Chapter 5
“What makes you say that, Willa?” I asked, heart suddenly hammering.
Her voice dropped to a low murmur. “Carly died because of the Challenge Game.”
“What’s that?”
She swallowed audibly and went quiet for another moment.
“It was a game we invented in our first year here,” she finally said.
“We’d all come up with a set of challenges that were worth a certain amount of points.
Stuff like stealing a pair of boxers from one of the boys’ cabins.
Or sneak into the kitchen after hours and steal some food.
Whoever got the most points by the end of camp would be queen of the cabin for the next year. ”
“Ah.” I nodded and waited for her to go on.
“I was queen the summer before, Maeve won the year before that, and Cosima the year before. So Carly really wanted to win, because if Iris won instead, she’d end up being the only one who’d never been queen, and that would make her feel bad.
” Willa fell silent for a few contemplative seconds.
“Her family isn’t like the rest of ours.
They don’t have much money. So I think that made her feel left out sometimes. Like she needed to prove something.”
“I can understand that.”
Willa nodded. “Me too. But none of us ever treated her badly. We all loved her,” she said, voice thickening again. “Anyway, I think that’s why she took the Challenge Game so seriously last year. She wanted to prove she was really one of us.”
“That makes sense.”
She took a deep breath before going on. “I made up the challenge that was worth the most points last year. It was after we went canoeing on our third day at camp. Someone dropped an oar in the lake, and for some reason it sank before anyone could grab it,” she said.
“So my challenge idea was: dive to the bottom and get the oar. But it had to be while no one was looking.”
“Why?”
“Because the counselors don’t let us swim in that part of the lake. It’s too deep. We’re only supposed to swim on the side closer to the jetty.”
“Ah, I see.”
“That’s why it was worth a ton of points, because it was hard, and we’d get in trouble if we got caught.” Willa paused and swallowed loudly again, throat bobbing. “I didn’t think anyone would actually do it. But… that’s why Carly sneaked out that night. She was going to try and find the oar.”
“Did she tell you that?” I asked, cocking my head.
“No, but why else would she sneak out and go swimming in the middle of the night?” she replied. “I know the water’s really dark then, but Carly was brave. I think she saw it as an extra challenge.”
I chose my next words carefully. “You didn’t think it was a little strange that she didn’t tell you where she was going?”
Willa shook her head. “No, I know Carly. I mean… knew her. So I know exactly how her brain worked,” she said softly.
“After she got the oar, she would’ve sneaked back into the cabin and left it lying on the floor with all her wet clothes.
That way the rest of us would wake up to the surprise, and she would just sit there giggling. ”
“Sounds like she had a good sense of humor.”
“She did.” Willa sniffed. “But then she never came back. And it’s my fault because I came up with that stupid challenge.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said soothingly. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“You sound just like my parents,” she muttered. “It is my fault, and I know it. You can’t just magically change my mind.”
I winced. “I’m sorry. That was a pretty dismissive thing for me to say,” I said. I paused for a beat before continuing. “I’ve got an idea, if you’re interested in hearing it.”
Willa gave me a wary side-eye. “Are you going to say I should see a therapist? Because my mom already took me to one.”
“Nope. It’s just something that might make the next six weeks a little easier, seeing as you don’t want to be here. Which is completely understandable, by the way.”
Her eyes flickered with vague interest. “What is it?”
“I think it might be a nice idea to make a list of Carly’s favorite activities,” I said.
“Then, when you’re signing up for next week’s activities, you could pick one of those and dedicate yourself to getting really good at it.
It might help you feel closer to her while you’re stuck here.
And that might help you feel a little better. ”
Willa was quiet for a moment. “She loved archery,” she finally said. “She was really good at it. I’ve always sucked at it.”
“That could be a good one to get into, then. Keep practicing until you know you’d make Carly proud.”
“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” she said softly. She offered me the faintest of smiles. “Thanks.”
We walked in comfortable silence for a moment. Then, from somewhere up the trail, came a shriek of pure excitement.
I glanced over at Willa. “Sounds like someone found the first piece of treasure. Should we go check it out?”
