Tyler shot a foamy jet of roach spray into his laughing mouth. He sprang up from the basement floor and lifted his fists toward the unfinished ceiling, gargling a pop song. An old cloak the color of buttered toast hung off his shoulders, ending in tatters above his knees. 

“Swallow it,” Meribeth said. Her eyes were so wide they trembled. 

He promptly did as asked and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “Tastes like medicine with hot pepper juice,” he said, and then pretended to belch.  

“You mean like my mom’s whiskey,” Jace said. He was eating up their awe. The cloak belonged to him, or his family, at least. None of the three guests had ever heard of it before today, not even Tyler, who was practically Jace’s twin of late. 

Rand sat in front of the couch, as wowed as the others. He had known Jace since moving to Monkton in the first grade, but Little League was the last time they’d been anything like inseparable. Jace had been coming down with the popularity disease, while Rand was increasingly finding middle school to be quiet lunch tables and jokes he wasn’t in on. He hated that he felt privileged just to still be asked over.

“Let me wear it next.” Meribeth leaned forward on her knees. “I haven’t gone yet.” 

Tyler glanced at Jace as he untied the leather cinch at the base of his throat. Jace nodded once, trying to grow up all in one sage look. “Sure,” Tyler said, and slipped the cloak off with a small groan of regret. 

Rand watched a fold of skin roll from Tyler’s forehead all the way down to his neck. Meribeth and Jace didn’t seem to notice. It reminded him of the ripples that spread when he plunked stones into a pond, and made him want to pass on his turn with the cloak. Without thinking he reached out toward Meribeth as she snatched it. He didn’t like the look in her eyes—manic like his dog when Rand teased him with treats—but he lowered his arm and watched Jace knee-walk over to help her put it on.

She stood, fists against her hipbones, pushing out her chest. Interesting things were developing there, under the faded koala on her shirt. For a long time, looking at her had made Rand feel a little sick to his stomach. She was the only girl he’d ever thought of as pretty. But it was only in the past few months—around the time he confirmed that he hated the seventh grade—that an ache had traveled farther down as well. Since she’d become friends with Jace and Tyler, he had finally taken one step toward her. She had conversations with him. 

“Anybody dare me to do something?” she asked, her comically defiant gaze sweeping over the boys.

“I’ll stick this in you,” Jace said. He held up a Swiss Army knife, the blade out and ready. Meribeth stared rapt at the light dripping off it. Then a corner of her mouth ticked up in her usual smirk and she nodded. Jace topped hers with a crooked grin of his own. “On second thought, I’ll stick these in you.” And he began sliding more tools out of the knife: nail file, corkscrew, can opener, anything that could wound. 

 “Yeah, sure,” she said. “After that gross stuff Ty just drank, that’s nothing.” But her smile wavered as she checked the cloak, smoothing it out along her sides.

With no warning Jace jabbed at her belly with the knife, its implements sticking out between his fingers. Rand saw them plunge and then catch on the cotton of her shirt on the way out. Meribeth cried out and folded over. She checked her hands, still bent at the waist, then straightened and pulled her t-shirt out for everyone to see. Even the shirt had no holes. Jace jiggled the knife in his hand, and they all peered at it. Meribeth’s blood coated the tips of a few of the tools, and as they watched, it lifted off the steel in tiny, slow-motion droplets that disintegrated in the air.

“Whoa, what was that?” Tyler asked. He looked like it was Christmas morning.

Jace wore the cool of the ringleader well. “I stabbed her and the cloak unstabbed her. It depends on what you ask it to do.”

“Do it again,” Meribeth said, and Rand’s heart sank at the bare want in her voice. Jace went to town on her, punching and puncturing, blood slinging into the air and turning into vapor. She broke into a fit of giggles, and Jace fell upon her, still stabbing. It was basically an excuse for Jace to cop a feel. Rand couldn’t bear to watch that or to see if that ripple would flow down Meribeth’s face when she took off the cloak, like it had Tyler’s.

