What if I told you there is another world out there?

A magical, alternate dimension that serves as the home for all the unexplainable things observed in our own—would you believe me?

No, not a metaphor. Not a dream. And certainly not the sort of thing most people admit to believing in once they’ve reached a certain age. I’m talking about a real place. A whole world that exists alongside our own, just out of reach, patiently waiting for someone to notice it.

As it turns out, it just so happens that I was destined to be that person.

What I found was as shocking as it was validating. Proof of the things I always suspected were true—things I knew, deep down, long before I ever had evidence to defend them.

Now, before we go any further, I should say this: your skepticism is merited.

Who wouldn’t hesitate when asked to believe something so unbelievable? Belief, after all, is a risky thing. It requires you to step outside the comfort of what you’ve been told is safe, sensible, and—according to your understanding—real.

Still, I’ll ask the question anyway.

Would you believe me?

Because if you wish to learn more—if you wish to see what I’m talking about for yourself—then belief is required. And if you’re not quite there yet, that’s all right. Stay with me. Read on. I may yet make you a believer. Better still, I may give you the opportunity to experience this other world firsthand. Belief will unlock a world of opportunity and adventure.

You see, I have traveled to and from this dimension successfully on countless occasions and have it down to a not-so-understood ritual-based science. I can assure you that not only is this place real, but that—with the proper instruction—you can visit it too.

I call this land the Elderwilds.

The Elderwilds are home to everything our world insists is imaginary: magic, folklore, myth, cryptids, aliens—everything paranormal. Bigfoot, Mothman, UFOs, La Llarona…the things scoffed at, blamed on shadows, bad weather, or overactive imaginations. The sort of things that vanish the moment someone pulls out a camera, leaving behind only doubt…and questions of sanity.

All of these phenomena share one thing in common.

They all originate from the Elderwilds.

It is a vast and ever-changing wilderness, stitched together by countless trails—each path leading somewhere different, each holding its own hidden entities within its depths. Some paths lead to volcanic shores where the ground still remembers fire. Others climb into frozen peaks where the air burns your lungs and footprints vanish beneath fresh snow. There are paths that have never been walked, and corners no one has yet turned.

It is quite literally impossible to know what waits around the next bend.

Which brings me to an important warning.

If you choose to follow what I am about to share, understand that you are stepping into the unknown in its purest form. What you find in the darkness may be a friend, a foe, or something that is completely indifferent. You will not know until you shed light on it.

The Elderwilds are not inherently cruel—but they are not gentle either. Anything can happen there, for good or for ill. It is certainly not a place to wander aimlessly…or alone.

Fortunately, you won’t have to.

After years of exploration—and more mistakes than I care to admit—I established a safe haven within the Elderwilds. A place to study, to explore, and to learn about the things we do not yet fully understand. A place built around community, where anyone curious enough to seek the truth can gather by the campfire and contribute to our research.

A place I proudly founded called Cryptid Camp.

My instructions below will take you directly to our main campfire at Cryptid Camp—the frontline of exploration within the Elderwilds. There, you will meet our team of Cryptozoologists, or CZOs, who will guide you through your initiation. You will meet the Elemental, protector of Cryptid Camp, and learn of the eight magical gemstones and their associated Cabins. You will learn how to gear up with supplies, traps, and two of the most important tools you will ever carry:

A Lantern, whose light does more than just illuminate—it reveals.

And a Field Codex, worn at the wrist, alien in origin and limitless in function. It records encounters, maps known territory, and syncs your discoveries from your Personal Codex to a Global Codex shared by all who explore for Cryptid Camp.

From there, you will venture beyond the camp’s safe walls in teams. You will expand the map, trail by trail. You will collect Evidence—strange remnants left behind by encounters too important to be forgotten. When cast into fire, that Evidence transforms into Memory, allowing you to witness moments from the Elderwilds’ past exactly as they happened.

Now, to the most important part of this letter: how do you get there?

To reach Cryptid Camp, one must first and foremost be a firm believer that cryptids and the many other unexplainable mysteries of our world are real. The other crucial piece to the puzzle is being able to find—or create—a campfire in a secluded place, away from those who do not believe. If you are around someone who does not believe, the magic will not activate. Once you are by the flames, speak the following phrase:

Embers burn, secrets hide—let this campfire be my guide.

When you do, something very strange will happen. A small tear in reality will open above the fire and begin to pull you toward it. Remain calm. Do not fight it. I promise you—resistance only makes the journey rougher than it needs to be.

Returning home is simpler. Use the main campfire at the heart of camp and speak:

Embers dim, secrets fade—tread the path the campfire laid.

This act closes the circle, delivering you safely to the campfire of your origin.

Once you have been bestowed your gemstone by the Elemental, the words will no longer be necessary. The gemstone alone will open the way.

I know this may feel like a great deal to take in.

That’s because it is.

What you choose to do with this knowledge is up to you.

But if this letter has stirred even the smallest spark of curiosity…

If the idea of a hidden world makes your heart beat just a little faster…

If you’ve ever wondered whether the stories were true—then perhaps this letter found you for a reason.

The campfire is waiting.

-the Groundskeeper

An old iron key groans in a lock, resisting for a second, but after a firm turn, the bolt clicks back. The man with the key puts his shoulder into the wood, and with a low, rumbling creak, the heavy door to the log cabin swings open.

Suddenly the foyer is flooded with the outside world. A single shaft of afternoon sun pierces the gloom of the interior, illuminating a veil of suspended dust. The cabin is a time capsule; everything sits exactly where it was left, as if the house has been holding its breath since the day someone last locked the door over two decades ago.

Framed by the bright green of the woodlands behind them, the Hawthorne family stands on the porch like explorers at the mouth of a cave. To Kathy and the kids, it’s an abandoned wonder they’re seeing for the first time; to James, who steps over the threshold with a heavy sigh, it’s a return to a life he hasn't seen since he was Rowan's age.

“Wow,” James whispers in awe as his brain floods him with childhood memories. The floorboards beneath his boots feel solid, though they, and everything else for that matter, lie hidden under a thick, grey carpet of dust.

“It’s good to be back. Well... mostly,” he says, the last part half to himself. He looks around at the draped furniture and the thick, silver cobwebs clinging to the rafters. “It’s not exactly the paradise I remember, kids, but after a few hours of good ol’ elbow grease, I’m sure we’ll have this place back to its former glory. Trust me, it’ll all be worth it.”

Kathy follows him in, her suitcase wheels clicking loudly against the hardwood. She removes her light jacket and hangs it on the coat rack, then looks around, taking it all in.

“It’s more beautiful than I could’ve imagined, James, really. Even with the... layers,” she says, dragging a finger along the edge of a side table. She examines the line she’s carved through the dust, failing to suppress a grimace.

She’s not wrong to be enamored with it, either. This is no ordinary log cabin. Towering timber beams, a polished stone fireplace, and handcrafted furniture speak to a level of craftsmanship rarely seen anymore.

“Though I’ll be honest, dear, in this day and age, it’s a miracle nobody’s broken in and ransacked the place,” Kathy says, visibly relieved.

"I guess that's the beauty of being this far off the map," James muses, leaning against the doorframe. "That's partially why my sister and I just never did anything with the place; it's a hassle to get here unless you know exactly where to look… Doesn't really make for a quick sale. Plus, after Dad went missing and Mom got sick, it was a lot easier to just leave it locked up than to decide what to do with it at the time."

Kathy nods sympathetically.

"Course, the locals always had stories about these woods too. Bigfoot sightings, weird sounds at night, things people swore they saw between the trees."

Kathy folds her arms. "Bigfoot, huh? Sounds more like somebody saw a bear after one too many beers."

James lets out a short laugh.

"Either way, everybody around here had a story. Some even claimed they'd seen ghost lights. Well..." He scratches his chin. "Will-o'-wisps is what they called them. Little lights wandering around the forest after dark."

"And did you ever see one?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

"Nope." He grins. "Which probably explains why I'm still a skeptic."

“Dad, seriously… Where’s that metal detector you were talking about?” Rowan interrupts and pushes past them, his eyes already scanning his new surroundings. At thirteen, he’s in the middle of a growth spurt and constantly outgrowing his favorite shirts. “You swore Peepaw’s old one is still here. You promised we could explore the woods with it!”

“Yeah, Dad. And for the record, if we do happen to find a buried fortune out there, I'm officially requesting that we swap from 'middle-of-nowhere dust-cabin' to 'Disney World' for our next family vacation,” Skye adds with an air of dry resentment. Eleven years old and already showing a sense of humor that’s distinctly her own.

She trails behind her brother, nose buried in a field guide, the sky-blue streak in her otherwise brown hair falling into her eyes as she walks. It catches the light with every step, bright, deliberate, entirely her. She’d wanted her whole head dyed, but this was the compromise her parents had allowed. Something different, something a little magical, and it stands out even more against the cabin’s dull, weathered wood.

Her eyes dart over the top of the page, quietly taking in the unfamiliar setting. Even if she’d much rather be in a resort, she knows how to make the best of just about any situation.

James rubs the back of his neck, a look of doubt crossing his face. “You know guys, come to think of it, I know he had one… Whether or not it survived the estate sale or the humidity... well that’s another story.”

Kathy leans in close to James, her voice a low murmur meant only for him: “I sure hope you didn't promise them a goose chase, James. If that thing isn't here, then you’ll be the one explaining it to them.”

He winces, suddenly second-guessing the decision to bring up the metal detector before the trip at all. “Go on, you two,” James says, waving the kids toward the stairwell. “Go ahead and get familiar with the place while we start unpacking. There’s a guest bedroom where you two can sleep with a bunk bed on the second floor. I’ve gotta get gas in the generator, and your mother will be stocking up the cabinets in the kitchen down the hall. We’ll call you both when we’re ready for help with the first round of dusting, okay? Just stay out of the attic for now… the ladder was shaky back then, Lord knows how it’s doin’ nowadays.”

The looming threat of chores is all the motivation they need to vanish. To the siblings, the cabin is a coin toss. Heads: it could contain a fantastical, life-changing discovery. Tails: it could be nothing more than the crushing boredom of a world that refuses to be magical.

Rowan is at that treacherous age where adulthood feels like it’s closing in, and looking for treasure starts to feel like something you’re supposed to outgrow. He watches his sister, a girl far too smart to be naive, yet one who willfully chooses myth over reality. She knows the physics of Santa doesn't add up, she’s done the math, but she ignores logic anyway, preferring a world that still has room for secrets to be kept.

Rowan isn’t so lucky. He is caught somewhere in the middle: too old to be naive, yet too desperate to let go. For him, this family trip is a final trial: he either finds a spark of magic in the woods this weekend, or he finally throws in the towel and accepts the mundane reality, the inevitability, of becoming an adult.

They take the stairs two at a time, their footsteps thundering through the quiet cabin, footprints appearing in the dust behind them like evidence of a crime. Framed along the walls are old family photographs. Some are sepia-toned, others black and white, each featuring faces frozen mid-laugh, mid-life. Skye slows for a second, studying the unknown faces as they pass.

“Which one do you think is Peepaw?” she asks quietly, briefly captivated by the past.

Rowan barely looks. “No idea.”

None of the photos are labeled. Some of the faces look familiar in a distant, inherited way, but none of them feel like people they’ve ever known.

Above the pictures hang relics of another era: mounted antlers and bleached skulls stare down from the walls and watch the siblings pass with hollow eyes.

They burst into the guest room and skid to a halt. Rowan reaches for the light switch out of habit before remembering the generator isn’t working yet.

The room is smaller than Rowan imagined, but cozy. A wooden bunk bed sits against the far wall, its frame sturdy and worn smooth by time. A dresser with a crooked lamp stands beneath a faded painting of a waterfall, and an oval woven rug sprawls across the center of the floor. Beyond the bunk bed, a narrow closet sits tucked into the corner, and a single window looks out onto a dense wall of green trees pressed so close they feel like they’re listening.

Skye points to the bunk bed. “Rock, paper, scissors for the top bunk?” she asks, hands already poised.

Rowan drops his backpack onto the lower mattress with a dull thud. “You can have it, Skye. I don’t care.” His tone is a forced surrender. The sound of a boy reluctantly stepping into a more mature role while his heart is still back on the top bunk.

Skye blinks and her hands drop. The thrill of the win vanishes instantly. If Rowan doesn't want it, then why should she? “Well... I was joking anyway,” she says, looking sheepish but trying to match his bored tone.

Rowan rolls his eyes, but his voice softens. “God, Skye, don't be weird about it. Take the top bunk. I know you want it.”

She hesitates, then climbs the ladder. The wood creaks under her weight, after years of no use. From above, she leans over the rail, eyes bright again.

“Hey… remember when we used to have our own bunk bed at home and we’d play fishing? You’d sit up here and cast your line out into the sea, and I’d be the fish you were catching?”

Rowan lies back on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling where dust motes drift lazily through the sunlight like microscopic planets caught in a golden tide.

“Yeah. I remember… You were a shark. I always imagined you as being a massive great white shark I was reeling in.”

His mind drifts back to those simpler times, times when use of his imagination was encouraged.

Funny how memories diverge. To Skye, she had never been a predator of the sea; she had always been a mermaid.

“Well, we could do it again y’know,” she says hopefully, her index fingers meeting and parting in a nervous, rhythmic tap. “But since I’m up here, maybe I could be the fisherman, and you could be the shark!” She overenthusiastically mimes casting a line out into the room below her, grinning at him.

He doesn’t smile back; his face turns serious. “That was a long time ago, Skye,” his words are followed by silence.

Skye’s grin falters, but she hides it quickly, mimes reeling in her line, then swings her legs over the side of the bunk. “Aw, you’re no fun…”

Rowan shrugs, staring at the floorboards.

“Maybe fun’s for little kids.”

The words land heavier than he means them to.

Skye knows it’s supposed to sound dismissive, but honestly? She’d rather be a little kid than whatever miserable thing Rowan is trying to become. She rolls her eyes.

“Oh my god, Rowan, you’re fourteen. Not forty.”

He huffs out a laugh despite himself.

“Seriously,” she says, reaching her hand down to rustle his hair. “You haven’t stopped talking about that metal detector since Dad brought it up. And now you’re just gonna sit in here and be weird all day?” She lets the last word hang in the air like a challenge, trying to prod him out of his teenage funk before the whole afternoon is wasted.

Rowan rubs at his face. She’s right and he knows it. Ever since the thought hit him, that someday he’ll have to stop pretending, stop playing around, actually become someone important, he hasn’t been able to shake it.

But the metal detector does sound better than sitting here spiraling.

“Okay, okay,” he mutters, pushing himself off the mattress. “Maybe we can still find it before Dad does.”

Skye catches the change in him immediately. Her prodding worked. Rowan stands up straighter now, looking a little more like the brother she knows.

“That’s the spirit,” she says slyly and with a tone of encouragement. “And maybe it’s just me, but I think people are allowed to have fun no matter how old they are,” she adds, pushing back against his earlier claim.

Her attention shifts.

“But just think about it Row, what if we actually find something crazy out there with the metal detector? Something worth millions of dollars! I’d buy enough books to make my own library!” Her eyes glaze over at the thought of her fantasy.

Rowan glances out the window, toward the woods beyond the glass. For a split second, something moves between the trees.

It is gone almost immediately, a dark shape slipping behind a trunk far deeper in the woods than he can clearly see. Rowan squints, waiting for it to reappear, but nothing ever does.

Probably a deer, he thinks.

He shakes his head, then turns away, still deep in thought.

“If I found something big,” he says slowly, “I think I’d do something important with it.”

“Like what?” Skye asks, snapping out of her trance.

He thinks for a second.

“I dunno. Maybe start some huge treasure-hunting company or something.” A smile finally pulls at his mouth. “We’d travel all over finding lost stuff people forgot about. Things that actually matter…”

Skye points at him dramatically. “See? See! Isn’t this way better than moping?”

Rowan shakes his head, but he can’t stop smiling. Sometimes Skye is exhausting. Other times, he isn’t sure what he’d do without her.

After a few moments of his own vivid daydreaming, Rowan returns to reality with a sigh.

“But first we need that metal detector…”

Rowan’s eyes dart around mischievously. “Stay right there. I’ll be right back.”

He peeks into the hallway and slips out like a shadow. Before Skye can even argue or scramble down from the top bunk, he’s back, breathing hard.

“Dad’s wrestling with the generator still and Mom’s elbow-deep in the kitchen cabinets. I say we hit the attic ourselves,” Rowan whispers, his eyes wide with newfound energy. “If we find the metal detector, Dad will be impressed. If we don’t... well, no one has to know we went looking for it. You in?”

“The attic?” Skye’s voice drops to a matching whisper. “But Dad said the ladder is shaky.”

“Dad says everything is shaky, he’s just being overprotective,” Rowan scoffs, though he looks a little tense himself, not fully confident in his own words. But a shaky ladder isn’t enough to scare him away from his mission. “If the metal detector is anywhere, it’s gonna be up there. You coming or what?”

Together they creep into the hallway. Rowan reaches up and pulls the frayed cord dangling from the ceiling—a task that would have been impossible just a year ago, but his recent growth spurt is finally working in his favor. With a muffled screech of protesting from the rusty hinges, the wooden ladder unfolds and meets the floorboards with a gentle thud. Miraculously, the noises aren’t loud enough to trigger an inquisitive shout from Mom downstairs.

Rowan goes first, his sneakers squeaking on the rungs. Dad wasn’t kidding either: the ladder is not very sturdy after all, and it groans under Rowan’s gangly weight. 

“Uh… I don’t know, Row,” Skye whispers from behind him, her heart drumming against her ribs. She isn't typically known for breaking rules. “I’ll stay back and keep an eye out for Mom and Dad.” 

It’s a clever move—offering tactical support while avoiding the darkness of the dingy attic.

“Oh, come on, you big wuss. You’re really gonna bail now?” He teases, though he knows her mind is set. “Fine. I’ll do it myself. Just give me a whistle if someone’s coming, okay?”

“Roger,” she replies with a mock salute, followed by a heavy sigh the moment his shoes disappear into the hatch.

The attic is a furnace of stagnant air and somehow even thicker dust than the rooms below. The roof is low forcing any adult to crouch, but for Rowan, it’s a secret hideout of the perfect height. Tattered windows on opposite sides, caked in decades of grime, filter the sun into sickly yellow beams. The sills are graveyards of hundreds of ladybug shells, spindled spider husks, and mouse droppings.

Rowan’s eyes scan the chaos: stacks of 1982 Sears catalogs, headless mannequins, and rusted hunting gear lay scattered among piles of cardboard boxes and mismatched containers. The attic feels untouched, sealed away like a forgotten tomb waiting to be disturbed.

He pushes aside a pile of old magazines and ventures deeper into the clutter, intent on his mission, until a voice chirps from right behind him.

“Any luck?”

Rowan jolts, knocking over a stack of shoeboxes that hit the floor with an echoing THUMP.

He spins around, eyes wide, only to see Skye peeking through the hatch. She clearly couldn't resist seeing for herself.

“Rowan? Skye?” their mother’s voice calls distantly from the kitchen. “What was that?”

Rowan’s heart sinks into the pit of his stomach. He scrambles toward the ladder, panic rising. Not enough time. I need more time!

“Oh, it was nothing, Mom!” Skye shouts from the hatch, her voice steady despite the chaos. “I just tripped. I’m fine!”

“You two better not be running in the house, do you hear me?” followed by a well-rehearsed “We’re not!”

After a few moments, Skye whips her head around and whispers “Ok, Mom bought it, now hurry up will ya?” She gives him a glare before disappearing back down the ladder to reclaim her post. She’s an accomplice—too deep into Rowan’s tomfoolery to back out now.

After a deep sigh of relief, Rowan returns to the maze, his shoulder brushing against the massive ridge beam that anchors the peak of the roof. He pauses, squinting at a spot where the wood looks intentionally scarred. With a quick swipe of his sleeve, he clears away a thick crust of grey dust to reveal a mark burned deep into the grain. It isn’t a random scratch but instead a precise branded design: a giant eyeball hovering above a campfire. He traces the charred edges with his thumb, wondering what it means—and, even more, why the architect would bother branding a beam that hardly anyone would ever see.

Out of the corner of his eye, a shadow stirs. He turns, but nothing is there. A cold prickle dances down his spine. Until now, he hadn’t seriously considered that the cabin might be haunted. But standing alone in the dim attic of an unfamiliar cabin in the middle of nowhere, the idea suddenly feels far less ridiculous.

He either needs to hurry up or give up, and he’s not about to accept defeat just yet. He pushes through a wall of boxes, finding old crutches and a walking stick, but still no metal detector.

Rowan reaches for an object that looks promising, only to uncover an ugly, forgotten coat rack. 

“Ugh… where is it?” he mutters to himself, frustration mounting. “It has to be here somewhere!”

Then, a draft—ice-cold and smelling faintly of dried lavender—brushes past his ear. It is so close he feels the hair on his neck shift.

“Have you tried looking over there…?” The whisper was so light it could have been the wind whistling through a cracked windowpane, yet it felt... intentional. 

Before he can even look for the source, a box on the far side of the room rustles. It tips slowly, until it falls as if pushed by an invisible hand, and lands with a soft thud on its side.

