Wyatt tells me all about the trees as we walk down to camp.

“This stuff is like magic,” he says, stripping a silvery ribbon of bark off a birch tree. “It burns wet, so if you’re trying to start a fire in the rain, use it for kindling.”

“Have you ever actually had to do that?”

“Oh, man, all the time. I grew up camping around here.” Wyatt hands me the strip of bark, then bounds off again.

“You went camping in the rain?” I’m huffing. Somehow his impromptu tree tour has led us off the path, and I’m struggling to keep up.

“We went camping outside, Mars. It rains outside. And snows.”

“Wow! And here I thought inclement weather was just a conspiracy to get people to buy milk and bread.”

Wyatt glances back at me. “Really?”

“What? No, of course not. I’m not that sheltered.”

The look Wyatt throws at me, specifically my gladiator sandals, indicates that, yes, I perhaps am the most sheltered thing he’s ever seen. I wind the strip of birch bark between my fingers. It’s waxy and flexible, the color a shifting silver-brown-silver, like mummy’s flesh.

“Do you really go camping in winter?”

“Every family holiday.”

“Your family is nuts.”

Wyatt chuckles. “Oh, no. They’re mostly city people. They think I’m the crazy one. Sometimes my brothers will come with me but usually they just stay in the cabins here, so it’s just me. Wyatt in the wild.”

I stop, like I refuse to go one step farther with the self-declared maniac. Wyatt just grins and then leaps across a pit of mud, the keys on his lanyard jingling. I pick around the edge.

Main Camp is quiet when we arrive, everyone still wrapped up in chores. We head to the Eco-Lab. Wyatt explains that even though he’s close to my age, he’s basically a full-time employee helping out with the Ecology major. When he uses a fob to unlock the lab, I whistle and say, “The perks of being a wildflower,” but I don’t think he gets it.

Inside we find a cool room of scuffed tiles and low tables crammed with equipment. The walls are decorated in wildlife posters. Along the back wall is a painting of an eagle with its wings spread, an X taped to the floor indicating where you stand so that you can see how your arms compare.

“So you’re basically a counselor?” I ask, eyeing the keys around his neck.

“Leader-in-Training,” Wyatt corrects. “LITs still have majors, but we’re expected to help out the instructors and be role models. Next year I’ll be a full Leader, and after I get my degree, I’ll be able to come back as an instructor. My Aspen major is Environmental Science but that’s what I want to do for, like, real life when I’m older.”

“No offense, but Aspen isn’t exactly what I’d call real life.”

“Maybe not Summer Academy, but Aspen has programming year-round. This forest is home to thousands of species of flora and fauna, and some really cool ecosystems. If it wasn’t for the Conservancy, it’d all be developed by now. No offense, but I prefer this to whatever your real life involves.”

“Fair,” I say.

“What about you? If you stay for the session, what will you major in?”

I don’t answer right away. Until a second ago, I felt crowded by Wyatt’s unrelenting enthusiasm for all things Aspen, but after seeing him use that fob I think I need to reevaluate. He probably knows things about Aspen that no one else knows. I just need to corrupt him, if such a corruption is even possible.

“Maybe Environmental Science,” I say. I feel like a snake lying so easily, but it’s kinda the truth. I’d planned on doing whatever got me close to the info I needed.

“Oh, no way!” Wyatt brightens. “We could use the help. Today we’re taking samples.” Wyatt toe-taps a surge protector, causing a row of old desktop monitors to boot up. Then he starts pulling plastic bins out of a closet. I don’t have a job yet, so I inspect the posters on the walls. They’re the illustrated sort, showing a hundred varieties of mushrooms, or beetles, or butterflies. On the counters are bell jars with the real things: spiders and bugs and frogs pinned in static yoga.

The bugle sounds, and the campers arrive a short while after. My nerves twist inside me as they slump into the chairs, but none are the girls from last night. Then our instructor arrives—Wyatt introduces her as some sort of scientist from a nearby SUNY school—and soon we’re sent back into the woods with a list of samples to collect.

