Judy disagrees with many of the things her parents have taught her, but one thing she respects them for is this: their belief in putting others before themselves.

If Barbara Van Laar has chosen to hide in the woods, of her own volition—if she is safe, and protected, and fed, and self-reliant—who is Judy to drag her back into the world she abandoned?

•   •   •

Still, she wants to be certain that her theory is correct.

And so, from her small apartment in Ray Brook, she makes plans: she’ll go back to the Van Laar Preserve; she’ll go back to the Director’s Cabin where she spent so many hours. Her guess is that it will be abandoned; the Hewitts, after all, have cut ties with the Van Laars. She’ll open the door, which has never had a lock.

She’ll pray that the map is still tacked to the wall.

If it is, she’ll make a note of the spot that a pin, or pinhole, marks:

The site of the Hewitt family’s cabin, way up north, in the middle of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks.

Barbara

1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day One

The bed is empty.

In the moonlight, in the threshold of the cabin called Balsam, Barbara Van Laar takes a last look over her shoulder, saying goodbye in her mind to Tracy, to her bunkmates, to Camp Emerson.

She’s leaving later than she’d agreed upon with T.J., who’ll be pacing her cabin, buzzing with nerves. But Barbara’s counselors stayed out much later than she’d predicted; she had to wait for them to return, one after another, and then wait some more, until the sound of their movements quieted, until the sound of their breathing steadied.

Then she stood up, as silently as she could, and tiptoed to the doorway, where she now stands.

Her bag. She’s forgotten the paper bag she brought back from the main house—the one that almost gave her away.

What’s in the bag? Tracy had asked her, last week, and she pretended not to understand.

•   •   •

Outside, the air is fresh, the moon so bright that she doesn’t need the flashlight she brought along.

Her other things are waiting for her in T.J.’s cabin: her backpack, loaded with fresh food that should hold her for a week, at least. Her warm clothes, her hiking boots, into which she’ll change as quickly as she can.

Sure enough: when she steps onto the porch of the Director’s Cabin, the door opens swiftly. There is T.J., checking her watch. It’s almost three in the morning, says T.J.; they’ll barely make it.

“Should we wait a day?” asks Barbara, but T.J. shakes her head, fast.

Tonight’s the last night of the party up the hill. It’s tonight—while the guests are on the grounds—or never.

And never means being sent away to Élan in the fall. Never means not seeing T.J. or Vic—her true family—for years.

•   •   •

In silence, they walk to T.J.’s truck, a canoe strapped to its roof; as quietly as possible, they close both doors. Then T.J. starts the truck, and it rumbles up the hill, past Self-Reliance on its right, past the parking lot full of cars.

“Were you able to get into it?” asks Barbara—gesturing toward John Paul McLellan’s blue Trans Am.

T.J. nods. “Clothes’re in the trunk now,” she says. “He won’t see them. But the police will, when they search it.”

“Why will they search it?”

T.J. grins. “That’s not all I planted in the car,” she says. “When he’s apprehended—they’ll have probable cause to perform a search.”

•   •   •

Once they reach the thruway, they continue for an hour. T.J. drives as fast as she can without risking the attention of the police: nine miles over the speed limit, exactly. She glances up at the sky as she drives, which is lightening with every minute that passes.

On the way, T.J. quizzes her.

What do you do about water? she asks.

Build a fire. Boil it. Use iodine.

What do you do if you’re sick?

Use the medical guidebook you’ve put on the shelf. Look for medicine in the cabinet.

The same instructions they’ve been over, again and again, during the nightly training sessions T.J.’s been giving Barbara all summer. Preparation for life in the woods—not forever. Just until she turns eighteen—at which point she’ll be legally allowed to make her own decisions.

Then, she can do as she pleases, without fear of her parents imposing their rules. Or their punishments.

If at any point she changes her mind: all she has to do is emerge. It’s Barbara’s decision, completely, T.J. says.

Barbara glances at T.J., taking in the contours of her profile, her kind face. When Barbara was a baby, a small child, it was T.J. who tended to her most. T.J. who helped her and taught her. The word motherly is not one that applies to T.J. Hewitt, and yet T.J. is the only mother Barbara has ever known. Her own, though living, has been unreachable for all of Barbara’s life. A walking shell.

“I put tea in your pack,” says T.J. “The kind you like. Some chocolate, too, for a treat at night.”

Then: “Will you have enough to read?”

Barbara nods. “I will,” she says. “And I’ll write if I run out.”

“I’ll be able to come to you soon,” says T.J. “In a month or two. I just have to be certain I’m not being followed.”

She glances at Barbara, pats her knee. “I know you can make it until then.”

“I can,” says Barbara—reassuring T.J. as much as herself.

But in truth, she does feel ready. T.J. has made her so. All of their training, every night; all of the preparations they made.

The one thing she’ll miss is music: this, she has had to leave behind.

Both of them fall into silence again. And then, just before the sun rises, T.J. pulls off the highway.

•   •   •