No one really believes in the ghost.

“You scared?” The answer is yes. But like hell I’m going to tell May that. So I smile real tight-like and laugh.

“Yes.” Dammit! I was supposed to lie! I scratch at my hand nervously, luckily May doesn’t wait for an answer, she just fiddles with the candle, wax dripping slowly onto her fingerless gloves. She walks on, her feet crunching on the leaves, looking around her at towering firs and endless stars. I look down, at my hands, and realize that I cut into them again with my nails and my hyperactive nerves. Dammit. May darts around calmly, her face a devil in the scattered starlight and flickering candle. The moon is dark, it doesn’t like this place anymore than I do. But it’s necessary to be here. For us, anyway, the moon has copped out.

At least, no one really believes in it anymore.

Granddad said when he was my age, kids had the mind to be terrified of the ghost. They looked upon their initiation, into adulthood, with fear. And not because of the dangers of the woods, not because they had to spend all night alone, but because of the ghost. The only reason I’m not alone is because May was born the same day as me. That’s what happens when you’re twins. We don’t look alike, she has wild tangling nut brown hair and violent green eyes. I have dead looking red hair, and no one really notices my eyes. We don’t act alike, she likes adventure and recklessness, and I sit at home sometimes just scratching at my skin until I bleed. I feel like there’s bugs underneath it, but no one believes me, so I spend most of my time trying to cut myself open and get them out. It’s a habit.

No one really believes in the ghost. It doesn’t even have a story to it anymore. No legend, no sordid past, no horrific death, it’s just a ghost. It used to have a name, a past, a threat to it, long before my granddad had his initiation. Now it’s just the ghost. And they barely mention it. Now it’s an “activity”. They mention it in neon print in the brochure for our town. But no matter how much you know, when it’s dark enough you aren’t certain of anything

“Are you coming?” May asks, irate, from behind a decomposing tree trunk. I speed up to meet her. We’re on our way to a predetermined campsite, complete with already prepared tent, food, and fire. They didn’t have that when granddad was little. I mention this to May. She tells me not to be so bitter. I neglect to defend that it’s all the bug’s fault, they’re driving me insane.

“Someone is staring at me.” I blurt out, because I just can’t help it. I have to tell people, even though they look at me funny.

“No one’s staring at you, you’re imagining it Millie.” May responds in annoyance, wiggling her fingers through the candle flame to practice not getting burned. I frown. It’s not just someone, it’s a million people staring at me, I can feel it. I scratch at my hands. We approach the campsite awkwardly, following the waving neon scarves of plastic, wrapped around trees much older than our town. We enter the clearing. The tent and the fire are amateur, assembled sloppily, and the food is a pile of tins next to the fire. The bugs are eating me alive, they don’t like that much light, so they go crazy. I scratch some more. I wonder if May notices it, notices the deep scars and the blood on our bedroom floor. May looks back at me, smiling perversely.

“Remember Millie, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

And she blows out the candle.