“Which I’m reluctant to do,” Franny said. “What’s the open cabin?”
“Dogwood.”
Franny turned that green-eyed gaze back to me, smiling. “Then Dogwood it shall be. Lottie, be a dear and fetch Theo to take Miss Davis’s bags.”
Lottie vanished into the massive house behind us. A minute later, a young man emerged. Dressed in baggy shorts and a tight T-shirt, he had sleepy eyes and tousled brown hair. On his feet were flip-flops that clapped against the ground as he approached.
“Theo, this is Emma Davis, our latecomer,” Franny told him. “She’s headed to Dogwood.”
Now it was my turn to stare, for Theo was unlike any boy I had ever seen. Not cute, like Nolan Cunningham. Handsome. With wide brown eyes, a prominent nose, a slightly crooked smile that slanted when he said, “Hey, latecomer. Welcome to Camp Nightingale. Let’s get you to your cabin.”
Franny bid me good-night as I followed Theo deeper into the camp, my heart beating so hard I feared he could hear it. I knew part of it was apprehension about being in an unknown place with unknown people. But another reason for my madly thrumming heart was Theo himself. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he walked a few paces ahead of me. I studied him the same way Franny had studied me, my gaze locked on his tall frame, the long, steady stride of his legs, the spread of his back and shoulders under his threadbare shirt. His biceps bulged as he carried my suitcase. No boy I knew had arms like that.
It didn’t hurt that he was friendly, calling over his shoulder to ask me where I was from, what music I liked, if I had been to camp before. My answers were weak, barely audible over my pounding heart. My nervousness clearly showed, for when we reached the cabin, Theo turned and said, “Don’t be nervous. You’ll love it here.”
He rapped on the door, prompting a response from inside. “Who is it?”
“Theo. Are you awake and decent?”
“Awake, yes,” the same voice replied. “Decent, never.”
Theo handed me the suitcase and gave an encouraging nod. “Go on in. And remember, their bark is worse than their bite.”
He walked away, flip-flops clopping, as I turned the doorknob and stepped inside. The cabin’s interior was dim, lit only by a lantern placed beside a window opposite the door. In that golden half-light, I saw two sets of bunk beds and three girls occupying them.
“I’m Vivian,” announced the one sprawled on the top bunk to my right. She gestured to the bunk directly across from her. “That’s Allison. Below is Natalie.”
“Hi,” I said, clutching my suitcase just inside the cabin, too frightened to enter farther.
“Your trunk is by the door,” said the girl identified as Natalie, all wide cheeks and formidable chin. “You can put your clothes there.”
“Thanks.”
I opened the hickory trunk and started transferring all my frantically purchased clothes into it. Everything except my nightgown, which I kept out before sliding the suitcase under the bed.
Vivian slipped from the top bunk in a cropped T-shirt and a pair of panties, her exposure making me even more self-conscious as I stripped off my clothes under the protection of the nightgown.
“You’re a little young. Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?” She turned to the others in the cabin, both still ensconced in their bunks. “Isn’t there a cabin for babies we can send her to?”
“I’m thirteen,” I said. “Clearly not a baby.”
Vivian terrified and dazzled me in equal measure. All three of them did. They seemed like women. I was just a girl. A skinny, scabby-kneed twerp with a flat chest.
“Is this your first night away from home?” asked Allison. She was thin and pretty, with hair the color of honey .
“No,” I said, when it was, other than a handful of sleepovers at the apartments of friends who lived mere blocks away, which wasn’t quite the same thing.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Vivian said. “All newbies cry their first night. It’s so fucking predictable.”
Her casual use of the f-word made me freeze. It was different from when Heather or Marissa used it during desperate attempts to sound grown-up and cool. The word easily rolled off Vivian’s tongue, making it clear she said it quite a lot. It told me these girls were older, wiser, and tougher. In order to survive, I had to be just like them. There was no other choice.
I closed the lid of my trunk and faced Vivian head on. “If I cry, it’s because I’ve been put in here with you bitches.”
A moment passed in which no one said anything. It wasn’t long, yet time seemed to slow, feeling like minutes as I wondered if they were amused or angry, and if I truly would end up crying, which, quite honestly, is what I had felt like doing since the moment my parents sped away from camp in a cloud of gravel dust. Then I noticed Natalie and Allison with blankets pulled to their noses, trying to hide the fact that they were giggling. Vivian grinned and shook her head, as if I had just paid them the highest compliment.
“Well played, kid.”
“Don’t call me kid,” I said, feigning toughness despite the fact that I still wanted to cry, only this time with relief. “My name is Emma.”
Vivian reached out and tousled my hair. “Well, Em, welcome to Camp Nightingale. You ready to help us rule this place?”
“Sure,” I said, not quite believing that someone so effortlessly cool was paying attention to me. At school, I spent my days blending in with Heather and Marissa, all but ignored by the older girls. But there was Vivian, staring me down, asking me to join her clique.
“Awesome,” she replied. “Because tomorrow, we kick ass.”
6
From the outside, Dogwood looks exactly the way I left it. Same rough brown walls. Same green-shingled roof speckled with pinecones. Same tidy sign announcing its name. I had expected it to be different somehow. Older. Decrepit. A firm reminder that I’m fifteen years and worlds away from the weeping girl who last set eyes upon the place.
Yet, it feels like no time has passed between then and now. That the last decade and a half of my life was nothing but a dream. It’s a disorienting feeling. And slightly scary. But I continue to stare at the cabin, gripped not by fear but by something else. Something sharper.
Curiosity.
I want to go inside, look around, see what memories it dredges up. That’s why I’m here, after all. Yet when I twist the doorknob, I realize my hand is shaking. I don’t know what I’m expecting. Ghosts, I suppose.
Instead, I find three different girls, all of them very much alive as they lounge on their respective bunks. They look up at me, surprised by my sudden intrusion.