“Aren’t you, like, his assistant now? Don’t you get a say?”

  Sam shrugs. If she does ask Nick to give her a more favorable schedule, people will start to see something between the two of them. There is nothing to see between the two of them—not really—but if people start to believe it, in their tiny world, it becomes as good as true. She can’t be the girl who sleeps her way into privileges. There are rules at Camp, lines not to be crossed.

  Sam snakes her arms around her knees and watches how the firelight distorts the brothers’ features. Nick’s face is locked in an absent trance, sleepy-eyed, fingers plucking worriedly away. She wonders about their childhood, about the parents who put guitars into those boys’ hands before they could walk. She imagines aging and important aristocrats. Old money, deep pockets for piano lessons and art schools and European vacations. It’s a rich jealousy that drives those thoughts.

  “Here.” Rosie thrusts a bottle of cheap tequila at her. Sam can smell it before it touches her lips. “To Phoebe.”

  She swigs and gags, and the firelight blurs. “To Phoebe.”

  They mourn her like she is dead. To them, she might as well be. Phoebe left quietly. She was gone before anyone knew she had been fired. They were confused, then upset, and then anxious; if it happened to her, it could happen to anyone. Sam swallows her lump of guilt with the burning swig. She cannot—will not—tell anyone about her conversation with Richard Byron.

  Back at Camp, a drunken party of scavengers tiptoes up the mess hall stairs to raid the kitchen for snacks. They pop out the window screen and scramble in through the back of the building, tripping over toes and shushing each other as they make for the pantry. Sam, Rosie, and Elias are giggling over a box of cream-filled cookies when a massive crash and clatter sends them leaping.

  “What was that?”

  Everyone pauses in their munching. There is another loud thump and the tinny clang of a trash can falling over. Shuffling. It’s coming from behind the rear door of the kitchen, by the dumpsters. They wait in silence for a long time, hunched shadows in the pantry, until someone works up the courage to sneak back through the window and look.

  The dumpsters have been overturned and rifled through. Trash is scattered, reeking, across the kitchen’s back stoop. The group of counselors stands looking at the scene for a moment, swaying on their feet. Then, in a burst of giddy, nervous whispers, they turn and dash away to the mess hall steps.

  •••

  Deep into the early hours of the morning, Sam stands alone on the Hummingbirds’ porch and stares off into the trees. Rosie has gone to bed in the Chickadees’ cabin next door. It’s past curfew; she should be asleep, but something holds her still in the cold night air. A little drunk, she searches for something in the starlit landscape—whatever went digging through the dumpsters, maybe, or something else. She strains her eyes, her arms crossed tight around her middle.

  Sometimes, when she is alone at night or on her early morning walks, she sees a shadow in the trees. Not an animal, but a haunting, human figure, tall and looming and lanky, with branching arms and a craning neck. It’s always the same shape, always standing just a yard or two away, like a person watching her. She can never seem to catch it when she is looking for it. Only when she hears a rustle or a twig snap and turns around in childish fright. That must be what she is doing, standing here on the porch, she decides. Hoping to see the ghostly shadow. If she can finally pin it down with her eyes, maybe she can figure out if it’s real.

  The shadow does not appear. Nothing does. The giggle of someone still out and sneaking around rings through the trees. Sam shivers, turns away, and shuffles off to bed.

  Logan

  Hugo Baker is all anyone ever wants to talk about. The Ravens are obsessed with him—with his clothes, his face, his swishy hair and pink cheeks. Even the way his ears stick out when he wears a hat.

  They track his every movement, follow him around Camp, and report back to each other in serious whispers over the mess hall table. Speaking in code, they call him Mr. X (Liz watched him start an X-pattern friendship bracelet by himself in crafts, which is impressive, for a boy), but the rest of the time they say his full name, all in a single drop: Hugobaker. Even the counselors use his last name. Hugo Baker is practically a celebrity.

  Weirdly enough, Logan is caught up in all the frantic gossip, too. She has found a place in the cabin. Pretending to be in love with Mr. X is easy. All she has to do is say that she doesn’t like him, and everyone will assume she does.

