Sarah wasn't quite sure what had happened. She was sure she was sitting in Alexa's big blue four-wheel drive thing. Alexa had called it her jeep, but it wasn't shaped like a jeep and Sarah didn't really know cars at all. Tossed in the back was a wrapped-up sleeping bag she didn't know they owned, a duffel with a change of clothes, and a cooler full of food that her mom had excitedly filled up. She wasn't sure how the two of them were supposed to eat all those hot dogs, potatoes, bananas, chips, and other snacks, but they had them. There was also a big plastic-wrapped box of water bottles from the garage. Sarah also clearly remembered stopping by Alexa's to throw in another sleeping bag as well as a tent and pads.

All of that made sense. What didn't make sense is how quickly her mom agreed to everything and helped plan things. Sarah had been in the hospital just yesterday, but the only hint of concern from her mom had been when she'd made them promise to make sure that they had cell signal wherever they ended up stopping. Her mom hadn't even asked where they were planning on going - not that the girls had thought that far ahead, not beyond simply getting far enough away to be basically alone. Well, maybe Alexa had an idea, it sounded like she spent a lot of time out here.

Sarah realized she could have acted still sick and gotten out of this impromptu trip. A bit of soreness, a headache, or even just her normal sensitivity to light and sounds could have been enough to stay home. She normally just got out of school like that, but surely if she hadn't already been so insistent about how good she felt her mom would have kept her home. Except Alexa would have known. Alexa would have known that she was just faking it to get out of going out, and somehow doing that after already agreeing was worse than actually going.

"It's too early for the hunters to start coming out, so other than a couple of nuts tracking herds ahead of time, it should be pretty empty," Alexa was saying. "It's starting to get colder, and people have school and stuff, so odds are we'll find a whole canyon to ourselves."

"It'll be nice having someone to come up with me," she said. "I know you're not supposed to, but I usually come up alone. The other girls don't really like to, not very often anyway. And I'm usually coming up because I need a break from my brothers in the first place, so I don't exactly invite them either."

Sarah was looking out the window, she and her mom never went camping, and she hadn't ever had a reason to come up into the mountains. They were thickly covered in pine trees, with lots of other brush and vines and stuff growing that Sarah couldn't identify. Once in a while, she'd catch a glint of water between the trees - little streams or lakes, probably. Alexa maybe had a point about living stuff, the glowing fog was super thick up here, she could actually make out how it billowed over the forested hills.

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"Oh, don't let me forget," said Alexa. "What's your cell signal looking like?"

"Four bars still," said Sarah.

"Good, It'd be a good idea to get as far out as possible, but we need to watch that."

"Sure," said Sarah as she turned to watch out the window again. "We're pretty far already."

Alexa laughed, "Not really, we're still on the highway. I'd like to get a couple of miles off it before we start getting comfy. Help me look, there's a little dirt road on the right coming up, I always drive right past it. It'll take us up over that ridge, and then there's a great little meadow with a stream not much farther. I just hope we have signal over there - the mountain might block it."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," said Sarah.

"Well, maybe eventually you can go radio silent, but I'd rather not have your mom start to hate me this early," said Alexa. "Let's just do what we're told to start with. Actually, why don't we even call her once we get lined up? Make sure the signal actually is good, and tell her where we stopped?"

"Good idea," said Sarah. She noticed a break in the trees up ahead and pointed it out. "Is that the turn?"

"Good eyes," said Alexa. "Yeah, I definitely would have missed it. It looks different every time I come up, I swear. You're going to love it up there, it's so quiet. Like you're the only person in the world."

The road looked like it was going to be smooth, but before they even got out of sight of the highway the dirt track turned into a rutted mess. Alexa quit talking, focusing on driving while Sarah just hung onto her armrest and the handle above the door. They jostled themselves for another half hour or so, pausing once in a while for Sarah to check her phone. It spent most of the trip at one or two bars, but once they got stopped they'd call out and make certain it was working.

Finally, Alexa pulled to a stop. At first, it looked just like everything else along the dirt road, and Sarah thought they were just checking the phone again, but then she looked past the row of bushes ahead of them. Through another break in the trees, she could see tall grass filling a deep meadow. She got out of the car and followed Alexa out to the break. The meadow stretched across the whole valley, maybe a quarter mile across. Just tall yellow grass surrounded by a green wall of pine trees. She could hear water gurgling loudly from at least two directions. Birdsong rang out, the wind rustled the grass in long wavering lines, and she could hear the crunch of undergrowth in the distance where a group of deer were moving. Sarah assumed it was deer, she couldn't actually see them, but she couldn't think of anything else that would be in a big group like that up here.

"See?" said Alexa. "I said you'd love it."