Page 2 of An Arcane Education
This is impossible. Every instinct screams at me to run, but I can’t move.
My heart lurches with the fear that at any second, the roots will wrap around my ankles and drag me down alongside the man, but they don’t.
That fire of survival within me grows stronger, augmented by rage as I watch the man scramble across the ground, clawing at the bushes in an attempt to free himself. Fuck that. He doesn’t deserve to escape this—whateverthisis—after attempting to harm me.
More roots writhe from the ground and latch around his arms, his torso, his neck. He claws desperately at the ones around his neck, his face turning a bright shade of red as he chokes and struggles to breathe, and my fear intermingles with a sick sense of satisfaction.
Our eyes lock, and his expression is filled with thesame primal fear I felt only moments ago and the same bizarre shock I’m feeling now. But his expression also holds something mine didn’t: the terror of knowing that fighting is useless.
I stand frozen, watching the impossible scene playing out before me as he’s raked across the sharp rocks, screaming in pain as he’s dragged into the brush beyond.
His screams are muffled as the ground opens up and swallows him whole.
The silence that follows is deafening.
The only thing I can hear over my unsteady breathing is the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears, and I’m left staring at the woods and wondering if I’ve completely lost my mind or if that really just happened.
There’s no way that could have happened… right?
I race down the rest of the trail, my mind whirling with possible explanations but coming up short. I know what I saw. I know I wasn’t imagining it, but I still can’t quite believe it.
When I reach the parking lot a few minutes later, my stomach rolls at the sight of the man’s truck a few spaces from mine. It’ll only take a few days at most for someone to notice an abandoned vehicle, and it might be less time until the man’s reported missing. I should report it, but there’s no way I could explain the impossibility of the events that just transpired.
Reporting this would peg me as not only the prime suspect, but theonlysuspect, and the legal process would be more tension on top of my already stressful life.
Collapsing into the driver’s seat of my old, sun-damaged sedan, I start the car, crank the air conditioning,and turn the radio volume off as I quickly exit the parking lot and head back toward the park’s entrance. Exhaustion hits me hard, my limbs like lead and my hands shaking. The adrenaline must be wearing off, and my mind is racing to make sense of the last half-hour.
A man is dead… or buried alive, which is even more terrifying. But if it hadn’t been him dying, it may have been me.
Whatever was out there protected me, though I’m not sure why or how.
CHAPTER 2
My drive home passes quickly despite the stop-and-go traffic, with sunlight reflecting off cars and asphalt in shimmering waves of heat.
The horrific scene from my hike plays on a loop in my head as I try to consider every possibility, though none of them are logical enough for me to be convinced. I almost wish I could convince myself I hallucinated it, but I can’t. The sight of the man being dragged beneath the ground, his mouth open in a silent scream, his fingertips raw from clawing at everything in a desperate attempt to get away… There’s no doubt in my mind that it was real.
Strip malls and houses blur past in the dull monotony of beige stucco as I make my way home. It’s one of the things I hate most about living here. Everything is lifeless, blending together in faded shades of tan and brown through most of the city. The touristy areas are juxtaposed but lifeless in their own way, with garish colors, obnoxious noises, and aggressively bright lights meant to overwhelm the senses.
I’ve wanted to leave for a long time. For years, I’ve longed to live somewhere green, somewhere with rainy days and canopies of trees andlife. I want to be in a place that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to kill anything soft or vulnerable.
Guilt wells in my chest the same way it does every time the thought surfaces. As much as I want to leave, I can’t. My family needs me.
My apartment complex comes into sight as I turn the corner. It’s a collection of two-story buildings arranged around a small rectangular pool with chipping paint that’s been empty for three years due to maintenance issues. The stucco is the same beige as everything else in the city, but here it’s accented with water stains, hairline fissures, and a wall along the back that someone spray-painted their initials on a couple months ago.
It’s certainly not the nicest place to live, but it’s safe enough, even if it is a little run-down. I pull into a parking spot right outside my front door and mentally prepare myself to go inside. I never know what kind of environment I’ll come home to, but I’ve gotten used to the unpredictability.
As soon as I step into the dim apartment, I’m greeted by the sight of my half-brother, Christopher, sitting on the floor watching cartoons while he fidgets with one of the sensory items Mom got him for Christmas. He barely glances my way as I shut the door behind me, too distracted by the show he’s watching to care about my arrival.
I follow the sound of dishes clinking together in the kitchen and find my mother stirring a pot of spaghetti.
“How’s Christopher been today?” I ask, plopping down at the table that sits at the far end of the narrow kitchen.
“Good. We kept up his routine without a hitch, so no breakdowns like yesterday,” she answers with a sigh. I can tell she’s exhausted between working extra hours and taking care of Christopher when I’m not around to do it. He’s fifteen, but his lifelong developmental disability means that he’ll need a caretaker of some sort for the rest of his life. And since I’m the eldest of the three kids, the job is usually left to me, especially during the summertime when he and our other younger brother, Matty, are out of school.
“That’s good,” I say, standing to help her set the table despite my own exhaustion. “Will Dave be home soon?”
She shakes her head. “He’s working overtime tonight. Hopefully, we’ll be in a better place with money in the next year and we can all take it a little easier with the extra hours.” Her shoulders are slumped, and the dark circles under her eyes only seem to be more prominent by the day. Her hair, the same auburn color as mine, is pulled back into a messy ponytail. She and her husband, Dave, have been working hard to cover the bills while saving up to find a better apartment, but it’s hard to save due to Christopher’s medical bills and the rising costs of rent. I help out as much as I can with finances, but it’s impossible for me to keep a full-time job since I’m the one taking care of Chris every summer.