Eventually, after a final yank of the blade across her throat—a stark line that sealed itself before it was really visible—a red-faced Jace removed the cloak and turned to Rand. “Your go,” he said, and held it out.

Rand pulled it into his lap, half surprised Jace had let him take a turn. More than anything else it felt oily, like he imagined sealskin would be. It was coarse like animal hide, too, but he could almost ball it up like a sheet. His fingers held no thrum, no surge of power. It was just fabric.

“What is this thing?” he asked. He wanted to put off the inevitable moment, but his curiosity was just as strong. “Where’d it come from?”

Jace clammed up then. “I shouldn’t talk about it,” he said, not looking at any of them. His eyes shot to the back corner of the room. Rand followed his look to see a closet door and an entertainment center, above which was mounted a million-inch flat-screen TV. “It’s like a family secret.”

“Oh come on!” Meribeth said. She pulled her hair back and bunched it together with one hand. A brief chill spread over Rand’s forearms. He’d only ever caught a good whiff of her hair once, but he liked to think it was a scent that was always within the reach of his mind. Mint and strawberry, with a hint of oranges to match the color. 

She continued to protest but Rand’s daydream muffled it. He knew Jace would cave in, but he had an urge—he felt it in his chest like a length of wet rope—to drape the cloak over his shoulders and make Jace tell them about it. It wasn’t a clean feeling, but he couldn’t quite stop sliding the cloak between his fingers.

“All right, fine,” Jace said. “My grandpa’s from someplace in Europe, like, vampire country.” He glanced toward the closet door again. “He was really into witchcraft and rituals, and when he came to America, all he had left was this cloak. He told me he didn’t want to be mixed up with that stuff anymore, and the magic he had was put all inside it. I’m not even supposed to have it out, and I’m definitely not supposed to let you guys play with it.” He blew his cheeks out like a trumpet player and fidgeted with his fingers.

“Is your grandpa still around?” Meribeth said.

“No, he died a few years ago. He was…old.” Jace kept his eyes on the floor, but it seemed like they wanted to drag back to the door yet again.

Rand knew he was lying about something, and he was pretty sure that something had to do with his grandfather. He wondered how he knew that with such clarity, then looked at the puddle of cloth in his hands. An idea came into his mind, so big and clear it was like it had been there all along, waiting to catch the light in a certain way, like Jace’s knife.

His first thought had been to levitate, maybe even fly around the room a little. That’s what any kid would do, he thought. Instead he stood, tied a quick knot around his neck, and closed his eyes. 

Meribeth giggled into the silence.

“You are all under my command,” Rand said, and the voice that shouldered out of his mouth was deep and rich. Sonorous. It made his dad’s rumbly voice sound like a cartoon character. “You will do as I say.” His eyes popped open and he almost screamed. Their eyes were coated in pale cataracts, like sheens of milk. Their heads swayed forward, riding small swells. “Guys? Are you okay?” This time his voice had its usual too-nasal tone.

“Yes, we’re okay,” they said in unison. Rand was unnerved by their fixed white stares. 

“Okay. Sure you are.” He was afraid to ask the question now, but even more afraid not to. There was still none of the humming force he assumed such a magical item would have, but he was imbued with a sense that he could do anything. Anything at all. So he asked what he most wanted, the words shoved together like beads on a string: “Meribeth, do you like me?”

“Yes, I like you,” she said at once.

A thrill, a rush soared through his blood. He could have leapt through the ceiling into the living room, where Jace’s mom was probably watching sitcoms. Through the roof and across the moon, shouting for all the hopes he’d held locked in his mind. But he paused and reconsidered. Maybe he should be as specific as possible, just to be sure. 

The next question was easier. There was now so much room inside for her answer. “Do you think about kissing me?”

Her face crinkled. “No,” she said, “I would never kiss you.”

