The world slipped from underneath her, as her body flew forward. Her foot caught a root when she looked behind her to see if Oli was catching up and then her face met dirt. As she gathered herself, in front of her was something unknown in these familiar woods behind Oli’s house. It was a cave. Soon enough, he caught up to her and stood there with his mouth open, as his blue eyes stared at the darkness. The cave was formed out of hundreds of rocks, each one had its own place in the formation, and a rolling hill hooked onto the unknown end to form the backdrop. The opening was seven feet wide and from far away it looked like at its highest point it was five feet in height, about the size of a sixth grade boy. This mysterious structure was lined with black dirt and roots hung down from plants that had previously lived in the grass above.

Lucy and Oliver, or Oli for short, have always been neighbors in this New York suburban area. Oli’s house was the next one down the street from Lucy’s. His backyard was a child’s dream. It had a treehouse, a swing set, a creek that flowed across the yard, and a forest filled with red maples and white pines. The two friends would always explore the woods, and pretend that they were the “Wild Things” from Maurice Sendak’s book. A year after the book came out in 1963 they would read it together over and over again until they no longer needed the book to know the story. Lucy was seven and Oli was eight in 1964. The woods were their sanctuary, it was somewhere they knew like someone knows their own bedroom. Almost everyday after school, they were together in their houses from the age seven to twelve.

For the next two years, Lucy and Oli came back to the cave. Both of them were too afraid to enter, but they entertained themselves with games involving the area outside of the cave. Hide and go seek, tag, and playing board games in the dirt were the usual choices. The woods were so isolated that if they screamed no one could hear them, so they could be as loud as they pleased.

As Oliver grew older and entered junior high at the age of twelve, he dropped the nickname Oli and stopped his adventures into the woods with Lucy. After school, all he wanted to do was play soccer and spend time with his friends, Jasper, Nick, Luke, and Jackson. Sadly, Oliver did not realize that he was Lucy’s only friend. The childhood games of tag and tic-tac-toe in the dirt ceased, along with their friendship. Since Lucy was alone most of the time, still being in fifth grade, she was too afraid to go to the cave or even in the woods without Oliver. Until Lucy entered junior high, Oliver did not talk to her, and he did not want to be seen around her either. The moment Oliver started acknowledging Lucy again was when she was in seventh grade and hit puberty. Lucy always had glasses, but her parents decided she was responsible enough to have contacts. Along with that, came breasts, new clothing, and a new hairstyle. Originally she had bangs that were just above her eyebrows, and straight dark brown hair that usually laid an inch above her shoulders. Now her hair was wavy with volume, her childish bangs were gone, and her hair finally passed the end of her neck. As for Oliver, his dirty blond hair was wild, and his appearance and personality have been the same since he was seven. His view of Lucy changed when he realized she had transformed. People in all three grades wanted to become friends with her. She was smart and pretty. Sometimes people even thought she was a new student; before she was just invisible.

On the last day of school that year, when Oliver was heading off to high school and Lucy to eighth grade, he confronted her on the blacktop during recess. She was sitting on the picnic tables with her friends, talking about how annoying their science teacher was this year. He saw that their conversation was dying down and decided that he could steal her away from her friends and her gossip. He walked over and pulled her away, off the table, gently like he used to pull her off the couch. She was startled.

“What are you doing? Stop,” she said while her arm was in his grasp.

He responded with a saying that makes someone’s heart beat a little faster, “I need to talk to you.” He paused, “I need to apologize.”

“Oliver, it’s okay. I’m over it.”

“No it’s not. I really wish things went differently. I wish I wasn’t such a bad friend to you. You never deserved it because you never did anything bad to me. I know that we will probably never be friends again, but since I’m going off to high school in the fall I didn’t want to leave our friendship in a bad place. I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

She never thought those words would come out of his mouth, yet she realized Oliver had matured over the years, and may even be more mature than half the boys in his eighth grade class. For the past three years she had been struggling and she was always anxious when she saw him in the hallway. She had lost a friend, and now he was apologizing. She said in response, “Oliver, I appreciate your apology, I really do. Maybe we could hang out this summer, if you want? I’m not opposed to being friends again in the future.”

“Sure thing, Lucy. I would really like that,” he said with a half smile on his face.

