“Awesome! I can hook you up with someone. There’s this guy, Skyler, I apprenticed with him once upon a time when I thought maybe I wanted to be a tattoo artist. He’s amazing. Most of this is his work.” She held out her arms and Helen saw things she hadn’t noticed before: images and faces within the designs.

“Do you know what you want?” Riley asked.

What did she want? Her mind drifted, spun. She stared into the empty black eye socket of the crow skull on Riley’s forearm. Nate would like that one, Helen decided. It was like something he might draw in his nature journal.

“Do you have a design in mind?” Riley asked.

Nate came back with a six-pack of beer.

“What are we designing?” he asked.

“Helen’s tattoo,” Riley said as Nate passed her a beer.

“Is that right?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral, but he shot Helen a look of concern—or was it derision? He pulled up a folding camp chair and sat facing them on the lawn in front of the house. Helen felt a twinge of guilt, like she had betrayed him somehow. The weed was making her paranoid, surely.

“Nate,” Helen said, as he settled into his chair and cracked open a beer. “You should tell Riley about the deer you saw this morning.”

Nate had a good swig of beer, then told Riley the story of the albino deer.

Riley smiled and nodded, happy for him, but not seeming the least surprised.

“Wait,” Nate said. “You know about the white deer?”

“That was Hattie you saw,” Riley said.

Helen’s stomach clenched.

“What?” Nate laughed.

Riley laughed, too, but comfortably.

“Oh yeah! There are tons of stories that go back for decades about a white doe in these woods. A couple of hunters back in the late sixties swear they found a naked woman out here by the bog. She ran, and while they chased her—they say to help her—she transformed into a white doe.” Riley’s leg was pressed against Helen’s as they sat side by side on the steps.

Nate laughed so hard he snorted beer out his nose. “And how much had they had to drink?” Nate asked, once he’d pulled himself together. “Or maybe it was something stronger—nothing goes with a hunting trip like a little LSD, some magic mushrooms maybe. I’ve heard how Vermont was in the late sixties and seventies.”

Riley shrugged her shoulders. “I guess you never know. However, as I said, there are dozens of stories going back years and years. People seeing her, following her deep into the woods.”