My first thought upon waking up is that I can’t believe I actually fell asleep. Yes, I was beyond exhausted, but still. Out here?

Daylight streams through the thin nylon walls of the tent, turned orange by the fabric. I sit up groggily, rubbing my eyes. Aiden isn’t here, but he left me both sleeping bags. I must have really burrowed in, because it takes me a minute to detangle myself.

Am I sore from walking all day, or from sleeping on the ground? Both, probably.

My initial instinct is to rush off and find Aiden, check that he didn’t get eaten by a bear last night or something, but… I’d like to think that Kasey would have woken me up if that had happened. I sit still in the tent for a moment, taking long breaths of the frigid air, listening to the sounds of the forest around me. The shift of wind through high branches.

I could change out of my pajamas and into my fresh clothes, but I think I'll find the others first.

I reach for my flannel and crawl out of the tent to find a cold, glittering layer of dew on the forest floor. Drying my hands on my sweatpants, I get to my feet and blink around at our campsite. I get the feeling that it’s early - like, really early. The woods are hushed and still.

Kasey isn’t here, and neither is Aiden, but there’s a disturbance in the heavy blanket of pine needles, a path where someone clearly walked recently. I fix my sleepy tunnel vision on the trail and start following it, yawning so hard that my jaw aches.

My eyes are focused on the ground, which is how I end up walking directly into Aiden, my face bumping into his chest.

“Oh, Jamie-” His warm fingers fasten around my wrist before I can topple onto the ground, and I grab his forearm instinctively. “I didn’t see you! I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“I was.” I get my footing back and look up at Aiden. “What time is-?”

I stop, staring at him. He’s already changed his clothes; he’s in a black crewneck sweatshirt, his snapback in its usual backwards position, a few chestnut strands escaping onto his forehead, but - that’s not what’s catching my attention.

It’s his expression, simultaneously both calm and bright with excitement. In fact, his whole face is glowing, and suddenly I’ve completely forgotten whatever the hell I was about to say.

He releases my wrist and bends to kiss my forehead.

“How did you sleep?”

“Mmm.” I slide my hands up his powerful shoulders, then slump against his chest again. “I don’t know. It was weird. Like really deeply, but then I woke up once or twice and it was scary.”

“Yeah, I thought I heard you running at one point.”

“That wasn't when I woke up, that was my mad dash outside to spit out my mouthwash. It was terrifying.”

Aiden laughs and smoothes my hair out of my face with his thumb. His stubble has grown darker overnight. I can feel that I have a little bit, too.

“I want to show you something.” His hand drops to take mine.

“You know, every time you say that-”

“Something ridiculous happens?” he finishes, his blue eyes warm and smiling.

“Yes.”

“Well, if you do want to see it, we should move fast, before the sun is all the way up.”

“What - I woke up by myself, before the sun came up? What in the crazy-ass camping-voodoo hell... but yeah, I want to see it. Is it far away?”

“Nope.” Aiden tugs my flannel out of my hand and offers it to me. “Put this on, aren’t you cold?”

It doesn’t go with my sweatpants, I almost answer, then think better of it and put the flannel on over my t-shirt. Aiden laces his fingers through mine and starts walking. I let him pull me along, too sleepy to do much else.

My eyes are basically half-closed when we come to a stop a few minutes later. Aiden has to give my fingers a gentle squeeze to get my attention. My eyes flutter open again, and this time, they stay open. A wave of amazement breaks over my head.

At some point last night, in the dark, we must have crested a rise. I knew we’d been on a steady uphill trajectory all day, but I didn’t think about quite how far we’d climbed. Now, standing at the edge of this cliff, I realize. We’re much higher up than we were for the Fling Thing, only this view doesn’t face Ketterbridge, it faces the forest and the mountains. All spread out before us.

I know that Aiden said he wanted a high vantage point, but. This is something else.

Vivid dawn light is just starting to glide down the mountaintops, turning the snowy caps from pale violet to brilliant coral. The clouds overhead are billowing and pearly, their underbellies growing warmer in color as the sun comes up. They’re too thick to be opaque; cotton candy, coming unraveled.

And below…

Thousands and thousands of trees, stretching up the mountains and down into the valley. Even the ones shrouded in early-morning mist are visible by their peaks, too tall to be completely encompassed. I see Douglas firs, and Longleaf pines, and - too many kinds to count, way too many to count, not even if the most dedicated botanists in the world were on the job.

The wind rushes through the mountains, and the trees answer with their swaying movement, and now I know why this sounds like an ocean: it is an ocean, a sea of green so magnificent and heart-stopping that I… well. I can barely breathe. I watch as a few birds burst from the treetops and rise up into the air, drifting in lazy sky-circles above it all.

