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Hailey’s first year at Camp Howling Ground, she comes home with a broken thumb. She fell, or so says the note the counselors wrote her mom. She was running across a field and tripped and fell on her thumb wrong. It’s mostly healed, by the time Hailey makes it home. Her mom fusses over her anyway.
Hailey doesn’t remember breaking her thumb. She remembers Michelle splinting it at the table in the staff room, and she remembers fumbling with her fork in the mess hall, dropping scrambled eggs into her lap in front of everyone. She remembers Timmy laughing at her, and she remembers Sarah throwing a napkin into her lap to cover for her, but she doesn’t remember breaking it. Trying to remember is like tonguing at the gap where her adult teeth haven’t quite grown in--she knows something is supposed to fit there, but she doesn’t quite know the shape.
Her mom worries that she won’t want to go to camp anymore, but of course she wants to go. She misses sticking her fingers together with glue in arts and crafts, the cool stillness of the lake in mid-afternoon, the roughness of tree bark against her palms as she scrambles across the ropes course. She misses campfires and ghost stories and the magic of burning embers and twisting smoke. She misses running so hard that her legs ache and her lungs burn, howling at the moon until her ears ring with the sound. There’s no way she’s not going back to camp.
She’s eleven, when she starts running with the wolves. She’s too young--just a pup still--but Aki likes her and Aki’s the oldest wolf that year. When no one’s looking, Hailey tries to mimic them--their effortless swagger, their sardonic half-smile, the finger guns that make the counselors roll their eyes. But Hailey’s not Aki--she’s too small and clumsy to be cool. She dogs their heels and trips over her own feet, but Aki just tilts their head and gives her that little smile, like there’s a secret that both of them are in on.
Hailey throws herself into sports that year, first because she thinks it’ll impress Aki and then because she realizes that she actually enjoys it. Her first two years at camp she’d flinched away from balls and staggered through races, but she runs with wolves now, so why should she be scared? She snatches the flag when Charles looks away and then sprints for dear life with Sarah and Willis chasing after her. When she runs over the line, Ash grips her shoulders with both hands, fire burning in their eyes, and shouts, “Yes! Yes! Just like that!” Hailey has never felt more powerful than she does in that moment, giddy and breathless. She wants to do it again--to win and win and win until she’s forgotten what losing feels like.
The wolves won’t let her come with them at night, though. “Not this time, pup,” Aki says, ruffling her hair, and Hailey snaps her teeth at their hand because she knows it’ll make them laugh. It does, but they still won’t let her come. “This is wolves' business,” they say.
“Are you going to the secret kissing grove?” Hailey asks. She knows about the secret kissing grove, even though the pups aren’t supposed to. She doesn’t think it sounds very interesting, but she knows.
“Not this time,” Aki says, and they gently nudge her back toward the bunks. “I’ll tell you later, I promise.”
They don’t tell her later. Hailey bugs them about it at breakfast the next morning, but they’re uncharacteristically quiet, shifting their oatmeal from one side of the bowl to the other without ever taking a bite. “Can’t you see you’re bothering them?” Natalie finally snaps, and Hailey slinks back to the pups’ table with her tail between her legs.
Games and sports are Hailey’s favorite, but she likes arts and crafts too. Sinclair lets her make whatever she wants--even lets her use the glue gun with supervision. The older wolves scoff at friendship bracelets, but Hailey wraps her friends' wrists with them--one for Aki, who wears it despite the other wolves’ teasing; one for Sarah, who shyly offers one in return; two for Willis, because their first one snagged on a tree branch and broke; one for Charles, who cries about it because he’s nine and kind of a baby.
At the end of the summer, Hailey promises herself she won’t cry when she has to say goodbye to Aki. “You’ll come back as a counselor, right?” she asks, and her voice only wobbles a little.
“Nah,” Aki says, weirdly serious for once. “I’m making my escape. Getting out while the getting’s good.”
“Why?”