  “Boys are gross,” she says, with her cheeks flushed hot, and Liz giggles at her.

  “Logan, you love him the most. You’re so precious.”

  “Presh,” says Donna, and the rest of them parrot it back.

  “Presh!”

  “Yeah, so presh!”

  The great cavernous trench that used to separate Logan and Milly from the rest of the cabin is shrinking. There is a delicate place between boyish enough to be likable and girlish enough to be like them where Logan is finding her personality. It’s a strange new ground that she tiptoes onto, careful and anxious, ready to lose her footing and slip to her doom at any moment.

  She is getting older. It makes no sense—she was twelve when she came to Camp, she is twelve now, and she will be twelve when she leaves at the end of the summer. Somehow, though, she is sure she is growing.

  Sometimes, during free hour in the afternoons or late at night when she gets up to pee, she will stand in the bathroom and spend a few minutes alone with her reflection, just staring. The girl in the toothpaste-spotted mirror is mesmerizing and repulsive. Her hair is plain, thin and straight. It hangs limply over her shoulders, except on the days Sadie ties it back in twin French braids. Her eyes are plain, milky brown behind her glasses, and her skin is getting tanner under the summer sunshine. Sometimes she thinks the red frames of her glasses are too bright, too noticeable. Too childish. Some days she is horrified by the sheer size and shape of her nose.

  Her body is another source of anxiety. She isn’t exactly flat as a board, like Milly, but she doesn’t have much to fill a bra with, either. Sometimes they hurt. She wishes they would just make up their mind, flatten back down or balloon up all at once. When she gets dressed in the cabin after showering, she keeps her towel wrapped over her shoulders.

  She is learning things as the summer goes on. Things about being a girl. Things about boys. Things the other Ravens were apparently born knowing. Nighttime is when she learns the most; at night, Sadie leaves to go to the counselors’ loft, and they are left alone with their flashlights and journals, the lights shut off. They have to be quiet, or the patrols outside will hear them. They lie in the dark and whisper about Hugo Baker. Sometimes they say things Logan thinks kids should not be talking about, but she has to listen, anyway, staring out the window, hugging her pillow to her chin.

  “No, you guys, it has to be hard,” says Joy, trying to be serious. Snickers fill the cabin.

  “But how does it get hard?”

  Donna says: “It gets excited.” Giggles.

  “What, like it has a brain?”

  Milly only speaks up when she has something very funny to say. “It is their brain,” she says, and the whole cabin laughs until they lose control, until they are all laughing at each other’s laughter, and a counselor comes by and knocks on the window to tell them to quiet down.

  This is all news to Logan. Terrifying news. Fascinating news.

  Time is funny at Camp Phoenix. Every day feels like it lasts a year, but the weeks pass by the minute. It’s all too fast and too slow at once; she is growing and changing while she stays the same, while the world of Camp becomes brighter and much more complicated. In Logan’s head it feels like a lifetime has passed since the horse accident, but it’s only a few days until Max the Hawk is out of the infirmary and back at Camp.

  She sees him at breakfast in the morning. His cheeks are puffy and tinged purple. There are stitches in his eyebrow, and his left arm is in a dark blue cast, hanging in a webbed sling across his shoulder. He catches her staring from their table and gives her a tiny, broken smile. Through the thick smell of syrup and grease and the mealtime jabber, Logan smiles back.

  Later, on the way to morning activity, they see each other again. He walks with the Hawks, merging onto the trail from the lawn to the lake. The Ravens chatter along just a few feet behind. He pauses for a half second to look back at her. His sandals twist into the red dirt and his lips hang open, like he is going to say something. Logan steps closer. Those stitches in his eyebrow are terrifying. There is something almost monstrous about the way his face has swollen. She wants to look away. To her relief, as the girls reach the back of the boys’ mob, Max seems to change his mind about talking to her. He stutter-steps and jerks ahead along the trail to catch up.

