Penelope wished she had thought to put the brand new SIM card in her phone before they had turned off the highway. Now she was trying her hardest to keep her hand steady as Liam drove the SUV—borrowed from his mom—over the rough road. It seemed like the road was more pothole than not, and the vehicle kept lurching up and down.

She had followed Liam's advice and opened a new account with the most reliable cell provider for the area. It came with the added bonus of a new number, one that the trolls didn't know. If only she could get the SIM in...

Liam hit a particularly large pothole and the little key-shaped tool slipped out of her fingers and fell to the SUV's floor.

"Dammit!" Penelope said, diving under the dash to feel around for it. Thankfully, Beth kept the vehicle nice and tidy, so the floor wasn't too gross.

"Sorry," Liam apologized, keeping his eyes locked on the bumpy road. "This road doesn't really get maintained anymore."

"Not your fault," Penelope grumbled, still searching. Finally, she found it and straightened up. "Guess no one comes out this way anymore, huh? Not since it was a camp."

"Well, people still come out here," Liam said, "mostly to hunt."

"Hunt? Like, animals?" Penelope asked, looking over at Liam with wide eyes. "Should we be wearing visi-vests or something?" Suddenly she was reconsidering her decision to live stream out here. Her desire to clear her name was not greater than her desire to not get shot.

"Nah, don't worry. Nothing's in season right now," Liam said. Though he kept his eyes straight ahead, he smirked. Penelope could practically hear his thoughts calling her a city slicker.

Penelope didn't care. At least she didn't have to worry about dodging bullets on top of cryptids. She thought about continuing her attempts to change her SIM but decided to wait until they were on more solid ground. She tucked the key tool into her pocket.

"Was it a hunter who saw the Raven?" she asked, barely getting a chance to settle back into the seat as they lurched over yet another pothole. She was lucky she had a strong stomach because she was sure anyone else would've gotten carsick.

"No, it was just an ordinary kid," Liam replied. "It was at a party. Highschoolers used to come out this way to drink in secret."

"Oh, right," Penelope replied. She had a memory of the exhibit from the Raven Experience, of the illustrated scene on the TV. The image of a party and the boy fleeing from the woods. "That was back in the eighties, right?"

"That's right," Liam said, nodding. "Back in '81."

"We weren't even alive then. How do you know that it was an actual sighting?"

"Reputable source," Liam said simply. He had said something like that before but, once again, did not elaborate further.

Penelope raised her eyebrows. "Uh-huh. Will I ever get to meet this oh-so-'reputable' source?"

Liam smirked again. "Maybe. If you're good."

She just rolled her eyes in return. She didn't understand why he was so cagey about it, like it was classified or something, but she'd figured he'd tell her in time. Maybe he was just seeing if he could trust her first. She didn't blame him for that.

Finally, the car slowed and the road smoothed. Penelope looked up and saw the forest had been pushed back, opening up into a clearing. At the edges were crumbling corners of brick, things that had once been buildings that time or vandalism had since broken down into rubble. Beyond that, there was no sign that others had been here, at least not any time recently.

While the spot looked grim, in the overcast afternoon sunlight, it looked more boring than spooky. Penelope's shoulders slump as she looked around. She had to admit she was a little disappointed, but she wasn't exactly sure why. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting... A feeling, maybe, that something more had once touched down here.

Perhaps too much time had passed.

"Ready?" Liam said, his clear voice cutting through her thoughts and bringing her back to the present.

"Not yet." Penelope dug into her pocket, searching for the key tool. It was, thankfully, still there and she jabbed it into the tiny hole on the side of her new phone. A little drawer popped out and she put in her new SIM and closed it back up.

After a moment her phone detected it and the little 'No Service' in the top corner of the screen disappeared, replaced by the bars indicating her reception. Three bars, not the complete four. It could be better, but Penelope also knew it could also be a whole lot worse.

Hopefully, her reception would hold.

"Okay, now I'm ready," she announced, handing her newly activated phone over to Liam.

"Great," Liam said, handing his phone back.

"Why're you giving me your phone?" Penelope asked, looking at it. The wallpaper was a picture of a much younger Liam alongside Beth and a man who looked a lot like Liam did now. She knew without asking that it was his father.

"It's a special kind of dumb to go out into the woods without a way to call out," Liam said. "I've got your phone, so you can have mine for now. I put your new number in my emergency contacts so you can call me without needing to unlock it."

