The Box in the Woods

STEVIE WOKE IN A STRANGE, NARROW BED, DRESSED IN THE THIN HOSPITAL gown.

She sat up slowly, using her unbroken arm to push herself up. She was surprised when this hurt her hand and looked to find her palms covered in scratches and cuts. The fall off the point had not been elegant or clean. She padded her way over to the bathroom in the grippy sock-slippers someone had put on her feet the night before. The bathroom mirror revealed the extent of the damage—her hair was sticking up at all angles, there were dark circles under her eyes along with a long scrape down the right side of her face. Her arm was green with bruises, which were accentuated by the green fiberglass cast that now adorned it.

These were all things that suggested she should return to the bed behind her. But then she looked down at the three words she had written on the cast the night before. She splashed water on her face (a mistake, this hurt), then shuffled over to the landline phone on the wheeled bedside table. She blinked, trying to recall the number she needed, then dialed.

“I need you,” she said when the person picked up. “And I need clothes.”

David turned up within the hour. Stevie had spent that hour wandering the halls, trying to find her nurse, and then bugging that nurse about when she would be allowed to go. The nurse asked her politely to return to bed, explaining that the doctor would be up in the early afternoon, and that she would likely be allowed to go then. But early afternoon was too far away.

So when David walked through the door with the bag of clothes, Stevie immediately pushed herself out of bed, took it, and disappeared into the bathroom.

“How are you feeling?” David asked through the door.

“Everything hurts,” she said. “Fine.”

He had come with a pair of sweatpants and a stretched-out T-shirt. She fumbled, trying to work out how to shimmy out of her hospital gown. She pulled on the ties, loosening it, and it fell off the one side of her body, but it got stuck on the side with the sling. She managed to get this off and shake the gown to the bathroom floor. They had taken all her clothes last night, cut them off her body (which felt excessive, but it turned out they had to do that if they thought you broke your neck or spine or something). She was wearing giant stretchy underpants and nothing else.

“So you’re being discharged?” David asked.

Stevie was too busy trying to figure out how to get the sweatpants on to answer. She dropped them onto the floor next to the gown and stepped into them, then dragged them up with her right hand, hoisting each side. She looped the shirt around her neck and got the right arm through, but the left was going to be difficult.

“Help,” she said, tapping the door open with her foot and presenting her back to him. He was her boyfriend, but this was a messy situation, and also a public one. She wanted to get the shirt on. He moved around, trying to work out the physics of the situation, was big enough not to make any side-boob comments, and guided the sleeve over her cast.

“Okay,” she said. “Time to go.”

“Go? Don’t they have to . . .”

She shook her head.

“Time to go,” she said more quietly.

“Is that a good idea? Forget that—I mean, is that a medically sound idea?”

“I’m fine,” she said, padding out into the room in her nonslip slippers and looking for wherever they had put her shoes and whatever else of hers was still intact. She found both the shoes and the remains of her clothes in a plastic bag marked PATIENT BELONGINGS in a chair by the window. She scooped it up and examined the contents. Her camp T-shirt had been cut open and there was condensation from the trapped moisture inside the bag. She tucked it under her good arm and went to the door to look out. Her nurse was not in the hall. If they hurried, they had a clear shot at getting to the turn to the elevator bank. Without waiting another moment, she slipped out of the room, David following behind.

“Are you sure?” he asked as they reached the elevator.

“Seriously,” she said. “I have a broken arm. I’m fine.”

The elevator arrived and she stepped inside, so he followed. No one paid them any attention as they wandered out the front door of the hospital to the old Nissan. David opened the door for her, and Stevie lowered herself into the passenger seat, choosing to ignore the aches through her body. She leaned back, closing her eyes for a moment against the sun. David got into the driver’s side. She could feel him looking at her, but he had the good sense to start the engine and not ask her again if she was sure.

“Some good news for you,” he said. “The head of the camp was freaked out when you two went off on bikes to town and never came back. Carson and Nate came up with some kind of cover story where you were riding in town, and a car pulled out fast in front of you, and you both swerved and fell.”

“It’s good to have an irresponsible adult on our side. It’s the only way to get anything done.”

“Camp?” he said. “Carson’s house?”

“Camp,” she said. “Not the Sunny Pines side. Your side.”

“You want to tell me why you walked out of the hospital without waiting an hour or two for the doctor? I’ll bet there’s a reason.”

“Someone shot at us last night,” she said, opening her eyes and looking out the window. The bright light stunned her for a moment, but she acclimated.

“Someone . . .”

“Shot at us,” she said.

“Who?”

Stevie’s mind was going too fast to explain. All the threads, the wires, the tangled mess of stuff—it was connecting in her head in a way that she could not articulate.

“I’ll know soon,” she said.

When they reached the camping area, Stevie staggered out of the car and immediately walked to the wooded path that looped the lake. “We have to walk around,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“Over there,” she said, indicating Point 23.

They began the long tramp around the lake, Stevie’s body aching the entire way. The force at which she had hit the water had strained all her muscles, and her lungs and throat still burned. Her sneakers were still waterlogged and squelched with every step. Every once in a while, Stevie would dip off the path to get a clear view of the water.

“I’m looking for my backpack,” she said. “I had to take it off in the water. Either it sank or someone recovered it.”

“Does it matter? It’s just a backpack.”

“I had Sabrina Abbott’s diary,” she said. “I found it. I didn’t have a chance to read it, but I found it.”

“You found it? Where?”

“Inside a turtle at Allison’s house. I would have read it already, but someone tried to kill us.”

“So you were right about Allison.”

“Looks that way,” she replied.

The backpack was nowhere to be seen.

They had reached the space where the woods peeled back and the point jutted out in front of them, in all its terrible glory. Stevie’s head began to swim as she approached it. She backed up several paces and got on her hands and knees, picking through the undergrowth and tree roots with her good hand.

“You think you can find a bullet?” he asked.

“Maybe . . .”

David got down on the ground as well, examining the earth. Stevie paused in her efforts for a moment to turn and have a look at him combing the dirt with his fingers. He was a good one. A weird one. A difficult one. But he always came through.

“Someone at the camp may have a metal detector,” he said. “I could go back and ask.”

Stevie returned to her examination of the forest floor. She felt the ground, digging in with her fingers.

“You sounded mad when I found you guys last night,” David said.

“I think I was.”

“We both have problems. Serious ones.”

Stevie suddenly flattened herself on the ground on her back. She stretched out, looking at the blue sky above.

“Did you find one?” David asked.

“Nope.”

“You okay?”

“Yep.”

“Tired?”

“Yep. But there are a few things I have to do today.”

“Like tell the police someone shot at you? Don’t worry, I already know the answer to that one. I say these things for my own amusement.”

“I need to have a Think Jam,” she replied. “And I need Janelle to make a craft. Ask me why.”

“Are you a hundred percent sure you didn’t crack your head?”

“Thank you for asking,” she said, looking over at him and smiling. “I’ll tell you why—because it’s what Frances Glessner Lee would do. It’s time to show Barlow Corners a nutshell.”