The Sign in the Smoke

  Bess held up her pointer finger. “Okay, so she survived the near drowning. But it’s been five years. Maybe she survived, only to die of some totally unrelated thing later. And then . . .”

  “. . . then naturally she comes back to haunt the camp where she didn’t die?” George asked, frowning. “If she died of something else, wouldn’t she haunt the thing that actually killed her?”

  “Maybe the other thing was really boring,” Bess retorted. “Like an allergy to bee stings or something. Would you want to waste your afterlife haunting a bee?”

  “Guys,” I said, “I think we’re getting off topic here. And I have a confession to make. This afternoon, I called Lila’s parents on the pay phone and asked for Lila, pretending to be a telemarketer.”

  Bess crinkled her brows. “Did you talk to her?” she asked.

  “No,” I admitted, “but I did confirm that Lila is alive and well and still lives here. I also got an earful about the Do Not Call registry. Anyway . . . let’s assume Lila is alive and well, and not haunting the camp. That wouldn’t stop someone who knows about the accident from using it to harass Deborah and Miles . . . would it?”

  Bess and George both looked thoughtful.

  “Who would do that?” asked Bess after a few seconds.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but that’s what I intend to find out.”

  Soon the campfire broke up, and I got to my feet to collect my campers. Before I could make my way over to where they were sitting with Maya, someone grabbed my arm.

  “You’re welcome,” Bella said, “for watching your kids earlier.”

  I turned around in surprise. Bella wore a scowl, and she looked from me to George and Bess like we were all something stinky she’d stepped in.

  “Uh, thanks, Bella,” I said after a brief pause. “I’m sorry, I thought I’d thanked you earlier.”

  “It’s just ironic,” Bella said, grabbing a lock of dark hair and twisting it around her finger, “that you guys think I’m the bad one, when you’re sneaking around when you’re supposed to be watching your kids, doing God knows what.”

  “I was talking to Deborah,” I explained patiently, “but thanks for the feedback. And I never said you were bad, Bella, I just didn’t think involving a bunch of fifteen-year-olds in some made-up séance was a good idea.”

  “It wasn’t made up,” Bella whispered fiercely. “You just don’t want anyone to know the truth about this place.”

  “What truth is that?” I asked, curious now.

  Bella rolled her eyes at me. “You know what truth,” she replied snarkily. “That this place is mad haunted. Anyway, it’s fine, Nancy. I don’t need you, or your little clique.” She looked past me to Bess and George, who had started collecting their own campers. “I have my own clique.”

  With those words, she turned on her heel and strode away.

  Why is Bella so interested in this supposed haunting? I wondered again as I watched Bella walk back to her campers and lead them down the path back to the cabins. She says she’s a Camp Larksong alum. . . . Could she possibly have been there that night?

  I swallowed hard, letting my mind lead me on. Could she have an ax to grind with Deborah?

  I walked over to my campers and greeted them, listening to their cheerful stories about the day, and their banter with one another. I put my arm around Harper, who was bringing up the rear and seemed to be off in her own little world. But in reality, my mind was spinning on its own, a million miles away.

  Bella could have dived back into the lake after she went to get her hoodie the day of our swimming tests, I realized. She could have snuck away from the campfire the night the sleeping bags went missing. But how would she have gotten away from her own bunk to come harass mine while we were swimming?

  There was the matter of the silvery-blond hair, too. If Bella was at camp the year Lila nearly drowned, she might know her hair color, or she could have seen a picture in the news. But would she go so far as to wear a wig underwater to freak everyone out?

  “Nancy,” Harper said suddenly, tugging on my sleeve, “you seem sad.”

  I looked down at her, startled. “I do?” I asked. “I’m sorry, Harper. I don’t feel sad. I’m just trying to figure something out in my mind.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking away. “Well, I hope you figure it out soon.”

  Me too, I thought, patting Harper on the back. Me too, kid.

