The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(12)

Stevie had never actually taken a train anywhere. Her family went places by car only, as trains had a vaguely European and suspicious air about them. It turned out that the train was a pretty quiet and kind of boring tube where you mostly heard other people’s phone conversations or smelled their sandwiches.

It had been a few frantic days. Once she got permission





to go to Sunny Pines, she had to scramble to gather up her friends, while Carson moved some things around and got them all jobs that suited their abilities.

At Ellingham, Stevie had lived in a small house called Minerva, with three students on the first floor and three on the second. By the end of the school year, this number was down to four, for various unfortunate reasons. Stevie was one of the four, as was David. The other two were Janelle Franklin, her next-door neighbor, and Nate Fisher, who lived upstairs.

She began with Nate.

Nate Fisher had written a book when he was fourteen, a fantasy novel that had gotten so popular online that a publishing company picked it up. The thing he created to keep himself away from people accidentally launched him into the world at large. The publisher wanted him to go on tour, to make videos, to smile and promote, and—most important—to write a second book.

Nate was always “working” on his book, which meant that Nate was never working on his book. He went all the way to Ellingham not to write his book. Nate would go to Mars if it meant that he didn’t have to write his book. It was never clear to Stevie why he didn’t want to write it; he must have liked writing in order to write a book in the first place. Sometimes she would try to get him to explain, but it always ended with him saying something like “That’s not how it works” before windmilling his arms around and disappearing to his room.





She sensed it was something to do with performance anxiety, which she understood. Or maybe it was as simple as not wanting to do something that other people wanted you to do, which was also something she understood.

Nate was the only person in the group who would hate the idea of camping more than Stevie, but she was sure that when offered the chance to reunite with his friends and not write, he would leap at the chance. She was right.

Carson had found the perfect job for him. There was some kind of treehouse library at the camp that wasn’t used very often. Nate could be the camp librarian, which wasn’t really a position. He even arranged to quickly build a bunk space up there out of plywood so that Nate could stay up there all he wanted.

“I get to live by myself in a tree, doing some bullshit job for no one?” Nate said when Stevie told him. “This is my dream, Stevie. This is my dream.”

So Nate was in.

Next was Janelle. Janelle was the person Stevie considered to be her best friend. She was the person Stevie could go to in the middle of the night when she had a panic attack. She was the person who pushed Stevie to acknowledge her feelings. She had met her partner, Vi, on the first day of school, and the two had been together since. Janelle was a budding engineer, a maker, a crafter—someone who was only happy when she had wires in one hand and a hot glue gun in the other. Whether you needed to build a miniature drone or





make a dress, Janelle was your woman.

Unlike Nate and Stevie, Janelle was fine with the idea of camp but wouldn’t be content with a pointless job with no responsibilities. Carson shuffled some things around and returned with the perfect gig—Janelle could be head of arts and crafts.

“It’s going to be a lot of crafting,” Stevie explained to her. “And there will be so many supplies to organize.”

This gave Stevie her cover job. She would be Janelle’s assistant. The two of them would share a bunk behind the art pavilion that usually went to senior staff.

Not everyone could make it. Vi, Janelle’s partner, had gone to Vietnam for the summer to visit family. This was part of the reason Stevie thought Janelle would come—she was lonely without Vi, without her friends.

This left David. That conversation had not gone how Stevie had expected. Stevie thought he would accept. His campaign position, while not voluntary, was low paid. It was the kind of job that needed you more than you needed it, and it was clear that he and Stevie missed one another.

“I want to . . .” he said. Stevie felt her chest rising, but there was a weight hanging off the end of the sentence.

“But . . .”

“But . . . this work I’m doing now, it means something to me. I didn’t apply to college yet. I’ve committed to this, and I . . .”

A strange constellation of emotions came upon her. There





was a damp rush of sadness—then an urgency of feeling, something like panic, but with a duller edge. Then a punch of soft-boiled anger. Back to sadness again, with a goose egg blooming in her throat. All of this happened in about five seconds.

“You there?” he asked.

She coughed softly.

“Yup. Yeah. No, I get it.”

“I mean it,” he said. “I really want to come be with you. It just . . . it feels like I’m repairing some of the damage my family has caused by doing this work. I really hate saying no. It sucks saying no.”

Even though the answer still felt like a blow, there was a lot of feeling in his voice. She could tell he meant it. She picked at a small hole in her T-shirt.