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“Today?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Since we set out.”

The other girl offers me a smile. “At least we didn’t miss the carnival. Right, Ahsan?”

She’s speaking to a boy who must be her brother.

They share the same dark hair and soulful eyes.

Where everyone else’s gear stands out with stiff newness, Ahsan’s is broken in.

I glance at his footwear with approval; his hiking boots are rugged and beat up like Dad’s used to be.

I subtly check him out, but he seems too sullen to even notice.

My gaze darts to his backpack. It, too, is the same kind as Dad’s.

Is this the flash of blue I thought I saw?

Ahsan scowls. “Our turnaround time wasn’t scheduled for days , Aaliyah. It wouldn’t surprise me if you did this on purpose so you wouldn’t miss the stupid carnival.”

Aaliyah’s face pinches. I get the feeling it isn’t the first time she’s heard that accusation.

Quickly, the other boy asks, “Are we close to the trailhead?”

“Yeah.” I point ahead of us, where light pokes through the trees. “Half a mile back to town.”

Ahsan stalks past, walking at such a rapid clip that the blond girl has to run after him. With a nod of thanks, the other boy takes off after them.

“Everything okay?” I ask Aaliyah. She’s lingering, adjusting the straps of her backpack. “Your group, uh, seems pretty tense.”

She looks miserable. “My brother loves hiking, and he finally convinced us all to join him. He wanted to find the wishing well.” She glances at me as if making sure I know what she’s talking about.

My chest tightens. Of course I do. Every child in Prior’s End grows up with the legend of the well where you can wish for any of your regrets to be undone.

If you can find it.

And since our town’s founding, so few have. Oh, plenty of locals and visitors alike claim the wishes they spoke over the wishing well have come true, and with no one to disprove it, the boasts stand.

In every single group Dad took out, there was at least one person who wanted to try their luck.

Mostly novices who thought they were hot stuff, but sometimes even hikers who knew what they were doing tried to coax Dad and Shane to be their guides to the wishing well.

Especially when they found out through the independently published guidebook The Way of the Wish that Dad descended from Henry Prior himself.

Their tour company’s online reviews show plenty of five stars, but the last few are ungenerous.

People hate being told no. The most incensed one is from a man who spent five paragraphs ranting that it serves Dad right that he went missing looking for the same miracle that he dissuaded so many others from.

Accusing him of wanting the magic all to himself.

Asshole. My dad would never have risked his life for something so stupid, something that probably doesn’t even exist. It’s that guidebook’s fault and that of the Roses who published it.

The Marwoods and the Roses are distant branches of the Prior family tree, each descended from a different wife.

By all accounts, our forefather was a controversial figure.

Dad and I come from Henry Prior’s first wife while my classmate Radhika’s grandfather is a Rose by adoption.

Radhika’s dad never cared about family history as much as his father did, but Radhika cares as much about the Prior lineage as she does her Indian ancestry from her mother’s side.

History regards Henry Prior with esteem but also with fear and suspicion, so sure that this legend of a man was driven to paranoia and murder to protect the wishing well from prying eyes.

There hasn’t been anyone with the Prior last name for the last couple of generations, but nonetheless, his legacy lives on.

The legend lures adrenaline junkies and the desperate to our town, and my dad was neither of those things.

“You really chased after that old myth?” I ask.

“Yeah, I know,” Aaliyah says, misreading the expression on my face.

“Ahsan’s too old and too rational to believe in fairy tales, right?

That’s what I said. I didn’t even want to come, but our parents said he had to go with a group, and he said this could count as my birthday present to him. So here I am.”

“That’s…nice of you?”

“Not that nice.” At my questioning look, she explains.

“We lost our lighter after our first night. My brother had it last, and he swears he zipped it up safe and sound, but I made so much fun of him instead of helping him look. It’s just that he’s so annoying when he acts like he knows everything!

He spent this whole trip showing off, and now he’s embarrassed about all the setbacks.

