Suddenly Skylar stops. “A dead deer’s making that smell.”

I pull up beside her. I don’t want to, but I look at the deer, as if I must see what Skylar sees. It’s lying on its side, its neck curved, its head back. What’s left of the only eye I can see is looking right at us.

The crows have been tearing at it with their sharp beaks. Overhead, they mutter to each other and pace back and forth on the branches. A murder—that’s what you call a flock of crows. A murder. It’s a good name. You don’t think of crows in flocks.

Skylar pedals ahead, fast. I follow her, pumping hard. The smell clings to our clothes, to our hair. Hot spit floods my mouth and I almost throw up.

I hate the woods even more than the gas station. They’re dark and damp and creepy. It’s like a sort of darkness clings to the trees. Deer die here, crows eat them, but worse things than that happen. I don’t know how I know. I just have a feeling.

“Where’s the field?” I shout at Skylar. “We should have seen it by now.” I look over my shoulder. A person can get lost so easily, especially in the woods, when everything is green and thick and you can’t see very far. Skylar stops and looks around. The smell lingers. I can still hear the crows somewhere behind us.

“We couldn’t have missed it,” Skylar says. “It must be farther than we thought.”

I ride slowly, looking for the field. I stop to read a faded sign nailed to a tree. I’m hoping it says something helpful, like This Way to Marie Drive, but no, of course not. It says Private Property. No Hunting or Fishing. It’s riddled with bullet holes. What kind of person shoots signs?

Skylar has gotten ahead of me. She looks back and says, “Come on, Abbi! I see the field.”

I follow her out of the woods and into the sunlight. Across the field is the end of Marie Drive and our tree house. We ride fast, bouncing over ruts and bumps. Grasshoppers jump out of our way. I glance over my shoulder and tell myself there’s nothing to be scared of. Deer die all the time. A murder of crows makes a lot of noise. People shoot holes in signs for the fun of it. I’ve got to stop being scared of stuff. Be more like Skylar and laugh things off.