The Sign in the Smoke

  Marcie hesitated for just a moment before smiling. “Yeah, I do. I guess I’m really curious about people. I like to talk to them and then write down what they tell me. It’s just this habit I have.”

  George bugged out her eyes and looked at me.

  “Mini-Nancy,” I whispered. “A complete set.”

  George shook her head as though she couldn’t believe it. “All right, Min—I mean, Marcie.” She smiled. “I’m sure we’ll have more time to get to know one another at lunch. For now, though, we should probably get our stuff into Pine Cabin and start cleaning it up! Only”—she looked at her watch—“twenty-three hours until the campers arrive.”

  Marcie nodded. “That’s plenty of time,” she said. “I mean, if we’re organized and stay focused.”

  Maya clapped her hands. “Only twenty-three hours, guys! I can’t wait ! This is going to be the best week ever!” She held up one hand, palm side out.

  After a moment, Marcie slapped her five. “Best week ever,” she agreed with a shy smile.

  George and I followed suit. “Best week ever,” I said, feeling 100 percent better than I had before the CITs had arrived.

  After we spent about an hour cleaning Juniper Cabin and getting it ready for the campers to arrive, the rest of the day was taken up by training, training, and more training, with breaks for lunch and dinner. We learned special Camp Cedarbark games like capture the flag and Shark Pit, we learned how to do trust falls, and we learned how to safely cook food over an open fire (useful for the end-of-camp campout!). We learned about fostering sportsmanship, stopping bullies, encouraging campers to resolve their own disagreements, and identifying problems a camper might have that would be too big for us to handle and should be referred to Deborah or Miles.

  By the time we got back to Juniper Cabin after a long, jubilant campfire, Maya and I were ready to drop.

  Maya yawned as she came out of the bathroom in her pj’s. “I can’t wait for the campers to get here,” she said, “but I also wouldn’t mind about fifteen hours to sleep before they do! I’m beat.”

  I smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Maya,” I said, smoothing my own pj’s and fluffing my pillow. (I’d selected the bottom bunk this time, after my desperate pee dreams the night before.) “You were an amazing help today. Thank you so much. I’m really glad you’re here.”

  Maya’s face lit up in her now-familiar contagious smile. “Thanks, Nancy. I’m glad I was assigned to your bunk. This is going to be great!”

  We turned off the lights and climbed into our sleeping bags. I think I was basically asleep before my head hit the pillow. But not for long. It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes before I was awoken by a light tap, tap, tapping.

  At first a woodpecker appeared in my dream about a football game . . . which made no sense, and I guess was just my brain’s last-ditch attempt to keep me from waking up. But eventually my eyes cracked open and I groaned.

  “What is that?” I asked out loud.

  Maya was stirring in her bunk above me too. “It won’t stop! It sounds like it’s coming from the window.”

  I turned. On the wall behind our heads was a small, screened window. Normally it would be open, but we’d closed it before going to bed because the night air was a little chilly.

  It took a moment to make out the shape in the dark, but when I did, I gasped: a fist was knocking on our window!

  “Who’s there?” I demanded.

  A pale face appeared in the window. Maya and I both gasped, but as the shock faded, the features started to look familiar. . . .

  “Bella!” I cried.

  “Shhhh, do you want to get caught?!” Bella glared at me. “Open the door, Nancy! We’re all sneaking down to the lake!”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” I asked, but Bella’s face had already disappeared, and I heard footsteps pattering around to the door of the cabin. From the sound of it, Bella had already recruited quite a few other counselors.

  I looked up at Maya, who was peeking over the side of her bunk. “They’re sneaking down to the lake?” she whispered. “That sounds like fun.”

  “I thought you were tired,” I whispered back.

  She scrunched up her face. “I am,” she said, “but I don’t want to miss anything.”

  I sighed. Maya’s words captured my feelings perfectly. I was really not in the mood to sneak around in the woods with Bella, of all people. But what if they all started having fun without me?

  I scooched out of my sleeping bag and swung my legs to the floor. A loud tapping sound was already coming from the cabin door. “Hurry up!” a voice hissed.

