The Last Time I Lied(63)

“Why would anyone do it?” Sasha asks.

Miranda answers before I get the chance, giving an answer far more pointed than mine. “Because some girls,” she says, “are just basic bitches.”

After dinner, I present them with their disposable chargers. “For emergencies only,” I say, even though I know all that extended battery life will be wasted on Snapchat, Candy Crush, and Krystal’s beloved superhero movies. Still, it puts the girls in a good mood as we head off to the nightly campfire. They deserve it after what they’ve endured today.

The fire pit is located on the outskirts of camp, as far away from the cabins as the property will allow. It sits in a round meadow that looks carved from the forest like a crop circle. In its center is the fire pit itself—a circle within the circle ringed by rocks hauled out of the woods and arranged there almost a century ago. The fire is already burning when we arrive, the engulfed logs placed in an upright triangle, like a teepee.

The four of us sit together on one of the sagging benches placed near the blaze. We roast marshmallows on twigs whittled to sharpness by Chet’s Swiss Army knife, the handles sticky, the tips crusted and charred.

“You went here when you were our age, right?” Sasha asks.

“I did.”

“Did you have campfires?”

“Of course,” I say, pulling a freshly roasted marshmallow off my stick and popping it into my mouth. Although the hot sugar burns my tongue, it’s not an unwelcome sensation. It brings back memories, both good and bad.

During my first, tragedy-shortened time here, I loved the campfire. It was hot, powerful, just the right amount of intimidating. I loved feeling its heat on my skin and watching the way it glowed white in the center. The burning logs popped and sizzled, like something alive, fighting the flames until they finally collapsed in a pile of embers, sending tiny dots of fire swirling upward.

“Why didn’t you like this place, again?” Miranda says.

“It’s not the place I didn’t like,” I tell her. “It’s what happened while I was here.”

“Someone vandalized the cabin back then, too?”

“No,” I say.

“Did you see ghosts?” Sasha asks, her eyes shiny and wide behind her glasses. “Because Lake Midnight is haunted, you know.”

“Bullshit,” Krystal says with a sniff.

“It’s not. People really believe it,” Sasha says. “A lot of people. Especially once those girls vanished.”

My body tenses. The girls. That’s who she’s referring to. Vivian and Natalie and Allison. I had hoped their disappearance would somehow elude this new group of campers.

“Disappeared from where?” Krystal says.

“Right here,” Sasha replies. “It’s why Camp Nightingale closed in the first place. Three campers snuck out of their cabin, got lost in the woods, and died or something. Now their spirits roam the forest. On nights when the moon is full, they can be seen walking among the trees, trying to find the way back to their cabin.”

In truth, it was inevitable that the missing girls of Dogwood would pass into legend. They’re now as much a part of Camp Nightingale lore as Buchanan Harris’s flooded valley and the villagers caught in the water’s path. I picture the current campers whispering about them at night, huddled under sleeping bags, nervous eyes flicking to the cabin window.

“That’s not true,” Krystal says. “It’s just a dumb-ass story to frighten people from going into the woods. Like that stupid movie by the guy who made The Sixth Sense.”

Miranda, not to be outdone, pulls out her phone and holds it to her ear, pretending to answer it.

“It’s the creepy ghost girls calling,” she announces to Sasha. “They said you’re a terrible liar.”



* * *



—

Later in the night, after the girls have gone to sleep, I remain awake in my bottom bunk, irritated and restless. The heat is partly to blame. It’s a stifling, stuffy night made worse by a lack of airflow inside the cabin. I insisted on keeping the window closed and the door locked. After this morning, it felt like a necessary precaution.

That’s the other reason I can’t sleep. I’m worried that whoever is watching me will make a repeat appearance. And I worry more about what they plan to do next. So I keep my gaze trained on the window, staring out at heat lightning flashing in the distance. Each flash brightens the cabin in throbbing intervals—a strobe light painting the walls an incandescent white.

During one blinding burst, I see something at the window.

Perhaps.

Because the flash of lightning is so quick, I can’t quite tell. All I get is the briefest of glimpses. Half a glimpse, really. Just enough to make me think once again that someone is there, standing completely still, peering into the cabin.

I want to be wrong. I want it to be just the jagged shadows of the trees outside. But when the lightning returns, arriving in a bright flash that lingers for seconds, I realize I’m right.

There is someone at the window.

A girl.

I can’t see her face. The lightning backlights her, turning her into a silhouette. Yet there’s something familiar about her. The slenderness of her neck and shoulders. The slick tumble of her hair. Her poise.

Vivian.

It’s her. I’m sure of it.