For a while, Wyatt just recites more nature facts, mostly about the plants. Then he stops us so we can look at a spiderweb that, as he describes it, is super-freaking-perfect.

“Watch your language, SpongeBob,” I scold.

“Look,” he says, pointing out the spider at the web’s edge. “Orb weaver. You can tell by the web’s design. It looks cool, but once she catches her prey, she’ll wrap them up and then suck out their insides.”

Wyatt makes a grotesque slurping sound, almost scaring me into the web.

“Nature is so evil,” I say, waving away phantom threads.

“Nothing evil about eating,” Wyatt says. “All anything in nature wants is to survive. Nothing evil about that.”

“What are you, her lawyer?” I joke.

While we keep walking, Wyatt starts reciting spider facts. The most poisonous species we need to look out for are the black widow and the brown recluse.

“I heard daddy longlegs are poisonous, too,” I say.

“Those aren’t even spiders.”

“Too kinky?”

Wyatt turns so red that even his shoulders blush. I stroll after him.

“Okay, nature boy. Question. If a spider could wink,” I ask, “would it use one of its eight eyes, or four of its eight eyes?”

“Spiders can’t wink,” Wyatt says tersely. “They don’t have eyelids.”

“I said if.”

Wyatt gives a long sigh, but he’s smiling. I like that I can clear away his gregarious counselor act and get a real reaction.

“Fine,” he says. “Answer: one out of eight.”

“Why?”

“Because you wink to, like, let someone know about a secret, and one eye is more discreet than four. Though I guess it depends which eye. Spiders have different-sized eyes typically, so maybe the eye they wink with could indicate the level of secrecy.”

“Like the difference between a white lie and a national security secret?” I offer.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Wyatt swipes his nose with his thumb, considering this. “I don’t think a spider would ever be given clearance for national security. They’re pretty environment specific.”

“Spider-Man has clearance.”

“Spider-Man has eyelids.”

I laugh. Actually laugh. Wyatt seems as surprised as I do. He looks grateful, too, like he wasn’t sure I had the ability until just now. Resuming our walk, he glances up into the treetops and says, “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Yeah. I’ve been spitting pure nature facts. Tell me something about whatever you’re into.”

“What I’m into? Spitting? Pure nature facts?”

“I’m serious,” he says with a grin. “What are you interested in?”

“I don’t know. Math, I guess. Physics. Psychology.”

Wyatt scrunches up his face like I just confessed cannibalism. So strange is my answer that I’m almost sure I’ve killed the conversation, and I rush to think of some fascinating fact from my world to share. Something Wyatt will find astonishing.

“Oh!” I clasp my hands together. “Okay. Listen to this. Francis Galton, he’s a famous statistician, right?”

“I didn’t know statisticians could be famous, but go on.”

“Okay, well. In 1800 he was at a county fair. You’ve been to one of those, I assume.”

Wyatt has picked up a stick. He swings it at the air, cutting through a cloud of gnats. “More often than church,” he says grimly.

“Great. Okay. So. At the fair, there was a contest to see who could correctly guess the weight of an ox. Galton was there and he analyzed the answers, and he found that while hardly anyone guessed correctly, the average of all the answers was spot-on. Just dead-on accurate.”

I wait for a beat. Wyatt lets out a whistle that is half-sincere, half-sarcastic. I ignore the sarcastic half.

“It’s just not how we think of crowds, right? Like crowds are, in general, not to be trusted, but in this case the aggregate intelligence of the crowd trumped individual expertise. And a similar phenomenon has been used to predict all sorts of stuff. Like one time a bunch of people found a lost submarine. And sometimes the stock market—”

“Hold up, Mathlete.” Wyatt stops me with a raised hand. “They found a submarine? Like, a sunken submarine?”

“Yes. They located it on the floor of the ocean.”

“So you’re telling me a crowd can just … predict things?”

