Then he too walks out the door and into the lusterless morning, leaving the rest of you to exit your swaddles. When you’re done packing up, you wait a second for Diana, hoping she’ll tell you why she stood up for you with Will. But, as usual, she’s gone. Which is no surprise. She was always good at disappearing, leaving nothing more than a hint of perfume in the hallway after she spent the night in your brother’s room, a ghost of something girlish in a house of boys.
When you head out, she’s out there too, walking toward the lake like the rest of you. You’re still half asleep as you follow the herd, but you open your eyes wider when you reach the water. In all of your brief life, you’ve never seen water like this. This is not a city lake from back home, clogged with beer cans and a sheen of boat oil. This surface is so clear it looks like a mirror. And the old-growth cedars towering above you reflect upside down on the water along with an endless sheet of ice-blue sky. You can’t look away until you kick a pebble into the water, and the ripples swirl it all into a Monet.
You’ve never been much of an outdoors person—aside from a little stargazing on the garage, you are more likely to be blowing up digitally rendered parts of the natural world in a video game than enjoying it in real life—but even you can admit that this place is different. It’s untouched.
Pristine.
The word seems to echo in your head as you watch the water.
This place is pristine.
“Five days!” says Silas, bringing you back.
His boots plant in the muddy shore in front of you. Behind him is a row of sleek, bright yellow canoes that look like giant bananas made of Kevlar. They’re laid out, half in the lake, half out. There is one, you quickly calculate, for every two of you.
“That’s how long we have to get to the first drop point for supplies. We have exactly enough food and water to get us there, but if we don’t make it on time, we’re gonna be hungry.”
Your gear is piled in front of you, the essentials you were told to bring, and okay, sure… a bit more, but there isn’t much food in there. Now you know why: Apparently you have to earn your food?
“If we don’t find the drop point,” says Silas, “we’re going hungry.”
A nearby canoe lists in a breeze.
“And if animals get to our food before we do…,” he says.
A mosquito’s scream dopplers around your ear. You swat it away.
“Let me guess,” says Fran. “We go hungry?”
Silas points at her and touches his nose.
“What is this, the marines?” asks Troy, pushing up his glasses. “Why didn’t we just bring enough food for the whole trip?”
“Because it would be too heavy to carry,” says Silas. “And because it’s a challenge. But I know you’re capable.”
Troy actually laughs at this. Then he takes his glasses off and defogs them. His eyes look bloodshot, and you’re guessing he didn’t sleep much after his episode last night.
“Capable ofwhat?”
Silas takes a step toward him.
“Capable of anything, brother,” he says. “If you can do this thing we’re about to do, then you can do anything. Period. And if you can believe in yourself here, then you can believe in yourself when you’re suffering. That’s how this works.”
Silas is speaking with an air of finality, but Troy is not having it. He’s sleep-deprived and looks uncomfortable in his hiking clothes. He didn’t use the toilet because of the spiders.
“Sounds like the marines,” he says. “And there’s not a great history of the way they treat Black and brown people in the army, by the way. I’m not going to break myself any more than I’m already broken for your sadistic enjoyment, man. I hope you know that.”
He pauses, looking out over the water. Everyone is quiet, watching him. Including Silas.
“Besides,” Troy adds, asking the question we all want to ask: “How do you know this works?”
Silas sighs. Precious time is being wasted. He collects himself, though, and he looks at all of you, not just Troy.
“I know because I did it myself,” he says.
He nudges a canoe with his boot.
“When I came on this trip twelve years ago, I was having ten panic attacks a day, and there wasn’t much that I could do to stop them. I couldn’t be around more than four people at a time. I couldn’t drive a car. There were songs I couldn’t listen to because they made me too anxious. Let me say that again, my friends: I had to avoidsongs. I would leave the room when they came on.And movies with anything tense? Forget it. I was crossing new things off my list every day that I couldn’t do. Sound familiar?”