“Oh, I guess I haven’t. Good idea, Skye,” Rowan replies instinctively. He takes two steps toward the box before the logic catches up to him like a physical blow. Rowan’s breath hitches. Wait a minute, isn’t Skye downstairs? She’s still on the lookout, isn’t she?

“We don’t have all day, Row!” his sister’s unmistakable voice hisses from the hatch—distinctly further away and much more impatient than the voice he just heard.

He freezes and his eyes go wide. The panic takes root, but then his gaze locks onto the fallen box. Printed in faded 70s typography is the silhouette of a long-handled device: THE PATHFINDER – HIGH-SENSITIVITY METAL DETECTOR.

“Aha!” His fear is immediately overridden by the thrill of finding his bounty. He lunges for the box and rips the flaps open.

His face falls.

It’s just a hollow shell. An empty box. No batteries, no detector, not even a user manual. “Are you kidding me?” he groans, tossing the empty cardboard aside with dismay.

But as the box tumbles away, it reveals what is hidden behind it all along. Tucked into the shadows of the nook is an ornate chest. It’s heavy, dark wood bound in tarnished brass—looking less like a storage container and more like a relic dragged from a shipwreck. It sits there, pulsing with a strange, undeniable gravity.

Rowan is captivated. He leans in, forgetting the time constraint, forgetting the ghost. He pries it open and inside is an uncanny array of mysterious objects: a brass spyglass, a shimmering paintbrush, and an ornate ocarina, among a handful of objects he’s never seen before. Among the trinkets is a second, smaller chest with runes on it. Rowan flips the lid to find two pieces of paper within.

“Ew, cursive,” he whispers, ignoring the particularly lengthy handwritten note. He unfolds the second page and his eyes go wide. “Is this... a map?”

Fwheee-ooo-fwheee!

A sharp whistle rings out from below. The signal.

Rowan scrambles. In his shock, the note slips from his fingers, fluttering into the dark recesses of the chest. He doesn't have time to grab it. He stuffs the map into his vest, slams the chest closed, dives for the ladder, and descends as fast as physically possible.

He hits the floor, heaves the folded ladder back into the ceiling with a THUMP, then quickly steadies the dangling cord. The hatch snaps shut just as Kathy rounds the corner from the stairwell with Skye walking backwards along with her, clearly doing her best to slow her down.

“Well, what was that?” Kathy asks exasperatedly, looking from a dust-covered Rowan to a very guilty-looking Skye.

“Well... maybe Row fell down, too?” Skye shrugs, trying to explain it away. She notices the ladder is up just in time and breathes a silent sigh of relief.

“Oh, hey! Sorry, Mom,” Rowan blurts out, his voice a pitch too high. He quickly brushes grey streaks off his jeans and sleeves. “I just... stubbed my toe on the dresser.” He instinctively rubs the back of his neck and in that moment clearly resembles his father. 

He tries to look innocent, but his mind is spinning. He has a mysterious map in his pocket, a chest full of strange treasures above him, and the very real feeling that they are not alone in this cabin.

Kathy stands akimbo, her gaze tracking the way they’re both breathing just a little too fast. She isn't buying any of their excuses for a second.

“Nice try, you two,” she says, cutting through Rowan's high-pitched defense. “But I wasn’t born yesterday, and you’re not as sneaky as you think you are. You want to stay busy? Fine. I’ve got two rags and a bottle of cleaner with your names on them. We’re starting with the dusting. Rowan, take the higher shelves. Skye, the baseboards. I'll get the rags and the Pine-Sol. Let's go.”

Rowan and Skye follow her like prisoners of war being marched to the gallows. Skye’s legs are practically vibrating with all of her unasked questions. Her eyes dart to Rowan every three seconds, her mind spinning: What was even up there? Why was it taking him so long? Did he find the metal detector? Or was it something better?

Meanwhile, Rowan’s pulse is a dull thud in his ears. The map is stiff in his vest pocket. Every time he moves, he’s terrified it will crinkle loud enough for Mom to hear. Was that really an X on the map? Like a treasure map?

The floorboards shudder as a low, mechanical rumble groans throughout the entire house. A second later, the overhead lights flicker to life, casting a warm, yellow glow that combats the shadows.

“Generator’s up!” James shouts from outside, sounding triumphant.

“That’s great dear!” Kathy calls back, handing a spray bottle and a rag to each kid. “Now, get busy. Let’s get that living room spotless. Once you’re done with the dusting, you can head outside for an hour before we start the grill. No woods, no wandering—just the porch and the yard. Understood?”

“Understood,” they say in a flat, practiced unison.

For the next forty minutes, it is a delicate, agonizing dance. James wanders in and out, smelling of gasoline, basking in nostalgia, and offering words of encouragement about how “one day of sweat means a weekend of fishing and marshmallows.” Every time he or Kathy turns their back, Skye pounces on her brother.

“Rowan,” she hisses, swiping a rag half-heartedly over a coffee table. “Tell me. Now. What did you find?”

“Shut up, Skye,” he whispers, aggressively polishing a wooden lamp. “Mom’s right there.”

“If you don't tell me, I swear I'm going to scream!”

Rowan winces, looking over his shoulder. Kathy is in the kitchen, just out of sight but well within earshot. He leans in close, his voice barely a breath. 

“The metal detector was gone. But there was a big pirate-looking chest… I opened it and found some crazy stuff… but there was a freaking map inside.” He flashes the edge of the folded paper to validate his claim.

Skye’s eyes go wide. She nearly drops her spray bottle. She herself becomes a bottle of emotion, about to explode. 

“A map? To what? Is there an X? Like a treasure map? Show me!” She lunges for his pocket, her fingers grazing the fabric.

“Skye! Knock it off!” Rowan pivots, nearly knocking over the lamp.

“Everything okay in there?” Kathy’s voice rings out from the kitchen. She steps into the doorway, drying her hands on a towel, her eyes narrowed.

Rowan freezes, his heart leaping into his throat. He snatches a stray leather-bound book from the shelf and holds it up. “Everything’s fine! Skye just—she found a huge spider… And I grabbed this to squash it, but the bugger got away and disappeared behind the shelves.”

Skye picks up on the cue, pulling a face of theatrical disgust. "Yeah. It was huge." She shudders dramatically. “So, no, everything's not fine. Now it's just... lurking somewhere, and now I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight.” She can't help but be a little proud of herself and her knack for improvisation.

Kathy stares at them for a long beat, the air thick with suspicion. Finally, she huffs. “Well, if the spider's gone, finish the shelves. You're almost done.”

By the time they are released, the sun is fading to violet behind the trees, casting long shadows across the yard.

“Stay within sight of the house! It’s going to get dark soon and I don’t need you two getting lost,” James calls out from the porch, fully immersed in grilling.

“We won’t!” Rowan shouts back, already moving.

They don’t look back. They walk with a fake, strolling casualness, counting the seconds until the cabin is obscured by a thicket of mountain laurel. The moment the porch light vanishes behind the greenery, Rowan’s pace shifts. He breaks into a jog, his hand pressed against the map in his pocket. Then, Rowan grabs Skye’s arm. “This way. C’mon.”

“Rowan, wait,” Skye pulls him to a stop, her eyes darting toward the encroaching dark. The woods here aren't like the parks back home; the trees are old, gnarled, and packed so tightly they seem to be watching them. 

“Dad said stay in sight. We’re already pushing it… Maybe we should just show them the map tomorrow,” Skye says nervously. “We could all come back together in the daytime.”

Rowan immediately shakes his head, his mind already made up. “And tell Dad we went into the attic after he specifically told us not to?”

Skye opens her mouth, then closes it.

“Besides,” Rowan adds quickly, “if this turns out to be nothing, we’ll just look stupid. Let’s at least see where it goes first.”

He pulls the map from his jacket pocket and unfolds it carefully, studying the faded markings in the dying sunlight. His finger traces along the crooked trail lines.

“It’s right here, Skye. Look at the landmarks. Here’s the cabin, and here’s the X! It can’t be more than half a mile away!” He points to a crude drawing of a crooked post. 

“The ‘Jagged Totem.’ That’s got to be that rotted cedar post by the trailhead we passed coming in. I think if we run, we can get to this X and back again in ten minutes or so. If we don’t go now, we may never know.” 

The pleading edge in Rowan’s voice is every bit as strong as his determination.

Skye hesitates, her sneakers hovering over the line where the cleared path ends and the wild overgrowth begins. She looks back at the faint glow of the cabin, then at her brother. The "smart" part of her brain is screaming to turn back, but the part of her that still believes in mermaids and magic is winning.

“Five minutes,” she bargains, her voice trembling. “If we don’t find the first turn in five minutes, we’re going back for dinner. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They plunge in. The transition is immediate. The air grows five degrees cooler, smelling of damp earth and ancient pine. Every snapped twig under Rowan's shoes sounds like a gunshot in the twilight silence. They find and pass the cedar totem pole, its wood grey and splintered. 

Rowan keeps his eyes on the horizon, tracking the sun’s descent into the west to keep his bearings. It’s a solid anchor for the map’s landmarks, but it is a fleeting one; the sun will be fully extinguished within the hour.

After crashing through another thicket, they splash into a shallow creek. Orange water, thick with iron ore, stains their sneakers as they pass. 

Skye’s breath is coming in jagged bursts now as she struggles to keep up with her brother, who pushes farther ahead with every step. Every time she glances sideways, the brush seems to rustle. It isn't just the wind either; she begins to worry that someone—or something—is keeping pace with them just beyond the tree line.

They are barely ten minutes into the journey when the trees thin just enough to reveal a pond, its surface as flat and unnerving as black glass. Nearby, frogs croak in an uneven chorus as Skye finally catches up to Rowan and grabs the back of his vest.

“Row, stop! This is more than half a mile. We can't even see the porch light anymore!” Her chest and lungs are burning, not just from the hike, but from the growing fear that she's made a terrible mistake. “This is a bad idea. We don't have a flashlight, the sun’s going down, plus I think something’s—”

“Skye, look!” Rowan points straight ahead, dumbfounded.

Through a break in the heavy hemlock branches, a flickering glow pulses. It isn't the warm, yellow light of the cabin. It’s a mysterious, rhythmic, dancing blue. 

The map’s X leads them into a small clearing in the woods. At its center, a campfire crackles. 

The healthy blaze roars, its flames licking at the twilight air with strange, blue-tinted tongues. Together they look around to confirm that they are alone.

“Wait a minute though… Who made this fire?” Rowan whispers, reason failing him. “We’re miles from the nearest town. Mom and Dad said we wouldn’t find a soul out here. But if there’s no one here then...”

The air begins to hum. It’s a low-frequency vibration that makes them both instantly feel uneasy.

“Rowan... look at the smoke,” Skye says pointing, her voice trembling.

The smoke doesn't rise into the sky like it normally should. Instead, it swirls into a tight, spinning vortex directly above the flames. Suddenly, the air tears open before them, unleashing a violent wind that crashes in from all directions.

With an uncanny sound somewhere between a wet sheet being ripped and a thunderclap, a jagged hole opens in the middle of the clearing just above the campfire. It’s a rip in reality itself—a spontaneous portal to another dimension. It’s unlike anything the children have ever seen and its aura is entirely threatening.

“RUN!” Rowan shouts, grabbing Skye’s hand.

But as they try to escape, they realize that the wind isn't blowing out; it's sucking in. A localized hurricane of wind and sparks sweeps through the clearing. Rowan digs his heels into the dirt, his gangly frame straining against the vacuum, but before long, the ground gives way.

Skye’s feet leave the earth first. “Rowan!” Then she screams. It is high and piercing, vibrating through Rowan's very teeth, nearly drowning out the unnatural howl of the wind. It is a sound of absolute terror.

“I've got you!” He lunges forward courageously, his fingers locking around her wrist, but the portal roars, climaxing with a blinding flash of white light swallowing the clearing.

In a heartbeat, the wind dies. The portal vanishes. The only sound left in that clearing of Pennsylvania woods is the low crackle of the campfire. 

Back at the cabin, miles away and worlds apart, James and Kathy continue to prepare dinner blissfully unaware.

The Hawthorne children are gone.

The world doesn't just change; it shatters. One moment Rowan is gripping Skye’s wrist in the familiar pine-scented woods of Pennsylvania; the next, the very idea of up and down feels less like a law and more like a suggestion. Reality folds in on itself and both siblings endure a kaleidoscopic transition of blinding light.
Wind roars through his skull with the force of a freight train, and for one impossible instant Rowan has the sickening sensation that he is falling in every direction at once. Then the void spits them out.
They hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud that knocks the breath straight out of Rowan’s chest. For a second he can do nothing but lie there, blinking against the dizziness while the world whips and tilts around him. When he tries to push himself up, his palms sink into something soft. Soft and moving. Rowan senses it immediately, everything about this place is wrong.
The ground beneath his hands is a plush carpet of moss, but unlike any he has ever seen. It glows with a faint bioluminescent violet, each tiny filament pulsing as if lit from within, and when his fingers press into it the whole surface seems to shiver in response. The air is different too. It hangs thick and sweet around him, rich with an almost sugary scent that reminds him of wildflowers and rain. Every breath feels heavy in his lungs, as though the atmosphere itself is charged.
It is too much for his senses to process, and a violent storm of nausea rolls through him. His stomach does a frantic somersault and Rowan doubles over, vomiting into the glowing moss. Beside him Skye makes a miserable choking sound, tries to stand, and immediately drops to her knees as she gets sick too. For a few long moments they can do nothing but kneel there in the strange violet clearing, gasping and trembling while their brains struggle to catch up with whatever just happened.
Once the vertigo fully fades, Rowan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, squints, and his eyes focus on something unbelievable. Pressed deep into the luminous moss right beside them is a footprint one single, enormous print, unmistakably shaped like a human foot but so massive it makes Rowan’s entire sneaker look toy-sized by comparison. Five broad toes. A wide heel. A deep impression, as though whatever made it was both huge and heavy.
His heart stutters. For a breathless instant he forgets his nausea. He leans toward it, every nerve suddenly awake. The print is too clear to be chance, too deliberate to be some trick of the moss. Something stood here. Something enormous.
“Rowan…?” Skye whimpers somewhere beside him.
Rowan glances at her and then back at the footprint. Already the edges are softening. The glowing moss is rising again in slow, silky tendrils, knitting itself back together as though the ground is healing. The print fades before his eyes, the heel filling first, then the ball, then the impressions of those giant toes, until at last there is nothing there at all but a faint darker patch and the memory of what he just saw.
Rowan swallows hard. Whatever caused that must’ve happened very recently. He considers pointing it out to Skye, but one look at her pale face changes his mind. She’s already teetering on the edge of panic they both are. Telling her they may not be alone would push her right over it, so Rowan says nothing.
Slowly he lifts his head, still taking in his surroundings. Above them, between a canopy of strange fungi, the sky is a swirling pool of colors that should not exist together, teals and deep plums and ripples of electric amber that slide over one another like oil on water. It does not look like a sky at all. It looks like a sea of liquid light suspended overhead. At the center of that impossible expanse, two suns, one deep crimson, the other aquamarine; wheel around each other in a slow celestial waltz, casting a vivid violet light strange enough to make Rowan’s breath catch all over again.
The forest around them is comprised of mushrooms and odd plants that resemble ferns. Not little toadstools or fairy-ring mushrooms either, but colossal fungi in every shape imaginable. Some are no taller than Rowan’s knee, with round umbrella caps and stems that are pale and luminous, like ivory under moonlight. Others tower so high he cannot see where their stalks end. Their thick trunks twist upward into vast frilled tops that spread across the sky like treetops, except the undersides are all delicate gills, rippling softly in the wind and glowing along the edges in violet, emerald, and blue.
“Rowan…where are we?” Skye’s voice is small, peeping like a church mouse amazed to be alive after a close encounter with a cat.
Rowan doesn't answer immediately. He can’t. He’s too busy watching the way the violet sunlight catches the translucent edges of the strange towering fungi surrounding them. He turns to her at last. Her eyes are huge. Her freckles stand out starkly against the whiteness of her face. He reaches down automatically and hauls her to her feet. She feels lighter than she should, as if the gravity here is struggling to hold onto them.
“I don’t know,” he says, and his own voice sounds odd in the sweet thick air, thin and hollow, as if the world is absorbing part of it. He looks past her, half expecting to see the campfire or the portal or even the familiar trees of Pennsylvania, but there is nothing. No fire. No rip in the air. No trail leading back to anything he recognizes.
“But we’re not in the woods anymore.” He pauses and tries to find the right words. “Honestly, I don’t think we’re even on Earth anymore.” He hears the foolishness of the sentence and laughs once under his breath, sharp with disbelief.
“We have to go back!” Skye whirls in a frantic circle, her sneakers sinking into the pulsating moss. “Right now! The fire, that portal, it has to come back! Mom and Dad are going to think we got eaten by a bear! We’re going to miss dinner and then Dad will get mad and then Mom will cry and…”
“Skye. Skye…” he tries to calm her down but it’s no use.
“No, you don’t understand,” she says, her words tripping over one another. “We can’t be here. We just can’t. This isn’t, this isn’t possible!”
While she spirals, Rowan forces himself to look around properly. Beyond the clearing, narrow trails snake between the towering fungi in all directions, but even the paths do not make sense.
One glimmers with a cold silver light, and through its arch of mushroom trunks Rowan thinks he sees snowflakes falling inward through an ethereal veil and landing on the moss. Through that veil, Rowan sees jagged mountains rising over a vast wintry landscape.
Another trail shimmers gold and blue, with warm air rolling from it as if a tropical beach lies just beyond the bend. A tide gently ebbs and flows at the entrance, waiting for someone to cross its threshold. It feels like standing in the seam between worlds, where every path carries its own season, its own atmosphere, and leads somewhere impossible.
His mind keeps trying to latch onto one detail long enough to understand it, only to be bombarded by the next fascination. Two suns. Glowing moss. Fungi the size of redwoods. Trails stitched from different climates. A massive footprint, already vanished as if this strange world wants to hide its own evidence.
“Skye, stop for a second and look at this place,” he says, unable to keep the awe from his voice. “Just look. There are two suns! How is any of this real?”
He intended to say something comforting, something an older brother should say, but even to his own ears it came out wrong. He is still too stunned to offer anything more.
But as the words leave his mouth, beneath the wonder, something colder begins to take root inside him. Survival. They are lost in a place that should not exist, and something large is close by. If he doesn't get a grip soon, “lost” will become the least of their problems.
He scans the area again, and this time his eyes catch on a narrower trail curling upward between two colossal mushroom trunks. The path climbs toward a ridge, and from there, if they can reach it, they might be able to see farther. Maybe there is another portal. Maybe there is a road. Maybe there’s something. Anything.
His gaze flicks involuntarily to the place where the footprint vanished.
“It’s a dream,” Skye concludes suddenly, with the brittle certainty of someone clinging to the nearest lifeboat. Her lower lip trembles despite the brave voice. “That’s what this is. I must’ve fallen asleep after cleaning with you. This is some weird lucid dream, that’s all.” She screws her eyes shut and balls both fists.
“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!”
Rowan waits.
She stays frozen for five seconds, then ten. When she opens her eyes, the twin suns still blaze overhead, turning their slow dance through the sky. The glowing mushrooms all around them are still pulsating and swaying. A sob tears out of her. “Why am I not waking up, Row?”
That does it. The wonder drains out of him and leaves only the hot, primitive need to protect her. He steps in, grips both her shoulders, and looks her squarely in the face. Then he pinches her upper arm with his fingernails.
“Ow!” she yelps, jerking away. It’s the first normal reaction he’s seen from her since they arrived, the first sign she’s still herself. “Why’d you have to go and do that?”
“Because it’s not a dream,” Rowan says, softer now. “I’m sorry. But it’s not!” He points toward the ridge. “We’re here, wherever here is, and if we panic we’ll only make it worse. We need to get over to that hill there. If we can see farther, maybe we can find a way out of this mess.”
“Why over there?” She lets out a shaky laugh that sounds more like a hiccup. “We should stay right here if you ask me. What if the portal opens back up again? We need to be here when it happens. Mom and Dad could find us. People always say if you’re lost, you’re supposed to stay put.”
“And what if the portal doesn’t come back?” The words come out harsher than he intends. He takes a breath and tries again. “Look, Skye, we’re sitting ducks out here… In the middle of a giant glowing mushroom forest that has two suns. This place could be really dangerous. We need to find somewhere safe… and I’m not betting on the portal coming back either.”
She shakes her head furiously, adamant. “If we leave this spot, we’ll get lost forever!”
We’re already lost, Rowan thinks to himself with frustration. The memory of the footprint flashes across his mind. He imagines saying the words out loud. There was something here before us. Something huge. And then he imagines Skye breaking completely. So he keeps that to himself too.
“Not if I can help it,” he says instead, and this time the truth of it cracks his voice. He reins it in. “Skye, you’re going to need to trust me. If something is lurking out there and finds us first, we won’t even see it coming! At least from the top of the hill we’ll know what’s around us.” He holds out his hand. “We’ll just go up, look around, and come right back if that’s what you want. I’ll hold your hand the whole way. Promise.”
Skye stares first at the ridge and then at the place where the portal ought to be. The empty air there feels stale, heavy with absence. At last, she reaches out and threads her fingers through his.
Rowan can see it in her face, the argument still going on inside her: this is all your fault, trusting you is what got me here in the first place. But fear is louder than any blame game right now, and in this moment Skye just wants a hand to hold.
“Just the hill,” she says. “Then we come back. Promise?”
“Promise,” Rowan says, praying he is not lying.

