The Box in the Woods
: Prologue

July 6, 1978

11:45 p.m.

SABRINA ABBOTT WAS DOING SOMETHING ILLEGAL.

Impossible.

Sabrina had never done anything illegal. She was Barlow Corners’ paragon of virtue. The valedictorian. The library volunteer who read to children. The person who hyperventilated for ten minutes when she accidentally skipped a class because she was too deep in her research at the school library. The one who every parent of a younger student pointed to and said, “Be like Sabrina when you get to high school.”

What would they say now if they saw her in Todd Cooper’s notorious brown Jeep as it bounced down the dirt road through the woods, juddering as the tires made contact with the many pits and bumps along the way? The green fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror banged together from the impact, almost in time with the Led Zeppelin pulsing from the stereo. The headlights were the only thing that cut through the dark between the trees and the sky with its sliver of a moon. Sabrina didn’t particularly like or trust Todd, who was the captain of the football team and the son of the mayor. Todd was an asshole. But he came with the package tonight. He had the car.

Here she was, breaking camp curfew and going into the woods—both prohibited activities. But those infractions were nothing compared to what they were going to do once they reached their destination.

She pressed herself into her companion’s side. Eric Wilde was her new— Was he her boyfriend? They hadn’t gotten that far yet in the discussions. She had no doubt that he wanted that title, and she had just freed herself from her boyfriend of three years—no need to rush back in. It was time for the new Sabrina, the one who lived, who did things, who didn’t worry so much.

This good girl needed a break. The last few weeks had shown her that.

“You okay?” Eric said over the music.

“Yeah,” she replied. A bug flew in her mouth as she did so, and she picked it out.

Was she okay? Her worries were still there, nibbling at the edge of all her thoughts. She tried to shut them out. That’s what tonight was for. Breaking the spell of fear.

“Sure?”

“Just cold,” she said.

That much was true. It was cool tonight, especially as the top was off the Jeep. She was only wearing shorts and a green Camp Wonder Falls T-shirt. Regular Sabrina would have been more prepared and brought a sweatshirt—new Sabrina was going to be cold. Eric wrapped his arm around her and drew her close. His blond curls tickled her nose as she leaned into his shoulder.

The Jeep pulled off the path and stopped off to the side, under the cover of a small group of trees. The music cut out, and the four passengers stepped out of the vehicle.

“This is it?” Sabrina asked.

“Not here,” said the girl in the passenger seat. “Close, though. We have to walk.”

The girl’s name was Diane McClure and she was a fellow recent graduate of Liberty High. Diane was a tall redhead, with freckles clustered all over her body. She and Sabrina had never been in the same orbit at school. Sabrina led the class in academics; Diane seemed to spend most of her time leaning against lockers and hanging out in the smoking lounge. She was the kind of person Sabrina’s parents told her to avoid. But she wasn’t a bad person. Sabrina had come to like her company. She was loyal, hardworking in her own way, and school wasn’t for everyone. Diane was Todd’s girlfriend, and probably Todd’s only redeeming feature.

Sabrina climbed out of the back of the Jeep, which took a little doing, as they had packed it with several bags of supplies, several of which hampered her exit.

“It’s this way,” Eric said, taking Sabrina’s hand in his. “Let me guide you, my dear. Never fear, never fear. Into the woods we go!”

Diane and Eric both had powerful flashlights, but their beams barely penetrated the dark between the trees. Sabrina had lived in Barlow Corners all her life and certainly had spent time in the woods, but never this deep in, and never at night. It was something you didn’t do. The woods were dark and deep, full of creatures.

“How far?” she asked, trying to make her voice light.

“We’re almost there. Trust me. I come out here every week. I know the way,” said Eric.

“I trust you,” she said.

“You sure you’re okay?” Eric asked.

“I’m sure. Why?”

“You’re kind of crushing my hand.”

“Oh!” She released her grip. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I have two. Actually, I have three, but that’s because the experiment went wrong. . . .”

She laughed. That’s what was great about Eric. He could make her worries vanish. Eric knew something about living, something she wanted to learn.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said.

“Oh, good. I can’t let them shut down my lab, not when I’m so close. Soon my creation will come to life!”

