“I’m guessing Finn’s been less than forthcoming,” Sloane says.
“More like downright avoidant.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” she says. Her eyes flutter shut.“I don’t remember much, really.”
“What do you remember?”
Her eyes stay shut. The seconds crawl by, and I’ve stopped expecting an answer when she finally gives one.
“It was the last day of summer. I made one of my older brothers drag me with him to the creek with his friends.”The memory makes her smile, but it’s a strained expression. Her eyes open.“I felt so cool hanging out with the older kids. So grown-up.”She pauses.“It was so warm all day, but the second the sun started to set…I didn’t bring a jacket or anything. It was freezing.”She shakes her head.“My brotherStephen went back to the car to get me a blanket. His friends didn’t notice me wandering off. I don’t even know what I was doing. I think I heard a noise, maybe, down the creek.”
My aunt’s house sits on a huge swath of property, most of it wooded, but there’s a massive creek that crosses through it. When we came for the summers as kids, Margot and I vowed to swim across the creek and explore the other side. We never did.
The cold feeling hardens to ice, and I am frozen in place.
Sloane’s lips pull thin, and a muscle ticks in her jaw. “I remember kneeling down at the creek’s edge. There were footsteps, and I thought it was my brother”—her voice shifts, wavers, like she’s holding back tears—“but before I could look, I felt a sting. And then…nothing.”
I get stuck on that word. Nothing. Every other word is weighed down heavy with emotion except for the last.
I open my mouth to speak, but the words get stuck, refusing to dislodge.
As if she can tell, Sloane goes on.“And Aisha, she isn’t even from town, you know. Her family was vacationing. I guess they heard from some locals about this trail that goes through the woods, hugs the creek. She says she went on ahead. She heard a deep voice and felt something sharp, and then…nothing.”
“Half the people in town swear it was some creature that took you,” I say, musing aloud.
Sloane laughs bitterly.“Let me guess, the Shadow Man?”
I frown.
Sloane nods.“Yeah, I remember those stories.”
“You don’t think it was a monster.”
Her brows draw together. We’re edging toward a cliff, and the closer we get the more she closes up. Like Finn. I can’t tell if it’s concealment or she really doesn’t remember.
“I don’t know what happened to us. I really wish I did.”She sitsup.“But I don’t. All I know is that we all woke up here, and we’ve been stuck ever since.”
“My aunt’s house.”
“We can’t go any farther than the house across the street or past the creek. Like some kind of boundary line. The closer we get, the more we kind of…disappear.”
A moment passes. I have a million questions and no clue how to ask them or which are important enough to voice.
“Do you think you’re trapped here forever?” I ask eventually.
Despite the heavy nature of the question, Sloane doesn’t flinch.“Not forever. Nothing lives forever.”She pauses. A quick glance tells me she’s smiling—a wry smile, but a smile—as she adds, “Or dies forever, I guess.”
Something instinctual scratches at my insides, urging me away from this conversation. Like it knows something I don’t.
I ignore the warning, and ask, “How long?”
“We don’t really know. Ingrid made it the longest, we think—”Sloane stops abruptly, straightening like she’s been yanked. It makes me jerk up, heart beating a mile a minute.
“Ingrid?”
Sloane’s cheeks go red. She chews on her lip, clears her throat, then says, “Yeah.” She squirms where she sits and won’t meet my eyes.
I shake my head, gearing up to push harder on that topic, but before I can, Sloane continues.