  Their morning activity is supposed to be a fishing lesson, but the Ravens have decided fishing is cruel and disgusting, so they lie in the sunshine on the grass by the fishing dock. Pedal boats and rowboats parade by on the water, people shouting and splashing from them. The counselor tells them stories. Today, they’re with Rosie: short and tan and a little scary when she gets mad. According to the latest gossip, she is going out with Elias—but other people say Elias is going out with Sam, and others swear that Sam is going out with Jeremy. Allegedly, these grown-up mysteries play out at night when they all leave the cabins to meet in the loft above the barn. Everyone Logan knows would give anything to find out what really goes on in that loft.

  “Then, when Danny got to the barn,” Rosie says, deep into her story, “he saw that it was so full of goat poop, he couldn’t even get through the front door.”

  There are no boys around, so they giggle at the poop jokes.

  Logan twists the tall grass blades between her fingers. When they break, they bleed green over her skin and smell rich and fresh and earthy. She turns to Milly and whispers, “Do you think he’s mad at me?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I can’t ask him. That’s weird.”

  Milly tugs a clover up from the ground, roots and all, carefully counts its leaves and runs it across her lips. “So, let’s pick the same activity as him today,” she decides thoughtfully. “I’ll ask him.”

  Logan rolls her eyes, turning her attention back to Rosie’s story. For someone who constantly makes fun of drama, Milly loves to start it. Still, it isn’t a bad idea. She needs to get another look at Max, at least, to figure out his funny stare. To find out if he blames her for his accident or not.

  During afternoon announcements, they glance sideways down their bench toward where the Hawks sit. Max raises his hand to sign up for air rifles. Milly nudges Logan; they shrug and copy him. Only one other camper signs up for the activity: Hugo Baker himself. He sits directly behind Logan on the benches so his kneecaps touch her shoulders. After they’re chosen, he tugs on the tip of her braid.

  “See you there, horse girl,” he says. The rest of the Ravens eye her ecstatically, and Logan feels her face go up in flames.

  The four of them get to the air rifle range before the counselor. They sit on dusty blue mats inside the shed, facing downrange toward their paper targets. When Jeremy gets there, he takes the guns out of the rusty locker and shows them how to load, aim, and fire. Then he sits back in the shade and dozes as they shoot. He doesn’t even make them wear the safety glasses. Every trigger pull makes a pop that tenses Logan’s shoulders. She can’t make the BBs from her gun fly straight. Max lies at a crooked angle to keep the weight off his cast arm while Hugo gives him instructions in a patient voice—not exactly like a friend, Logan thinks, but like a big brother.

  Milly likes Jeremy. At least, that’s what she says—everyone has to pick someone. She flops around on her shooting mat and pesters him with questions.

  “Hey, Jeremy. Can you kill a person with an air rifle?”

  “If you try hard enough.”

  “What about a bear?” Milly sits upright, her back to the range. “Hey, is it true there’s a bear? Liz said that Kyle told Lilah there’s a bear. It’s been breaking into Camp and going through the trash.”

  “There’s no bear,” says Jeremy dully. He has his eyes closed, his head tilted back against the shed wall. Then he opens one eye, sneakily, and looks at her. “At least, no one knows it’s a bear for sure.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, I don’t want to scare you guys. But there’s always been something out there. Might be a bear. Might not. Why do you think we always tell you to stay on the trails?”

  Hugo is still focused down the barrel of his air rifle. “I’ll shoot a bear right in the face!” he shouts. He mocks firing away at an invisible enemy downrange. “Pew, pew, pew.” Max laughs at him. Milly shakes her head. Logan sits up on her mat and watches the counselor, her attention caught.

  “What do you mean there’s always been something?” Milly presses on. “Since when is always?”

  “Since always.” Jeremy shrugs. “Don’t you guys know that story? About that kid . . . the kid that was a camper here?”

  “You mean, Danny McGee?” Logan asks.

  “Uh-huh, you bet.” The counselor nods away. “That’s the one. You know how that story really ends, right? He disappeared one night, and all they ever found of him was a pair of bloody shoes in the water under the dam.”