  I was at a campfire, and Bess and George were sitting across the fire on different logs, but I couldn’t get to them. There was a terrible wailing in the woods, like a young girl crying. It went on and on. Then, suddenly, the smoke from the campfire grew tendrils that formed arms and legs and a horrible smoke-bearded face! The smoke creature lunged toward me, snagging me in its long, spindly arms. I screamed, but no sound came out, and nobody noticed. I felt panic welling up in my chest as it lifted me up, carrying me away from the campfire, into the woods, where the wailing was getting louder and louder. Just as I was finally able to get my voice out—and let out a real scream—the smoke monster suddenly tossed me in the air, and I was spinning through the darkness, falling and falling, until with a SPLASH I was submerged in the icy lake. . . .

  “Nancy!” Something grabbed my arm and shook it, and I shot straight up in bed, the shock of the icy water still making my heart pound.

  “What?” I cried, startled. “What is it? What?”

  Kiki, who’d been shaking me awake, jumped back, startled.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, waving for her to come close again. “I was just having this awful dream. . . .”

  “Nancy, you have to get up,” she replied, all business. “The cabin is flooding!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  An Unexpected Clue

  I SAT UP IN BED and looked down, and that was when I noticed the other girls, shouting and splashing through the foot or so of water that covered the floor. Maya opened the front door, and all at once the water level decreased as a stream of water escaped.

  “Oh my gosh! What happened ?” I asked, jumping down from my bed. I hit the floor with an icy splash and shrieked. The water was freezing!

  “Someone turned on all the showers and sinks,” Maya replied. She was soaking wet from the waist down. “Cece got up to use the bathroom, and she found it.”

  “Did someone turn everything off?” I asked, sloshing through the water to the bathroom.

  “Yup,” Winnie replied. “Maya did it. Then she came to wake all of us up, but you were sleeping pretty hard.”

  Sleeping pretty hard. I remembered my nightmare and sighed. Clearly the whole situation at Camp Cedarbark was stressing me out. And now this—was this one more weird event to add to the list?

  “All right,” I said, taking stock of the situation. All the girls in the bunk were up, standing before me in various states of soaking-ness. “Let’s get out of the cabin, then. We need to tell Deborah what happened.”

  “We do?” asked Cece. “What if this was just a prank?”

  “It’s a pretty destructive prank,” I replied. “Flooding the cabin could cause a lot of damage, not to mention that someone could have gotten hurt if they slipped or something. No, I think this is bigger than a prank.” I paused, watching Harper carefully arrange all her books on Kiki’s top bunk. “Harper? Come on. Your books will be okay.”

  Harper glanced at me, clearly not convinced. “I don’t want them to fall into the water,” she said. “They’re first editions.”

  “They’ll be fine,” I said, suppressing a frustrated sigh. “Come on, guys. Let’s get Deborah and start cleaning all this up.”

  I half expected to see a commotion when we got out of the cabin—water spilling out of the other cabin, other counselors and campers lining up in the clearing—but we were met with dead silence. It looked like this “prank” was aimed at Juniper Cabin. Could I have been the target?

  I asked Maya to watch the girls while I went to wake up Deborah and Miles.

  I pounded on their front
door for a few minutes. Finally I heard noise inside, and Deborah appeared in a terry-cloth bathrobe over a cotton nightgown. I wasn’t surprised to see her and not Miles.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  I explained what had happened, and Deborah’s expression turned serious. “It only happened to your cabin?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She let out a deep sigh. “Do you think it’s related to the other things?”

  I breathed in. “Yeah,” I said. “I think someone has figured out that I’m onto them.”

  In the end, Sam the sports counselor was also woken up by the commotion and came over to help. It took all of us about an hour of mopping and pushing the water out the door to get the cabin dry enough to go back inside to sleep. In the morning, we were understandably a little cranky. Breakfast was quieter than usual, with us silently chewing our pancakes, many of us staring into space.