He shouted that last word, causing something in the branches above to stir and fly off.

“Eric, you freak,” Diane said, laughing.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he replied. “Aaaaaand . . . here we are!”

The flashlight beams struck a small clearing. There were a few cut logs on the ground, rough seating around a stone circle.

“Okay,” Eric said, setting down the bag he was carrying, “you guys do the setup. We’ll go get the milk. This way, my dear. Just over yonder a few paces.”

Eric took her hand once again to guide her through the dark. They reentered the woods on the other side of the clearing.

“So how do you pay for it?” Sabrina asked, picking her way along the tangle of roots beneath their feet. “What’s the system?”

“If you continue to come with me on my magical journey, you will learn all, little Bilbo.”

“Did you just call me Bilbo?”

“It’s from The Hobbit.”

“I know what it’s from, you moron,” she said, laughing.

“Never question the girl who works in the library,” Eric said, bowing low. “I beg forgiveness.”

Something crunched near them, and Sabrina let out an involuntary yip.

“It’s fine,” he said, shining the light around. “Lots of noises out here. They startle you at first.”

Suddenly, she didn’t want to be here. Her whole body flooded with anxiety. Eric seemed to sense this and stopped.

“It’s cool,” he said.

“There’s something out there.”

“There probably is. A raccoon. A possum. A skunk. But they don’t come near the clearing or the fire.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I come out here every week. I always hear something. It’s the woods. Seriously, they don’t want to come near people. They stay away.”

“I know. I need to relax. I’m trying.”

“Here’s the thing . . . you’re trying to relax. You’re even pushing yourself to do that. You push yourself too hard.”

“I know. I know.”

The world slowly righted itself. Sabrina took a deep breath and straightened up.

“Keep going,” she said. “I’m fine.”

They continued on another fifty paces or so, until the flashlight revealed a small structure. It was a box in the woods, about eight feet long and four feet high.

“Here we are,” Eric said, approaching it.

“What is this?”

“An old hunting blind,” Eric replied, handing her the flashlight and lifting the large lid with both hands. “Hunters would hide inside while they were hunting deer. It’s got little openings in the side they could look out of.”

“Creepy,” she said. “But I guess hunting is creepy by definition. You creep behind animals to kill them.”

“True. Anyway, this one hasn’t been used in a long time.”

That much was clear. While not completely rotted, the box was on the path in that direction. The boards were weatherworn and bowed, and some of them were coming away. It was now most likely home to spiders and snakes and various other critters, so she cringed a bit as Eric climbed inside and started rooting around in a pile of discarded wood. She made a mental note to check herself carefully for ticks when they got back to camp.

“Where is it, where is it. . . . Ah. Here we go!”

He stood up and proudly held aloft a crumpled McDonald’s bag.

“That’s it?” Sabrina said.

Eric climbed out of the box and closed the lid.

“Shine the light,” he said.

He set the bag down, opened it up, and removed a used Big Mac box, two hamburger wrappers, and a used cup, still with the straw.

“I can see you’re not impressed,” he said. “But behold. . . .”

He opened the Big Mac box. The container was brimming with fresh, fragrant marijuana buds. As were the hamburger wrappers and the soda cup. Sabrina had seen marijuana before—small amounts of it, usually in the form of joints—but she had never seen this much. This was an extremely illegal amount of marijuana. A scholastic-career-ending amount. A definitely arrestable, criminal record amount.

“No one looks at trash,” Eric said with a smile. “Especially trash inside of something that also looks like trash, out in the middle of the woods. Pretty clever, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? I’ll have to try harder. Come on. Time to get to work.”

Back in the clearing, things were looking much more inviting and cheerful. There was a fire going, and a camp lantern sat on one of the logs. Two sleeping bags had been unzipped and spread out as blankets, their soft plaid flannel insides resting upward. The portable tape player was piping more Led Zeppelin into the velvety darkness. (They were Diane’s favorite band. Sabrina didn’t like them at all, but if you hung out with Todd and Diane, you had to get used to it.) Todd and Diane were stretched out on one of the sleeping bags, munching on chips and staring up at the sky.

“Behold!” Eric said, brandishing the bag aloft. “Your milkman cometh!”

