“Are they…okay?” Beck asks.
My gut goes cold, guilt biting at my skin. Of course it’s possible that this person is flaky, but we’re talking murder. If my friends were murdered, then of course it’s just as possible that this person was murdered.
What if this personisn’tokay? Beck and I are just two high schoolers with a couple pocketknives and some pepper spray, facing what might be something so much bigger than us. And that damn witch again. I think back to the video of my friends the texter had sent us. What is with this place and putting a witch on everyone’s mind? It’s like a horror movie town come to life, a slice of something I never thought could be real. Witches aren’t real, so why does one have a chokehold on this town?
I look to Beck, waiting for her to say we should just go home. I’ll just live my life with the voice note thing hanging over my head. Maybe the texter has Paisley’s phone, or maybe it’s broken in the woods anyway. The risk of it being found seems better than death.
I think. I hope.
I look to Beck, hoping, in some twisted way, she tells us to stay.
“I guess we should set up camp,” Beck says. “We did come all this way. We can ask a few people about the witch like the texter said and if we get nothing or people start acting creepy, we can go.”
“Okay,” I say as my mind flashes back to that woman staring at me in the parking lot, then to the one on the road. I don’t want to think about what either of them would do to us if we found them again. “But we have to be smart about this. If anything feels off, we need to go.”
“Deal.” She glances at my phone. “Any word from the forest FBI, by the way?”
I’ve got one bar back, so I check my email.
Still nothing from the ISB.
“Nope.”
Beck exhales and turns the engine back on. I fasten my seatbelt, pretending that’s all the protection I’ll need this weekend.
We drive into the national forest and campground, truly just us against the world.
The concrete road gives way to dirt, a humble welcome center with an apartment up top greeting us. It’s all wood, the kind of place that seems too dangerous to be in fire country during fire season in California. I half expect this place to be overrun with reporters and investigators, but it’s got fewer than five cars parked in the lot. A couple minivans, a dusty pickup truck.
Beck kills the engine and I take the time to really get a good look at her. She looks tired, far beyond what our uncomfortable sleep last night would bring. But once she catches my eye, she throws me a smile.
“Let’s go find this witch?” she says.
“Let’s do it.”
A chill runs through my flannel as soon as we step into the crackle of gravel. Despite the moment of decent weather, I know I’ll be tearing off this flannel before the clock hits noon. This is the kind of heat that has me sweaty and dry and hits earlier and earlier in the Southern California mountain regions. I can already feel the force from the few rays of sun bursting through the clouds. Wind whips through the evergreen trees, makes the welcome sign creak as it blows. I search for footprints in the gravel. Or really, any physical sign of the lady I saw that night, as if there’s any chance it’d still be here.
Beck pulls off her hoodie, revealing her white tank top underneath. My chest hiccups at the jut of her collarbones and the soft curves of hershoulders. She’s got a couple black-and-white tattoos scattered across her visible skin. When she rubs her thumb along the floral tattoo on her deltoid, I flush—and look away. Because I cannot be thinking about this right now.
She keeps in stride with me despite her height. The air only seems to grow hotter, the promise of an air-conditioned inside pushing me toward the visitors’ center as much as our investigation does.
The visitors’ center’s door is heavy, leading into what looks like the saddest museum I’ve ever seen. A single map with a glass pane over it, a taxidermic bear and gopher standing around it. The counter takes up the length of the room, but only one ranger stands watch over the area. Some kind of acoustic guitar and mumbling indie rock plays over the speakers, making me wonder if the ranger is younger than the forties I would’ve otherwise placed her in. Her dark hair is tied up in a bun, brown arms tight against the sleeves of her uniform. She’s got the tiniest scar along her mouth, tugging the left side of her lip down. Her name tag reads NATALIE B.MEDINA,ENGLISH/ESPAÑOL.
My muscles soften the way they always do in the presence of women of any authority, but the paranoia won’t leave my head. The texter said that something was up with this town and now they can’t talk to us. How many suspects can this town hold if the texter’s right and they were killed? Is this ranger someone I can’t trust either? If we say the wrong thing to the wrong person, are Beck and I next?
“Hi,” I say, pitching my voice higher than I need to. “We’re here to check into our campsite.”
“ID please,” she says. She keeps her gaze on her computer, keys clacking on a keyboard that must be decades old.
I force myself to breathe evenly as Beck hands over her fake ID. It seemed safer not to have a trail leading back to us.
“Have y’all been to a national forest before?” she asks. “The rules are pretty standardized across them. Don’t leave any litter behind, fires only in the designated circles, keep your food up high to keep bears away. Please be aware that the natural landscape is really dry and it’s been even worse with the lack of rain this season. Fire season’s not just in October anymore.”
“We know,” Beck says. “We’re from LA.”
I swear I hear those five words in Paisley’s voice. Their voices are so different, but Beck said that in Paisley’svoice. I suppose both of them are a bit snarky, but Beck usually never sounds impatient like this. It leaves a hollow feeling in my heart, the way seeing Beck at the burial did.
Natalie steals a glance at Beck before nodding. “Great, then this’ll all be familiar. Do not mess around with matches, lighters, or anything that could potentially cause a fire. If I catch you with fireworks or anything stupid like that, I will confiscate them and charge the maximum fine.” She looks up again, giving Beck the stiffest smile. “And finally, know that I’m right upstairs if you need anything.”