  “Why would someone come after us?” Maya asked suddenly, her eyebrows raised in confusion. “Only us?”

  I could tell that the prank had rattled my normally optimistic CIT, but I didn’t know how to comfort her. Who would target only us? Someone who knew I was getting closer. Maybe Bella? Or . . . Miles? But it was hard to imagine a grown man sneaking into our bunk to flood it. It just seemed . . . juvenile.

  “We don’t really know what it was, Maya,” I said slowly, but I couldn’t help looking across the mess hall to the eleven-year-olds’ table, where Bella was laughing so hard she looked like she was snorting. “Don’t worry. Will you guys excuse me a minute? I’m going to talk to Deborah.”

  I stood up and walked over to the table by the kitchen where Deborah was eating with Sam, Taylor, and Sandy. Deborah looked up as I approached. “Hi, Nancy,” she said, pulling out the empty seat next to her. “Come sit down.”

  Sam looked up curiously. She was wearing her ever-present Yankees cap. “Oh, hey. Did your bunk all get back to sleep last night?”

  I nodded. “Eventually,” I said.

  Deborah quickly shoveled her last bite of pancakes into her mouth and touched my shoulder. “Can I speak to you privately for just a moment, Nancy?”

  “Sure.”

  I waved at the other counselors and the lifeguard, then waited while Deborah bused her tray and led me out the front door to the main clearing.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m having trouble with something.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. There already seemed to be plenty of trouble at the camp. . . . Was something even stranger going on that I didn’t know about?

  Deborah looked pained. “The big end-of-camp campout is coming up,” she said. “You know, it’s supposed to be tomorrow night.”

  I did know the campout was coming . . . but it surprised even me that it was only a night away. Where had the time gone? I felt like my campers and I were still getting to know one another.

  “Wow,” I said, having a sense where she might be going with this. “And you’re . . .”

  “I’m scared something else will happen,” Deborah said plainly. “Up until last night, I could explain everything away as pranks gone wrong. The sleeping bags in the lake, some kid playing silly games in the water. But last night was different. It could have caused major damage to the property. And . . . with the water element, it does all seem to lead back to the lake, and what happened to Lila.”

  I nodded slowly. “And what happened to her happened at the campout,” I filled in.

  “Exactly.” Deborah paused. “Even if these are just pranks . . . I feel like I can’t jeopardize my campers’ safety by putting them in a situation where someone might try something stupid.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “But the campout is such a big deal to the campers. I know my bunk has been talking about it nonstop since they got here.”

  Deborah sighed. “That’s the problem.” She looked me in the eye. “You know everything that’s happened so far, Nancy, and the whole history. Do you think I should cancel it?”

  Before I could respond, the mess hall door opened and Bella stepped out. She glanced at us. “Oh, hi. I just realized I forgot my bug repellent this morning, and I’ve already got, like, a million mosquito bites. I was just running back to the cabin to get it. . . .” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she looked from me to Deborah. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Just a minor incident that happened last night,” Deborah said stiffly. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “Oh, you mean the flooding of Nancy’s bunk?” said Bella. “I heard all about it from her campers. That’s a real shame, Nancy. Gosh, it’s like something’s cursing this place this summer, huh?” She tossed her head and headed off toward her cabin, leaving her snarky words lingering in the air.

  I watched her until she disappeared into the cabin, then turned back to Deborah. “Don’t cancel the campout yet,” I told her. “I have a lead.”

  The sun was high in the sky as Maya and I led our campers through the woods on the southwest edge of camp property. “What other leaves can we find?” I asked. I already held a fistful of different-shaped leaves that we’d matched to a chart Deborah had given us. So far on our nature hike, we’d seen six kinds of bugs and seven different species of birds, and we’d found poop—we called it “scat” at camp—from a raccoon and a rabbit.