He cupped his free hand over his mouth and made the tooting sound of a triumphant horn. He and Sabrina sat down on the other sleeping bag, which had been opened up for them. Eric handed the bag to Diane, who set it down on a stolen dining pavilion tray. She moved the lantern a bit closer and dumped out the contents of the Big Mac box and picked through it expertly.

“And now, we roll,” Eric said, grabbing a handful of chips, “for rolling is a part of the service. First ones are always for us. No one beats Diane. She’s a machine.”

Diane was working smoothly, plucking the buds. In the space of only a few moments, she had rolled the first joint, which she passed to Eric. She kept right on rolling, her movements hypnotic. Eric put the joint between his lips and lit it, then took a long inhale and passed it to Todd. Todd did the same, and then passed it to Diane, who didn’t look up from her efforts as she took her hit. It ended up with Sabrina, who took it and held it. She could hear the gentle sizzle of the paper.

“You don’t have to,” Eric said. “Totally up to you.”

She had asked to come out here. She wanted to try something new, and there was no way she wanted to get to Columbia and be the only person in the entire freshman class who had never smoked a joint. This was the perfect place to try. No one around, with people she knew. She put it to her lips and inhaled—and promptly coughed it all out in a gagging, reflexive manner. She expected them to laugh at her, but no one did.

“Happens to everyone the first time,” Eric said. “Try again. Slower, hold it as long as you can.”

She inhaled once more. The smoke was acrid, and it burned a bit, but she held it for several seconds before coughing it out again, though less violently this time. After a moment, she felt a little change. An easing. Her attention locked on to the music—she suddenly needed it to be different.

“Can we switch the tape?” she asked.

“Sure,” Eric said. “What do you want to hear?”

“Fleetwood Mac.”

“Can we change it?” Eric asked. “Put on Rumours.”

There was a low groan of displeasure from the other couple.

“Come on,” Eric said, smiling. “It’s her first time. Let her pick the music.”

Reluctantly, Diane dug around in the backpack and pulled out a cassette. She stopped the one that was playing and replaced it. The haunting jangle of the guitar and the heavy, slow beat of the drum echoed between the trees, mingled with the crackle of the fire. Sabrina rested against the log and let the music wash over her. This was her favorite album. She’d listened to it thousands of times, probably. She knew the lyrics back to front, but tonight, they were especially clear.

Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies

“Eric,” she said.

He leaned over and looked down at her. He had a nice face. A kind face. It loomed over her like the moon.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Damn your lies . . .”

“You got it.”

Beyond them, out of the range of the glow of the fire—what was that thing moving between the trees? An owl? A raccoon? A witch that rang like a bell in the night, or a ghost, or . . .

No. It was a bit of the potato chip bag, which had caught fire and floated up.

“Excuse us,” Todd said as he and Diane peeled themselves off the ground and pulled their sleeping bag away. They went off toward the trees behind them and vanished into the dark. Sabrina strained to turn around and watch them go, then she looked back to Eric.

“It’s okay,” Eric said. “There’s no pressure like that. We’ll just hang here, eat chips, listen to some music.”

Sabrina eased and tucked herself under Eric’s arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

“My throat is dry,” she said.

Eric leaned up and retrieved a Coke, which he opened and passed to her. It was warm, but welcome, sliding down her throat, sticky and sweet, ungluing her lips. It tasted so good. She downed half the can in one go.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She responded by belching and bursting into laughter.

“There we go,” he said. “That’s what I like to hear. See? Everything’s not so bad.”

Things weren’t so bad; they were inexplicably hilarious. She felt her muscles ease and she settled back into the gentle puffs of the sleeping bag.

“This is . . . stoned?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Take it easy, listen to the music. Nowhere to be, and nothing to do. I’m going to take a leak. Back in a second.”

He pushed himself up off the ground and headed toward the trees. As he walked off, he tripped dramatically over a log and did a staggered almost-fall—it was clearly a fake-out for her amusement, and she burst into laughter again. Then he stepped into the trees.

Sabrina leaned back, her head against the log. She was surrounded by the long shadows, the veil of smoke that oozed along with the music like honey. If she closed her eyes, she knew everything would spin and the world would cease to make sense. It barely made sense as it was.

