Mine (9 page)

“Director Melk said you can take the rest of the day off,” Todd told her as they left the office.

“You talked to him?”

“Well, sure. He had to know what happened.”

She knew Todd was right but it still bothered her. “I don’t need any time off. Besides, Kelvin and Maddie could probably use our help.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you can goof off while the rest of us work.”

“Sounds boring.”

They walked in silence for a few moments before Todd said, “I don’t know how you did that.”

“What?” she asked.

“Caught her. I mean, I was looking right at Sidney when the thing broke. Before I even realized what happened, you were waiting under her.”

A familiar tingle played along the skin at the back of Leah’s neck. She thought about the moment she’d acted. She’d seen the bracket break and had begun to move, that was all. Or was it?

“If you’d been standing where I was, you’d have been able to do the same,” she said.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked far from convinced.

Not wanting him to pursue it any further, she said, “I’ll race you back,” then sprinted away, making sure she ran just slow enough to let him win.

T
WENTY-THREE

C
AMP CEDAR WOODS
was a strict, one-week-per-group camp. Attendees arrived around one p.m. on Sunday and left at noon the following Saturday. For the counselors, Sunday mornings were spent in preparation for the incoming campers, while Saturday afternoons were free for them to hike or swim or lounge around.

On the Saturday between groups two and three, Leah had planned to return to the spot by the lake she’d found the previous weekend, and spend a quiet afternoon reading. But Todd came looking for her right after the buses left and said, “Terry’s taking a few of us to town. Thought you might like to come along. What do you say?”

Technically, any counselor under eighteen was not allowed to leave camp without Director Melk’s permission, but the director had hitched a ride on one of the buses back to the city and wouldn’t be returning until the next day. For the duration, Nurse Dixon was in charge. She was good at dealing with cuts and bruises but wasn’t the most observant person in the world, and it was unlikely she’d notice who left and who stayed.

Though Leah had been looking forward to some reading, getting away for an hour or two—especially with Todd—sounded like fun, so she accepted the offer and off they went.

Town was a twenty-minute drive away, and was really no more than a four-way stop with a gas station/mini-market on one corner and a café called Monty’s Eats on the other. Leah and Todd bought slushies and waited outside while Terry and his friend Juko loaded up on snacks and sodas the camp store didn’t carry.

When they all piled back into the crew cab of Terry’s truck, Leah assumed they’d be returning to Cedar Woods, but that wasn’t the direction Terry headed in.

She whispered to Todd, “Where are we going?”

He shrugged. “Just driving around a little.”

She had no place to be, so why not? Leaning back in her seat, she sucked down some more of her drink and looked absently out at the forest.

Fifteen minutes later, she suddenly sat up. The view hadn’t changed, but for some reason it felt familiar.

A wide turn and then—

I’ve been here before.

“Where are we going?” This time she asked loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Terry glanced back at his brother via the rearview mirror. “You didn’t tell her?”

Todd squirmed in his seat and avoided Leah’s gaze.

“Tell me what?” she asked.

When Todd still didn’t answer, Terry said, “Camp Red Hawk.”

Her eyes widened. “Red Hawk? But…but it’s closed.”

“Yeah, but the camp’s still there.” He smiled. “Since you know the place, thought maybe you could show us around.”

“No!”

The others looked at her in surprise.

She calmed herself by taking a breath, and then said, “We should go back.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Please. I have things I need to do.”

“We won’t stay long. I promise.”

She wanted to argue, but worried that if she made too much of a fuss, it would cause them to ask questions she didn’t want to answer. So she settled silently back in her seat.

A few minutes later, she spotted the camp turnoff. The sign had been painted over in dark brown, but a few of the words were still legible—
RED
and
TURN
and
HAPPY
. She hoped Terry would drive past it, but he slowed the truck in plenty of time and angled onto the entrance road.

It’ll be over soon enough
, Leah told herself.
Nothing’s going to happen. It’ll be fine.