A weight dropped through his throat and into his stomach. “Why not?” 

“You’re not very cute. You’re fat and kind of dorky, and I think about kissing Jace a lot.” All in a monotone. At this confession Jace simply sat, legs tucked beneath him, gazing at Rand as though no one else were in the room. His dead eyes did not blink.

“Meribeth, kiss me.” He was shocked by his own words. She hopped up and walked over to him, mouth opening, face slack. He panicked as those glazed white eyes swam up to his. “No, don’t! Sit down.”

Rand felt sick in a new way. It ruined the good sickness, the hopeful stomach flutter he’d enjoyed during every moment Meribeth spent with him and—more typically—every glimpse of her in the halls at school or when he rode down her street. Then that flush of possibility surged again, and he started to order Meribeth to fall in love with him. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not that. 

He settled for, “I order you to forget everything I’ve said.” Urges threaded through his mind, tickling, twisting like worms on hooks. It was painful to ignore them. “I release you from my command.” The three of them sat up straight as if from a shared dream, eyes clearing of that awful milk coating.

“Get on with it,” Tyler said. “I want another turn.”

“Right.” Rand thought of something cool to do with the cloak, but his heart had left it. He made his fingernails grow just because it was the first thing to pop into his head. They stretched and thickened into bear claws, then serrated blades, then opaque vines that reached out and twined around his friends. A breathless blend of screams and laughter erupted from them. Rand offered a weak smile and willed the hank of leather to untie itself. The cloak fell to the floor. His nails retracted almost too fast to see, shooting back into his fingertips like tape measures. 

He handed the cloak to Tyler, who took Rand’s idea one step further and inflated his body into a great floating globe of flesh. “Like in Willy Wonka!” he shouted in a helium voice as he bobbed against the ceiling. Jace pogoed into the air, trying to pop Tyler with his knife while Meribeth held her stomach and rocked with laughter.

A sour resignation had gripped Rand even before Meribeth and a cloaked Jace went into the closet. No wonder Jace had been darting glances at it. He partly blamed himself for bringing Meribeth’s desire to the surface. How was he to know if they’d really forgotten everything that had been said?

“Shit, Rand, how awesome is that thing?” Tyler asked. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from the closet door, but Rand knew that he was being gnawed by jealousy for an entirely different reason.

“Yeah, awesome.” The tingling heat in his face, the notion that something had been under the skin, lifting it, scrolling down against his bones, scared Rand. But try as he might to deny it, the annoyance of that closed closet door washed over his fear. He got to his feet. “I’m going home. Got that test in Mr. Allan’s class tomorrow.”

“I’d flunk it before I miss out on more turns,” Tyler said, not looking at Rand. “Think of all the cool stuff. Flying, turning into creatures. Turning into flying creatures!”

A sliding thump against the closet door made both of the boys jump. They stared, frozen. Another thud, softer, then a wet gurgle of sound. The TV cabinet, a giant bulk of dark wood, shivered. Rand gawked at it. It wasn’t even against the wall.

A minute passed in which Rand could feel the ghost of the cloak against his back, around his throat. Then he heard snorting laughter from behind the door, and on that note he left. Fighting back tears he lifted his battered bike off the lawn and wobbled it into the street. Pedaling through the damp April dark, he tried to swallow his fear of what was happening in that basement. It lodged like aspirin in his dry throat.

#

By sixth period chemistry, Rand had to accept that Meribeth and Tyler weren’t at school. His tired eyes burned, and as the day wore on without news of her, the slow churn in his gut sloshed and sharpened. It was harder to find out about Jace, as he attended a private school with Saint Somebody in the name. So after a fruitless doorbell-ringing at Meribeth’s house late that afternoon, Rand rode his bike to the nicer end of town. The houses grew wider and taller as he turned from street to street, like a scattered staircase climbing to the reddening sky.

