A two hour hike brought her to her original destination for the weekend: the patch of old growth forest where her mother had taken her camping as a little girl. Cam built a stick shelter among the oaks. She ate as many powdered donuts as she could fit in her mouth at once, then hung her food high off a distant branch to keep any passing hungry bears from finding her. She found a space blanket tucked away in the bottom of her supplies, set the backpack up as her pillow, and laid herself down in her shelter to rest.

Cradled by the dark, the dwindling rainfall, frogs calling across a nearby pond, and rustling of nocturnal predators on their last patrols before it was safe for the crepusculars to emerge, Cam replayed the events of the last twenty four hours until she fell asleep.

The lack of police officers surrounding her when she woke genuinely surprised her, as did her absence of bruises. She’d landed hard when pretending to faint. But nothing ached- not her arm, not her back after sleeping on the hard ground, not even her overworked feet. All she could feel was the wonder and gratitude of having woken up.

By the sun’s position, Cam guessed it was nearly noon. She watched her surroundings expectantly while seeking out what dry wood she could find tucked away from last night’s rain under thick tree cover and heavy bush. It wasn’t until well after she had the fire going that Cam began to wonder if no one was coming for her after all.

Her sense of calamity ebbed, and the life she had fought so desperately to save needed returning to.

Cam stuffed her rain jacket and ski pants in with the rest of her camping supplies. She took her time walking home, picking porcelain berries and chewing wild mint leaves along the way, not arriving at her apartment until a little after eight in the evening. She stayed in her doorway for a long time.

The closet door stood open. No one waited for her inside. The ouija board and planchette lay on the floor, stuffing peaked out from the stabbed arm of her sofa, her chef’s knife sat on the antique chest, and the smell of old sweat hung in the air. Cameron set about fixing each of these with the care of tending to a loved one. Incense, an iron-on patch of a UFO for the sofa, a vinegar cleaning solution for scrubbing down every surface she could reach. She needed the space to feel like hers again.

On Sunday, she changed the locks and added a deadbolt to her door. Something shook loose in her brain when she clicked the lock in place, and her appetite returned in full. Cam had her first real meal of the weekend: macaroni and cheese with roasted broccoli and tomatoes. She made enough for lunch the next day, ate all of it, and promptly fell asleep in her window-side hammock.

Dreams of pushing her hands into funeral pyres played on repeat.

She woke at four in the morning and checked every inch of her apartment, testing her new locks, making certain every window was closed. Cam sat on her sofa and opened the antique chest. She’d placed the ouija board back inside. Just as she had clung to it while fleeing her father’s house, she kept it now- the last remaining gift from her mother. An idea struck that Cam felt silly indulging. Nonetheless, she took the board out and placed both hands on its planchette. Cam spelled out the words thank you, Mom.

One final hurdle remained. If she could get through returning to work, reestablishing her routine, Cam believed she might stand some chance of moving on. She fished her brunette wig out from under the bathroom sink, combed burn gel through its strands, and set it in place on her head. It looked greasy, uncanny. Cam didn’t care.

Each of her fellow commuters had a sinister aspect to them that morning, and Cam watched them carefully as she rode. She didn’t expect the feeling to subside any time soon. On her walk to the Con Tact office, she stopped by the convenience store and tapped on its window. Spencer glanced up. He grinned, moving to leave the counter, but Cam halted him with an uplifted palm. She raised her lighter to her head and set her wig ablaze. She didn’t dare leave it on for longer than a few seconds worth of spectacle, the burn gel having been made for skin, not synthetic hair. Spencer gaped, pointing at her with greatly exaggerated awe, and Cam took a dramatic bow that let the wig slip off her head. He raised his hands over his head in applause while Cam stamped out the fire. She ran her hand over her scalp, unharmed. With a wink and a wave goodbye, she tossed the wig into a nearby trash can and continued on her way.

The performance had been a cathartic one. A hint of levity entered her thoughts, and Cam opened the Con Tact office door with the beginnings of a smile. A figure sat in the dark there.

“No!” she cried out, slamming the door shut. Her thoughts crashed together: call the police, run inside and kill him, too, calm down, calm down, run away, calm down.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“It’s Birch,” they shouted from inside, not for the first time.

Cam shook her head. Three seconds into the work day, and she’d already failed to get through it. “Sorry,” she said, opening the door again. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault, I’m the one sitting here in the dark like a total creep.”

“What are you doing here so early?” She stepped inside and locked the door behind her.

“My neighbor had a party last night. He’s still having a party. I thought I could take a nap before anyone got in. Jeez, I should have known you’d be here, though. You heard about Dennis?”

