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“Never split the party,” Kyle says softly, like a half-quoted joke.
We move forward cautiously. It’s silent now. The stone road continues out ahead, our flashlights fading long before it does in the distance. The trees stand thick around us; mostly evergreens now, the ground littered with dry needles, bleached of color. I’ve never been this deep in Briar Glen Woods. If we’re even in Briar Glen anymore.
“Do you hear anything?” Jeremy asks. “Is she still there?”
“I can’t tell,” I say. I try to speak loudly enough for him to understand easily, but it’s hard with the night pressing back, a threat that makes my voice thin as paper.
“I don’t like this,” Mel says.
“Shh,” Miranda says, holding up a hand. “Listen.”
The scream comes again. We all jump. Mel screams, too, cutting it off with a hand clamped over her mouth, and our flashlight beams leap toward the sound, scrambling over roots and branches, and then mine finds it, pinned by the light where it crouches, hunching its black wings up toward its blunt blade of a beak. A solitary crow.
“Is that...?” Anthony says.
“It was just a bird?” Trina says.
The crow screams again. We cinch together. There’s a moment—a stutter, like a skipped frame, my stomach suddenly tight and sour, a desperate sensation tilting through me like there’s something I’ve forgotten.
“Oh God,”comes the voice from the crow’s beak, distorted, raspy.“Oh God, what is that?”And then the scream again, as the crow flaps its wings, and the scream shatters into a broken caw. It flings itself into the air, into the night, too fast for our lights to follow. For a moment the beams rake at the trees in scattered confusion before falling, one by one, to stillness at our feet again.
I’m not sure how long it is before one of us speaks again. “This is fucked up,” Mel says. “Just so we’re clear.”
“It was just a bird,” Vanessa says, pushing up her glasses.
“Adeeply fucked-upbird,” Mel emphasizes.
I look down. I’m not holding my flashlight anymore; it’s tucked into my bag, which is unzipped. I have Becca’s camera in my hand. It’s on, the pinprick lights steady. I don’t remember taking it out. I lift it, focusing on the dark outline of Miranda, up ahead. She half turns to look at me as I snap the picture, the flash strobing once. The camera shows the shot for a few seconds. The flash flattens her against the dark background. All around her the light distorts, as if splashed across mist, though the air is clear. There is something odd about the image, though on the tiny screen, it’s hard to tell. A discoloration to her skin, strange shadows.
I thumb the power off and tuck the camera back in my bag.
“What now?” Anthony asks. They’re looking at me again, like I have answers.
“We keep going,” I say, shaking off the feeling that I’ve forgotten something.
“Going where, though?” Trina asks. “Where does this lead?”
“To Becca,” I say, hoping it’s true.
“Becca,” Trina echoes with a nod. We don’t know where she is—whereweare—but her name is enough of a talisman and a goal. The road leads to her. We only need to follow it.
The eight of us set out, walking two by two as if on instinct, close enough to catch each other’s hands if the darkness returns.
We don’t look back.
INTERVIEW
SARA DONOGHUE
May 9, 2017
The door opens. Abigail “Abby” Ryder steps in. She is a young white woman, her dark hair cropped to chin length, her features sharp and uncomfortably severe. She walks with a slight limp, favoring her right leg, but otherwise appears recovered from the Oregon incident.*
ABBY: You asked for these.
She sets a stack of papers on the desk. Ashford flips through them momentarily, nods.
ASHFORD: Thank you, Abby. That will be all.
