We climbed. At first, the trail was wide and gradual, sloping upward. I liked this: the birds’ layered song, Janet’s smooth breathing at my side. The filtered light made the wildflowers that grew along the side of the trail look somehow brighter. We take flowers for granted, though they are absurd things: little sex-crazed jewel boxes. The reason for a flower is to make another flower, my mother used to say.

The trail may not have been particularly demanding, but Janet walked fast, and soon I was struggling to keep up. She had insisted we be at the front. I had the impression she liked to be first at most things. The rope bobbed between us. I slapped a mosquito off my arm, leaving a small red smear.

“This is a nonsense interpretation of the notion of interconnectedness,” Janet said. “Don’t tell Serena. She’ll have a field day.” She wrapped her fingers around the rope.

“It seems like Serena knows a lot about Buddhism,” I managed.

“She’s been coming here every summer since she was a kid,” Janet said. “At this point, she’s probably read every book in the place. She’s been to about a thousand lectures, too.”

“She doesn’t come to activities very much,” I said.

“It is difficult to get Serena to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” Janet said mildly.

“What about you?” I asked her.

“I like the activities.”

“I meant—do you believe in all of this? Interconnectedness?” I hesitated. “Levitation?”

The path was getting steeper, but Janet didn’t slow down. I was breathing hard now; I felt both annoyed and relieved that she didn’t seem to notice. “I think most of it is bullshit,” she said. “In the way that most of everything is bullshit.” She kicked a rock out of our way, and it tore a hole in the bushes on the side of the trail. “But also, Serena walked up to me on my very first day here, all of twelve years old, and told me hello and that she liked my face and that she had decided she was going to change my life forever. It wasn’t entirely false advertising.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You have to admit, it would be pretty interesting.” She squinted upward. “And it’s not like we have anything else to do.”

There was a crash behind us. Paola had pushed Evie into the bushes and then, inevitably, been pulled in with her. This was followed by a period of elaborate cursing. Colin, who was somewhat out of breath himself, ran over to haul them out and untangle their rope and lecture them again on the whole interconnectedness thing.

I took advantage of the commotion to rest my legs, until, after only a few moments, Janet tugged me forward again. “What about you?” she said. “How’d you wind up here, of all places?”