Cam slowly nodded, unsure what kind of expression to make, hoping that a blank stare would be appropriate. “I saw a headline. I wasn’t okay to read more.”

Birch seemed to accept this. “What can I even say. How much do you know? Do you want to know?”

“Tell me,” she prompted them, taking a seat at her desk.

“He died Friday night. Him and some other guy, and there was a fire, but that’s not what did it. Well, they’re not sure what happened, exactly. They’ve got a kid saying there was some weird middle-aged couple in the woods that night. Not much to go on.”

In the dark- moreover, in the eyes of a teenager- Cam apparently looked much older than she would have guessed. Ivan had nearly murdered the girl over this, a vague misidentification.

Birch said, “My buddy’s uncle works at the station, and he said they’re looking at a robbery gone wrong, but they don’t know Dennis yet. I won’t be surprised if he finally pissed off the wrong person.”

“Neither will I,” Cam said with too little emotion.

“You should take the day off.”

“No, I need to keep busy.”

Birch grimaced, but nodded. “Just don’t push yourself, okay? I know this must be bringing up a lot of stuff for you. It’s so weird that he just called here.”

“It’s surreal.”

“Yeah. You said you were going to give him a scare.” Birch looked at her with compassion, searching her eyes. Whatever they suspected, they weren’t judging her for it.

“It feels pretty stupid now,” she told them honestly. “I set up the whole ritual thing. You heard me on the phone. I was going to fake a haunting at his place. He told me where he was staying. Thank god I didn’t do it this weekend, right?”

“Yeah.” They sounded supportive, but not convinced. “Well, look, the cops are probably going to want to talk to you. Anyone who knew him, I mean,” they added.

“Probably.”

“And maybe it would be better if I had gone camping with you this weekend,” Birch said carefully. “If they do ask you questions, that is. I was home alone the whole time. Didn’t see a soul. No one would know otherwise. Just, in case things seem a little hairy, from an outside perspective, with you two having a history and him just getting back into town and all.”

An innocent Cam would tease Birch right now, she knew. “You’re too sweet.”

“I’ll tell the others when they get in that I ended up joining you,” they persisted.

“Oh, why not. Maybe I could use someone in my corner.” She put her chin in her hand and said, “I don’t deserve you, Birch.”

“There’s a lot of things you didn’t deserve.”

“You might look at it that way. I was thinking about him a lot this weekend. My dad.”

Finally taking a seat as well, Birch said, “That makes sense.”

“Sometimes I wonder if he would have lived if I had stayed with him. If I could have convinced him to let go of it all with a little more time.”

“I think… honestly, I think if you had stayed, you’d be dead with the rest of them.”

“I probably would. It will never make sense to me, not if I live to be a thousand years old.” Cam gave a sad smile. “But I think I understand him a little better than before.”

“People do all kinds of unimaginable things for their beliefs.”

“I’m not sure people really have beliefs,” she said with some reluctance. Cam didn’t know if the thought should be shared. But Birch waited, ready to listen, and so she went on, “We have habits, we have fears, we have loyalties. We have wants and pains. I think we push all of that together in the shape of a belief system, but the seams come apart the moment any pressure is applied, and it breaks back down to these base instincts. Am I making any sense to you, Birch?”

“I’d have to chew on that one,” they answered honestly. “Maybe you and I should go camping for real. Get high and hash all this out.”

Half listening, Cam laughed. “Just say when.” One of her fishing line spools sat on her desk next to the blue calcite skull. She looked over her hands, remembered moving them over Ivan’s burning body. Strange, she thought, that it hadn’t hurt. Strange that nothing seemed to hurt. Shouldn’t her wig have gotten hot when she lit it on fire?

“Doing okay?” Birch shook her out of it.

“Just quietly losing my mind.”

“If you’re really going through with working today, and you need something to focus on, want to deep clean the seance room before today’s first session?”

Grateful for the distraction, Cam said, “I’m on it. You should take that nap.”

“You sure?”

“Sleep.” She was already on her way to the supply closet.

Cam took an armload of furniture polish, all-purpose cleaner, and lavender oil air freshener to the seance room. The familiarity comforted her. This place, at least, had not been tainted.

She set her bottles by the doorway and took her usual seat at the table. Cam wanted to soak in what sense of normalcy she could. It eluded her.

Moving with hesitation, her better judgment slowing Cam down but not stopping her, she took her pocket knife out and opened it. It just seemed so very strange to her that she wasn’t hurt. Not sore, not even tired. And after all, she’d made far worse choices over the last few days than to push the blade into her soft forearm.

Cam dropped the pocket knife and moved her hand over her mouth as the slit in her arm closed itself before her eyes.