  Logan hears the breath catch in Milly’s nose. Even Hugo puts down his gun to pay attention. Before Jeremy can tell any more of the story, there is a tap at the shed door. He tells them to hold off on shooting and steps outside, the door hinges creaking violently behind him. They can hear muted voices from the other side of the plywood walls. Laughter.

  “Germ’s full of shit. Don’t listen to him,” Hugo says lightly, to the girls. He rolls onto his stomach to peer through the scope of his gun again.

  Logan twitches the casual swear. He sounds very grown-up. “What if there is a bear, though?”

  “I told you, I’d shoot a bear right in the face.” He grins sideways at her, his head at a tilt on the butt of the gun. Then he reaches out with one arm to poke Milly in the kneecap. “Right, Miley?”

  “Milly. My name’s Milly, short for Millipede.”

  Logan looks down the line of mats at Max, who sits cross-legged, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. He hitches the strap of his sling up higher on his shoulder. Then he stares hard at her, with that funny look, and she desperately wants to look away, again, from his bruised face. “Logan.” He glances toward the closed shed door. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay?”

  Hugo and Milly look toward him too, curious. Max frowns. With his good hand, he scratches nervously around the top of his cast. “It’s about Spark.”

  “Spark?”

  “Yeah, the horse.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, I . . . I don’t know for sure, but . . .” Max launches into a stuttering story. It’s hard to follow. He says he was in a hospital, and then in the infirmary. He was awake in bed and heard voices out the window. Mr. Campbell, he thinks, and somebody else. “I felt like I was dreaming,” he says. “You know, because of all the medicine. But I heard someone asking about the horse, and then someone else said back . . . well, I think they said—”

  “Come on, man!” Milly rushes him, bouncing impatiently on her mat.

  Max grunts and fidgets with his sling again. “He said, ‘She’ll be gone by next week.’ Then he said, ‘I’ll have Dane dig a hole.’” His brown eyes are drilling into Logan, sharp through their frames of puffy bruise. “I just wanted to tell you. I know you really liked her.”

  “A hole?” Logan repeats, struggling to understand. Then, all at once, she does. A hole. A hole is a grave, for a horse—it’s exactly what she was afraid of. Her heart swells. She jumps to her feet in a rush, still clutching her air rifle in one hand. “Next week is now!”

  The door hinges shriek again, and Jeremy steps back into the shed. He is still smiling at whatever the person outside said to him and doesn’t seem to care that Logan is standing, gun in hand, like she is about to charge out the door to take on the world. She forces herself defeatedly back onto her mat.

  The rest of the activity period passes quietly. Milly and Hugo get into an argument about bears, but Logan is too distracted to pay attention to it, fiddling with her air rifle and thinking about what Max said. They leave the shed before dinner with their paper targets full of holes. Logan feels like she has been shot full of holes herself. “Poor Spark,” she moans as soon as the counselor is far enough behind them on the trail. “How could they?”

  Milly stops walking suddenly. Hugo, busy examining his target, runs straight into her back. He grunts, and for a moment they both look like they might start shouting, until Milly says, “Wait.”

  “What?” Logan jogs a few strides back up the trail to her. Max stops, too, and they all lean in to hear her. Whatever she has to say, judging by the look on her face, must be important.

  Milly gives Max a steady look. “You don’t think they did it already, do you?”

  Max shrugs.

  Logan turns to find Hugo’s face alarmingly close. His cheeks are flushed, his teeth gritted. He stares at Milly, but not like he wants to shout at her anymore. “I know what you’re thinking,” he whispers. To Logan’s surprise, they smile mischievously at each other.

  “We could save her,” says Milly.

  Logan pushes her glasses into place on her nose. She feels a long arm wrap over her shoulders, pulling her in toward them. The four of them huddle together on the trail. In excited whispers, they begin to craft their plan.

  Sam

  Free periods at Camp are few and far between. Today, for the first time all summer, Sam, Rosie, and Elias have the afternoon off together. They take Sam’s car down to Lobster Point to smoke a joint and gossip. Elias drank away his better judgment last night and wound up fooling around with Sadie on the lifeguard dock; to the girls’ amusement, he is frantically trying to recall the details.