The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite another smile, but close enough. She pulled her hands out of her hoodie pocket, and we picked up our pace, heading closer to the rest of the group.
One of the girls had indeed found the first scavenger hunt treasure, hidden in a tree hollow on the side of a sizeable clearing.
As the kids clamored with excitement, Caitlin clapped her hands to command their attention. “Now seems like a good time for a snack break,” she called out. “Make sure you all have some water too.”
A few of us settled onto logs or boulders while some of the more energetic kids stayed on their feet, exploring the clearing. I was pleased to see Willa accepting an invitation from a few of the girls to join them on a mossy part of the ground, where they were sitting cross-legged in a circle.
A moment later, another excited shriek burst through the clearing.
“Another treasure?” I asked, looking at the other counselors.
Zach shook his head. “The next one isn’t for another half-mile,” he said. He craned his neck to look over at a group of boys. “Hey, guys! What’s up?”
The boys hurried over to us. One of them was holding a red and blue beanie. “We found this!” he said. “Miles was saying it could be from the Woodsman!”
Caitlin sighed. “Come on, boys. You know that’s just a story. A hiker probably lost it out here.”
“Nuh-uh, it’s totally the Woodsman’s beanie!” another boy piped up. “I bet it got caught on a branch while he was chopping someone up.”
“Okay, look, you shouldn’t even know about that sort of stuff, let alone talk about it,” Caitlin said sharply, lifting a hand. “It’s not appropriate.”
Zach grinned. “Aw, c’mon, Cait. Every camper hears about the Woodsman on their first day here,” he said. “I did when I was nine, and I was totally fine. It’s not even scary.”
Caitlin gave him a withering look. “Speak for yourself. Some of the girls in my cabin were terrified when they first heard it,” she said.
She looked back at the boys and snapped her fingers.
“Leave the beanie and have some food and water. And I want to see you all reapplying sunscreen after you’ve finished, okay? That goes for everyone!”
I leaned a little closer to Zach so none of the kids would overhear me. “What exactly is this Woodsman legend?” I asked. “Jesse mentioned something about it last night, but I didn’t hear the whole story.”
He grinned, rubbing his jaw. “Okay, so, way back in the day, Camp Blackpine was here, but it wasn’t for kids. It was more of a campground for adults who wanted to get out in nature but still wanted a few amenities. Like a bathroom, or whatever.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In the late eighties, two people went missing during a hike. Everyone was worried, but they assumed they’d just gotten lost. Maybe even attacked by a bear.
Tragic, but explainable. So even though they never turned up, the place didn’t shut down.
” Zach paused, raising a brow. “The next year, three more campers went missing during the first week of the grounds being open. People started to suspect something was wrong then, because that’s a lot of missing people in a short period of time.
And then… the Woodsman finally showed his face. Or what was left of it.”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“While everyone was freaking out, wondering where the missing people were, he went around the camp and killed ten people with an ax,” he went on. “He chopped them into pieces and left them stacked up like logs by the campfire.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Spare me,” she said under her breath.
“There were three survivors who managed to hide,” Zach went on. “They saw what happened. And they saw his face.”
“You said what was left of it,” I cut in, brows furrowing. “What does that mean?”
“Half of it was missing. It turned out he was the groundskeeper who used to work there. Edward Stryker. He’d been forced to leave the job because he was in a terrible accident years beforehand,” he said.
“Someone had been throwing axes around and got him right in the face. No amount of surgery could fix it properly.”
“I see,” I said, raising a brow. This story was starting to sound like a movie I’d seen once. A decidedly fictional movie.
“So, after that, he spent years living with all this rage simmering inside him, because everyone kept looking at him like he was a freak,” Zach went on.
“One day it all got too much for him. That anger needed to go somewhere. So he came back here and killed two hikers. Chopped them up and hid the pieces in a cave somewhere. It made him feel a little better, but not for long. So the next year, he came back again, and… well, I told you what happened.”
“And of course the police never caught him, even though they knew who he was by then,” Jensen piped up. “So he could still be out there, roaming the woods with an ax, just waiting to run into more victims.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Sure.”
“It really happened,” Zach said. “Ask anyone who lives around here.”