So instead of looking at the new people, she looked over at the imposing rock on the other side of the lake.
“That’s Point 23,” Dylan said, following her gaze. “They call it that because twenty-three people have died jumping off of it.”
“It wasn’t twenty-three people,” said a girl. “People have died, but not that many.”
“It’s twenty-three,” Dylan repeated. “Why else would they call it that? I jumped it last summer. It was awesome.”
“You’re an idiot, Dylan,” the girl replied. “Besides, if you get caught jumping off that rock, they kick you out of camp.” She snapped her fingers dramatically. “Like, you’re gone.”
“Raptured?” Nate said in a hushed whisper.
The girl wrinkled her nose, indicating that the joke was not all it could be. It was time to turn the conversation to something more Stevie’s speed.
“Do people ever talk about the murders?” Stevie said.
The girl poked out her lower lip a bit in thought. Another girl, dressed in a black bathing suit, with black hair and nails to match, leaned in.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “The Box in the Woods thing. That was a serial killer from the seventies called the Woodsman.”
Stevie fought back the urge to editorialize.
“They caught the guy,” the girl went on, wrongly. “You can go out into the woods and see where it happened, but there’s not much there. I went the first year I worked here. It’s really weird. You can still see stuff that was there from when they were murdered.”
Again, this was not true. Stevie twitched internally.
“You know you want to,” Nate whispered.
She elbowed him.
Perhaps sensing that Nate and Stevie were not the chatty kind, the group talked among themselves. There was a public grill, and several of the counselors had brought over hot dogs. Dylan and that group got some and sat back down to eat.
“Hold my camera,” Dylan said to one of the girls.
While she did so, he took a hot dog roll and pressed the entire thing into his mouth, squashing it in and making himself gag. Nate watched blankly, too defeated to comment.
Stevie, however, was transfixed.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
This came out a bit louder than intended and got the attention of the group, including Dylan.
“Son of a bitch,” Stevie said again, jumping to her feet and scrabbling for her phone.
“Not you,” she heard Janelle say behind her. “She’s . . . um . . .”
Stevie was already marching off toward the parking lot, looking for a clearer phone signal, and waiting for someone on the other end to answer her call. Finally, they did.
“We have to talk,” she said. “Now.”
15
STEVIE CHOSE THE PLACE FOR THE MEETING—THE UNUSED TREEHOUSE, the one that was meant to be Nate’s home for the summer. His bunk sat ready for his arrival behind a thin wooden wall.
Now that she had seen this place, Stevie felt like the treehouse thing was maybe overselling it. It was really a second-level building, accessible via a set of wooden steps, with an open area below for storing excess sporting equipment. Mostly it was a screened-in box with a bunch of empty shelves under the windows, and bench seats that had probably had cushions on them at one point. It was next to a tree, which was likely how it got the name. It was a hot, spidery mess lit by one ineffectual overhead light.
“See,” Janelle said to Nate when they entered. “You’re not missing out on much.”
This had not cheered Nate up.
Stevie sat on the least cobwebby window seat and watched the ground below, waiting for her guest. She finally saw him approach, dressed in flowing orange harem pants and a Box Box T-shirt. Carson came up the steps two at a time.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Sounds important.”
“I know who left the message on our wall,” Stevie said. “And the box on your path.”
“Oh! Oh, great!” He nodded, but his eyes darted a bit and he tucked his hands into his slouchy harem pant pockets.
“You did,” Stevie said.
This much she had already revealed to Nate and Janelle, who looked at Carson with unimpressed faces.
“Me? I . . .”
“I wouldn’t recommend whatever you’re planning on saying,” Janelle said, joining Stevie on the window bench.
“I would.” Nate was sprawled on the floor, picking at the splinters. “I like it when Stevie goes feral.”
To his credit, Carson said no more. He sat down on the floor and crossed his legs in a full yogic knot.
“Now will you tell us the how?” Janelle said. “That’s more what I want to know.”
“Sure.” Stevie stretched out a bit and her neck made a loud crack. “We knew from the start that the message was put on our wall in advance. We know that because it was dry and because there was paint under my bed. Also, we went all over the cabin to see how someone might get in. The screen windows have metal grates over them, the door was locked from the inside, and the floor is made of concrete. Impossible, right? But there was one way—there’s a hole in the screen on the window, only an inch or two big. And tonight, when I saw Dylan stick that entire hot dog roll in his mouth, I realized how someone could use a hole that size to gain access to our cabin.”
“Not what I expected to hear you say,” Nate said, “but okay.”
“You can get something large through a small opening if it’s soft,” Stevie went on. “The hot dog roll was soft, so Dylan could shove it in his mouth. So what might go through a little hole in a screen? Maybe something like this.”
Stevie held up the reusable bag Carson had given her. She made an okay gesture with her right hand, and with the left, pulled the bag through the circle made by her fingers.
“Fabric,” she said. “And who has a lot of fabric in custom, photorealistic patterns?”
“Oh no,” Janelle said, shaking her head. “Oh . . . you have got to be kidding me.”
“There’s an entire wall of it at the Bounce House,” Stevie said. “All you’d need to do is make a wood pattern. It was probably up there on the wall. You painted the message on the wall—kind of high up, so it was more in line with the window, and more in shadow. You let the paint drip, but not too much, because you had to make sure the message fit under the piece of fabric you were going to use to cover it. You wiped away any extra so it wouldn’t show. When it was dry, you covered it up with the piece of fabric, attaching it with some tape.”
She held up the piece of tape she’d found under the bed. She had gone back and retrieved it before this meeting.
“All you needed to do then was attach some thread or fishing line or something and string it out the window. Sometime in the night, you gave the string a tug and the fabric slid out through the screen. I think it must have brushed against my face as it came down. I thought what I felt was some kind of insect. And that was it. A message mysteriously appears on our wall. Then, of course, you prepared the box of dolls and claimed to find it on your run.”
“Yes!” he said, breaking into a huge grin. “Yes! You”—he pointed at Stevie—“are the real deal. That was nuts! That was so good! I knew I made the right decision.”