Lucifer lived in a cave in Hollis Woods. His head was equine in both size and shape, and he stood upright on taloned feet while his hands were hooked claws, misleadingly short of reach, it seemed, for in fact he could snatch your soul before you were even aware of its being in eternal danger. The trail leading to the cave was well known but strictly off limits. 

Such was the legend that the children grew up hearing, told to them by elders who had grown up hearing it too. Francine and her father moved to the village from a northern county, and she did not know where Lucifer lived until one day when Rebecca told her. It was summer, only a few weeks after Francine and her father had moved in to the old O'Brien house, and Pastor Phillips had his daughter befriend Francine to ease her transition into the congregation, community, and eventually school, which would begin after Silvanus's Day. 

Francine preferred to be called Frankie though here it struck people as undignified and even unnatural. Rebecca thought her restless to the point of being angry, but an anger that was just under the surface of an outwardly calm, disinterested demeanor. She thought Frankie's anger was like the white carp in the pond on Old Man Stevenson's farm. They swam beneath the surface milling about until the slightest thing disturbed the water--a grass blade, a skimmer bug, a crust of sandwich bread--then the fish would break the surface, their mouths greedily agape, foregoing their natural world for the unsustaining air. It seemed little would be required to call forth Frankie's anger. Rebecca assumed that what was at the heart of Frankie's anger was being transplanted here, to this backwater little village, when she was used to a more bustling kind of life.  

They had been to Shirley Donaldson's for lemonade and to listen to music on the radio. If the conditions were right and if Shirley's antenna was just so, she could pick up the city station and hear the newest releases. Shirley's parents did not wholly approve of her listening to the station, with some of its unwholesome and unchristian song lyrics, so the heavily freckled redhead was indulging in a bit of riskiness for her guest's sake to tune the radio to the city station. Frankie made only a halfhearted attempt to mask her boredom, so after an hour Rebecca claimed to have some chores undone at home, and she and Frankie left the Donaldsons'. 

They were walking along the village square, totally abandoned at this time on a summer afternoon, and Rebecca suddenly ran into the gazebo on the square and sat in the shade. After a second or two Frankie reluctantly followed. There was room on Rebecca's bench, which ran the length of one of the hexagon's sides, so Frankie sat there too. 

The girls were both fifteen, with bodies that were only just beginning to hint at the women they would become. They sat quietly, knowing that each was listening to a wasp that bounced along the rafters, apparently unable to find its way out in spite of the structure's openness. 

Shirley's nice, Rebecca said, picking at the hem of her shorts. It was nice of her to have us over. 

Opting to neither agree nor disagree, Frankie turned her attention fully to the wasp. Upturned, Rebecca noticed for the first time the green of Frankie's eyes--green like the underside of the leaves of red maples, the side that only reveals itself during a summer storm. She thought that they complemented her dark skin and hair--hair that Frankie merely swept to one side, allowing it to continually fall across her face, with her right eye constantly obscured. Just as it was now, and Rebecca was irritated to the point of wanting to sweep it into place and tell Frankie to get a barrette or a headband, something. 

She understood, at least vaguely, what bothered her was that Frankie allowed herself the freedom to wear her hair however it fell, and that her clothes, like this blue-striped skirt and white cotton blouse, were worn as loosely and carelessly as if she had had to borrow them from someone in a pinch. While Rebecca put so much effort into taming her blond curls, and matching her headband to her blouse, and ironing a sharp crease in her shorts and skirts. Yet no one seemed to notice or care--she rarely received a compliment, and Rebecca could not help but notice how the boys in the village looked at Frankie, some of the married men too, even Rebecca's father. 

It all caused Rebecca to feel a restless sort of anger of her own and she wanted to show Frankie that she possessed something that Frankie did not--and the knowledge of Lucifer's den burst forth: 

There's a cave in the woods where Lucifer lives--right over there, and she fanned her arm toward Hollis Woods, somewhere beyond the post office and Mr. Reynolds's barbershop. 

Frankie continued watching the wasp. Lucifer? The devil? She finally looked at Rebecca. Sweat had gathered on Frankie's upper lip. Right over there, in Haley Woods? 

Hollis Woods, yes. 

How can that be? 