They set off together along the narrow path, their sneakers sinking softly into the purple moss. The ground feels almost spring-loaded beneath their feet, compressing like velvet beneath every step before slowly pushing back into shape behind them.

The air grows warmer as they climb, and Rowan catches a faint trace of damp earth and woodsmoke: the kind of scent that clings to a jacket long after a campfire has burned out.

As they wind between the giant mushroom stalks, unfamiliar sounds drift through the fungal forest. None belong to any deer, owl, fox, or bear Rowan has ever heard back home in Pennsylvania.

Somewhere far away, something crashes into a body of water with tremendous force. The splash echoes across the distance like thunder.

Rowan stops and lifts a hand. Skye freezes beside him. Maybe they should have stayed put after all, he thinks.

A moment later, a long, mournful cry rises through the mushroom cap canopy. It begins somewhere in the distance, then swells overhead until Rowan can no longer tell which direction it is coming from—or how far away it really is.

The hairs along his arms stand upright.

Skye’s gaze darts in all directions as she presses closer to him. “What was that?”

“Not sure… but I hope we don’t find out,” he admits.

Determined to press ahead, they continue uphill.

Ahead, suspended between two enormous ferns, floats a cluster of jagged stones. At first Rowan mistakes it for some trick of the strange light, but then one of the smaller rocks drifts behind a boulder and reappears on the other side.

Rocks no larger than apples circle beside slabs the size of kitchen stoves, all revolving around the same empty point in the air as though something invisible there possesses its own gravity. Their movement is slow and strangely orderly, each stone passing the others without ever colliding.

Skye stops beside him, her face incapable of hiding her wonder. “Do you think it’s alive?”

“I dunno…” he says, scratching his chin and examining it. “Looks like they’re just rocks to me.”

Rowan studies the formation more closely. There are no eyes, no limbs, nothing that should make him think of a living creature—and yet the cluster seems to shift as they approach, the stones spreading slightly apart as though it is becoming aware of them. Or perhaps they are only continuing their endless orbit.

Either way, curiosity gets the better of him. Rowan steps closer and reaches toward one of the smaller rocks before he can think better of it. The moment his fingertips graze its rough surface, the stone glides away as lightly as a balloon escaping someone’s grasp. It turns slowly through the air, circles the formation, and eases back into place.

Skye slaps his hand and nearly yanks his sleeve off at the same time. “Rowan! Are you crazy? Don’t go touching things! Are you trying to get us killed? We’re in some magical mushroom death forest, and you’re all like Don’t mind if I do!” she says comically imitating him while pretending to reach out and touch a stone.

Despite everything going on, despite how overwhelmed and scared he is, Rowan can't help but smile. It is such a Skye thing to say—dramatic and furious and deeply reasonable all at once.

Then the light changes.

A broad shadow sweeps across the path, swallowing the violet glow beneath their feet. Rowan grabs Skye by the shoulder and pulls her down beside him. Something passes high above the mushroom caps, large enough to darken the entire trail.

The frilled canopy shivers in its wake.

Rowan remains crouched, staring upward. His heartbeat thuds against his ribs as the shadow stretches further away on the trail. For the briefest instant, he glimpses what he can only describe as a dark man with glowing red eyes and very large wings.

And then just as suddenly as it appears, the figure disappears into the violet haze.

Skye whispers, “Was that some sort of bird?” 

“That would have to be a really big bird to cast a shadow like that…,” Rowan says, not entirely sure he wants to describe what he saw to his sister.

Neither of them moves for several seconds. The moment they feel less threatened, they continue onward.

The path climbs more steeply from there, curling between mushrooms with glowing gills. Clouds of luminous spores drift around them, settling in Skye’s hair and shimmering across Rowan’s sleeves like tiny fallen stars.

The crest of the hill is just ahead. Light pours over its edge, bright enough to make the air itself appear as though it is calling to them. Rowan has the odd sensation that the land is directing his gaze upward, ushering him toward whatever waits on the other side.

He takes the final few steps.

Then he stops so abruptly that Skye walks straight into his back.

“Ow!” She rubs her forehead. “What is it? Rowan, move.”

He cannot. Skye slips around him—and immediately falls silent.

Below them stretches a landscape so immense and unfathomable that the woods of Pennsylvania shrink in Rowan’s mind to something small enough to fit inside a snow globe.

Valleys of glowing moss roll toward the horizon in slow violet pulses, as though the land itself is breathing. Forests of colossal fungi rise from the valleys, their caps bending and swaying beneath invisible currents of air. Rivers of silver cut through the wilderness, flashing like ribbons of molten metal.

Far beyond them, at an incomprehensible distance, mountains hang upside down beneath the swirling sky. Their jagged peaks trail through the clouds like reflections that have forgotten which way is up or down.

For several long moments, neither sibling speaks.

Nothing is still. Even what should be. Even the distant mountains drift and sway as the forests bow and rise. Colored light moves through the sky in vast, slow currents. This world feels ancient in a way that doesn't belong to time. It feels alive, aware, and as if it has always been here.

Beside him, Skye releases a tiny breath. “Whoa.”

It is the smallest word she could have chosen, but Rowan cannot think of a better one.

As Rowan struggles to take it all in, a metallic flash cuts across the sky.

He jerks his head up in time to see a smooth disc-shaped object slice between the clouds. It banks in a sharp, perfect curve no airplane could survive, blue sunlight flashing across its underside before it streaks toward the horizon.

Skye raises a hand to shield her eyes. “Row… was that a UFO?”

Before Rowan can answer, the lake below them erupts once more. Water explodes upward in a gleaming tower.

Something enormous rises from beneath the surface—a long serpentine neck, dark as wet stone, climbing higher and higher into the strange light. Water streams down the creature’s ridged back in shining curtains. Its small head turns, and for one breathless instant Rowan sees an enormous black eye reflecting the twin suns.

The creature arches above the lake. Then it plunges.

It strikes the surface with a boom that rolls across the valley like thunder, just like they heard before. Waves race toward the shore, flattening reeds and sending flocks of strange birds bursting from the trees.

The lake begins to settle. Ripples spread across its silver surface, growing wider and fainter until the creature is once again hidden beneath the calm.

Skye stares at the place where it vanished, completely in shock.

“Don’t even say it,” she whispers.

“That was the Loch Ness Monster, wasn’t it?” Rowan asks stunned.

“I told you not to say it.”

“But that was actually the Loch Ness Monster,” he insists.

“That or the same species… There could be more than one.”

Rowan looks at her.

Skye’s eyes remain fixed on the water. “I don’t know whether that makes this better or worse.”

Before Rowan can decide, Skye’s gaze shifts and she points, exclaiming, “Row, look!”

High above, perched on the highest of mushroom caps, is a tall figure with the shape of a man and wings like torn sails of black velvet. Its head turns and two crimson lights flare where its eyes should be.

Rowan’s breath catches. The word escapes before he can stop it.

“Mothman,” he whispers.

“My classmate Dan has a binder with him on it!” Skye says after overhearing her brother. 

For one terrible moment, Rowan is certain those burning eyes are about to settle on them as the creature surveys the land. Skye catches the back of his vest and pulls herself close, as though trying to hide behind him without moving.

The red gaze passes over the crest of the hill. Then the figure stretches its wings, takes flight, and disappears into the deeper shadows of the canopy.

Skye’s fingers remain locked around Rowan’s vest.

As his gaze returns to the valley, he notices movement everywhere.

Great shapes prowl along distant ridges, appearing briefly between the swaying fungal caps before vanishing again. Something vast circles above the highest clouds, visible only when its outline passes across the colored sky.

A realization forms in Rowan’s mind. Every campfire story. Every blurry photograph. Every creature someone claimed to glimpse before it disappeared into the trees.

What if they were not made-up stories? What if they were just glimpses of this place?

Brief cracks between our worlds... these portals. Creatures wandering through by accident. Pieces of this strange place leaking into stories until no one remembered where the truth ended and the legend began.

Rowan feels suddenly unsteady.

“The stories…,” is all he can muster to say at first.

Skye looks at him. “What?”

“All of them. Bigfoot. Mothman. Loch Ness Monster...” He stares across the unbelievable valley. “They’re not myths at all! They all come from here!”

Considering everything they'd witnessed in the last few hours, Rowan would have sworn his sister had exhausted every possible expression of disbelief. Yet somehow, she managed to discover an entirely new one.

For a long moment, the two of them stand side by side on the crest of the hill, looking out over the impossible expanse. 

Then the wind changes. At first, it is only a subtle shift. The sweet scent in the air curdles. The cedar-smoke smell vanishes beneath a bitter metallic tang that coats the back of Rowan’s tongue like blood on a penny. Across the valley, the distant cries begin to die away one by one.

Skye notices first. “Row, why did everything get quiet all of a sudden?” 

She is right. Her question sounds abnormally loud. The distant shapes have vanished into cover. Even the strange birds that burst from the lakeside mushrooms have fallen silent. The whole world seems to draw in a breath and hold it.

Far out on the horizon, the mists part. The glowing valley begins to darken—not with the natural fading of day, but with something that moves like darkness given shape. Rowan squints toward it, at first thinking he is watching some monstrous storm roll across the land. But storms do not travel with purpose. Storms do not leave dead ground in their wake like this entity does.

A jagged silhouette rises above the forest, enormous and shifting, a towering absence of light that seems less like a creature than a wound torn into the world. It does not so much walk as loom forward, its edges writhing like tattered fabric under flowing water. Wherever it passes, the luminous moss below withers from vivid violet to a diseased, necrotic gray. Floating spores dim and fall lifelessly from the air in its presence. Even the twin blue suns seem to bend and weaken around it, their light waning in the face of that creeping void.

Cold dread pours through Rowan so suddenly it catches him off guard. The stories may belong here, but this thing certainly does not.

Skye clutches his vest with both hands now, pulling at him. “Rowan… it’s coming this way!”

The wonder of the land before them shatters.

“RUN!” he shouts.

He spins and drags Skye toward the path, but he only gets three steps before he stops dead so abruptly, she once more collides with him. A massive shape has stepped silently out of the brush behind them.

For one awful second, Rowan thinks the shadow has circled around them somehow—that another monster has come to cut off their escape. Then the creature takes one step farther into the blue light, and Rowan sees thick cinnamon-colored fur, arms like tree trunks, and a face that is unmistakably human-like in shape no matter how astonishing the rest of it is.

The smell of cedar smoke and damp earth reaches him again, much more prominently now.

His mind clicks backward with dizzying speed: the giant fading footprint in the moss, the strange scent in the air, the feeling of being watched in the woods earlier. They were never alone this whole time.

“Rowan, I don’t care if we are running for our lives but if you make me run into you one more time—,” Skye begins visibly agitated before the words fade once more to awe. “Bigfoot!” she breathes, wide-eyed. 

The name is almost too ridiculous for the moment, and yet somehow perfectly fitting. There is no mistaking him. He stands nearly nine feet tall, broad as a doorway, his amber eyes deep and intelligent beneath a heavy brow. For a heartbeat he looks at the children—not blankly, not curiously, but knowingly, as if he has been keeping track of them for far longer than either of them realized.

Then his gaze shifts past them to the approaching darkness. Something changes in his face. His upper lip curls, revealing broad teeth. A low rumbling growl rolls out of his chest, not wild but deliberate—a warning. And Rowan has the strangest, most unsettling impression that Bigfoot recognizes the thing on the horizon.

The shadow looms closer. Wind begins to sweep across the hill with a harsh scraping sound, and down in the valley patches of violet moss turn gray as the void advances.

Bigfoot does not hesitate. With shocking speed for something so large, he scoops Rowan under one arm and Skye under the other as easily as if they weigh nothing at all. Rowan yelps in surprise and then clamps his mouth shut, pinned against a wall of warm fur and muscle.

Bigfoot slashes one enormous hand through the air. Reality tears open. A glowing seam of golden light splits the space before them like a zipper being yanked through the world. Rowan catches a glimpse of the Pennsylvania clearing on the other side—orange firelight, dark familiar trees, the mysterious campfire that got them here—and then Bigfoot lunges through the opening with both children tucked against him. 

Rowan feels as if something may have fallen out of his pockets, but he can’t be certain. It’s all happening so fast.

The transition is, yet again, a blur of color and roaring wind, but this time Rowan has the wild impression of being carried safely through it rather than flung. And just like that, the world snaps back into place.

They land in the Pennsylvania clearing with a much gentler thud. The campfire still burns low and blue, crackling innocently as if nothing has happened.

Bigfoot sets the children carefully on their feet and straightens to his full, gargantuan height. Behind him the golden portal still hangs open, shimmering. Like the portal that swallowed them originally, this too is a swirling vortex of chaos, but this one feels safer. Controlled.

Rowan and Skye can only gape in disbelief, yet any proof needed stands right in front of them. After everything they have just endured, one feeling rises above the rest: relief. Pine trees surround them instead of giant mushrooms. They are back on Earth. They are safe—provided a bear doesn’t show up.

Bigfoot glances around as if he is in a hurry. He points one long finger back toward Peepaw’s cabin. Then he points back at the mysterious campfire. He completes the gesture by sternly wagging his finger at them both. His amber eyes narrow in a way that needs no translation whatsoever: Don’t do that again.

Before either of them can speak, he steps backward into the glowing seam. The portal folds shut around him in a spray of golden sparks, and he is gone. For half a second, the clearing is silent except for the crackle of the fire.

Then the woods erupt with nearby shouting.

“Rowan! Skye!”

Flashlights slash wildly through the trees. Branches snap. Their parents burst into the clearing, pale-faced and wild-eyed, their beams shaking over the campfire and then locking onto the two children.

“MOM!” Skye shrieks. “DAD!”

She bolts so fast Rowan only catches a blur. Kathy reaches them first and grabs Skye by the shoulders and pulls her into a big hug, then cups Rowan's face, checking them so frantically that she cannot seem to decide which child to tend to first. Her hands tremble.

James arrives a second later with a shotgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He is breathing hard, furious in the way only a terrified parent can be.

“Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” he bellows. The crack in his voice makes it worse. “We told you to stay where we could see you! We have been out here for forty minutes looking for you. Forty! I was five minutes away from calling in a full-blown search party!”

“Dad, listen,” Rowan blurts. “You’ll never believe this but there was this portal that we got sucked into and—”

“Bigfoot saved us!” Skye exclaims at the exact same time. “And there was this horrible shadow thing—”

“QUIET!” James snaps, his voice no longer capable of containing his anger. The word slams through the clearing. Both kids fall silent. By now, the moon has fully risen, and crickets sing their song beyond the light of the mysterious campfire.

He drags a hand down his face, struggling for control. Rowan has seen his father irritated before, watched his patience wear thin, and even witnessed him lose his temper a hundred times over. But rarely has he seen him like this. James’s whole body is vibrating with the effort of not imagining what could have happened.

Kathy, still pale as a ghost, says nothing. She can only keep checking them for blood, broken bones, and making sure they are all in one piece.

“Which one of you lit this fire?” James demands. His eyes lock on Rowan. “Are you hiding a lighter from me?” The accusation hangs thick in the air.

“No! Of course not, Dad! It was already burning when we found it,” Rowan pleads. Having a lighter hidden in a shoebox back home is one thing. Bringing it along on a family vacation would be another.

The suspicion does not leave James’s face. He sweeps his flashlight across the tree line. “Great. Then there are probably hunters nearby, and you two have been wandering through the woods after dark. You could’ve been shot!”

“But you said on the drive down we wouldn’t find another soul out here,” Skye points out sheepishly.

James pauses. For a moment, he looks almost as puzzled as she does.

“Well, fires don’t light themselves Skye,” he says at last. “A couple of hunters probably don’t realize, or don’t care, that they’re trespassing. All the more reason for us to be careful now on our way back to the cabin.”

He motions behind him toward the cabin with his flashlight. “Now, I don’t want to hear another word out of you two until we’re all sitting down for dinner.”

Kathy eagerly ushers the kids along. As they file out of the clearing and back into the woods, James glances back at the strange blue flame. It is already dwindling to a low flicker, surrounded by a wide circle of bare earth and blackened stones. He hesitates, considering whether to smother it, but Kathy calls for him from the darkened trail.

“Hurry, dear. I’d prefer if you led the way. With my sense of direction, I’d likely get us even more lost,” she says earnestly.

James turns his back on the fire, figuring it will either fizzle out on its own or whoever lit it will come back and put it out. He follows his family into the woods, then moves ahead of them to lead the way. The dad in him can’t help himself.

“Yeah, well, we’re not out of the woods yet…”

The walk back to the cabin feels like a funeral procession.

Now, the same woods that had once seemed ordinary and safe earlier, now feel ominous and full of unseen eyes. Rowan keeps glancing into the trees, half expecting to see those amber eyes or a moving wall of cinnamon fur pacing them at a distance, but the forest offers up only darkness and pine trunks.

Before long, the Hawthorne family reaches the cabin without encountering any hunters or unwanted woodland creatures.

Once everyone files inside, the true sighs of relief begin to come in waves. The log cabin suddenly feels much smaller than it did before too. The quirky old architecture that seemed fun and adventurous on arrival now feels so insignificant in comparison to that otherworldly expanse they witnessed on the hill.

The hot dogs and burgers from dinner are ruined, burned black in the abandoned grill outside, and Kathy throws together cold sandwiches instead. She carefully slices each one in half, as if the knife might somehow accidentally cut through the tension in the room, too.

Nobody speaks until all four of them are seated around the dining table.

“Explain yourselves,” Kathy says at last after serving the food. Her voice is low and serious.

James stares down his children, resting his chin above folded hands, sitting at the head of the table.

Rowan swallows. He knows how impossible the truth will sound, but he has to tell it anyway. They need to know what really happened. He takes a deep breath, then exhales.

“It all started with me finding a map in the attic,” he says. “I snuck up there while you were working on the generator. At first, I was looking for the metal detector but the map… it led us to that campfire in the woods.”

This gets raised eyebrows from each parent who exchange an inquisitive look. Rowan continues.

“Then, I don’t know how to describe it… and this is going to sound crazy… but this portal-thing opened up right in front of us. We tried to run but we both got sucked into it!”

What starts out sounding like Rowan coming clean quickly sours into something utterly ridiculous. James closes his eyes for exactly one second and pinches the bridge of his nose above the rims of his glasses.

Rowan sees this but presses on before he can be stopped. “I’m serious Dad!” He turns to his mother to plead instead. “It really took us somewhere, Mom. To another world! There were floating rocks and giant mushrooms and these creatures—a UFO, the Loch Ness monster, Mothman—and then this scary shadowy thing started coming after us, and then Bigfoot—”

“Enough!” James barks so loudly that, if Bigfoot were to exist, he probably got the message. The word lands flat and cold on the table.

Rowan stares at him, defeated, yet still defiant. “But it’s true,” he manages to squeak.

“No, Rowan. Do you think I was born yesterday?” James leans back and rubs both hands over his face. He sounds exhausted now rather than angry, and somehow that feels worse. “Portals? Bigfoot? I thought you were past this phase.”

“Phase? This isn’t a phase, Dad!”

“Then what is it?” James fires back. “A prank? A story? Because right now it sounds like a bizarre cry for attention. I don’t know what you think you saw out there, but it wasn’t Bigfoot, that’s for damn sure.”

Skye sits up straighter and chimes in. “We’re not making it up.” She says it matter-of-factly.

James ignores her and fixes Rowan with a disappointed look. “You disappear into the woods at dusk with your eleven-year-old sister, scare the life out of us, and then come back talking about magical portals and monsters? Help me out here, buddy. How exactly am I supposed to react? You need to set a better example for your younger sister. Look at her, she’s trying to stick up for your nonsense!”

Rowan’s face burns. How can he possibly convince his parents when they refuse to believe any of it? His mind races, searching for something—anything—that might prove they aren’t making this all up. Then he remembers.

“Wait! I have proof!” The words burst out with sudden conviction, and a flicker of hope sparks as he remembers the map.

He plunges a hand into his vest pocket only to find it empty. Nothing... He checks the other side. Then every pocket, faster and with increasing desperation. His fingers only scrape cloth. Empty pockets. No map. The map is gone.

He replays the chaos of the event, still fresh on his mind, and remembers the moment it must have happened: Bigfoot scooping him up, the world lurching sideways, parchment slipping free somewhere in that impossible valley. His heart drops straight through the floor.

“I had it though,” Rowan says. “I swear I had it. It was right here!”

“This map from the attic?” James asks quietly, unconvinced.

Rowan keeps patting his vest, though he already knows. “It must’ve fallen out.”

“How convenient,” James says mockingly. He’s done with Rowan’s antics.

“That’s not fair!” Rowan bites back a shout. He knows better than to yell at his own parents.

“No?” James leans forward. “What’s not fair is what you both just put your mother and me through.”

Neither child has much of an answer to that. The silence that follows is heavy.

