Mine by Brett Battles Page B

leg.
    “So no one was watching you guys at night?” Juko asked.
    “I’m sure the counselors were supposed to.”
    “But they didn’t.”
    “Not really.”
    “Man, you must have had a lot of people sneaking out.”
    While the boys searched the cabins on the front row, Leah couldn’t help but be drawn to one toward the middle. Above the door hung a wooden number six.
    My cabin , she thought as she touched the doorframe. She stepped inside.
    The mattresses were gone but the frames for the two bunk beds were still there. She had slept…on top of the one…to the…left. Using the crossbeam of the lower bed, she stepped up into the area she had once occupied.
    Since she had been the last person to sleep there, she felt that gave her a special ownership of space. But as she looked around, no memories jumped out at her. It was just wood and air and dust and—
    She paused, her gaze on a joint between a board running up the wall and the start of the ceiling. It looked as if there was something stuffed into the gap.
    She ducked, stepped inside the bed frame, and hopped up on the rail that ran next to the wall. Using the support frame of the top bed, she pulled herself up as far as she could, but still had to stretch to reach the joint. It felt like a piece of paper inside. She teased the corner out until she was able to remove it.
    The paper was folded a few times, the visible side white and blank. As she opened it, she saw color on the opposite side. Dark brown. It wasn’t until she had it all the way open that she could read the words printed on it.
     
    HERSHEY’S
    Milk Chocolate
     
    A candy wrapper.
    Why was there…
    Memory flood.
    Cannonball contest again.
    The candy Not-John wanted as his prize had been a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar. Later, in the free time between the end of the afternoon activities and dinner, Leah had crossed paths with him.
    “You had a, um, pretty good jump,” he told her. “I-I’d say you came in second.”
    “It wasn’t that good.”
    “You were in the water. You couldn’t see it.”
    She smiled. “True.”
    He broke his candy bar in two and held out the half still in the wrapper. “Um, would, um, you like some?”
    “Uh, sure. Thanks.” She took it and broke off a small piece, then tried to hand back the rest.
    “You keep it. I don’t need a whole bar anyway.”
    Before she could insist, he hurried away.
    This was that wrapper. She had carefully folded it that night and stuck it into the space between the boards because she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. It had a kind of power.
    She rubbed her thumb over the surface.
    “Joel,” she whispered . That was his name. Why did I forget?
    As she stepped down from the bed frame, she felt a sudden urge to go back outside, almost as if a thin rope were tied around her waist, tugging her.
    Miiiinnnneeee.
    A whisper.
    The wind in the trees sounding like a voice.
    Heading for the doorway, she refolded the candy wrapper and slipped it into her pocket.
    She could hear the guys in one of the cabins but didn’t join them. Instead, she followed the tug of the invisible rope back to the path. A few minutes later, she was passing the stables and entering the off-limits area of the woods.
    She had no recollection of ever going this way before, and yet she knew she had. It wasn’t anything she saw that caused her to realize this. It was a feeling, a sense of certainty.
    Where she was going and why, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t stop, nor did she want to. A feeling of calm accompanied the tug, giving her a sense that everything was okay.
    Miiiinnnneeee , the wind said again, like a finger brushing against her skin.
    If there was an actual path she was following, she couldn’t see it. It was the invisible cord that guided her, pulling gently but insistently forward even as the forest pressed in around her like a cloak.
    The ghost of a thought that she should be scared passed through her mind, and was just as quickly ushered