We haven’t been able to start a fire for the last couple of nights, so everyone’s hungry and cranky. I’m so sick of granola bars.”

I laugh. “My dad always brought bags of rice and beans. That’s all he knew how to cook.”

“I’d murder for some rice and beans.” She sighs. “It’s nice you can do fun things like this with your dad.”

“Yeah,” I say.

I don’t correct her, tell her that he’s gone . A word so loaded yet so nebulous.

I close my eyes and see Dad hunching over our campfire, stirring taco seasoning into our pot of beans while I suck applesauce through a squeezable pouch and watch him.

It’s so real I can almost feel the smoked paprika tickle my nostrils, breathe in the scent of his vetiver aftershave and the spruce needles scattered around us and the faintest scent of eco-soap from the rinse in the river.

Aaliyah’s voice intrudes on my memory. “My brother was so stoked. He had this trip planned down to the minute, and now he thinks I wrecked it all. Said I didn’t pack matches on purpose so we’d have to turn back.

And then our lanterns ran out of power in the middle of the night, and nobody could find the spare batteries in the dark.

I thought I stashed them in my backpack, but we couldn’t find them in the morning.

This whole trip sucked, and what’s worse is my dumbass brother thinks I sabotaged it on purpose. ”

We walk in tandem, far enough behind the others that I don’t lower my voice to ask, “Did you?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not a total jerk. We just…didn’t plan it well, I guess.”

I don’t know what compels me to say it. “He’ll forgive you. It wasn’t your fault.”

It’s clearly the right thing to say. She brightens. “Of course he will. Family always does.” And then she gives me a conspiratorial little smile, like I’m supposed to know this, too.

We walk farther, spilling out into the dusky pink-and-blue twilight where her friends are loading their things into the back of an SUV.

The rest of the gravel parking lot is empty.

The blond girl jumps into the driver’s seat and shouts, “Aaliyah, hurry up! I want to shower and get all this grime off me!”

“Coming!” She turns to me. “Do you need a ride?”

Her friend honks twice. “That’s okay,” I say. “My house isn’t far.”

“See you tonight maybe!” Aaliyah says.

I neither agree nor disagree, and we part ways.

Enjoying myself at the Fall Festival feels like a betrayal.

How do I mark the day I lost my dad? By gobbling caramel apples and sugared pecans and kettle corn?

This is the first year since it happened that I agreed to go with my friends, and I already regret it.

Why are you punishing yourself like this, Nova? the dad of my memory asks. I don’t want this for you.

Maybe that’s so, but it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve it. If he knew the truth, he’d agree.

Someone laughs. I startle, recognizing the overlapping voices.

When I turn over my shoulder, Aaliyah is thrusting her backpack at her brother, who takes it with a grin and pretends to stagger under the weight.

Agog, I stare at the obvious affection between them.

She’s forgiven, then. I didn’t expect that.

It’s hard not to envy her.

I’m almost out of the parking lot when she calls out, “Hey, I forgot to ask! Were you out there looking for something, too?”

I don’t answer. I lift my hand as if I’ve misheard, as if I’m just saying goodbye.

A moment later, their SUV overtakes me. No hands wave at me from the windows. Their tires spit up gravel, the radio blasting lyrics I can’t even hear over the sounds of their chatter.

And then I’m alone. I’m in their rear view, relegated to “that one girl we met that one time we thought it would be fun to go camping.” They didn’t find what they came to the Longing Woods for.

Neither did I.

Heart heavier than before, I point my feet in the direction of home.

At dusk, the carnival that marks the first day of the Fall Festival will begin, and the music and merriment will be so raucous that I won’t be surprised if it stretches all the way into the woods.

Wild, giddy hope takes flight in my chest. For a second—a half second—I imagine the pipes and strings leading Dad out of the forest. Back home.

Jules Marwood is everywhere my eyes land, my fingers touch, my lungs breathe. Every blade of grass and dirt-caked pebble could be one he trod on first. His presence haunts every step I take, but my dad is nowhere to be found.