“Little did you know, while you were both dusting, I went to get the metal detector from the attic because I wanted to surprise you tomorrow with it. But when I tried pulling down the ladder, the hinges snapped immediately. The whole thing came crashing down in a pile of rotten wood. Now I have to go into town tomorrow to buy hardware because the attic is officially inaccessible.”

James pauses, looking between them.

“So if you’re telling me you found some magical map up there, I have a very simple problem with that story… You wouldn’t have gotten far, even if you’d tried!”

Rowan’s mouth goes dry. The ladder really was shaky, it’s not surprising to know it didn’t last much longer after he and Skye used it.

James continues, quieter now but no less sharp. “So let’s go over what we know, shall we? You couldn’t have gotten into the attic. Which means there was no map. Which means this whole thing is just lie after lie. Which ultimately means you’re telling make-believe stories to cover the fact that you took your sister wandering into the woods after dark. After we explicitly told you not to do that.”

Each word lands like a burst from a Gatling gun. Laid out like this, Rowan can’t see any way he’ll ever convince his dad otherwise.

“That’s not what happened,” Rowan says weakly, the fight draining from his voice.

“Dad, he’s telling the truth!” Skye blurts out. “I saw the map! He came down from the attic with it and I helped him.”

James turns to her so suddenly she flinches. “Skye, do not get caught up in his mess. You don’t need to lie too! I thought you knew better than that,” disappointment clear in his voice.

“But Dad, I’m not lying either!” she stomps her feet in protest.

“You don’t need to do this just because he’s your brother. He can take accountability for his own actions, and you should too.”

Kathy finally speaks, and somehow the sadness in her voice is worse than James’s anger. “Do either of you realize what could have happened out there? There are bears in these woods. There are cliffs. There are hunters. It gets cold fast after dark. It makes me even second guess considering going on a family trip like this. Being so remote makes it so much harder to get help. We were terrified.” She barely gets the last words out before bursting into tears.

The shame lands at last. Rowan sees the wet shine in his mother’s eyes and hates himself a little for causing her pain. They almost had a search party come out. The terror. The burned dinner. His parents crashing through the woods thinking someone or something had taken their children.

“I know it must have been scary, but I promise you, Bigfoot was protecting us,” he says bluntly, because absurd as it may sound, it was also true.

James exhales once through his nose. “That’s enough. I am done hearing about Bigfoot, portals, shadow monsters, or anything else that belongs in your comic book bin.” He gestures helplessly at the cabin around them. “This trip was supposed to be simple. Fishing. Hiking. S’mores. Nature. Not… this.”

“Dad—”

“No.” James stands. His shadow stretches long across the living room wall in the cabin lamplight. “As soon as you are done eating, you are both going to bed. We will talk in the morning after everyone has slept and calmed down. But tonight, I do not want another word about any of it.”

There is no point arguing.

Dinner finishes in silence. The cold sandwiches taste like cardboard. When they are done, Rowan and Skye shuffle down the hall to their room, the boards creaking under their feet. The cabin that had seemed cozy and inviting before now feels more like a prison.

Skye changes into her pajamas without a word. Rowan climbs into the bottom bunk and lies staring at the boards above him, his stomach churning with a fresh kind of sickness. The portal nausea had been awful, but this hollowness is worse. He did tell the truth. He told them exactly what happened. And somehow, that only made everything worse.

After a while, Skye’s small voice drifts down from the upper bunk.

“That all really happened though, right Row?”

Rowan blinks. “What?”

“All of it.” Her voice wobbles. “The portal. The two suns. Bigfoot. Mothman. I’m not crazy, am I?” she asks peering over the edge.

“No,” he says. “You’re not crazy. It all definitely happened.”

Skye is quiet for a few seconds. “Then why do I feel like I need to convince myself that it didn’t?”

The question is relatable, but frustrating.

“Because none of it makes sense, that’s why! Because Mom and Dad will never believe the things we saw today, unless they see for themselves.”

“I need them to believe us though,” she says. “I really do. Because if they don't, it’s like… like all that happened for nothing. Like we just have it stuck in our heads forever and can’t tell anyone. That will drive me crazy Row.”

Rowan props himself up on one elbow. He knows exactly what she means. The memory of the valley still glows purple behind his eyes whenever he blinks. He can still see the silver rivers, the impossible mountains, the red eyes of Mothman, the dead gray path spreading beneath the shadow entity’s approach. And Bigfoot. Especially Bigfoot.

He takes a breath. “Listen. Maybe making them believe us right now isn’t the most important thing.”

Skye sits up a little. “How is it not?” she asks incredulously. As far as she’s concerned, nothing more important has ever happened in her eleven years on this planet.

“Because they’ve already decided what to believe.” Rowan picks at a loose thread in the blanket, organizing his thoughts. “If we kept explaining things tonight, Dad was only going to push back harder. And Mom’s already freaked out enough. We nearly gave them heart attacks.”

Skye frowns. “So what, we just let them think we lied?”

“For now.” He grimaces because he hates how that sounds. “Not forever. Just… for now. For the sake of this vacation. I’ll have to come up with something and I’ll apologize.”

She stares at him like he has suggested robbing a bank. “Rowan, that’s still lying. I do know better than that,” she quips as if retorting directly to her father.

“I know,” he admits, recognizing that it is quite the moral conundrum that they find themselves in.

“Dad always says lying makes everything worse… and yet, that’s your plan?”

For a moment, the room is silent except for the distant creaking of the cabin and the muted voices of their parents downstairs. Rowan lowers his voice even more.

“Let’s make a promise,” he says.

Skye looks down suspiciously. “What kind of promise?”

“A real one. A pinky swear.” He holds his arm up over the side of the bunk. “We both know the truth about what happened today. So even if nobody else believes us, we at least have each other. We keep this between us until we can find proof. Or maybe somebody else who knows something. Somebody who’s seen what we’ve seen.”

Skye chews on that. “And until then?”

“Until then,” Rowan says carefully, “we stop making this trip worse for Mom and Dad. We apologize. We tell them we got carried away and made it all up.”

“I hate this,” she says bluntly. She clearly doesn’t want to agree to these terms.

“I know.”

“I hate that they think we’re making it up!” Skye just can’t fathom how her own parents could possibly not believe them when they’re both so serious about what happened.

“I know.”

“And I hate that you’re probably right…” The more Skye thinks about it, what alternatives do they have? Continue to press and insist what they saw happened. That would just further irritate their parents and possibly end with a trip to the looney bin.

Rowan’s offer still hangs, his pinky still dangling up over the edge of the bunk. “So?”

After a long reluctant pause, she hooks her own pinky around it.

“Fine,” she says.

“We remember what happened,” Rowan says quietly. “We look for answers. And until we find them, we stick together.”

Skye squeezes his finger once. “And if we ever see Bigfoot again?”

Rowan thinks of those amber eyes, the low protective growl, the finger pointed sternly at the campfire. “Then maybe,” he says, “we ask better questions.”

She lies back down. “Good. Because I have, like, fifty.”

“Only fifty?” he musters a laugh.

“At least.”

The room goes quiet again. After a minute Skye says, almost sleepily, “Row?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think the things we saw… that place where all of the legends come from… does that really mean that all of the myths and stories are true?”

His eyes remain fixed on the rough wooden boards of the top bunk, though he hardly sees them. His mind is back on that hill, looking out over a land where every cryptid he has ever heard of seems to call home.

“Yeah, I really do… Get some sleep Skye,” he says tiredly. They exchange goodnights but neither sibling falls asleep straight away. They each spend some more time reflecting on the most bizarre day of their entire lives.

He does not know when Skye falls asleep, but eventually her breathing evens out from above him. Rowan stays awake much longer. His father’s disbelief still aches in his chest, and the memory of that shadow entity lingers like a bruise on his thoughts. Whatever that thing is, he knows with a cold certainty that it does not belong in that strange world, nor in any world for that matter.

At last, he closes his eyes.

Somehow, the scent is still there emanating from his vest on the floor: a faint cedar smoke mixed with damp earth, impossible yet real. It is the only piece of proof the world has left him and for now, it is enough.

Morning arrives at the cabin with the uneasy feeling of a forced reset—like Rowan and Skye mashed the restart button on their entire family vacation. Sunlight slowly spills through the windows, and just outside, the pines sway in a picture-perfect breeze. Birds sing with the kind of bright, clueless cheer that only belongs to creatures who have never been sucked into an interdimensional portal.

Rowan and Skye remember yesterday all too clearly, but despite their terror and amazement, the rest of the world does not seem to care. The woods simply stand there as if they did not watch the air above the campfire split open. As if there wasn’t a hidden world just beyond their reach. As if Bigfoot did not carry them to safety. And yet somehow, they are supposed to act as though none of it ever happened.

Gentle rustling comes from the kitchen downstairs, and before long, as Rowan and Skye rub the sand from their eyes, their mother calls from below, “Breakfast time!”

They both get dressed, brush their teeth, then head down the stairs. At the top of the staircase, they are met by the rich aroma of bacon and eggs.

The smells make them eager to get to the table, but when they see their dad sitting at the head of it reading a newspaper that is already a few days old, some of the air goes out of them.

James sits with a mug of coffee cooling before him, his glasses low on his nose, looking less angry than he did the night before and somehow harder to face because of it. It is still too recent, the trouble they were in. The awkwardness lingers and is palpable. Silence weighs heavily over the room as the children find their seats.

Kathy moves around the kitchen, setting out toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon. She moves quietly, carefully, as though the slightest noise might crack the fragile peace of the morning. Even the clink of silverware sounds too loud in the silent cabin.

Rowan woke several times during the night, and each time he lay there trying to fall back asleep, he rehearsed what he would say in the morning. By dawn, the speech had hardened inside him, like lines from a school play he never wanted to be in. He hates every word of it before he even says it.

Skye sits across from him, unusually quiet, buttering the same piece of toast with far more concentration than it deserves. Every so often, she glances up at Rowan with the pained expression of someone who has agreed to a terrible plan and is now forced to watch it unfold.

James clears his throat first, takes a sip of his coffee, then acknowledges them.

“Morning, kids. Now, before we do anything else today,” he says, using that measured voice adults use when they are trying very hard to keep their feelings neutral, “we need to talk more about last night.”

The birds outside continue singing, to the point that Rowan wishes they would take the spotlight off him. But his dad is not listening to the birds. His gaze lands directly on Rowan.

Rowan looks down at his plate. His appetite vanishes despite how good everything smells. Even so, he still somehow catches a hint of cedar smoke, as if he cannot shake the truth. As if he can still see the twin suns turning above that impossible valley. In fact, he cannot shake any of it. He can still feel the crushing wrongness of the shadow creature moving across the horizon. He shakes his head in frustration, then remembers the plan.

“First, I want to say I’m sorry,” he begins. This part requires no acting. Rowan is genuinely mortified by the panic he caused his parents last night. That was never his intention.

The apology hangs between them, somehow both expected and surprising at once. James’s expression does not soften, but he leans back slightly, surprised enough to listen. Kathy stops in the kitchen doorway and turns toward them fully.

Rowan forces himself onward. “I shouldn’t have taken Skye out into the woods. I shouldn’t have gone there after you told us not to. And…” His throat tightens. He hates this part most. “And I made it all bigger than it really was... I… I got carried away.”

Skye’s fingers tighten around her fork.

James watches him carefully. “Carried away how?” His eyes drill into Rowan’s.

Rowan averts his gaze and swallows. “I don’t know. I was embarrassed, I guess. We got lost. We knew you’d be mad. And I…” He looks down at his hands because it is easier than looking his father in the face. “I made up a wild story to make it sound like there was some reason for it. Like it was more than just me being stupid.”

Skye makes the smallest sound in the back of her throat—not quite a protest, more like a sound she doesn’t even mean to make.

Kathy comes and sits down at last. “So you’re saying there was none of this nonsense. No map. No portal. No Bigfoot?”

No. There was. That is what eats at him the most. He wants so desperately to scream at them both, Bigfoot is real! And so was the portal!

But when the moment comes, Rowan forces himself to say the only answer his parents want to hear.

“Yes.”

The lie feels like stepping barefoot onto something sharp, but it is a sacrifice he has to make to get past this. For a moment, nobody says anything. Then James exhales through his nose and rubs a hand over his mouth.

“But why?” His question sounds tired despite it being in the early morning hours. It is not an angry question, but a genuine one.

Rowan tries to answer honestly in the only way he can. “Because I was bored. Because I guess…” He glances once at Skye and then away. “I mean… this is Peepaw’s cabin after all. I guess I wanted things to be interesting. More interesting than they really were.”

Something in Kathy’s face softens at that, a sadness moving behind her eyes. James finally breaks eye contact and looks down into his coffee.

“You scared us badly,” she says, looking sternly at both of them. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Mom,” they echo, their voices small.

“We thought something or someone had taken you.” Her voice wavers once, then steadies. “People don’t always get found quickly out here. Sometimes they don’t get found at all.”

“I know,” Rowan says, thinking that if his mother only knew of the unknown dangers they had actually faced, she’d be even more furious with them.

James folds his hands in front of him on the table. “Row, I’m glad you’re apologizing. I am. But this can’t just be about smoothing it over because we’re stuck in a cabin together and everybody wants to have a nice weekend. You’re getting older, Rowan. There comes a point where imagination stops being harmless when it puts people in danger.”

Rowan nods, though each word feels like a dagger. The word imagination especially grates against everything he knows. It was not his imagination. It was real.

His father goes on, gentler now. “You’re smart, bud. You’re a leader. And whether you mean to be or not, you’re a role model. Your sister follows you because she trusts you. That means you have to start thinking and behaving in a more mature way.”

Skye rolls her eyes and scoffs. “I don’t just follow him blindly.”

James gives her a weary look. “You know what I mean.”

“No,” she says, surprising everyone with the attitude in her voice. “Actually, I don’t. I chose to go too. It wasn’t just Rowan’s choice.”

Kathy reaches over and puts a hand on Skye’s forearm. “Honey, no one is saying you weren’t there. But Rowan is older, and he knows that comes with certain responsibilities.”

Skye looks like she has several things she wants to say and is using every ounce of self-control not to say them. She presses her lips together so tightly they nearly vanish.

Rowan takes the opening before the conversation can splinter again. “Dad’s right. I should’ve known better. I do have some growing up to do.” Those words, at least, are true.

James studies him for another long second and then nods once, slowly. “All right,” he says. “Thank you for saying it.”

The tension does not fully vanish, but it begins to ease. Kathy rises and touches Rowan’s shoulder in a motherly way on her way back to the stove. James finally takes another sip of his coffee. The morning seems to exhale, and Rowan does too, quietly relieved to have made it past this hurdle.

It is not forgiveness all at once, but it is enough to let the day continue. With family vacations, sometimes just getting through the day is the best anyone can hope for.

By late morning, the Hawthornes are remembering how to enjoy themselves again, or at the very least how to pretend to.

Kathy packs sandwiches in a cooler. The fishing poles come out. The nearby lake calls to them with that glossy calm that makes it feel like the world contains only rippling water, dragonflies, and the occasional stubborn fish.

Together, the family hikes down the narrow trail that leads to the lakeshore, and James points out the old places where he used to skip stones as a boy. Kathy laughs when he nearly slips on a wet rock trying to demonstrate.

Upside down on the shore sits a weathered wooden rowboat that has undoubtedly seen better days. James inspects it thoroughly before giving them the go-ahead, and then they climb in and paddle toward the center of the lake while the afternoon sun warms the backs of their necks.

After an hour or so of limited bites, they row back to shore and eat their sandwiches beneath a row of birch trees where the bark peels like old paper. James shows Rowan a technique for casting farther without tangling the line. Kathy collects smooth stones with Skye and keeps holding each one up to the light as if she has discovered treasure after all.

On the surface, the day stitches itself together nicely.

The photographs Kathy takes will one day look perfectly convincing: James with an arm around Rowan’s shoulders, both of them squinting against the reflection of the lake; Skye on a stump making antlers behind her mother’s head; the four of them by the cabin at dusk, faces orange in the glow of a campfire that this time remains perfectly ordinary.

But Rowan and Skye feel it all day long—an absence humming beneath their façade of happiness.

When James holds up a smallmouth bass, he beams with the uncomplicated happiness of a man who has caught exactly what he came out here to catch. Rowan grins back because he knows he is supposed to, but all he can think about is the fact that somehow Bigfoot was able to open his own portal.

When Kathy hands out a bag of marshmallows after dinner and announces that the weekend has officially been “saved from disaster,” Skye laughs and toasts hers to a perfect golden brown. But her gaze keeps slipping past the campfire to the dark tree line, as if she half expects to see something move. But nothing ever does.

Sunday morning comes too quickly, and their time at the cabin draws to a close. The Hawthorne family packs their bags, loads the car, and leaves their woodland getaway behind.

From the back seat, Rowan and Skye watch the cabin disappear through the rear window. The woods swallow it almost at once, but Rowan continues staring long after there is nothing left to see.

He came to the cabin hoping to find a spark of magic. If he could not find one here, he had promised himself he would stop looking. He would put away the comic books, accept that the world was exactly as ordinary as his parents claimed, and get on with the miserable business of growing up.

Instead, the magic found him. First came the spark: a ghost in the attic. Then came a full-blown lightning strike: a portal to a whole new world. And just when Rowan thought things couldn't possibly get any stranger, Bigfoot himself came to their rescue.

Part of him is grateful that his sister has witnessed it all too—that he doesn’t have to carry the weight of this impossible world alone. But he can’t help feeling guilty that she’s been pulled into it, made to bear a burden that was never hers to carry.

Now Rowan knows without a shadow of a doubt that magic is real, and somehow that knowledge feels less like holding a treasure and more like carrying a bomb inside his pocket. He cannot show it to anyone. He cannot explain where he and Skye went or what they found there. Until the right moment comes, if it ever does, the two of them must smile, behave normally, and protect a secret that has changed everything.

James drives with one hand on the wheel, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. His window is halfway down and classic rock plays softly from the radio. Kathy dozes in the passenger seat with one hand tucked beneath her chin. Rowan rests his forehead against the cool glass. Skye mirrors him from the other side of the back seat, the two of them silent islands separated by luggage and all the things they cannot say.

After miles of unbroken trees, the road finally winds downhill toward towns, gas stations, and ordinary streets lined with mailboxes and power lines. As the car passes the last dense stretch of woodland, something stirs between the trees. Rowan lifts his head. For half a second, he sees a tall shape standing among the trunks. It is broad through the shoulders and covered in what looks like cinnamon-colored fur. It does not run or duck out of sight. It simply stands there, watching the car carry them away.

Rowan twists around for a better look, but by the time he does, the car rounds a bend. Branches sweep across the rear window, and the figure vanishes behind them.

He keeps watching until his neck begins to ache, but the figure does not reappear. Maybe it was only a trick of the shadows, or his blurry vision turning a stump into something more. He knows there are plenty of explanations. Still, as the trees slip farther behind them, Rowan decides to believe it was Bigfoot coming to see them off.

Rowan glances at Skye, but he does not mention what he saw. He can’t—not with their parents sitting a few feet away. Besides, he made a pinky promise, and it’s one he intends to keep.

The farther they travel, the more recognizable things become. They pass a roadside diner with a flickering red sign and a lonely billboard advertising fireworks and discount propane. Familiar landmarks begin to appear: the old school building, the shopping mall, the water tower with the peeling blue paint. Home is getting closer.

By the time they turn onto their street, the weekend at the cabin already feels like the kind of memory most people would call a dream. It is certainly a vacation none of them will soon forget, though not for the same reasons.

Upon arrival, the Hawthornes enter their home through the garage. The house smells faintly of closed-up summer air and laundry detergent. Suitcases thump onto the hardwood floor. Kathy kicks off her shoes and declares that she is never driving anywhere again unless the destination includes room service and a spa.

Before anyone can take their bags, James declares, “Oh, kids leave your bags there for now. We need to have a talk in the living room first.”

Skye pauses with her duffel slung over one shoulder. “A talk about what?” She looks at him suspiciously.

Before James can answer, the telephone rings loudly in the kitchen. He and Kathy exchange a glance. It is quick, but not quick enough.

Rowan knows that glance. It’s the one adults use when something has already been discussed, decided, and carefully kept from the children.

“That’s probably your aunt. Go ahead to your rooms. We’ll call you down in a few minutes,” James says, waving them off.

Our aunt?

Aunt Alexis. James’s younger sister has always seemed less like someone’s aunt and more like a hippie born in the wrong decade—bright, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. She has a habit of arriving with a duffel bag and a story involving a raccoon, a canoe, or a music festival gone magnificently wrong. She wears boots year-round, owns more bandanas than any reasonable person should, and once taught Skye to spit watermelon seeds “with purpose.” Rowan likes her because she treats him and other kids his age with respect, like people instead of half-finished drafts of adults.

By now, Rowan is certain something is up. He can sense his sister’s unease, too. Whatever they are about to be told in the living room isn’t going to be good. And what’s his aunt got to do with it? Together, they drop their bags and pretend to meander toward the stairs in the hall, just enough to convince both parents they’ve gone.

Then they double back. They circle around to the other side of the wall and press their ears against it just as James answers the ringing phone in the kitchen.

It’s the Hawthornes’ ancient rotary phone, still bolted to the wall like some relic from another century. While all of Rowan and Skye’s friends’ parents had long since upgraded to cordless phones, their family remained stubbornly loyal to the last surviving artifact of the nineties.

