In April
by Beau Cameron
by Beau Cameron
Todd goes missing in April.
You know he’s not dead. If he was, then the astronomy professor would’ve been chanting his name before 8am classes, carving another notch into the cement steps. You aren’t especially bothered; people go missing all the time at the University. Just last week, Jenna from English disappeared, but she won’t get reported since she got replaced a day after her first absence. The Thing That Is Not Jenna sits next to you now, passing over their green highlighter without you even having to ask.
But you knew Todd. Todd was your roommate. You only shared a dorm for a year and two months, but you liked to think you got along pretty well. Sure, he left dishes to mold and crust in the sink, and maybe he ate the food you brought home from work without asking, and yes, he snored like a bulldozer, but at least he didn’t puke on your bed. (That happened to your friend.) You considered yourself lucky to be roomed with Todd. If the University had allowed you to room alone for the remainder of your sophomore year, you would’ve considered yourself even luckier.
They don’t.
Your new roommate is named Inari.
Inari doesn’t seem to think much about the strangeness of the University. They don’t ignore it or try to rationalize it, but they don’t mention it much either. They accept the weird traditions of the University without comment, like these things are common sense, like they’ve done these things all their life. When people whisper about seeing things in the deep end of the pool or in the forest or in the library, they don’t blink an eye. When you whisper to them one night that you think these strange traditions might be in place for a reason they say “of course they are.” Like they’ve known all along.
You watch them closely, more so than you have anyone before. They wear iron on their fingers and carry their salt in their pocket, but never add to the gossip or hysteria. Their shadow is simultaneously too sharp and too out of focus, like it can’t decide if it wants to dissipate or jump to life. If you turn your head quick enough, you can just catch it darting into place behind Inari when they sit, like it doesn’t want to be caught wandering away from them. You try to see it better, but it always knows when you’re watching.
They stay up later than you most nights (it’s the first time that’s happened to you), so you know they must be tired in the mornings despite the lack of circles under their eyes. You bring them a coffee from the cafe you work at to be nice. It takes a lot of encouraging for them to accept it.
“I’ll pay you back,” they insist, eyes earnest.
“Don’t worry about it.” You smile over the rim of a to go cup. “It’s just what friends do.”
It becomes tradition for you two to share coffee while doing homework: Sometimes leaning over each other’s shoulders for a project in your shared English class, other times just a few feet apart, both focused on your own tasks. They’re studying business, or maybe law; you can never remember.
“Music,” someone says once. You look to Inari to confirm, but even though you see their lips move the words escape you. You’re too embarrassed to ask them to repeat themselves (you should know this) and too anxious to ask anyone else, so you let it slide.
You think Inari could be anything they want, whether it’s lawyer or musician or anything else. Inari is crafty and smart and more focused than anyone else you know at the University. You wonder if they just decided that they didn’t have time for the stories. You find it fascinating how someone can both accept and completely ignore the strangeness of the University, the creatures lurking in the forest (and the ones inside the building). You wish you could. But then The Thing That Is Not Jenna grins at you in the mornings, all sharp teeth and black eyes, and you know that, no, you can’t.
It starts when Rachel from your theology class disappears and her girlfriend spends the night bawling in your dorm room. Inari listens, then sighs, then packs a bag. They pull something long and wrapped in cloth from the closet before heading out into the forest under the cover of moonlight. You watch them go, even though you try not to. Even though you know they won’t come back. You clench your iron medallion tighter and try to tell yourself that the hulking dark shape that appears next to them is just the shadows of the trees, that you don’t see the glint off green, inhuman eyes.
(You never expect to see them again.)
Except Inari comes back, and Rachel is back in her seat in front of you, seeming none the worse for wear (although she buries paper bound books and sage at the treeline every new moon until she graduates). Inari says nothing, but during finals they disappear into the library after someone else, clutching their cloth-wrapped object (long, thin but with some heft, clangs like metal when it catches on the door) and accompanied by only their ever shifting shadow.
After that the whispers start. (You start a few yourself.) If you’re desperate to get someone back, you go to Inari, who never seems particularly happy, but accepts most pleas. You remember every half-smile they offer you before they go on another rescue mission, clinging to them like a life-line until they return.
You don’t remember the time you lost when you disappeared. You’ve been told it was after a party, that it was a Friday night, that it was a Tuesday morning, that someone saw you by the bleachers and another on the roof. You don’t know what to believe, so you believe nothing (and everything). All you know is that you woke up in your dorm shivering, with Inari looming over you.
“What do I owe you?” You ask, because pleasantries would seem so painful in this moment that if you tried to pretend you didn’t know what had happened you would scream and scream and never stop screaming.
“Nothing.” They aren’t whispering, but their voice carries the tune of silence. “It’s just what friends do.”
After the incident with the freshman, it becomes more than whispers. You don’t know what his partner offered to get Inari to agree, (they had an English final the next day) but Inari went after the kid with a quiet frustration. They showed up two minutes before their test with the boy trailing behind them, a few strands of seaweed caught in his hair and a blank expression on his face. He sat next to them the whole period. He’s doing better now, but he vanishes on the first of every month, returning at the end of 24 hours each time, on the dot.
After that, everyone knows.
Inari can’t help everyone, of course. If your friend was desperate enough to seek out the crossroads guardian, there’s nothing to be done. Inari always asks for a favor in return, to be held in trust until a time of their choosing. No one will tell you what they’ve asked for.
A favor in trust is a serious price at the University. But at least Inari is human, people reason, staring at their bruised knuckles, at their swaying shadow.
At least they seem human enough.
