But it wasn’t just the four of us.
There was someone else. Another boy.
Their laughter echoes against my ribs and I take a step back. Then another. I don’t want to be here—the memories beginning to slice me open. Raw and serrated.
I reach the gate, my heels bumping into it, my boots getting stuck in the snow.
I stagger through the opening and press my hands to my temples. A boy died that night, Nora told me. A boy died and I vanished into the woods.
The wind howls against my ears, a scream that sounds like a warning, like the trees remember, they know who I am. I stumble toward the lake, away from the cemetery—I let my legs carry me toward camp. Anywhere that isn’t here.
A boy is dead, my head repeats, the wind screeches.
And one of us who stood in this cemetery that night is to blame.
NORA
The old house facing the lake has sheltered nearly every Walker who has ever lived. Aside from the earliest few who I know little about—the ones who were said to emerge from the forest, hair woven with juniper berries and foxglove, feet covered in moss, eyes as watchful as the night birds.
Legend says we appeared as if from a dream.
Early settlers claimed they saw Walkers weaving spells into the fibers of their dresses: moonscapes and five-pointed stars and white rabbits for protection. They said Josephine Walker stitched the pattern of a severed heart into the fabric of her navy-blue dress, with a dagger splitting it in two, blood dripping down the folds of her skirt to where it met her shoes. And two days later, the boy who she loved—but who loved another—fell from his porch steps onto the hunting knife he kept sheathed at his side. They say it tore straight through his rib bone to his beating heart, slicing it clean through.
And the blood on Josephine’s dress trickled down the fabric and made perfect round drops on the floor of the old house. The spell had worked.
After that, locals knew with certainty that we were witches.
Whether the story is true, whether Josephine Walker really did stitch a spell into the folds of her dress or not, it didn’t matter. The Walker women would forever be known as sorceresses who should never be trusted.
And in this town, we would never be anything else.
It can be a burden to know your family history—to belong in a place so completely that you understand every hiss from the trees, the familiar pattern of spiraling ferns, the sound of the lake crackling in winter. The certainty that something isn’t right, even if you can’t quite see what it is.
“It’s so fucking cold in here,” Suzy says when I step through the front door.
She’s sitting on the edge of the couch, a blanket draped over her shoulders, legs twitching.
“Fire went out last night,” I say, shedding my coat and boots to bend down beside the stove.
“Where were you?” she asks.
I bite my lip, not looking at her. I don’t want to tell her the truth, but I can’t seem to think of a lie fast enough.
“Looking for Oliver.”
“The boy you found in the woods?” Her eyebrows lift and so does her upper lip—smirking.
“He was gone when I woke up. I just—I didn’t know what happened. I thought something was wrong.”
“You were worried about him?” she says, her grin spreading wider.
“No.” I shake my head. “I just thought it was weird that he left before the sun was up.”
Suzy stops shaking and she leans forward. Her curiosity has cured the cold inside her.
I scrape a match against the edge of the stove, and it sparks to life—the brightest thing in the house—then I wait for the flame to catch on the small twigs scattered across the bottom of the stove. The glow of the fire soon spreads over the larger logs and I close the door, letting the heat build inside.
“He stayed here last night?” she asks.
I stand up and cross into the kitchen, feeling on edge—I don’t want to talk about this, about him. “He didn’t have anywhere else to go,” I say. Or it was all just a game, I think. A stupid prank, and I fell for it. A dare from the other boys, who have never seen the inside of my house. Maybe they dared him to steal one of the lost items while I slept, but when I do a quick survey of the living room, nothing seems to be missing.
Something else is going on that I don’t understand.
But Suzy’s grin is so wide that even her ears raise up slightly. “Why doesn’t he want to stay at the camp?” she asks.
“I’m not sure.” Of anything.
“He probably just wants to stay here with you,” she suggests through the broad row of her grinning teeth.
I shake my head—“I doubt it”— and pull down the box of oatmeal from the cupboard.
“Wait.” Suzy sits up straighter. “Does he know what happened to the kid who died?”
My fingers touch the edge of the counter, feeling the cold tile, the divot where I once dropped a glass honey jar and chipped the surface. Glass shattered and honey dripped everywhere. Mom was furious, but Grandma only cooed and sang a song about honey making the house smell sugary sweet. I think she made it up on the spot to make me feel better.
“He said he doesn’t,” I answer, remembering the stunned look that spread across Oliver’s face when I told him. But maybe I misread everything in his cool-green eyes. Maybe I’m foolish to think anything he’s told me is the truth.
“It was probably just an accident anyway,” Suzy adds, sinking back into the couch cushions, suddenly bored again.
I release my fingers from the counter. “What do you mean?”
She draws her lips to one side, thinking. “That kid who died, he probably just fell from a tree or froze to death during some wilderness exercise.”
“Maybe,” I answer. “But if it was an accident, why is it such a secret? Why didn’t the camp counselors tell everyone what happened?”
“Who knows. Maybe they wanted to call the boy’s parents first. Or they didn’t want to scare anyone until the police came. I don’t know how this stuff works.” Again, her tone seems callous. As if she doesn’t want to be bothered with my questions.
But her expression drops and I realize it’s not that. It unsettles her to talk about it. She’s pretending it’s no big deal so that it won’t be. So she doesn’t have to think about being trapped up here, in these unforgiving mountains, with someone who may have killed that boy.
“Can we not talk about it?” she adds, and I know that I’m right. She’s afraid. And maybe she should be—maybe we should both be terrified.
“Sure,” I agree.
But it doesn’t mean I’ll stop thinking about it. That the thin, acrid feeling isn’t carving a gaping hole inside me. That I don’t feel restless and edgy, and that I won’t double-check the locks tonight before we go to sleep.
“I’m not even supposed to be here,” Suzy murmurs, her voice almost a whimper. Like she’s holding back tears.
The cabin roof creaks and moans as the wind outside picks up.
“The road will thaw eventually,” I say, a tiny offering of hope. But with winter now settled firmly over the mountains, it could take another month, maybe more. Storms have been rolling in over the lake daily, snow piling up on roofs and driveways and the only road down the mountain. We’re trapped. Hemmed in. Captive.
Suzy runs her fingers through her long, wavy hair, pulling against her scalp, and tucks her forehead against her knees, like she’s a little girl playing hide-and-seek. If she can’t see the darkness, then it can’t see her.