  I stumbled over to the door and swung it open. Nine faces greeted me: Charla, Maddie, Frankie, Bella, Susie . . . and George, Marcie, Bess, and Janie!

  “George? Bess?” I asked, looking at them in surprise. “You’re part of this?”

  Bess looked sheepish, and George replied, “I know. I just didn’t want to miss—I mean, make Marcie miss anything.”

  Marcie nodded solemnly, patting the notebook she’d slid into her waistband.

  Maya walked up behind me. Bella looked us up and down.

  “Get some shorts on,” she hissed. “We’re all going down to the lake to get to know one another!”

  I wondered what Bella had in mind—some kind of nightlong version of Truth or Dare? I hated Truth or Dare. But the group was already walking over to the path to the lake, like they were just assuming we would follow.

  I turned to ask Maya what she thought, but she suddenly jumped in front of me, her pj pants replaced by sweatpants. She was pulling on a pair of flip-flops. “Come on, Nancy!” she said, her face full of excitement. “We don’t want them to leave without us!”

  I hesitated for a moment. This was clearly against the camp rules—and we needed our sleep! But then, I reminded myself, wasn’t this what camp was really about? Not just sports and crafts and whatever—but really getting to know your campmates?

  “All right,” I said, pulling open a drawer from the dresser where I’d unpacked my stuff. “But if it’s Truth or Dare, I’m coming back here to sleep!”

  The breeze off the lake was chilly, and I’d forgotten to bring a jacket. Still, I hugged my arms around myself to keep warm and kept smiling at Maya, who looked like she’d found a winning lottery ticket.

  “This is what I used to daydream about when I wondered what camp might be like!” she whispered to me as we walked. “Sneaking out at night in my pj’s, telling secrets . . .”

  I nodded. When Maya put it that way, it did sound like a lot of fun. Maybe I just need to loosen up and enjoy myself, I thought. We’d been so busy over the last couple of days, there really hadn’t been a lot of time for “bonding,” as Bess would call it. And I barely knew the CITs, besides Maya, at all. It would be nice to have a chance to just talk.

  Bella led the way down the path toward the lake and stopped when we got to the narrow, sandy beach that led down to the pier. It was where I’d had my crazy swim test the day before, and I shivered a little—whether from the memory or the cold, I couldn’t tell. There were tire tracks cutting through the sand, from the company that had come to rip out the reeds today, I guessed. Maybe that will fix the problem. I hoped so, and tried to erase the memory of the dark figure from my mind.

  Bella turned and faced us all. “Let’s have a seat, shall we?” she asked, settling down in the sand. Everyone followed her lead, and we arranged ourselves in a tight circle. The sand was cool and felt damp on my legs. I looked up at the sky.

  “Look at the stars!” I cried. A couple of people laughed at my enthusiasm, and I felt a little silly. But it really was amazing how clear the stars were out here, miles and miles from the nearest city. I could make out several constellations. The moon shone brightly too, pale silvery white and nearly full.

  “It’s really pretty,” Maya said quietly, and a few others agreed.

  “I live in Chicago,” Frankie shared. “We almost never see this many stars.”


  Bella looked up. “It is nice,” she agreed. “You know, I brought a flashlight we could use to see, but maybe it’s nicer like this. We can just enjoy the moonlight.”

  “Where is everybody from?” Charla asked suddenly. “I know most of the counselors, and we just found out that Frankie’s from Chicago, but where are the rest of you guys from?”

  We all went around and talked about where we lived. Bess, George, and I shared a turn, talking about River Heights.

  “Sounds like suburbia,” Bella put in, not terribly kindly. “Do you live at the mall?”

  “Yuck,” George replied. “Do we have a mall? Yeah. Do I set foot in it more than once a year? No. Do I always regret it when I do go? Oh yeah.”

  “That’s ’cause you always try to go around the holidays,” Bess sniffed, then smiled to show she was kidding. “Rookie mistake.”

  “I’m kind of from suburbia too,” Janie put in. “Statistically, probably most of us are.”