“Certain crowds. Certain things. In the right conditions, humans can behave like supercomputers and predict all sorts of stuff.”

“Isn’t it the other way around?” Wyatt squints at me. “Humans have been around a lot longer than computers. Who behaves like who?”

“Error,” I intone, giving a robot jerk to my limbs. “Error.”

For a while we meander, and then Wyatt quits his safari tour when we reach a brook that, according to him, is perfect for sampling. I lean against a tree and watch him kneel over the slick rocks.

“Your family,” I say. “They’ve owned Aspen for a long time, right?”

“Yeah, my great-great-grandfather was the original caretaker, way back when it was built. And then he bought it from the owners for dirt cheap when they lost their fortune. Then my family technically sold the land and the buildings to the Conservancy, but we still run it. I basically grew up here.”

“And you said you come here in the winter?”

Wyatt sits back on his heels, holding up a tube of murky water. “For holidays. And to help Wendy run Winter Academy. Here, why don’t you take the next sample?”

I crouch next to him and dig a tube into the muck. He watches me like he’s expecting me to complain or gag or something. I focus on the water and ask, “There’s a Winter Academy?”

“Yeah. Caroline never told you about Winter Academy?”

“She only came here in the summer. In the winter, she went on ski trips to—”

“Windham? Yeah, that’s near here. Lots of Aspen kids come back for Winter Academy. It’s an unofficial Aspen tradition, just a few long weekends reserved for Aspen families only. You can do ice skating and hikes and stuff, but most of us just go skiing.”

The more we talk about it, the more I’m sure he’s right. Caroline never asked me to join her ski trips. I figured it was just another way we were growing apart, but I’m not surprised to find Aspen at the start of that split, too. I bet if I scrolled far enough into Bria’s or Mimi’s social content, I’d find cozy photos of them posed around a brick fireplace like the one in Bear Hut, in matching long johns and hats crowned in puff balls.

“Mars?”

Wyatt hands me another tube. We hike upstream for a little while, and I’m so lost in thought that I slip on a rock and plunge my leg into the muck. The tubes roll into the water, but Wyatt snatches them up.

“You know you shouldn’t be wearing those sandals, right? Won’t you let me get you sneakers? I bet—”

“It’s cool. I’ll be careful.”

I’m quiet as I think about what it means that Caroline returned to Aspen throughout the year under the charade of ski trips. Were there other excuses, too? I hate that we spoke so little this past year that I hardly noticed the weekends she was around versus the ones she was away.

Wyatt lets me be quiet. No more nature facts or winking-spider scenarios for us. Then his (hideous) watch peeps and we start back toward the group.

“How’d you like Eco-Lab?” he asks.

“Do we always collect samples?”

“No, we do a lot. After we collect samples, we analyze them in the Eco-Lab, record the data, do fieldwork, and so on. All the Aspen majors seek to leverage the ground’s many natural resources and man-made enhancements,” he recites.

“What about the apiary?”

Wyatt slows. “What about it?”

I sense I should be careful asking about the beehives out by Cabin H. But without knowing why, it’s hard to navigate my line of questioning. Let’s try playing dumb, then.

“I was looking at the majors on the Aspen website, but I didn’t see Apiculture anywhere. I figured it would be part of Ecology.”

Wyatt is suddenly very focused on the expanse of lawn glowing through the forest ahead. He slows even more, like he doesn’t want to have this conversation out in the open.

“It’s not safe,” Wyatt says. “It’s not safe to work with the bees unless you have special training.”

“Oh, that’s so weird. Caroline said she handled them all the time. She made it sound like there was a whole Apiculture major here. Maybe I misunderstood her, though?”

I stop. Wyatt stops, too. He’s irritated, but why? I can either keep playing dumb, or just go for full directness. Or there’s a third option. I scandalize my tone, like it’s all a joke to me.

