"That's a great idea! Come on, let's see if you two strapping folk can help me gather some firewood. Maybe with you along we won't need much kindling." " Alexa punctuated her declaration with a clap, and she grabbed Beckham and Taylor and dragged them towards the treeline. "Come on, I'll bet a cookie you can't find as much as me."

As the three tromped off into the woods, Sarah could hear quiet grunts and half-expressed cursing coming from where Ashleigh was struggling with his tent. She glanced at the others and saw that Samantha was looking at him as well.

"I don't think he's been camping much," said Samantha.

"You met him first, didn't you Parker?" said Sarah to the dreadlocked boy.

"I did, at first I thought it was pretty cool," said Parker, and he smiled as he spoke. Sarah couldn't help but notice his striking white teeth, even if it seemed like maybe he had too many of them in his mouth. He went on, "But he's kinda standoffish, you know?"

"Flinches a lot?" asked Samantha.

"Sits in the back, or away from windows?" said Sarah.

"Maybe wears headphones a lot? The big over-ear kind?"

"Doesn't go outside much?"

"Steps back from hugs and handshakes?"

"Gets angry if you talk too fast?"

"Or surprise him?"

Parker had his hands up, palms out at the torrent of questions from Sarah and Samantha. "Down girls," he said, as the two girls erupted into laughter. "I guess you know him already?"

"No, but that was my life too," said Samantha, after she and Sarah calmed down.

"And mine, for a long time," said Sarah. "It's better now."

"Hell yes it is," said Samantha. "I think having something, well, magic to focus on really helps."

"More than that," said Sarah. "Have you tried not using the blue yet? Really going cold turkey? Things get hard again fast. Using my magic keeps things better. Like I'm paddling and I can keep my head above water. The more I use it, the better I feel."

"I guess," said Samantha. "I don't know if I've gone an hour yet without using the light. I'm not sure I could. But it makes sense. And bozo over there seems like he hardly does anything."

"Which is probably why he's still, ah, irritable," chimed in Parker. He glanced at Jacob and said, "Have you noticed anything different? Since finding out, I mean. I don't know if I have, but now that I think about it Taylor was saying something about her brother breaking stuff a lot less lately."

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Jacob shook his head. "No, not really. I mean, I had a big fight with my roommate, after the jerk wore my Doc Martins and filled them up with mud. My therapist seems to think it was some sort of breakthrough, but honestly, I don't see it. Of course, I'd be angry. Who wouldn't? The jerk didn't even think about me, or taking care of anything."

A little thump drew Sarah and Samantha's attention back to Ashleigh. He'd gotten one of the collapsable poles wrapped around himself somehow and had sat down hard on the ground.

"I think maybe I should go help," said Jacob. "Come help, Parker. It might come better from us. I think maybe you two girls might be making him feel insecure. What with your nifty magic powers and all."

"Plus you're both cute," chimed in Parker, his white teeth flashing again.

Sarah and Samantha both blushed and looked down. Sarah thumbed her bracelet and Samantha scanned the ground like she was looking for something. Jacob smacked Parker on the back of his head, and he led the other boy through the grass to where Ashleigh was struggling. The two girls just stood in awkward silence, watching the boys squat down to help put up Ashleigh's tent.

After a moment, Sarah decided she ought to be doing something. She tossed her and Alexa's bags into the tent and dumped everything else out of the little cart. The cooler could just sit there, but she decided to try out Samantha's thing and pulled blue from the air, filling the camp chairs she'd brought. They snapped open and walked themselves into a big semi-circle. After the first, she had a good idea of their capacity and was able to keep them full without resorting to dumping extra into Cuddles.

"We should probably make a fire pit, have something ready before they come back with wood," said Sarah. Samantha just nodded, and the two got to work. They only had one shovel, but the sandy turf was easy to dig through. It only took Sarah a minute or two to cut a wide hole in the grass. She'd read that you were supposed to keep the grass intact, so you could put it back in place and not leave a mark, but this grass just crumbled under the shovel. Maybe there weren't enough roots to hold it together. Sarah just piled the dirt into a pile, so it would be easy to bury everything tomorrow.

Then she and Samantha followed the little wagon as they went looking for big rocks to line the fire pit. Sarah had gone straight to the stream, there were plenty of easy-to-find stones there. But Samantha interrupted her, "Not those, they can have water inside and explode."

"Really?" said Sarah. "That sounds crazy."

"Well, I heard it once, anyway," said Samantha, looking down.

"No worries, there's plenty farther away," said Sarah.

The two slowly filled the little cart with rocks. There were a few big rocks that took both of them to lift, but for the most part, they just piled softball-sized stones inside, and the cart kept trundling along easily. By the time they got back to their little circle of chairs, Alexa had already started a pile of wood. Sarah smiled at unmistakable fingerprints in the wood in places, where Alexa had split big logs into more manageable chunks. Sarah and Samantha had just pulled out their first stones to finish the firepit when a loud thundering blast split the air.

They looked up - it was hard to tell where the noise came from, even for Sarah. The sound echoed around the hills and trees, reaching them in a rolling wave. Looking around, Sarah couldn't see any clouds, and the weather hadn't said anything about storms. She shrugged and pulled another stone out for the fire pit. For a few minutes, she and Samantha kept working on the fire pit - they'd gathered more stones than they needed, so they amused themselves by balancing them, building an actual wall around where the fire would go.

Sarah looked up, watching Alexa come back into view from the trees. Alexa's curly dark hair was loose, and it was all Sarah could see of her face behind a wall of stacked wood. Taylor and Beckham were behind, each carrying a more reasonable load. Before they could drop it all off another crack of thunder split the air. This one was quieter than the first, and a moment later it was followed by a second blast, and then a third precisely timed.