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“Wait.” My voice came out quieter than I intended.

They all stopped.

The sound was coming from near the woods.

I knew that now. There was no mistaking it.

“I wouldn’t go out there by myself,” I said. My voice sounded very small in the open yard.

My dad turned.

The phone shrieked again.

Closer to the tree line than the house.

“You know I wouldn’t.” My voice was weak.

Dad stared at me.

Riot did too.

Chief had gone completely still.

Something passed over Sunshine’s face beside me.

She knew. They all knew.

I had hated those woods since I was nine.

Not disliked. Not avoided because of snakes or coyotes or poison ivy.

Hated. There were times I could barely look into them after dark.

I ran roads that went miles out of my way to avoid certain trails.

Mom’s voice was careful as she told me, “You’re never predictable when you sleepwalk. You tend to do uncharacteristic things, actually. I’m not saying that’s what happened, just a possibility.”

Nobody spoke.

It stung. But why would they believe me? I wasn’t even sure myself what had just happened.

I was a mental case who had just dragged two families out of their beds in the middle of the night and there was no clear reason for it.

No one gave me grief for it. That certainly didn’t make me feel less crazy.

No, I would not have walked toward those trees alone.

But would sleeping Hazel?

I didn’t know. That was somehow worse.

Dad looked back toward the woods.

“Buck,” Riot said quietly.

“I know.”

“What?” I asked.