“Is it like a secret or something? Be honest, would a spider wink about this? If so, with which eye?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Wyatt scoffs. He doesn’t laugh at my joke. Farther up the path some other campers are walking toward us. Wyatt watches them. “Apiculture isn’t on the website because it’s always full. Every year. The hives are right next to Cabin H and the girls always make a big fuss if Wendy tries to add anyone into their cabin, or the major. It’s a whole thing. Why do you care anyway? Suddenly you’re interested in bees?”

I shrug, a little crestfallen. “The Honeys were Caroline’s friends.”

“The Honeys?” Wyatt shakes his head. “If that’s why you’re here, let me stop you right now. They’re not worth your time, Mars.”

I step back a bit, because for the first time since I met him, Wyatt is exhibiting actual anger.

“What’d they do to you?” I ask.

“Nothing. They ignore me, like they do all the guys,” Wyatt says. He kicks at the ground, like a kid. “Actually, I don’t even think they realize they’re part of Summer Academy. I mean, this place is all about making friends and encountering nature and trying new things, but those girls just treat it like a summer vacation.”

I realize I’ll get more if I just let Wyatt talk, so I find a banal way to agree with him.

“Yeah, they were … super standoffish at the social last night, even though they told me I should come back.”

“Right, see? They toy with people.” Wyatt adjusts the bin of test tubes as we resume walking. “They don’t even care about the bees. Leena just does all the work and the girls lie around, but then the second Wendy asks them to come into camp for activities and stuff they’re all like, ‘But the bees!’ and Wendy gives in. And then they act like being all the way out in H is such a struggle, but they literally all request it every year. And if we try to split them up, the parents get involved. It drives Wendy nuts.”

Wyatt is really heated about this. I tentatively throw down some bait.

“They remind me of, like, a secret club or something.”

Wyatt gives a dark chuckle. “They would love that. But the truth is, they’re just a clique of bored, pretty girls. And I know your sister was in that cabin, but trust me, Mars, she was nothing like them. I never got why she hung out with them. She actually had a brain.”

At the mention of Caroline and her brain, I take a quick breath. Wyatt must know why because his voice softens. We stop before entering the Eco-Lab.

“Sorry. I guess I’m just trying to say that Summer Academy has so much more to offer you than a wannabe sorority.”

“Like tubes of sludge?”

“Like actual friends,” Wyatt counters. “Look, Mars. Wendy has her doubts, but I think being here could be really good for you. We’ve got a great cabin this year. I bet you’ll really like them if you just give them a chance. Maybe focus on that?”

I think of Callum’s smoldering glare after I humiliated him. And the lit candle, and the way no one wanted my help with chores, and how Tyler brushed me off last night.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.”

Wyatt heads inside, leaving me to think about what he’s said. I watch a black-winged shadow swoop between the beams above the awning.

“Do you have an opinion for me, too?” I ask the bird.

It considers me, then wiggles into a hidden nest. Safe, in a home woven from scraps.

Lunch is in the main dining hall, next to Big Lodge, and it’s pure chaos. Or really it’s picturesque chaos. The hall’s windows are pushed open, showing a panoramic view of the lake. Clouds of sun-kissed campers tumble inside, surging through the oak banquet tables. They yell to one another over the flurry of hands passing platters of mac ’n’ cheese, barbecue, and spring mix salad. A younger cabin of boys starts a water-chugging contest, the chants blurring into the ruckus of another table seized in debate, I don’t know what about.

After lunch, Wyatt and I head to his elective this week, which is sailing. I’m not allowed on the boats because I’m not CPR certified. Wyatt offers to stay on the docks with me, but I refuse, thinking of Brayden’s warnings about special treatment. When he’s safely on the water, I meander to the boathouse deck to get a better view of the other side of the lake.

“Hey,” a girl says from the dark blue of the shed where they keep the kayaks. She’s got a clipboard. I think she’s the Leader who signs out equipment.

“Hey?”

“Mars, right?”

“Right.”

“I’m Sylv.”

Sylv pauses, maybe wondering how to give me that Big Aspen Hello that Wendy encouraged from everyone last night. I brace myself, but she just says, “We’re out of kayaks.”

