Chapter 4
Despite Jasmine’s warning about the camp food, I’d just discovered that the breakfasts here were surprisingly good. My scrambled eggs were perfect, piled onto thick sourdough with avocado that had been seasoned with some sort of chili crisp, and the coffee was top-tier as well.
The dining hall was a massive room with long wooden tables and exposed rafters strung with the kind of camp pennants that had clearly been accumulating for years.
The walls were covered in painted murals of lake scenes and pine forests, and somewhere along the back, a row of cubbies held labeled water bottles belonging to kids who were still at various stages of waking up.
I was mid-conversation with Jasmine and the others at our table when Sutton approached us, long blonde hair swinging in a glossy ponytail. A silver label that read ‘Senior Counselor’ was pinned to her forest-green polo above her nametag, and she held a clipboard in one hand.
“Morning, guys,” she said, smiling brightly. “Hope you all slept well after last night’s drama.”
Jasmine eyed the label on her shirt. “You’re a senior counselor now?”
“Uh-huh.” Sutton nodded proudly. “Someone needed to replace Gen after… well, you know. So they asked me to do it.”
“They couldn’t have asked someone who could actually use the pay rise?” Jesse muttered.
“Oh, don’t be jealous. It’s only five dollars more per hour, which is practically nothing,” Sutton said in an airy tone, because five dollars an hour presumably was nothing to her.
“And it’s a ton of extra work and responsibility.
Speaking of which…” She trailed off for a second, eyes skating over to me. “I came to talk to you, Alissa.”
“I see you finally remembered her name,” Jasmine said, arching a brow.
Sutton rolled her eyes but didn’t respond to her. “After morning announcements, you’re scheduled to be in the arts and crafts building for a painting workshop, right?” she asked, still peering at me. “And then a pottery one after that.”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “How come?”
“Piper woke up with really bad period cramps today, so she’s going to stay in bed. That means we need to find someone to fill in her activity spot for today.”
“By period cramps, you mean ‘massive hangover’, right?” Tamsin asked, brows rising.
Sutton ignored her, gaze still focused on me. “She was scheduled to be on the Wilderness Wander today, and they can’t afford to lose a counselor. But the arts and crafts thing can definitely afford to lose one. I mean, it’s just painting and pottery, right? Not exactly a danger zone.”
“So you’ve reassigned me?” I asked.
She nodded. “You said you grew up in Wyoming, so—”
“Montana,” Wren interjected.
Sutton waved a hand. “Same thing. Anyway, I figured you’re probably an expert at stuff like hunting and trekking,” she said. “Not that the kids are actually hunting on the Wilderness Wander, of course.”
“Uhh… I’m actually not an expert at any of that stuff,” I replied.
Sutton waved a hand again. “Whatever. The Wander is basically a hike crossed with a scavenger hunt, so it’s pretty easy, as long as you’re fit enough to walk five miles through the woods,” she said.
“Anyway, two of the other counselors are leading, so we really just need you and the other two as extra pairs of eyes to make sure none of the kids wander off in the wrong direction.”
I nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
“You’ll need to take a backpack with snacks and plenty of water.
Pile on some sunscreen, too, because you’ll be out there a while,” she said.
She briefly glanced at the clipboard before continuing.
“The meetup point is the big wooden signpost at the Nightingale trailhead junction, just past the equipment shed on the northern edge of camp. You need to be there fifteen minutes after announcements. You should all be back around four, and after that, the rest of the afternoon is your own free time.”
“Got it.”
Jesse spoke up. “Who are the other counselors on the Wander team today?”
“Rhys, Jensen, Caitlin, and Zach,” Sutton replied, giving him a sweet smile.
Jasmine made a face across from me, but she kept her mouth firmly shut.
“Thanks so much for agreeing to fill in,” Sutton said, looking back at me again. Despite her smile, her eyes remained cold, just like they were last night at the fire. “You’re a total lifesaver.”
She pranced off, ponytail swinging behind her again, and Jasmine let out a loud, theatrical sigh. “Oh, man. Rough start for you, Alissa. Only one Dirtbag on your team today.”
“Caitlin?”
“Yup. She’s pretty cool.”
I nodded. “I think I’ll survive. And who knows? It might actually be fun.”
Cabin cleanup and announcements ate up the next hour.
By the time I got to the meetup point, most of the group had already assembled.
There were approximately fifteen kids ranging from the ages of ten to thirteen, and several of them were already arguing cheerfully about who was going to solve the first clue fastest.
Caitlin was attempting to do a headcount while Zach handed out printed clue sheets, and Jensen was leaning against the signpost with the energy of someone who considered showing up to be sufficient contribution.
