PART VIIIA Pact Is Made
2001 – May
With a few weeks left of senior year, it was time for my birthday party. My birthday parties weren’t some cheesy, present-giving, early night get-togethers. They were kick-ass. We always had a huge match of midnight flashlight tag in the giant field behind my house, an aggressive game of “smear the queer” (a violent game where everyone tries to tackle the person holding the glow-stick before he throws it away), and of course late-night pizza and a movie. And this year’s party was gonna be big, because this was our senior year.
And so, in the last week of May, the guys came together and we had one of the greatest birthday parties ever to be held. Around 2 o’clock, when flashlight tag and “smear the queer” were over, we all assembled in the driveway to discuss our next plan. The guys said they waited to escape, to go somewhere. Without thinking, I instinctively muttered, “…the cabins.” All my closest friends knew the story: how my Aunt found the cabins 30 years ago, how my Mother saw a ghost, how the old woman visited our house. In a second all our minds and eyes were lit up- we all wanted to go.
I said to them how I haven’t seen the old woman since the summer of 1996. Nick, one of my close friends, thought that this meant she was dead, or far, far away. The thought had crossed my mind; what else would explain the old woman’s disappearance for the past 5 years? But as soon as the group gained the courage to set out and find the cabins, my Mother came around the corner (she always stays up late on my birthday). She inquired us as to what we were planning- we told her nothing. So no luck that night, but the desire to visit was strong. Since I was going away that summer to work, we would have to trek fairly soon. We decided on one month from that night. And so, amongst everyone at the party, my closest friends and I made a pact: Bobby, Nico, Nick, Nicholas, Gaeten, Nathan, Will, and myself would find the cabins, no matter what.
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