You know he’s not dead. If he was, then the astronomy professor would’ve been chanting his name before 8am classes, carving another notch into the cement steps. You aren’t especially bothered; people go missing all the time at the University. Just last week, Jenna from English disappeared, but she won’t get reported since she got replaced a day after her first absence. The Thing That Is Not Jenna sits next to you now, passing over their green highlighter without you even having to ask.
But you knew Todd. Todd was your roommate. You only shared a dorm for a year and two months, but you liked to think you got along pretty well. Sure, he left dishes to mold and crust in the sink, and maybe he ate the food you brought home from work without asking, and yes, he snored like a bulldozer, but at least he didn’t puke on your bed. (That happened to your friend.) You considered yourself lucky to be roomed with Todd. If the University had allowed you to room alone for the remainder of your sophomore year, you would’ve considered yourself even luckier.
They don’t.
Your new roommate is named Inari.
Inari doesn’t seem to think much about the strangeness of the University. They don’t ignore it or try to rationalize it, but they don’t mention it much either. They accept the weird traditions of the University without comment, like these things are common sense, like they’ve done these things all their life. When people whisper about seeing things in the deep end of the pool or in the forest or in the library, they don’t blink an eye. When you whisper to them one night that you think these strange traditions might be in place for a reason they say “of course they are.” Like they’ve known all along.
You watch them closely, more so than you have anyone before. They wear iron on their fingers and carry their salt in their pocket, but never add to the gossip or hysteria. Their shadow is simultaneously too sharp and too out of focus, like it can’t decide if it wants to dissipate or jump to life. If you turn your head quick enough, you can just catch it darting into place behind Inari when they sit, like it doesn’t want to be caught wandering away from them. You try to see it better, but it always knows when you’re watching.
They stay up later than you most nights (it’s the first time that’s happened to you), so you know they must be tired in the mornings despite the lack of circles under their eyes. You bring them a coffee from the cafe you work at to be nice. It takes a lot of encouraging for them to accept it.
“I’ll pay you back,” they insist, eyes earnest.
“Don’t worry about it.” You smile over the rim of a to go cup. “It’s just what friends do.”
It becomes tradition for you two to share coffee while doing homework: Sometimes leaning over each other’s shoulders for a project in your shared English class, other times just a few feet apart, both focused on your own tasks. They’re studying business, or maybe law; you can never remember.
“Music,” someone says once. You look to Inari to confirm, but even though you see their lips move the words escape you. You’re too embarrassed to ask them to repeat themselves (you should know this) and too anxious to ask anyone else, so you let it slide.
You think Inari could be anything they want, whether it’s lawyer or musician or anything else. Inari is crafty and smart and more focused than anyone else you know at the University. You wonder if they just decided that they didn’t have time for the stories. You find it fascinating how someone can both accept and completely ignore the strangeness of the University, the creatures lurking in the forest (and the ones inside the building). You wish you could. But then The Thing That Is Not Jenna grins at you in the mornings, all sharp teeth and black eyes, and you know that, no, you can’t.
It starts when Rachel from your theology class disappears and her girlfriend spends the night bawling in your dorm room. Inari listens, then sighs, then packs a bag. They pull something long and wrapped in cloth from the closet before heading out into the forest under the cover of moonlight. You watch them go, even though you try not to. Even though you know they won’t come back. You clench your iron medallion tighter and try to tell yourself that the hulking dark shape that appears next to them is just the shadows of the trees, that you don’t see the glint off green, inhuman eyes.
(You never expect to see them again.)
Except Inari comes back, and Rachel is back in her seat in front of you, seeming none the worse for wear (although she buries paper bound books and sage at the treeline every new moon until she graduates). Inari says nothing, but during finals they disappear into the library after someone else, clutching their cloth-wrapped object (long, thin but with some heft, clangs like metal when it catches on the door) and accompanied by only their ever shifting shadow.
After that the whispers start. (You start a few yourself.) If you’re desperate to get someone back, you go to Inari, who never seems particularly happy, but accepts most pleas. You remember every half-smile they offer you before they go on another rescue mission, clinging to them like a life-line until they return.
You don’t remember the time you lost when you disappeared. You’ve been told it was after a party, that it was a Friday night, that it was a Tuesday morning, that someone saw you by the bleachers and another on the roof. You don’t know what to believe, so you believe nothing (and everything). All you know is that you woke up in your dorm shivering, with Inari looming over you.
“What do I owe you?” You ask, because pleasantries would seem so painful in this moment that if you tried to pretend you didn’t know what had happened you would scream and scream and never stop screaming.
“Nothing.” They aren’t whispering, but their voice carries the tune of silence. “It’s just what friends do.”
After the incident with the freshman, it becomes more than whispers. You don’t know what his partner offered to get Inari to agree, (they had an English final the next day) but Inari went after the kid with a quiet frustration. They showed up two minutes before their test with the boy trailing behind them, a few strands of seaweed caught in his hair and a blank expression on his face. He sat next to them the whole period. He’s doing better now, but he vanishes on the first of every month, returning at the end of 24 hours each time, on the dot.
After that, everyone knows.
Inari can’t help everyone, of course. If your friend was desperate enough to seek out the crossroads guardian, there’s nothing to be done. Inari always asks for a favor in return, to be held in trust until a time of their choosing. No one will tell you what they’ve asked for.
A favor in trust is a serious price at the University. But at least Inari is human, people reason, staring at their bruised knuckles, at their swaying shadow.
At least they seem human enough.
Beau Cameron is a member of the class of 2019 and a lover of all things literary. After high school, hopes to pursue writing as a career and continue creating stories through various mediums. His piece, "In April," is inspired by his fascination with mythology and the world beyond our own.
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