As James likes to say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And since the phone still rings, he still answers it. “Hello? Hey, Lexi.”

Aunt Alexis’s reply crackles through the receiver, too faint to make out.

“Yep, we just got home,” James says. “The cabin is still standing, believe it or not. It was really nostalgic, and just how you’d remember it too. You really would’ve loved it. We’ll all have to make a point to go again sometime.”

He pauses for a moment. “There was no lack of excitement, though.”

Skye folds her arms, visibly annoyed. Rowan leans one inch closer to the doorway.

“The kids actually disappeared for a while,” James continues. Even though up until this point they couldn’t distinguish what their aunt was saying, this time they hear a very audible WHAT? 

“Yeah, it was long enough to scare ten years off our lives. It was horrifying. It was like Dad all over again… But they’re safe now. Everybody made it home in one piece.”

Dad all over again.

Rowan goes still. His father never speaks about Peepaw’s disappearance—not even to Mom.

Alexis’s voice continues to crackle faintly through the phone—too distant to make out actual words, but energetic enough that even filtered through static, she somehow sounds as though she is perched on a picnic table using a megaphone instead of talking on a telephone.

James glances toward the doorway. Rowan and Skye flatten themselves against the wall.

Kathy sips her tea and pretends not to notice the two children still lingering in the hallway.

“No, they don’t know yet,” he says. “We were actually just about to tell them.”

Rowan’s stomach tightens.

He had begun to hope that the terror of finding them alive had overwhelmed whatever punishment their parents might have planned. Perhaps the tearful reunion counted as enough. Perhaps nearly being lost—wherever they had been—was one of those rare situations in which the experience itself taught the necessary lesson.

Apparently not.

James lowers his voice. “Yeah I figured that’s why you were calling. We still need the last-minute favor, the thing Kathy texted you about.”

A pause follows.

“Yeah, we don’t text often but desperate times call for desperate measures.” He pauses, then continues. “We’re going to need the full five days now. Monday through Friday. Can you make that work?”

Skye turns to Rowan and silently mouths, Five days? He can only shrug. 

“Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. Beats being cooped up in a house the whole time, not that there’s anything wrong with your house,” James adds awkwardly. “As long as they are under your supervision, we will at least be able to sleep soundly at night.”

Skye’s eyes narrow. Alexis says something that makes James smile.

“Yes, I know you’re the assistant director. You’ve only reminded me twenty times.”

A sharper crackle answers him.

“No, I’m not making fun of your title! I’m making fun of the way you say your title.”

Rowan looks at Skye this time and mouths to her, Assistant director of what? She shrugs.

James listens, nodding slowly. “Daytime activities. Overnight cabins. Got it.”

Another pause. Then James’s voice shifts into the practical cadence of a man finalizing plans he believes are already settled.

“Perfect. Well, that settles it. Thank you for being able to pull this together on such short notice. We’ll bring them to the airport tomorrow morning, and you can take them from there.”

Tomorrow morning. Rowan glances toward the suitcases in the foyer. So that is why James told them not to unpack. Where could they possibly be going?

“Yes, they love spending time with you,” James says. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”

Rowan mouths, No, we won’t.

Skye gives him a look that says not so fast. Maybe something good can come of this after all. 

James laughs at something she says on the other end. “Yes, yes, they already think of you as the cool aunt. Just keep them alive, okay? All right. Thanks, Lexi. We really owe you one.”

He listens again, and his expression turns serious.

“I know. We will. If you need anything, call or email us. Okay, bye.”

Then he hangs up.

Rowan and Skye realize they need to scatter before their cover is blown now that the call is over. They hurry back toward the foyer, but they manage only three steps before James appears in the doorway. 

He looks at them. They look at him. His eyes narrow, realizing how close in proximity they are.

“You know,” he says with mock menace, “eavesdropping was a crime punishable by death in medieval times.”

“We weren’t dropping no eaves sir! Honest!” Skye says giving her best Samwise Gamgee impersonation. She had to beg her parents to be able to watch The Fellowship of the Ring but had to close her eyes at parts. 

James raises an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth twitches, but whatever laugh is trying to escape never quite makes it. Kathy appears behind him, her mom-like spider senses suddenly tingling as she picks up on the tension nearby.

“Well good, since you’re both here. Living room. Now,” Kathy says, making a gesture like she is rounding up cattle. She does not sound angry, but she also sounds like she will be having no nonsense. That is usually worse.

Rowan and Skye follow their parents into the living room. Four small blue booklets lie side by side on the coffee table. Rowan stops short.

“Are those passports?”

For one dizzying instant, every strange piece of the conversation rearranges itself into something wonderful. Five days. Packed bags. The airport tomorrow morning. They are all going somewhere! A surprise trip?

Skye seemingly reaches the same conclusion a second later. Her face brightens. “Wait. Are those ours?”

James lowers himself into his favorite armchair. Kathy sits on the sofa opposite him and gestures for the children to join her.

“Sit down, please,” she says.

The brightness leaves Skye’s face and at the same time Rowan’s joy leaves his body like a balloon losing air.

Rowan sits beside her. The passports remain on the coffee table, close enough to touch but somehow seeming as though they are locked behind bars.

“Yes,” James says. “They belong to you. All four of us now have updated passports.”

Rowan stares at the gold emblem shining on each passport cover. He has never owned anything that looks so official. “Since when?”

“Since Thursday,” Kathy says. “They arrived before we left for the cabin.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Skye chirps.

“Because they were supposed to be a surprise,” Kathy says with a pain in her face.

Skye looks from one parent to the other. “What kind of surprise?”

James leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

“Truthfully dear, the kind that depends on whether or not we can trust you.”

There it is. The hope that had begun rising inside Rowan fades and he senses the direction this conversation is taking.

“Your mother and I have not forgotten what happened this weekend,” James continues. “We waited until we got home to discuss it because we needed some time to process it all. Frankly, none of us were in the right state of mind for that conversation.” His eyes fall directly on Rowan.

“We said we were sorry,” Rowan says, thinking there’s some combination of words that could maybe change his parents’ mind and get him out of this mess.

“You did,” Kathy replies. “And we believe you and think that was the right thing to do. But saying you are sorry does not magically erase what happened.”

“We thought you were lost,” James says, clearly still traumatized by it. “You left without permission, went somewhere we could not find you, and stayed lost long enough for us to think something terrible had happened.” He states all three accusations while numbering them on his fingers.

Rowan looks down at his hands. Because we weren’t anywhere you could have found us, he thinks.

The truth presses against the back of his teeth. He desperately wants to reignite the fire—the truth still burning inside him—and tell them. He could explain the portal, the world with two suns, and how Bigfoot came to their rescue.

On the other hand, if he were to say any of that, he could also spend the rest of the summer speaking to a child psychologist.

Beside him, Skye is staring at the passports again.

“We weren’t trying to scare you,” she says.

“I know,” Kathy replies. “That does not mean you didn’t.”

For a moment, nobody speaks. James reaches for the passports. Rowan’s heart jumps as his father lifts them from the table.

“Your mother and I leave tomorrow morning for SkeptiCon,” James says in the tone of a man defending something that long ago became part hobby, part identity. “This year, it’s being held in Berlin,” he adds, barely containing his excitement. 

“Berlin?” Rowan repeats in disbelief. Come to think of it, Rowan now realizes how much he’s always wanted to go to Germany.

“As in Germany?” Skye asks, equally incredulous.

“As opposed to the lesser-known Berlin in Ohio,” James says sarcastically. “Yes. Germany. You know, hence the passports.” It’s no wonder where Skye adopted her sense of humor. 

SkeptiCon. Of course. The week-long convention for professional skeptics, debunkers, lecturers, scientists, radio hosts and all the world’s most aggressively certain adults who make a sport out of explaining why everyone else is wrong. James and Kathy love it with an earnestness usually reserved for pilgrimages and championship games. Every year, they come back with tote bags full of books, lanyards around their necks, and stories about panels with titles like Extraordinary Claims, Zero Evidence. 

Normally, Rowan finds the event boring but harmless. But after his encounter with that strange world—and after learning that the legends are in fact real—the convention’s very name twists his stomach. He pictures a hotel ballroom full of people laughing about cryptids while somewhere beyond the reach of their certainty, Bigfoot travels back and forth from that world to our own.

James gathers the passports into a neat stack.

“We booked four plane tickets,” Kathy says. “We reserved a room large enough for all of us, and we rushed the passport applications so yours would arrive in time.”

Rowan and Skye exchange a helpless look, each silently praying there is still a chance they are still going. 

A trip across the ocean. An actual foreign country. Airplanes, monuments, unfamiliar food, and streets where every sign looks like a secret code. In the way Rowan thought the forgotten cabin would be an adventure, this would be a full-fledged odyssey in comparison! It unfolds in his imagination so quickly that, for a few glorious seconds, it feels as though he has already gone.

“Please tell me you’re taking us with you to Germany?” Skye asks, her voice hopeful and pleading.

“We were,” James says in a saddened tone.

And there it is. One small word changes everything. Were. The room becomes very quiet.

“Up until this weekend too,” Kathy adds with a ringing disappointment.

Rowan feels the meaning settle over him slowly, like cold water soaking through his clothes. James sets the passports beside his chair instead of handing them over.

“You can’t do this!” Skye lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “This isn’t funny!”

“It isn’t a joke,” James retorts, his face and tone serious.

“But you already bought the tickets! And you got us the passports!” Ironically, somehow Skye looks even more frantic than she did in the purple mushroom forest.

“Yes, we did,” Kathy acknowledges coldly.

“And you were going to take us all the way to Germany without even telling us?” 

“It was meant to be a very special surprise,” Kathy says. “We didn’t expect you two to sink this opportunity for yourselves. Though truthfully kids, it might be for the best. Maybe next year we can take you along.” She looks at them both. “After what you put us through, we thought it best that you take some time to learn from this mistake.”

Skye and Rowan feel their hearts both sink to the pit of their stomachs.

Rowan cannot stop looking at the passports. Ten minutes ago, he did not know the trip existed. Now losing it feels like having a door slammed in his face just as he discovers what is on the other side.

“This is so not fair,” is all he can muster to say. Bummed is an understatement. Now the information clicks into place in his mind. The phone call he just overheard with his Aunt.

“There’s no world in which you two were getting out of this punishment-free. You need to learn to deal with the consequences of your actions,” James delivers sternly.

“Please, this isn’t fair! It wasn’t my fault we got lost! Leave Rowan behind! I don’t deserve this!” she pleads, on the verge of flinging herself to the floor and groveling. She willingly throws her brother under the bus in one last-ditch effort to escape punishment.

“Well, sorry dear but it is fair. You were complicit in those same choices. After how the two of you behaved this weekend, I don’t think we can justify taking you along with us. If something like that were to happen in another country, who knows if we could even communicate that we need help,” James explains. 

“But we would’ve behaved in Germany,” Skye insists, defeated and running out of tactics. “We wouldn’t have gone anywhere. We wouldn’t even leave the hotel room,” she’s nearly babbling now, on the verge of tears.

“Well, we aren’t going to find out now, are we? You both promised to stay near the cabin too,” James says.

Skye opens her mouth, eyes glistening, but nothing comes out.

That ends it.

Kathy’s expression softens, though her voice does not. “Your father and I are guest speakers at one of the booths this year. I don’t think we’d have any real way to look after you during our presentation. That requires us to trust you to follow instructions in an unfamiliar place.”

“And after this weekend,” James interjects, “neither of us feel comfortable taking that chance. So, with that said, you’ll both be staying here and spending some time with your aunt.”

Now it all makes sense. The next five days will be spent with Aunt Alexis. 

“Doing what?” Rowan is almost too afraid to ask.

“You two are spending the week at Camp Stumpwater with your Aunt Alexis while your mother and I are in Germany.”

Skye’s face first registers horror, then calculation, then something approaching curiosity. 

“Camp Stumpwater?” she asks, nose wrinkled. She sounds disgusted, as if the words themselves were leaving her mouth coated in slime.

James shrugs. “Look, I didn’t name the place. Besides, what’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it sound fun? You guys love your aunt!”

“It really sounds like a wonderful place,” Rowan pouts sarcastically.

“Would you prefer Camp Wanna-lanna-ying-dang instead?” James asks dryly.

“Honestly? Maybe,” Skye replies scratching her chin, considering it.

James ignores that. “Well beggars can’t be choosers, kids. I’d send you both to Camp Elbowgrease if I could,” James looks over to Kathy for some form of approval and she only shakes her head at his poor attempt at humor. 

“It’s a good camp. Traditional. Cabins, lake, fishing, canoeing, campfires, ropes course, hiking—the good ol’ outdoors. It’ll almost be like an extension of this past weekend.”

As James finishes, the same thought seems to dawn on both siblings at once: this could be a possible opportunity to reconnect with Bigfoot. Rowan sees the idea spark across Skye’s face a second later too. Her whole posture changes by half an inch—not enough for the adults to notice, but enough for him.

Camp might be miserable. It might be all mosquitoes, soggy sneakers, and mandatory team-building. But camps have woods. Camps have campfires. Maybe this could be their next chance to discover more about that hidden world.

James mistakes their silence for reluctant acceptance. “Then it’s settled. I need each of you to pack again, this time with enough clothes for five full days. Pack some extras just in case.”

Rowan groans and Skye stomps a foot.

“But Dad, do we have to go?” Skye protests, giving one last puppy-eyed effort to escape their fate. Its success rate is low, but it has worked in the past, so it’s time for the Hail Mary. 

“Yes,” both parents say at once, in a tone that ends all discussion.

James gathers the passports and carries them toward the hall. Rowan watches the four blue booklets disappear from sight.

Ten minutes ago, tomorrow morning meant nothing more than the beginning of another ordinary week. Then, for one dazzling moment, it meant Germany.

Now it means watching his parents leave without him.

At the crack of dawn, Monday morning arrives with the chaotic energy of a day of travel.

The house becomes a blur of zippers, printed boarding passes, coffee-to-go cups, missing chargers, passport checks, sunscreen tossed into duffel bags at the last second, and the general sensation that everyone in the family has somewhere to be and they are already late. 

Even though this is certainly not the first rodeo for either parent, Kathy still triple checks that the curling iron is unplugged, while James pats his pockets every six minutes to make sure his wallet and passport haven’t dematerialized. 

Rowan and Skye are loaded into the backseat once again with their bags, much bulkier this time, and a tote bag full of camp-approved snacks that Alexis emailed about in all caps. 

Before long, the Hawthornes are racing toward the airport. James expertly weaves through highway traffic with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around his coffee cup. Kathy touches up her makeup while Rowan and Skye watch familiar roads give way to ones they barely recognize.

Upon arrival, they quickly park in one of the many parking garages then rush off to find Alexis in the pick-up and drop-off zone. The airport is a bustling nest of activity. A whirlwind of conveyor belts, rolling suitcases, and hurried travelers moving like schools of fish. All around them, people move through the terminal frantically, dragging their suitcases behind them and checking their cell phones as they go. 

Rowan and Skye have been here once before, but it feels much different this time. Rather than anticipating the excitement of takeoff or wondering what kind of souvenirs they can find in Hudson News, they are here for a much more mundane reason. They are simply here to meet their aunt—and from that point on, it’ll be her responsibility to get them to Camp Stumpwater while their parents fly off into the sunrise.

Neither Rowan nor Skye has ever spent a full week with Alexis before. A weekend at her house? Fine. A whole week at camp? That’s a different story. Rowan can already picture himself getting tired of the camp-life and counting down the hours, wishing he were back home with a controller in his hands instead. 

Alexis is already waiting in the drop-off lot in a dented sapphire-blue Jeep with a kayak rack on top and three bumper stickers that read SAVE THE FROGS, ASK ME ABOUT BIRDS, and MY OTHER RIDE IS A CANOE.

Another sticker catches Rowan’s attention instantly, and he tries not to gasp or go wide-eyed in front of his father. It is a gilded I BELIEVE sticker with a Bigfoot silhouette in the classic walking pose above the words.

Alexis leans against the driver’s side door wearing star-shaped sunglasses and cutoff overalls, waving a thermos in greeting as if flagging down a rescue helicopter.

Aunt Alexis has the kind of effortless cool that makes the title of “the cool aunt” feel less like a nickname and more like a fact. She’s a nature girl through and through, with practical boots, an easygoing spirit, and a knack for taking things as they come. Once, when she cut her hand on a hike, she stitched it up herself with a sewing needle and kept going. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about her: she doesn’t fuss, she makes do, and she’s rarely one to let a little setback get in the way of an adventure. 

“There y’all are!” she calls in her gentle Southern accent as the Hawthornes pull up.

After a quick flurry of greetings and the acknowledgment that James and Kathy will miss their flight if they do not hurry, the reunion is brief. The goodbye unfolds in the usual awkward layers. 

Kathy hugs the kids twice each and reminds them about toothbrushes, sunscreen, and not losing their good water bottles. James crouches beside the Jeep and makes Rowan promise to call their international number in case of emergency and to stay out of his aunt’s hair by not getting into any more trouble. There is no question James and Kathy will miss their kids, but they also seem more than ready to enjoy some much-deserved time alone in a foreign country.

Skye hugs both parents longer than she means to. For all her sarcasm, she always softens a little at departures.

“Don’t worry you two, Rowan and I will try not to get kidnapped by Bigfoot again,” she adds in a teasing tone, winking. 

Both parents exchange a smirk. “You better not!”

Then after one last extra hug, James and Kathy cross the lane with their roller bags, turning once to wave, then disappear into the airport currents on their way to a week in debunker’s paradise.

Alexis watches them go, then pushes her sunglasses up onto her head and lets out a deep exhale.

“Well,” she says brightly, “looks like I’m in charge now! Hop in, kids. We’ve got a decent drive to Camp Stumpwater.”

Skye climbs into the Jeep first, and Rowan follows on the opposite side. As Alexis starts the engine, she looks at them both in the rearview mirror.

“All right, campers. Give it to me straight. On a scale from one to ten, how much do you hate this already?”

“Eight,” Rowan says, incapable of holding back his brutal honesty.

“Twelve,” says Skye, raising the bar, still resentful. Every plane that lifts into the sky makes Skye wish even more that she were leaving with Mom and Dad.

Alexis clutches her heart theatrically. “Devastating! Here I was hoping for at least a five or less.” 

Her goofy antics are met with stone-cold silence. She shifts her approach.

“Look y’all, I don’t want you to be miserable this whole time. I really think we can have a lot of fun together! Maybe by the time we reach camp, I can turn those frowns upside down. How’s that sound?” 

They both roll their eyes in opposite directions while simultaneously letting out an exaggerated sigh. Alexis adjusts her mirror, puts her sunglasses back on, and focuses on the road ahead. 

“…or, y’know, we can all just be upset the whole time too,” she adds, half to herself. “That could be fun. Probably won’t be. But could be.”

The road winds through town and then out into greener country. For a while, Alexis lets the radio fill the silence, humming along to a song neither Rowan nor Skye recognizes.

She glances at them in the rearview mirror again.

“So,” she says casually, “were y’all actually kidnapped by Bigfoot this weekend, or was that some kind of family joke?”

Skye’s eyes widen. “Well, actually—”

“We got lost,” Rowan cuts in assertively before his sister can regret her words. “That’s it. No Bigfoot. Nothing fun or exciting.”

He fixes Skye with a warning look. They made a promise: they weren’t telling anyone unless that person might believe them—or might know something they don’t. Rowan is not convinced that if they were to tell any of this to Alexis that it wouldn’t make its way to Dad’s ears and then land him back to square one. 

Alexis looks from one of them to the other in the mirror trying to observe their reactions. 

“Good. Because had Bigfoot actually kidnapped you, you might’ve wanted to tell him to make a surprise appearance at that convention your parents are headed to.”

Neither of them laughs, though Skye comes close.

Rowan’s eyes drift toward the back window, thinking of the gilded sticker on the Jeep.

“So, do you actually believe in Bigfoot?” he asks. Maybe her answer will tell him how she’d react if they ever shared their story. 

“Straight to the difficult questions I see.” Alexis drums her thumbs against the steering wheel. “Can’t we warm up with politics or religion first?”

“C’mon, I’m serious,” Rowan insists.

“Y’know, I also have a sticker to ask me about birds! Nobody ever asks me about birds...,” she says defeatedly. 

“Aunt Alexis.”

“Fine! All right, all right.” She considers as she focuses on the road ahead. “Sure, I believe there are plenty of things in the world that we don’t understand.”

“That’s dodging the question,” Rowan says.

“I’m not dodging anything, I’m being honest!”

Skye studies the side of her face. “So, if someone told you that they saw something strange, you wouldn’t just write them off as crazy?”

Rowan gives Skye a dangerous look. He tries to tell her to knock it off but lets his eyes do all the talking.

“Depends on the someone,” Alexis muses. “But sure, I’d hear them out.”

Skye leans forward slightly. “Even if what they said sounded impossible?”

This time, Rowan’s warning comes beneath the tote bag: the toe of his sneaker presses firmly against hers.

Alexis glances at her in the mirror. Something in her expression shifts.

“Impossible is a strong word,” she says. “People usually use it when they mean I’ve never seen it myself. Why?” she asks laughing light-heartedly. “Do y’all have something to tell me?” 

