But I’m already moving past her to the door, my pulse thudding down every vein, a drum in my chest pulled tight. Fin lifts his head from his place beside the woodstove, ears forward, gaze expectant. “Stay,” I tell him and he lowers his head.

“Where are you going?” Suzy asks, trailing me with her eyes.

“Trees don’t like fire,” I say. “I’m going to put it out.”

Their shrill laughter bounces among tree limbs and echoes over the lake, sharp and grating.

I move quickly through the forest, my feet punching through the snow, fury growing in my belly with each step. I don’t even have time to think this might be a bad idea when I reach the circle of trees and step into the ring of firelight. My arms are stiff at my sides, fingernails against my palms. But the boys don’t notice me, not at first—I am a blur against the backdrop of pines, no different from the shadows—but then one of them glances my way, his mouth falling open. “Shit,” he says, startled.

The boys all flinch in unison.

Eyes going wide.

Brains slow to react.

I can almost hear the clunk clank of gears grinding forward. The shock of seeing a girl appear from the forest.

I don’t recognize any of them—but I rarely do. They come and go so frequently to the camp. Temporary boys. I look for Oliver, his too-green eyes and wavy hair, but I don’t see him and my stomach tightens.

“Who the hell are you?” one of them asks—a boy wearing a thick winter hat, the kind with fuzzy flaps over the ears. Red plaid and lined with fake fur. He looks ridiculous—the hat too small, perched atop his head. And I wonder if he brought it with him or if he dug it out of the camp’s lost and found.

“You can’t have a fire this close to the trees,” I say, ignoring his question. I can hear the pines shivering strangely around us, the fire’s flames licking at the lower limbs, tasting the dull sap that has gone cold for the winter. “You have to put it out.”

I wait for the boys to react, to say something, but they stand like mute dolls. Eyes shuttering open. Eyes shuttering closed.

I think of my mother, how she will march down to our neighbors’ homes in summer when they have barbecues too close to sagging limbs, or when they set off fireworks in July near a cluster of dead aspens. You’ll burn the whole damn forest down, she’ll snap. She’s never cared about making enemies of our neighbors. This is our forest, she often tells me when she returns to the house, still fuming, her cheeks flushed with anger. They’re only summer tourists.