But last summer, maybe because of my heightened awareness of him, I’d noticed the only time he acted remotely squirrelly was when we told ghost stories. And we had a ghost story night during every session.
It had taken me until the third session of camp to notice and the fourth to confirm it, but he definitely acted differently on ghost story night. Tense. Looking over his shoulder. Flinching. Very slightly, but it was there.
I’d been planning to play on that at some point this summer, but I’d never catch him more off guard than if I did it right now.
“The Rust Bucket should be coming in about twenty minutes. We’ll drive a mile or two then pull over to the side of the road. You’ll flag down the Rust Bucket, and when it stops, you’re going to say we were on the way to Oak Crest when you swerved to avoid a dog, but we saw it limp into the woods. I was worried it was hurt by another car, so I went looking for it, but you’re scared of dogs, and it was big, and you want someone to check on me.”
“I amnotscared of dogs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then say it’s big, and I’ve been gone for a while, and you’re worried I need help with it.”
“Okay, but what about the sheets and the soccer ball?”
I stuck the ball under the sheet and cinched the fabric beneath it. “Meet Tragic Claire. Sawyer is going to find her when he runs into the woods.”
Grace smirked. We told the story of Tragic Claire every year precisely because she was our creepiest legend, the spirit of a pregnant young bride who’d been shot by a Union deserter and left to die when she wouldn’t give up the last of her cornmeal when he demanded it. She was said to wander the nearby woods, calling the name of her Confederate husband, John Willis, always followed by the high, thin cry of the child she’d never held.
Someone had shifted on their log while Merrilee told the story last summer, and I swear, Sawyer had jumped a foot at the sound, even if no one else noticed. I was playing a hunch here, but I was sure I was right.
I had Grace pull off the side of the road at a place where it was easy to slip into the trees. I picked my way through the woods until I was about fifty yards from the highway. It only took a few minutes to get myself situated, wrapping the sheet around me like a cloak and securing the soccer ball beneath my T-shirt to become poor, pregnant Claire.
I settled behind a thick oak and waited. It was almost fifteen minutes before I heard the sound of a vehicle from the direction of the highway, then Grace’s asking for help.
A couple of minutes later, someone entered the woods running, and Sawyer shouted my name.
The woods were dark enough to be dim even in midday, and when he paused, trying to figure out where he was, I called his name, making my voice sound confused.
“Tab? Tabitha? Is that you? Are you okay? I’m coming!”
He started running again, toward me this time, and when he was about twenty yards away, I let out my best thin, ghost baby wail.
Sawyer froze. “Tabitha?”
“Here,” I said in my own voice, trying to sound confused.
“Are you crying?”
“No. I’m turned around. Sawyer? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s—”
But I let out another ghost baby wail.
“Did you hear it that time?” he asked.
Now I injected some stress into my voice. “Hear what? How come I can’t find you?”
“Coming.”
He sounded freaked out but resolved, and my conscience pricked at me. He had to know there was no ghost baby out here, didn’t he? I decided not to keep the joke going any longer, and I stepped around the tree to show myself. But I was still in my ghost stuff, and before I could say anything, instead of grinning, he yelped and stumbled backward, tripping over a branch and hitting the ground with a loudwhumpf.
“Sawyer! It’s me! Oh, no.” I ran over to him and dropped to my knees beside him. His eyes were closed, a grimace of pain contorting his face. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” My years of first aid training kicked in, and I reached for his head to check it for injury.
He struck lightning fast, snatching my wrist and toppling me onto his chest.
“Well, hey, Tragic Claire.”
I blinked at him, his face inches away, his dark eyes fixed on mine. “You broke the baby,” I said. The ball had popped out from beneath my shirt and bounced to the ground.
