The man’s eyes opened wider. He looked surprised. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “That’s heavy.” At the same time, he was annoyed at me. I could tell. He wanted me to leave and let him drink whatever was in his bottle.

I stood my ground. “My brother died here,” I lied, and found that the lie felt good, and strong, almost true. “On that rock. Right there where you’re sitting. Nobody ever sits on it. If you were from here, you’d know that. Sam’s ghost lives there. You should go away. Right now. It’s a . . .” I searched for the words I wanted. “It’s a desecration of his memory.”

Now the man looked genuinely freaked out. Maybe he even thought I was a little crazy or something. He grabbed his pack and guitar with one arm and slid down the rock, bottle in hand. He splashed into the creek in his hiking boots and, in one big stride, stepped out on the other side of the creek.

“Hey, I didn’t mean any harm, really,” he said. And he sounded sorry enough, maybe even kind, but now I could see that there was a gun in a holster by his side. That scared me. I’d never seen a gun up close before. My parents hated them, and I wasn’t allowed to go to houses where parents even owned them.

I pretended not to see the gun, or I tried not to see it. I tried not to stare at it. “Go away,” I said, my eyes focused on his. “Go away and never come back here.”

The man put up his hands in a funny gesture, almost like he was doing some sort of apology dance. “Hey, it’s cool, it’s cool.” He turned to walk away along the creek bed before he added, “Want some friendly advice, little lady? You might try being a little kinder to strangers. Karma, you know?” Then he winked, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to think of that.

I stood, my heart pounding up into my throat, and stared at the back of his black T-shirt and his tangled blond hair as he walked away. My legs trembled and my blood thrummed. I was bursting with what I’d done. What my anger had done, and my lie. Maybe a thing didn’t need to be true to be powerful.

But just where the creek bent, where it opened out in the direction of the road, the man paused and looked back at me again. He gave one last wave and then pivoted, to peer up the embankment at the place where Jasper and I had been trampling down the kudzu for weeks, where the gap in the brush was more visible than I’d realized. He squinted at it, glanced back at me again, and then turned, walked quickly away.