I took this in. ‘So you do have evidence?’
She paused. ‘Yeah. It’s at the bookstore. If you come with me now, I’ll show you.’
I hesitated. ‘I need to check on Frankie first.’
‘Of course.’ She stood up. ‘Come on, I’ll show you a shortcut.’
She began to walk away from the bonfire, in the direction of the area where I’d found Frankie and Ryan earlier.
‘Are you sure this is a shortcut?’
‘Yeah. I know these woods a lot better than you, Tom.’
We walked up a slope on to higher ground. Nikki stopped for a moment and looked towards the lake. ‘That’s where we used to have our meetings. Our secret cove.’
‘The two of you? Wait – the three of you. You mentioned someone else.’
‘Goat, Fox and Crow,’ she said. Of course. ‘Crow got the masks for us. I think some guy his mom was dating worked in a factory that manufactured Halloween stuff. We loved them. We thought they represented our spirit animals.’
‘Which one were you?’ I asked, although I was sure I already knew the answer.
‘Fox.’
It was so dark that I was finding it hard to follow the path. Nikki, however, was like a real fox, walking confidently, as if she had perfect night vision. As long as I stayed close behind her, I wouldn’t lose my way.
‘And Greg was Crow?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Who was the third person?’ I asked for the second time. ‘Was it Everett?’
I thought she was going to tell me but she said, ‘I’ll show you when we get to the bookstore. After you’ve checked on Frankie.’
‘Show me?’
But she didn’t reply.
‘You and Greg,’ I asked. ‘Were you an item?’
She laughed at that. To be honest, she sounded a little hysterical, or on the edge of it anyway. ‘An item? No. Not Greg.’
‘But you and . . . Goat?’
She didn’t reply.
‘What about Greg now?’ I asked. ‘What’s his family situation? I don’t remember noticing a wedding ring on his hand.’
‘That’s because his wife left when the twins were toddlers.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. She was nice. A little too meek for me, but sweet. She went to school with us too. Greg started dating her when they were both twenty-one. Six months later they were getting married.’
‘Because she was pregnant?’
‘Yep. Have I mentioned how old-fashioned it is around here? Then she was gone, shortly after Buddy and Darlene turned two. I heard she went to Chicago. Maybe Seattle. Nobody’s sure. She doesn’t have any contact with Greg or the kids as far as I know.’
I couldn’t understand that. I lived thousands of miles from my daughter, but the idea of not having her in my life was incomprehensible.
‘Why did she leave?’ I asked.
Nikki stopped walking for a moment. She looked like she was trying to decide whether to tell me.
‘She said they were evil.’
‘The twins?’
But she walked on without saying another word.
‘Is it much further?’ I asked, scrambling to keep up. I had no idea where we were. I couldn’t see any cabins.
‘No. We need to cut through here.’
She led me through a thicket of trees. The sounds from the resort fell away so I could no longer hear the band. I was starting to regret my decision to follow Nikki and wondered if I should go back the way I’d come, to follow the path I knew. But I wasn’t even sure where we were, and I’d come this far already.
We crossed a path that led east to west.
‘This feels familiar,’ I said. It was hard to tell in the darkness but I thought we were on the other side of the resort, near the clearing with the flat stone.
I could hear wind chimes, faint, somewhere in the distance, deep inside the trees.
Here in the woods, the trees didn’t feel like the benevolent, beautiful spirits that Nikki and Greg and Abigail had loved so much. They seemed hostile, as if they were stretching out their branches and trying to block us from where we were going. Their silhouettes were twisted, grotesque, like shadow puppets in a surrealist nightmare. And the distant wind chimes weren’t light or tinkly or melodious. They sounded discordant, jarring. Like the forest was laughing at us.
Nikki picked up the pace, striding forward determinedly. She had cast off her nervousness and seemed resigned to whatever fate awaited her.
And then, with little warning, we were out of the woods. I felt like I’d stumbled out of a maze, disoriented and confused, but I knew where I was. We were indeed near the flat stone, and the path led back towards the cabins.