Chapter One ONE
The town outside Wanderers National Park looked deserted. Screen doors swung on creaky hinges. Rusty cars with broken windows sat abandoned at street corners. Shriveled brown and gray mushrooms sprouted through a black garbage bag covered in buzzing flies.

I hugged myself, hoping there were no spiders lurking about, with their beady million eyes and hairy legs and gross webs that stuck to everything.

“Well, girls,” said Mom, surveying the forest in front of us. “We’re in quite a pickle.”

Up the hill waited Camp Clear Skies, where my best friend and I would be away from our families for two whole weeks. Mom had objected to me attending until Baba—feeling guilty for catching me crying after he initially said no—sided with me, but that was before we’d gotten a second flat tire and couldn’t find a mechanic. She regretted agreeing, I just knew it.

“It’ll be fun,” said my best friend, Jo, pushing up her cap to scratch her sweaty brown forehead. She was speaking to Mom but looking at me with her I know you’re panicking, but I’ve got you face. We were lucky Jo’s Aunt Lyd and Uncle Brock let her come with me to camp, but Jo said it wasn’t luck; they were excited to have the apartment to themselves. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Ahmadi. The hike can’t be that bad. And I bet someone at the camp can help.” Like anyone who wasn’t my dad, Jo slurred our last name instead of enunciating Ah-mahd-ee.

Baba had given up correcting her ages ago, though, and now hoisted my suitcase. “She’s right, Grace,” he said to Mom, leading the way. “Kids, let’s have an adventure!”

Mom’s eye twitched.

Even in the daytime the dark woods looked like they’d ensnared night between their leaves. I gulped. Shadows stretched and quivered. Branches rustled and scraped. A compost-pile odor filled the air. Someone whispered my name, but when I spun around, no one was there. Mom, Baba, and Jo waited in front of me; it must have been the wind.

Before I realized it Jo had moved beside me and taken my sweaty palm. “Kaya mo ba?” she asked, using her side of our code words. I wasn’t sure of the exact translation, but Jo said it was how she could make sure I was good to keep going or whether she needed to hatch an escape plan.

My response was automatic: “Khoobam.” I squeezed her hand. Jo’s reassurance soothed and shamed me. Camp was supposed to transform me into Pina 2.0, who wouldn’t need Jo as a protector against the world. We weren’t even there yet, and I was already messing up that plan.

We were rescued from a long hike when bickering voices floated toward us before a golf cart whipped into view. The driver raised a finger off the steering wheel in a wave before skidding to a stop. “Afternoon! You guys here for Camp Clear Skies?”

The driver was a dorky white teenager wearing khaki shorts, a bright orange fanny pack—a fanny pack!—and an orange cord around thick glasses under an orange visor. In the passenger’s seat sat a scowling kid, chewing and popping gum.

“Pina Ahmadi and Jo Manalo for age group twelve,” said Baba. “Our car got a flat, but we have had no luck finding a mechanic.” Baba pronounced the words ge-roop and fe-lat in his accent.

“Ah jeez, that’s ’cause Mr. Winters takes midday naps.” The driver hopped out of the cart. “I’m Senior Counselor George. I use he/him pronouns. And this here is my little sister, Bethany, using she/her. Say, how about I take the kids up? I’ll give Mr. Winters a jingle after, and take you to him and stuff.”

Baba offered his hand, and George, eyes widening, reached out as far as he could to shake before quickly dropping the hand.

“Oh my God.” Bethany exaggerated a sigh. She and George wore similar T-shirts, with CAMP CLEAR SKIES written above a cartoon googly-eyed campfire and s’mores. Bethany’s was lime green, George’s hydrangea blue. “Ms. Angela sent us for gas! We can’t leave without it! If I was a counselor, I could drive the golf cart, but nooo—”

“Uff-da, you’re not even thirteen,” said George, except it sounded like a question. “Would one of you folks mind staying? I think I can fit the kids in the back.”

“I’m almost a teenager,” whined Bethany, who didn’t speak with the same accent as George. “I’m not a little kid—”

“That would be wonderful,” interrupted Mom, sporting Mom Look #12, Exhausted. (To date, I’d counted fifteen Mom Looks.) “I’ll join you in the front.”

Baba agreed to wait for George’s return, so Jo and I hopped into the back of the cart (no seat belt in sight). From where she sat, Bethany catalogued us, then sniffed. “I’m in the age twelve group too. I already know the whole camp and Ms. Angela—she’s the owner—’cause of my dork-faced brother. I’m definitely gonna be a counselor next year. Ms. Angela said she’ll make an exception for me since I already know the rules. So you’d better not break any in front of me!” She twirled her blond ponytail as she popped another gum bubble. White sunscreen streaked her nose.

Sheesh. Wasn’t camp a place away from mean girls and bullies? Maybe Camp Clear Skies was no different from school. Maybe there were lots of people like Bethany. Maybe—

“Got it.” Jo stood to stretch and, stepping around my feet, nudged me over so that she could sit between me and Bethany as a barrier. She called this move the meat shield defensive maneuver. “Pina’s great with rules,” Jo told Bethany, smiling as if a stranger our own age hadn’t told us off for some future mistake. “We’ll be on our best behavior.”

But I knew that look. That was the look Jo used in front of Aunt Lyd and Uncle Brock so they wouldn’t yell at her. That was the look she gave our teachers and principal whenever she got in trouble protecting me.

“Khoobee?” I asked. Our code words were perfect for moments like these.

