Page 108 of Just One Little Bargain

Which is why I’d been so unbearable this morning that Evie asked if I was malfunctioning.

I wasn’t. I was daydreaming. Specifically, I’d been imagining taking her somewhere small and holding her hand in the cold without a deadline pressing on the back of it. I wanted to be just a man she’s tired of and fond of in equal measure, allowed to be ordinary with her.

Because I want to be Evie’s boyfriend.

It’s a ridiculous word. It sounds like something you’d name a golden retriever. And I want it desperately—the whole absurd human apparatus of it: the anniversaries, the inside jokes, the being someone’s person in a way that has a title and a permanence I have no right to.

The wanting had turned into panic, and I’d reached on instinct for the only tools I have.

Which is how I ended up making her a gift this morning.

In Hell, an offering of intent should be rare and dangerous and slightly on fire. Something proven, laid at the feet of the one you want as evidence you’re worthy of keeping. I don’t have any of those resources, so I improvised.

The result is a folded paper boat that was an elegant token of devotion in my head and is, in reality, a lopsided origami mess. I keep touching it through the fabric, working up the nerve. It’s the only offering I have.

Now it’s a quarter past eight on Tuesday night, and we’re standing outside the Brindlewood Visitor Center. The river runs black behind the building, carrying the smell of wet stone and cut grass up the slope. Below us, it keeps up a low murmur against the bank. String lights loop along the eaves, buzzing faintly, throwing a jaundiced glow across the gravel. My breath fogs in front of me, and I keep exhaling on purpose just to watch it happen.

A volunteer at the door hands each of us a lanyard, a printed name tag, and a small handheld device. Her navy jacket has Brindlewood Visitor Center stitched over the heart, beneath a tiny embroidered town clock framed by pine branches.

“EMF detector.” She places one in my palm. “Picks up electromagnetic energy shifts. If it goes off . . .” She taps the side of her nose. “Keep your eyes open.”

I’m now wearing a name tag that says MILO in cheerful block letters and holding a device humans believe can detect supernatural activity.

What the volunteer doesn’t know is that I’ve spent the last four minutes keeping my power tightly contained, the demonic equivalent of holding a beach ball underwater. It’s the only reason her little device isn’t screaming.

The group assembled on the gravel path is small: nine people, including Evie and me, all shifting against the chill while we wait for Daisy to make her entrance. Every restless foot sends a dry crunch through the stones. Amidst the dark hedgerow, a cricket saws away, undeterred by the season.

Everyone has begun the ancient ritual of introducing themselves to strangers they’ll never see again, as though the information exchange is somehow critical to survival. The first to volunteer his name is the father of the family of four, a man whose name tag reads STANLEY.

“It’s different, right?” He’s addressing his kids, but pitches it to the group. “Bit of history and excitement. When’s the last time we did something like this as a family?”

“You said that already,” his son Theo, who’s around ten, says. He’s relentlessly pressing every button on his EMF detector. “Does this thing have a frequency range listed anywhere? I want to know what it measures.”

“It measures ghosts, buddy.”

“Ghosts aren’t a unit of measurement, Dad.”

Stanley’s wife, Colette, catches my attention with a fleeting expression. Whatever battle her husband is losing, she has no plans to join it. Their youngest daughter is tucked against her hip, a stuffed rabbit locked under her arm. Her face angles upward at me with flat, unblinking appraisal.

I’ve tried smiling at her twice, but she repositions the rabbit between us, continuing her observation from behind its ear.

Everything about her suggests sweetness: round cheeks, tiny coat, ribbon in her hair, and pink boots with little ducks on them. Then, while her mother speaks to someone beside her, she lifts one hand from behind the rabbit and points two fingers at her own eyes, then at mine. I look at Evie for confirmation that I’m being threatened by a child. She chooses that moment to become deeply interested in a laminated safety notice. When I turn back, the girl gives me a shy smile I trust absolutely none of.

Two high schoolers, Beck and Priya, position themselves at the edge of the path, technically part of the group while making it clear they’re not with these people.

Beck has spent the last several minutes capitalizing on how terrified his girlfriend already is, which seems like a strange romantic strategy, but I’m still learning. It’s clear Priya doesn’t want to be here. She’s got her detector switched off, and her free hand wrapped around his forearm in a grip that has been tightening incrementally.

Every few minutes, Beck leans close and whispers something near her ear, making her flinch.

“You’re so annoying.” She rolls her eyes.

“I’m just saying, I heard something.”

“You didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like footsteps.”

“Beck.”