Ampersand: Chapter One

E’haile and Talia

I looked up at the moon almost full in its glory. Then the huge clouds obscured it for good. There wouldn’t be any more storms, but it was dark now.

I breathed in as a small dark bulb floated up to me. But when I tried to catch it in my palms it dispersed, making me blink. Miffed, I turned around.

“Talia! Quit being a pain and get your booty up here!” I shouted, fed up with her stank attitude. What should’ve taken five seconds was taking her five hours. “Now! In this lifetime!”

She stopped walking ten feet from where I stood at the cliff and looked up at me into my eyes, the bee, though I could hardly make out any of her features, the practically moonless night tightly hugging her dark brown eyes and caramel skin. I saw the brick.

“Just because you’re too flippant to take things seriously doesn’t mean I have to be as frivolous. I’ll take things slow, thank you.”

Frivolous, hunh? I filed that word into my vocabulary.

“What-evs,” I told her.

The clouds gave a bit and I turned and looked up at what the clouds allowed of the moon in the sky. Then I looked around and marveled at the wondrous sight before me. After all, I stood atop Fright’s Climb on the cliff of the infamous Devil’s Mouth.

I’ve been here a handful of times before, and the landscape always appealed to me, but this time was different. I’ve never been here at night. This time the scenery stole my breath away and spiked my blood with adrenaline.

According to the rumor the Dork told me, this used to be a village that a meteorite barreled into a few centuries back. It wiped out every thing and made this huge gorge, the bowl of the Devil’s Mouth being the starting line.

But the reason we were up here was for a different rumor started some fifty years ago.

The one about how Fright’s Climb and the Devil’s Mouth got their name.

How people hiked the climbs through the woods to stand where I’m standing and jump seventy feet and some change into the Devil’s Mouth.

Yeah, it was all fun and games back then. Yep. Until some random dude and his 143 jumped into the mouth together during cuffing season and never came back up. Not even after a full out search of the area by the F-dogs.

And not even a week later, and a bunch of bans, some teens jumped never to be seen again. Baffled and scared, everybody renamed the bowl the Devil’s Mouth, and in a lame attempt to end fun in Faraday, they put up all these restrictions and signs threatening fines against cliff-diving. It didn’t matter, though.

Everybody’s panties were wedged too tight between their booty-cracks to even dare do such a thing anyway.

I looked down into the basin at the black, sparkling water and smiled.

I was so breaking the law right now. Again. And it made my heart beat faster.

My eyes flicked up when Talia finally made it to me.

“Priestess,” she sighed, taking in the view just as I had. Y’know, but differently. She breathed out, steadying herself, then grabbed my camera off her wrist.

I watched her position it so she could see the screen and she took several pictures, refusing to use the flash. I rolled my eyes when they came out perfect, because, without the flash, my pictures always blurred.

Talia turned to me and the camera flashed. Bia!

“I’ve never seen this place at night before. It’s so… aesthetic.”

Through the red flashing in my eyes, I made out her shoulder length super thick braids and her face in a rare, genuine article Tally smile. And her huge let-down of a bathing suit which was nearly identical to mine, being black with a yellow pattern the exact same as mine, but hers was completely un-sexy, being a one piece with sleeves and covering her thighs up to her knees. Even so, the girl was built like a model, tall and skinny.

“Tch. Anorexic. And you mean beautiful.” I rolled my eyes. I already knew that word, and didn’t need it twice. “But seriously. Who needs Ramona Falls when you have this,” I gestured to the wall on the other side of the bowl.

It came up roughly twenty feet higher than this side and water from between the cracks cascaded down the walls into the water below.

During the day it didn’t look like much, but at night, what a difference it made. Especially with a little moonlight. It was gorgeous.

I made a mental note to visit here during a full moon.

“Whoo. Someone actually picked up a book and didn’t just read the cover. Or did you? I can see it now,” she waved a hand through the air, “Aesthetic means Beauty. Like Ramona Falls.” She gave me an inquiring look. “Hm?” she bobbed her head.

“How’za bout my fists make a story of your face?” I challenged her with a smile of my own.

She thought about it tapping a finger to her chin. “Hm. That depends. Do I get rewrite your face, first?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She humphed. “Then no,” she told me crossing her arms. “Talk about raw deals.”

I huffed.

I missed this, I couldn’t help but think. Then I looked at the distance still between us. It was roughly one of my arms, but it felt like miles and miles. We definitely used to be closer in comparison.

I turned back to the mouth so she wouldn’t see my frown.

We used to be best friends, but a few years back we got into it about something, I can’t even remember what, and got into a real fight, not just one of our brawls. But one thing I was sure about, it was about nothing. Absolutely nothing.  And after that, it was just a quick fade.

We didn’t even have to avoid each other. We just weren’t friends anymore. And over a fight neither of us knew who started.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” she started. It snapped me out of past-land. “I’ve heard… things about this place. I’m now sure they’re true.”

She didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at her. Or that’s how it felt. We both just stared into the mouth.
Something… fear, maybe, began to grow in the distance between us.

“Yep,” I answered, “and for the record, I don’t think this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever talked you into.”

“No. Mrs. Crown’s dog was. Priestess. That was dumb beyond all reason and the absolute dumbest thing I let you talk me in to.”

It took me a moment to realize what she meant. “Oh! Oh, my gawd!” It was all coming back to me and I laughed. “That was horrible.”

Mrs. Crown and her hubby used to be our stuck-up, snooty neighbors who erected a really, and I mean unnecessarily huge fence between our two yards. But that was pretty cool. What wasn’t was the pompous old fart of a toy poodle they had.

A year after they moved in next to us, on my ninth b-day, Tal, me, and the two Dorks, we all sat on the porch listening to my happenin’ Jamblaster, complete with headset, when that raggedy little evil came out of nowhere like it always did and snatched my JB from me and ran back under its hole in the fence and through its doggy door with my JB.

We went next door to try to get it back, and the stank old lady flipped out on us before slamming the door in our faces.

It was just that wasn’t the only thing that ragamuffin stole from us, and unless Mr. Crown was home, which he never was, we never got our stuff back. We even had to call the police a few times. It was a major injustice that needed righting.

So Tal and I hatched up a scheme to right all wrongs. Okay, after some sour convincing and a guilt trip Tal came up with all the dirty details, but I listened.

How it was supposed to go down was we were to sneak into their backyard while they were out, lore her stupid dog out, capture it, and bike it to the furthest farm where some patient soul, more so than us, would care for it.

What actually happened is we climbed the tree in my backyard, and Talia, being abhorred by just about every animal, jumped into the back yard to trap the dog, me waiting to help heft them back over the fence. I was so chilled then because we had that, and yeah, animals absolutely hated Talia, even birds. She was perfect bait. Too perfect, because just as planned, the dog immediately sensed her and she bagged it, while I lowered the sack of evil into our yard.

Yup. She was too perfect as bait.

And as I was preparing to throw the rope over to her, I noticed something the entire neighborhood was unaware of and couldn’t see coming. A second big dog on steroids or something, angry and stuck in the little doggy door.

I shouted, and we panicked, and started to climb, and somehow that big boy found its way out and mauled Talia’s foot, pulling both of us back in the yard and at its mercy. And though I was closer, the stupid thing stampeded over me, ignored me, and went after Talia.

And we fought the good fight. I jumped on the dog’s back, and Talia stuck her fist down its throat, and I squeezed its windpipe, and slowly but surely Kujo went down, Talia getting away with her life only needing like two shots and twenty-something stitches.

Justice served.

We made so much noise that all our neighbors saw.

I got my JB back; Mrs. Crown hated us so much for almost killing her illegal killer mutt she moved. When the Dorks found our sack of evil and told Mom, she laughed enough not to ground me forever, only enough to die of boredom, and Talia got to put pitt-wrangling on her ever long resume.

“Yeah,” she said in a soft voice. “You’d think after that we would’ve learned our lesson but no. We jumped from one dumb thing to another. Even now.”

I looked at her trying to catch her eye, but she stared at the stars. There were billions here, where, at home, I only saw about thirty.

We were kind of chaotic. Running, fighting, screaming, ever since we met. Or at least when we weren’t grounded. We got into trouble a lot. I guess cuz I wasn’t a looker but a leaper, landing in often undesirable situations. Talia was my looker. She had my back. We’d get in trouble together and eventually laugh about it together later.

I smiled. “We had fun, didn’t we?” I said quietly. We did.

We’d scrape our knees or get the smitten beat out of us. We spent most of our time after school in detention or separated for everyone’s safety, and we got lectured, a lot, but… I remember us laughing. A lot.

I saw the side of her mouth quirk up then back in position. She knew it was true.

Talia looked down at the water below without so much as glancing my way. “We’re jumping.” It was a careful statement. Probing. And a change of subject.

We couldn’t back down. Not now. People needed to be put back in place.

“Yep,” I answered over the rush of blood.

“Because we have to?” she asked looking at me.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Because we promised.”

“Oh. Because we’re stupid.” She hit her forehead like it was so obvious. “Only we’d be willing to jump to our supposed deaths or break every bone in our body for a promise we made when we were little kids. Tis funny how things we said keeps coming back to bite us in the butt.”

“Yep,” I said. “Funny.”

We made a promise in middle school.

Where we live, it’s a tradition for kids to do crazy things before entering high school. So in middle school, some of the older members of the Mavericks—a group of delinquents who were not only a stain in our town, but both Talia and my greatest rivals—pulled off the greatest feat in Faraday’s history of stunts attempted by dumb teenagers.

They somehow managed to tag all three of the graffiti sweet spots, legendary spots, in Faraday. I mean, epic, like in unreachable. And clean as in never tagged. And no one knew how they did it. So it was awful when we all began seeing their insignia, the M, over George’s Bridge heading into the tunnel, on the side of the railroad track over the dam, and on the sixth floor of the collapsing abandoned building in Argentport.

