by Riley Sager
I grab a nearby rag that reeks of turpentine and swipe it over the yellow paint until it’s just a faint smudge marring the canvas. Tears spring from my eyes as I realize the only thing I’ve painted in weeks is this indistinct smear.
It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.
I wipe my eyes, noticing something on the edge of my vision. Near the window. A movement. A flash.
Blond hair. Pale skin.
Vivian.
I yelp and drop the rag, the fingers of my right hand grasping at the bracelet around my left. I give it a twist, the birds taking flight as I whirl around to face her.
Only it’s not Vivian I see.
It’s me, reflected in the window. In the night-darkened glass, I look startled, weak, and, above all else, shaken.
Shaken that the girls are always in my thoughts and on my canvases, even though it makes no sense. That after fifteen long years, I know as much about what happened now as I did the night they left the cabin. That in the days following the disappearance, I only made things worse. For Franny. For her family. For myself.
I could finally change that. Just one small hint about what happened could make a difference. It won’t erase my sins. But there is a chance it could make them more bearable.
I turn away from the window, grab my phone, and dial the number printed so elegantly on the calling card Franny gave me last night. The call goes straight to voicemail and a recording of Lottie suggesting I leave a message.
“This is Emma Davis. I’ve given more thought about Franny’s offer to spend the summer at Camp Nightingale.” I pause, not quite believing what I’m about to say next. “And my answer is yes. I’ll do it.”
I hang up before I can change my mind. Even so, I’m struck with the urge to call again and take it all back. My finger twitches against the phone’s screen, itching to do just that. Instead, I call Marc.
“I’m going back to Camp Nightingale,” I announce before he can say hello.
“I’m glad to hear my pep talk worked,” Marc says. “Closure is a good thing, Em.”
“I want to try to find them.”
There’s silence on Marc’s end. I picture him blinking a few times while running a hand through his hair—his normal reaction to something he can’t quite comprehend. Eventually, he says, “I know I encouraged you to go, Em, but this doesn’t sound like the best idea.”
“Bad idea or not, that’s why I’m going.”
“But try to think clearly here. What do you rationally expect to find?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Probably nothing.”
I certainly don’t expect to uncover Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. They literally vanished without a trace, which makes it hard to know where to start looking for them. Then there’s the sheer size of the place. While Camp Nightingale may be small, much more land surrounds it. More than six square miles of forest. If several hundred searchers couldn’t find them fifteen years ago, I’m not going to find them now.
“But what if one of them left something behind?” I say. “Something hinting at where they were going or what they were up to.”
“And what if there is?” Marc asks. “It still won’t bring them back.”
“I understand that.”
“Which begs another question: Why do you need this so much?”
I pause, thinking of a way to explain the unexplainable. It’s not easy, especially when Marc doesn’t know the full story. I settle on saying, “Have you ever regretted something days, weeks, even years after you’ve done it?”
“Sure,” Marc says. “I think everyone has at least one big regret.”
“What happened at that camp is mine. For fifteen years, I’ve waited for a clue. Just some small thing hinting at what happened to them. Now I have a chance to go back there and look for myself. Likely the last chance I’ll get to try to find some answers. If I turn that down, I worry it will just become another thing to regret.”
Marc sighs, which means I’ve convinced him. “Just promise me you won’t do something stupid,” he says.
“Like what?”
“Like put yourself in danger.”
“It’s a summer camp,” I say. “It’s not like I’m infiltrating the mob. I’m simply going to go, look around, maybe ask a few questions. And when those six weeks are over, perhaps I’ll have some idea of what happened to them. Even if I don’t, maybe being there again is all I need to start painting something different. You said it yourself—sometimes the only way out is through.”
“Fine,” Marc says with another sigh. “Plan your camping trip. Try to get some answers. Come back ready to paint.”
As we say our good-nights, I get a glimpse of my first painting of the girls. No. 1, offering its scant views of Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. I approach it, looking for flashes of hair, bits of dress.
Even though a branch covers their eyes, I know they’re staring back at me. It’s as if they’ve understood all along that I’d one day return to Camp Nightingale. Only I can’t tell if they’re urging me to go or begging me to stay away.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
“Wake up, sunshine.”
It was just past eight when my mother crept into my bedroom, her eyes already glazed from her morning Bloody Mary. Her lips were curled into the same smile she always wore when she was about to do something momentous. I called it her Mother of the Year smile. Seeing it never failed to make me nervous, mostly because there was usually a gaping chasm between her intentions and the end result. On that morning, I tightened into a ball beneath the covers, bracing myself for hours of forced mother-daughter bonding.
“You all ready to go?” she said.
“Go where?”
My mother stared at me, her hand fumbling with the collar of her chiffon robe. “Camp, of course.”
“What camp?”
“Summer camp,” my mother said, stressing the first word, letting me know that wherever I was headed, it was going to be for more than just a day or two.
I sat up, flinging aside the covers. “You never told me about any camp.”
“I did, Emma. I told you weeks ago. It’s the same place me and your aunt Julie went. Jesus, don’t tell me you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget.”
