Outside.
She stepped outside and saw a man, not much taller than her, leaning against the wall, typing furiously on his phone. He clearly worked out a lot—he had muscular arms and a six-pack that he showed off in a snug black T-shirt. The bottom half of his body was adorned in flowing yoga pants in a purple-and-green mandala pattern. His head was shaved completely bald. He had the word CARBON tattooed in huge letters down his left arm, and the word BASED down the right.
“Hey!” he said, waving to her as if they were old friends. “Stevie! Stevie!”
As she got closer she noticed that he reeked of burned sage. Not yoga studio levels—more like he’d been in a brushfire on a sage farm.
“My car’s out this way,” he said.
Stevie continued behind, dragging the bag toward the green Tesla that he was opening. The inside of the car was a creamy pale tan leather that was probably called “latte” or “toasted coconut” or something like that. A set of wooden meditation beads hung from the rearview mirror, and there was a pink crystal in the cupholder. The sage smell was much stronger inside the car, and Stevie found herself hungry for air.
“Barlow Corners is about an hour’s drive,” he said, pulling the eerily silent car out of the parking space. “Your friends are already here.”
“They said there’s a . . . trapeze?”
“Oh yeah. They’re in the Bounce House.”
Stevie could not bring herself to ask why it was called the Bounce House, and it didn’t matter. She knew he was about to tell her.
“I call it the Bounce House because that’s where I host all kinds of creators and we bounce ideas around. We call them Think Jams.”
She resisted the impulse to open the car door and jump.
“Tonight you’ll all stay in the guest rooms there,” he went on. “Tomorrow I can drive you through town and take you over to the camp. Might as well get in one night with air-conditioning and hot water, right? Also, no snakes.”
Anxiety is very accommodating. Minutes ago, Stevie’s anxiety was all about failure. It neatly converted itself into worry about places called Bounce Houses and not having hot water or air-conditioning. It was perfectly ready to bring the snakes to the party. It’s a big tent. All problems are welcome.
“Snakes?”
“I mean, there are some around the lake, but not at the camp.”
“The camp is on a lake.”
“Yeah, but the snakes are . . . I mean, they’re around, but over on the other side. No snakes at the camp.”
There were for sure snakes at the camp. It was entirely made of snakes. Why hadn’t she thought of the snakes?
“Tonight I thought we could have a meeting,” Carson said, “to go over the details of the case. And tomorrow I have something really special planned.”
The snakes slithered to the side of her thoughts.
“What?”
“A big event, sponsored by Box Box. See, I donated a children’s reading room to the town library, so I’m having a big picnic to open it, with free food and entertainment. I’ve made sure lots of people will be there, including some who were there in 1978. You’ll be able to meet some of the witnesses and even some of the suspects. We’ll start our work off right. The Box in the Woods—finally solved!”
“If it can be solved,” Stevie said.
“Of course it can. With everything available now? Someone just has to put some pressure on, get things moving, look into all the stuff that’s been ignored for decades.”
“But people have been doing that.”
“Not people who own the camp,” he said with a smile.
She had to admit, he had a point.
A ridge of gently rolling green hills appeared in the distance. Buildings became more scarce, and the land opened up like a blank page waiting for a story. He turned a corner between two sprawling fields. Every road got smaller and deeper into the trees. It reminded her a little of the drive to Ellingham Academy, except that drive was up, up, up. This drive was more gentle, the terrain far less imposing. Everything had the soft veneer of Americana—flags, farm stands, screened porches. There were thick green canopies of trees along the roads, under which people walked dogs or rode bikes or took purposeful runs while listening to headphones and squinting at an invisible finish line.
The first sign they had entered Carsonland was the stone Buddha next to the green mandala-covered mailbox. They turned up a short drive, past a trampoline, a pool, and a small field with three goats. Stevie stepped out into a peaceful place bordered by a burbling creek, nestled in the trees. There were piles of rocks out in the shallow water, delicately balanced on one another.
“This is the Bounce House,” he said, pulling her bag toward a barn—or what had probably been an old barn at some point. Everything about it looked fresh and new, from the electric-blue paint to the massive windows with the hot dog mustard–yellow sills.
“That’s my house over there,” Carson said, pointing through the trees to a large purple house with an eye painted where the front of the house met the peak of the roof. It gazed down on Stevie sleepily.
The door to the barn opened. There was a high-pitched noise, and then Janelle Franklin came soaring over as if on winged feet and grabbed Stevie in an embrace.
“You’re wearing your lemons,” Stevie said.
“Of course! We’re all here! Almost all here!”
Janelle loved lemons, and when she wore her lemon-print dress, it was a sign that she was happy. She had wrapped her braided hair in a matching yellow scarf and complemented the whole look with a sunny yellow eyeshadow that popped cheerily against her black skin. This is what Janelle was like—always dressed to express. She understood how things went together, how makeup was applied, how to be perfectly together and make it all look easy. It probably was for her. She did calculus in her head, for fun.
Behind her was Nate, his lips twisted into a wry smile. Even when he smiled, Nate’s expression suggested that of an old-timey fisherman resignedly watching his boat being devoured by a sea serpent. His hair was always a bit scruffy, and his clothes a little too big for him. At school he usually wore beat-up cargo pants or corduroys—for his summer look, he had exchanged these for beat-up cargo shorts. He wore the same T-shirts that he had in school; this one read SHRIMP OPTIONAL.
“I’ll let you guys catch up,” Carson said. “I have evening meditation. I’ll be back in an hour. Everyone good with vegan pizza?”
There was a polite pause.
“Or I can get some dairy pizza. See you in a few. Make yourself at home, Stevie.”
“Oh,” Nate said in a low voice, opening the wide barn door, “wait until you see home.”
The first thing that struck Stevie was the vibrant orange color of the walls—it made her eyeballs wobble in her skull.
“Restful, isn’t it?” Nate said.
There were no chairs or tables. Everywhere you looked there were fancy beanbags made of some NASA-quality foam that made you feel like you were floating and supported you in any position. Thick ropes hung from the ceiling with knots tied in them, so you could climb or swing. There were yoga balls, and regular inflatable balls, and a partially deflated human hamster ball in the corner.
“Welcome to the house that boxes built, I guess,” Janelle said.