Six Moon Summer (4 page)

Pulling her journal out of her pocket, Rylie gazed across the water. She chewed on the end of her pen while she decided what to say. She couldn’t begin to describe her hazy memories of the previous night, nor could she explain her mysterious new scars. And all that was shadowed by the urge to write about Seth and his stunning eyes.

She prepared to write, but Rylie froze before she could lay pen to paper. Her last entry wasn’t the only thing on the open page.

A line had been written at the bottom in sharp, slanted handwriting which didn’t belong to her. Rylie was mortified at the thought of Seth reading her journal until she read what he had written:

Be careful. You’re in danger now.

“What are you doing?”

Rylie looked up at the sound of Louise’s voice. She was sitting behind her cabin, digging the blade of a knife into a tree growing too close to the back wall. The other girls were swimming in the lake, but Rylie drew the line at wearing hand-me-down swimsuits. Instead, she decided to leave her mark on the forest.

She had been daydreaming and hadn’t paid attention to what she carved into the tree trunk. Rylie looked at it now. It was a stick figure of Amber—a very dead Amber.

Louise held out a hand. Rylie gave her the knife. She had snuck it from the kitchens when she visited the cook to ask for more vegetarian options.

“What is that?” Louise asked, indicating the carving.

Rylie got up to go back into the cabin. “I don’t know.”

The counselor followed. “Why don’t we talk for a minute? Do you mind?” She sat on the steps and gestured for Rylie to do the same.

“What do you want?”

“I know you’re having a hard time, Rylie,” Louise said. “Your dad told me about your problems at home. We just want you to be happy. Are you having a good time?”

“No,” Rylie said.

Louise squeezed her shoulder. “You may not want to hear this from me, but you’re not going to have fun unless you
let
yourself have fun. How many activities have you participated in here?”

She focused on her hiking boots, no longer so new and clean. “None.”

“Do you enjoy anything? Swimming? Arts and crafts? Horseback riding?”

“I like horses,” Rylie told the ground.

“Okay, how about this? Group B doesn’t have horseback riding on the schedule for a few days, but I can send you along with another group this afternoon. Would you like that?”

She considered the offer, nudging a clump of dirt over an ant hill. The bugs scattered. Getting away from Amber and Patricia to ride horses sounded better than anything else she had done so far. “I’ll try it.”

“Great! I’ll talk to the other counselors,” Louise said.

She was as good as her word. That afternoon, someone from Group D showed up to walk Rylie to their camp, where nobody recognized her as the weird girl who hid in her cabin for a week. No one even gave her a second look.

The counselor, Samantha, clapped her hands to get the attention of the girls milling around the picnic tables. “All right, everyone. Line up single file!”

“This is stupid,” someone muttered nearby.

Surprised, Rylie turned to see who had spoken. It was a short, sullen, dark-haired girl wearing full-length jeans and a sweater. She looked impervious to the heat. Black ink covered her hands and wrists with drawings of her own design.

“What’s stupid?” Rylie asked.

“Lining up like we’re cattle,” the girl said. “They tell us to obey and we jump to do it.”

Her mouth twitched in a half-smile. “It’s sadistic, huh?”

“Nice to know someone gets it. I’m Cassidy.”

“Rylie.”

“Where did you come from?” Cassidy asked.

“Group B.” Rylie searched for an explanation as to her temporary change in groups, but she didn’t think it would be wise to admit everyone in her group hated her. Instead, she said, “I wanted to ride horses.”

Cassidy nodded. “Cool.”

When the line formed and moved out, they stood together. Neither spoke. Rylie enjoyed the companionable silence of having connected with someone, anyone, for a brief moment—even if it was someone who seemed to be as miserable as Rylie.

“You from the city?” Rylie asked after awhile.

Cassidy nodded. “North end. You?”

“East side, around the art district.”

“I go there a lot. It’s pretty cool. I want to be a comic book artist,” she said. She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows to show off her arms. “There’s not enough for me to draw on, and not enough time for me to do it anyway. They’re all about the stupid outdoors. I’ve had to go on a hike every day.”

“I know what you mean,” Rylie said. “If I eat one more charred marshmallow, I’ll go nuts.”

“It’s always like that. This is my second year.”

“Why did you come back if it’s this bad?”

She rolled her eyes. “Parents.”

“Sorry.” After a moment, Rylie added, “I hate mine.”

Cassidy nodded as though she had given some great insight into life. Rylie took the chance to look at Cassidy’s arms. Some of the drawings were really good. All the characters had wide, bright eyes and big lips. She had inked the moon on the back of one hand, surrounded by trees and what looked like a bear.

“Here we go,” Cassidy muttered when they finally reached the stables. The horses were tethered to hitching posts in anticipation of their ride for the day. They were already saddled up and ready to go. Rylie was almost excited.
Almost
.

She didn’t listen to the instructor’s explanation of how to mount and ride safely, nor did she pay attention to the description of the trail. Rylie had been riding a hundred times before. She didn’t need a safety talk.

