by Riley Sager
“Well then,” Franny says after a suitably unbearable length of time. “My disappointment only grows. After breakfast, all of you will return to your cabins. Morning classes are canceled while we sort everything out.”
She makes her way out of the mess hall with the rest of the Lodge denizens in tow. When they pass, Lottie taps my shoulder and says, “Emma, please come with us.”
I follow them to the arts and crafts building next door. Once everyone’s inside, Lottie closes the door. I stand next to it, my body coiled, resisting the urge to sprint. Not just from the room but from the camp itself. My left hand started trembling the moment I saw the paint on the door, and it hasn’t stopped since. The birds around my wrist rattle.
“Well, this is a fine mess,” Franny says. “Emma, do you have any idea who could have done this?”
The obvious answer would be someone in this room. A major clue lies in the painted word currently being scrubbed off Dogwood’s door. Other than Mindy, I’ve lied to all of them in the past. About Theo. About what I accused him of doing. And while none of them have called me a liar to my face, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all felt that way in private. I wouldn’t blame them, either.
Yet my gut tells me none of them are responsible. They’re the ones who invited me back here, after all. And petty vandalism seems beneath a member of the Harris-White clan. If they wanted to be rid of me, they’d just say so.
“I don’t know.” I debate telling them about the person I saw at the window. Call it paranoia from Vivian’s diary rubbing off on me, but I’m not sure I can trust anyone with the truth. Not until I get a better grasp on what’s going on. There’s a chance that, considering my history, no one will believe it’s happening at all unless I have more proof. “I only knew about it once I left the cabin.”
Franny turns to her younger son. “Chet, did you check the camera?”
“Yeah,” he says while swiping the hair from over his eyes. “There’s nothing. Which is a big red flag. The slightest motion triggers that camera.”
“But someone had to be outside that cabin,” I say. “That door didn’t paint itself.”
“Is the camera working now?” Franny asks, keeping her tone calm to counter my growing shrillness.
“Yes,” Chet says. “Which means it either malfunctioned overnight or someone tampered with it. I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to climb up there on a ladder and put tape over the sensor.”
“Wouldn’t there be video of that?” Theo says.
Chet answers with a shake of his head. “Not necessarily. The camera is programmed to automatically turn on at nine p.m. and turn off at six in the morning. Someone could have tampered with it before nine and removed the tape right at six.”
Franny then fixes her green-eyed gaze on me. Although current circumstances have dimmed it slightly, I still feel trapped by her stare.
“Emma, have you told anyone else about the camera?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean people don’t know about it. If I noticed it, then others probably did, too.”
“Let’s talk about the paint,” Theo says. “If we can figure out where it came from, maybe it’ll give us a better idea of who did it.”
“Emma’s the painter,” Mindy pipes up. “She’s the one with the most access to it.”
“Oil paint,” I say, shooting her an angry look. “And that’s not what was on the door. It doesn’t run like that. If I had to guess, I’d say it was acrylic paint.”
“What’s it used for?” Theo says.
I look to the center of the room, where Casey’s workstation sits. All those cabinets and cubbyholes, filled with supplies.
“Crafts,” I say.
I edge around one of the circular crafting tables and head to the cabinet against the wall behind it. Flinging it open, I see rows of plastic paint bottles. They’re translucent, giving a glimpse of the colors contained within them. All the bottles are full, save for one.
Basic red.
Sitting nearby is a trash can. I go to it and spot a medium-size paintbrush at the bottom. Red paint clings to the bristles, still wet.
“See?” I say. “Not my paint. Not my brush.”
“So someone snuck in here early this morning and used the paint,” Theo says.
“The door is locked overnight,” Lottie replies. “At least, it’s supposed to be. Maybe whoever was last to leave yesterday forgot to lock it.”
“Or has a key,” Chet adds.
Lottie shakes her head. “The only people with keys are me, Franny, and Ben.”
“Neither Lottie nor I would do such a thing,” Franny says. “And Ben was only just arriving when the paint was discovered.”
“So that means the door was left unlocked,” Theo says.
“Maybe not,” Mindy says. “Yesterday, while everyone was going to lunch, I caught Emma snooping around the other workstations.”
All eyes turn to me, and I wilt in the heat of their stares. I take a step back, bump into a plastic chair, drop into it. Mindy looks at me with a sad, scrunched face, as if to show how much making the accusation has pained her.
“You honestly think I’m the one who did this?” I say. “Why would I vandalize my own door?”
“Why have you done a lot of things?”
Although Mindy says it, I assume that question has occurred to everyone in the room at some point. They might not have spoken it aloud like Mindy, but it’s been asked all the same. It’s in every look of Franny’s green eyes. It’s in the red light of the camera that blinks on when I enter Dogwood.
I have every reason to believe they’d forgiven me. It doesn’t mean any of them trust me.
Except for maybe Theo, who says, “If Emma says she didn’t do it, then I believe her. What we should be doing is asking why someone would do this to her.”
I know the answer. But like that unspoken question, it’s one I can’t say aloud. It’s there all the same, visible in my still-shaking hands.
Because someone at camp knows.
