Starry Night

twelve

"Tell us a ghost story," Hyejeong says to Jungkook from across the campfire.

The sun's been falling for a half hour or more, and we're gathered around the fire inside the granite shelter, watching Jungkook carefully feed another stick of wood to the flames. He was right about the boulders: They make good benches. We've all been sitting here for the last hour, drying out from swimming in the waterfall pool, eating our rehydrated pouches of food. I'm still hungry and could eat another one. But then we'd have to boil more water, and it's so dark, I can barely make out the edge of the river. Definitely not worth the trouble.

"Why do you think I know a ghost story?" Jungkook questions.

A chorus of noises echo around the rocks as everyone encourages him.

"You totally know one, dude," Bogum says. "Stop playing."

Jungkook looks up from the fire. "Maybe I do."

"Ha!" Hyejeong says. "I knew it. Tell us one about killer hillbillies in the woods."

"Please don't," I say.

"Not any about a boogeyman with a hooked hand who attacks people making out in parked cars either," Minjun says. "I don't like hooks."

Hyejeong laughs and tries to tickle him.

Everyone's in a good mood, relatively speaking. Seolhyun, in her own way, has sort of tried to make up for what she said to me earlier. She brought along a small hammer - one of her many purchases from the outdoor gear store - so she helped me stake down the poles for a tarp at my tent's entrance. She asked me if I was okay, and I lied and said that I was. Then she gave me one of her extrahard back pats, and that was that. We're good. I guess. She's been sitting on the same rock as me, and Bogum just slid between us. Which should be exciting - his side pressing against mine - but I can't enjoy it. I'm too busy thinking about her earlier "territorial" speech and how it seems like she's trying to steer me away from Bogum.

Why?

"Come on," Seolhyun begs Jungkook. "You and your freaky fetish . . . We know you've got a good ghost story."

"You have the perfect voice for spooky tales," Hyejeong adds. "You sound like one of those old horror movie actors from black-and-white movies. The Wolfman. Dracula. All of that."

"Vincent Price," Minjun guesses.

"No, the other one. Dracula. He was in Lord of the Rings."

"Christopher Lee," Jungkook supplies.

"Yes!" Hyejeong says. "Thrill us, Christopher Lee."

Jungkook pushes up from a squat and brushes off his hands. "All right," he says. "I heard something a few months ago. But it's not fiction. It's what someone actually told me. You sure you want to hear it?"

No, I do not want to hear, thank you. I don't like being scared. And now that it's getting dark, I'm starting to worry again about sleeping on the ground. The tents I picked out Seolhyun are actually pretty cool, I supposed, as far as tents go. They're small, but made for two people, which means that there's some wiggle room inside with just person occupying. But they're still not tall enough to stand inside, and knowing that I'll be stuck in that tiny space later with little more than a think scrap of nylon between me and all the nocturnal animals that use the waterfall for a watering hole is starting to freak me out.

But everyone else is apparently a million times braver, and they all want Jungkook to frighten them.

"I'm so ready," Hyejeong says.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Long legs bent, Jungkook sits on the edge of a boulder and leans forward, settling his forearms on his thighs. "Okay, so back before school ended, I was taking weekend wilderness survival classes. It's run by ex-military people along with this retired search-and-rescue ranger who used to work at the Nature Park. His name was Jimin."