“I brought snacks,” Eve announced the next day, holding aloft a bag of precious carbs. She dropped it on the trunk of her car and dug through to grab a cinnamon sugar dusted donut out of the box. They were in the parking lot of Pearson’s, and despite the sun being a terrible, overbearing ball of fire, the air was the kind of warm that summer dreams are made of. Wind smoothed over Eve’s face and through her hair, pushing it into her eyes.

Jon, leaning against Eve’s car in a way that looked practiced, made an appreciative sound and grabbed a donut as well.

Eve gestured into the backseat at a plastic bag. “And some dog treats. Not as a snack.”

“I also brought snacks,” Ezra said. He looked positively casual in khaki shorts, though that could only last so long before the nerd within emerged. He set his bag down next to Eve’s and pulled out a plastic bottle of water, which he handed to Eve. “Please drink this.”

Eve made a face at him, but she did take the water. He waited until she’d opened it and taken a very purposeful drink before he moved on.

“Give me a break, Dad,” she said. The bottle was cool and slippery in her hands, like Ezra had pulled the pack from the fridge before coming over. A little rush of fondness almost made her smile. She ignored it.

“You’re never too young to start taking care of yourself, young lady,” he said mock-sternly, shaking a finger at her. Jon nodded solemnly, and Eve watched as he practically inhaled the rest of his donut before Ezra looked at him. The innocent look was spoiled a bit by the powdered sugar all over his fingers.

“You’re not that much older than me,” she said, “even though you act old as fuck and don’t know what it means to be a snack. How old are you, anyway?”

Ezra choked on his water and coughed.

Jon laughed a little. “A snack, like a hottie?” Eve nodded, and Ezra coughed and desperately clutched at his water bottle like it would protect him from this conversation, and Jon speculatively looked Ezra over. Eve immediately wanted to leave. “I agree, you should know what a snack is since you are one.” Grinning, Jon opened his own bottle of water. Poor Ezra, who had just braved another drink, started choking again. Jon frowned and patted him on the back.

Eve looked up at the sky—so blue it was almost blinding—and whispered, “End my suffering.”

“I’m 23,” Ezra said when he stopped coughing. He stood stiffly, bottle clutched in both hands in front of his stomach.

“Wait,” Jon said, leaning forward, “how old are you, Eve?”

“19.” Eve took another drink of her water and then tossed it through the open driver’s window.

“Babies,” Jon said. “I’m 26.”

“Old man,” Eve countered. “We should have gotten some bran cereal for you.”

“Bran cereal is good,” Ezra said, and cleared his throat. Eve turned to look at him, weighing whether she should tease him or not.

“I mean, one of us is going to be healthy and hydrated, and the other is going to spend too much money on energy drinks and pizza,” she said. Then she exaggeratedly shook her head in sadness. “Your loss.” Jon snorted. “Anyway,” she said, changing the topic, “this werewolf isn’t gonna catch itself. Let’s get these cameras up.”

***

Eve decided after the third camera that she didn’t like werewolf hunting. They’d hidden a camera within sight of Kyle’s house—which Ezra provided the address of—near Eve’s apartment, and on a tree by Route 23 where it left town. Each time they placed a camera, Jon had to link the camera and his laptop, and make sure the picture was coming through and showing what they were aiming for. He’d done it before at her apartment, but now Eve had to stand around in the forest and listen to the whining buzz of mosquitos and flies.

Now, they were at the Cliff Henge, a small park on a wooded ledge overlooking Blackwater Lake, and Jon had directed Eve and Ezra to stand at two points to gauge how much ground the camera would cover.

“Eve, scoot a few feet to your left,” he called. When she sighed and did so, standing on a twisted root that stuck up from the ground, he checked his laptop. He adjusted the camera within its hiding spot and then gave her a thumbs up.

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The three of them converged near Eve’s car. They were the only ones in the shaded parking lot, which was really just a flat gravel rectangle. The tips of the pines above them swayed in the wind, and Eve could hear the light slap of waves at the base of the cliff. The henge stood next to the cliff, pine boughs brushing over the tops of the trilithons. Something about the way the tree-shadows played over the stones caught her eye, and she stared.

“That’s probably enough,” Jon said, clapping his hands together once. Ezra jumped. “Let’s find a good spot to set up for the night.”

Ezra nodded, a small crease between his eyebrows, and Eve pulled her backpack out of the backseat of the car. Her childhood sleeping bag was strapped to the bottom, and the bag itself had dog treats, energy drinks, and her notebook inside.