“It’s okay. I’m just here for the view.”

Sylv looks out over the lake. It must look dull to her, from her post, though I wonder if I imagine the hunger in her eyes when her gaze passes over the distant meadow.

I watch the other side of the lake for a few more minutes before hiking back to Big Lodge, our meeting spot. I find room after room of heavy, upholstered furniture itchy with heat. Dust chokes the meager light squeezing through the thick curtains of the study, which is where I spend the most time exploring.

I find books so old their skin is cloth soft, and the titles are just a shatter of foil on the spines. I’m looking for clues. Notes tucked away. Circled words that make up suspicious sentences. I end up in the common room leafing through a stack of melting National Geographics, avoiding the gaze of a taxidermy elk. Finally the bugle sounds, and a few minutes later the Bear Hut boys barge onto the porch. It’s time for the Hunter Village Challenge, whatever that is.

We’re led out past the athletic fields, up to the old stable. It hasn’t homed horses in forever, I gather, because the walls are sticky with rock-climbing holds, and a gymnastics floor has been put down. A raised runway cuts through the center, and we circle up beside it.

“Boys! Listen up!” Brayden and the Eagle Leader, Quinn, get us to quiet down. “Today is the ultimate Village Challenge. A tournament to find the most valiant Huntsman among you. A fencing tournament.”

I guess several boys were expecting this because they let out self-satisfied cheers. Some, like me, glance nervously at the exit.

The counselors introduce a short, slender man who is Aspen’s designated fencing instructor. His name is Rudi. He runs through the rules and safety procedures of a fencing bout while Brayden dons the full-coverage protective gear, exemplifying each item. It’s a suit of stiff white fabric, and a full-head helmet with a face of black metal mesh. It reminds me of a beekeeper’s suit, but it’s tighter. Brayden looks goofy in it, but you can tell he feels awesome. Then they actually do a demo, which Rudi ends in seconds. Just a flashing swish of Rudi’s sword and a buzzer sounds above us.

“All right,” Brayden says, pulling off his helmet. “We’re doing this sudden death style. You’re in until you’re defeated, and the last man standing wins it for his cabin. Who wants to go first?”

Hands shoot up. Not mine. From experience, those fencing jackets are hot, and this gym isn’t air-conditioned. If they actually do make it through all the matches, which they won’t, I can just use my hand as an excuse. I slip away unnoticed, getting as far as the barn doors before I stop. I can see the dance studios at the bottom of the hill. Some girls are down there warming up, or maybe already rehearsing. They snapped on it, and snaps are final.

I sway in the wide doorframe. Dandelion spores pirouette on a sweet breeze like a prophecy, or a temptation. Wyatt said I should give the boys a shot, to at least pretend I’m not just here to study the Honeys. Maybe he’s right.

I decide to stay.

Two boys have suited up. The rest of us cheer them from the edge of the raised strip. Wyatt of course is the loudest. I realize I’m watching him—watching his hands again—and I stop. I focus on the swishing blades, the shuffling of feet, and the cry of the buzzer.

I’m glad I stayed. The bouts tell me a lot about the boys. It’s unlike the fencing tournaments I used to participate in. It’s not dignified or beautiful. I’m captivated by the careless nature of it all. The rushing. The bravado. From beneath the black mesh, their laughter contorts to sneering so quickly, like sportsmanship and bloodlust share a subtle seam. The boys fling themselves at one another, crash, and break apart as though they can’t be hurt, and I wonder what it must be like to walk through life with the assumption that you are indestructible.

The tournament progresses quickly. At first Bears lead, then Eagles throw down their final, secret weapon: Callum, who clearly knows what he’s doing. Callum brings it down to a tie, and the playful cheers crinkle, growing sharp. The boys, I note, are no longer having fun. It’s all urgent now. Important and bitter in a way that scares me. Then Callum bests our last viable player, The Chuckster, and the Eagles roar out a mocking victory cry. Someone—I don’t hear who—shuts it down by pointing out that, actually, it’s not over until Mars loses, too.