“Mabuti.” Jo gave me a thumbs-up. Bethany blew a bubble.

After settling our suitcases in the roof compartment, Mom hopped into the front beside George. “Let’s see about this ‘magical’ camp, shall we?”

My legs jittered. Mom was referencing the camp’s brochure, which promised Camp Clear Skies was a “magical” experience. If it didn’t live up to her expectations, she could still take us back home, and then I’d never become Pina 2.0.

As George and Mom talked and the golf cart raced back up the hill, Jo didn’t let me fret. She threw an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. She was already, like, ten inches taller than me (although I was three months older). “Pinaaaaa. Khoobee, okay? Remember how hard you worked to convince both your parents? And how exciting it was when your mom caved? Everything’s gonna be great. Camp is all you’ve talked about for, like, three months.”

“Oh my God,” said Bethany. “Really?”

“Not that long,” I muttered, not liking Bethany’s smirk. But Jo was right. I wanted to be here, even with rude campers and unsure moms. I leaned into Jo’s hug. She smelled like her strawberry shampoo.

We survived the swaying branches and inching shadows, although I grasped the edge of my seat the whole time in case a giant spider attacked. I loved nature, but none of my research into Wanderers National Park had prepared me for how… off this area felt. As we rode, I ticked through the scientific names of the trees we passed to keep calm: Abies balsamea (balsam fir), Acer rubrum (red maple), Populus grandidentata (American bigtooth aspen).

Sweaty handprints remained on the fake leather after I released my death grip after we pulled into a half-full parking lot. My eyes widened when I saw how many people were already here.

How many new people.

Had the temperature dropped? I should have taken my chances with the woods.

“Girls’ cabin is over there,” said Bethany, pointing. “The one near the Rec Hall. But you have to check in with Ms. Angela first! She’s over there.”

“I’ve got it.” Mom waved a hand. “You two go ahead.”

Getting away from Bethany? Yes, please.

I raced after Jo. Since the point of Camp Clear Skies was to explore the Great Outdoors, there weren’t many buildings: two connected ones the brochure said was the Recreation Hall—housing the cafeteria and arts and crafts rooms—and two large sleeping cabins. The buildings looked pretty old, like the roofs might cave in at any second, or like they had rotting wood for walls. Could a camp be haunted?

Silly Pina, ghosts weren’t real. No worrying allowed!

In front of our cabin was a long table with a bunch of markers and name tags. I alternated between purple, red, and green for my name and pronouns. Jo grabbed aqua and wrote “she/they” under her name, like we’d discussed.

“Are you sure you want me to stick to ‘she’?” I asked.

She nodded. “I wanna see how it feels when other people use both. I can try it with you any—”

I waited for her to finish.

She cleared her throat. “Um. Yeah. Anyway. Let’s check inside.”

Ooookay?

Jo opened the screen door, which slammed behind us. She peeked into the washroom off the entrance. “Oh man, I thought we’d have to go without showers! Does it smell funky in here?”

It did, but I didn’t answer. I can try it with you anytime. That’s what Jo had been about to say. So why had she cut herself off? Was Jo trying to find a nice way to tell me she wanted to make other friends and find someone she liked more than me?

I counted to ten. I was doing that thing where I got so caught up in my head that the world shut down around me, and all I could feel was my tight chest and sweaty hands and pukey stomach.

A few months ago, I read a novel about a white girl who lived in the seventh-most-haunted town in the country, and she overthought everything and constantly worried and got something called panic attacks, where her body totally shut down and all she could do was freak out. She’d used the word “anxiety” to describe when her mind raced through three hundred possibilities and focused on the worst ones. Until then, I didn’t know “anxiety” was something a doctor could diagnose you with. I asked Mom to read it so that after, I could ask her if I had “anxiety,” even if I’d never had a panic attack like the character had, but she hadn’t read it yet.

“C’mon, let’s choose a bunk!” Jo tugged me into the middle of the room. Other than the washroom, the cabin was one large room with bunks everywhere. Bunks that were taken, because ten million cars sat in the parking lot, which meant our cabin had at least five million campers.

But there in the back—perfect. I beelined to an empty bunk next to the window, overlooking the forest. From here it looked less spooky… ish. At least the funny smell didn’t seem as strong. “This one okay?”

“It’s great!”

“Top or bottom?”

“Are you kidding? Your mom would never let you take the top.”

“That’s quite right,” said Mom from behind us. I jumped. Gosh, she was like a cat. (I hoped we got a cat one day.) “You know I don’t like you where you could get hurt, Proserpina.”

Ugh. Only Mom called me by my full name. Why hadn’t I gotten a normal Persian name like my big sister and dad, or a normal white name like Mom’s?

(At least “Persephone” was pretty, but Baba would never have let me be named after an ancient Greek goddess, not when they’d been the enemies of the ancient Persians. The Roman version of the same god was apparently okay, hence my name.)

Mom handed over a pair of bright green shirts like the one Bethany wore. She helped Jo make the top bunk as I triple-checked that there were no webs or spider sacs trapped around the mattress (ew!) before making my bed, tucking my latest read under my pillow. No haunted towns in this one; this book was about Black kids fighting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I kept watch on the forest. Books and experience had taught me nature wasn’t good or evil; it just was, the way black holes and exploding stars weren’t evil despite their destruction. Yet no forest I’d been in before had left me this unsettled. I couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly, made me so uneasy, but instinct told me those woods—and Camp Clear Skies—hid secrets within.