It seemed like hours before they let the girls get on the horses. “Is there a problem, Cassidy?” Rylie asked. The other girl inched away, like she would rather escape than go for a ride.

“I don’t like horses.”

“My aunt has horses at her ranch in Colorado. I can help you. I know what I’m doing.” Rylie approached her horse confidently, reaching for its bridle. The horse’s eyes widened, showing the whites all around the iris, and it blew hard through the nose. “Uh... I
think
I know what I’m doing.”

Tentatively reaching for the reins again, the horse backed up until its tether went tight. It shied from her touch, nostrils flaring and ears pricking.

The wind shifted subtly, and the other horses grew uncomfortable too. Exasperated, Rylie lunged for the bridle.

The horse shrieked and reared, flailing its hooves. A heavy hoof struck her in the collarbone, and Rylie fell with a cry, trying to shield her face.

“Everyone get away!” shouted a stable hand.

Rylie tried to crawl away from the rain of stomping feet. Her shoulder was white hot. Fire pulsed through her veins with every heartbeat. The horse whinnied and screamed, eyes rolling.

A hoof landed right next to her head. Rylie scrambled away quickly on all fours, and Cassidy grabbed her arm to haul her to her feet. She staggered, knees buckling.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?”

“My shoulder,” Rylie groaned.

Samantha pushed Cassidy aside to look at Rylie. “What happened? You, over there! Go get the nurse!”

“No, wait,” Rylie said, touching her shoulder. The fire had subsided and her pain vanished with it. “I’m... fine.”

“You were kicked. Your collarbone must be broken!”

Rylie fingered the bone gently, probing where it had hurt. There wasn’t even a tender spot anymore.

“I guess it missed me. I must have fallen over.”

Samantha didn’t look like she believed her. “The nurse needs to look at you. Can you walk?” She led Rylie away, and Cassidy flashed a smile as she passed.

“That was wicked,” she whispered.

Rylie smiled. She actually smiled.

The nurse couldn’t find anything wrong, but insisted on keeping her for a few hours anyway. Rylie pulled out her journal while she waited and perched on the end of a hospital cot by the window. A bird landed on the windowsill, then flitted away. She watched it disappear into the sky.

Rylie waited for a chance to get away. Louise watched her closer than ever after the horse incident, as though she had deliberately sabotaged the activity in an attempt to get sent home. She never managed to be alone anymore, whether it meant getting walked to the showers, mess hall, or back to the cabin at the end of the day.

The opportunity snuck up two days later.

“All right, campers,” Louise called. Rylie looked up from her journal. She sat on the cabin stairs while everyone else gathered around the morning campfire, picking at the remnants of their skillet breakfast and chatting. “Get an old pair of shoes on, because we’re going creek-walking this morning!”

Rylie grimaced. She had brought old shoes with her, but they had vanished with everything else in her backpack. She would either have to wear hand-me-downs or go barefoot, and neither sounded appealing.

She bowed her head over her journal and went back to writing, hoping Louise wouldn’t notice her.

“When I say ‘campers,’ that does include you, Rylie,” Louise said.

“I don’t have shoes,” she said without looking up.

“Shoes are optional. Come on, you’ll like it.”

“As much as I liked horseback riding?”

“You’re hilarious. Come on.”

Rylie snapped her journal shut. “Fine.”

The brook did look silver in the sparkling sunlight. Louise took them to a shallow part of the stream, where natural dams made the water quiet and slow.

Most people took their shoes off and jumped right in without being invited. Rylie found a large rock and climbed on top, watching everyone else with her journal in her lap.

One of the other counselors came by long enough to give Louise a stack of papers. She handed out the packets, which had an illustration of a river and beavers on the first page. Rylie took one. It was entitled “The River Habitat.” She rolled her eyes and dropped it off the back of the boulder.

“Naturally dammed streams, like this area, provide a home for a lot of creatures,” Louise said. “This is a safe neighborhood for all kinds of things, like fish, water fowl, and frogs. If you open up your packet, you’ll see a list of animals living here. We’re going to play wildlife bingo today while creek walking.”

“I’ll pass,” Rylie muttered.

She didn’t feel like writing, so she took a blank page from the back of her journal and started doodling. Rylie let her mind wander. Her pen trailed from the top of the paper to the bottom, and from side to side, and it started turning into a picture—a drawing of a wolf prowling around a cabin.

Rylie studied her illustration. It wasn’t very good. Unlike Cassidy, she wasn’t much of an artist.

Someone screamed. She turned, sharp eyes immediately falling on Patricia, who was on all fours in the water.

Louise hurried forward. “What happened?”

“My ankle!” she wailed. “I think I twisted my ankle!”

The counselor helped her up. “I’ll take you to the infirmary,” she said, pulling Patricia’s arm over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Amber, will you keep an eye on everyone until I return?”