We go out the back door and I lock it after us. I check the street carefully before we come out from the shadow of the house. The road is empty. Midges dance around the buzzing yellow streetlight. The neighboring house stares with its newsprint eyes. Further down the block it’s a different story. Sashes are pulled up, spilling noise and warm light. I catch the distant tone of a piano, the faint scent of pork chops cooking.

“We could go knock on a door,” Lauren says. “Say hi. Maybe they’d ask us to stay for supper.”

“I thought you wanted to go camping?” I say. “Come on, kitten.”

We turn away to where the trees are outlined against the purple sky. We duck through the wooden gate and here we are, among them. The flashlight casts a wide bloodless beam on the trail.

All signs of the city are soon behind us. We are enclosed by the forest. It is waking. The dark air is filled with hoots, clicks and song. Frogs, cicadas, bats. Lauren shivers and I feel her wonder. I love having her so close to me. I can’t recall the last time she let me carry her like this without a fight. She hates to be helpless.

“What do you do if someone comes by?” I ask her again.

“I stay quiet and let you do the talking,” she replies. “What’s that stink?”

“Skunk,” I say. The animal wanders alongside us on the path for a time, curious, perhaps. Then it ambles off into the wooded dark and the scent fades.

We don’t go far, about a mile. A couple hundred feet off the path there’s the clearing. It’s hidden by boulders and thick scrub and you have to know how to find it. I know the way well. This is where the gods live.

The scent of cedar and wild thyme is in the air, as strong as wine. But the trees that circle the clearing aren’t cedar or fir. They are pale slender ghosts.

“Dad,” Lauren says in a whisper. “Why are the trees white?”

“They’re called paper birch trees,” I say. “Or white birch. Look.” I peel a sliver of bark from a trunk and show it to her. She strokes its whispering surface. I don’t tell her their true name, which is bone trees.

I find the spot I want in the northwest corner, where I spread the groundsheet over the earth, still warm from the day. We sit. I make her drink some water, eat an energy bar. Overhead, the branches show through the stars. Lauren is quiet. I know she feels them. The gods.

“This is nice,” I say. “You and me together. It reminds me of when you were little. Those were wonderful times.”

“I don’t remember it like that,” she says. I feel a spurt of frustration. She is always pushing me away. But I stay calm.