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“Definitely not,” Sasha adds.
“Well, whatever the current equivalent of that is, it’s not why I’m here. I’m here to help you learn, if you want. Or, if you’d like, we can just talk. Basically, think of me as your big sister for the summer. I just want you to enjoy yourselves.”
“I have a question,” Sasha says. “Are there bears here?”
“I guess so,” I reply. “But they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”
“I did some research before I left home and read that that’s not true.”
“It’s probably not,” I say. “But it’s nice to imagine, don’t you think?”
“What about snakes?”
“What about them?”
“How many do you think are in the woods? And how many of those are venomous?”
I look at Sasha, intimidated by her curiosity. What a delightfully strange girl, with her thick-framed glasses perched on her tiny nose, her eyes wide behind their immaculate lenses.
“I honestly don’t know,” I say. “But I don’t think we need to worry too much about snakes.”
Sasha pushes her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. “So, we should be more worried about sinkholes? I read that hundreds of thousands of years ago, this whole area was covered by glaciers that left ice deep inside the earth. And that ice eventually melted and ate away at the sandstone, forming deep caves. And sometimes those caves collapse, leaving giant craters. And if you’re standing above one when it collapses, you’ll fall so deep into the earth that no one will ever find you.”
She finally stops, slightly out of breath.
“I think we’ll be okay,” I say. “Honestly, the only thing you need to worry about is poison ivy.”
“And getting lost in the woods,” Sasha says. “According to Wikipedia, it’s very common. People disappear all the time.”
I nod. Finally, a fact I can confirm.
And one that I can’t forget.
7
When it’s time for dinner, I stay behind, using the excuse that I have to unpack and change into my shorts and camp polo. The truth is that I want to be alone with Dogwood, just for a moment.
I stand in the middle of the cabin, rotating slowly, taking it all in. It feels different from fifteen years ago. Smaller and tighter. Like the cramped sleeping car where Marc and I once spent a red-eye train ride from Paris to Nice. But the cabin’s differences are outweighed by its similarities. It has the same smell. Pine and musty earth and the faintest trace of woodsmoke. The third floorboard from the door still creaks. The trim around the only window still bears its faded-blue paint job. A touch of whimsy I noticed even during my first stay here.
Memories of the girls’ voices return to me, like an echo of an echo. Random snippets I had completely forgotten until now. Allison mock-singing “I Feel Pretty” while flouncing around in her too-big polo shirt. Natalie sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk, her legs spackled with calamine lotion.
These mosquitoes are, like, obsessed with me,she said.There’s something about my blood that attracts them.
I don’t think that’s how it works,I said.
Then why are they biting me and not the rest of you?
It’s your sweat,Vivian announced.Bugs love it. So slather on that Teen Spirit, girls.
My phone squawks deep inside my pocket, snapping me out of my self-indulgent, admittedly morbid reverie. I dig out the phone and see that Marc’s attempting to FaceTime. With only one bar of signal, I have doubts it’s going to work.
“Hey, Veronica Mars,” he says once I answer. “How’s the sleuthing going?”
“I’m just starting.” I sit on the edge of my bed, holding out my arm so my entire face fits into the frame. “I can’t talk very long. The signal here is terrible.”
Marc gives me his dramatic pouting face in return. He’s in the kitchen of his bistro, the glossy, stainless-steel door of the walk-in freezer behind him.
“How’s Camp Crystal Lake?”