Narrator

Just don't.

I remember thinking, okay, local superstition, cool.

I remember feeling that mild thrill people get when a place starts to feel like a story.

I didn't understand that we had just been given the only warning we were going to get for free.

Day one.

The forest behaves like a forest, until it doesn't.

The trailhead was nothing dramatic.

Gravel pull-off, a wooden sign with trail names, a metal box for permits.

The sky was clear.

The air smelled like leaf litter and pine, and the faint sweetness of decaying apples from somewhere downslope.

We shouldered our packs and did the usual ritual.

Strap adjustments, photos, jokes about how heavy everything felt.

Tessa walked like the woods were her house.

Luke and I followed, trying to match her pace without looking like we were trying.

The first miles were ordinary.

Switchbacks through mixed hardwood, crossing a small creek on flat stones, climbing toward a ridge that opened in places to views of rolling blue layers.

We passed a couple day hikers, nodded, exchanged the standard beautiful day comments.

Everything felt normal enough that the diner conversation started to fade.

Then we found the first print.

It was near a muddy seep where water crossed the trail and turned the dirt dark.