That’s why I was watched in the shower. Why those three birds were released into the cabin. Why someone was at the window and smeared paint across the door.
It was their way of telling me that they know.
Not what I did to Theo.
What I did to the girls.
The realization keeps me pinned to the flimsy chair, even after everyone starts to leave. Before exiting, Theo looks at me with concern, his cheeks flushed enough to make his scar stand out.
“Are you okay?” he says.
“No.”
I picture Vivian, Natalie, and Allison as paint marks on one of my canvases, waiting for me to cover them up. One of the reasons I came back here is because I couldn’t keep doing that. Because I thought that if I learned more about what happened to them, my conscience would be clean.
But now I can’t foresee spending an entire six weeks here. Whoever’s been watching me will continue to do so, stepping up the reminders bit by bit. Trapped birds and paint on the door, I fear, are only the beginning. If there are answers to be found, I have to do it quickly.
“I need to get out of here. Just for a little bit.”
“Where do you want to go?” Theo says.
I think of Vivian’s diary and the call letters of a book.
“Town,” I say.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
The radio, like the rest of the truck, had seen better days. The little music that did fizz from the speakers sounded tinny and pockmarked with static. Not that it mattered. The only radio station Vivian and I could find played nothing but country music, the steel guitar and fiddle twang accompanying our journey out of Camp Nightingale.
“So why are we doing this again?” Theo asked as the truck passed under the camp’s entrance arch.
“Because I’m in need of some hygiene products,�
� Vivian said. “Personal, lady ones.”
“That’s more than I need to know.” Theo shook his head, amused in spite of himself. “What about you, Em?”
“I’m just along for the ride.”
And I was. Quite unexpectedly. I had been waiting for the others outside the mess hall, the pollen from Vivian’s forget-me-nots still dusting my fingertips, when Natalie and Allison arrived.
“Vivian needs you,” Allison said.
“Why?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Where is she?”
Natalie jerked her head toward the arts and crafts building on her way inside. “Over there.”
That’s where I found Vivian, Theo, and the mint-green pickup. Vivian was already inside, drumming her fingers against the sill of the open window. Theo leaned against the driver’s-side door, his arms crossed.
“Hey there, latecomer,” he said. “Hop in.”
I squeezed between the two of them, their bodies warm against me as the truck bucked along the pothole-riddled road. Theo’s legs continually bumped mine, as did his arm whenever he turned the steering wheel. Downy hairs from his forearm tickled my skin. The sensation made my stomach flutter and heart ache, as if they were being filled beyond capacity, becoming too large for my scrawny frame.
It stayed that way the entire drive into town, which had no discernible name but could have been any small town anywhere in the country. There was a main drag; quaint storefronts; red, white, and blue bunting on porches. We passed a town green with its generic war memorial and a sign promising a parade the next morning and fireworks at night.
Theo parked the truck, and Vivian and I quickly hopped out, stretching our legs, pretending the journey was uncomfortable, a burden. Better that than to have let Theo think I enjoyed his accidental touches.
Properly stretched, Vivian started to cross the street, heading toward an old-timey drugstore on the corner. “I’ll see you losers in an hour,” she said.
“An hour?” Theo said.
Vivian kept walking. “I plan to enjoy my freedom by going shopping. Maybe I’ll buy myself something pretty. You and Emma go get lunch or something.”
She strode into the pharmacy without another word. Through the window, I watched her pause at a rack of cheap sunglasses by the door and try on a pair shaped like hearts.
“Well, I guess it’s just us,” Theo said, turning my way. “You hungry?”
We walked to a diner that was as sleek and shiny as a bullet and settled into a booth by the window. Theo ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a vanilla milk shake. I did the same, minus the milk shake, which Vivian never would have approved of in a million years. While we waited for the food, I stared out the window and watched cars lazily cruise up and down the street, their lowered windows revealing kids, dogs, harried mothers behind the wheel.
Even though he was across the table from me, I didn’t want to look at Theo too much. Each time I did glance his way, I pictured him in the latrine shower, glistening and beautiful and oblivious to my prying gaze. The image brought a shameful warmth to my face, my stomach, between my legs. I wondered if Vivian knew that was going to happen when she urged me to peek between those ill-spaced cedar planks. I hoped not. Otherwise, it just seemed cruel.
And Vivian wasn’t cruel, despite sometimes appearing that way. She was my friend. My summer-camp big sister. As I sat there with Theo, listening to oldies drift from a corner jukebox, I understood that the whole trip was Vivian’s ruse to let me spend time alone with him. Another apology. One better than flowers.
“How are you liking Camp Nightingale?” Theo asked once the food had arrived.
“I love it,” I said, taking a rabbitlike nibble on a french fry.
“My mother will be pleased to hear that.”
“Do you like it there?”
Theo took a bite of burger, leaving a smudge of ketchup on the corner of his mouth. I resisted the urge to swipe it off with a flick of my finger. “I love it, too. Unfortunately, this looks like it’ll be my last summer before internships take over my life. College certainly keeps you busy. Especially when you’re premed.”
“You’re going to be a doctor?”
“That’s the plan. A pediatrician.”
“That’s so noble,” I said. “I think it’s great you want to help people.”
