Mason

He held it up and we could both see the stitching.

It wasn't just the same color, it was the same material.

It looked like it had been cut cleanly off something, like someone had taken a knife to Mason's gear during the night and removed a strip without waking him.

Mason's hands tightened until the cloth bunched in his fist.

That's it, he said, and his voice cracked a little on the last word.

We turn around.

I nodded too fast because relief flashed through me.

Turning around meant moving toward the trailhead, toward the car, toward other people.

The problem was that when we tried to turn around, the trail behind us didn't look like the trail we'd come in on.

I don't mean it was magically different.

I mean the details were wrong in ways that didn't add up.

A fallen log that we'd climbed over the day before was now shifted, as if it had been dragged.

Fresh bark scraped off one side.

The muddy spot where we'd seen the distinct boot prints was churned up, like someone had walked back and forth there repeatedly.

And the nearest junction, the one that should have taken us back toward the loop's starting point, had a new sign on it.

A fresh board nailed to the post, pointing the wrong direction.

Mason stopped so hard he swayed under his pack.

That wasn't there, he said.

I knew it wasn't because I remembered the original sign.

Clean lettering.