The Teen Zine 

The firepit crackled the same as it had every October 31st since eighth grade, when they'd first gathered around it for Keepers Night. Five folding chairs sat in a circle around the flames, though tonight, as it had been every year for the past three, one of them had been angled in so that instead of looking at the fire, whoever sat in it would be looking at the other four. It was always Selenes chair, ever since she had claimed it three years ago, though nobody could honestly recall why, save that it had always been that way. The only rule, the one they all obeyed without question, was that the Keeper always changed every year. None of them could say with certainty who had first suggested that it should be Selene, but once they had decided so, it had, to their minds, always been so. She always sat in that same chair, angled at the same strange vantage point, her face lit only by the low glow of the fire that somehow never failed to cast shadows over her neck in quite the same way

"It should be someone else this year," Amara said, poking at the fire with a stick, mostly for something to do with her hands. "It's been you for three years, straight"

Selene smiled, as she always did, the most pleasant smile Amara had ever seen, the one that suggested that she was bored but forbore saying so. "I don't mind, it's traditional. The Keeper listens until she's ready to pass it on."

"Ready how?"

"You'll know," Selene replied, as always, leaving it at that.

And so Marcus went first, as he always did, because he felt it was his duty, or perhaps because he enjoyed volunteering and seeing the expressions on other's faces when he told his story. His tale this year was about a shadow that had crossed the streetlights on his walk home from Santis's house back in August, one that had been travelling faster than he had, just fast enough to catch the few seconds of his walk past the houses on either side. It had lacked the tell-tale folds at the ankle, though none of them laughed at this detail, as they might have done on another night.

Santi went next, a little shaken, as he always was after Marcus's turn, though he blamed it on the marshmallows and the sleepless nights in October, not on the story itself, though he might have blamed it on that as well. His story, this year, was about a voicemail he'd recieved from an unknown number, whose return call had given him nothing but three seconds of static before the line went dead,

Yuki's story was about her aunt's summer apartment, the one she always stayed at as a child before she moved out, and a door at the end of the hall that always unlocked itself at precisely three in the morning, only from two rooms away, so that only one could hear the small metallic sound of the bolt sliding back, as if something on the other side was willing but unable to open it, and only once, when Yuki asked, her aunt had said something like

Some doors are for listening, not answering

and refused to elaborate further.

Selene listened to all of their stories, as she always did, though she remained almost as distant as she was every other year, her eyes rarely flickering at the right moment, her hands clasped primly in front of her as if she was waiting in a waiting room. When every story had finished, as they always did, she nodded once solemnly, as if filing it away, and Amara caught the look on her face, once again, three years in a row, as if a held breath was suddenly released. It wasn't that Selene's smile was wider this year, or even necessarily that it was different, but that it seemed to have grown heavier, as if her mouth was stretching wider to accomodate something that had remained tightly held in her chest for too long.

And then it was Amara's turn.

She spoke about the photograph she'd found in her grandmother's attic back in July , tucked behind a water damaged Halloween decoration. It depicted five girls of roughly the same age gathered around a fire pit, seated in much the same way, save for one whose face was turned at an angle to face the others, her expression one of mild curiosity, a little too still

"It was funny in a way," Amara said, her voice a little tight. "I thought maybe it was just a coincidence, but when I saw the back of it..." She paused, as she always had when telling this story, to show them the date. "It was October 31st, 1974."

The search had begun in earnest after that, with many nights spent poring over documents that she had no business looking at, if she wanted to retain sleep, or sanity. It had started small, she thought, wanting desperately to connect whatever loose thread she could find to the familiar shape of her grandmother's voice, to some long-lost relative of Selene's who might have known about all of this, but there was nothing. There was nothing to be found at the town library, save for the existence of the yearbook, and a disinterested librarian who had been far too happy to help her look through the microfilm for anything that might relate to the firepit, and eventually the names she had written down. There were four faces in that photograph that matched four faces in the yearbook, and a fifth with no name that Amara found attached to nothing except for four pages in the back of the book, saved for the year's staff, that depicted her smiling, patient face in the middle of every group photo she hadn't been explicitly hired to be in.