With that they started walking back to their groups with a slight wave to say goodbye for the day. A huge weight was taken off Lucy, and she was happy she did not resist when he was pulling her off that picnic table, because she might regain her best friend this summer.
A couple weeks after school ended, it was the middle of July, specifically Saturday, July 18th, 1970, and Oliver stepped on the welcome mat at his neighbor’s house. Lucy was upstairs listening to music on her record player, her favorite band was The Beatles, so she did not hear the knock on the door and no one else was home. In the past, Oliver never had to knock when he came over to her house, and vice versa. He quietly opened the door, trying not to startle her, and worked his way up the stairs. Subconsciously, he was walking up the stairs to the beat of the song Lucy was listening to, “If I Fell.” Up in her room she could hear the stairs creaking and started to call to see if her parents were home, “Mom?” She paused, “Mom?...Dad?”

Instead of scaring her like he would have when they were little, he called back to her saying, “Lucy it’s me, Oliver.” The needle was taken of the record so fast that you could hear the scratching noise. Oliver was almost at the last step when Lucy opened the door to her room. “No one answered the door, I thought it would be okay to just let myself in, like I used to.”

“Yah, it’s fine. Next time just call my name before I start to get suspicious about who is in my house,” she giggled on the last couple of words that it made Oliver smile.

“Deal.”

“So why did you decide to show up on this gorgeous Saturday?”

“Well I could hear your music from outside, and noticed that your parents weren’t home. I thought it was the perfect day to hang out?”
“I agree, she said. “It seems like a perfect day. So what do you want to do? We can hang out in here or outside?”
“Do you remember the cave?” He asked this as if he did not even hear her question..
“Oliver, really? Of course I do! Let’s see if we can find our way back there.”

With that, Lucy then made her way back into her room to make sure her record player was off, and they ran out of the house. The cobblestones wobbled on her front walkway, and trembled like they were scared. After walking the short distance to his house they opened the latched wooden fence that permitted them in his backyard. Once they reached the end of his property, they hopped over the mud-filled creek and their shoes dried once they reached the prosperous forest ground. They struggled for almost an hour to find the cave, but eventually they did. During that hour, Oliver had told Lucy how his older brother was diagnosed with cancer last year. He said that his whole family was relieved that his brother was cancer free after six months in the hospital. In addition to Oliver spilling unknown information, all Lucy could come up with was that for some reason everyone has suddenly wanted to be friends with her, and she didn’t know why. Oliver thought that was a stupid question. He didn’t understand how people did not realize how amazing this girl was before she changed her appearance, even if he was previously included in that group of people.
Together they stood there side by side in front of the cave. A pool of water, that wasn’t there the last time they visited, had formed coming five feet out from the entrance. The surface was motionless, but it was filled with living organisms. It seemed that the murky green water extended deep into the cave. After they realized how the cave has changed, separately they examined each side exploring what the new addition pertained.
Oliver called Lucy over and said, "I want to see how far back the cave goes." He leaned over and picked a flat smooth rock off of the ground.
A few seconds later, Oliver skipped the rock over the even surface of that little pond. They waited for what felt like an hour but in reality it was just a minute. They could hear the rock hop across the water, and Lucy started to get suspicious. When that one minute was over they realized that the rock was no longer going into that cave, but now it was coming towards them, still skipping. As soon as the rock reached their feet on the solid ground, without looking at each other they simultaneously turned around and ran towards their property lines after Lucy let out a short screech.
Since no one was home in either of their houses they decided to go back to the nearest house, Lucy's. When they barged into the front door, out of breath and sweating, they made their way to her kitchen for a glass of water without saying a word. As they were filling their cups with water from the tap they faintly heard music from the second floor drifting throughout the house.
Hey, Bungalow Bill what did you kill, Bungalow Bill? The children asked him if to kill was not a crime… if looks could kill it would have been us instead of him.
They looked each other in the eyes and Oliver bolted up the stairs, but Lucy whispered, “Oliver, no. Stop.” He was already out of the kitchen and she was afraid that he did not even hear her.
When Oliver abruptly opened the door to Lucy’s room, he saw nothing or no one. Except the record player was continuing to play that wretched song. Oliver recalled that before they left for the woods Lucy went back into her room to reassure herself that the turntable was off. As a step of precaution, Lucy grabbed a knife from the drawer and started up the stairs. She almost cut Oliver’s throat when he jumped out of her room, by accident of course. Oliver said, “What the hell are you doing that with that knife? You almost killed me.”
“I’m scared, Oliver. Why is this happening? There must be someone in the house,” Lucy’s eyes started to tear up.
“I think it is a good idea to call the police.”
“Agreed.”
…
That day the police found no one in the house. When Lucy’s parents came home she told them everything, as did Oliver to his mother and father. For the next couple of weeks, Lucy made sure that she was never alone, and she did not dare enter her room until her parents told her she could not sleep on the couch anymore. When she was finally back in her bed one night she was trying to fall asleep, but something kept her wide awake. From the other side of her square room in her small closet she could hear a humming of that same song that haunted her a couple weeks ago. As soon as she heard it, she scampered out of her room in fear and furiously knocked on her parent’s door down the hall. Her parents kept telling her that it was all in her head, and to go back to bed. She knew her parents were tired and that they would not tolerate this type of behavior this late at night. Out of instinct she knew that she could contact Oliver, so she grabbed the flashlight from her bedside table and flashed it into Oliver’s room. Coincidentally, their rooms were facing each other between the two houses.
She knew he would wake up because from all their past sleepovers, it was known that he was a light sleeper. The flashing lights off his blue walls made him slowly wake up. He walked over to his window and opened it when he realized it was Lucy. Although, he hesitated. Recently in the middle of the night he has been hearing a consistent knocking on his window that was a story up from the ground. The window opened with a lazy push upwards and he called over to Lucy.
"What's with the late night chat?"
"Oliver, I keep hearing the humming and it's coming from my closet."
"The police and investigators have been through your room a dozen times. You have nothing to worry about. Trust me."
Although she wished she could believe that, she didn't. It was better than her parents' responses and it made her feel quite safe. She gave him an okay and blew him a kiss. They closed and locked their windows, just in case.
The mysterious behavior continued. Things like anonymous knocking kept occurring and furniture moved in their houses right before their eyes. Through this experience, this one summer they grew closer, and eventually Lucy and Oliver grew very fond of each other, well as fond as teenagers can. They developed a relationship that they never thought they would have, and almost every day they were at each other’s houses keeping each other company.

