With Jessica still unaccounted for the next day, Mr. Sterling led Amy on a tour of the camp. A long, leisurely tour filled with pit stops at the supply shack, informational plaques about dozens of tree species, and Lake Murgenthal. As they stood on the lakeshore watching geese push through a thick, murky layer of algae, children's laughter echoed in the distance.

"Now, this lake is really something," her dad said. "Every year, we get so many moose coming here that people come from all over the country just to collect their antlers. And it's all because of the algae. Can you believe that? You couldn't pay me enough to put that in my mouth, but those fatsos go wild for the stuff."

"Fascinating," Amy said quietly.

It was almost dinnertime, and she'd barely even gotten to see the kids yet except at her dad's big welcome ceremony. They'd almost looked relieved when Mr. Brown, a retired park ranger, came to prattle on about wilderness safety and all the things they absolutely should not do no matter how cool they sounded. Considering her dad's idea of a warm welcome was to put on a moose costume that smelled like the unholy lovechild of mothballs and PowerBait, she couldn't blame them.

"That's nothing. Sometimes one'll walk through the camp at night and make a noise like this." Her dad cupped his hands around his mouth and let out the closest thing he could to a moose's long, drawn-out bellow.

"I thought that was just you snoring," Amy said with a smirk.

"That's probably why I haven't seen a single moose since last year. They must think I'm the biggest bull south of Canada."

Amy pulled her jacket tighter around herself as a chilly breeze nipped at her. "We'd better head back, or else they'll start the campfire without me."

"Definitely can't have that." Her dad bit his lip, eyes scanning the surface of the lake. "I can't be there tonight. We still have no clue where Jessica is, so I'm going to have another chat with the police, see if they've found anything. Her parents are real worried."

They clearly weren't the only ones. Amy gave his hand a tight squeeze. "I'll be okay."

"I know. It's just, well, I'm your dad. It's my job to worry."

"And it's my job to help you take care of those kids."

"Alright, I get it. We'll head on back, but if any of this gets to be too much for you, tell me, okay?"

The way back was uphill, steep, and rocky. Amy inched her way up, swearing as a pebble snuck its way into her shoe. The stubborn rock bit at her calloused foot as it rattled around inside her shoe.

Her dad silently held out a hand.

She shook her head. "I've got it. Just gotta take a detour."

Amy sidled around the slope until she found a spot where the incline was more forgiving and climbed the rest of the way back to the trail. She flopped down on a tree stump and took off her shoe while her dad came up behind her, shaking it like a kid trying to guess the contents of a Christmas present as she tried to get the pebble out. "See?" she said as she caught her breath. "Told you."

"That you did. Now let's go get you to those s'mores!"

###

By the time Amy reached the fire pit, Lucas and Carson had piled a heap of logs in the center. A table full of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars sat off to the side, with a couple wrappers peeking out of the nearby trashcan.

"Look who decided to show up," Carson said. He snapped a fistful of twigs and hurled them onto the pile.

"Glad you could make it," Lucas said. "Would you mind helping me out with the kindling? The way he's going, we might be stuck with sawdust."

Amy scooped up armfuls of twigs until her legs ached from bending down so much. Lucas stayed beside her the whole time, balling up wads of newspaper. "This stuff catches like nobody's business," he said. "Nobody should ever have to use one of those fancy pants fire starters to get a good blaze going."

"I've never actually built a campfire before," Amy said.

Carson rolled his eyes. "You're just saying that to get out of doing the hard parts."

"No, that's what your girlfriend is doing," Lucas muttered. "But you gotta admit, that is pretty weird. That must mean you're a s'more virgin!"

"Dad and I make 'em in the microwave on Christmas Eve," Amy said. "It's probably not the same, but hey, chocolate is chocolate."

"At least you have that much sense," Carson said. He grabbed himself a chocolate bar. "Speaking of which, I'm going to need this if I'm going to get all those snot-sniffers to come before midnight."

"What is his problem?" Amy asked as Carson walked out into the firefly-lit evening.

"Ignore him," Lucas said. "He already had a huge stick up his ass before we got here, and now that Jessica's ditched him that stick's infested with termites."

"You think she just went home?"

"Seems about as likely as anything else. She didn't strike me as the outdoorsy type."

They sat quietly for a while, shivering as the sun retreated along with its warmth. "We'd better start the fire," Amy said, "or else those kids will be cranky as hell."