She found a clipping from the newspaper, from the same year, buried deeper in the archives, and far less maintained than the yearbook might have been expected to be, though nothing could have prepared her for what she found there. A group of five school friends, close as family, wrote their friend, a family friend quoted in the article, and within a year of that photograph being published as a cute little piece about the class's 10th grade Halloween party in the local paper, they had all disappeared, one by one, either untraceable or, in the case of one Peter Alvarez, simply dead, found in the woods behind the high school two months after the article ran, with no cause of death listed other than accident, and his family's sole statement to the press about him being 'smaller than we remembered', as if something had taken a piece of him and left the rest for them to bury.

It hadn't been enough for Amara, not really, to find that one solitary clipping, though she'd said nothing when she found it, and it took her until nearly September to find the second, a third, and a fourth. All of them were the same, in their own ways, a different time, a different decade, a different name for the same kind of thing, a girl who had vanished in the woods after Halloween only to reappear, days later, on the county road, alive, but with some part of her missing, as if grief had taken a chunk out of her and left the hollow shell of her wandering from town to town, never speaking a word, save for the rest of her life, which, when she died at sixty, was recorded as a tragedy by the local paper, because, she thought, that somehow, it really wasn't a confession, but an admission. None of these things were particularly surprising to Amara, who had read every word of them, though she had saved the last one for the end, for the part where a boy, nearly the same age as herself, had written a letter to the editor asking why the town had stopped asking questions, why no one had wanted to look into it, when, when the boy's family had described him in his sole public statement to the press, he had been 'smaller than we remembered'

She hadn't wanted to say anything about it at first, perhaps because she thought they would laugh, because she knew, in the deepest part of her, that she was wrong to think of it as anything other than a story, but more importantly, because

if she said it out loud too soon, before she had proof, Selene would change it, as she always did, and none of the other stories would have happened, not the way they had, and if Amara said them first, she would have been able to say this last one after, and it would have been just as real

She told it then, finally, to no one in particular, because no one asked, as they hadn't for the past three years, save that this time, her voice wasn't quite as steady, as she had practiced saying it, over and over again, in her head, because by the time October came round again, she barely even felt nervous, just a cold, detached kind of resolve, the way one might when diving into water they knew was far too deep.

"There's a girl in the picture who's not in any of the yearbook photos," Amara said, looking at the fire instead of Selene, though she could see the look on her face as clearly as if she was there, this time. "No records, no name in any of the lists. Just... there. In that picture. With the same face as someone I know."

There was a very long pause, during which the fire crackled loudly, but no one seemed to notice. "Amara," said Selene very quietly, "It's not your turn to be Keeper." Finally, finally, she met Amara's eyes, "Same as you tell ours, every year, at the end. Except you don't just tell them back, do you? You change something, small enough that we never notice. Year you told Santis's story about the porch, you added a detail he never said. That someone had been sitting on the steps with him. He believed it, he still does, doesn't he, Santi?"

Santis face was almost as pale as the ash at the firepit. "I--there wasn't anyone there. I don't know why I thought--"

"Because she put it there," Amara interrupted. "Once she says it, it's just true." She paused, taking a steadying breath. "It becomes what happened, that's what the Keeper does. That's what you've been doing for longer than any of us have been alive."

Selene had gone absolutely still, something in her face tightening, as if she had gone rigid, all pleasant patience bled out of her features to reveal something much older, much more impatient. "You don't want to say this part loud," she said, for the first time her voice sounding almost as if it was coming from two places at once, "It's easier for everyone if it stays a story."

"What are you?" Amara asked bluntly, the way the article about Peter Alvarez did that very thing, with no ceremony. "What is it that you keep doing to us?"