Jon was digging through his own bag, shuffling through his ghost-hunting equipment and his camping gear. Eve eyed the things he’d brought along with the duffle bag: a short, sausage-shaped thing that he assured her was a tent big enough to fit 2-3 people and another sausage that was his sleeping bag.

“Do you always carry all that with you?” she asked.

Jon looked up at her. “Oh, all the camping stuff? Not all the time. I’ve been set up in the forest just outside of Blackwood, and I normally leave my gear out while I’m gone. No sense in packing it up when I’m planning to sleep in the same place again.”

Eve pursed her lips and caught herself almost asking if he’d want help carrying everything. Instead she made a noise of acknowledgement and sniffed.

“Anyway,” he continued, pulling a steel rod with a black plastic handle out of his duffle bag, “this is my dowsing rod, which is normally used for finding groundwater. But I use it to find the ley lines in an area. They often have places of spiritual power and frequent ghost sightings located along them, spots I call ‘nodes’. Follow me!”

Ezra leaned to the side, closer to Eve. “That’s…literally a honing steel,” he whispered. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“A what?”

“Like, for straightening knives.” They both looked at Jon, who was holding the steel out in front of him and concentrating as he led them into the forest. Gravel crunched under their feet as they moved farther into the shade.

“Do you think he knows?” Eve asked.

“If we can find a node on the nearest ley line, we’ll be able to set up camp and be safe overnight,” Jon said.

Ezra’s eyes widened, and he stopped moving. “Camp, like outside? Overnight?” he said. His voice was loud in the forest’s stillness.

“Yeah?” Eve said. “How else are we going to monitor ‘werewolf activities’? Also, we talked about this yesterday, weren’t you paying attention?”

“I didn’t know the plan was ‘sleep outside on a full moon and hope the werewolf doesn’t get us’!” he sounded distraught. “I thought it was a car stakeout. You can’t be outside. You’ll get hurt.”

Jon waved and scoffed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The nodes on a ley line are powerful in the same way the henges are. If a werewolf comes out tonight, we’ll be perfectly safe.” But Ezra kept shaking his head.

“No, no way. You can’t.”

“You’re the one who keeps insisting that we look into the werewolf theory,” Eve said. “If we don’t do it now we have to wait. I am not waiting another month.” Ezra chewed on his fingernails and looked around at the pines as if they’d give him an answer.

Jon stepped back to Eve and Ezra, put an arm around Ezra’s shoulders, and patted his arm. “I know you’re worried, but we’ll be fine if we sleep inside a node.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Eve said. “There’s not gonna be anything out there, anyway.”

Ezra glanced at her, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “Maybe I can…” he said quietly, trailing off and looking into the trees. After a second he took a shaky breath. “No. I’ll just…stay home.” Eve eyed him. He’d said as much yesterday. He was being weird, but he was always weird. “But I’ll help you two set up, at least until it gets close to sunset.”

“Thanks, man,” Jon said. He smiled at Ezra and clapped his shoulder again before letting go. “Let’s find our campsite.”

Eve pulled out her phone as they walked. It had just occurred to her that she should probably tell someone where she was, in case Jon turned out to be a serial killer, or there really was a werewolf.

“Remember Jon Beck” she typed, “from the other day? I’m going to be in the woods by the Cliff Henge Park alone with him tonight. If I die, I’d look at him first.” She sent that one, and then frowned. She typed a second message: “Also hi, I love you, and I’m not just saying that because I’m worried I’ll get murdered.”

Her dad sent a crying emoji and three hearts. Her mom said, “You too. I’ll kill him for you.”

“He’s really nice,” she texted back.

“Nice or not, your father and I will avenge your death.”

Her dad sent a skull emoji, followed by, “Come haunt us Sunflower.” Eve sighed. Ezra looked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

“My parents are just…” she started saying, and then she shook her head. “Never mind. They mean well.”

“I’m a little envious,” he said after a second. “You seem to get along well with them.”

“I guess,” she said. “They’re good parents, but I got tired of being the only adult in the house.” Jon looked back at her and frowned sympathetically.

“Do you not get along with your parents?” she asked Ezra, even though it felt too close to a deep, personal conversation. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. But Ezra suddenly looked sad and droopy, and Eve’s chest squeezed a little.

“I haven’t spoken to them in a couple of years,” he said.

“Oh.” Eve watched the ground, regretting asking. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Ezra offered a polite smile.

The three of them walked in silence until Jon jumped a little and looked back.

“Here we go!” he said, grinning with all of the sunshine he could muster. “I found a ley line.”

Eve stepped forward, a tingle running between her shoulder blades and down her spine. Finally, they were getting somewhere.