The form of the question took Rebecca by surprise. How? She was prepared to argue Lucifer's existence in the cave, not how it was possible. 

Frankie did not bother waiting for a reply. Have you seen him? Lucifer? 

No--but he's there, we've known for a long, long time; people here have known forever. 

So we could go to this cave right now, this very minute, and see him? 

He's Lucifer--we don't want to go there--besides, the trail is off limits. 

Frankie began laughing--laughing out loud like boys laugh among themselves at a joke no one should tell, and Rebecca wanted to slap the laugh from Frankie's merry face, the dark hair falling in front of it. 

It's true, she said meekly. 

Frankie stopped laughing to ask, So you just accept that the devil's there, in the cave? Without having seen him yourself? 

Rebecca had nothing to say. 

Tomorrow I'll meet you at your house, let's say nine o'clock, and we'll go check out this cave of yours. 

Rebecca began to protest but Frankie bounded down the steps of the gazebo and headed in the direction of her house. For the first time since moving to the village she seemed happy. Rebecca watched the sunlight glint off Frankie's hair, her suntanned legs bouncing along the concrete walk. 

The black wasp ceased its futile sorties against the rafters of the ceiling and flew out of the gazebo to disappear on the hot summer air. 

That night Rebecca tried eating her mother's casserole but every bite made her ill so she excused herself to her room. While her family went about its nightly business--it was Thursday so her father was beginning to write his sermon in earnest--Rebecca tried to distract herself from thinking about Frankie and her determination to visit Lucifer's cave, but nothing worked and her nausea grew worse and worse. She wished that she had never mentioned the cave to Frankie, she wished that Frankie had never moved to the village. What was she doing here anyway? She and her father clearly did not fit in. Her father sold seed and he could do that living anywhere along his route--there were plenty of larger towns that would have suited him and Frankie. 

Rebecca reached over and pulled the waste basket closer to her bed; she was certain she was going to be sick. The radio was playing a familiar song but the song itself seemed to be making her nausea more acute. She picked up the radio from her desk to shut it off. Instead her fingers found the tuner knob and began working it toward the city station. When she thought she might be close she adjusted the volume so low that she could barely here the crackling static. Her heart raced and she glanced at her closed door--she wished that she had a lock on it, like her parents' door. 

There . . . the city-station music came from the radio's speaker, half music and still half static. She twisted the antenna . . . there, better. Rebecca listened with the radio against her ear. It was a love song, one that she had never heard. 

The music calmed her and later she fell asleep with the radio next to her pillow, the risqué music trickling gently into her ear. She felt a touch of shame but the music was comforting nonetheless. 

In the night she dreamt of the fish in Old Man Stevenson's pond. She was floating in a tractor tire, her legs draped over the edge so that only her feet were in the water, and her posterior, through the center of the tire. She was enjoying the coolness of the pond water, watching a wasp-shaped cloud in the otherwise pure blue sky. But with the first nibble on her toe she remembered the carp, flesh-white and as long as her shinbone. She tried to lift herself out of the water, the tire bobbling as if it may tip over altogether. She saw the fish's sucking mouths and their black eyes, glassy and vacuous. The cloud moved before the sun, plunging Rebecca into a night-like darkness on the pond, thousands of fish swarming upon her. . . . She awoke tangled in twisted bed sheets. The radio, with its dead batteries, had fallen to the floor.  

At nine o'clock Rebecca was sitting on her front porch drinking a glass of juice. It was cool in the shade of the porch but it promised to be a beastly hot day, the first of the summer. Her illness had returned and she could barely swallow the sips of juice. 

Perfectly on time, she saw Frankie coming up her street--a bulky cotton bag on her shoulder. She stopped at Rebecca's front steps. 

What's all that? said Rebecca, nodding toward the bag. 

Flashlights, bug spray, apples in case we get hungry. 

Rebecca had planned to bring nothing, perhaps because she did not believe they would really go to the cave. Yet she knew Frankie would not change her mind-for one thing, she was determined to prove Rebecca wrong . . . to prove the whole village wrong. 

The screendoor opened, startling Rebecca, and her father stepped onto the porch. Good morning, ladies--what are you up to so early this morning? Pastor Philips was in beige pants and a maroon sports shirt, looking strange to Frankie not in his ministerial black. Perspiration glistened on his bald head. 