The fire burned lower, but not because of the wind, which had stopped altogether, as if something had leaned over it and smothered it.

"I keep things," said Selene. "That is all I have ever done." Her smile returned, though now it looked less like a smile and more like something that was starving. "Every group needs someone who remembers."

Remembering isn't free, not the way I do it. To hold a story the way I hold them, every second of it every word, every face. I have to take the whole of it. Not just the telling. The person underneath the telling. I eat what's underneath Amara. The version of you that only exists in the version of the story you would tell. I take that. I keep it and whats left standing afterward is thinner. Quieter. Easier to fold into a chair."

Yuki made some sort of sound that might have been a gasp, or a word that was trying to form but hadn't yet.

"That girl on the county road in the 40's," Amara said, her voice shaking a little. "The one who never spoke again. You didn't hurt her. You ate her up. Whatever part of her told stories, whatever part of her was hers to tell. Gone. You just left the rest standing there because the rest wasn't what you wanted."

"I don't take all of anyone," said Selene, gently, as if it was a comfort. "Just enough. What I need to stay. A person can survive being a little less full of themselves than they used to be. Most people never even notice whats missing. They just feel a little thinner at the edges, a little easier to forget and they call it growing up or getting quiet or losing touch with friends. I have been very generous actually considering how I have been doing this."

". Peter?" Amara pressed. "You weren't generous with him."

Something like irritation flickered across Selenes face, the real expression she'd been wearing all night, though nothing was more evident than the fact that she was wearing one at all. "He tried to tell the others what I was. Out loud. By the fire. Same as you are doing now." Her mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "When someone sees me clearly and says so I can't just take a little anymore. The seeing has to go or it spreads." Her voice dropped, almost fond, almost nostalgic. "I remember it exactly. I remember what he tasted like if thats a word you will accept for it. Every birthday he had ever described around a fire like this one every fear, every small cruelty and small kindness he had ever confessed to people he trusted. All of it at once the way you would swallow something because chewing would only prolong the part where it still resembled what it used to be. There wasn't a 'rest of him' left standing to find wandering a road. Just a boy in the woods who had stopped all at once being anyone all. And by morning even the shape where a person should have been had gone quiet enough that the search dogs walked right past him twice before someone finally looked down."

Yuki made a choked sound and pressed the back of her hand hard against her mouth.

"You're describing this like its a memory," said Marcus, his voice shaking.

"It is," said Selene. For the first time that night, she did not sound pleasant about it. "It is the one I have. He fought. Most of them don't fight. Fighting makes the meal last."

"What happened to him?" Yuki asked, very quietly, because Amara had already told them, and because she didn't want to say it again.

Selene did not answer, only smiled, the way she always did, patient and pleasant, giving nothing away as though the question had already been answered much as it ever would be, and asking twice was simply rude.

Marcuss hand had somehow found its way to Santis sleeve without either of them noticing, and Yuki had stopped moving from her chair, her knuckles whiter than the wood had any business being, while Amara felt the cold resolve she had practiced for weeks turn to something close to actual fear, because, because knowing a monsters name it turned out did not make its teeth any less real.

"He was alone," said Amara, barely louder than a whisper, more to the others than to Selene. "That's why she got all of him. He said it loud but he said it by himself to her and there was no one else there to hold onto it after. Four voices are harder to unmake than one."

"Its going to go this time," Amara said, louder, her voice shaking but determined, and it was this time that her voice shook the loudest. "Marcus. Santi. Yuki. Look at her. Really look. Selene isn't fifty years old wearing a sixteen year old's face by accident. She isn't one of us. She never was.. If we say that. Together. Out loud. And we mean it. She can't rewrite it later. She can't tell us it was always fine."

It was quiet for a long moment, longer than it needed to be. "She is not one of us," said Marcus, his voice raw.