The two of them did not revisit the cave until summer was over and school was starting the next day. Nothing major changed about that scenery in the back of their neighborhood woods. It was still as creepy as they remembered, and the pool of water was murkier than ever. The sole thing they realized was the water. It was not only cloudy from dirt and debris but stream of what appeared to be blood floated through the several inch deep water.

Lucy did not understand how she had the courage to return to the place that caused her so much horror. Oliver was the one who convinced her, and he needed her to come with him. He was so curious what this cave was and he knew she would benefit from the discovery too. They slowly made their way over the rocks and roots that stood in the path to the cave. They were holding hands when they reached the cave, but Lucy stopped in her place when Oliver kept walking. Their hands slowly separated. He asked her what the matter was, but she did not say a word. He continued on, and stepped in the pool with his rain boots. He kept his mouth shut and stepped closer and closer to the cave. Lucy was in shock, and it seemed like she had seen a ghost. She finally moved when she realized Oliver was about to enter the cave. She reached for his hand but he turned around instead. He said, “Don’t stop me Lucy, I’m just going to go in a little bit to figure out if I can see anything.”

“Can you sing a song, so I know you are still there?”

“Sure,” and he turned around facing the cave once again. With each step came a beat and he sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star like he was singing it to a baby that was already asleep. The words came out of his mouth so softly that you could tell his mind was shivering with fear. His body disappeared into the darkness, but his voice continued to linger in the air.

Abruptly, everything went quiet. The singing stopped. The steps trudging through the water were no longer making ripples in the pool. The feeling of life disappeared in the air. Lucy started to panic, and ran up through the blood colored water to the entrance of the cave screaming his name. Nothing. Her heart started to race, and a whisper came from the cave, but she did not recognize the voice. She did recognize the song. Hey Bungalow Bill, what did you kill, Bungalow Bill? From the first beat her body turned for the edge of the woods, and her breath became heavier and heavier. She reached her house where she knew her parents were home. She barged in the door and yelled, “MOM! DAD,” and she found them sitting in the kitchen. With tears streaming down her face, and dripping from her chin creating wet streaks on her shirt she said, “Oliver… he went in the cave,” her voice hiccupped, “His voice stopped. His voice stopped singing…”

Her mom spoke up as if she was sad, still sitting in her seat, “Honey, Oliver hasn’t been here for a long time. He passed away in 1967. Lucy, don’t you remember?”

Her eyes wandered the room in confusion and she yelled. “You’re wrong! I was just with him. He disappeared!” She ran out of the house and back to the cave, except the cave was missing. The roots that hung from the stone were now planted in the ground and the rocks that were placed so precariously on top of each other were nowhere to be found.