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“Why are you showing me this?”
I looked down at the box, a lock of hair falling over my face. Vivian leaned forward and tucked it behind my ear.
“I’m your big sister for the summer, remember?” she said. “This is what big sisters do. We share things. Things no one else knows.”
16
I take the lead in the woods, trying to walk in a straight line, my eyes constantly flicking to the wavering compass for guidance. When I’m not looking at the app, I’m studying our surroundings, seeking out places in the brush where someone could be hiding. Although we’re far from camp, the feeling of being watched stays with me. Every thicket gets a second, suspicious glance. I mistrust each shadow that stretches across the forest floor. Whenever a bird screeches in the trees, I fight the urge to duck.
Get a grip, Em,I tell myself.The four of you are all alone out here.
I can’t decide if that makes me feel better or worse.
If the girls notice my jumpiness, they don’t say anything. Krystal and Sasha walk behind me. Every so often, Sasha calls out the names of trees she recognizes.
“Sugar maple. American beech. White pine. Birch.”
Behind them is Miranda, who peels off petals from the flowers I’d picked and drops them to the ground at regular intervals.
“Why do I have to do this again?” she asks.
“Always leave a trail of bread crumbs,” I tell her. “It’ll help us find our way back.”
“Fromwhere?” Krystal says.
“I’ll know it when I find it.”
The ground slants upward as we walk, slightly at first, the inclinehidden under a sheet of amber leaves that fell the previous autumn. We’re aware of the rising land only from the warm ache in our legs and the growing heaviness of our breath. But soon the landscape becomes more obviously steep. A sharp, steady rise that can’t be avoided. We press on, shoulders hunched, legs bent. Along the way we pass whippet-thin saplings, grabbing them for support, hauling ourselves higher.
“I want to go back,” Krystal says, huffing out the words.
“Me, too,” Sasha says.
“I told you there would be hiking,” I remind them. “Hey, let’s play another game. Instead of Two Truths and a Lie, let’s just do truth. Tell me, in all honesty, what you’d like to be doing twenty years from now.”
I look over my shoulder to Sasha, who’s quickly losing steam. “You start. Any ideas about what you want to be doing?”
“Plenty,” she says with a nudge of her glasses. “A professor. A scientist. Maybe an astronaut, unless everyone’s already colonizing on Mars. I like to have options.”
“And what about you, Krystal?”
She doesn’t need to think about it. The answer is obvious to all.
“Working for Marvel. Hopefully illustrating my own superhero series. Someone cool that I came up with.”
“Why do you like comic books so much?” Sasha asks.
“I dunno. I guess because most of the superheroes start off as regular people just like us. Nerdy and awkward.”
“Speak for yourself,” Miranda chimes in.
“Just like everyonebutyou,” Krystal says, placating her. “But something happens that makes these average people realize they’re stronger than they thought. Then they believe they can do anything. And what they choose to do is help people.”
“I prefer regular books,” Miranda says. “You know, without pictures.”
She’s passed Krystal and Sasha on the way up the incline and now walks beside me, the only one of us not fazed by the climb.
“Ever think about becoming a writer?” I ask her. “Since you like to read so much.”