly an outdoors kind of guy—he would’ve much rather been inside, designing Angelfire websites for the burgeoning internet, or listening to music so loud that his ears felt like they were going to squirt blood, or writing stuff in his journal that was weird, sad, funny, or just sorta fucked up. But this was where his friends were. (WhereLaurenwas.) And he wanted to be with them.

Of course, the one person he didn’t want to be with was himself.

Owen’s greatest fear was the dark, because in the dark, he was alone withthatperson, always. And though the darkness was mighty, the darkness of his own thoughts was all the blacker, and (felt) all the truer.

Which was why he liked having friends.

Having friends meant not being alone with himself.

Because Owen was certainly not his own friend.

Buttheywere his friends. They had his back, even when he didn’t have his own.

—

Lauren, who would not become Lore until she and Owen went to Sarah Lawrence, dropped back to the end of the line, where Owen walked. She moved to just behind him as he hauled himself up over a crooked, knobby root.

“Move your ass, Zuikas,” she said in a faux gruff tone. Like she was their gym teacher, Coach Hutchings.

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