My car, a hand-me-down from my sister, is a red Chevy Blazer so old that it has a CD player inside. It’s a long-standing joke among some of the staff, but not Carmel. She knows how it is to stretch something out years longer than expected, to be grateful every day that you don’t have to face that particular expense yet. When the Blazer broke down last summer, she referred me to her brother, a mechanic who gave me a discount.
“It is,” I say.
“Where’d you drive?” Skye asks, nosy, and because it’s her, I shrug andsay, “Around,” without giving any specifics. She’s trying to suss out even more places for LikeMe; she knows I have places I don’t tell her about. She doesn’t understand the finding of things, the wandering and coming upon them, or having someone show you because theywantto share them with you, not because you expect them for the asking.
Often on my days off I like to take this long drive called the Devil’s Backbone. It’s an old road that winds up and over a nearby mountain to another small town called Story, and it’s terrifying. The road is only wide enough for a single vehicle, and in lots of places the drops on either side are sheer and absolute. When I get to Story, I head to the grill and get lunch to go, which I eat outside on one of the picnic benches on the lawn. It’s my one splurge—the lunch, and the gas it takes for the drive. Then I drive back along the Backbone to Sonnet. I like driving. I like the dusty old smell of the Blazer and rolling down the windows to let the clean air in.
But today I went into Spring Creek to get a few things I needed. On my return, a few miles before the turnoff to the resort, I took a right up another road to the top of the Underground trailhead. The parking lot gravel crunched under my feet as I walked over to the trail register, looking at the names written down for today. As I scanned them, I thought,There’s no way, there’s no way…
They did it. They wrote their real names, including Hope Hanover.
Why?
I stood there, shaking my head, not sure if I was impressed or appalled by the way they’d put it out there, the names, how they announced that they were going into the canyon. Anyone who wants to come looking will know where to find them.
I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the log. Of course, I already knew from listening in on them the night before that they were planning on hiking the Underground today. But it was nice to have confirmation.
It’s hardnotto eavesdrop when you’re staff. The guests sit around outside the firepits and talk loudly. The outdoor air on their skin and thedrinks in their hands make them free and easy with what they say. If youdohappen to get noticed, you always have a good excuse as a member of staff. You’re checking to make sure they don’t need anything; you want to let them know about yoga or a hike or a mindfulness gathering in the morning; the cook told you that tomorrow there will be this special or that; what do they think of the stars?
They love them, always. Theylovethe stars, even if they haven’t bothered to look up at them until you ask what they think.
If anyone had noticed me last night, I could have given plenty of reasons for being there. But I didn’t need to.
No one saw me.
Skye elbows Malcolm, and he leans across the table toward me. “Hey, Page,” Mal says. “Speaking of days off.” He’s handsome, and he’s funny and nice and smart, which means it’s easy to feel nothing for him now that it’s clear he’s into Skye. I think it’s easier to shut down when you can forget that people are real. When you can turn them into a character in a movie, someone you’re never actually going to know, only watch.
“Why do you all have this thing for Page?” Skye asked Mal once, when they were in our tent and I was in my upper bunk and she forgot to check to see if anyone else was there before they started making out. “Is it the hair?”
“The hair?” Mal asked. “What do you mean? Her hair’s always in a ponytail. Or a braid.”
“Exactly,” said Skye. “She’s very granola. People can be into that.” She snorted with laughter. “Wait.Do you think she’s asister wife? One of those fundamentalists? Don’t they always wear their hair in braids?”
“A what?” Mal asked.
That was when I chose to roll over in my bunk. They froze, and then they left, Skye pissed yet again about the lack of privacy. In her real life she’s a guest at places like Sonnet.
“What?” I ask Mal now. Behind him, the door swings open and Ty and his backup cook, Evan, come inside. They wave to us, and Ty grabs a sandwich from the fridge and stands in front of the bulletin board withall of the staff pictures to eat.Avoiding Skye, I think. Evan takes his food and leaves, probably for the staff tent. I’m not the only one around here who likes privacy. But right now, with Colby gone and other things on my mind, I have to stay in the mix. Skye heads out, too, leaving Mal to do whatever dirty work she wants done without her.
“Someone was saying there’s a ghost town around here,” Mal says. “We want to go tomorrow.” He holds out his phone. “But it’s not showing up on my Google Maps.”
He’s asking about Afton, I realize. The small, abandoned ghost town with the brief, complicated history that no one’s lived in for decades. Skye’s tag-teamed Mal in, since she knows I won’t tell her. I can picture how they’ll experience the town, Skye and Mal, laughing and walking down the street holding hands, making fun of it, talking about how hot and dusty and boring it is,but ooh, wait, Skye will say, thisworks, and she’ll take off her backpack and find the gauzy white dress she packed inside, and as the sun is starting to come down, she’ll slip into one of the abandoned buildings and change, Mal watching, the hem of her dress trailing across the dusty floor, and she’ll stand in front of the house, backlit by the sun, leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Sorry,” I say. “You can’t go there. No one can.”
“Why not?” Mal asks.
“They had a sewage line rupture a few years ago,” I lie. I need to think of something that will keep Skye away. The chain across the road and theNOTRESPASSING:CLOSEDTOVISITORSsign won’t do the trick. “No one’s lived there in forever, so they didn’t bother repairing it. Now it’s turned into kind of a biohazard. They’ve had the road blocked off for years.” That last part, at least, is true.
“Oh, okay, thanks,” Mal says, nodding, his smile a white flash against his tanned skin. “Good to know.”
“No problem,” I tell him.
I don’t feel one bit guilty for stretching the truth.
You’d better have a good reason if you want to walk among the ghosts.
9