Oh, wonderful.

The guys stop their shit-talking and glance at me with less-than-amused incredulity. When I hold up my splinted fingers, they roll their eyes, like, Of course.

“Actually,” I hear myself say. “I’ll do it. I’m a righty.”

“You’re wearing sandals,” an Eagle boy says.

“Gladiator sandals,” I say, which gets a chuckle from the Bears.

A dark joy sparks to life in me. Spite. That’s what drives me to get up and don the heavy fabric armor. I pull on the jacket, the metallic vest. It’s humid with the sweat of the other boys. The glove’s grip is sticky. The mask’s mesh is warm with breath. It’s gross but I don’t care.

Show them, I whisper to myself.

Callum is grinning back at his cabin-mates. He’s going to hate me even more for this, but oh well. In an ecosystem of boyish egos, there’s always got to be a sacrifice, someone shoved to the bottom. All the boys here underestimate me, but it’s Callum’s poor fortune to be the one to suffer for it. If Wyatt wants me to participate in the games boys play, so be it.

Callum pulls on his helmet and mirrors me on the strip.

“I’m not going easy on you,” he says, just for me to hear.

“Funny,” I say with mock intrigue, “your dad liked it rough, too.”

Rudi begins the bout.

“Allez!”

Callum lunges; I parry. He tries again; I parry again. Rudi laughs, but I don’t take my eyes off Callum. He’s mad and getting madder. Luckily, I know where his guard is weak. I’ve watched him for several bouts now. He’s obvious and proud and, worst of all, sloppy.

Callum shifts his weight. He’s going to lunge, but I feint forward. Callum shifts his weight backward, a mistake. Not good for backpedaling. He raises his foil to parry my blow, and it’s painfully slow. I flick my wrist, driving my foil into a downward crest.

Callum’s foil clashes into my guard and is halted, the tip impotently wagging by my ear. My blade pins his shoulder. It’s higher than I was aiming, but the buzzer confirms the point is mine.

Callum rubs at where I struck him. He plays it off, but I can tell he’s shocked.

“Jeez,” he laughs. “It’s just a game. Chill out, bro.”

That makes me mad.

“Allez!” Rudi calls, starting our second bout.

I don’t attempt another lunge, but neither does Callum. We poke and swat at each other, sensing for openings. My pulse is staccato, nettling and sharp. My eyes can’t stay on Callum this time, instead shifting to all the minor movements behind him. I find the faces of his friends, smug and so sure of how this will end.

Callum overtakes my vision as he goes for a lunge. He’s gotten too close. There’s no way I can deflect his blow, so I don’t try. All it takes is a burst of power to my left leg and my body shifts to the right. Callum’s blade skewers the hollow between my ribs and my raised arm. He’s missed me, and his motion carries him forward so that we almost collide. He recovers and hops backward. Right into striking distance.

I slash and lunge, slash and lunge, driving him backward toward the boys he represents. Eagle House backs away from the strip as Callum wheels toward them. I time my final thrust with the moment he hits the edge, and he falls backward.

It’s the simplest thing in the world to hop down and poke him, gently, in the heart. The buzzer screams.

“I’m not your bro,” I tell him.

Callum looks down at where I’ve got him, then looks at me. He tosses down his foil, rips off his helmet, and sneers at me.

“You’re a little bitch,” he says.

“Actually,” I say, “I’m a huge bitch.”

Bear Hut wins, and when I turn around, I’m facing the strangest thing. Laughing, stomping boys, arms outstretched to pull me into a jumping embrace. As we rise and fall, I think, it could be this simple. But of course there’s always a cost when you force yourself to become someone you’re not. I can feel my left hand coated in blood beneath my glove. I wasn’t careful enough. I’ll make sure I take off the glove when no one is looking.

I find Wyatt watching from the edge of our mosh pit, and on his face is an expression of complete disbelief.

Good, I think, and I give him my best, most spidery, wink.