I just stare and stare and stare. Aiden’s fingers tighten around mine.

When I finally break my gaze away, I find him looking not at the sunrise, but at me.

You idiot, you’re missing the most beautiful thing in the world, I'm about to say, but he turns and faces the valley again. He tips his head back and takes in a long, deep breath before he speaks.

“So. Was it ridiculous?”

“No. I mean, yes.” I shrug at him, nibbling on my lip, holding back my smile. “It’s okay, I guess. It’s fine.”

He laughs.

“Right, yeah. It could be better.”

“Totally. Like that river would look nicer over there. But the Doug-firs are pretty. I suppose.”

He shoots me a sidelong smile, then runs his thumb over the back of my hand. I just squeeze his fingers, because honestly, I don’t even have words for this.

“Aiden - stay here.”

I spin on my heel and take off through the woods, darting back towards our tent. Of all the times to have my phone shut off (which it never is) and put away in my bag (again, never). I dive back into the tent, fumble around until I find it, and race back to Aiden, wishing I’d taken the time to lace up my shoes.

But I make it back, open the camera, and frame the wild mountainscape before us. I snap dozens of pictures - there’ll be a good one in there somewhere - then swivel to take one of Aiden, who wasn’t prepared. He turns to look at me before he notices what I’m doing, and I catch a shot of him mid-movement, gazing at me over his shoulder, his smile relaxed and calm and sweet, the rippling trees in the background...

“Oh, my god,” I tell him, taking five or six more for good measure.

“What?”

I lean up and kiss him, winding a hand into his hair.

“Nothing.”

“Here, let me see that?”

I hand him my phone. He pulls me up against his chest, flipping the camera view to face us.

“Nooo, I probably look - this is not gonna be - no fair, you already changed into your-!”

“Tell you the truth, Jamie, I happen to think you look very cute like this.”

I pause, surprised and smiling. Aiden seizes the opportunity to snap a picture, and I groan loudly.

“Okay, that’s enough of that!”

Aiden laughs again, but hands me the phone back. I stuff it into my pocket, my face turning pink, and open my mouth to tell him just what I think about that sneaky tactic he just pulled-

Before I can say a word, a wild, prolonged shout echoes through the peaceful air. I spin to face the valley again, expecting birds to go flying up in every direction, but the forest doesn’t react at all.

“What was that?” I gasp.

Aiden feels around in the pocket of his jeans, withdraws the glasses, and fits them onto his face.

“Did someone scream?” he asks. “If so, it’s Kasey, and it’s been going on all morning.”

“What? Is she okay? Kasey!”

Thank god I can summon her. It’s instant relief when she shimmers into being next to us. She’s out of breath, her eyes wide and round, an elated grin taking over her entire face.

“Jamie! You’re finally up! Watch this!”

She takes a few steps back, winds up, and sprints directly for the edge of the cliff, where she leaps into the air like an Olympic diver. Her arms fly up like she might flap them and take off - and she disappears over the side.

“Holy shit!” I move automatically to run after her, but Aiden seizes my arm.

“Kasey!” he calls, and she appears again, this time at Aiden’s elbow.

“Can you goddamn believe it?” She’s beaming, her clasped fingers tucked below her chin. “I can fucking no-consequence cliff dive! Finally a ghost perk! And I don’t even have to walk back up, I can just have you guys summon me. I’ve made Aiden do it like six times now. It’s the best.”

“How did you figure this out?”

“I don’t know. It occurred to me and I just tried it.”

“You just tried-? But - when you land-”

“I can’t get hurt! I don’t even need a parachute! Watch-” She starts to back up again, and Aiden quickly jumps in.

“We should probably start packing up, Kasey. We’re here to find the cemetery, remember?”

“Oh - yeah.” She twists to look at the cliffside, chewing her lip. “Mmm. One last time!”

“Wait, Kasey-” I call, but she’s already tearing towards the edge. This time she does a little flip in the air as she descends, letting out a half-shout, half-scream of delight.

We stand there, watching her free fall. When she disappears into the trees, Aiden catches my eye, shakes his head, and sets off back towards camp.

“Are we sure that she isn’t too much for Will to handle?”

I take one more look at the view before hurrying after him.

“Well... he’s probably been bored as fuck for centuries, right? Maybe he could use a little excitement.”

Back at the tent, Aiden offers me the coffee thermos, a cup, and a toothpaste tab. I stick the tab in my pocket and go right for the coffee.

“How is this warm? We never even made a fire.”