Rowan and Skye exchange another look. 

“No, of course not!” Rowan interjects almost too abruptly. 

An awkwardness lingers, and then before either of them can say more, Alexis points through the windshield toward a wide green field.

“That farm has a two-headed calf, by the way,” she says it matter-of-factly.

Both children turn toward the window, hoping to catch a glimpse.

“What? No way!” Skye says in disbelief.

“That or it’s two calves standing extremely close together. Every time I’m passing through, I never have time to stop and investigate.”

Rowan watches the field disappear behind them and turns the thought over in his mind. He’s not sure Alexis would believe their story, and he hasn’t quite convinced himself that she can be trusted with it. But for the first time, telling her doesn’t feel entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Maybe she really does believe…

A few miles later, Alexis checks the mirror again.

“We’re getting closer to camp now. Can I get a revised misery score? From one to ten.”

“Eleven?” Skye asks herself, as if still unsure of where her score truly lies. Her mood is improving, slowly but surely.

Alexis grins. “Down a whole point!”

Rowan turns toward the thickening trees outside his window. “Seven and a half.”

“Careful,” Alexis says slapping the roof of her Jeep enthusiastically. “At this rate, you might accidentally enjoy yourselves!”

Skye tries to hide her grin. Rowan doesn’t quite manage it.

Alexis catches both reactions in the mirror. “All right. Seat belts tight, campers!”

“Wait—why?” Rowan asks.

“We’re about to take a shortcut.”

Before either of them can object, she cranks up the radio. Thrashing guitars explode from the speakers as the Jeep veers off the pavement and onto a narrow dirt trail cutting through the trees.

The tires rumble over the uneven terrain, tossing Rowan and Skye against their seat belts. Skye yelps when the Jeep plunges into a dip, but as it crests the next bump and briefly lifts them from their seats, she bursts out laughing. Rowan grabs the handle above the door, his eyes wide.

Alexis steers around a fallen branch and aims straight for a broad puddle spanning the trail ahead.

Her eyes flick to the rearview mirror, catching both kids watching her. For a beat, they stare at each other, a silent She wouldn’t. passing between them.

Alexis grins. Then she hits the gas.

The Jeep tears through the puddle. Muddy water erupts past the windows in two enormous sheets, and Skye lets out a delighted scream. Alexis whoops along with her.

Just as the song crashes to its final note, the trail rejoins the pavement. Alexis swings the Jeep onto solid ground and calmly turns the volume back down. Mud drips from the windows, and a clump of wet leaves clings to the passenger side mirror.

For a moment, nobody speaks.

Then Rowan looks back at the disappearing trail. “Was that even a shortcut?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I guess it is a pretty similar ETA,” Alexis admits.

Skye laughs again, but her brow furrows.

“Estimated time of arrival,” Rowan explains.

Alexis checks the mirror, a glint in her eye. “Look at you, getting all old and knowing your acronyms. Anybody want to revise those scores one last time?”

“Five,” Rowan says. He thoroughly enjoyed the off-roading. At this rate, maybe this week won’t be so bad after all.

“Don’t push it,” Skye says, but she is smiling.

“Mission accomplished,” Alexis whispers to herself under her breath. 

Camp Stumpwater announces itself with a carved wooden sign at the mouth of a long gravel road, flanked by fences strung with painted pinecones and a cheerful squirrel who looks far too smug to be trusted. 

Beyond the entrance, the grounds slope gently through the pines toward the lake. Cabins sit in tidy rows among the trees, each with a painted sign above the porch, while the dining hall and recreation field sit farther down the hill. Past the field, the archery range gives way to the docks and the long, bright stretch of water beyond them. From almost anywhere in camp, the lake is visible through the trees.

Children move between the cabins in orderly clusters, herded from one activity to the next by counselors in matching green shirts. Names are called, head counts are taken, and backpacks are carried. A whistle sounds from somewhere near the dining hall, followed by a chorus of voices answering it. From beyond the trees comes the faint, twanging sound of a banjo. 

“Welcome,” Alexis says, gesturing grandly as she parks abruptly, “to Camp Stumpwater, where the bugs are plentiful and the team-building learning opportunities are even more so.” She can’t hide the pride in her voice. 

As soon as they step out, two younger counselors jog over.

“Alexis!” one calls. “Mara needs you at the lodge. The printer jammed again and she has no idea what she’s doing.”

“Of course it did. I’ll be right there,” Alexis says. She turns to Rowan and Skye, suddenly all business. “Okay. We’ll do this in order. First, we check in and find your bunks. Orientation is at nine-thirty, then the tour, lunch, and activities. Tonight we’ll have a campfire and s’mores. Until then, give me your best fake enthusiasm and stay where I can see you.”

Check-in dissolves into forms and clipboards. Alexis signs things while answering three questions at once and directing a twelve-year-old toward the infirmary for a splinter. Rowan and Skye are handed Velcro patches that correspond to their cabin, and a schedule so full of labeled blocks it looks more like a spreadsheet than a summer plan. 

Skye’s cabin sits near the outer edge of the younger campers’ loop, painted pale brown with dark green shutters and a hand-lettered sign that reads EAGLE’S NEST. Inside are six bunks, two narrow windows, a row of hooks, and the unmistakable smell of wood, old sunscreen, and damp sneakers. Three girls are already unpacking on one side, while boys from the neighboring cabin thud around on the porch outside, too loud for no reason.

Alexis sets down the duffels. “All right. Rowan, you’re next door in the Fox Den cabin with the other boys. Skye, you’re here with the girls. I’m in counselor quarters up by the staff lodge, but I’ll be everywhere. Literally everywhere. Camp runs on the principle that whenever a kid is about to make a bad decision, an adult should emerge from the bushes.”

“Comforting,” Rowan says sarcastically.

“It is, isn’t it?” she agrees with a hint of satisfaction.

She squeezes Skye’s shoulder, claps Rowan lightly on the back, and is halfway out the door before another counselor shouts her name from across the clearing.

“Assistant director stuff!” she calls over her shoulder with wild cheer. “Unpack! Make friends! Have a good time or at least pretend to!” 

Then she is gone.

For the first time since arriving at Camp Stumpwater, Rowan and Skye are completely on their own.

Skye may seem outgoing around people she knows, but strangers bring her deep-rooted shyness rushing back to the forefront. Her plan is to drop off her things as quickly as possible and escape before anyone can force her through any awkward introductions.

Inside the Eagle’s Nest cabin, three girls continue unpacking a few bunks down. One stretches a fitted sheet over a lower bunk while another lines up bottles of sunscreen and bug spray on the windowsill. They glance at Skye with the same cautious curiosity she gives them, but nobody says anything.

Rowan waits beside Skye’s bunk while she opens her duffel. He only intends to stay long enough to make sure she is settled before carrying his own bag to the Fox Den cabin next door.

Skye takes out her toiletry bag, a rolled-up sweatshirt, and a faded stuffed rabbit with one ear permanently bent forward.

She catches Rowan looking at it.

“What? You thought I was too old to bring Mr. Bunnyman?”

Rowan raises both hands defensively. “Hey, I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, well, you were about to.”

“If you say so.” Unfortunately, she is right. He was just about to warn her that the other girls might give her a hard time for bringing it, but she doesn’t need to know that.

Skye gives him a warning look, then tucks the plushie under her pillow, where it is less visible from the other bunks. She pushes the rest of her duffel underneath the bed without unpacking it.

Across the cabin, one of the girls pauses while arranging a stack of shirts. “Is this your first year here too?”

Skye looks up. “Yeah.”

“I’m—”

“Uh—hold that thought—I have to help my brother with his bag,” Skye says quickly.

Before the girl can finish introducing herself, Skye grabs Rowan’s bag, slips past him and rushes out the screen door. 

Rowan looks at the other girl in an apologetic way before quickly chasing after her. He finds her waiting at the bottom of the porch steps.

“You know I can carry my own bag,” he says. 

“I know,” Skye says as if there is more for her to say but she can’t find the words to say them.

Rowan looks back through the screen. The other girls have resumed unpacking, though one of them glances toward the door Skye just escaped through.

“You don’t have to follow me to my cabin. You could stay here,” he says.

“I know, but I’d rather hang with you.” Her arms fold across her chest. She keeps her attention on Fox Den instead of looking at him.

It takes Rowan a moment to understand. She does not want to help with his bag. She just does not want him to leave her there yet.

“Besides, I can’t talk to any of these girls about what we’ve seen and it’s all that’s been on my mind lately,” she admits in an almost frustrated tone. 

“You’re not alone there... All right,” he says, reclaiming his own duffel bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Come on.”

The cabins form a loose row along the edge of the clearing, each one raised a few feet off the ground with its own narrow porch and short flight of steps. Fox Den stands next door, separated from Eagle’s Nest by fifteen feet of pine needles and packed earth.

Skye follows Rowan across the gap, staying close enough that their shoulders nearly touch.

“You do know you’ll have to go back eventually,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says dismissively.

He glances at her. Rowan shakes his head and keeps walking.

Three boys loiter on the Fox Den porch. One is short and wiry, with glasses and a habit of squinting even when he’s wearing them. Another is broad-faced and oafish, his clothes rumpled enough to suggest he either packed them that way or has already slept in them.

The third boy is impossible to miss. He is older than everyone else by at least two years, maybe three, with long limbs and a lean, rangy build that makes him seem bigger than he is. The sleeves of his camp shirt are rolled almost to his shoulders beneath a tattered black denim jacket. Unkempt black hair sticks out beneath a backward cap, and a plastic badge clipped near his jacket pocket reads JUNIOR ACTIVITY ASSISTANT. Those spiked bracelets say it all. Rowan would bet his life this guy spends his free time making enemies and listening to hardcore punk music. 

He leans against the porch railing with the effortless laziness of someone who has learned that if he acts bored enough, some people will mistake it for confidence.

As Rowan and Skye approach, he looks them over. His attention passes over Rowan and settles on Skye.

More specifically, on the thick section of her bangs dyed vivid blue.

He snorts as they pass. “What’s with the Smurf fur?”

Skye stops.

The two boys beside him perk up. Neither laughs yet. They seem to be waiting for permission.

Skye looks behind her as if he might be talking to someone else. “What?”

The older boy pushes away from the railing and gets closer. “That.” So close that he points his finger and nearly grazes her hair. “Did you lose a bet or something?”

One of the boys snickers. The other boy with glasses stares at the floorboards.

Heat rushes into Skye’s face. Her hand rises toward her bangs, hesitates, then tries to sweep the blue section out of sight.

That is all Rowan needs to see to get riled up. Skye has spent the entire summer insisting the color makes her look “mildly enchanted.” Until now, he has never seen her try to hide it.

“Leave her alone,” Rowan says, fighting the urge to push the bully to the ground.

His voice carries across the space between the cabins. A girl inside Eagle’s Nest looks out through the screen. The boy with glasses suddenly becomes interested in the laces of his shoes.

The older boy turns toward Rowan, surprised enough to look amused.

“Oh, yeah?” he says. “And who are you?”

“Her brother,” Rowan says, making his voice steadier than he feels.

“Oh, well congratulations.” He glances back at Skye. “So which one of your parents has Smurf ancestry?”

The broad-faced boy laughs again, louder this time. Older kids always seem to gather an audience, whether they deserve one or not.

Rowan lets go of his duffel. It lands heavily next to his shoes. 

“Aren’t you a little old to hang around making fun of kids at summer camp?” he asks with an accusatory tone. “Shouldn’t you have, I don’t know, literally anything better to do?”

The boy’s smile stays in place, but it no longer reaches his eyes.

Up close, he looks fifteen, maybe sixteen. Old enough to have aged out of half the activities advertised on Rowan’s schedule, yet here he is, outside a cabin full of younger campers.

“Besides,” he adds, “you look like a walking Hot Topic clearance rack.”

The grin disappears. A girl at the edge of Eagle’s Nest’s screen door lets out a laugh before she can stop herself. The older boy looks toward the cabin. His glare is enough. She vanishes inside, and the others follow. 

Then the broad-faced boy makes a choking sound as he tries not to laugh. The kid with glasses covers his mouth. Even Skye’s eyes flicker with surprise. For one sharp second, the whole camp seems to hold its breath.

The older boy looks at the others, and their amusement dies immediately. When he turns back to Rowan, his expression has hardened.

“Cute,” he says. “Didn’t realize we had a comedian.”

The boy studies him with a new kind of attention, as though Rowan has changed from a passing annoyance into something worth remembering. A muscle jumps once in his jaw.

“You’re new here, yeah?” he asks quietly.

“Excellent detective work.”

“Then here’s some advice. New kids should be careful who they mouth off to.”

“And junior activity assistants should probably find an activity to assist.”

The boy’s eyes flash. His hand comes up, and for a moment Rowan thinks he is going to swing. Instead, he plants two fingers against Rowan’s chest and gives him a hard little push.

“I’ve got an activity in mind.”

Rowan knocks his hand away. The movement is quick and louder than it should be, skin striking skin in the sudden quiet.

The older boy steps forward.

So does Rowan.

Skye catches the back of Rowan’s shirt in one fist.

“Derek!”

The voice comes from the Fox Den porch.

A counselor stands behind the screen, one hand holding it open. He is young, but the look he gives the older boy carries the weary familiarity of someone who has had this exact conversation before.

“Watch yourself, Seinfeld,” Derek hisses under his breath, low enough that only Rowan can hear. Then Derek’s whole posture changes. His raised shoulders loosen. His hands drop to his sides. The transformation is fast and practiced.

“What?” he says casually.

The counselor looks at Rowan’s abandoned bag, Skye’s grip on his shirt, and the half circle of boys pretending not to watch.

“First morning back,” he says. “Seriously?”

“Come on, Ben. I didn’t do anything.”

“Dude, I was standing right there.”

Derek glances toward Ben, then back at Rowan. Anger flashes across his face, but he reins it in.

For a second, Rowan can practically see him weighing the consequences: Not here. Not today.

Derek takes one step back and lifts both hands.

“Whatever,” he says. “I was welcoming them to camp.”

“Well, consider them welcomed. Mara needs your help stacking the canoes down by the equipment shed.”

“But that’s not my assignment!”

“It is now.”

Derek’s mouth tightens. He looks at Rowan one last time and gives a soft, humorless laugh.

“Have fun at preschool, kids.”

He turns and saunters toward the equipment shed, his walk deliberately slow, as though leaving was his idea. Just before the path bends, he looks back.

The glance he gives Skye is brief but full of disgust. The one he gives Rowan lasts longer. Then he disappears between the cabins.

The boy with glasses releases a breath and the square-faced one leans over the railing to make sure Derek is gone.

“That,” he says, “was Derek.”

Rowan picks up his duffel. “Great. I hate Derek.”

“Everybody hates Derek. I’m Hank, by the way.”

“Rowan. This is my sister, Skye.”

The boy with glasses lifts a hand. “Eli.”

“So, do you guys hate Derek too?” Rowan asks.

“Yes. Though, some people pretend not to,” Eli gives an accusatory look towards Hank.

“He’s been coming here forever,” Hank continues. “He almost got sent home last summer. This year, his mom made him come back as a junior assistant to keep him out of trouble.”

Ben seemingly overhears and adds, “As you can see, it’s going great.”

Rowan looks toward Ben. “So they let him boss people around?”

“The badge means virtually nothing. Though, I’m sure it goes to his head,” Ben says. “If he gives you any more trouble, come find me. I’m your cabin counselor, not him.”

“Derek thinks he owns the place,” Eli says.

“He wishes… but I do know that Mara, who does own the place, will be wondering why none of the boys at Fox Den have unpacked yet.” Ben pushes the Fox Den door wider. “Bags inside, boys. I need to help set up at the dining hall. When you hear the whistle, head over.”

He waits for Hank and Eli to haul their bags through the doorway, then steps off the porch and heads down the path.

Rowan starts after the boys, but Skye stays close enough that he nearly bumps into her when he turns.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine.”

Her answer comes too quickly. Her fingers drift toward her bangs again.

“Your hair doesn’t look stupid,” Rowan says.

Skye frowns at him. “You said it looked like toothpaste when I first dyed it.”

“That was before I knew it was ‘mildly enchanted’.”

She tries not to smile. “You’re an idiot.”

“Probably.” Rowan shifts his duffel against his hip and nods toward the open door. “Come on. You can make sure I don’t get lost on the way to my bunk.”

Skye follows him into Fox Den.

The cabin is dim and cool inside. Six bunks line the walls beneath two narrow windows, their wooden frames carved with initials from campers who have come and gone. The room smells just like the other cabin, only with more dirty socks.

Rowan claims an empty lower bunk near the back and drops his duffel onto the mattress. Skye stands beside him while he pulls out his pillow and sleeping bag.

“That girl probably thinks I’m rude,” Skye says.

“The one you ran out on?”

She nods. 

“She said it was her first year too.” Skye looks toward the open door, then back at him. “I didn’t even let her tell me her name.”

Rowan sets his pillow down. “Want me to come back over with you?”

“Just to the porch,” she says after a moment.

He leaves his duffel on the bed, and she follows him outside.

“Will you wait for me before you go to orientation?” she asks.

“Yeah. Of course.”

They step onto the porch just as a girl comes out of Eagle’s Nest across the path.

“Hey!” she calls to Skye. “You’re in here, right?”

Skye lowers her hand from her bangs. “Yeah.”

“I’m Samantha. Which bunk did you pick?”

“I’m Skye. I picked the bottom one by the window.”

“Oh, good. I’m above you.”

Skye glances at Rowan.

“Go for it,” he says. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

She heads down the steps, the blue section of her bangs still bright and fully visible across her forehead. As they walk away, Rowan thinks he overhears Samantha compliment Skye’s hair, and her whole demeanor shifts. The self-consciousness falls away, and suddenly she’s back to her usual “mildly enchanted” self. 

Rowan stays on the porch as she crosses the pine-covered path and climbs the steps to Eagle’s Nest. Samantha holds the door open for her and says something he cannot make out. This time, Skye doesn’t hesitate at the entrance. She answers as she steps inside, and Samantha laughs. A moment later, so does Skye.

Rowan goes back into Fox Den and finishes unpacking. He hangs his backpack from the nearest hook, stacks his clothes on the shelf beside his bunk, and tucks the empty duffel beneath the frame. With his sleeping bag spread over the mattress and his things within reach, the bunk begins to feel like his.

Across from him, Hank sits on the edge of his bed, stuffing the last corner of his pillow into its case.

“Your sister seems cool,” he says.

Rowan looks at him, waiting for the joke but none comes.

“Yeah,” he says. “She is.”

Outside, a whistle sounds near the dining hall. Campers begin spilling from the cabins for orientation, filling the paths with voices and slamming screen doors.

Eli peers through the window toward the lake. “Derek’s still looking at you from over here.”

Rowan joins him.

Down the hill, Derek stands beside the canoe rack while a counselor points toward the equipment shed. He appears to be listening, but his eyes are fixed on Fox Den. 

Then on Rowan in the window.

Their eyes meet through the trees.

Derek slowly taps two fingers against his own eyes, then points them at Rowan.

Watch yourself, Seinfeld. Rowan can hear his voice in his head.

Rowan gives him a cheerful little wave and Derek’s face darkens.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” Hank says gravely. Eli hangs on Rowan’s arm to stop him from continuing the wave.

Rowan looks back, and he knows Hank’s right. But he doesn’t care. 

There’s always one, he thinks to himself. It’s a lesson his dad taught him. 

Whether it be a new school, a new team, or even a new job; you can go somewhere you’ve never been, meet people you’ve never met, and somehow there is always someone like Derek. Someone who finds the thing you’re embarrassed about and makes sure to put a magnifying glass up to it. Someone who basks in all of your failures and scowls at any amount of success.

Rowan had hoped summer camp might be different.

Across the way, Skye’s laughter can be heard coming from inside the Eagle’s Nest cabin.

He doesn’t regret stepping in. Whatever happens with Derek, he isn’t going to stand there and let someone make his sister feel small.

The wave, though. He probably could have skipped the wave. That was pretty antagonistic, even for Rowan’s standards.

But the most important thing about dealing with a bully is how you respond to them. Though admittedly, that is the part Rowan hasn’t fully figured out just yet. How to stand up to someone like Derek without spending the rest of the week in a fight with him. How to choose what is worth answering and what is worth letting go. 

Rowan has been at Camp Stumpwater for less than an hour, and he already has an enemy.

Worse, his enemy knows where he sleeps.

Orientation comes next, and it is exactly as dreadful as camp orientation has apparently been invented to be.

Rowan waits for Skye before following the other campers to the nearby dining hall. They all gather on the grass beneath the flagpole, arranged by cabin in uneven rows. Behind them, the grounds slope toward the lake. The flag snaps overhead, its rope tapping steadily against the metal pole.

There is a whistle. There are rules. There is a song no one knows but several counselors insist is “super memorable.” By the third chorus, Rowan can remember almost nothing except that he would like it to stop.

Mara stands at the front with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm. She is deeply tanned, with a whistle hanging around her neck and a mass of tight curls escaping from beneath her visor. She carries herself casually, yet Rowan gets the feeling she could take control of the entire camp in seconds.