Jace’s mom answered the door. “Hi, Rand,” she said, her body already pointed back toward the living room, “Jace is downstairs, I think.” He mumbled thanks and made straight for the basement door off the kitchen hallway. 

He’d taken three steps down when he heard Jace whisper-shout, “No, hide!” Rand paused a moment then continued forward. “Mom?” Jace called out. 

“It’s me,” Rand said, stepping out of the stairwell’s close throat.

“Oh. Hey. Didn’t know you were coming by.” Jace was like a suspect being grilled by cops on a TV show. Plastic voice, roaming eyes, nervous fingers. 

“Me neither. Meribeth and Ty weren’t at school today, so I wanted to see if anything bad happened last night.”

“Last night?” Jace edged, a couple of steps at a time, to Rand’s left. This told Rand that the person hiding was probably in the other direction. But the room was silent and still. The only thing that felt occupied was the air; it was stuffy and too humid, with an acrid tang. 

“Yeah, last night,” Rand said when Jace never answered. 

“No, nothing weird. I mean, the cloak’s weird, but I don’t think of it as weird.” Jace uttered the fakest laugh Rand had ever heard. “You left, then Meribeth and Ty left a bit later. Hey, you gotta promise not to say anything about the cloak. You were gone before I could tell you that.”

Anger festered high in Rand’s chest, squeezing his lungs. He knew Jace was lying, knew it like he had when he’d touched the cloak. His breaths came tight and shallow. Calming down wasn’t working, so he strode across to the closet door and yanked it open. Coats jangled on hangers as he batted them aside. Empty. But he saw the cloak tucked in the middle of the coats. He pulled it out. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just worried about Meribeth. And Ty, too.” He flipped the cloak across his back, not bothering to ask Jace if he could. “So, can this do anything that’s, you know, forever? That doesn’t go away when you take it off?”

“Nothing I’ve ever done lasted long. Grandpa told me once the magic in it’s getting weaker, the older it gets. Especially after he died.”

Again there was the sense that Jace was lying, fiercer, clearer now with the cloak acting as an antenna. “You are under my command,” Rand said. His voice came out with the bass kicked up a few notches, turning it into a thick growl he hadn’t intended. He sucked on his teeth, shaking with venom. 

Jace’s eyes clouded over just like the night before, only this time there were blots of red in the cataracts. Rand heard a small sound and jerked his head to the right, where the hulk of the TV cabinet stood. He waited a moment but the scratch he thought he’d heard did not repeat. 

“What did you do to Meribeth last night?” he asked, fingernails in his palms. The cords in his neck stood out, drawing the leather tie closer against his skin.

“I did nothing to her,” Jace said in a placid monotone. “I only wanted the cloak to be fun to play with. Especially for me and Meribeth. But then she started bawling and my gra—”

And then the cabinet was full of noise and movement. Not scratching but rocking and hammering. Something was behind it, in the corner against the wall.

He looked back at Jace, who stared at him with suddenly clear hazel eyes. “Don’t come out!” Jace yelled. “Rand, give me the cloak and get out of here. Now!”

Rand touched the laced bow. “I have to make sure Meribeth—” His voice died in a snap, his temper surged, and he shoved Jace as hard as he could. Jace hit the wall by the closet. By the time he fell to the carpet, Rand was on the stairs. Then through the house in a whirl of panicked half-thoughts and in the yard, on his bike, his feet thrusting around for the pedals. 

It was going on full dark as he pumped his legs and soared through the streets. The staircase of houses stepped down to the older plains of the middle class. The cloak flapped behind him like an ancient flag. 

When something traced along his neck—a damp finger, a tongue, he couldn’t tell—he barked a little scream and swerved madly, spilling his bike on the curb. His head struck the sidewalk and his face scraped along for several inches. He sat up and scanned the street, dimly aware that the cloak seemed to have erased the injury as it occurred. 