“I warmed it up myself,” Aiden says. “No need for a fire. Camping with me has its perks.”

“Yes it does,” I answer, watching from behind the rim of my coffee cup as he bends all the way over to roll our sleeping bags back up.

“It is instant coffee, though, and I made it directly in the thermos, so it might taste weird.”

No, it actually tastes fine. I take a long sip, then catch the sleeping bag Aiden tosses me and stuff it into my backpack. The next fifteen minutes pass in a blur of quickly changing clothes and rinsing out coffee cups and splashing cold water on my face, and soon enough we’re ready to go.

We reconvene with Kasey at the edge of the cliff. Aiden puts the glasses on and stares out over the valley again.

“There are a lot of spectral traces here. Will has been all over this forest. But I see three paths that are more pronounced than the others… it must be one of those. Kasey, you said that the cemetery would need to be close enough to town for people to visit?”

“Right.”

“The middle leads farther away from town than we already are, so I have to think it’s not that.”

“Where do the others go?” I ask, and Aiden uses his finger to trace them out on the air. One is headed deeper into the mountains, the other towards the low valley.

“Cemeteries are usually built on flat land,” Kasey says. “I doubt we should head towards the mountains.”

“Which leaves that path.” Aiden points, as if we could see it.

I pull up the compass app on my phone. “East.”

“Alright,” Aiden says, pulling his backpack onto his shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got our bearing.”

~~~~

I’m in a way better mood today. Walking downhill sucks so much less than walking uphill. Downhill is where it’s at. I can munch on my granola bar and take sips of water without having to stop the group, and the whole experience is overall less sweaty than yesterday. I must be getting a little bit more comfortable, because the thought of predatory wildlife is only occurring to me every twenty minutes or so, instead of every five seconds.

But we’ve been walking for hours, now. Half the day is already gone, and I can tell that Aiden is starting to get frustrated.

“It’s okay, babe,” I tell him, for the tenth time.

“I can’t believe I lost the trail.” He groans and takes off the glasses, cleaning them on his sweatshirt, like that’s the problem. “It was so easy to see from overhead, but here it’s so faint, I can barely see anything.”

“We’ll find it again. We just need to keep heading east, right?”

“That’s the approximate direction, yeah, but we’re looking for a needle in a haystack, here.”

“I still don’t feel anything,” Kasey puts in, scowling. “It’s pissing me off that I haven’t been helpful.”

“You’re not just here to feel stuff, Kasey, you’re the team historian,” Aiden sighs. “We need you for more than one-”

“Aiden!” I tug on his arm, and he stops. “Don’t step on that.”

“On what?”

I nod at the low-sitting plants by his feet, the serrated cut of the leaves.

“Those are stinging nettles. Unless you packed some antihistamines, you don’t want those to touch y-”

I break off, staring, and drop to a crouch before the plants. There’s a moss-covered stone outcrop to our right; Aiden slumps tiredly back against it, watching me.

“What are you doing, Jamie?”

“Stinging nettles,” I repeat. "Here."

“Yeah…?” Aiden says. He and Kasey exchange a puzzled glance.

“It’s just-” I get back to my feet, pointing at the clump of heart-shaped leaves. “Stinging nettles like phosphate-rich earth, so they’re most common in places where fertilizer has been used. No one would be using fertilizer out here, right? But in places where humans have lived and died, the ground tends to be richer in phosphate. We leave it behind, and it lasts a long time. This... this is a sign of human habitation. Seriously. I think we must be close to the cemetery. We might even be on top of it, right now.”

Aiden and Kasey stare at me, then both turn to scan the forest. Nothing here looks unusual. We would have walked right through it without a second glance. But Kasey’s eyes stop on Aiden, and narrow.

“Aiden, what are you leaning on?”

“A - big huge chunk of stone?”

“Are you sure? It’s really flat. Can you get some moss out of the way?”

Aiden traces a hand over it. He digs his fingernails into a clump of lichen, pulling it free and exposing the stone beneath.

Only it’s not stone, it’s glass.

“What the fuck?” I breathe, as Kasey’s hands fly up to her mouth. Aiden and I look at each other, then drop our backpacks and get busy stripping the thick blanket of moss and vines away, revealing…

A window.

I stare at the fractured glass, my head spinning. This is no naturally-occurring wall of rock.

Aiden digs the flashlight out of his bag and slaps it into my hand. I shine it through the broken part of the window, illuminating what lies within.

“It’s a ruin,” I manage, my eyes wide.

“A ruin of what?” Kasey asks.

I turn to face the team, a giant smile rising on my face.

“A church."