“At Camp Stumpwater,” she announces loudly, “we look after ourselves, we look after each other, we respect nature, and we make sure,” she pauses dramatically for effect, “we always drink enough water. It’s very important to stay hydrated!”

The last part gets some odd looks and beside Rowan, Eli unscrews his water bottle immediately and begins to gulp it down.

Mara works through the topics of community, courage, kindness, as well as the importance of not leaving food out because the ants will find it. Then she turns and points toward the northern end of the lake.

“Some of you may be wondering how our lovely camp got its name.”

Newer campers exchange glances with one another, as if collectively thinking, well now that you mention it…

“There was once a settlement over on the far side of the lake. It was abandoned a long time ago, but you can still find traces of it if you know where to look. One of those places is an old clearing where the trees were cut down.”

Mara looks toward the water.

“When the water rises, it reaches the old stumps. Locals have always called that stretch Stumpwater Cove. So, when our camp opened, the name kinda came with the territory.”

“That’s the boring version,” Eli whispers under his breath to Rowan.

Rowan turns slightly. “There’s another version?”

He waits until Mara faces the other direction.

“Okay, so Mara used to be a camper here,” Eli whispers. “And back then, her hair was short. And completely straight.”

Rowan glances toward Mara, then back at him. “So?”

“So, somebody told her the water in Stumpwater Cove could make your hair grow faster. She was obsessed with the story of Rapunzel, so she went across the lake, scooped some out of a hollow stump, and dumped it over her head.”

“And it worked?”

“Not exactly.” Eli makes a spiraling motion beside his head. “It didn’t make her hair grow fast. Instead, it made it really curly.”

Rowan looks at Mara’s mass of tight curls.

“Permanently,” Eli adds.

“No way,” Rowan says dismissively.

“I’m just telling you what I heard. Supposedly, if you wash your hair with water from the cove, it curls up and never goes straight ever again.”

Skye, sitting in the next row with the girls from Eagle’s Nest, leans sideways. “Has anybody in camp actually tried it?”

Eli scratches his chin. “Don’t think so… Would you?”

“And for those of you currently considering it,” Mara says without turning around, “we’ll be canoeing across the lake on Wednesday. You can see the cove for yourselves.”

Several campers sit up straighter.

Mara turns to face them. “But please don’t pour anything you find in an old stump over your head. We have perfectly good showers here.”

She pauses.

“Use them. Camp gets stinky enough as it is.”

A light rumble of laughter travels through the ranks. Even Skye smiles.

At the back of the group, Derek now leans against the flagpole, spinning a lanyard around one finger. Rowan has been trying not to look at him. Meanwhile, Derek continues to stare down Rowan every opportunity he has.

When Mara finally starts introducing the staff, Derek tries edging away.

“…and we have Derek,” she says. “Who will be assisting with activities this year. In fact, Derek, if you don’t mind, please go post the schedules to the cabin bulletin boards.”

“Aw, c’mon Aunt Mara, can’t you find someone else to do that?” he asks lazily, more invested in picking a hangnail than he is with anything to do with camp culture.

Rowan turns to Hank on his opposite side, surprised.

“That’s his aunt?”

“Yeah, Mara’s sister Denise is his mom,” Hank whispers back.

Of course she is. Apparently, Derek’s summer job is all thanks to family connections.

“Derek, you’re here to help honey. This isn’t a vacation. Now, go post the schedules. Quickly,” Mara says sternly.

“Ugh fine—”

She returns to her clipboard. Derek makes a face at her back, then bends to pick up the lanyard he dropped. When he spots Rowan watching, his expression hardens into something even more resentful.

Rowan looks away first this time. He has already fed enough fuel to this fire for one day.

“And with all of that said, we are all so excited to have you here and hope you are just as excited as we are to see all that camp has to offer! Please meet with your counselors for your next planned activity. Camp dismissed!” Mara says, concluding the orientation.

They are split into smaller groups. Names are learned, forgotten, and relearned. Rowan gets to know Eli a little better and learns that, besides wearing glasses, he can identify six kinds of knot on sight. During a getting-to-know-you activity, Eli demonstrates three of them with his shoelace before Ben asks him to put his shoe back on.

Skye is grouped with Samantha and Angela, another girl from Eagle’s Nest. Angela is quieter than Samantha, and it takes a little while for Skye to draw her out. By the time everyone heads to lunch, the three of them are gossiping about whether Mara really got her hair from the stump-water, or if she just got a perm.

Rowan takes that as progress.

After lunch comes the rest of the tour. They follow counselor Ben past the climbing wall, the archery range, and eventually out to a sprawling field. Every stop involves a list of things they are allowed to do, followed by a much longer list of things they are not allowed to do.

Finally, the path circles back and slopes toward the docks. Pine shade gives way to open sunlight, and the smell of warm needles yields to lake water and damp wood.

Fishing rods are handed out. Bait is pinned to hooks. After several warnings about where not to swing anything sharp, everyone settles along the bank of a broad wooden dock.

A gentle hush falls over the group.

It is the first activity all day that requires them to do absolutely nothing. Rowan already has considerable practice with doing nothing and considers himself an expert in the field.

He sits beside Skye with his line in the water and the rod resting across his knees. The lake glitters. Dragonflies skim low over the reeds. Somewhere down the dock, Alexis helps a cluster of younger campers untangle their lines.

Skye sighs so deeply, part of her soul seems to leave with it.

“Summer camp? More like bummer camp, huh?” She side-eyes her brother for his response.

Rowan looks at her, amused. “You’ve been saving that one, haven’t you?”

“Since breakfast,” she says, shooting him with finger guns.

“Worth the wait,” he replies, grinning. But the humor is short lived. His face turns serious again.

All day, Rowan has kept his eyes open for something strange: a shape between the trees, an unfamiliar sound, a path no one else seems to notice. He keeps expecting the woods to give something away. Instead, they offer squirrels, leaves, and mosquitoes behaving exactly as they should.

By the time the rods are collected, Rowan has caught nothing and Skye has hooked the lake equivalent of seaweed twice. Alexis declares this an excellent first effort, which tells Rowan quite a lot about her standards.

The campers return their equipment at the rack beside the boathouse, then start up the shoreline path back toward the dining hall. A counselor leads, with Ben bringing up the rear. Samantha and Angela, now going by just Sam and Angie, walk ahead of Skye, comparing the small fish Angie caught with the much larger fish Sam insists got away.

Rowan pauses to shake a pebble from his shoe. When he catches up, Skye is standing on her own at the edge of the path. She seems to be vibrating with some sort of uncontrollable energy and the moment she sees Rowan her already wide eyes go wider and she waves him over enthusiastically.

“What is it?” he asks, rushing to her side.

She points into a tangle of branches overhanging the reeds.

“There! Look!”

Rowan follows her finger. Leaves, branches, a strip of reflected sunlight. Nothing else.

“Where?”

“On that bent branch. The one above the water.”

Sam and Angie turn back. Eli stops behind Rowan, forcing the next two campers to step around him.

“What are we looking at?” Sam asks.

“A bird,” Skye says. “I think.”

The branch trembles, but Rowan cannot tell whether something moved or the breeze caught it.

“It was right there.” Skye takes a step toward the reeds. “It was all fluffy, and it had these little—”

She raises both hands above her forehead, fingers branching outward.

“Antlers.”

Someone laughs.

“A bird with antlers?” Derek repeats seemingly appearing out of thin air.

Skye drops her hands. “I know what I saw.”

“Probably just a twig behind its head,” Eli offers.

Derek makes two antlers with his fingers and flaps his elbows. A couple of campers start to laugh harder.

“You’re seeing things. Guess Smurfs don’t have good eyesight, huh?”

Skye’s cheeks redden. Rowan moves beside her, stepping between them.

“Enough.”

Ben catches up and calls for everyone to keep moving. Angie touches Skye’s elbow.

“Come on. Maybe we’ll see it again!”

Skye lets her lead her back onto the path. Rowan waits until the others are walking again before drawing level with his sister.

“How big?” he asks quietly.

She gives him a guarded look. “Don’t.”

“I’m serious.”

Skye studies his face, checking for a joke. When she finds none, she holds her hands a little apart.

“About that big. It was sitting there looking at us.”

“At everyone?”

“At me, I think...” She glances over her shoulder. “Actually, if I’m being honest, I couldn’t tell what it was looking at,” she revises. “I don’t want to sound mean, but it looked kinda dumb looking. Like its eyes were pointing in two directions at once.”

Rowan looks back too. The bend in the path has already hidden the branch.

“You believe me?” she asks.

He lowers his voice. “After this weekend? Of course.”

For the first time since she pointed into the trees, her shoulders relax.

The rest of the day continues as though nothing has happened. Dinner is served in the mess hall. An evening hike takes them along a marked loop through the pines, with a counselor identifying trees Rowan immediately forgets.

At the campfire, marshmallows catch fire, songs are attempted, and a ghost story loses most of its impact when the storyteller has to stop and ask who left a water bottle too close to the flames.

Rowan barely listens. In the afternoon, he had wanted something strange to happen because camp was boring. Now that Skye has seen something, he’s hopeful that there is more to come.

He catches her looking past the fire into the trees. She catches him doing the same.

By the time they are sent back toward the cabins, the sky has gone deep blue above the pines. Lanterns glow on the separate porches, and the smell of smoke follows them up the hill.

Alexis intercepts them near the water pump while the rest of their group continues toward the washhouse.

“You two still alive?” she asks energetically despite the winding down day.

“Define alive,” Rowan says blandly.

“Any major injuries?”

“Boredom,” Skye says. “Emotional damage.”

“Tragic. I’ll get the tiny violin.” Alexis leans against the pump enclosure while rubbing her fingers together. “Well did anything good happen at least?”

“Samantha caught a fish,” Skye says.

“I saw. I believe she’s already named it.”

“Yeah, she had to put Mr. Floppingsworth back.”

“A very brief friendship,” Alexis acknowledges somberly.

Skye smiles faintly, then looks toward Rowan.

He knows what is on her mind. This afternoon, he had not seen the creature, but Skye did. Alexis knows birds. If there is an ordinary explanation, she might have it.

“So you said nobody ever asks you about birds,” Rowan says in a casual way.

Alexis brightens. “Finally. My moment!”

Skye equally brightens, having not expected her brother to bring this up.

“Can they have antlers?”

The smile stays on Alexis’s face for a second longer than it belongs. Then it fades.

“What did you see? And where?”

No laugh. Nothing immediately dismissive. Skye then describes the fluffy white, feathery body, the short antlers, and the way it turned its head to look at her in the most “derpy” way.

“It was on the way back from fishing,” she finishes. “But when I went to show everyone, it was gone!”

Rowan waits for her to come up with a reasonable explanation. Instead, she checks the washhouse door, then the space behind them almost mischievously.

“You know what it was,” he says in an astonished tone. He says it more as a fact than an accusation.

Alexis draws a slow breath.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to show y’all,” she says. “Something that might help make sense of a few things.”

Skye moves a little closer. “Like what?”

“First, I need to ask you a question,” Alexis says, looking from one of them to the other, suddenly very serious.

Rowan isn’t sure why, but his stomach tightens. In fact, his whole body tenses up, in preparation for her inquiry.

Alexis rubs the back of her neck, a gesture so much like James that it would be funny under any other circumstance.

“All your dad told me was that y’all got lost this weekend.”

“That’s what he thinks happened,” Skye interjects, her voice rich with attitude.

Alexis nods once.

“Well then, is there more to the story as to what happened to you in those woods?”

That is all it takes.

The secret surges up so fast Rowan almost answers on instinct. Beside him, Skye draws breath. They have spent days wondering who might listen, who might believe them, and whether telling anyone would only make things worse. Now an adult is asking the right question without a smirk, without already preparing to explain why they are wrong.

For a moment, Rowan cannot decide where to begin.

“We were just—” Skye starts.

“It all started—,” Rowan begins at the same time.

Alexis lifts a finger.

“Not here.”

Her eyes flick in all directions and then toward the washhouse. Two campers emerge carrying toothbrushes, followed by a counselor counting heads. Alexis waits until they have passed.

A camp bell rings once in the distance.

“I would not normally encourage this kind of behavior under any other circumstance… but this, this is different,” she says to herself quietly, cryptically. “But anyway, how would you two feel about sneaking out with me tonight?”

Skye stares at her. If it physically could be, her jaw would be on the floor. “Sneak out?”

“At midnight,” Alexis chimes in.

Rowan looks at his sister. After an entire day of being told where to stand, where to walk, and when to drink water, the invitation sounds almost impossible. Too good to be true or something.

“Is this some kind of test?” he asks, looking her up and down trying to gauge her intentions.

“No. I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think it was important. Y’all both have my permission to break the rules tonight. Just this once—if you want.”

For once, Alexis adds no joke. She, from all accounts, seems dead serious.

Rowan nods and follows with a salute. Skye mirrors him.

“The old canoe shed,” Alexis says. “Down by the east trail. Meet me outside it. Don’t go any farther without me.”

“What are you going to show us?” Rowan asks barely able to contain his excitement.

Alexis looks at him for a long moment.

“I think you’ll understand better when you see it,” she says, a glint catching her eye in the sunset.

A counselor calls for Eagle’s Nest to head inside. Alexis straightens, and just like that, she is regular Alexis again—light, quick, impossible to pin down.

“Teeth brushed,” she says briskly, almost too loudly as if anyone were observing her from afar, they could hear her words. “Shoes by the bunks. Off to bed, you two. See ya in the morning!”

She gives Skye’s shoulder a brief squeeze, then a subtle wink before turning toward the staff lodge, leaving them beneath the lantern glow of the nearby washhouse.

Rowan watches her disappear along the path.

All afternoon, he wanted the day to be over.

Now he can hardly wait for midnight.

In Eagle’s Nest, Skye changes for bed in a daze.

In Fox Den, Rowan pretends to be more tired than he is and waits through the slow ritual of lights-out: boys arguing over who stole whose flashlight, a counselor reminding everyone that no one has ever died from sharing one cabin fan, whispered jokes, the squeak of mattresses settling.

Outside, night insects drone. Camp quiets in stages. Across the cabins, conversations fade and lights go out one by one. Eventually, the whole place settles into sleep.

At 11:58, Rowan slips out of bed as if heading to the bathroom. Thankfully, the cabins no longer rely on rickety outhouses. Each has its own bathroom now—and this one has a window.

He eases it open and slips outside.

At 12:02, Skye emerges from the shadow of the girls’ cabin, hoodie over her pajamas, hair loose around her shoulders.

At 12:04, the siblings reach the old canoe shed at the edge of camp. Alexis is already waiting with an unlit flashlight in one hand and a thermos in the other.

“Punctual,” she whispers as they approach.

“You were serious,” Skye says, still amazed that an adult is encouraging them to break rules.

“Usually I am.” Alexis gives them a sideways look. “Just wait until your parents hear about this.”

Their faces drop. She watches their expressions contort in horror and lets them suffer for an extra second before smiling.

“I’m teasing. You two are lucky I’m the cool aunt.” 

She leads them away from the canoe shed and down the east trail. Any remaining camp lights fade away behind them until only the moonlit woods remain. 

“All right. Bring me up to speed while we walk. Start at the beginning.”

And so they do.

At first, the words come out in tangled bursts—the map in the attic, the campfire deep in the woods, the portal, the twin suns, the mushroom forest, the floating rocks, the UFO, the lake monster, Mothman gliding overhead, the shadow darkening the valley, Bigfoot stepping from the trees, the golden tear in reality, and finally their return to the clearing.

Then came the disbelief. The lie to Mom and Dad.

Once the telling begins, it gathers force. The whole impossible adventure unspools from them like a secret they have been holding too tightly.

Alexis does not interrupt except to ask precise questions.

“What color were the flames before the portal opened?”

“Blue,” Rowan says.

“The shadow—did the ground die wherever it moved?”

“Yes,” Skye whispers in shock.

How could Alexis possibly know to ask that?

“When Bigfoot looked at it, did he seem confused or angry?”

“Angry,” Rowan says immediately. “Like he knew whatever it was, it was bad.”

Alexis nods, more to herself than to them.

By the time they finish, the woods beyond the canoe shed seem deeper than before.

For a long moment, Alexis says nothing.

“You believe us,” Skye says.

It is not really a question. It is wonder edged with fear.

Alexis meets her eyes. “Yes, I do.”

The relief hits Skye so hard she sways. Something inside Rowan’s chest finally unclenches—something that has been twisted tight since the cabin.

“You do?” he asks incredulously. It still sounds too good to be true.

“Of course I do,” she says in a reassuring tone.

“But...how?” Rowan is so used to adults brushing this kind of thing aside as nonsense.

Alexis lets out a slow breath. “Because when I was fifteen, I had an encounter of my own.”

The siblings stare at her with mouths agape.

Alexis leans against a tree and folds her arms, gazing somewhere past them and into memory.

“Mine wasn’t exactly like yours though. I didn’t get yanked through a dang portal during a family vacation. But I was helping with a volunteer cleanup by the river outside Loveland, Ohio. Everyone else had already gone home because of a storm warning. I stayed because I was an idiot with a superiority complex and figured I could finish picking up all of the litter before the rain came.”

“That tracks,” Rowan muses before he can stop himself. 

Alexis points at him without looking. “Glad my reputation precedes me.”

Skye holds back a laugh.

“Anyway, the storm rolled in fast. Way faster than I expected. Thunder. Weird green sky. I was down by the water when I heard a sound coming from the rocks—not a croak, not a splash, but something in between. I turned my flashlight, and there, not twenty feet away, was...” Alexis gives a small, humorless laugh. “Well. I spent the next ten years pretending it wasn’t what it was.”

“What?” Skye whispers. “Bigfoot?”

Alexis shakes her head. “Not quite. It was a Frogman.”

They both look at her as if she has started speaking another language.

“He was about three feet tall. Squat body, slick skin the color of pond weed, eyes that reflected gold in my flashlight. He stood on two legs, wore a cloak, and held what looked like a magic wand.” She pauses. “And he gave me a look like I had deeply inconvenienced him by being there.”

Skye’s face brightens with curiosity. Was this Frogman also from the strange world they had visited?

“He raised one webbed hand,” Alexis continues. “Not in a threatening way. More like, Stop right there, ma’am. You are embarrassing yourself. Then lightning struck the riverbank behind me, close enough to knock me flat. When I looked up, he was gone.”

Goosebumps race up both siblings’ arms.

“That’s insane,” Rowan breathes. Before his own encounter, he might’ve been the first person to have called the story nonsense. But things are different now.

“Sure is,” Alexis says. “I told one person. He laughed. So, I shut up and filed it under Unhelpful Life Experiences.”

“But was that all?” Skye presses.

Alexis’s smile returns, thinner now. “A few years later, here at camp, I saw something else. Heard it first. Heavy footsteps off-trail, where nothing that big should have been moving. The next morning, I found prints—too large, too human. Then, at dusk, I caught a glimpse of him across the north trail. Huge. Light-brown fur. Watching the camp. And just like that, he was gone.” She looks straight at Rowan. “Bigfoot.”

The world seems to tilt, pleasantly and terribly, all at once.

“So, you’ve seen him too,” Rowan says, his voice trembling with hope.

“Yes.”

“Was he...” Skye searches for the right word. “Nice?”

Alexis barks out a surprised laugh. “I don’t know if nice is the word. Protective, maybe. Careful. Intentional. Wise. He never came close enough for me to test his manners.”

Skye hugs herself. “So it really is all real?”

She already believes—she saw it with her own eyes—but hearing an adult confirm it makes everything feel real in a new way.

Alexis’s expression softens. “Yeah, kid. It is.”

The sentence settles over them like both a blanket and a storm cloud. For several seconds, no one speaks.

Then Rowan asks the real question.

“If it’s real, then why doesn’t everybody know?”

Alexis looks back down the dark trail of trees that lead back to camp. “Because most people who see any part of it are too scared or embarrassed to admit it. Others are careless with what they learn.” She gestures toward the woods, toward whatever lies beyond explanation. “The line between our world and the other place is thinner than people think. But it doesn’t reveal itself to just anybody.”

Skye’s voice grows small. “What do you mean?”

Alexis hesitates.

“The place you and your brother visited can only be reached by someone who truly believes in the supernatural. But it’s dangerous, and even the people who know about it barely understand it.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Truth be told, part of me thinks you two are too young to go exploring there.”

Rowan sees it in her face: the instinct adults have to protect children by keeping them outside the truth, even after the children have already stumbled into it.

“We’ve already been there,” he says quietly. “And we’re not afraid. If anything, we want to know more.”

Alexis studies him for a long moment. Then she nods.

“Fair enough.”

She uncaps her thermos and takes a sip, though the pause seems to have more to do with thinking than thirst.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. What you saw is real. What saved you is real. And if you want to learn more, you’ll have to trust me completely.”

“We do,” Skye says at once.

“That was a little too fast.” Alexis grins.

“We really do though,” Rowan assures her. “We’re here with you out in the middle of the woods at midnight, aren’t we?”

This time, Alexis accepts it.

“But”—the word is firm enough to stop them from celebrating—“you cannot tell anybody else. Not your cabinmates, not the counselors, not some random kid you decide looks trustworthy. Nobody. Camp gossip moves faster than poison ivy.”

“Okay,” Skye says meekly.

