Ainsel made breakfast the next morning in Zoë’s kitchen, because Zoë, a snoring lump under her blankets, certainly wasn’t waking up to do it. The kitchen was one of the rooms in the house that looked like it came out of a home decor magazine. It was always spotless and full of shiny, barely-used appliances. Ainsel always did her best to leave it clean as well, but she used the hell out of the appliances when she was there. They needed it.

She started with scones studded with dried cherries, with lemon curd. Then, while the scones baked, she mixed up some banana bread from some black bananas left in the fruit bowl, because otherwise they’d end up in the trash.

Zoë’s father, Jim, stumbled into the kitchen while Ainsel was putting the banana bread in the oven. He was a scruffy middle-aged man who always seemed underfed and over-caffeinated to Ainsel. He worked as a software developer and Zoë had told Ainsel that a lot of his coworkers looked like that too.

It was a terrible thing, seeing somebody who was usually over-caffeinated without his caffeine. He blinked bleary eyes at Ainsel. “Did you stay the night? I must have missed it.”

“You were distracted,” said Ainsel helpfully. “On your computer. Shooting people.”

Jim winced and Ainsel poured him a cup of coffee and pushed it across the breakfast bar to him.

It was funny. Sarah, Zoë’s mom, had the same reaction when she’d arrived home after midnight. Oh. You’re here? How nice. They almost always had that reaction to Ainsel’s presence, except for when Sarah was going through a World’s Greatest Mom phase and dragged both Zoë and Ainsel out to shopping trips and networking functions.

Jim huddled at the table, sipping his coffee, while Ainsel finished cleaning up her mess. Then she gathered up a plate of scones for Zoë and went back to the bedroom.

Zoë was still under her blankets, completely shrouded against the morning sun. Ruthlessly, Ainsel pulled them off.

“Augh!” Zoë wailed, throwing her arms over her face. “No, the cruelty!” She squeezed her eyes shut tight, then opened one to glare at Ainsel. “This is why we don’t have more sleepovers. You are the worst in the mornings. Don’t you ever sleep?”

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“Have breakfast,” Ainsel suggested. “I want to go out and look for my phone in the woods later, and I’m not going without you and your phone.”

Grumbling, Zoë sat up and moved to her desk where the plate of scones rested, infusing every motion with tragedy. Ainsel left her to it and went to grab a shower.

By the time she returned, Zoë was also dressed and ready to face the day. She was staring at her bed, with a bemused expression on her face.

“What’s wrong?” When Ainsel had drifted off to sleep, Zoë had still been awake, reading while curled up in her desk chair.

Zoë hesitated, then shook her head. “Nothing. I just had a strange dream last night. Come on, let’s go find your phone.”

They stopped by the edge of the forest first, and Zoë found a pair of club-like sticks. “Just in case.”

Ainsel inspected hers. “You want me to throw it at them?”

“I want them to be sleeping in whatever hell den they came from, but, y’know, whatever gets us home safely.”

Ainsel grinned at her friend and after a moment, Zoë smiled back.

Sticks in hand, they retraced their steps from the night before. Zoë studied the ground as they walked. “Animal Control is right. There’s no tracks, not one. The ground here by the fence is soft, you can kind of see our tracks, but no giant hellhound paw prints.”

Ainsel glanced at the ground obediently. It was just churned earth to her, but she took Zoë’s word for it. Zoë worked at noticing details, and because of that she was good at it. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea, but I’m really glad we both saw the same things because otherwise I’d think I was going crazy.” Zoë used her own phone to take a picture of the absence of wolf tracks, then climbed over the fence.

“Aha!” She darted through the pasture and picked up a shredded green tennis ball. “Evidence!” She photographed it, then tucked it into her bag. “Not the greatest evidence but I’ll take it.”

Once they made it to the forest, Ainsel moved unerringly to the dead tree where she last remembered having her phone. “Over here. I dropped it somewhere over here.”

Zoë nodded and pushed a button on her phone. They waited for Ainsel’s phone to ring. After a silent moment, Zoë said, “Dead battery? Or did it get wet?”

Ainsel squinted at the sky. Although the day was fast becoming overcast, the night had been dry. “The battery should be fine.” She slipped off the path and into the ferns that made up the forest underbrush.

Zoë followed her, crushing some of the plants with her hiking boots. Ainsel could suddenly see what Zoë was talking about with the lack of trails. She couldn’t make out details in mud, but seeing how Zoe left signs in the forest of her passage, Ainsel couldn’t believe anything as big and heavy as the wolves or the nightmare monster had ever passed through here.

But although they looked for half an hour, all the way until the rain came, her cellphone wasn’t there, either. It was a bad beginning to a wet, dull, annoying weekend in which both of Ainsel’s mothers lectured her on her recklessness and she baked six varieties of cookies, all of which came out wrong.