The other kids at school gave me a wide berth for the next few days. I felt their eyes on me, though, and there would be sudden silences when I passed by groups huddled together in the hallway, classroom, or cafeteria. It seemed like they were waiting to see what I would do next. I guess I was waiting, too.

In the meantime, school life folded around me like a shroud. Before long, it was as if the summer had never happened, as if my entire life had been spent going up and down the halls of Galloway District High.

My course load was heavy. I was on an academic track for university, since I told everyone who asked that I wanted to be a gym teacher, even though I doubt I ever wanted to be anything less in my life. When I wasn’t in class, I was in the cafeteria, working the cash register in return for a free meal and a few bucks a week. Training for the cross-country team started up, and my after-school time got filled up, too. Evenings were for chores and homework.

But no matter how full I made my days, there were always gaps that Casey used to fill.

It wasn’t that we’d hung out together all that much at school. She would have been busy, too, helping out the biology teacher and prepping for science fairs or competitions. But she’d always come looking for me if we didn’t bump into each other between classes. Always.

Sometimes I’d test her. I would avoid all the places where we usually met, just to see if she really was interested in talking to me. If she didn’t find me for a couple of days, she’d call me at home or drop by my house to see if I was sick or something. I liked that I could make her do that.

She never caught on that I was playing with her. She’d say, “Oh, there you are!” and launch into a story about whatever happened that day.

She always just seemed glad to see me.

I wonder now if that’s because my absences didn’t matter to her. I know she was my best friend. But was I hers? You can be glad to see your favorite flavor of ice cream in the freezer, but if it’s not there, you can be just as happy with something else.

I wonder if that was it.

Maybe she didn’t get mad at me because I just wasn’t that important to her.

August 24

Day 3

That afternoon, Stephanie disappears again.

Our cabin challenges the nine-year-olds in Cabin Five to a softball game. When the time comes to head to the ball field, Stephanie cannot be found.

But I know where she is.

She is hiding behind the rolled-up volleyball nets in the back of the equipment shed. She sees that I’ve spotted her.

“Go ahead,” I tell Casey quietly. “Don’t keep Cabin Five waiting.” I watch them bug-walk down the path to the ball diamond.

I close the door of the equipment shed and sit down on the top step with my back against the door. I enjoy the sun and a rare few moments to myself.

A bit of time goes by and I start hearing noises inside the shed. The door bumps against my back. I let it bump. I look up at the window and see Stephanie’s pretty little face squished against the glass, staring down at me.

I can almost hear what she’s thinking. Should I yell for help? Will that get me into more trouble or less?

Maybe she’s just curious about what I will do next.

She bumps the door against my back a few more times.

“Let me out,” she orders, but quietly.

I stay where I am.

“Let me out!” she says again, more forcefully.

“When I’m ready,” I say.

“I’m telling,” she says. “You’re locking me in here.”

“You think they’ll believe you?”

Silence for a moment. Then, “You’re being mean to me.”

“So what?” I ask, stretching in the sun like a cat. “I don’t care about you. Get lost and stay lost if you want to. You’re not bothering me.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Go ahead,” I say. “They’re all at softball.”

She stops talking then, and I almost forget about her. It’s so nice to have some no-kid time in the middle of the day.

I can’t leave her in there too long because the softball game won’t last forever. But I don’t need to hurry, either.

After ten minutes, Stephanie starts to whine.

“It’s hot in here. I’m going to faint if you don’t let me out.”

“Go ahead,” I say.

I leave her in there for another five minutes, and then I stand up and step away from the door. I start walking toward the baseball field. Behind me I hear the door open up. I hear her step down into the path, moan in a silly, dramatic way, and fall to the ground. I don’t turn around. After a moment, I hear her get up again. By the time we get to the ball game, she is running ahead of me.

Casey sees us coming and waves. I snap my finger and thumb together. She grins, nods, and makes the signal back.

For the rest of the day Stephanie stays out of my way. She doesn’t disappear, and she doesn’t tell anyone I kept her in the shed. I’ve solved the problem and I feel proud of myself. I’m better at this than Casey is. I start to daydream about a career as a child psychiatrist or even running my very own prison for children, where horrible children will turn into model citizens. I’ll get medals and write-ups in national magazines.