He left his bike where it was and ran, willing strange muscles into his legs, gaining speed enough to whip his hair back from his head. It was running as he’d never known it, the sinewy grace of an athlete, a gazelle. The urge for flight—to tear holes in the sparse clouds—pricked him, but he ignored it as Meribeth’s house rushed into view.

Rand shot through her yard and had to veer to his right to avoid smashing into the side of the house. He dug his heels into the earth and carved shallow trenches behind him. For the first time the cloak felt like a physical burden as he bent over, hands on knees, catching his breath. His heart slowed and a version of calm blanketed him. In his wake crickets started a hesitant new movement of their concert. He could feel late spring hovering in the air, wet and floral. It was a deep pause before he crossed a line. 

He knew, from the one visit he’d been allowed when she needed help with a book report, that Meribeth’s room was in the attic. Tucked beneath the apex where the roof met like clashing swords, the room had flooded with sunlight from the slanted windows. His stomach clenched just thinking of being up there again, with her, this time in the dark.

A harsh breeze blew through the stand of oak trees, and just as he felt something close, about to press onto him, he rose off the ground. His equilibrium was perfect, as though he’d floated up thirty feet through a thousand dusks. He settled on the roof and peered through the angled window. She lay in bed almost directly below him, curled on her side, the covers up to the low flame of her hair. 

“Meribeth.” The cloak forced his hiss through the panes. She did not stir. He repeated her name twice more before pushing his hand through the glass—it yielded like cold soup—and turning the latch. The window swung down, creaking on old hinges. Rand slithered in and dropped silently to a crouch on the floor.

Still she did not respond to her name, even as he leaned over her. He reached out a hand, full of trembles the cloak could not ease, and touched her hair. Felt the cold of her skin through it. Flushed with sudden terror, he turned her over. Those same milky eyes stared at the peak of the walls, unmoving. 

“Meribeth,” he whispered, “I command you. Be okay.”

Her lips parted. They were so dry they seemed almost to tear away from each other. “I’m okay,” she said.

He brushed hair out of her drawn face, tucked it behind her ears. She was always pale, but her face looked bloodless in the moonlight that crossed in a faint X above her bed. It was black enough around the edges of the room that he was tempted to turn on the lamp on her night table. She rolled back onto her side. He removed his sneakers and lay down beside her, slipped an arm around her chest. Meribeth let it remain there, and they lay like that for a few minutes. He tried hard to enjoy the quiet and the closeness. It was a difficult, infected happiness he cradled in his chest. He was certain it was a shriveled thing, but it was there.

He relished the feel of her against him, wanting desperately to not use the cloak for this. “You think one day you’ll want to be my girlfriend?”

“No, you’re just a friend,” she said in that flat, remote tone. “You’re overweight and I don’t like that. People think I am very pretty.” Just like that, pricking needles of pure fact with no wasted words. He squeezed his eyes shut, not to trap tears but to knead power into his next words.

But before he could speak, he sensed movement on the far side of the bedroom. Something stood against the wall, beyond the dim reach of the moon. 

“Jace’s grandpa,” Meribeth said, and laughed. Such a vivid sound had no business coming from her. He was half-convinced she was dying, and the clouds eclipsing her eyes meant it was his fault. 

“He said he died.” The barest hint of a figure slowly resolved itself; he caught a glimpse of thin, impossibly stretched limbs. It stepped back, as though into the wall, and became still less distinct. 

“No, but it is very old. I met it last night.” The robotic detachment was difficult to listen to.

“Listen to me, Meribeth.” He slid his hand beneath her shirt, against the cold electric firmness of her belly. “I command you to love me.”

As soon as he said it, he felt the cloak gain weight, and that scrolling sensation under the skin of his face happened again. He groaned just as she said, “Yes, Rand. I love you.”