Aki ruffles her hair, but Hailey’s too busy holding back tears to pretend to bite them. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“You can tell me now.” She knows she sounds like a bratty little kid, but it’s not fair. She’s eleven already--practically a wolf. A wolf in all but name. There’s no reason for Aki to be keeping secrets.
“Mmm,” Aki says, and they give her that lopsided smile. “Better not to know, I think.”
Hailey misses camp that year, with an ache that threatens to devour her. Charles’s family moves to the next town over, so they hang out sometimes, but it’s not the same. Charles is still a surprisingly funny little kid, and he’s good at freeze tag and hide-and-seek, but without camp it just feels...different. More ordinary. “Camp magic,” Hailey’s mom calls it, with a little smile.
The next summer is a scorcher, so they spend a lot of time in the lake. Hailey likes running much more than swimming, but the water is a good buffer from the sun. Charles is a much stronger swimmer than a climber, so he and Hailey race each other across the bits Mildred will let them swim in. Ash joins them a couple of times--they always win, but Hailey still strains every muscle to try to beat them. She will someday, she’s sure, if she just tries hard enough.
Willis has gotten really into botany, so they spend most of their time scooping plants out of the lake and stuffing them into a little basket Sinclair let them borrow from the craft room. “I’m making a guide,” Willis says, when Hailey asks. They look embarrassed, like they’re doing something they shouldn’t. “To Camp Howling Ground? And the plants here.” Hailey spends the next week climbing trees and wading through bushes to fetch leaves for them. Mallory tells her to stop when she grabs a handful of poison ivy by mistake, but Hailey just gets Willis to teach her how to identify it.
The wolves seem more tightly knit than ever that year, but Aki isn’t around to let Hailey into the club. “What’s going on?” Hailey demands, when she catches them huddled up in the woods again. (The woods is the best and worst place to have a huddle; Valentine will definitely catch you, but Valentine also probably won’t do anything about it.)
“Wolves’ business,” Natalie says. “Now scram.”
Marcus is the one who lets it slip, in the end. He's the oldest camper that year, but too soft to lead the wolves. He has nervous hands, thin fingers twisting around and around each other in an endless squirming mass. "There's something in the woods," he says. "Something the counselors don't wanna talk about."
"What, do you believe in the Witch?" Hailey scoffs. She’s twelve now, and she knows the Witch isn’t real. She still does all the little secret rituals to ward her off, but it’s, like, cool and ironic. Aki did them too.
Marcus's eyes dart up and then slide to the side. "No," he says, far too quickly. "I don't know," he amends. "There's just something. Someone died here, you know.”
“Who?”
Marcus shrugs. “I didn’t know her. It was before I got here.”
“What, she just, like, died? In the middle of camp?”
“The counselors said it was an accident.” A second-long pause, face flickering in indecision. "But the counselors lie about stuff all the time.”
“You think she was murdered?” Hailey asks, incredulously. She’s watched a lot of crime shows with her mom--she knows an insinuation when she hears one.
Marcus snaps his mouth shut. “No,” he lies. “Aren’t you supposed to be hanging out with the other pups?”
“I’m basically a wolf,” Hailey insists, but Marcus shoos her away anyway.
Marcus leaves camp a week early. Mallory says it’s for “personal reasons,” but Natalie says he had a nervous breakdown. “He’s a fucking coward,” she says, when Hailey asks, but then she refuses to say anything else.
Hailey makes bracelets that year, dozens of them, each one a promise. Sinclair says the bracelets will protect them, but Hailey knows the truth. She’ll be the one to protect them. It doesn’t matter if there’s a monster in the woods; nothing is going to touch her friends, not as long as she’s around.
The dreams start as soon as she gets home. In her dreams, she has fangs and claws. She howls at the stars and runs for the sheer joy of it. Her pack runs beside her, fur glinting silver in the moonlight, breath harsh and heavy. In her dreams, she sinks her teeth into everyone who’s ever hurt her, tears out their throats and lets their blood paint her muzzle.
Her mom calls them nightmares. Hailey isn’t sure they are.
