Narrator

A person had done this.

A person had also been outside our cabin at night, calling names with a voice that didn't belong to anyone we knew.

We left that spot quickly.

We didn't linger to take pictures.

Maddie did not point her phone at it, which tells you how wrong it felt.

We hiked back in near silence, all of us listening to the woods in a way that wasn't casual anymore.

When you're relaxed, the forest is background noise.

When you're not, every twig snap becomes information.

Back at the cabin, we found nothing disturbed, doors locked, windows intact, no sign of someone having been there.

But the smell was back, faint, threading through the air like smoke.

It seemed strongest near the side of the cabin where the spring house was.

A small stone structure a short distance away, half sunk into the ground with a heavy wooden door.

The binder had mentioned it as historic.

Please do not tamper.

Eric wanted to open it immediately.

Nora said no.

Maddie said, why is it locked from the outside?

Because it was.

A hasp and padlock, new and bright against old wood.

That night we made a plan like rational adults.