Archive of Our Own

Arlin woke up to the sun in her eyes and unzipped her sleeping bag. The cool night had warmed up into a more temperate dawn with the rising sun that peaked over the foothills miles away from the campsite. She got up and got dressed, careful to not wake the other two girls that were in the small tent with her, Jordan and her younger sister Elora. She threw an oversized, green flannel shirt over a grey camisole and a pair of shorts, and she pulled her dark brown hair into twin braids over her shoulders, making sure to fix her bangs while doing so.  

She stepped out of the tent that lay on the far end of the campsite next to two tents next to hers full of other friends and walked to the red Igloo cooler which sat next to the chairs that circled the large fire pit where the group ate.  

Arlin grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and turned back towards her tent, when she caught a glimpse of another person standing near one of the other tents and jumped. He was surprisingly tall for a sixteen-year-old, with bright, shoulder-length red hair pulled back into a ponytail. 

“Shoot, I didn’t mean to scare you there, Arlin,” Madigan apologized with a smile. “Good morning.” 

“Hey, Maddie,” Arlin responded. “What are you doing up so early? And don’t ask me the same thing, because I’m allowed to get up at obnoxious hours.” 

Madigan rolled his eyes and said: “I think anyone is allowed to get up whenever they want to, dude.” 

“Whatever. What do you want for breakfast? I’ve got some chocolate chip Clif Bars in my backpack if you’d like,” Arlin sat down on one of the camping chairs and beckoned Madigan to sit next to her. He complied and sat in the chair next to her, then reached over and grabbed a fruit punch from the cooler.  

The two sat and chatted for a while until the rest of the group woke up. The two boys that were sharing a tent with Madigan, Camaron and Soren - Jordan’s twin brother - woke and joined in the conversation, while Jordan and Elora from the girls’ tent got ready for the day. Camaron pulled out the cast-iron griddle from the case next to the cooler - full of plates, silverware, and napkins - and started mixing and pouring pancakes for the camp to eat. Arlin’s father, Mitch, emerged from his tent, the furthest from the fire pit of the three. He saw that Camaron had begun serving pancakes and patted him on the back before sitting across the fire and nearly falling asleep again, pulling his camo baseball cap down over his eyes. 

After the group had gathered around the pit and ate, they split up to do morning chores. Arlin and Soren drove out of the campgrounds to the gas station in the town a few miles out to get more firewood, Camaron, Jordan and Madigan picked up trash and out-of-place items around camp, and finally, Elora and Mitch fixed up the fire pit and prepared for lunch. 

At the gas station, Arlin parked the truck and headed inside with Soren. The two grabbed a bundle of firewood, a box of matches, and some surprise s’mores ingredients. They checked out and pulled out of the parking lot when Soren saw something out of the corner of his eye. 

“What was that,” he said, startled. “It looked like a big deer or something.” 

Arlin looked in the rearview mirror and saw, standing uncomfortably close to the side of the road, an elk. “It’s an elk. What is an elk doing so far south?” Arlin was visibly confused, which was a contrast to the fear on Soren’s face. 

“What?” Arlin asked, seeing the wide eyes on the boy. “Are you good, man? Do I need to roll down the window for you?” 

“No, I’m fine. It just scared me, that’s all. I thought it looked... familiar.” Soren trailed off on the last word, as if scared saying anything else would make him see the lone elk again. 

Arlin looked back at the road, concerned for Soren. She turned the music on the radio up, and the two sat in silence for the rest of the ride. By the time they pulled up to the circle of tents and camp chairs, the others had long finished their chores and had started eating their lunch; classic turkey sandwiches with a side of chips and potato salad. Arlin and Soren joined them and forgot about the elk on the road. 

After lunch, the kids had somehow gotten into a heated game of hide-and-seek in the woods on the outskirts of camp. None of them went too far, but they were all hidden incredibly well. It was Camaron’s turn to seek, and he had been looking for fifteen minutes and only found Elora, who had fallen out of a tree right behind the seeker. She was perfectly fine, but she was out and now sitting on a log and brooding about being the first one found.  

Arlin had wandered further than before and found a large, old tree that had been all but hollowed out. She crawled inside of the tree, sure that this would be the perfect hiding spot, never to be found. She settled in, pulling her knees tight to her chest. While shifting her legs, she brushed against something hard and angular. A box. It was small and wooden, with little engravings on the border of the top panel. 

Arlin picked the box up and rested it on her knees, at about eye level. She noticed small hinges on the edge of the box and turned it to find a small latch. She pried the old, dirty latch open and carefully lifted the lid. On the inside of the lid were the same small carvings of tree branches and small robins flying through them. On the inside, however, the birds looked… off. Their eyes were too large; their bodies were too small. They looked like they were, somehow, scared of something, even though birds can’t convey emotion the way these ones were. Arlin felt a chill down her spine and adverted her eyes, instead looking at the contents in the box. There were a few small things; an old, gold-banded ring with what looked like a ruby embedded in it, a small stack of playing cards, and a house key with the numbers 982 on it.  