Her first summer as a wolf, there’s something itching at her, some desire to shed her own skin and turn into something else. “Maybe you’re a werewolf,” Charles jokes, because Charles has gotten weirdly into urban fantasy lately. Willis just gives her a sprig of lavender to put under her pillow at night. “For sweet dreams,” they say.
“Me too,” Sarah says, head pillowed on her arms. She’d coaxed Hailey out of bed to watch the sunrise from the field; Hailey isn’t a morning person, but she’d do anything for her fellow wolves. “I mean, sort of. I don’t know.”
Hailey squints at her. “What do you mean, sort of?”
“I’maboy,” Sarah says all in a rush.
“That’s not the same at all,” Hailey retorts, and then his words register. “Wait, really?”
“I don’t know,” he says, but he wilts underneath Hailey’s stare. “Yeah,” he says, like it’s an admission of guilt. “Yeah, really. Don’t tell anyone.”
“If anyone gives you trouble, I’ll kill them.” Hailey knows it’s the wrong thing to say, but she wants--she needs--him to know that she’s got his back.
“No, no,” he says, voice squeaking on nerves, “don’t kill anyone.”
“I’ll just maim them, then.”
He laughs, shaky and relieved, and presses his forehead into his arms. “Please don’t.”
“Anything for you,” Hailey says, and he lifts his head to make a face. “We’re a pack, aren’t we?”
“Pack dynamics are fake,” he says. “You know they all came from this really messed up study--”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” He lets his head fall again. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good,” she says, too fiercely. “You better.”
They sit in silence, listening to the whispery sound the wind makes when it blows through the tall grass of the field, watching the sun creep slowly over the horizon, like it’s afraid of disturbing them.
“What should I call you?” Hailey asks.
He closes his eyes, like he’s bracing himself. “...Eli,” he says. “I’m thinking Eli.”
“Eli,” Hailey repeats. She likes the sound of it.
“But not in front of the others, okay? I just…” He pauses, and it takes every ounce of Hailey’s self-control to just let the silence sit. “I just need some time,” he says finally. “I wanna do this right.”
“There’s no way to do it wrong,” she insists.
“Mm.” He cracks one eye open, and everything around them falls quiet, like camp itself is holding its breath and leaning in to listen. “Next summer,” he says, like a promise.
The next summer, Eli comes back to camp and
there should be something here but there isn’t and
dozens of eyes peer from the darkness and there’s something lurking beneath the earth and
she can’t remember what she dreamed and what was real and
if she’d just had fangs if she’d just had claws if she'd just run a little faster
this was your fault it was your fault weren’t you supposed to protect them didn’t you say you’d
The next summer, Eli comes back to camp and Hailey glares at everyone when he introduces himself, daring them to say anything. He’s a counselor-in-training this year, but everyone knows Hailey leads the wolves. “Cool name,” Charles says, but he knows not to make a joke about it. Willis convinces Sinclair to let them use the craft room the first night so they can make Eli a new bracelet. Hailey’s so fiercely proud of all of them.
Steven’s the only newcomer to camp among the wolves. He doesn’t know anything, but he’s fearless and the pups love him, so Hailey lets it slide. They’ll make a wolf of him by the end of the summer, Hailey thinks.
“Willis has a crush on him, you know,” Charles says, clambering up next to Hailey on the rock in the middle of the lake. They’re not technically supposed to go out this far, but Mildred pretends not to see them.
“On Steven?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh,” Hailey says. She doesn’t pay attention to that bit of camp drama, to be honest, but it makes sense, in hindsight. Willis has been stuttering more than usual around Steven, and-- “Wait, hold on; does Steven know? About the secret kissing grove?”
“I’m not gonna tell him,” Charles says, sounding hilariously offended, and Hailey shoves him off the rock while his guard is down.
“Hey!” Mildred yells from the shore. “No roughhousing in the lake!”
“Yeah, Hailey,” Charles says, and then he spits a stream of water at her. “No roughhousing in the lake.”