The road to the camp was rougher than she remembered, and much of it now appeared to be covered with wild grass and pine needles. She closed her eyes and hoped like she’d never hoped before that a tree had fallen across the way and would force them to turn back. No such luck. Even a chain that had once been strung across the road before the parking area had been cut and was now lying in the dirt.

Camp Red Hawk shared a similar layout to Camp Cedar Woods’. But whereas Cedar Woods looked clean and bright and inviting, the harsh winters had exacted their toll on Red Hawk. Large patches of shingles were missing from all the buildings, and a whole section of the dining hall’s siding had caved in.

Terry parked at the midpoint between the administration building and the dining hall, near the start of the now overgrown pathway to the rest of the camp.

“Oh, wow. This is cool,” Juko said as he and Terry hopped out of the cab.

Temporarily alone, Todd whispered, “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I thought you wouldn’t come if I did.”

He was right about that, but she said nothing.

“I, um, I just wanted to spend a little time with you.”

Whatever warm and fuzzy feelings she may have had for him were gone. Afraid her anger might cause her to actually hurt him, she opened the door and climbed out, leaving Todd inside alone.

Terry and Juko had wandered over to the admin building and were peering into one of the broken windows. Juko stuck his head through the opening and then pulled back out.

“I’m too big,” he said.

Terry shouted toward the truck, “Todd, get over here!”

Leah heard the door open behind her and Todd climb out.

“What?” he said.

“I need you. Come here.”

As Todd jogged over, Terry smiled at Leah. “Bring back memories?”

“A few,” she said, her arms crossed.

If he noticed her foul mood, he gave no indication as he threw out his arms and shouted, “This place is awesome!”

Todd, with a little help from the other two, climbed through the broken window and vanished inside. While Terry and Juko leaned close to the opening so they could see better, Leah wandered toward the dining hall.

Little things began coming back to her—walking to lunch with her cabin mates, spending an hour one afternoon on kitchen duty, eating breakfast and listening to the director read the day’s schedule. Pleasant memories that surprised her. She’d forgotten she had fun here. She’d made friends, too. Trudy and Gwen and…and Randi and Sue.

And…

…
John
?

No, that wasn’t it, but close.

She meandered over to the path and down to the campfire pit. Here was the big difference between the two camps. Red Hawk’s fire pit was surrounded by a small rise that had once been tiered with log benches, though now much of the seating was missing. The campfire area at Cedar Woods was flat.

Leah sat down on one of few remaining logs near the pit and looked down toward the lake that served the camp. Fun times had been had there, too. Canoe races and swim parties and—

“If anyone can make a bigger cannonball splash than me, I’ll buy ’em a Snickers bar,” the counselor, Brian, had announced. He was a big guy, easily over two hundred pounds, and had a hearty laugh.

“What if I don’t like Snickers?” a boy asked.
His name started with a D, didn’t it? Not a normal name. Something strange. Du…Du…Dooley!
Yes, Dooley.

“It won’t matter because you’re not going to beat me,” Brian told him. “But all right. Winner gets whatever candy bar they want. How’s that?”

Another counselor, Jennifer, was enlisted to act as judge, and the kids lined up to take their turn, Brian going last.

One by one, campers jumped off the end of the dock into the lake, trying to make as big a splash as they could. Leah even made an attempt, but immediately knew her effort, like those of the kids before her, had been far from sufficient to outdo whatever Brian would accomplish.

And then Dooley went. In the words of several of the other boys, his splash was epic. Even Brian seemed impressed.

As more of the kids went, Dooley remained the one to beat. Until the second to last camper.

Not John, but, but, but…God, what was his name?

Before he leapt from the dock, no one would have given him a chance. Most of the kids had put some of their energy into landing a good several feet from the end of the pier, but Not-John put his effort into gaining height before coming down, legs tucked, less than an arm’s length from the dock.

