We unloaded the car, Vera looping the CamelBak over her shoulders, me grasping a metal water bottle they’d loaned me. John pulled on an old pack and retied his laces, then checked his phone, swiped away notifications.

‘This one’s always ultra-prepared,’ Vera said, eyeing his screen.

He tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I may have downloaded the entire area to my off-line Google Maps. It only uses your GPS coordinates, so we can’t get lost when the service goes out.’

‘We’ve done this plenty,’ Vera said. ‘There’s no way to get lost.’

John rocked back on his heels, looked at me. ‘My dad always told me it was better to be overprepared than under. It’s a hard habit to shake.’ He was right. Your parents never left you; their little pieces of wisdom followed you wherever you went, like a cloud casting a shadow. I loved and hated that he knew that as well as I did.

We paused at the marker for the trailhead, and Vera lifted the lid to a metal box marked PLEASE REGISTER. She retrieved a clipboard from inside, its papers ruffled like tulle. She signed her name on it, as well as John’s, and then handed it to me. ‘You should sign in.’

My limbs tightened as I remembered the notice at the restaurant. It was silly, but the idea of signing my name, physical proof of my whereabouts, was terrifying. Only it didn’t matter, I reminded myself. I’d been careful this time. I’d taken all the necessary precautions. Hell, I’d gone above and beyond.

Vera narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘See, now this is what I meant about being pushy,’ John ventured, nudging her with his elbow.

Vera rolled her eyes and I found myself wishing I’d known what it was like to bicker without fear.

‘Gimme,’ I said, taking the clipboard and glancing over the sheet. Vera Abernathy and John Nolan. She hadn’t taken his name – I loved that. Quickly, I scribbled Lucy King on the clipboard in elaborate script. I added the date and time, just as Vera had done above. ‘I’ve seen these before,’ I added as Vera looked at me, trying to read me like a book. ‘I just didn’t think anyone actually filled them out.’

‘We didn’t used to,’ Vera said, a hand on the strap of her CamelBak.

John took two big steps ahead, eager to get going, and she followed.

‘What changed?’

Ahead of me, I saw Vera shrug.

‘A girl disappeared here last year,’ she said, without bothering to turn around. ‘They didn’t find her body until weeks later, halfway down the river.’

I was winded by mile two. It wasn’t the distance so much as the climbing, so steady and constant I could hardly appreciate the change from birch groves to ferns, storybook oaks to running brooks.