The Last Time We Saw Jennifer

She said, no one wants to join your stupid witch club. She said, it’s for babies and losers. We walked into the woods, and she followed us. We walked deeper into the woods, where moss blanketed bottoms of trees and curly ferns nodded, asleep or awake. We told her she was banished, but she still followed. I’ll tell everyone about your secret language, she said, and we picked up the rocks. We watched her run away. After that we had to say the words. After that we had to draw her picture. After that we had to bring it to the lake. Stones in all four corners to hold it down. We watched the waves slipping and slopping, saw the ink bleed, saw the paper grow thinner. A polliwog bent its face close to take a bite, then zoomed away. She won’t be back, we said. After that the news kept showing Jennifer’s bike, thrown down at the side of the road, front wheel twisted in a careless way she would never have left it. SEARCH CONTINUES, the TV said. After that our parents turned it off, the way they turned off Freddy and Chucky when they caught us watching horror movies after bedtime. Trying to protect us from the monsters we already knew ourselves to be.

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