And now, quickly, before anybody sees me here.

I grip the cool spindly metal of the chain link with my fingers and peel it back, which is easier than expected. Like someone has been here doing exactly this many times before. My hair catches on the sharp edge as I pass through.

And then I’m on the other side.

Sick. I already want to be sick. I grab the fence again to make sure it hasn’t grown over, hasn’t raised ten feet. I can get out if I want. I can get out whenever I need. My phone is heavy in a welcome sort of way in my pocket – there’s a compass on it. Civilization will always be almost exactly due south. I’m fine. I can’t get lost. I have my compass. I’m fine.

I get the sense that something is watching me. My heart quickens in my chest. I’m moving quickly now and I can’t make myself slow down. The forest floor is so textured and uneven that the noise of it makes it seem like I’m being pursued by footsteps other than my own, and I fall over myself and bash against a tree.

I rest my head against the bark and look up.

There’s something tied to the tree. I stand, shine my phone’s flashlight on to it – it’s a black ribbon, vaguely shiny and reflective in the light.

If someone was identifying a path, why would they mark it with black ribbon?

And I realize – if it’s reflective, then …

I move slowly in a circle, shining my flashlight deliberately on to each section of trees, and my breath hitches again, my heart hammers.

Something’s caught in the beacon. There it is. A path. Ten or so ribbons, in what’s nearly an orderly line.

I know I’m breathing too quickly but I don’t know how to make it stop. My mouth is bone-dry.

There’s nowhere to go but forward.

The way the branch diverges from the trail looks deliberate. Like somebody had pushed it out of the way – and recently. Further along and my flashlight is searching for a moment, but then I see it.

There’s a makeshift cross, shoddy, two planks of wood tied together. A circle of stones, too precise to be natural.

This is a grave.

My heart pounds in my chest.

I dig. Dig without thinking. I shouldn’t be digging but I am. I should leave it and call someone and I’m thinking all of this as I unearth that good silk-spun stuff, that soft forest soil. Dig with my hands and fingernails and that’s all. Idiot, I should have brought a shovel, I should have brought something, but it’s shallow, and something’s taking form – fabric, silky against my fingers compared to the grit of the dark, and I hold on to it for dear life.