But the witch was said to whisper.

“She tells you a story,” Saul said, shining his penlight into the thicket surrounding him. “Until your heart explodes with it.”

He didn’t like the sound of his own voice. Didn’t like the noise it made.

He looked deeper into the woods. Down the trail he saw his friends go.

I could tie the rope to the tree, go join Roger in the car.

He chewed his lower lip, considering.

A chorus of whispers rose to his right.

Once upon a time, he thought, your heart exploded…

BOOM!

Something loud deeper in the woods. A gunshot? Saul didn’t know. Didn’t look ahead with the light, either. Instead he fell to his knees and held his head in his hands.

“No, no,” he said. “Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

But when he looked up he saw a pale face pull back behind one of the gnarled trunks of the trees.

Saul couldn’t find a scream within himself. Not even a gasp. So he remained still. Very still. Staring where he believed he’d seen a pale face. Then his mind overlapped ideas, as if the bent branches had something to do with the way he thought, and Saul imagined he’d seen not only a pale face, but a white man, hiding out here, hiding from a tribe of indigenous people that would remove his face and tie it around a lantern if they caught him.

“Everything’s fine,” Saul said.

But it wasn’t fine. Not when the whispering picked up again. Not when Saul heard it so clearly that, even if Neal had insisted it was the wind, Saul would’ve known the truth.

17

Neal and Harvey were lost. At least Harvey believed they were. And how could they not be? The longest straightaways went ten feet before another severe turn rubber-banded back in the other direction. A map, Harvey realized, would be useless.

What was Neal thinking? He certainly wasn’t acting like a birthday boy out for a joyride. No. He had the same determined gait that Harvey had seen a hundred times on five continents.

“He mistook their backs for a sweater, for night sky,” Neal suddenly said. “But everything looks like night sky in here.”

“What was that, Neal?”

Finally Neal turned to face him. “You’re not holding out on me, are you, Harvey?”

“Holding out? What do you mean?”

Nash studied his face suspiciously, then forged ahead again.

He took the turns tighter. Uphill and down. Forward and back. He made decisions faster, now, like he was getting to know the woods.

Harvey had difficulty keeping up.

“Easy, Neal. I’m drunk.”

Another quick turn and duck!

Uphill, downhill, step over a low-reaching branch.

Breathe, Harvey thought.

Winding one way, then the other, then the first again.

Lift the arms, raise the knees, duck!

Turn right, turn left, get on the ground to crawl under a cluster, back up again, turn right, turn left.

Mind the ropes. Mind the ropes.