“You need to get out of there!” Mira yelled. She shouted in the phone for him to leave his house but he couldn’t hear her clearly either. She moved toward the window in the hope the service would be better, but Jesse continued to fade in and out. She had to get outside, to get a better signal, and she told him to hold on as she went to the door.

“I’m coming, Mira. Do you hear me? I’m on my way,” Jesse said, and before Mira knew it, her phone’s screen had gone black and Jesse was gone. At least he wouldn’t be home, she thought as she threw the phone on the couch.

Mira glanced at the sky through the cottage window. There was still time to fix this; not enough, but she would head out to the clearing anyway. She needed a shovel first and left to find one. It didn’t take long. At the gardens she found one lying against the shed. She picked it up and started running.

By now, all the guests had heard about Celine. “What do you think she looks like?” she heard a group of them ask as she passed by. “How bad do you think it is?” They gripped their phones, ready to take their photos, as they disappeared toward the trees in their search to find Celine.

Others hurried to their cottages and threw what they could into their suitcases. They flooded the pathway leading to the parking lots. As Mira left the gardens carrying her shovel, more couples rushed past her to the parking lot. None of them paid her any mind, their eyes fixed on the exit, on their cars, and on the looming safety of the highway.

The shovel dragged along the grass as Mira ran. Everyone would see the truth, she just had to get to the clearing and dig. They had to know what laid buried in the dirt. If she did this, the ghosts would stop.

She ran until trees surrounded her and she could no longer discern the path. “Where is it?” she asked, stopping. Which way was right? In the dark, who could tell? She started in one direction, hesitated, doubting herself. The sting of sweat made her rub her eyes. She was wasting time. “Where, where, where?” she called.

Just as quickly, as if an answer to her question, she heard movement in the brush. A breeze, subtle, but Mira felt the air on her skin, making her senses alert, alive, and it was enough. She began to run again. Someone was following her, or something, and as she picked up the pace she felt it telling her where to go, telling her to hurry, almost there, hurry, and she ran, going farther and farther still, until she saw the clearing and stopped.

This was it, where the slaves who’d rebelled were buried. She would find them and they’d be free.