Even I had to give it to them. It was a definite “Wow!”

And because it was such a great feat, the younger members who’re our age—Taffy—started dissing people because who could top that? It certainly would be hard, even if we now knew it wasn’t impossible anymore.

So me and Talia made a promise. First we’d tag over all those ugly M’s, then we’d do something epic. Unbeatable. And because we were martyrs when it came to words, it was put up or shut up and nothing in between. We delivered no matter what. Every word that our tongues spoke, promise or not, had its consequence.

This is why we were here now.

A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that summer was ending. Then I’d be in high school. And a certain promise bounced around my skull worse than my favorite song on crack or a super bouncy ball. So sucking up my pride I left my home for Talia’s.

The funny thing was, when I turned onto her street, I heard her yell out the door she was heading for my house. So when she almost blasted past me, I didn’t know if it was awkward or what.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said back.

She continued on her way to my house and I turned around, and she said, “Truce. Neither of us can be nasty to each other until this is done. Otherwise we get to punch each other. So let’s get this done.”

“Cool with me,” I told her. “So what’s the plan?”

The easy part was tagging all over the Mavericks bullcrap. It was also kind of fun because Talia had access to all this super spy gear. The hard was thinking of a way to top that. It had to be different, but not an altogether impossible feat, so that when others did it, they’d think of us, or we’d think, “So, we did it first.”

Only time dwindled until we only had four days left.

We were at the library every-single-day. Then frustrated and hopeless, we sat on the library steps one day when some weeny goth kids walked by heading for Fright’s Climb. Suicidal much?

Then it hit me.

“We can jump,” I told Tally.

“Yeah, because no one has ever jumped before.” Her voice flooded with sarcasm.

“No! I mean into the Devil’s Mouth. No one’s attempted it in like forevs Tal. If we made that jump, we’d be famous for like a month. But we’d go down in history.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. It’s better than what I got.”

So we made plans and here we were.

I looked down.

I couldn’t see it, but the basin emptied out through a narrow river we could swim down to the former rest area. We’d swim there then take the steps back up to the climbs and get our booties home.

And we were done.

That was the plan.

And as fun as the last several weeks have been, things had to go back to normal. That was our truce. We’d put the Mavericks in their place, who, as of late, have been out of control and inconsequential, violent even, then we’d go back to not being friends.

Right.

I looked at the wall across from us. Neither of us said anything.

My feet were uncomfortable from my water shoes. My heart steadied, but now it felt like I had squirming worms in my tummy.

“No. It’s not funny, Hailey,” she replied to my comment. “Considering this might be the last thing we do.”

I looked at Tally who stood very still. Calm. Then I looked at my watch.

“Ten fifty-seven,” I stated out loud. “Are you doing that prayer thing?” I asked because she wasn’t moving, and didn’t look like she was breathing.

“Mantra,” she corrected me. “And no. I did that on the way up. It’s still in play. That we make it home alive. It’s like something bad is going to happen.”

Thanks. Giving me more reason to want to back out. But then again…

“Oh. Good thinking,” I said breathily. Breathing was hard all of a sudden. “We probably need a prayer.”

Talia turned to me. “Are you scared?”

I looked at my watch and thought about it. Ten fifty-eight.

“No.”

“Good.” She walked up to me and handed me the camera. “You take the pictures. The flash is already on.

I’m scared out of my mind.”

I hated her.

I took the camera from her.

“Tal,” I said without thinking.

“Yeah?” she answered quietly.

Then I wanted to say something like, “I love you,” or “You’re my best friend” but it came out, “Eight fifty-nine. Ready?”

“Yeah.” It was barely above a whisper.

She moved to her position on the edge of the cliff and looked down. “What’s that?” she asked in what I guessed was alarm. She didn’t do extremes well.

I looked down where she was. “What?!”

“I thought I just saw… never mind. Still ready?”

“Ready!” I took a deep breath and checked my watch. “We jump in twelve.”

I began the mental countdown.

“If we die Hail. I want you to know you were the best prole I ever knew.”

“Ditto. Jump!”

“Wait!” yelled Talia. She turned and ran back to the path.

I nearly lost my balance and fell. “Oh, my gawd! What!”

She disappeared and a second later, she reappeared carrying the huge brick she dragged up here from the park. “What!” I asked again.

“I almost forgot… that we need to break the water before we jump,” she said. She hurried towards the cliff.

“Because we’re jumping from so high up.”

She dropped the brick and it plopped in the dark water below. “Hokay! On three.” She gave me a look.

“And Ditto, Hailey. Really? And I am not a prole. Don’t forget to hit the water straight. Feet first for you.”

Now I felt embarrassed. “Yeah. Okay, sorry. On three, okay. One, Two, THREE!”

Before my startled brain could think me out of it, I jumped.

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