He was tall, and wore a shell necklace around his neck, and his skin had, in early summer, already acquired the kind of tan that wouldn’t ever be possible for Tracy to achieve. His hair was long—to his shoulders, almost—and on his feet he wore huaraches, though they’d gone out of fashion several summers before. Like the rest of the campers, he wore a uniform; but his accessories convinced Tracy that his regular attire was most likely bohemian, a style Tracy associated with the previous decade.

“Tracy?” someone was saying. T.J. Hewitt was looking down at her clipboard, taking attendance. “Is Tracy not here?” said T.J., her pencil poised to strike out Tracy’s name.

“Here,” said Tracy, quickly—forcing her gaze away from the boy in question, who stood across from her in the little group around the flagpole.

In doing so, she caught the eye of Barbara Van Laar—who wiggled her eyebrows up and down. She burned.

“All right,” said T.J. “That’s everyone.”

Then she set off abruptly in the direction of the woods, where they spent the next hour learning how to orient themselves. By the end of the hour, all of them understood the basics of navigation with a compass, or with the sun.

If both of those techniques failed, concluded T.J., the most important thing was not to panic.

For a bonus, she asked them: Who knew the origins of the word?

“Which word?” someone said.

“Panic,” said T.J. But no one raised a hand.

She explained. It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds.

To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.

•   •   •

When the day’s lesson was over, Tracy set off on a slow walk back to her cabin. She was moving in a languorous daze, bewitched by T.J.’s words, and also by Lowell Cargill—the name of the boy, she had learned. She was so distracted, in fact, that she didn’t notice who was at her side until they were halfway to Balsam.

When she finally looked to her left, she saw that Barbara Van Laar was keeping pace with her, watching her, a sort of half smile playing on her face.

“What,” said Tracy—ready to be teased.

Barbara shook her head. “Nothing.”

Tracy looked straight ahead. She was interested in Barbara in the same way that everyone at Camp Emerson seemed to be. But she was certain she had nothing to offer her: no stories in her past, no social cachet. She had divorced parents, yes, but loads of the other girls did too. She couldn’t imagine that Barbara would want to talk to her. And yet there she was, Barbara Van Laar, walking right alongside her, bouncing on her toes, clapping her hands every so often as she swung her arms ahead of her, as if keeping time to a song in her head.

“He’s cute,” said Barbara, after they had walked in silence for a while. “Don’t you think?”

“Who is?” said Tracy.

Barbara laughed. Rolled her eyes. Tucked her hair behind her ears.

“Pretty sure you know,” said Barbara. “But if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine.”

I do, Tracy thought. But her words, as usual, failed her.

•   •   •

On her second night at Camp Emerson, she had heard—overheard—something she didn’t quite understand. It was, she believed, about Barbara.

She’d been trailing two of her bunkmates back from the latrines.

“Isn’t it awful,” Caroline had whispered. “To be a—replacement for your older brother.”

Tracy widened her eyes in the dark. What a truly terrible thing to say, she thought. And Amy must have agreed with her, because she replied, “Caroline,” in a tone that bordered on shock.

“What?” said Caroline, growing bolder. “I’m only saying what I think.”

•   •   •

“Do you think he’s cute?” Tracy said now. It was the best question she could come up with. And Barbara shrugged.

“I guess so,” she said. “If you like the artsy type.”

“What type do you like?” Tracy asked.

“I don’t know,” said Barbara. “I don’t really think about that stuff anymore.”

Tracy nodded. She wasn’t certain what Barbara meant, and she was too embarrassed to ask.

“I’ve got a boyfriend now,” said Barbara. An explanation. Then there was no time to say anything further, for the two of them had reached the porch.

Louise Two Months Later August 1975

At seven a.m., the search for Barbara begins.

While they wait for the counselors to arrive, following T.J.’s request over the intercom, T.J. sits in her living room, on a brown love seat so old that it’s swaybacked in the middle. She keeps her head down. Imagining, no doubt, a particular scene: revealing to the Van Laars that their daughter has gone missing while in her care.

Louise stands awkwardly nearby—feeling somehow that it wouldn’t be right to sit. That she doesn’t deserve to.

“What’s she been like this session?” T.J. asks. “Happy?”

“Oh,” says Louise. “Yeah, I guess she was. Is. Everyone likes her. Admires her, I think.”

“She never said anything that made you think she might run off?”

Louise shakes her head.

The truth is—and she doesn’t know how to say it—Barbara has never actually seemed to need her, or to look up to her in the way the other girls have. She has always struck Louise almost as a peer. They like each other, but they are not close; over the last two months, Barbara has never made a confession to her, or sought her advice on a friendship or a crush—something that happens at least once a session, usually more, with all the other campers she’s ever had.

“Who’s she close with?” T.J. asks. Reading her mind.

“Her bunkmate. Tracy.”

T.J. pauses for a moment, thinking. “They were paired for the Survival Trip. They shared a tent.”

Louise nods.

“We should find Tracy. We need to talk to her too.”