It was Cass. She wore a brown top and tight blue jeans with patches all over them. Her neck was freckly from the sun, and her hair was all windblown and wild. I was pretty sure I’d never seen a more beautiful human in my entire life.

This, of course, made it very hard for me to talk.

“It’s . . . um . . . a tape player,” I said. “I found it in this tree.”

Cass stared at me, her eyebrows raised.

“And why did you put a tape player in that tree?”

“I didn’t put it there.”

“Then who did?”

The sun cut through a gap in the clouds, and it got really hot in the woods all of a sudden. I could feel sweat pouring down my neck.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said.

Cass smiled a little bit at that. It made my stomach go all swirly.

“So, Lee,” she said, “how did you know to look in the tree for this tape player?”

“I . . . well . . .”

“Go on.”

I don’t know why—maybe I was flustered, or maybe I so desperately wanted someone else to know and understand, or maybe I just couldn’t think of anything else to say. Whatever the reason, I decided to be honest with her.

“I . . . I have these visions sometimes.”

“Hmm,” she said. “And a vision told you to look inside a tree for a tape player?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “But pretty much.”

I wondered what she’d say, if she’d laugh at me or just think I was some kind of creep. I held my breath, and it felt as if the whole forest and even the wind held their breaths with me.

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

I couldn’t believe it. There was no way.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.

Cass stared me dead in the eyes. Hers were brown and strange, the color of fall leaves, little specks of light floating in them, the kind of eyes I could spend my life lost inside.

“I am absolutely 100 percent not kidding you,” she said.

This was great news. Maybe the best news I’d ever heard in my life.

“So this tree is like magic, huh?” she said. “You have a vision, and then there’s something here. Like it’s your mailbox from the spirit world. They just drop you messages from time to time, and here is where you pick them up.”

“I guess so,” I said. “I mean, this is my first time doing this. I don’t exactly know if it’s going to be a habit or not.”

“Worth checking though, huh?”

“I suppose.”

“Good to know,” she said. Cass smiled her crooked-tooth smile at me. “I’ll be seeing you.”

And she walked off toward the tenant house.

I waited until she was gone, then hurried back to the house, the tape player in my hands. I snuck it past Grandma in the kitchen, who told me to hurry and wash up, and into the bedroom while Murphy was in the shower. I tucked the tape player under my covers, where nobody could see it.