I wake up suddenly. It’s the middle of the night. Stephanie is standing by my bunk, staring down at me.

“You’ll pay for what you did,” she says.

Then she goes back to her own bed.

I don’t sleep for the rest of the night.

Casey’s first letter was waiting on the hall table when I got home from school that Friday.

I held it in my hand, turning it over and over. I kept seeing her looking at me in the courtroom and me not returning her gaze. I was afraid of what her letter would say. I folded it in half and stuck it in my back pocket.

That night I woke up just as the display on the clock radio changed to two a.m. It had been like this every night since Casey’s arrest. Wake up at two, creep out of the house, ride around until I exhaust myself and can sleep again. That night I found myself riding out to Ten Willows, Casey’s letter still in the back pocket of my jeans. I could feel the lump against the bicycle seat.

The back roads to the camp were almost pitch-black in the new moonlight, and the battery on my bike light gave out before I was a quarter mile from home. I navigated more by instinct than by sight.

Ten Willows Camp has winter quarters up top, near the highway. The summer camp is down below, and to get to it by road you have to go down a steep hill with an abrupt curve at the bottom. When I was younger, I used to tie a towel around my shoulders and feel it rippling behind me like a cape as I flew down the hill on my bike, Casey close by. Nervous car drivers and bicycle cowards could apply their brakes. Not Casey and me. We knew just when to turn our handlebars, just how to lean into the curve. The momentum we gathered going down the hill would shoot us through the length of the field, almost to the dining hall.

On this night, the overhanging trees made the dirt road ahead look even darker. I didn’t pause at the top of the hill, like Casey and I usually did. I kept on pedaling all the way down, even when the pedals went almost too fast for my legs to keep up with them. I pedaled into an abyss—a pit of blackness that, for all I could see, could have been the end of the world. I wanted the blackness to swallow me up, to take me from this town, from the confusion in my head.

What happened instead was that I misjudged the turn and went flying into the dirt and pebbles of the road. It was a stupid accident. Fate did not even have the grace to let me pass out. I felt hurt and scared, and despite the fact that no one was around to see, embarrassed.

Nothing was broken, but my face stung from the gravel burn. I groped around for my bicycle and it, too, seemed miraculously undamaged—although I was sure the light of the day would show ravages to each of us. I decided I didn’t care, got back on my bike, and rode into the camp.

I dismounted outside the long row of cabins and leaned my bike against Cabin Three, my home that last week of camp. I tried the door but of course it was locked.

I walked over to the dining hall, limping a little from my wipeout. On the other side of the hall, ten willow trees grew in a circle, majestic in their old age, with leaves that hung so plentiful and low, entering the circle was like entering a room through a beaded curtain. You have to part the branches with your hands to move through them—or you can close your eyes and walk straight into them, feeling them brush over your face like long strings of feathers.

Inside the circle sit stone benches, also in a circle. They face a little flower garden. I couldn’t see them in the darkness, but I knew the pansies were still blooming and the marigolds were still golden.

In the center of the flowers is a large piece of driftwood, hauled up from the river on the camp’s edge. It is so gnarly it looks like it’s made of rope. There’s a plaque on it with a bit of Psalm 137 carved into it:

On the willows, we hung up our lyres

For our captors demanded songs,

And our tormenters, mirth.

After seeing it there for so many years, I could recite it by heart, like my address or my locker combination. I could recite it but I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t really care what it meant.

I sat on a bench for a long while, listening to the willow trees whisper to each other. I sat there until the sweat on my body felt icy and my legs started to cramp in the chill night air. To warm up I did a slow jog back to Cabin Three. I got on my bike and headed home.

The hill was not as dark as it had been, and I realized dawn was about to break. I had to pedal fast to get home before Mom woke up. I only just made it.

I’d forgotten about my face. At breakfast Mom asked me about the cuts and scrapes. I told her I went out for an early morning run and slipped in some gravel. She told me she was glad I was working hard, then ruined it by asking why I couldn’t do that all the time. I snarled at her, she snarled back, and we ended up yelling at each other.

There was only one good thing about that day. When I went to the washroom between classes, I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was scarred the way Casey’s was. We looked alike now. Strangely, it made me feel better.