It’s a couple of days later when Mariah tells Hailey, “Steven and Kyle saw the Witch last night.”
“For real or like your friend saw Watermelonhead?” Hailey asks. She’s heard way too much about the guy with a watermelon for a head this summer, and none of it actually makes any sense.
“Watermelonhead is real,” Mariah insists. “And Steven said to go away but you can ask Kyle. He’ll tell you.”
Kyle does tell her, nervously spinning his new bracelet around his wrist. It’s kid stuff--out too late, saw something spooky in the field. Hailey wouldn’t pay it any attention, except the counselors suddenly announce an impromptu movie night in the middle of the day, which is way too suspicious. They didn’t even cancel capture the flag in the middle of a rainstorm, so whatever’s going on must be big.
“We’re gonna investigate, right?” Hailey whispers to Eli, when they all get herded indoors. “Tonight, after lights out. Maybe bring Steven? Willis is too scared and Charles--”
“I don’t know,” Eli hedges. “It seems like the counselors have it handled.”
“The counselors lie about stuff all the time,” Hailey insists, but then Mallory shushes her so she keeps her mouth shut for the rest of the movie.
That night, the Wolves spill into camp, howling and snarling. Hailey only sees them from a distance in the darkness, so she can’t be sure, but it seems like the moonlight glints off too many eyes and their mouths stretch far too wide. For one electrifying moment, Hailey’s whole body coils, ready to
run, her fangs bared
but Willow blocks her path and Willis looks so scared Hailey thinks they’re going to pass out and Charles is too small to bodyslam a counselor, so she holds herself back and watches the Wolves tear apart her camp.
Willow says everything is fine, but counselors lie about stuff all the time. The fire has gone out of Ash’s eyes as Penelope ushers them away to bandage their arms. Sinclair’s filling the air with too many words that don’t mean anything at all, and Valentine has gone as silent as the trees she haunts. The twins haven’t even woken up, as far as Hailey can tell.
There’s something in the woods, Hailey thinks, feverishly pulling every hanger from their shared closet. Someone died here, she thinks, twisting the wire apart. They don’t have fangs and claws, so they make their own. Willis donates their pocket knife, smuggled into camp so they could more easily cut flowers to press between the pages of their journal. Charles helps pry loose nails out of the floorboards, looping them together with wire to make the world’s worst brass-knuckles. Eli doesn’t help, but he also doesn’t stop her, rolling over and pretending to be asleep. She feels like someone’s missing, but she can’t remember who.
Hailey can barely sit still at breakfast--she wants to chase after the Wolves who dared invade her camp, wants to howl as her pack descends on them, wants to sink her teeth into them and hurt them just as bad as they hurt Ash. Penelope keeps lying and lying, pretending that everything’s fine when it’s obviously not, and all the other counselors are being weirder than usual, jumpy and withdrawn. Sinclair won’t let her make a shank in arts and crafts, so she glues it to a birdhouse and pretends it’s art. Sinclair doesn’t call her on it, which is basically approval, Hailey thinks.
“I hate this,” she snarls to Eli, as they troop toward the ropes course. “We should be fighting back not--”
“Careful,” Eli says, under his breath, so Hailey bites her tongue and fumes.
“I hate this,” she snarls to Willis as they watch Valentine try to coax Charles out of the tree he’s wedged himself in.
“Me too,” they say, in a voice so small she almost doesn’t hear it.
Fog rushes over the whole camp and she feels every friendship bracelet on her wrist snap, every promise she’s made since she was nine broken in one fell swoop. She wants to cry, but she’s a wolf and wolves don’t cry, so she gets into an argument with Penelope instead. Penelope puts her in charge of getting the campers back to camp--like that’s a prize, like that’s a gift, like counselors don’t lie about stuff all the time--and she
runs, her pack at her heels and they
howl, thundering back into camp and she
sinks her fangs
into Penelope’s arm. Penelope stares at her, and Hailey has blunt human teeth and enough self-preservation to unclamp her jaw and scramble backward and pretend nothing happened.