Being told I was going to be ripped away from my friends for the entire summer was something I would have remembered. It was more likely my mother had only thought about telling me. In her world, thinking about something was close enough to doing it. Yet knowing that didn’t lessen the feeling of being ambushed. It reminded me of those extreme interventions in which parents hired rehab centers to abduct their junkie children.
“Then I’m telling you now,” my mother said. “Where’s your suitcase? We need to be on the road in an hour.”
“An hour?” My stomach clenched as I thought of all my summer plans being snatched away from me. No lazing around with Heather and Marissa. No secret, unchaperoned train ride to Coney Island like we had planned in study hall. No flirting with Nolan Cunningham from next door, who wasn’t quite as cute as Justin Timberlake but still had the same swaggering confidence. Plus, he was finally starting to notice me, now that my braces had come off. “Where are we going?”
“Camp Nightingale.”
Camp Rich Bitch. Talk about a surprise on top of a surprise.
That changed things.
For two years I had begged my parents to send me, only to be told no. Now, after having given up hope, I was suddenly going. In an hour. That totally explained the Mother of the Year smile. For once, it was justified.
Still, I refused to show my mother how pleased I was. Doing that would have only encouraged her, subjecting me to more attempts at making up for lost time. High tea at the Plaza. A shopping spree at Saks. Anything to make her feel better about having zero interest in me for the first twelve years of my life.
“I’m no
t going,” I announced as I laid back down and pulled the covers over my head.
My mother ignored me as she started to root through my closet, her voice muffled. “You’ll love it there. It’ll be a summer you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”
Under the covers, an anticipatory shiver ran through me. Camp Nightingale. Six weeks of swimming and reading and hiking. Six weeks away from this stuffy apartment and my mother’s disinterest and my father’s eye rolls when she poured herself a third glass of Chardonnay. Heather and Marissa were going to be so jealous. After pretending to be pissed at me for abandoning them the whole summer, of course.
“Whatever,” I say, following it up with an indignant huff. “I’ll go, even though I don’t want to.”
It was a lie.
My first in a summer filled with them.
4
The drive to Camp Nightingale takes up most of the afternoon. Almost five hours when counting in rest stops. Most of it a straight shot north along truck-clogged I-87.
The length of the trip is something I’d forgotten from my first visit, when I had spent the drive huddled in the back seat while my parents blamed each other for not telling me I was going to camp. This time, I’m once again in the back, although the driver of the private town car Franny hired for me hardly says a word. But my nervousness is the same. That butterfly-trapped-in-the-chest feeling. Back then, it was because I didn’t quite know what the camp would be like.
Now I know exactly where I’m going.
And who I’ll see while I’m there.
In the months leading to my departure, I didn’t have time to be nervous. I was too consumed with applying for a temporary leave of absence from the ad agency and finding someone to sublet the loft while I’m gone. The leave was approved, and I eventually found an artist acquaintance to stay in the loft. She paints trippy starscapes with wax melted in scalding-hot aluminum pots. I’ve seen her at work, each colorful pot bubbling like a witch’s cauldron. I hope she doesn’t burn the place down.
While all that was taking place, I received weekly emails from Lottie that filled in various details of my stay. The debut summer of the new Camp Nightingale planned to have roughly fifty-five campers, five counselors, and five specialized instructors made up of camp alumni. Just like in the past, none of the cabins had electricity. The camp was monitoring the threats of Zika, West Nile, and other mosquito-borne illnesses. I should remember to pack accordingly.
I took that last note to heart. When I was thirteen, the sudden notice about going to camp delayed our departure for hours. First there was the matter of finding my suitcase, which ended up being in the back of the hall closet, behind the vacuum cleaner. Then came the arduous task of packing, with me not knowing what to bring and my lack of preparation necessitating a trip to Nordstrom’s to pick up the things I lacked. This time around, I went overboard in the sporting goods store, snapping up items with the whirlwind intensity of a romantic comedy heroine in a shopping montage. Much of it was necessary. Several pairs of shorts. Heavy-duty socks and a sturdy pair of hiking boots. An LED flashlight with a wrist strap. Some of it was not, such as the waterproof case that fits over my iPhone like a condom.
Then there was the matter of my parents. Neglectful as they were when I was growing up, I knew they wouldn’t like the idea of my returning to Camp Nightingale. So I didn’t tell them. I simply called to say I’d be away for six weeks and that they should contact Marc in case of an emergency. My father half listened. My mother simply told me to have “such a wonderful time,” her words slurred from cocktail hour.
Now there’s nothing left for me to do but quell my growing anxiety by sorting through all the things I thought I’d need to help my search. There’s a map of Lake Midnight and the surrounding area; a satellite view of the same thing, courtesy of Google Maps; and a stack of old newspaper articles about the disappearance collected from the library and printed off the internet. I even brought along a dog-eared Nancy Drew paperback—The Bungalow Mystery—for inspiration.
I examine the map and satellite view first. From above, the lake resembles a giant comma that’s been tipped over. More than two miles from end to end, with a width ranging from a half mile to five hundred yards. The narrowest area is the eastern point, the location of the dam Buchanan Harris used to create the lake on that cold and rainy stroke of midnight. From there the lake flows west, skirting the edge of a mountain, following the path of the valley it replaced.