  “Here’s a funny one!” Cece knelt down and picked up a leaf from the ground that had rounded edges. “It looks like it has polka dots.”

  Maya ran over. “Oh, cool!” she said. “I think that might be from a sassafras tree. Smell it—does it smell like root beer?”

  “It does!” Cece said excitedly.

  Maya turned to me. “Nancy, can you hand me the chart?”

  “Sure.” I took out the folded paper and handed it to my CIT with a smile. It was great to see the girls get so excited about finding new things in nature!

  But as most of the girls surrounded Maya and Cece with curious expressions, someone tugged on my wrist. “Hey, Nancy?”

  I turned around. Winnie and Katie stood before me, both wearing troubled expressions. “What’s up, guys?”

  Winnie bit her lip as Katie whispered, “Can we talk to you in private?”

  “Sure.” I turned back and called to Maya, “Comfort stop!” That’s what we said when someone had to use the bathroom on a hike. It was the only reason I could think of for the three of us to separate from the others without questions. Maya nodded that she’d heard me, but kept chatting with the group.

  “Come on.” I led Winnie and Katie up over a little hill and down the other side, where we wouldn’t be seen or heard by the others. “What’s going on, guys? From your expressions, it looks kind of important.”

  Winnie and Katie looked at each other, then back at me. “We have something to tell you,” Winnie said.

  “What is it?” I asked. I assumed it was going to be something about a disagreement between two of the girls, or some other piece of gossip that Winnie and Katie felt I should know. My bunk got along well, but it seemed like there were always little undercurrents of tension in a group this size. And as BFFs, Winnie and Katie seemed to think of themselves as Friendship Experts.

  “Last night?” Katie began nervously. “Before the flood?”

  Immediately I became more serious. “You have information about the flood?” I asked. “Did you see anyone?”

  Katie looked nervously at Winnie.

  “Kind of?” Winnie asked, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “I mean, it may be nothing. But before the flood . . . like, just a few minutes before . . .” She looked at Katie.

  “Something woke me up,” Katie filled in. “It was like a thud, probably someone’s feet hitting the floor. And I looked around and saw Harper getting up and heading for the bathroom.”

  I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. Harper? “How soon was this before the flood?” I asked.

  Katie shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it couldn’t have been long, because I rolled over to go back to sleep, and
the next thing I knew I heard Kiki yelling.”

  I took in a breath, trying to calm my fluttering heart. Could Harper be behind the flood? But maybe she just had to go to the bathroom. It was possible. We all got up during the night sometimes. But then I thought, It actually makes sense that someone from our bunk would have turned on the faucets and showers. It meant that nobody would have had to sneak in, which would have been difficult. The only entrance to the cabin opened right into the main room with the bunk beds, and the culprit would have had to walk by all the sleeping campers, plus me and Maya, to get to the bathroom. Then that person would have had to hope no one woke up from the noise, and sneak past all of us again to get back out.

  I sighed, and suddenly became aware that Katie and Winnie had been staring at me for a few seconds, waiting for a response. “Thank you for telling me,” I said finally, looking at them with sincere gratitude. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy. And I’m not sure this means Harper had anything to do with the flood, but I’ll look into it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Katie, at the same time Winnie said, “We didn’t want to get her in trouble!”

  “You haven’t,” I said, putting my hands on each of their shoulders. “You’ve just given me some questions to ask. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Winnie nodded, and Katie did too. After a few seconds, we headed back to join the others.

  Harper was holding the sassafras leaf now, studying it with the same intensity she used when she read her beloved books. I watched her, thinking about this new information and going back through all the other events in my mind. Harper wasn’t here when Deborah and I were pulled under. But she was there when Cece and Kiki were . . . and she’s a good swimmer. She could have snuck away from the campfire when the sleeping bags were stolen, but that would be a lot for her to do, and get to the lake without being detected. . . .

  As I was thinking, Harper looked up at me and smiled. Struggling to control my expression, I smiled back.