  “Not me,” said Maya. “I live about an hour from here, and my town has, like, two hundred people in it. There are probably more cows than people!”

  “Wow! How big is your school?” Frankie asked. “Is it super tiny?”

  “My town doesn’t have its own school system. We ride the bus to the county school,” Maya explained. “But it’s still really small!”

  After a few more minutes of chatting and getting to know one another, we were startled by a loud throat clearing from Bella.

  “This is all super exciting,” she said, with a wolfish look, “but why don’t we get down to the program?”

  Bess pushed her hair behind her ear, frowning. “What is the program?” she asked. “I thought this was why we came. Just to get to know one another.”

  Bella shrugged. “Like I said, that’s super exciting,” she said, and I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic, “but I had something else in mind.”

  She reached behind her and pulled out a tote bag that I hadn’t even noticed her carrying when we’d walked to the beach, which was unlike me. (I glanced surreptitiously at Marcie—Mini-Nancy—wondering if she’d caught it and written it down in her notebook.) Bella reached inside and pulled out a few items. As she spread them on the beach and the moonlight hit them, I noticed a white pillar candle, matches, and . . .

  “Is that what I think it is?” Charla asked, scooting back. “I don’t want any part of any—”

  Bella’s eyes flashed. “It’s a Ouija board!” she said excitedly. “Has anyone used one before?”

  Slowly, Maya raised her hand. Susie and Maddie followed suit.

  George snorted next to me, and when I looked at her, I realized she looked totally disgusted. “Bella, you’re not planning some kind of . . .”

  But at the same time, Bella blurted out, “I thought we could have a séance!”

  A séance? As in, a ritual to communicate with the dead? Automatically looking to Bess and George, I could see they thought this was as bad an idea as I did.

  “A séance for who?” Janie asked, looking back and forth between Bella and George. “No offense, but . . . why would we have a séance here?”

  Bess abruptly stood. “No reason,” she said, glaring at Bella. “Let’s go, Janie. We should really get some sleep.”

  But Janie was still looking to Bella, whose mouth dropped open in dramatic shock. “You haven’t told her?” Bella asked.

  “Told me what?” asked Janie, her frown growing as she looked around the circle.

  “Nothing,” George said, standing too. “There’s nothing to tell. Just some dumb ghost story that Bella made up.”

  Bella scowled. “You wish I made it up, George,” she said, picking up the matchbook. “You guys, why would I make up a story like that? You remember I’m from around here, right? And Maddie knows it too. Right, Mad?”

  George let out a sigh as Maddie looked uncomfortably at her feet.

  “I told you I’ve heard something like that, yeah,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I know it’s true, but . . .”

  “Know what’s true?” Marcie suddenly cut in. “You guys, come on. We’re not babies. Whatever this story is, you can tell us.”

  Bess, realizing that no one else was about to leave right now, groaned and sat down again. So did George, but she didn’t look happy about it either. I shifted uncomfortably in the sand as Maya shot me a curious look. You’ll see, I mouthed.

  Bella grinned smugly, sitting up straight. “It’s about Camp Larksong,” she said. “The real reason why it closed.”

  Maya furrowed her eyebrows. “I thought they just ran out of money or something,” she said. “I mean, I assumed.”

  “No,” said Bella. “That wasn’t why. Something happened here.”

  She let those words hang in the air for a moment.

  “Right by this lake, in fact,” she added after a few seconds of silence. “It happened during the big end-of-camp campout. You Camp Larksong people, you must remember it. Everyone cooks dinner over the fire and then sleeps in tents on Hemlock Hill. . . .”

  “I remember,” Maya said, her voice tense. “What happened?”

  “Well, one year,” Bella said, “the last year the camp was open . . . The rumor is, one of the counselors went nuts. She was having mental health issues or something, but nobody knew. And she kind of lost it during the middle of the night of the campout.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how mental illness works,” George muttered, but her voice was so low, nobody seemed to hear her.

