Authors Note: First chapters are hard, I often can't determine if I like a book enough to continue it until I'm a quarter of the way through. The first chapter of Yesterday, Today, wasn't exactly a hit, based on some of the feedback I received. Which I really appreciate by the way. Right now everything I'm writing comes from slightly exaggerated and dramatized memories from my real life. I know some of you didn't like the gratuitous cursing. My best friend in high school couldn't speak around us without prefacing every phrase with a fuck'n. One day my girlfriend finally called him out for it and humbled him for it. That inspired me to open Chapter 2 like this. If it hadn't been for that feedback I wouldn't have remember that story. Thanks!

So, I ask you to give it a second try. See if you start to connect to Ashton a bit, because they are going to have a wild ride.

-Love!
Sarah

Chapter 2 The Ritual
Ashton

Ashton glanced behind him. Marie and Jess in the back seat were whispering back and forth. Beside him Garrett followed the red lights stretching out in front of him on County Road 8. He had a mischievous grin. "Fucking hell, can you believe this shit. We're going to this dumbass pothead's ritual," Garrett said.

"Could you stop cursing please?" Marie said.

Garrett laughed, "What, have you got sensitive ears?"

"Stop being an ass," Jess said.

"He really can't help it, he is an ass," Ashton said.

Marie straightened her back and spoke clearly over the Jeep's engine. "I actually do have sensitive ears, but let me ask you, what's the point of that language? Who are you trying to impress?"

Garrett laughed but was nervous. Ashton could see his friend's bravado shaken. "It's just how I talk."

"Is that how you talk to your grandmother?" Marie asked.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. Look, sorry. Are you really religious or something?"

Marie's lips formed a slight grin. "You could say that. Apology accepted, thank you."

For a few minutes the Jeep's cab was filled with the sound of wind and tires on chipseal back roads, then Garrett turned to Ashton. "Okay dude, I've got a question. You were fu— freaking weird back there. The whole jacket pocket thing. What was up with that?"

It took Ashton a moment to settle on an answer. "I don't know," he said, which was true enough. "I just saw it. The outline of it through the fabric."

"You just saw it."

"The pocket was tight. You could see the shape if you looked."

Garrett glanced at him sideways. "Nobody else saw it."

Ashton shrugged. "Nobody else was looking."

From the back seat Marie said, quietly, almost to herself, "That's interesting."

It was interesting, and this wasn't the first time either. The first time he remembered he was like 13. He was in his backyard and he just looked over and somehow knew that the watch that had fallen off his arm was in a certain clump of grass. He walked over and there it was.

There was no rhyme or reason to it, just sometimes he'd get a feeling like he knew where something was.

Ashton turned around. Marie was appraising him. He felt the back of his neck go warm and turned back to face the road.

"So what's this guy, Rick's actual deal," Jess asked. "Like why does he think he can do magic?"

Garrett seemed relieved to have something to talk about. "Rick's a freak. He moved here in his 20s or something. Me and Ashton knew him from The Tower, the comic shop, before he got fired. He sold us Magic cards sometimes. He's this strange mix of burnout hippie and satanic occultist. He's basically been doing amateur rituals in his backyard since like 1988."

"Has anything ever worked?" Marie asked.

Garrett opened his mouth and then closed it. Ashton watched the hesitation happen in real time, his friend's face contorted in the yellow glow of the dashboard.

"The Cindy Gibbons thing you mentioned early," Ashton said.

"Yeah, that was weird," Garrett said.

"What's the Cindy Gibbons thing exactly? Jess asked.

Garrett exhaled. "Girl that came into Subway for lunch a lot. Rick had a thing for her, didn't know she already had a boyfriend. She shot him down, kinda hard."

"In her defense, he's like 8 years older than her, and a freak," Ashton said.

"Yeah, that's true," Garrett said. "He did some stupid spell at Subway on his lunch break. Two weeks later she caught her super religious boyfriend cheating on her with a prostitute."

"Mud Creek has prostitutes?" Jess asked.

Garrett laughed. "No, she was from like Evansville or something, but get this. She was a he. A chick with a dick."

Ashton grimaced. Why did his best friend have to be so damn crude.

"Wow, creepy," Jess said.

The Jeep got quiet again. Outside, the flat farmland gave way to scrubby tree line as the road started to rise slightly and snaked between farmland and hills towards the bluff.

"What happened to him?" Marie asked. "With the comic shop."

Garrett's jaw tightened slightly. "Hall found out people were buying weird porn comics from the shop. Like really freaky stuff. Hall organized a picket. Church members standing outside with signs, called the local paper, the whole thing. The owner panicked and started clearing inventory. Rick was the one who'd been ordering the adult titles, so he was the one who got let go." He shrugged. "Rick's never really had much. That job was kind of his thing."

The trees closed in on both sides of the road now. Up ahead, other sets of headlights were pulling off onto a gravel road. Garrett made the turn and the crunch of gravel could be heard under their wheels.

Garrett eyed Marie through his mirror. "Hey Marie, your accent, is that like Alabama?"