Alexis raises a hand. “I’m serious.”

“We get it,” Rowan says.

“No, I mean really get it. Secrets like this stop being magical when they’re handled stupidly.” She looks from one sibling to the other. “If I show you something tonight, you follow my instructions exactly. No wandering. No shouting. No touching things because they look shiny.”

Rowan opens his mouth.

“That last one means you specifically,” Alexis says.

He closes it.

“Good. Then come on, we’re close now.”

The path narrows. Pines press close. Somewhere, an owl calls once. Alexis moves as if she knows every root and bend by heart, her flashlight still off, trusting moonlight and memory.

After several minutes, the trail spills into a small clearing Rowan is certain does not appear on any camp map. At its center rests a stone-ringed firepit, older than anything else at camp. Ferns and low brush half conceal it, as though the forest itself would prefer it remain hidden.

Alexis kneels and builds a small fire with alarming speed. Dry twigs. Kindling. Two strikes of a match. Soon, orange flames lick upward, painting the three of them in warm gold.

It looks ordinary enough, but Rowan has learned not to trust first impressions where campfires are concerned.

“This,” Alexis says, dusting off her hands, “is a pathfinder fire.” The kids give her an inquisitive look. “Or that’s what I call it, anyway.”

“You made up your own name for it?” Rowan asks.

“It describes what it does perfectly well,” she says, a little defensively.

From the pocket of her overalls, she withdraws a gemstone the size of a robin’s egg.

In the firelight, it shines a brilliant blue.

“Lapis?” Skye asks as she examines the stone.

Alexis glances at her, impressed. “Good eye, kid! Didn’t think you’d know your gemstones like that.”

Rowan steps closer. The stone seems to hold light in layers—deep, ocean-dark, and shimmering from within. It looks less mined than conjured.

Alexis turns it over in her palm. “There are places where the boundary between worlds is thinner. Campgrounds. Old woods. River forks. Caves. Places in nature where people have gathered and told stories for a very long time. A fire in the right place, with the right key, can call to the hidden paths.”

Rowan’s skin prickles. His boring summer at camp has officially become everything he ever wanted—and far more than he knew to ask for.

“The path you found at your dad’s cabin sounds unstable,” Alexis says, lowering her voice. “Wild. Rogue. Something ripped open by accident or by force. But this, this is will be different. These are much more predictable.” She lifts the lapis toward the flames. “Hopefully.”

“Hopefully?” Skye squeaks.

Alexis grins. “I’m kidding. Mostly.”

The fire swells. Sparks spiral upward.

Alexis’s face changes again—not quite solemn, but focused. The way Rowan imagines a wizard must look right before casting a spell.

She holds the lapis gemstone over the campfire and speaks clearly.

“Embers burn, secrets hide. Let this campfire be my guide.”

For one long second, nothing happens. Rowan and Skye exchange a glance. Perhaps their aunt has finally gone completely—

Then the stone flares. 

A blue symbol flashes above the lapis, its lines curling through the air too quickly for Rowan to make sense of them. Then it unfolds into a brilliant lotus of blue light. One petal, then another, until all eight hover above the fire, shimmering bright like the ocean at sunrise. On top of this, a flat and bright white glowing disk shines. 

Skye reaches for Rowan’s sleeve, but before her fingers touch it, the petals and the disk scatter into sparks. 

The flames bend in one impossible, fluid motion. Orange drains into cobalt so quickly that Rowan holds his breath. Blue light pours across the clearing, bright as moonlit water. Smoke rises in a single twisting ribbon—and then stops rising at all. It gathers above the fire, folding in on itself, thickening and spiraling faster until the air begins to shimmer.

Skye grabs Rowan’s sleeve.

The shimmer sharpens into a vertical line of blue-white light. It is not jagged like the portal at the cabin. Not violent. There is no sucking wind, no hungry rip in reality.

This portal looks deliberate—more like the one Bigfoot opened.

The line widens with graceful ease, unfolding into an oval doorway woven from light, smoke, and pale blue fire. Through it, Rowan glimpses lanterns glowing in impossible colors, tall silhouettes moving between trees, banners strung high overhead, and distant laughter carried on air that smells sweeter than summer rain.

He feels the world tilt beneath him.

Alexis lowers the lapis. The portal holds.

“This one,” she says softly, “goes somewhere else.”

Skye, absolutely captivated, can barely get the word out. “Where?”

Alexis turns to them, blue light dancing across her grin.

“A safe haven within the Elderwilds. A place called Cryptid Camp.”

Rowan and Skye exchange a look of wonder.

“The Elderwilds?” Skye asks in awe. The words leave her mouth as though they are forbidden.  

Every nerve in Rowan’s body wakes at once. It feels as though his whole life has been leading up to this very moment.

“Yeah, that’s what we call the other world, or rather the other dimension. It seems like wherever that rogue portal took you and your brother, it landed y’all in uncharted territory.”

The doorway hums, steady as a held note.

Skye’s fingers tighten on Rowan’s sleeve until they almost hurt. He does not mind.

Alexis steps toward the threshold and looks back over her shoulder. “Last chance to decide you’d rather go back to bed.”

Neither sibling moves.

“That,” Rowan says, unable to tear his gaze from the portal, “is the easiest decision I’ve ever made.”

Skye nods so hard her hair bounces. “Same.”

Alexis laughs softly. “That’s what I thought.”

She extends one hand toward the opening—inviting them.

“Stay close,” she says. “And welcome to the real camp.”

Together, under the blue firelight, the Hawthorne children step through with their aunt.

For the first time since the woods behind the cabin tore open and showed them a world of hidden things, Rowan knows with absolute certainty that they are no longer lost.

They have arrived.

The transition is much smoother this time.

The conjured rift does not spit them out—it carries them. One moment, Rowan stands at the threshold of Aunt Alexis’s carefully woven portal, blue fire flickering in his eyes and Skye’s fingers twisted so tightly in his sleeve she might tear the fabric. The next, the world slips around them like warm water around a stone.

There is no wrenching pull. No violent tumble. No sense of being dragged through the throat of something hungry. The movement feels deliberate, almost gentle, as if the magic itself is guiding them rather than forcing them through.

They step forward together and emerge from fire.

Rowan expects heat, pain, nausea—something—but feels none of it as they pass through the portal. He stumbles onto solid ground with Skye still attached to his sleeve. Only when they are fully through the rift do they feel warmth at their backs. A column of cobalt flame rises behind them from a bonfire so immense it could swallow fifty other campfires whole.

Skye gasps so hard it sounds painful, while Rowan forgets to breathe at all.

The massive bonfire roars, a great, steady column of fire reaching as high as the roof of a two-story building. It burns with a magical strength that appears to never falter. Thick logs lie within it, blackened and split, as large around as telephone poles, but they don’t collapse into ash the way they normally should. Instead, they glow, they crack, they shift—and the fire keeps going, unchanged, as if it isn’t really feeding on them at all.

Beyond the fire’s edge, shorter logs have been arranged in a wide ring as seats. Their placement makes it clear that campers gather here to enjoy its warmth, just as they would around any ordinary campfire.

The flames climb in layered colors—orange at the base, gold through the middle, and at the tips an unnatural blue that curls into the night like ink dispersing in water. Sparks rise in swarming constellations.

For a moment, Rowan mistakes them for stars. Then he looks higher. The bonfire towers over him, its blue-tipped flames hiding a whole stretch of sky. He would have to circle to the other side to see what lies beyond it.

What he can see is deep, velvety purple, scattered with more stars than he has ever seen. Three moons hang far apart among them, each a different size. One is nearly full. Another rests low above the mountains like a silver fingernail. The smallest is so faint he almost misses it, and across all of it stretches an unexplainable soft golden shimmer.

Rowan tips his head back. The shimmer curves overhead, wider than the entire campground, barely visible until a spark touches it. Then light races along its surface in a delicate ring and fades. Beyond it, the stars look oddly blurred, as though he is seeing them through a thin sheet of glass.

“Are we inside something?” Skye whispers. They are the first words either of them has managed to say, and even she seems startled by the sound of her own voice.

Alexis steps out of the fire behind them and brushes off her overalls as casually as if she has just walked through a doorway. She follows Skye’s gaze to the golden shimmer overhead, then looks back at the two of them.

“It just means you’re safe here,” she says reassuringly.

Rowan knows she has not quite answered Skye’s question, but he does not press her. He has no idea which of the thousand questions in his own head to ask first.

Alexis takes in their stunned faces and smiles again, clearly satisfied.

“Well,” she says, her voice warm with quiet amusement. She pauses just long enough for maximum effect. “Go on then. Have your moment.”

And they do. And it lasts much longer than a mere moment. Both Hawthorne siblings stand frozen in awe, drinking in the impossible sights around them.

At first, Rowan can only make sense of fragments: scattered pools of light, flashes of color overhead, tall shapes standing among the trees, and wooden structures and winding paths stretching outward from the central fire like spokes from a wheel.

The great fire stands at the center of a wide clearing. Beyond it, within a stone’s throw, rises a massive timber hall with polished beams, a broad porch, and windows spilling amber light into the night. Smoke drifts from its chimneys. Above its double doors, curling gold letters spell out EMBER HALL.

The doors swing open, and laughter spills out with a rush of music and the smell of fresh bread. A camper emerges onto the porch with a bulging satchel slung over one shoulder. Someone inside calls after him to bring the supplies back when he’s finished. He calls something in reply that Rowan cannot quite hear, and the doors close again.

It is such an ordinary little exchange that Rowan almost laughs. Here he is, standing beneath three moons, listening to someone get reminded to return borrowed gear.

Paths wind away from the clearing on either side of the hall. Each begins at a carved post topped with a glowing gemstone. Lanterns hang along the trails, their light spilling over roots, stepping-stones, and patches of grass. Banners stir overhead. Tall totem poles stand among them, cryptid faces carved one above another.

Between two of the poles, lines are strung like laundry cords. Unlit lanterns hang there in uneven clusters. Some sit pressed close together—like beads on an abacus, while others are conspicuously absent, as if borrowed by unseen hands and not yet returned.

Skye notices them too. “Do people take those?”

“They do,” Alexis says. “You’ll see why.”

Rowan starts toward the hall for a better look, then stops.

To the left, the ground falls away toward a moonlit lake. A blue-roofed cabin stands along its shore, with long windows facing the water and narrow boats pulled up beside a dock. The three moons waver in its reflection.

Farther along, a green cabin nestles in a thick grove. Trees crowd so close around the building that branches brush its roof, yet warm light shines from its windows. One branch bends aside to let a camper pass and settles back into place after her.

Past the grove, a trail winds up a rocky slope to a rugged cabin. Beside it stands an old windmill, its wooden blades making a slow, creaking turn, though no gusts of wind stir the trees at the foot of the incline. Rowan can’t help but wonder whether the wind is stronger up on there, or whether some unseen magic keeps the blades turning.

The fourth trail stretches into red sand and cliffs. There, an orange-lit cabin sits beneath a wall of stone, surrounded by cacti and twisted plants that look almost like flames from this distance. A thin ribbon of smoke rises nearby, though Rowan cannot tell whether it comes from the cabin or the ground beneath it.

“Those four,” Alexis says, following his gaze, “are the elemental cabins.”

Skye turns in a slow circle. “Look there’s even more Row! What about those?” she asks Alexis, pointing across the clearing in the opposite direction.

“Those are the supernatural cabins,” Alexis says knowingly.

To the right of Ember Hall, the trails grow stranger.

The first leads over a low wooden bridge toward a dark chapel surrounded by gravestones. Soft lights drift between the tombs, trailing wisps of pale mist. Rowan squints, expecting to make out campers carrying lanterns, but the lights draw closer and he glimpses faces within them—strange, shifting faces that vanish each time he tries to focus on one. He can’t help but think to himself, Are those spirits?

Farther up the slope, a pale cabin glows among flowering trees, its wide windows and curved roof shining with all the colors of the rainbow. It shines in a distinctly unique, radiant fashion.

Beyond it stands a black stone structure positioned next to a series of dark caves. From here, the narrow tower looks more like a castle than it does a cabin.

The last cabin lies nearly tucked away in the mountainside, standing beside a towering observatory crowned with a rounded glass dome. From within, an enormous telescope juts through the dome toward the stars, observing the three moons and their countless celestial neighbors.

Rowan looks from one side of camp to the other. Eight paths. Eight gemstones. Eight cabins, each set far enough apart to feel like its own domain. Even at a distance, Rowan can see that the land around them is not uniform. It subtly shifts, bends, and reshapes itself, as though each cabin claims not just space, but its own piece of the world, tailored to whatever waits within.

Between the trails and structures is an array of people—and creatures—traveling to and fro, giving the place a steady pulse of life. Some carry satchels and gear while others hurry with clipboards and snacks. Others linger near the Ember Hall steps, comparing notes with the seriousness of researchers yet the excitement of kids trading ghost stories around a fire. Even at this hour, the campground hums with activity.

Beyond the cabins rise forests and mountains, their edges softened by the golden barrier overhead. A waterfall gleams in the distance. Rowan watches it spill down a cliff into darkness, then finds himself looking back at the hall and the paths and the enormous fire. The whole camp rests in a valley large enough to get lost in. Yet from the central clearing, every trail seems to lead home.

It looks like a summer camp—strikingly similar to Camp Stumpwater in certain ways—but every difference shines, turning the familiar into something fantastical. And beneath it all, Rowan senses something greater: purpose. Discovery. A sense of belonging.

A wave of goosebumps rises along Rowan’s arms. The next thing he takes in is the multitude of strange creatures throughout the campgrounds.

The more they look, the more the camp reveals itself: a girl with a tiny antlered jackrabbit perched on her backpack; a pair of campers struggle to steer what looks like a gigantic scorpion away from the side porch that leads to the kitchen before it can steal any food; a black-winged thing settling on a roof beam and folding itself into shadow so perfectly Rowan loses sight of it the moment it stops moving. Every sight suggests not chaos, but instead a peaceful coexistence—tense in places, maybe, but still peaceful.

Near the bonfire, an older boy kneels beside a squat, bear-shaped creature. It has no fur except for heavy eyebrows and a bristly chin; firelight gleams on its smooth black hide. Its massive claws would normally look menacing, but the camper seems unafraid as it stands beside him.

A wispy pair of floating lights bob after a laughing boy with a bedhead mop of hair and a vest decorated with badges. The lights are not flashlights. They are sentient creatures—round, softly luminous, tethered together by streaming tails of white-gold radiance. They drift at shoulder height like curious light spirits, each peering around him with its own set of blinking dark eyes.

An older girl in witch-like apparel carries a walking staff in one hand, lantern in the other, with an even stranger creature following close behind. It appears to be part spirit, part stone, the latter half shaped like a face-like mask that reminds Rowan of an Easter Island statue. Three green leaves sprout from the top of its mask, and it regards the world with the only expression it seems able to manage: a solemn, unblinking stare.

At the edge of the clearing, coming from the supernatural side of camp, a big, round-faced camper sets down his backpack to tie a loose shoelace. Something pale and long-legged shuffles out from behind him, moving like a pair of animated white trousers. It pauses, bends its narrow body toward the backpack, then carries on. If the camper needed help carrying the backpack, the friendly creature accompanying him clearly is incapable of lending a helping hand—mainly because it does not have any.

“Rowan, look at that one!” Skye points, practically vibrating. “What in the world is that?”

“A Nightcrawler,” Alexis interjects. “A Fresno Nightcrawler, to be precise. First spotted in Fresno, California, of all places.”

The creature steps over a fallen lantern with surprising care as the camper hoists his backpack onto his shoulders and follows.

Skye looks ready to laugh and cry at the same time. “That is the dumbest and most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Almost as soon as the words leave her mouth, a rabbit with what looks like a firework strapped to its back bounds between two tables on the porch of Ember Hall. A flustered younger camper charges after it, calling for it to stop. The rabbit springs onto a barrel, sends a shower of harmless sparks into the air, and shoots past them like a rocket. It disappears behind a thicket before they can see where it lands. A loud bang follows, and a burst of colored sparks rises above the brush.

Rowan and Skye exchange one look before doubling over with laughter.

The younger camper reaches the barrel and puts his hands on his knees. “The bugger always does this,” he says, exasperated and embarrassed, before running toward the thicket.

“That,” Alexis says with amusement, “is a bit of a common theme around here among the newer campers.”

Rowan is trying to catch his breath from all the laughter when Skye suddenly catches his arm once more.

Her grip is so abrupt that he looks at her first, not at whatever she has seen. She is staring toward the trees beside Ember Hall. All the delight in her face goes still, giving way to something suddenly serious.

“Rowan,” she yells. “That’s it!”

“What?” His mind is already struggling to process everything around them. What could his sister have spotted that excites her more than all the wonders they’ve seen so far?

A small white shape flutters out from the branches in the tri-moonlight.

For a second, Rowan sees only a few falling feathers. Then it passes through a pool of lanternlight, and two short antlers appear above its fluffy head. Its wings beat in quick, uneven bursts. It lands on the top rail of Ember Hall’s porch, where it looks toward the clearing with its eyes pointing in two slightly different directions.

Skye’s hand tightens around his arm.

“That’s what I saw at Stumpwater!” Her voice rises. “On the branch, after we went fishing. Rowan, look!”

The creature swivels its head, though he cannot tell whether it is watching them, the bonfire, or a small bug flittering near one of the many porch lanterns.

Back at Stumpwater, Rowan had looked exactly where Skye pointed and still couldn’t make out what she had seen. He believed her then, and now he understands why she had struggled to describe its face.

“I see it now,” he says, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “So that’s what you saw.”

Skye turns to him so quickly her hair swings across her shoulder. “Isn’t it cute?” she says, unable to hold back her affection for it.

“Fluffy. Feathery. Antlers. Eyes doing their own thing.” Rowan cannot keep the grin from his face. “Yeah, it sure is derpy.”

Alexis follows Skye’s pointing finger to the porch rail, and a smile of recognition spreads across her face.

“Oh, well, would you look at that. It’s a Dingbat!” she chimes in, sounding every bit as delighted as Skye.

The creature hops sideways along the porch rail. A camper passing through the doors holds out a hand, but the Dingbat flutters neatly out of reach. It lands two posts away and looks back at him, as if daring him to try again.

“A Dingbat?” Skye repeats. “That’s really what it’s called?”

“Really.” Alexis watches as the camper makes another attempt. The Dingbat waits until his hand is inches away, then lifts off and settles on the roof above him. “They’re elusive little things. Hard to catch, and much tougher to beat than they look.”

The camper below it shakes his head and goes inside. The Dingbat remains where it is, apparently pleased with itself.

“They’re persistent too,” Alexis adds. “Once one takes an interest in something, good luck persuading it otherwise.”

Skye barely seems to hear the warning. She steps forward, eyes fixed on the roof.

“You knew about it all along,” she says to Alexis. “When Row told you what I saw. You knew it was real!”

Alexis’s expression softens. “I had a pretty good idea from your description. There aren’t many creatures that fit that criteria.” She ticks the details off on her fingers. “Feathers, wings, antlers… The only other one that came to mind was a Wolpertinger.”

Rowan and Skye exchange a look. Alexis says the word as though they ought to know what it means, and neither of them has the slightest idea.

The Dingbat makes a small, odd sound—half chirp, half squeak—and hops to the very edge of the roof. For one impossible second, it seems to look straight at Skye.

Then it launches itself into the air, white feathers bright beneath the three moons. It circles the bonfire once. A few sparks rise to meet it, and it slips through them without a singed feather before vanishing among the trees.

Skye watches the empty space it leaves behind.

“I sure hope he comes back,” she says, almost longingly.

Finally, she lets go of Rowan’s arm, though she stays close beside him.

A hush passes through the clearing. It lasts only a moment, but Rowan feels it before he notices the campers nearest the bonfire lifting their faces toward the sky.

He looks up too. Beyond the blue tips of the flames, something faint hangs in the darkness. At first, he takes it for smoke caught beneath the golden barrier, but the smoke continues to rise while this remains where it is. The fire surges, hiding—whatever it is—from view. Now that his attention is fully dedicated to it, he can almost make out its shape.

How long has this entity been there? Rowan has looked above the bonfire half a dozen times already. The thought that he might have been looking past something enormous this entire time sends a shiver through him.

“What was that?” he asks incredulously.

Alexis glances up. For a moment, Rowan thinks she is about to tell him.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” she says gently.

Beside him, Skye who seems indifferent to the thing above them hooks an arm around his shoulder. Her smile comes back slowly, then all at once.

“Row,” she says with eyes glistening with emotion, “we’re actually here again! But this time… this time, I’m not scared!”

Rowan pauses for a moment and takes it all in once more. The Elderwilds had terrified them before. But here, at the heart of Cryptid Camp, beneath the golden shimmer, standing side-by-side with their aunt, he too feels safe. He has an overwhelming sense of wonder and the desire to know more. If it were up to him, he would stay long enough to learn every path by heart.

“I’m not either,” he says with newfound confidence.

High above the fire, the faint shape holds its place. It does not come any closer, and Rowan cannot decide whether the flames are hiding it or if it is keeping itself hidden. He looks from the bonfire to his sister, still smiling beside him. It occurs to him that everyone here might know what hangs above it except for him and Skye. Whatever has been watching them from above remains hidden for now.