He paused, picturing it all in his mind. “I can smell the campfire—that was always the best part. The crackles and the popping and the glowing coals. My mom didn’t enjoy roughing it too much, but she endured it because I think she could see how happy it made me. And my dad, obviously. And Helga totally got into it. She was like a forest ranger out there, barking orders and gathering way more wood than we’d ever use. But also making sure we didn’t burn the forest down around us.”

“She’s tough,” Sarah whispered. Michael could hear the smile in her voice.

“So this one time,” Michael continued, “I think I thought I was an Eagle Scout or something, because I decided to go on my very own hike—I didn’t even tell anyone I was leaving. I marched down one mountain and up the next—they were more like hills, actually. They weren’t that tall. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe that I’d discover some ancient burial ground or a handful of arrowheads, who knows. I was an idiot, like Bryson, I guess.”

“Good company,” his friend answered dryly.

Michael barely heard him, lost in that old, old memory. “Anyway, of course I got turned around. I didn’t have a clue where I was. I tried retracing my steps, but I’m pretty sure I was just going in circles, up and down the exact same mountain.”

“Yikes,” Sarah said. “How old were you?”

“Nine or ten. I was scared out of my mind because it started getting dark. I called for my parents and Helga, but they didn’t hear me. I was terrified—I remember I started crying and I got more and more hysterical. Finally, I was in some little valley, and I just…I don’t know. I didn’t exactly pray, but I tried to reach out to my dad. Begging him in my head to come and find me.”

Michael shifted again to lean back on his elbows, stretching his legs out in front of him. Sarah rested her arm across his knees and looked up at him. Her eyes were hidden in the dark, but he was happy she was facing his way.

“It wasn’t two or three minutes later when a huge boulder came crashing down the mountain from straight above where I stood. I heard it before I saw it, snapping trees and crunching undergrowth. I looked up just in time to see it come barreling through a couple of pines, on a dead-on course for me. The thing only missed me by an inch after I dove out of the way. It totally smashed a tree to pieces.”

Bryson and Sarah didn’t move and he could barely hear them breathe.