Camp Nightingale sits to the south, nestled in the middle of the lake’s gentle exterior curve. On the map, it’s just a tiny black square, unlabeled, as if fifteen years of disuse had left it unworthy of mention.
The satellite view offers more detail, all of it colored grainy shades of green by the library printer that spat it out. The camp itself is a rectangle of fern green, speckled with buildings in variations of brown. The Lodge is clearly visible, as are the cabins, latrine, and other buildings. I can even see the dock jutting out over the water, the white specks of two motorboats moored to its sides. A gray line of road leads out of camp to the south, eventually connecting with a county road two miles away.
One theory about the girls’ disappearance is that they walked to the main road and hitched a ride. To Canada. To New England. To unmarked graves when they climbed into the cab of a deranged trucker.
Yet no one reported seeing three teenage girls on the highway’s edge in the middle of the night, even after their disappearance became national news. No one anonymously confessed to giving them a ride. No traces of their DNA were ever found inside the rigs of drivers arrested for violent crimes. Plus, all their belongings were left behind, tucked safely inside their hickory trunks. Clothes. Cash. Brightly colored Nokia cell phones just like the ones my parents said I was too young and irresponsible to own.
I don’t think they planned to be gone for very long. Certainly not forever.
I put away the map and tackle the newspaper clippings and internet articles, none of which offer anything new. The details of the disappearance are as vague now as they were fifteen years ago. Vivian, Natalie, and Allison vanished in the early-morning hours of July 5. They were reported missing by yours truly a little before 6:00 a.m. A camp-wide search that morning turned up nothing. By the afternoon, the camp’s director, Francesca Harris-White, had contacted the New York State Police, and an official search began. Because of the girls’ high-profile parents—Vivian’s, especially—the Secret Service and the FBI joined the fray. Search parties of federal agents, state troopers, and local volunteers scoured the woods. Helicopters skimmed the treetops. Bloodhounds primed with scents from clothes the girls had left behind sniffed a trail around camp and back again, their keen sense of smell leading them in frustrating circles. Little was found. No footprints leading into the forest. No wispy strands of hair snagged on low-hanging branches.
Another team of searchers headed to the water, even though they were stymied by the lake itself. It was too deep to dredge, too filled with downed trees and other underwater remnants of its days as a valley to dive safely. All they could do was crisscross Lake Midnight in police rescue boats, knowing there was nothing left to rescue. If the girls were in the lake, surely only corpses would be found. The boats returned empty-handed, as everyone suspected they would.
The only trace of the girls anyone ever found was a sweatshirt.
Vivian’s sweatshirt, to be precise. White with Princeton spelled out in orange across the chest. I’d seen her wear it to the campfire a few nights before the disappearance, which is how I was able to identify it as belonging to her.
It was found the morning after the disappearance, sitting on the forest floor two miles away, almost directly across the lake from Camp Nightingale. The volunteer searcher who discovered the sweatshirt—a local retiree and grandfather of six with no earthly reason to lie—said it was neatly folded into a square, like the sweaters you see on display at the Gap.
A lab analysis of the sweatshirt found skin cells that matched Vivian’s DNA. What it didn’t find were any rips, tears, or traces of blood suggesting she had been attacked. It was simply discarded, apparently by Vivian on her way to whatever fate befell her.
But here’s the weird part.
Vivian wasn’t wearing the sweatshirt when I saw her leave the cabin.
In the days after the disappearance, various investigators repeatedly asked me if I was sure it wasn’t tied around her waist or thrown over her shoulders, sleeves knotted in true Princeton preppy fashion.
It wasn’t.
I’m certain of it.
Still, authorities treated that sweatshirt like a beacon, following it into the hills. The search of the lake was called off as everyone took to the forest, searching it in vain. No one—least of all me—had an inkling as to why the girls would have marched miles away from camp. But nothing about the disappearance made sense. It was one of those rare instances that defied all known logic and reason.
The only person ever considered a suspect was Franny’s oldest son, Theo Harris-White. Nothing came of it. No traces of him were discovered on Vivian’s sweatshirt. Nothing incriminating was found in his possession. He even had an alibi—he spent the night with Chet, teaching his younger brother how to play chess into the wee hours of the morning. With no evidence that a crime had actually taken place, Theo wasn’t charged. Which meant he also wasn’t officially exonerated. Even now, a Google search of Theo’s name brings up true-crime websites that suggest he killed the girls and managed to get away with it.
The hunt for the girls didn’t officially end so much as it lost steam. The search parties fruitlessly continued for another few weeks, their numbers dwindling day by day until they eventually dried up. News coverage of the disappearance also evaporated as reporters moved on to newer, flashier stories.
Filling that void were darker theories. Ones found in the deepest corners of Reddit and conspiracy websites. Rumors swirl that the girls had been murdered by a savage madman who lived in the woods. That they had been abducted—either by humans or aliens, depending on which website you read. That something even more mystically sinister happened to them. Witches. Werewolves. Spontaneous cellular disintegration.