“Shut up,” said Bullfrog. “Be quiet.”

Kyle fell. His upper body swung through the air, and for a sickening moment he held nothing. Then he stretched his arm and caught the handhold. He looked up, gauging the next move.

“I can’t watch,” Mara said. Nobody answered. She looked at Ashley, but Ashley didn’t look back.

Kyle climbed higher. Finally he reached a fork in the trunk, close to the top, and he sat and straddled a bough, wrapping his legs tightly around it. He was small up there. He reached into his pocket for the flares.

The darkness was coming faster now, and it was hard for Mara to see what Kyle was doing, or maybe he was just too far away. He fumbled with something, and his arm jerked. A loud pop. A white flash illuminated him—that thin figure, legs squeezed tight, one foot tucked behind the other. He gazed upward, his face glowing. Mara followed his gaze and saw a red dot arcing into the sky, far above the trees.

The red dot grew into a star, a flaming ball, distant and huge. It trailed a line of white smoke. Kyle was right: the flare was unmissable. When the red flame faded, only the drifting line remained. Even from the ground, Mara could smell gunpowder.

Another movement, another sharp pop. In the light of the second flash, Kyle seemed more relaxed. He leaned back to watch the flare rise. It followed almost the exact path of the one before it. Two cardboard tubes clattered to the ground. The spent flares, dropped. The third one, the last, was the brightest yet.

When it faded, Kyle started climbing down. He was more cautious now. Slower. The moon broke the horizon, and a silver glow mixed with the blue of twilight. He felt with his toes for the branches below him, and lowered himself slowly. When he reached a broad stretch between branches, he hesitated. “Can you guide me?” he called.

“Step to your left,” said Bullfrog. “Down. Farther. Farther. A little farther. Keep going.” A bare foot stretched for traction still inches out of reach.

“Farther,” said Bullfrog.

The toes stretched another fraction of an inch. Kyle was thirty feet in the air.

“I can’t watch,” Mara said again.

“You see what’s happening?” said Ashley. “This is not fucking safe.”

“What?” said Mara.

“This is your fault,” said Ashley, and ran away.

Mara looked at Bullfrog, who glanced between her and the tree with expressions of equal exhaustion. Kyle could be his problem. Ashley was hers. She headed toward the lake.

But Ashley wasn’t at the shore, as Mara had expected. Not in the shelter, either, or by the dying fire outside. Mara found her in the woods, with her head in her hands. Every muscle tense, like she might explode if someone touched her.

Mara didn’t know what was wrong. Her heart was racing. Had she been supposed to keep Kyle from climbing? Maybe she should have; after all, the danger was clear. Had she messed up? Was there some chain of events she’d set in place without realizing, something obvious to everyone else?