“And what do you want to be?”
“I think I want to be a painter.”
I don’t know why I said it. I certainly had no artistic ambitions I didn’t quite know what to do with. It just sounded like the kind of profession Theo would want a woman to have. It was adult and sophisticated. Like something from a movie.
“Emma Davis, famous painter. That has a nice ring to it.” Theo gave me a smile that made my legs quiver. “Maybe I’ll come to one of your gallery openings.”
Within seconds, I had my entire future mapped out. We’d keep in touch after the summer, exchanging letters that would become more meaningful as time passed. Love would eventually be declared. Plans would be made. We’d have sex for the first time on my eighteenth birthday, preferably in a candlelit room at some exotic locale. We’d stay devoted as I went to art school and he completed his residency. Then we’d marry and be the kind of couple other people envied.
As outlandish as it seemed, I told myself it could come true. I was mature for my age, or so I thought. Smart. Cool. Like Vivian. And I knew exactly what she would have done in that situation.
So when Theo attempted to take a sip of his milk shake, I beat him to it, leaning in and sucking from his straw. The move was bold, so utterly unlike me. I blushed, my face turning the same shade of peachy pink as the lip gloss I left behind on Theo’s straw.
Yet there was more boldness in store. The kind of thing I never would have attempted had I spent even a fraction of a second thinking about it. But I didn’t think. I simply acted, closing my eyes and tilting my mouth toward Theo’s, the vanilla taste on my tongue spreading to my lips as I kissed him. His breath was hot. His lips were cold. The warmth and chill merged into a sweet, fluttery sensation that filled my body.
I pulled away quickly, my eyes still closed. I didn’t want to look at Theo. I didn’t want to see his reaction and bring an end to the magic spell I was under. He ended it anyway, softly saying, “I’m flattered, Emma. I really am. But—”
“I was just kidding,” I blurted out, my eyes still squeezed shut as my heart twisted inside my chest. “It was a joke. That’s all.”
Theo said nothing, which is why I leaned back in the booth, turning to the window before opening my eyes.
Vivian was on the other side of the glass, her presence an unwelcome surprise. She stood on the sidewalk, wearing the drugstore sunglasses. Heart-shaped frames. Dark lenses reflecting diner chrome. Although I couldn’t see her eyes, the smile that played across her lips made it clear she had witnessed everything.
I couldn’t tell if she was happy about what she saw or amused by it. Maybe it was both. Just like during her games of Two Truths and a Lie, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference.
21
My excuse for going into town was to fill a prescription for allergy medicine I’d forgotten to bring with me. Yet another lie. At this point, I’ve fallen off the truth wagon completely. But again, I consider it justified, especially because it gave me the chance to return to Dogwood and grab my backpack and Vivian’s diary. By then the paint on the door had been completely wiped away. The only evidence it had been there at all was a swath of freshly cleaned wood and the nose-tickling smell of turpentine.
Now Theo and I ride in the same mint-green pickup that had whisked us out of camp fifteen years ago. Inside, all is silent, the radio apparently having died years ago. Theo drives with one hand on the steering wheel, his bent elbow jutting out the open window. My window is also rolled down. I stare at the woods as we leave Camp Nighting
ale, the trees a blur, light sparking through their branches.
I’m long past being mad at Theo about the camera outside Dogwood. My silence stems not from anger but from guilt. It’s the first time we’ve been alone together since I learned about his breakdown, and I’m not sure how to act. There’s so much I want to ask. If he felt as lonely during his six months of rehab as I did in the mental hospital. If he thinks about me every time he sees his scar in the mirror. With questions like that, silence seems to be the best choice.
The truck hits a whopper of a pothole, and both of us bounce toward the center of the bench seat. When our legs touch, I quickly pull away, edging as far as the passenger door will allow.
“Sorry,” I say.
More silence follows. Tense and thick with things unspoken. It becomes too much for Theo, for he suddenly says, “Can we start over?”
I wrinkle my brow, confused. “You mean go back to camp?”
“I mean go back to the beginning. Let’s start fresh. Pretend it’s fifteen years ago and you’re just arriving at camp.” Theo flashes the same crooked smile he gave when we first met. “Hi, I’m Theo.”
Once again, I’m amazed by his forgiveness. Maybe all bitterness and anger left him the instant that car smashed into a tree. Whatever the reason, Theo’s a better person than me. My default reaction to being hurt is to hurt right back, as he well knows.
“Feel free to play along,” he urges.
I’d love nothing more than to erase much of what’s happened between then and now. To rewind back to a time when Vivian, Natalie, and Allison still existed; Theo was still the dreamiest boy I’d ever seen; and I was a knock-kneed innocent nervous about camp. But the past clings to the present. All those mistakes and humiliations following us as we march inevitably forward. There’s no ignoring them.
“Thank you for doing this,” I say instead. “I know it’s an inconvenience.”
Theo keeps his eyes on the road, trying to hide how I’ve disappointed him yet again. “It’s nothing. I needed to go into town anyway. Lottie gave me a list of things to pick up from the hardware store. And what Lottie demands, she gets. She’s the one who really runs this place. Always has been.”