We Ride Upon Sticks

Set in Danvers, Massachusetts, the town where the 1692 Salem Witch Trials actually originated, the novel follows the 1989 Danvers High School Women's Varsity Field Hockey Team through an improbable senior season powered by teenage rebellion, collective ritual, and what may or may not be actual dark magic. The story is narrated in a collective first-person "we" voice by the team members.

The team has a long history of losing, its best recent season a dismal 2-8 record. At summer field hockey camp, the Falcons are demolished by Masconomet. That night, goalie Mel Boucher, from a large French Canadian Catholic family, writes a pledge to "Dearest Darkness" in a notebook bearing the face of actor Emilio Estevez on its cover. The next day, Mel makes 52 saves in a 1-1 draw against Andover. One by one, each player signs her name in the notebook and ties a strip of Mel's old blue tube sock around her arm as a mark of allegiance to the dark power the team dubs "Emilio." By the end of camp, even earnest co-captain hopeful Abby Putnam, a descendant of the notorious Putnam family central to the original witch trials, has signed. The wins keep coming. A mysterious mark appears on Mel's neck, initially dismissed as a hickey but later taking on a semi-autonomous personality the team names "le Splotch."

During August Double Sessions, the preseason training camp at Danvers High, the team runs brutal conditioning drills. Girl Cory (Cory Gillis), the team's wealthy and aloof "It Girl," continues to receive unsettling gifts from a mysterious stalker the team calls "Philip," including a box of decapitated roses. When veteran Coach Marjorie Butler announces the season's captains, the expected pairing of Abby and Girl Cory is upended: Jen Fiorenza, known for her gravity-defying bleached-blond hairstyle dubbed "the Claw," is named co-captain instead.

As senior year begins, the team develops a system for channeling dark energy. Julie Kaling, a Vietnamese adoptee raised by deeply Catholic former clergy, begins insisting on being called "Julie Minh" and builds a shrine in her locker. Her best friend, Heather Houston, the team's intellectual standout, researches the Salem Witch Trials and devises a weekly practice: Each player writes journal entries documenting mischievous acts, which Heather compiles into the Emilio notebook as a cumulative "shadow book." The sock strips and the growing notebook seem to create a shared consciousness among the players, an uncanny link that deepens as the season progresses. The team wins its opener 5-1, launching an undefeated streak.

AJ Johnson, the team's center and one of very few Black students at Danvers High, endures daily racial slights, from classroom discussions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that casually deploy slurs to unfairly deducted test points. She types an anonymous note alleging that a male teacher is involved with a student and slips it under the principal's door. Jen writes a more specific follow-up naming Coach Mullins, a sports trainer. Mullins is escorted from the building, though the investigation remains inconclusive. AJ also picks up a student council application, beginning her path toward becoming president.

Through October, the team's deviance escalates alongside its winning streak. Girl Cory keys her own mother's Mercedes at a car wash fundraiser, with teammate Becca Bjelica, the team's right centerback, also participating. Little Smitty (Amy Smith), the team's diminutive centerback from Smith Farm, loses her prize rabbit Marilyn Bunroe to a respiratory infection. The team buries the rabbit at midfield in a late-night ceremony, consecrating the field as theirs and holding their first true Gathering, a ritual where they share private confessions about virginity, loneliness, and desire while dancing under the Harvest Moon.

On Halloween, after beating the Salem Witches 4-0, the team stays in the city. A fortune-teller warns them to trust each other and hints that one of them is involved with an older man. They meet a group of college boys, one of whom kisses Julie Minh in his minivan. She is upset both because it happened and because she liked it. The team retaliates by smashing the minivan with their field hockey sticks.

Boy Cory, the only male player in the conference, loses his strip of sock during gym class and briefly drops out of the team's shared consciousness. Jen sends him to a house party with instructions to kiss a girl named Barbie Darling in front of swim team captain Reed Allerton, ensuring Reed will not ask Barbie to prom and will remain available for Jen. Boy Cory completes the mission but later shares an intimate moment with Reed in the woods, confirming his sexual orientation. Jen retethers him with new fabric, and the team feels him reconnect.

The team invites school reporter Nicky Higgins to a midnight Gathering at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, a historic site connected to the witch trials. A Ouija board session spells out "SACRIFICE" and begins spelling "HUMAN" before Julie Minh screams and hurls the pointer into the woods. Nicky refuses to sign the book, but days later she has emergency jaw surgery and breaks her writing hand, unable to report the story. The team finishes the regular season 13-0-1.

In the playoffs, Little Smitty's cheekbone is fractured by a high stick, leaving a permanent scar the team calls "the Contusion." The team advances to become Eastern Mass Champions. At the senior prom, Julie Minh arrives in a hand-sewn purple tuxedo and is named Prom Queen. Abby has her first orgasm with her boyfriend Bobby Cronin, then permanently breaks up with him. Boy Cory and Reed share a secret kiss. Afterward, the team gathers at the reservoir, burns their prom dresses, and dances naked. Julie Minh loses her virginity to the college boy from Halloween, experiencing pleasure for the first time.

In the final week before the state championship against Greenfield, Jen discovers her mother sabotaged her hair products out of jealousy, killing the Claw. Jen shaves her head. Sue Yoon, a team member cast as Tituba in the school's production of The Crucible, delivers a powerful opening-night performance. At the team's last Gathering, they burn stolen copies of Huckleberry Finn, but their mothers begin arriving, summoned by vindictive postcards Nicky mailed. Revelations cascade: Girl Cory's mother confesses she is "Philip," driven by feeling excluded from her daughter's relationship with stepfather Larry. Jen's mother admits to sabotaging her hair. AJ's mother, Dr. Johnson, confronts AJ about her anger and examines le Splotch on Mel's neck, identifying it as a teratoma, a benign tumor containing teeth. On game day, a fire in the locker room destroys the Emilio notebook, but the team discovers their shared connection persists without it.

The final chapter leaps to 2019. The team reunites in Danvers for Mel's wedding to Tom, revealed to be Coach Mullins, her partner of 30 years and father of her seven children. Each player's adult life is sketched: Julie Minh is a TV meteorologist and Buddhist, Heather a professor, AJ a Wall Street executive, Sue Yoon a television actress, Becca Bjelica an ER doctor who came out as gay, Girl Cory a mother of five, Jen a bald YouTube beauty influencer, Little Smitty a farmer, and Boy Cory has transitioned and is now Cory Y. A flashback reveals the championship outcome: Abby missed the final penalty shot on purpose. She later confessed to the team that Emilio was a crutch, that their true power came from their belief in one another, then untied and burned her strip of sock. In 2019, the reunited team plays a barefoot scrimmage and gathers one last time at the reservoir during a total lunar eclipse. They dance together under the stars alongside the ghost of the late Coach Butler, their bond unbroken.