Rhys was crouching down to a kid's level, listening to a very urgent explanation about a compass. I looked away before he looked up at me.
The first clue took approximately four minutes for the kids to crack. It led us to the mouth of the Ridgeback Trail, which was a winding five-mile loop through the pine forest on the camp's northern boundary, marked at intervals with small orange trail blazes.
We set off in a loose, noisy cluster that gradually stretched into a line as the trail narrowed. The morning was already warm; the kind of clear Adirondack day that made the whole place look like a postcard.
The kids were loud and enthusiastic, debating the next clue in overlapping voices.
A pair of boys near the front had appointed themselves the head navigators and were taking the responsibility extremely seriously.
Three girls behind them were less interested in the scavenger hunt and more interested in a conversation that kept dissolving into peals of laughter at intervals.
It took me a few minutes to notice Willa Bamford.
She was at the back of the group, just far enough behind the main cluster to be technically separate from it without being obvious.
Moving at the right pace, looking in the right directions, doing everything that constituted participation without actually participating in any of it.
Her hands were in the front pocket of her hoodie despite the warmth of the day, shoulders slightly drawn in.
I slowed my pace until I'd drifted back alongside her, keeping enough distance that it didn't feel like an approach. She didn't acknowledge me, but she didn't move away either.
Up ahead, the navigator boys had found the next blaze and announced it with significant drama. The group surged forward, the energy ratcheting up another notch, and the gap between them and Willa widened by a few more feet.
“It’s Willa, right?” I asked, glancing over at her.
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
I pressed on. “Have you spotted anything interesting so far?”
She gave me a forlorn shrug. “Not really.”
“I saw some really nice wildflowers earlier,” I said. “I think they were wood sorrels. White and pink.”
“Cool,” she said in a listless tone.
I tilted my head. “Are you doing okay?”
She looked at me sideways. “I'm fine,” she said in a tone that closed the door firmly with no room for negotiation.
“Okay,” I said.
I left it there, and we kept walking. Up ahead, the navigator boys were in a heated disagreement about where the first treasure was, and Caitlin and Rhys were attempting to mediate.
The rest of the kids chattered and spread out along the trail while Willa and I drifted at the back, the silence between us neither comfortable nor uncomfortable yet.
I didn't try to fill it.
About ten minutes in, the trail curved left around a large boulder and then opened briefly into a small clearing before narrowing again into the pines. On the right side of the path was a massive old pine with bark so deeply furrowed it almost looked fake.
Willa slowed, her eyes moving to the tree, and she reached out and let her fingers drag briefly across the bark. Then she pulled her hand back and kept walking, eyes forward again.
I said nothing for another thirty seconds or so.
“You've been coming here a long time?” I finally asked, keeping my tone casual.
“Since I was nine,” she said.
I nodded. Another minute passed, and the sounds of the group filtered back through the trees; laughter, footsteps, someone reading a clue with great theatrical emphasis.
“My best friend died here last year,” Willa suddenly said. “Carly.”
She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at the path ahead, her voice soft but matter-of-fact. Like she'd found that if she said it plainly and quickly, she could get it out easier.
“I heard about that,” I said. “I'm really sorry. It must be very hard for you.”
She nodded. “I didn't even want to come back this year.”
“I can't blame you for that.”
She glanced at me then, and whatever she found in my expression seemed to satisfy some internal requirement, because the next thing she said was substantially longer than anything else she’d volunteered so far.
“My parents made me come. All their friends send their kids here too, so they thought it would look weird if I stopped coming,” she said. “They didn’t even ask me. Just told me. And then they made me feel bad about how they might look to all their friends if I said no.”
I nodded slowly. “Some people care a little too much about the way other people see them, don’t they?”
“Yeah. Maeve, Iris, and Cosima’s parents are exactly the same. They made them come back too.”
“Sorry, who are those girls?” I asked, head tilting slightly.
“My friends. They were friends with Carly too,” Willa said softly. “We all shared the same cabin every year.”
“Ah. Are you still sharing with the others?”
Willa dejectedly shook her head. “They split us up this year. And even though we all signed up for the same activities this week, they scheduled us on different days, so we hardly get to spend any time together.”
“That sucks. Any idea why?”
“Iris told me our parents requested it,” she said bitterly.
“They think if we hang out together all summer, we’ll all stay miserable over Carly, because we’ll talk about her a lot.
And they also think everyone will look at our group weirdly and blame us for what happened.
But…” She trailed off for a second. “That’s happening anyway. ”
I cast her a curious side-eye. “What’s happening?”
“People are looking at us weirdly. Probably blaming us.” Willa’s voice tightened with emotion. “And I guess they should.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, brows shooting up.
“It was my fault,” she said listlessly. “What happened to Carly was all my fault.”