The bass drumbeat on this song was like a heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light

It sounded so serious, being a member of Fleetwood Mac. She loved them. This album had given her so much solace this year, through all the terrible things that had happened. Things she was not, she reminded herself, going to think about now. She tried to focus her eyes over the corona of the campfire. Somewhere behind her, Diane and Todd were making a lot of noise, really getting into whatever they were up to.

Thump, thump, thump.

She stared at the tray full of little flecks of leaves and buds, at the bag of chips and the fire and the hook of a moon. So many things had been troubling her recently. Why had she let herself get so stressed? This was Barlow Corners, and the whole point of Barlow Corners was that nothing ever happened here. Right?

She realized the song had changed. Wait, this was “Gold Dust Woman.” That was four songs into the second side of the album. She hadn’t even noticed the songs or the time go by. How long had it been? Ten minutes? Something like that? Why was she still alone?

“Eric?” she called.

No reply.

“Eric!” she called again, louder this time.

There was nothing aside from Stevie Nicks singing about the black widow and the pale shadow and the dragon, the song increasing in intensity. Sabrina’s body was heavy and the shadows were long, and when she tried to move, everything had a slow, syrupy quality. She elbowed her way over to the tape player and turned down the volume.

All around her was silence.

“Diane! Todd? Eric?”

No one replied.

One part of her mind tried to say that this was fine. Maybe Eric had gone back to the hunting blind. Diane and Todd were busy. The other, louder part of her mind told her that something was wrong, wrong, wrong.

She decided to listen to the second voice.

Sabrina pulled herself up to her feet. The ground was both too close and much too far away, and her eyes were confused from staring at the fire and then going into darkness. She blinked to refocus and reached for the lantern. It probably wasn’t cool to bug Diane and Todd now, but she was going to do it anyway. She lifted the light and peered around, then took a few uncertain steps in the direction she thought they had gone. It took her a minute or two of fumbling in the dark, tripping over tree roots and stumbling over her own feet, before she finally saw them on the ground, pressed together.

“Hey,” she said, stumbling forward. “Hey, Eric is . . .”

They didn’t sit up when she spoke. They didn’t move at all. There was something in the way they were lying there that was unnatural. Her heart was doing something very bad, pushing too hard, sending gurgles of air and confusion through her body that bottled up in her neck.

There were footsteps behind her.

She turned.

It wasn’t Eric, as she somehow deep inside knew it wouldn’t be.

THE STUDENT SLEUTH OF ELLINGHAM ACADEMY

By Germaine Batt

Most high school students have hobbies. Some play music. Some play sports. Some write, or draw, or make things.

Stephanie “Stevie” Bell solves crimes.

Stevie is a student at the exclusive Ellingham Academy outside of Burlington, Vermont—that storied institution opened by tycoon Albert Ellingham as a place of creative, playful learning. Ellingham has no tuition and no admissions policy; students are admitted by presenting themselves and talking about their passions, interests, and skills. Ellingham accepts students who want to do or be something in particular, and assists them in meeting that goal. This was the mission of the school when it opened in 1935. In 1936, it became the scene of one of the twentieth century’s most infamous crimes, when Iris Ellingham, Albert’s wife, and Alice Ellingham, their daughter, were kidnapped on one of the local roads. A student, Dolores “Dottie” Epstein, also vanished from the school grounds. Iris’s and Dottie’s bodies would be found in the following weeks; Alice Ellingham was never seen again. The case is a favorite of true-crime enthusiasts and the subject of countless articles, books, and documentaries.

Stevie Bell applied to Ellingham with the stated goal of solving this case. It was a bold and possibly unachievable goal, but the school accepted Stevie and allowed her to have a shot. Weeks after arriving at Ellingham, her fellow classmate, online sensation Hayes Major, died in an accident. Once again, Ellingham was the scene of tragedy.

Stevie Bell, the student sleuth, didn’t think that Hayes’s death was an accident. Two more people associated with the school would die in the weeks following.

That’s a lot of accidents, and a lot of deaths. But Stevie was not deterred, even when the murderer projected a threatening message on her wall in the middle of the night. With the help of her friends, including the author of this article, she continued her investigation and discovered who was responsible. The culprit [log in to continue reading] . . .