“I’ve always loved you, Meribeth. Kiss me.” This time there wasn’t an ounce of shock when he said it. She turned to him, sliding in the bed, and pressed her mouth against his. Her lips were like frozen orange rinds. He pushed his tongue between them and had to pull down on her jaw with his hand to get past her teeth. But the chill of her mouth, wherever his probing tongue touched, made him gag. He pulled away with a pang of despair. It was his first kiss, but this was more like a wax doll than the love of his well-rehearsed daydreams.

“What happened to you last night?”

A slow smile stretched her mouth, but no warmth came into her face. “It showed us its face. The real one.” 

His face soured. “But I have the cloak now. I can make it all better.” He touched her cheek, forced his hand to stay there. “Everything will be great, you’ll see.” 

“The cloak is just a cloak. It only does the things it does because the Weik is near.”

A wave of anger swam through his head. His fingers tightened on her jaw. “That’s not true. Jace lied to you. And what’s a Weik?”

“It’s what Jace’s grandpa is. It’s what is standing over there in the dark, waiting for you. I told you, it is very old.”

“That’s crap.” He spat the words out. “It’s a bunch of lies. You’re just saying that stuff because you’re hypnotized or something.”

Another thick crease rolled down his face. It was a maddening pressure, but worse was the sensation of the skin being lifted away from the bone. In some indefinable way it made him feel he was flickering, in and out.

“Jace doesn’t want me to know the cloak can do anything if it’s mine,” he continued. It all made perfect sense as the words came to him. “Just tell me Jace lied to you.”

“Jace lied to me,” she said, and for a moment the willful ignorance of the fact that she was merely parroting him blazed like a beacon. He was swept up by a fleeting vision, in which he and Meribeth walked through the school halls, fingers twined and the cloak rubbing between their hips. Barbed laughter circled him in the pushing crowd, and he stopped in its epicenter to teach them what was funny. They would learn fast. 

The image dispersed as he glanced at the far wall again. The veil of gloom hung there. Before it could twitch, he turned back to her.

“His grandpa is dead!” As if he hadn’t seen the elongated thing moments ago, hadn’t felt something swipe his neck as he rode here. “I have the cloak and I have you. We’ll love each other even when I’m not wearing it. I promise.” He took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair. 

Someone knocked on the door. “Meribeth?” a man’s voice said. “You feeling any better, honey? Can I come in?”

“Yes, Dad,” she said before Rand could stop her. The door wasn’t locked and it swung open. 

Rand clambered to his feet and rose up through the window. Her dad’s voice carried to him: “Who the hell is that? Get back down here!”

He would have to come back for Meribeth later. He’d told her everything would be okay, and he meant it with his whole being. Her father was right below the window now, yelling about the police. 

The breeze picked up again, sweetening his face. Rand stood and closed his eyes, breathing deep of the night air. He held his arms straight as blades, parallel to the ground below. His socked feet gripped the shingles. The leather laces of the cloak tickled a collarbone. Yes, he would come back for her. For now, he would fly. He would give in to the urge to shred the clouds.

Breath puffed against his cheek. Hands—or something like hands—were set upon his shoulders. “I command you to leave me alone,” he whispered.

He jumped from the roof. His body hung in stasis, carried by every molecule around him. An instant of ascent and the sky swung to fill his vision. Then something murmured in his ear—words he could not fathom—and plucked at the bow around his throat. The cloak was pulled away. Rand’s body grew lighter without its burden, but still the earth rushed toward him with unblinking speed. 

His head struck with a distant crack in a brilliant dark. He opened his mouth and mumbled blood. An interminable moment dragged across the wet grass as he attempted to roll his eyes up to Meribeth’s window. 

Before his gaze made it up the side of the house, before the pain could expand beyond a crawling arrival, a face slid into the corner of his eye. It was featureless but for a crude hole that flared outward from its center. Spindly fingers seized Rand’s hair and turned his broken head up toward it. The Weik bent closer. Its face bloomed like a black flower. 

—

(originally published in Crowded Magazine #1, 2013)