“You bit a counselor,” Charles hisses at her over dinner.
“Yeah.” Hailey’s jaw hurts a little and her mouth tastes like bones and she can’t really say she’s sorry at all. “She deserved it.”
“You’re crazy,” Charles says, but he sounds a little awed.
Who else is going to protect them? Hailey thinks, looking at all the campers gathered around the campfire. The counselors? The counselors can barely seem to take care of themselves, lately--Ash still has blood rimming their nostrils and bandages all over their arms. Someone died here, Hailey thinks, watching Randy reenact what she’s pretty sure is one of the Saw movies. She imagines one of her wolves dying--sweet, harmless Willis who presses flowers in their journal and gives their friends lavender for insomnia and four-leaf clovers for good luck--but, no, that won’t happen. She won’t let that happen.
“Tell me something true,” she demands, because she knows Ash is like her, that Ash will fight back, that Ash refuses to lose. “Tell me something that really happened,” she says, because she’s tired of lies.
Ash lies. Ash lies.
She creeps away from the campfire early. She needs to hide their weapons before one of the counselors gets to them first--she saw Mildred and Penelope talking earlier, so she knows it’s only a matter of time.
Eli catches her, right at the edge of the field. “Where are you going?” he asks, with that patented I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed look.
“Gotta hide the stuff,” she says, “before Penelope gets to it.”
“Hailey…”
“What?”
“Just let it go,” he says, because he’s a counselor-in-training so of course he’s backing up the counselors.
“And what, Eli? Just lie down and die?”
She wants him to get angry too, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “The counselors can handle it.”
“Are you kidding me?” She thought that Eli would understand. He’s been at camp as long as her--he should understand. “The counselors let a bunch of wolves just go tearing through camp last night!”
“So, what?” Eli asks, and Hailey feels a thrill of satisfaction at the way his voice ticks up in volume. “You’re going to go fight a bunch of wolves with hangers and nails? Because I don’t know if you noticed, but Ash nearly died last night and they had an axe.”
“Well, sorry you’re still a coward,” Hailey snaps.
Eli’s expression barely twists, but she can see him shaking. “That’s not fair,” he says, quiet and furious.
I didn’t mean it, Hailey thinks, but she did. He’d spoken with the authority of a counselor-in-training, and she’d wanted to hurt him in return. She doesn’t even regret it.
“I’m going back,” Eli says coldly, turning on his heel. “Do whatever you want; I don’t care.”
Hailey could try to stop him, but instead she turns toward the cabins and runs.
Someone’s walking out of the wolves' cabin when Hailey gets there, their arms full of bent hangers and nails and the clubs they’d made out of spare pieces of wood. She can’t quite see her face at this distance, but she’d know that gait anywhere. How dare she. How dare Penelope take away their fangs and claws. How dare she treat them like children who can’t be trusted with sharp objects. How dare she keep pretending that everything’s fine when they all know the truth. How dare she turn Eli against her.
Hailey stalks after Penelope, flitting from shadow to shadow. She knows this camp better than anyone; she’s spent years learning its secrets, every nook and cranny and hollow to hide herself in. Her pulse is pounding in her ears, her breath shuddering out in heavy pants.
She waits for Penelope to head into the staff room--she doesn’t know how to pick a lock, but she knows you can pry the window open with enough force--but Penelope just keeps walking. There’s something strange about the way she’s moving, the closer she gets to the woods--a stuttering like jerky stop-motion animation or the flickering images of a zoetrope. She isn’t walking any faster, but suddenly she’s far ahead of Hailey.
Hailey breaks into a run. The world blurs around her, her sneakers pounding the hard-packed earth. She won’t let Penelope get away. She swore to protect this camp and no one’s going to stop her--not the counselors, not Eli, not the monster in the woods.
Penelope turns, her eyes widening as she catches sight of Hailey. The moonlight catches on her teeth when she smiles.
Hailey bares her fangs and pounces.