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“What did she say?” I ask. He blinks, looks up at me. I repeat it so he can see my lips, and he shakes his head.

“I couldn’t hear,” he says. He stands, rubbing the palm of his hand with his opposite thumb as if to clean it, though no ash remains. “She was too quiet. I couldn’t hear.”

“That was stupid,” Anthony says loudly, standing a few feet back still. Nearer the gate.

“I couldn’t let her wander out there forever,” Jeremy says.

“What happened to following the rules?” Anthony demands. He strides forward and shoves Jeremy in the chest. Jeremy stumbles back a step, then snarls and shoves Anthony right back.

“Back off,” he says. “I knew what I was doing.”

“How?” Anthony demands. His palms find Jeremy’s shoulders again, a staccato impact that sends them both stumbling anotherstep away from the gate. “How the fuck do you know what you’re doing when none of us know a fuckingthingabout what we’re doing?” Another shove. This time Jeremy doesn’t raise his hand, doesn’t defend himself at all, just falls back under the blow.

The rest of us pull back to the edge of the road, Mel casting me a helpless look, Trina just setting her jaw, eyes bright with anger.

“How do you just—do that”—two more shoves—“when you could have fuckingdied?” This time Anthony doesn’t shove Jeremy. He grabs him by the shirt and yanks him forward, throwing one arm around his shoulders in a halfway bear hug, a sound like a growl in his chest. “Don’t fuckingdothat, man!”

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy says. “That was stupid. Worse than stupid. I’m sorry.” He pulls free of Anthony, who scrubs both hands over his scalp and gives a strangled yell of frustration.

I will never understand guys. But it looks like the fight, if that’s what you’d call it, is over. Jeremy’s shaking his head, like he can’t believe what he did. Or like he can’t believe he survived it.

Anthony’s face is red and he looks like he’s trying to avoid a less masculine display of emotion, so instead of making him feel worse by staring at him, I take stock of the road beyond this gate.

The forest is gone. The land to either side of the road is covered in knee-high grass, summer-gold and whispering as a light rain patters down. The road leads up a hill, and from there it must drop down the other side; the only thing I can make out at the crest is a gnarled old tree with bare branches like needles jabbing up from thicker, twisting limbs, the sort that in any other context would seem spooky.

Here, it’s almost quaint.

The Liar’s Gate, Isaac said, and then the town, and then the marsh. He must have meant the water. Which means the mansion’s next, if Isaac was right, but all I see is the grass, and the tree at the top of the hill. We’ve a ways to go yet. Maybe we’ve got a little room to breathe, here in the shadow of the gate.

“We all made it through,” I say. “And nothing’s coming at us. So we should rest. Anyone hungry?” I start to unzip my bag, but everyone’s shaking their heads. “Me neither,” I say. Nerves? No, I don’t think so. Because I’m not tired, either. Oh, there’s a kind of exhaustion in me, the kind that lies in your bones and works its way outward, but the thought of sleep is foreign. “Okay. Maybe just... maybe just a break,” I say.

“We should look in the bag,” Mel says. She juts her chin toward the wet messenger bag, which Jeremy has picked up again. “You risked your life for it. And probably the rest of our lives, too. So let’s find out if it was worth it.”

Jeremy looks down as if he’s forgotten what he’s carrying. Then he nods and sinks into a crouch. He fumbles with the buckles on the bag for a moment, but it comes open. He sits the bag on its side and jiggles it until the contents slide free. I suppose I wouldn’t want to reach inside blindly, either.

A pair of ballpoint pens roll out, along with a spiral notebook so waterlogged it’s falling apart. A few granola bars, a water bottle, two containers of prescription pills, the labels unreadable, a wallet—and a video camera, sealed in a plastic bag.

I expect Jeremy to reach for the camera first, but he flips open the wallet and prys out a driver’s license. “Zoe Alcott,” he reads.“It’s her.” I’m standing closest, and I’m the one he hands the ID to. Our eyes meet for a moment, and his lips go thin before his gaze drops.

I busy myself with the ID. It’s definitely the same girl. In the photo she’s smiling, looking a little embarrassed, like she knows that the photo’s going to look terrible before it’s taken. It’s a Virginia license. Her address is in Roanoke. She’s twenty-six years old.

Wastwenty-six years old? Or was she younger when she died, and...? I shake my head. There’s no point chasing that logic down. It’s someone else’s tragedy.

Jeremy pulls the camera out of the bag. There’s a bit of condensation on it, but it doesn’t look damaged. He tries the power button. Nothing happens. “Batteries, maybe?” he mutters, flipping it over. He opens the battery compartment and shakes out two AAs. “Don’t suppose anyone brought spares,” he says.

“Sure we did,” I say. “In the flashlights. Here.”

We crack three flashlights open before we find one with AAs. Eager now, Jeremy swaps out the batteries and tries the power button again. It lights up.

“All right. Let’s see what’s on this thing,” he says.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Trina says, but she leans in with the rest of us as he opens the viewfinder and toggles to recorded video.

“Most recent first?” he asks. I grunt an affirmative, leaning so close that my hair brushes the side of his head. He doesn’t seem to notice as he presses play.

VIDEO EVIDENCE

Retrieved from the camera of Zoe Alcott