I tried to hold the memory of all the people who had been here with me. Daniel and Tyler, Corinne and Bailey.

And then I tried to imagine an outsider watching us all.

All those times we used to scare ourselves with sounds—an animal, the breeze. A monster, Daniel had said, and we had rolled our eyes. Nothing, Tyler had said, pulling me closer in the tent, I got you. But what if there were something? What if the monster were a child just watching? What if it were Annaleise crouched in the bushes? I tried to make myself small, make myself timid, make myself her, and see our lives playing out through her eyes. What did she see? I wondered. What did she think? Who was I through the filter of her eyes? I stood, wandering to the center of the clearing, trying to picture us.

I was so caught up in the memories of other people, the feeling of people sharing this space with me, that at first I didn’t recognize the feeling of someone real. Someone now.

The crack of a twig and the shuffling of underbrush. The hairs raising on the back of my neck in response.

I was in the middle of the clearing, completely exposed, and I felt eyes. I was sure I could hear breathing.

“Tyler?” I called.

I hated that he was always my first instinct. The number I’d start dialing after midnight and then stop. The name I’d call when I heard a front door creak open.

“Annaleise?” I called in a voice just above a whisper.

I took out my cell phone, so if there were someone, he or she would see I had it.

Sounds—footsteps—from just out of sight, from deeper in the woods.

I backed away, into the trees, closer to home. Heard something from the side and spun in that direction.

I held the phone in both hands. And I had a signal. A beautiful signal, out in the woods, with the one service provider who covered out here. Terrible plan otherwise—couldn’t get a break on mobile-to-mobile, the data-service part was murky at best, but I was alone in the woods, and it worked.

Everett had taken my phone once while his was in the other room charging. He tried to look up the scores of a game, got frustrated, and said, “Why do you have this service? It’s horrible.”

“It’s not horrible,” I’d said. But it was.

Now I thought: Because. Just in case. For this. For here. I thought of all the little things I’d held on to. All the little things I’d taken with me when I left. A fine, transparent thread leading all the way home.

I held the phone to my ear, and I called the one person I knew would come, no questions asked.

The phone rang two, three times, and I was teetering on the brink of panic when Daniel picked up. “I’m in the woods,” I said. “At the clearing.”

“Okay,” he said. “Are you okay?”

The faint wafting of a scent on the breeze—cigarette smoke. Gone as suddenly as it had registered.

“I don’t know,” I said. My hand on the tree trunk with the hole, the bark rough and familiar, grounding me.

I could hear the panic in his breathing, imagined him pushing himself to standing. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

My eyes roamed the woods, looking for the source. I lowered my voice. “I don’t know. I feel like someone’s here.”

I heard him curse under his breath. “I’m coming. Stay on the phone with me. Make it known that you’re on the phone. Be loud, Nic. And walk straight for home.”

It would take him twenty minutes to get here if he were home. Longer if he were on site somewhere.

I had no idea what to talk about and ended up sharing the most idiotic thing I could imagine: “I’m thinking about eloping.” Something totally vacant. “I can’t stand the idea of a big wedding. All these people I don’t know—Everett’s family knows everyone. There will probably be two hundred people from his side and five from mine. And Dad . . . what if that day he doesn’t know who I am? What if he won’t walk me down the aisle? Or maybe we should have a destination wedding, just family. Somewhere warm.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m on the trail, there’s this cool oak tree, you remember it?” I picked up a sharp rock off the path, spun in a quick circle. Heard a noise to my left. A crackling of leaves. I kept moving, with more purpose now.

“I hear you,” he said.

“If Everett’s family insists on a wedding, I guess I’d have Olivia—she works with Everett—and Laura, of course, if she wants. And probably Arden from college.” I couldn’t think of any other names. “Keep it small, you know? Meaningful.”

“Keep talking,” Daniel said. “I’m on Fulton Road.”

I kept moving, kept talking, and had no idea whether someone was still here, still following.

Daniel and I didn’t talk about personal stuff, about anything that wasn’t an essential conversation, anymore. If he called, it was for a reason. If I called, it was to give him a new address, to tell him my Christmas plans, to let him know I got engaged.

“I once went to this wedding when I was interning for an ex-student’s parents. It was so weird. The dad was getting remarried, and the son asked me to come. It was probably totally inappropriate, now that I think of it, an eighteen-year-old bringing a twenty-three-year-old teacher as a date, but I didn’t think of it like that at the time. It was in the summer, right after he graduated, and it wasn’t like a date—it was just like he got me on the invite list. I thought he was trying to tell me something. Anyway, the wedding was ridiculous. Those people were beyond rich, Daniel. Like, rich is an understatement. A wedding that could pay for college, that could feed a small country. I don’t know why he brought me. I don’t know what he wanted me to see. I don’t know where he is now.”

“Cranson Lane, now. Do you see anyone?”

I spun around again but couldn’t get a sense where the feeling was coming from. “No. I feel like I should look him up. And ask him. I had this other kid, later, who told me I just had to see his football game. I was there anyway—we have to work a certain number of games each semester. But he didn’t care about me seeing him play, really. He was showing me something. His father laying in to him after the game. The pressure. He didn’t want to say it, right? Sometimes it’s easier to show.”

“Where are you?”

I checked over my shoulder, but my vision was going a little hazy from the adrenaline, or maybe the panic. “Oh, I’m almost home now. I need to call that kid. Shane something. God, I can’t even remember his last name. I’ve been to his father’s wedding, and I can’t remember his name? They all start blending together. There are just too many of them. Hey, I can see our house.”