"Being cold and having to wait for s'mores? I couldn't blame them." He crouched beside the fire pit, extracting a matchbook from his pocket. "You wanna do the honors?"

"You sure?"

"Come on, it's easy. I'll show you." He waited for her to get down beside him before saying, "First, you'll wanna pick out a nice spot with some newspaper and twigs so it'll catch. Then, once you've got it lit, you just blow on it a bit."

He went through the motions with an unlit match before handing it to her. The red tip burst into a hissing flame at the flick of her wrist. The newborn fire devoured newspaper headlines before blackening the side of one of the center logs.

But as hungry as that little flame was, Amy couldn't quite coax it to stick around. No matter how much she huffed and puffed, the fire turned up its flickering nose at the twigs surrounding it until it fizzled into nothing but a glowing ember.

"Almost nobody gets it on their first try," Lucas said. "Let me help you."

With the second match's offspring dancing on its tip, he took her pale hands in his as gently as the night sky cradling the moon. "You wanna give it enough room so you don't burn yourself, but not so much that it won't go where you want it to."

Amy blew gently onto the flame until it caught on the end of one of the twigs.

"That's it. Now just give it a little more."

With one last puff, Amy transformed her flame into a miniature, crackling sun with an insatiable appetite for wood.

"Thanks," Amy said as she warmed her hands by the glow.

"Don't mention it. We had to have at least one other hot thing around here, you know?"

"Talking about yourself again?" Carson said.

The kids lined up behind him broke out in giggles as Lucas startled. "Well, I sure wasn't talkin' about you."

It quickly became clear that the kids couldn't care less who he was talking about as they rushed over to the s'mores table. Soon, flames licked blackened sugar as marshmallows roasted into molten blobs of gooey goodness.

Amy moaned in ecstasy as the perfectly melted chocolate oozed over her tongue.

"Better than the microwave?" Lucas asked with a knowing smirk.

"I'd better have a second one to be sure."

"You'll definitely want to eat as many as you can," Carson said. "I'm not sure if you'll have much of an appetite after I tell you guys a story."

"A scary story?" one of the kids whispered.

"Depends. Are you chicken?"

The children crowded around him like a swarm of mosquitos honing in on exposed skin.

"Which one of you can tell me how the camp got its name?" Carson asked.

"It's because there's a lot of moose here, right?" Amy said. With how much of a stick in the mud Carson had been, it was a relief to see him making an effort to engage with the kids.

Lucas didn't look nearly as relieved as he squirmed in his seat. "Are you sure we should be telling them this?"

Carson waved away his concern. "Oh, please. Mr. Sterling sure didn't mind telling it to us when we were kids."

"In broad daylight, and you still woke everyone up with your screaming."

"It's not my fault your snores could raise the dead," Carson said defensively. "Anyway, it is because of the moose, but not just any moose." He paused for dramatic effect. "These moose are so nasty that even bears are terrified of them."

"Yeah right," said one of the boys. He looked to be about twelve years old, full of bravado that only puberty and experience enduring the hell that is junior high could bring. "The only thing that's scary around here is how lame this story is."

"Have you ever seen a moose charge? They get this look in their eyes like they'll stomp you into salsa, then show you their antlers." Carson picked up a pair of branches and held them up next to his head, rattling the leaves as he stomped his foot. Once. Twice. "Then the next thing you know WHAM! You find out just how heavy those antlers really are. More than some of you, I bet."

The only sound other than the crackling of the fire was the whimpering of the younger kids. The boy who'd voiced his doubt opened his mouth, closed it, and gulped.

"Nice going," Lucas said. "Do you want them to wet their bunks?"

"Hey, it's not my fault they can't handle a story."

"You left out the most important part though," Amy said. "Moose are scared of marshmallows. So terrified that they won't even think about coming near you if you've eaten some."

Lucas smiled as he caught on. "Yeah, and the only thing that scares them more than marshmallows is chocolate, so we'd better keep making s'mores."

Carson huffed as the kids returned their attention to the goodies. "Way to ruin it, guys."

"Shut up and eat a s'more," Lucas said. "Who knows? Maybe you'll actually have fun once you finally get that stick out of your butt."

After the fire died, the kids huddled around the councilors like ducklings following their mother and jumped at every twig they broke on the way back to their cabins.