Starry Eyes(42)

Lennon continues. “When he got closer and stood beneath the branch, the light from the moon gave him a better view of the boy. He was wearing strange clothes. It took Varg a few moments to realize that they were a soldier’s uniform . . . from, like, the eighteen hundreds.”

“Oh, shit,” Reagan murmurs.

Brett slings his arm around her shoulders. She leans into him. When Brett notices I’m watching, he says, “Come on, girl. I got enough for everyone.” And he puts his arm around my shoulders too, and pulls me closer.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Uncomfortable. I think that’s how I feel. Really, really uncomfortable. Especially when Reagan’s judgmental eyes slide toward mine. And Lennon has paused his story, so I glance in his direction. Murder. That’s what his face looks like. Not toward me, but Brett. Flickering shadows cast by the campfire’s flames deepen the hollows of his cheeks and outline the sharp planes of his face.

Don’t you ever miss us?

Oh, God. Before I can think about it, I pretend to cough and pull out of Brett’s arm, slapping a hand against my chest for added effect.

“You okay?” Brett asks, genuinely concerned.

I nod vigorously and cough once more before stealthily scooting an inch away. He doesn’t try to put his arm around me again, and I’ve never been so relieved. My brain is telling me how backward this is—didn’t I come out here for this exact reason? For a chance to spend time with him? But my body is telling me to move a little farther away.

What’s wrong with me, anyway? Is what Reagan said earlier messing with my head?

“Is that the end of the story?” Summer asks Lennon.

He flicks an unreadable glance toward me before answering her. “Do you really want to hear the rest?”

“Yes!” Summer and Kendrick say.

Lennon complies. “So, Varg was alarmed to find a boy dressed in this manner, but he tried to be rational about it. He called out to him again, but the boy still wouldn’t answer. Varg wondered if he couldn’t understand English, so he ran a couple of yards away to the tents and woke one of the local men to help translate. When they returned to the tree, the boy was gone.”

“Oooh,” Summer says.

Goose bumps dimple my arms. I pull down the sleeves of my hoodie and cross my arms over my stomach.

“Varg was badly shaken up by this, naturally,” Lennon says. “He didn’t know if it was a ghost, or his imagination. Maybe he’d fallen asleep at the fire and dreamed it. He told himself all kinds of things. But that was his last night in the mountains there, so the next day, they drove to the city, and he got on a flight back to the States. When he returned to Wyoming, it was night before he made it into Yellowstone. He lived inside the park, in dormitory-style housing with other rangers. And when he got up to his room, which was on the second story, he opened his window to let in some air, and just outside, on an impossibly high branch, was the silent soldier boy. He’d followed him home.”

My eyes water. Not gonna lie: I am 100 percent scared.

“Wicked,” Brett whispers.

“No way,” Summer says. “Oh my God. What did he do?”

Lennon hunches lower over his legs, leaning closer to the fire. “Well, he—”

“He what? He what?” Summer says.

Lennon’s head tilts. “Did you hear that?”

“Shut the hell up,” Reagan whispers, visibly frightened. “Stop it, Lennon.”

“Are you scared?” Brett asks Reagan, hugging her closer. “Oh my God. You totally are!”

“Hey!” Lennon shouts. “I’m serious. Listen.”

The campfire is quiet. All I can hear is the steady cascade of the waterfall. And— Oh.

“What the hell?” Brett whispers.

It’s coming from the tents, and it sounds like—

Like someone’s going through our stuff.

Lennon signals for everyone to stay where they are, and then he straps a small headlamp onto his head, flipping on the light as he jumps off the rock and heads out of the granite shelter.

A dozen scenarios race through my mind, and none of them are good. I’m terrified, but I not staying here while Lennon marches away to his death. I jump up and chase him into darkness, tracking the bouncing light of his headlamp until I catch up to him.

“Stay behind me,” he whispers.

I can hear the rest of the group debating whether to follow, and they are soon behind us, making as much noise as the mystery interloper.

The sound of our footsteps creeping toward the tents is overloud in my ears. Twigs break. Leaves crunch. We head around a tree that marks the outer edge of the campsite. Our tents are all spread apart, some of them closer to the river, some closer to the woods. The first one is Lennon’s. Mine is just to the left, near a big boulder. We creep between the two tents, watching each step. I hear noise, but the dull roar of the waterfall is confusing my brain. I frantically look around, trying to spot danger, when Lennon blindly reaches back a hand to halt me.

My heart slams against my rib cage. Then I spot it near the river.

Several yards ahead, the navy-blue silhouettes of Reagan and Brett’s tents stand in the moonlight, their dome shapes like igloos rising from the dark riverbank. One of those tents doesn’t look right. It’s misshapen. A giant, half-deflated soccer ball. And when Lennon’s headlamp shines over it, an enormous dark shape turns around to face the light.