“What the h is this?” Arlin wondered out loud. As soon as the words left her mouth, Arlin jumped and slammed the box shut before recognizing the ringing of her phone. Camaron was calling her. 

“Hello?” Arlin picked up the phone and put it to her ear, heart settling back to its usual pace after the scare. 

“Hey, where are you? Everyone had been found and we’ve been looking for you for like a half hour by now.” Camaron said, and Arlin could hear the rest of the group chattering in the background. 

Arlin looked at her watch and saw that almost an hour had passed since she found the tree, even though it felt like she had only been on the ground for maybe ten minutes. “I will go back over to you guys, but I’m not showing you my spot.” 

Arlin returned to the group and saw multiple relieved faces. Madigan walked up to her, with a worried look on his face. “You were gone for like thirty minutes dude, what the h?” He started dusting her off and pulling grass and leaves out of her hair. 

“I’m perfectly fine, guys, stop worrying. I found an old tree and just lost track of time, I guess.” She brushed away Madigan’s hands and brought forward the wooden box, which she had been holding, though nobody noticed. “I did find this though.” 

She opened the box to show the group the contents, and they all looked inside. A beat passed and Camaron spoke up. “What are we supposed to be looking at exactly?” 

Arlin pulled the box back and looked inside to see that it was completely empty. “What? I swear to God there was stuff in here!” She closed the lid and opened it back up, hoping that the items would return. She repeated to no avail, and she eventually gave up. “I swear.” 

“Well, what was in it even?” Elora piped up, hoping to cheer up her now forlorn sister. 

“There was like a deck of cards, a really old ring with a ruby in it, and a house key. There were numbers on it, but I don’t remember what they were. I found the box in the tree I hid in,” Arlin responded, sadness wearing away to confusion. 

“Well, maybe they fell out? You could have left it open and accidentally left everything in the tree?” Soren proposed. 

“No, I’m sure I closed the box. Cam called me after I found it and it scared me so bad I closed it right away,” Arlin began to pace now, turning around with her hand on her chin like an old noir detective.  

“I am going to figure this out, and now you guys are too.”  

“Nope, I’m out, sorry guys” Jordan threw her hands up and turned to the camp. “I am not going to get haunted by a magic tree box” 

“Same,” Elora turned and joined Jordan in her walk to the tents. 

“Well… I guess we are in this together guys!” Arlin turned towards Madigan, Soren, and Camaron. “You will stick by me, right?” 

“Sure, why the h not,” Camaron chuckled while Madigan and Soren nodded. 

“Yes!” Arlin jumped, now excited to figure out this newfound mystery. The four of them laughed. 

“Is Mitch making hot dogs or burgers tonight?” Camaron asked Arlin. 

“Tacos,” Arlin replied deadpan. The four glanced at each other and burst out laughing, and they continued giggling until they got back to the tents and fire pit.  

By the time the sun had set, and the fire had died down to embers, the group was full, and laughter filled the air as everyone cracked jokes. Madigan had taken to occasionally prodding the coals with a stick to keep the coals alive when he started yawning. “I think I’m going to head to bed, guys.” 

“That sounds like a good plan. We should all hit the hay,” Mitch said. He stood up and turned to go to his tent when he turned around. “No funny business, you all. You know that I’m dead asleep the moment I roll over.” 

“You know it, boss,” Elora said, glancing in Arlin and Madigan’s direction. 

“Why are you looking at us?” Arlin gasped, an exaggerated look of shock and disappointment on her face. “I’m disappointed that my own sister, my flesh and blood, would think so lowly of Maddie. Thinking low of me is fine, but not dear Maddie.” She snickered at her own comment, which caused the others to laugh more at her than at the original joke. 

The kids gathered their trash from the ground around the fire pit and threw it into the garbage bag near the food coolers. The kids split up to their respective tents and settled down for bed. As Arlin got changed into her PJs, Elora spoke up 

“Guys, we should definitely go to the river tomorrow!” The girls made eye contact and smiled. They had been to this campsite a dozen times before, so they knew the layout of the area, and they knew about the hidden river that lay under a small drop-off on a trail nearby. 

“Oh my god, you are so right,” Arlin responded. “Jordan, you are going to love this place, dude. There is a giant beach-sand dune thing that we would sit our chairs on and just sit for hours and swim and talk. We should bring the guys, too.” 

“Well obviously, you definitely need to see Madigan shirtless and in the water, huh?” Elora teased at Arlin, who immediately blushed hearing her words.  

“No, I do not!” Arlin practically howled. Jordan and Elora started laughing so hard that their faces turned red, too. Eventually, they settled down and all fell asleep, ready for the next day. 

Elora wasn’t wrong though.