Finn chews on the inside of his cheek.“It’s not safe out here alone. Or have the dozen-plus missing kids escaped your notice?”
It’s a fair point. One I can’t bring myself to care about. It’s barely dinnertime, the sun still safely above our heads. As illogical as it is, it feels safe during the day. And the fact that he’s trying to talk me out of it only makes the urge to keep going stronger.
“I’m going,” I say, not slowing my pace.
Finn grumbles something I don’t catch, but he doesn’t disappear.
He trails behind me along the footpath through the woods. He is as silent as a nonmaterial person can be but curses beneath his breath every minute or so to remind me he’s still there and not happy about it.
The first few minutes are through thicker brush, but once we hit the main path, worn down by hundreds of other shoes, the brush clears and afternoon light cuts through the canopy.
I hear the creek before we reach it. It snaps and cracks beyond the opening in the trees, past the tall grass and down the grassy shore.
The creek is wide, deep, and fast enough to be dangerous when it swells during the warmer months. Each summer, when we arrived the adults bombarded me, Margot, and Jasper with warnings to steer clear of it. Margot and I always planned to investigate but never did. Jasper was too young to even think about disobeying back then.
Beyond the creek, the grassy bed leads into more trees. Thirty years ago, the town’s electrical plant was tucked in the woods behind the creek, but such an isolated location was always a problem. The service road was blocked half the time by falling logs or muddy from creek runoff. It shut down ages ago, and apart from whatever’s left of the old building, it’s nothing but forest and mountain out here.
The original property boundary for my aunt’s house sits right past the opposite side of the creek. And following ghost logic, the three of them—or four—are trapped on the property because they died on it. Which makes me believe their bodies are somewhere around here, despite zero physical evidence turning up.
According to Sloane, it isn’t as clear cut as a property line. But the farther they get from the house, the less tangible, for lack of a better term, they are. They’ve never been able to make it farther than the creek on my house’s side or a few hundred yards into the forest across the street.
I take a few steps into the clearing leading to the water. The creek looks the way it always did. Deep, dark blue water rushing along in an endless migration cycle. And past it, miles and miles of trees.
“You’re looking around like you expect the boogeyman to step out of the creek and confess to snatching town kids,” Finn says at my side.
I jump and curse, swatting uselessly at him as he grins. “It would be nice.”
“Until the boogeyman grabs you, too,” Finn says.
“At least then I’d know what the hell happened,” I reply.
Finn’s easy smile falters. “That’s not funny,” he says.
“Oh, so we can dish it, but we can’t take it,” I say. “Noted.” I head down the bank, stopping at the edge of the water.
Finn jogs behind me, protesting,“It’s a creek and some trees. There’s nothing out here.”
“I’m just looking,” I say, irritation flickering in my belly. Deep down, I know he’s right, but despite the chill starting to creep into the air and the clear lack of anything that outright saysthis way to the missing kids, I’ve resigned myself to ten more minutes to spite Finn. I continue down the bank.
“The sun’s going down soon,” Finn says.
I whirl on him. If he were real, I’d slam right into him. He jumps back anyway.
“No one asked you to be here. If you want to go home, feel free.” I gesture to the way we came, and for a long moment he holds my stare. Then he exhales in defeat.
I let him stew for the next few minutes, trailing behind me as I make my way through the clearing, stopping at the edge of a crumbling barbed wire fence marking the property line. He grumbles something beneath his breath as I turn back and head the other way.
A flicker in the trees makes me pause. It’s a shadow in my periphery, and each time I look toward it, it’s gone.
I slip off the path, dipping through the brush. The hairs spike on the back of my neck, and I think I hear some kind of whispering, a female voice too low to be intelligible. I follow it deeper into the trees, stopping at the edge of an old path. Most of it is covered by leaves and grown over with grass, but bits of a foot-worn route poke through it.
I’m about to take another step when the unintelligible whispers clearly enough to say,Find me.
I lurch sideways, tripping over a jutting root, slamming to my knees in the dirt. Something digs into my skin. Almost buried, invisible unless you literally fell onto it, is a piece of metal.
I sweep the dirt away. A partially rusted charm bracelet. It’s one of those chains with the customizable charms. There is a tiny running shoe, a blue horseshoe, a flower, a little zodiac charm for Libra, and a silver letter. The letterI. Ingrid.
I use the hem of my T-shirt to wipe as much of the muck off the bracelet as I can. I run my fingers across the charms. A shiver runs down my spine and I lift my head instinctively, scanning the trees for something. I’m not even sure what. For a moment, I think I see a flash of blond hair among the trees, but it’s gone before I can lay eyes on it.