  “She took one of her campers down to the lake,” Bella went on, “and convinced her to go swimming. Then, after kind of frolicking around with her for a few minutes, she suddenly grabbed her by the hair and held her under.” Bella shook her head, like she couldn’t believe it herself. “They say the camper had really long hair. The counselor just grabbed a hank of it and . . .” Bella mimed grabbing a bunch of hair in her fist, then slamming it downward. The motion was so violent, we all jumped.

  Bess cleared her throat. “That, um, that story had a lot more details than it did the last time you told it,” she pointed out.

  Bella’s eyes cut over to Bess. “What does that mean?”

  “She means you could be adding details,” George said. “Because you’re making it up. Guys, seriously . . .” She looked around at the CITs, who all looked frozen in shock. “She’s making it up. There was no news coverage of this story, ever.” Bess suddenly cleared her throat, and George glanced at her. “No news coverage of a counselor drowning a kid,” George added. “Which there totally would be, if a murder was committed at this camp.”

  “Unless they were trying to cover it up,” a voice suddenly piped up from the circle. We all turned, with surprise, to Maddie.

  “I just think it sort of makes sense there’d be no stories out there,” she said with an embarrassed shrug. “If Deborah and Miles paid a lot of money to buy this camp and restore it . . . I wouldn’t want that information out there either.”

  George shook her head. “Okay, but . . . Deborah and Miles don’t control the media,” she said. “Do you really think you can just snap your fingers and remove a news story from the Internet? It’s, like . . .”

  “Impossible,” Janie finished for her.

  George shot her a grateful look. “Thank you, Min—I mean, Janie.”

  Bella shifted in the sand and put her hands on her hips. “We’re spending a lot of time talking about this, but we’re not proving anything,” she said. “The fact is, there are all kinds of rumors in Potterville that this camp is haunted. And at least one of us has seen the ghost.”

  I startled as she turned her gaze on me.

  “G-ghost?” I sputtered. “Hold on there. That’s kind of an overstatement.”

  Bella rolled her eyes, then went on in an absurdly patient tone, like she was dealing with a moron. “What did you see, then?” she asked, turning back quickly to the others to explain. “Nancy was pulled under the water during swim tests yesterday. Sh
e could have drowned.” She then turned back to me, looking expectant.

  I sighed. “I thought I saw a figure,” I said. “But I never said ghost. The truth is, I don’t—”

  “So, there you have it,” Bella cut in, looking away from me and around the circle. “I think it’s pretty clear there’s some kind of spirit hanging around this camp, and I would argue, it’s an unhappy one.” She folded her arms in front of her. “I think if we held a séance, we might be able to talk to the spirit and, maybe, tell it to go away.”

  George snorted. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You just want to scare everyone! I don’t know what your deal is, but you love the drama. These kids just got here,” she said, gesturing around to the CITs, “and the last thing they need on their first night is to stay up until the wee hours scaring away a ghost that doesn’t exist. Come on, Marcie. This is ridiculous.”

  Marcie looked slowly from Bella to George, then stood. She glanced nervously at Bella. “I think your story is a little far-fetched,” she said. “No offense.”

  Bella pursed her lips. “Whatever, ginger,” she said snarkily. “Be on your way, then.”

  Bess gently tapped Janie’s shoulder too. “Let’s go,” she said urgently. “I don’t want to get in trouble. And I think this is silly.”

  Janie nodded. “Okay,” she said, then turned and followed Bess back toward the path.

  I slowly got to my feet. “I’m leaving too,” I said, and then suddenly remembered Maya and touched her arm. “I mean, I think we should leave.”

  Maya looked up at me then, and I saw that her face was pale. “Yeah,” she said simply, standing up.

  “Do what you want,” Bella said, shrugging. “I know Maddie wants to stay here. And Charla—don’t you want to know the truth?”

  “I’ll stay,” Maddie said quietly, not looking at anyone.

  Charla just sat very still, looking thoughtful.

  I glanced over at George, who lingered at the edge of the path where Bess had disappeared a moment before. She still looked upset, and I thought I knew why.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, reaching down to grab the candle and the Ouija board. “I’m not coming to your séance, Bella, and if you go ahead with it, I’m going to wake up Deborah and Miles and tell them.”