Thought we might go for a hike, said Frankie. 

A hike? I didn't know you'd turned my daughter into a nature lover--job well done, Miss Francine, and he winked at Frankie. Well, I'm off to the church--Mrs. Overton claims one of the organ pedals is getting mushy, and we can't have music with mushy notes in God's house. Have a good hike, ladies. Then Pastor Phillips went down the steps and turned to his pickup truck in the driveway. In a moment he was pulling away, with a honk and a last wave. 

Are you ready? asked Frankie. 

Rebecca knew it was futile to protest. She could simply refuse to go with Frankie but something prevented her from doing that too. It might have been pride--not wanting to forfeit the village's integrity, or simply not wanting to be wrong. As she left the comfort of her porch and began walking with Frankie toward Hollis Woods, the outskirts of which intersected with the boundaries of the village, Rebecca felt curious more than anything. She wanted to know if the legend was true. There was fear also but it did not seem precisely the fear of encountering the devil himself--though that would have made sense to her--rather it was fear complexly bound with shame, with guilt. . . . 

Walking along in the rising heat and humidity, not speaking, Rebecca could not sort out all that she was feeling, nor even begin to articulate it if she tried. Meanwhile images from her dream about the white carp kept returning to her; and as unsettling as they were, she preferred them to dwelling on the task before her. 

She glanced secretly at Frankie, who was a few inches taller, and her expression was as placid and as featureless as the cloudless blue sky above them. 

Rebecca had to lead the way once they reached the woods, which were noisy with insect sounds and birdsong. There was no purpose in delay so she took the winding paths that led directly to the off-limits trail. A wooden barricade was erected, white paint peeling from its posts and cross boards, and a sign with faded letters that warned NO ADMITTANCE. From what they could see the trail was overgrown but recognizable among the trees and leafy forest growth. 

Frankie rearranged the bag on her shoulder and climbed over the barricade, which was only waist high and more ornamental than functional. Rebecca followed in a few seconds. It occurred to her that given what lay at the other end of the trail, the barricade might have been more substantial. Until this moment however it had always been substantial enough. 

Penetrating deeper into the woods the air became cooler and heavier, the insect sounds more distinct and stranger, as if new to Rebecca's ears. In fact the woods felt altogether alien, though she had been in them to walk or picnic or play a hundred times. This part of the forest was utterly different. A strangeness came over Rebecca but it was more than the woods feeling foreign--she herself seemed changed. 

The trail wound back and forth, then without warning they were standing in front of the mouth of the cave. It seemed carved into a lushly overgrown hill, and the small black entrance was situated in a way that suggested one would be walking steeply downward upon entering. 

Well, said Frankie, shall we, as she fished the flashlights from her bag. She gave Rebecca one with a red plastic casing while she took a larger metal flashlight. The girls switched them on and cautiously entered the cave, Frankie leading and having to duck a little. She looked totally at ease but perhaps her heart was racing as much as Rebecca's for she reached back and took her friend's hand. 

Immediately a mineral scent reached Rebecca, and a welcome coolness. Except for their scuffing shoes the cave was perfectly quiet. Shining their lights along the walls and ceiling and floor, they could see the cave was simply an empty space--there were no bats or dark-dwelling insects. Its emptiness was a relief to Rebecca. The cave was so small their lights reached its farthest corners. 

You see, said Frankie in a whisper, there's nothing here. Yet she still held Rebecca's hand. 

Rebecca continued to shine her light along the cave walls, the fear slowly leaving her. What's that? Her light had illuminated an odd feature of the far wall. They approached it while using their flashlights to expose the form in the rock more fully. It was the shape of some creature fossilized in the wall but mostly exposed to view. It had a horselike head except with sharp teeth in its jaw. Its spine and ribs appeared in the girls' moving lights, as did its strangely short arms, stranger still in contrast to its large legs bones. In life it must have been a fearsome thing. 

It's a dinosaur of some sort, said Frankie--there's your Lucifer. 

The girls continued looking at the prehistoric animal, seeing it one small piece at a time. Neither girl was inclined to release their clasping hands. In a way that did not require words they knew this would be their secret. They alone would smell the cave's primitive scent.

"Primitive Scent" originally appeared in the Tulane Review, fall 2011.