Selenes smile twitched, as if she had expected something else, and perhaps she had. "She is not one of us," said Santi again, quieter this time, as if it cost him, which it did, because Amara could see the pallor of his face as he said it. "She is not one of us," said Yuki, her voice barely audible.

Selene's shape did not change, not exactly, but the firelight slid off of her, as if there was less of her to catch it, as if naming her had taken something out of the world, as it always did when something was named. "She is not one of us," said Amara last, and she looked at Selenes square, flat, coin-like eyes as she said it, and made herself look at them, really look at them for the first time in three years. "She never told a true story in three years of Keepers Night. She ever gave stories back to us. Smaller than we told them, missing whatever she had decided to keep for herself. She is not a friend. She is not fifty years old wearing a sixteen-year-olds face by accident. She has been doing this since before any of our parents were born and every version of herself she has ever worn used to sit where she is sitting now."

Selenes still smile finally broke into something that looked alarmingly like fear, though, if anything, it was far more animal than human. "You will regret this."

Every group needs a Keeper. Someone has to hold the stories. You will lose them. You will forget each other. You will forget yourselves.

"We will remember on our own," said Amara. "Together. Out loud. Every year. That is the point isn't it? You only get in when we stop doing that ourselves."

The fire guttered, once, violently, and when it steadied itself, Selenes chair was empty, though it might have always been that way. There was no scream, no scattering of ash, nothing as dramatic or final as one might expect. She simply wasn't there anymore, the way a word you've said many times stops sounding like a word at all.

For a long moment, no one said anything. Marcus finally removed his hand from Santis sleeve. Yuki let out a long, shaky laugh, the kind that signaled the end of something, if not the beginning. "Okay. Okay that happened."

"That happened," said Amara, for the first time that night, believing it entirely.

They all stayed around the fire long after they should have gone, no one particularly willing to be the one to suggest it, and they talked. Talked, really, about Peter Alvarez, about the girl on the county road, about every small thing that had ever felt slightly off in the years that Selene had sat at their fire, and it felt, Amara thought, like scrubbing something clean, like putting all their stories where they belonged, inside people who had actually lived them.

They continued Keepers Night the following year, because some traditions are hard to let go of even after you understand exactly why they exist. They did not choose a Keeper this year, because there was no need to, all four of them sitting in a circle, the one empty chair that no one would sit in not holding any special place, as it never had.

hat was the point, the thing Selene had always wanted to keep from them. A story held by all could not be swallowed secretly by one.

Marcus spoke of a dog that refused to leave an empty field alone. Santi spoke of a streetlight outside his new apartment that only seemed to flicker when he looked at it. Yuki, last as always, spoke of a summer trip that had somehow gotten off track in ways she still couldn't quite explain.

And then, as it always seemed to happen when the night drew to a close--because some part of them, some small voice at the back of their skulls, insisted that someone always did this--Amara found herself speaking after, telling their stories back to them as a sort of game. Just to hear it once more before it was truly over, to taste it on her tongue and hold it in her heart and know, just this once, that she had kept them all safe.

She tucked a little something in there as well, a little something extra that had nothing to do with Yuki's tale at all, and as she spoke it she knew it was true in the most wonderful way.

No one seemed to notice, and she was glad of it, and as she told it she felt her heart swell in her chest, warm and full and grateful. She hadn't stolen much at all, only a morsel or two, only a passing stranger at the edge of a road that Yuki would have no reason to see.

But it was enough, and she found herself smiling as she spoke, and as she looked up at the faces of her friends, all soft and sleepy in the firelight, and knew with sudden certainty that it was enough. She smiled at them all, these people who had tucked little pieces of themselves into her hands, and for a moment--only a moment, but a moment all the same--she did not blink, and she did not miss the difference at all.

Across from her, in the place where no one should have been able to see, Yuki smiled back. Warm and patient, and she did not ask herself how it was that the fire, low as it was, seemed to cast no shadow at all behind Amara's chair.