If Dooley’s splash had been epic, Not-John’s had been monumental. It rose at least two feet higher, and the outward splash went far enough to soak the boy who had been waiting to go after him. The other kids erupted into a roar that Leah was sure could be heard all the way back at the cabins.

The final kid’s try was less than spectacular, meaning Not-John’s splash was the one Brian had to outdo. The counselor made a big show of stretching and preparing, but when all was said and done, Not-John was awarded his choice of candy bars from the camp store.

Had that been when she’d first noticed him?

“Hey, this is cool!”

Terry came down the path toward the fire pit, followed by Juko and Todd. They stopped at the bottom and looked up at the seats.

“Wish we had an amphitheater like this back at Cedar Woods,” Juko said.

Terry shrugged. “Wouldn’t be too hard. Get a tractor and push some dirt around.”

“Maybe you should suggest it.”

“Screw that. They can figure it out on their own if they want.” Terry looked at Leah. “What kind of camp was it? Theater camp or something?”

“Just regular camp,” she said. “Like Cedar Woods.”

“Huh.”

“So where did everyone stay?” Juko asked.

Leah pointed left into the woods. “That way.”

Juko looked at where she indicated. “How do you get there?”

“There’s a path.” New growth had made it not as obvious as it had once been. She searched for a moment and then pointed. “Right there. By that tree with the broken limb.”

“How about you show us?” Terry asked.

Feeling less dread than she had when they first arrived, she said, “I can do that.”

She led them to the path and into the forest.

“The stables are out this way, too,” she said.

“Stables?” Terry said. “Really? Damn, we don’t have any stables.”

“It would be so cool to have horses,” Juko said.

“There weren’t any horses when I was here,” she told them. “I think they just used the buildings for storage.”

“That must have been disappointing.”

When she reached the fork, she automatically took the path to the right. Soon the trees parted and revealed twelve cabins. Like it did elsewhere, nature had started reclaiming the area around the buildings.

“These are the girls’ cabins,” she said.

Juko moved up to the door of the nearest one and looked inside. “Kinda small. Only two bunk beds?”

“That’s it.”

“How did this work?” Terry asked. “Couldn’t have been a counselor in every cabin.”

“Counselors had their own cabins on the other side, by the dining hall. These were just for campers.”

Terry and Juko looked at her as if she were trying to pull their leg.

“So no one was watching you guys at night?” Juko asked.

“I’m sure the counselors were supposed to.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Not really.”

“Man, you must have had a lot of people sneaking out.”

While the boys searched the cabins on the front row, Leah couldn’t help but be drawn to one toward the middle. Above the door hung a wooden number six.

My cabin
, she thought as she touched the doorframe. She stepped inside.

The mattresses were gone but the frames for the two bunk beds were still there. She had slept…on top of the one…to the…left. Using the crossbeam of the lower bed, she stepped up into the area she had once occupied.

Since she had been the last person to sleep there, she felt that gave her a special ownership of space. But as she looked around, no memories jumped out at her. It was just wood and air and dust and—

She paused, her gaze on a joint between a board running up the wall and the start of the ceiling. It looked as if there was something stuffed into the gap.

She ducked, stepped inside the bed frame, and hopped up on the rail that ran next to the wall. Using the support frame of the top bed, she pulled herself up as far as she could, but still had to stretch to reach the joint. It felt like a piece of paper inside. She teased the corner out until she was able to remove it.

The paper was folded a few times, the visible side white and blank. As she opened it, she saw color on the opposite side. Dark brown. It wasn’t until she had it all the way open that she could read the words printed on it.

HERSHEY’S

Milk Chocolate

A candy wrapper.

Why was there…

Memory flood.

Cannonball contest again.

The candy Not-John wanted as his prize had been a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar. Later, in the free time between the end of the afternoon activities and dinner, Leah had crossed paths with him.

“You had a, um, pretty good jump,” he told her. “I-I’d say you came in second.”