Marie smiled, "Close, Lousianna."

Ashton turned back towards her. "So how'd you end up in Southern Illinois?"

Marie smiled and tilted her head. "Well, I traveled for a while. I spent some time with the Rainbow people, and last year we camped in the Shawnee National Forest for two weeks. I decided to stay. I found a job at the video store, that's where I made friends with Jess."

Garrett laughed. "Rainbow people? Dang, now that's out there."

They crossed a small bridge and in a few moments the road dived into the woods between two hills. Summer dust from the road made the red lights in front of them glow.

"Why are we going?" Ashton asked. He wasn't sure if he was asking Garrett or the car in general.

"Free entertainment," Jess said.

"Curiosity," Garrett said, and Ashton could tell from his tone he wasn't entirely joking.

From the back, Marie said nothing. When Ashton glanced back at her she was looking out the window at the dark tree line. She didn't seem to be here for entertainment.

The gravel pull-off for the trail was already full, so Garrett parked along the road. He opened up his glovebox and got two flashlights out. The group had gathered around Rick on the edge of the trail.

"If you have a flashlight in your car, go get it. I have a few in my bag," Rick said, seemingly taking his role as ritual organizer seriously. In a few moments they were walking down the well-worn dirt trail. The air was heavy with the sound of bullfrogs and crickets. Pale yellow beams cast out, illuminating stray branches and spiderwebs. Ashton could feel the exhilaration.

"Guys, this is like something from a movie," he said quietly.

"Yeah, a movie where every one of us gets systematically murdered by a psychopath," Garrett said with a chuckle.

"You are such an asshole," Jess said.

There were about three people to every flashlight, but the moon was full so it wasn't difficult to stay on the trail. Marie walked along beside Ashton; they fell back a bit from Jess and Garrett. She glanced over at him with a warm smile.

"So, your friend Garrett? He's interesting."

Ashton smiled. "Yeah, I know he can kind of come off like a jerk, but he's a good dude."

Marie nodded. "He's trying hard to project that he's not, but I think you're right. So he's curious about the unknown, isn't he?"

Ashton pushed a branch out of their way. "Yeah, he's been kind of obsessed with it since high school, but he acts like it's a joke. He doesn't really believe it, I'm sure."

Marie drew in slightly closer. "And neither do you?"

Ashton smiled. "What, are you going to tell me you're a witch?"

Marie's eyes grew wide and her smile betrayed her.

"Wait, you are a witch? Or like a Wiccan?"

Marie giggled. "Don't be silly. Magic is make-believe." She grew quiet, and the smile slid off her face. "But that doesn't mean there aren't things out there we can't always explain."

Ashton smiled, and realized she wasn't joking. "Oh, yeah. There are… mysteries I guess."

"Yes."

They walked in silence for a moment. Ashton considered mysteries and then decided to get to the bottom of the one in front of him. "You're not from here, are you?"

Marie smiled and stepped over a root. "No, I moved here recently."

Ashton laughed. "So really, why would anyone move to Mud Creek?"

Marie looked up at the moon for a moment and continued. "There are some unique things about this area, especially this forest. There are places in it that are very old, places where you can feel the past, you know."

Ashton nodded.

"My Grandmother was really into… the past. Like she taught me about listening. I think she would have liked it here."

“I’ve been here once when the Rainbow People were here. What was it like, living with them?”

Marie smiled, “Liberating at first, you own nothing, and it seems like everyone is equal.” She shook her head. “But then some man is telling you to climb into another dumpster. And another man won’t stop looking at you. It was just a different name for the same patriarchy.”

Marie stretched her hands out in front of her."Now let me ask you something. The paper in the jacket, did you see it or feel it?"

Ashton looked over at her with his mouth ajar; his foot caught a root and he nearly tripped.

"Careful back there, chief," Garrett yelled from up ahead.

"I could see it, the shape of it, through the fabric."

"Hmm," she said, like his mom used to say when she knew he hadn't done his chores. He felt drawn to trust her, to tell her the truth about things. Things he could feel, things he knew.

He didn't, not yet at least. But why did he want to open up to this woman he barely knew?

The trail dipped down, and then the trees broke and they stepped onto the stone. Ashton had been to Hart's a few times, back with his family as a kid, and just last year, but he'd never been here in the dark. A cracked and broken stone shelf extended out hundreds of feet to the right and left of them. At the edge, a sheer drop of 75 feet could possibly be broken by trees that were only a few feet below the bluff. A few small lights could be seen out in the distance, farms way out on the county road.

The full moon was high behind them, and Ashton glanced out at the dark green treetops extending out until they met the blackness of the sky, and thought of being at the ocean. A stone circle filled with half-burned wood and beer cans was the ground in front of them.

A cluster was forming around Rick near the firepit. Twelve people, half of them drunk or stoned, had made the trip out and were waiting for Rick to take command. He dropped his green backpack on the rocks and checked his digital Casio watch. "OK folks, 23 minutes to midnight. Turn off flashlights and leave them off. Stay away from the edge. We're working with real power tonight, people."

