Everyone turned and looked at me then. Then they looked at Ros, and back at me, like they were waiting for me to say more. Only I didn’t have anything more to say. In my head, the fact that Ros had been talking to Jess had sounded helpful, like pertinent information that might be useful to the conversation; out loud, it sounded like tattling and had brought the conversation to a screeching halt. I could feel Ros staring at me, and my face felt hot.

“I just meant that maybe you knew something we didn’t. About the fight. Or assholes,” I joked. No one laughed.

“We only talked for a second,” said Ros.

“It looked important,” I said. “Whatever it was.”

“It wasn’t,” Ros insisted.

There was a long pause where I became extremely aware of how heavy the books were in my backpack, more like stones than literature. Someone pushed by us on the sidewalk; Ros stepped out into the road. I resisted the urge to tell them to be careful.

“What are you all up to?” said Audrey, and I was grateful to her for changing the subject.

“We’re thinking about going on a tour of the spring,” said Touchstone.

Both Audrey and Phoebe groaned.

“Oh no, is it bad?” said Touchstone.

“It’s fine,” said Phoebe, drawing out the i in fine. “It’s just cheesy. We’ve been on it a million times for school field trips.”

“‘At the height of the gold rush, miners passed through our town pining for their beloveds back home, and they found the cure to their lovesickness deep in our woods,’” Audrey said, with pitch-perfect tour-guide intonation.

“Wait,” I said. “The cure to their lovesickness was just to forget about the people back home? Why couldn’t they just wait to go home and be reunited?”

“The miners weren’t very patient people,” Audrey said. “Honestly, I’d skip the tour if I were you. It’s kind of dull. Sort of a waste of time and money.”

“It’s kind of interesting,” Phoebe said. “You learn that they used Lovesick Falls as a measuring stick for things in the woods. It was an important landmark for them as they tried to cross through the forest—everything was some number of miles from the spring.”

“What was I saying about it being dull?” said Audrey, and Phoebe laughed good-naturedly. “And it’s expensive to take the tour. You can hike it on your own for free if you take the steeper route; that’s the best advice I can give you. The hike is pretty, and the spring is, too, though Lovers’ Lagoon is better for swimming.”