Stevie hmmmmed.

“There will be children here tomorrow,” Nate said. “Children. With their little child fingers.”

“Child fingers?”

“I’m saying we won’t be safe anymore. This other counselor better stop being sick really quick.”

As Stevie walked into her cabin later, Janelle was wrapping up a call with Vi. Stevie could see their short silver hair on the screen, and their pink-tinted round glasses. Whatever lovey-dovey talk they were engaged in cut off quickly. Stevie said hello, then went over and flopped on her bed. It was not a particularly forgiving sort of bed, and the springs squeaked in protest. There was a pungent chemical smell in the air, and the message on the wall was gone.

“You got it off the wall,” she said as Janelle finished the call.

“Yeah, I used some denatured alcohol to soften it, then I scraped it off.”

“Denatured alcohol?”

“They use it for camping stoves, so there was some around. The smell will go away soon.”

“I don’t know if I want it to,” Stevie replied. “That’s probably the only thing I’ll solve all summer.”

She waited for Janelle to jump in and say no, of course not. Janelle was always encouraging, but she was also realistic. Her silence confirmed Stevie’s worries.

However, there was something that changed her mood immediately. A text from David popped up on her phone:

Got off work a day early. See you tomorrow.

16

STEVIE WOKE UP IN A BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL MOOD THAT BEFITTED Barlow Corners. Today, David would be here. Today, she had something she could give to a family member of one of the Box in the Woods victims. Today the kids were coming, and that seemed wonderful too.

Again, Stevie set out in the morning on a bike. The route to town was easy enough, with only two turns to make. Still, most of the country roads had no bike lanes, no sidewalks—you were supposed to ride along the edge of the street and trust. She wobbled at times and pumped the brakes anxiously, never really sure if she was about to skid off the side of the road or into traffic. No one else seemed to be having these problems. People on racing bikes whizzed around her, utterly sure of their command of the road.

When she arrived in the town center about half an hour later, she was a shattered husk of her former self, but she had grown in her own personal estimation. She rolled the bike up the sidewalk for the last few blocks of the journey and chained it in front of the library.

The library air was shockingly cool on skin that was slick with sweat. Allison was in the new reading room, organizing some picture books. She had on a cheerful yellow shirtdress with a matching necklace made of big yellow beads. Janelle would have appreciated the lemony color and the precision.

“Hey,” Stevie said quietly.