It might have been the moon, but a current was running through the group and Rick was surfing the feelings. Ashton began to see how crackpot leaders could influence people to drink the Kool-Aid.

Rick got down to one knee and pulled a coffee can out of his backpack. From inside he took out a bundle of herbs wrapped in brown paper and spread them out. "Sage to create the ritual space," he said. Then he set five sticks of incense out like the points of a star. "Dragon's blood, to stir powers underneath."

Marie suppressed a laugh. "What?" Ashton whispered beside her.

"This is more head shop than ritual," she whispered back.

Rick then took out a stick of chalk and began drawing a diagram of lines and symbols, surrounded by a circle, on the rocks around him. He checked his notebook and muttered about cardinal directions, inverted serifs, anagrams, and gathering energy.

Ashton noticed that Marie's attention kept drifting towards the edge. Eventually she drifted away from the group towards it. Ashton watched her standing there bathed in moonlight, the way her peasant skirt draped from her hips. He caught himself running a hand down to his own hips.

Ashton wandered over and stood next to Marie. "What a view."

"This place, it feels… angry," Marie said. She looked at Ashton. "Can you feel it?"

"Angry?"

"Down there." Marie pointed below. "Close your eyes. Listen."

Ashton did. It was quiet. He felt nothing, but then he felt it. The way his mother glared when the coal company men walked into his dad's funeral. Pure, smoldering hate.

Ashton took a step back. "Umm."

"Let's get away from the edge," Marie said, and they rejoined the back of the group, watching Rick scrawl like a madman.

"Is this, like, real?" Ashton whispered. He meant it as a joke, mostly. Jess heard and drew close to listen.

Marie considered her answer a moment. "He believes. That could be enough."

Rick stood tall and brushed chalk dust off his hands. He began counting heads, counting himself last. "Twelve. I need nine. Form a circle, hold hands," he commanded.

Garrett turned back and looked at them. He was grinning like a kid in a candy store. Marie and Jess pulled back. Garrett let himself be pulled into the circle.

Rick bent down and lit the bundle of herbs in the center of the circle. He then turned around the circle, stopping at five points, and read some Latin from his notebook.

Rick turned the page of his notebook and began to read. His voice carried over the overlook.

"We are gathered here together to take revenge on one whose hate and malice has stirred in us a greater hate, a greater malice. Jacob Hall, a minister of the other order. He shirks his duties to his flock and instead spends his time bringing suffering to those whose beliefs he does not respect. We humbly ask you, oh Sal’iesh, bringer of pain, to inflict on him suffering akin to the suffering which he has brought upon us."

Ashton glanced to his right. Garrett was looking forward, enraptured. To his left it was the same with Jake. He felt cold. This was wrong. He wanted to drop the hands, and get away, but he couldn't force himself to break the circle.

Suddenly the moonlight dimmed as clouds rolled over it. The wind picked up seemingly from nowhere. A howl came up from the overlook as the wind whipped through the trees.

Rick was sweating, his body like a conduit, conducting the nervous energy the circle was feeding him into his performance. He lowered himself down and came up with the sport coat and held it high above the circle.

"You will know Jacob Hall from this, a coat bearing the man's name and personal effects," Rick said. He read some Latin phrases, then dropped the coat on the ground and began to stomp it. Then he poured a vial of vile-smelling clear liquid on it and torched it with his lighter.

Flames danced off the cloth and he began to jump on it. The wind grew stronger. There was something happening. A noise, a howling, an angry, ear-shattering noise. Ashton felt the hands he was holding squeeze harder. The sky was filled with color, green, red. There was no moon. There was something coming, something really, really, really pissed off.

"Let go!" Marie's voice rose above the chaos. The clear sound of it shook away his fear and he let go of the people around him. He felt hands on his shoulders and was tugged backward, tripped, and fell down, taking Marie with him.

Stone came up and their heads smacked together. Marie was still holding his shoulders, and in a split second the world inverted. Ashton could see them from outside his body. Illuminated by flickering flames, Ashton could see it all — the circle quickly reforming, fog creeping up from below the overlook, surrounding the circle of figures in their black robes. And in the middle of it all, a man with a long beard and goat horns, dancing on hooves in a circle. Then he saw three lithe figures with long hair and white robes that glowed in the moonshadow. He could see their faces. He could almost make them out.

"Hey, are you okay?" Ashton saw Marie's face. She looked concerned. People milled about; cigarettes were being lit. Rick was packing up his stuff. Flashlights came on.

"I'm… I'm…" Ashton didn't know who they were.

Garrett was kneeling down near him. "Hey, how many fingers am I holding up?" Garrett's middle finger came up in Ashton's face and his lips formed a grin.

"I hate you," Ashton said with a smile as the world came back into focus. The middle finger became a hand and Ashton took it. His friend pulled him back to his feet and he dusted off his jeans.

"What happened?"

Marie met his eyes. "You got dizzy. Too much smoke probably. You fell back on top of me."

He knew it was a lie, but before he could question it Marie said, "You're alright. Everyone's leaving."

Ashton nodded and followed the group back in silence.