The texts from Nate came at a good moment.
Stevie.
STEVIE
THERE IS A TRAPEZE IN HERE
This confused her enough to defuse her internal situation.
When she reached Springfield （she had been lurking in the metallic vestibule of the train for two stops, paranoid she would miss it）， she dragged her heavy, wheeled suitcase into the terminal.
Another text, this time from Carson, who had arranged to meet her.
Outside.
She stepped outside and saw a man, not much taller than her, leaning against the wall, typing furiously on his phone. He clearly worked out a lot—he had muscular arms and a six-pack that he showed off in a snug black T-shirt. The bottom
half of his body was adorned in flowing yoga pants in a purple-and-green mandala pattern. His head was shaved completely bald. He had the word CARBON tattooed in huge letters down his left arm, and the word BASED down the right.
“Hey!” he said, waving to her as if they were old friends. “Stevie! Stevie!”
As she got closer she noticed that he reeked of burned sage. Not yoga studio levels—more like he’d been in a brushfire on a sage farm.
“My car’s out this way,” he said.
Stevie continued behind, dragging the bag toward the green Tesla that he was opening. The inside of the car was a creamy pale tan leather that was probably called “latte” or “toasted coconut” or something like that. A set of wooden meditation beads hung from the rearview mirror, and there was a pink crystal in the cupholder. The sage smell was much stronger inside the car, and Stevie found herself hungry for air.
“Barlow Corners is about an hour’s drive,” he said, pulling the eerily silent car out of the parking space. “Your friends are already here.”
“They said there’s a . . . trapeze?”
“Oh yeah. They’re in the Bounce House.”
Stevie could not bring herself to ask why it was called the Bounce House, and it didn’t matter. She knew he was about to tell her.
“I call it the Bounce House because that’s where I host all
kinds of creators and we bounce ideas around. We call them Think Jams.”
She resisted the impulse to open the car door and jump.
“Tonight you’ll all stay in the guest rooms there,” he went on. “Tomorrow I can drive you through town and take you over to the camp. Might as well get in one night with air-conditioning and hot water, right? Also, no snakes.”
Anxiety is very accommodating. Minutes ago, Stevie’s anxiety was all about failure. It neatly converted itself into worry about places called Bounce Houses and not having hot water or air-conditioning. It was perfectly ready to bring the snakes to the party. It’s a big tent. All problems are welcome.
“Snakes?”
“I mean, there are some around the lake, but not at the camp.”
“The camp is on a lake.”
“Yeah, but the snakes are . . . I mean, they’re around, but over on the other side. No snakes at the camp.”
There were for sure snakes at the camp. It was entirely made of snakes. Why hadn’t she thought of the snakes?
“Tonight I thought we could have a meeting,” Carson said, “to go over the details of the case. And tomorrow I have something really special planned.”
The snakes slithered to the side of her thoughts.
“What?”
“A big event, sponsored by Box Box. See, I donated a children’s reading room to the town library, so I’m having a