"Smart," Penelope admitted with a nod and put his phone into the pocket of her oversized hoodie. Usually, she would be wearing something nicer for a shoot, but she didn't really care anymore. It wasn't her clothes that she wanted to impress people with, anyway.

"I'm more than a pretty face," Liam said, smiling smugly. He looked down at her phone and frowned. "Wait, what I am supposed to do?"

"Oh, right," Penelope said, feeling dumb, and she snatched her phone out of Liam's hands.

If she was going to do a stream, she'd actually have to start it and share it. She opened up the YouTube app and hit the Go Live button. The stream started and as it got going, she opened the recently installed Twitter app to post a quick tweet with the link. Fortunately, she had remembered to announce the stream earlier that day, so it wouldn't be a total surprise to her followers.

Once the link was posted, she moved back to the YouTube app. Though it hadn't even been a minute, people were already there, watching and waiting. She quickly waved into the camera and then handed it back to Liam.

"What am I supposed to do?" Liam whispered, his usual effortless cool suddenly gone even though the camera wasn't on him.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," she said. No use in trying to hide. "Don't worry about the chat. We'll review it all later. Just keep the camera on me."

They already had an audience.

Liam did as she said, holding her phone up to focus on her.

"Hi again everyone," Penelope began with another wave. "I'm so glad you could join me for my first real livestream. I figured that this was probably the best way to prove that I'm not faking anything—it'd be a lot harder to make it convincing in real time." She smiled.

"They seem excited," Liam whispered, his eyes darting around as he watched the chat on screen.

"Good," Penelope said. "I'm here with a... friend. His name is Liam and he's from Ridgestone. He's going to be helping me with filming today. Do you want to say hi?"

"Uh," Liam said. His eyes went wide that reminded Penelope of the prey that was usually hunted out here. "Sure, I guess." He tilted the camera back so that his face appeared over the top edge of the camera. "Hi?"

Penelope could only imagine what that looked like to her viewers. She couldn't help but laugh though she tried to stifle it behind the back of her hand. He was actually pretty cute when he wasn't trying so hard to be cool.

Liam tilted the camera back upright. "They're saying hi back," he said, grinning.

Penelope nodded. Her followers were pretty cool... when they weren't furious with her for supposedly lying.

But that misunderstanding would be cleared up soon enough.

She moved back from the camera to step into the center of the clearing, spreading her arms wide. "Well, I guess you'd like to know what we're doing here today," she said, raising her voice so they could still hear her. "We're at the site of what was originally an old logging work camp that has since been demolished. But this unassuming clearing has served many purposes over the years. Hunting grounds, the location of clandestine parties, and... It's also the location of one of the originals sightings of the Raven."

She took a pause, waiting for it all to sink in for her viewers.

Liam nodded encouragingly. Judging by that, Penelope knew her viewers were enjoying it.

"Now, it has been a while," Penelope admitted, venturing closer to the camera again, "so I can't promise we'll see anything, but I thought you'd enjoy coming along while I checked it out. The sighting was in 1987, and I don't know the exact details—"

"I do," Liam butted in.

Penelope looked beyond the lens, at him. "You do?"

"Like I said, trusted source."

"Well, do you want to share your information? On camera?"

Liam looked like he suddenly regretted opening his mouth. But that was the thing about being live—there was no going back.

"If you don't want to, I can muddle through..." Penelope offered.

"No, uh, I'll do it," Liam said. He looked at a loss for a moment before Penelope stepped forward, offering to take the camera. He let her, handing it over and then stepped back, ready to be on camera. He suddenly looked very shy.

Penelope pointed the camera at him, giving him his moment.

"So, I heard this directly from someone who was there that night," Liam began, quietly at first but slowly gaining confidence as he continued. "It was a party, late at night. A bunch of kids our age... I mean, at the time. Practically the whole school was there. But someone, one kid, went into the woods to take a leak. And while he was in there, he saw something. It wasn't just a flash by or anything either—so he ran like hell, out of the woods. He told everyone that he saw something in there and a panic ensued."

"What did he see?" Penelope asked from behind the camera.

"He saw the Raven, obviously. He only described it once, but apparently he's never spoken of it again since. He said it was huge, way over six feet tall, and covered in feathers. And despite what that stupid statue in town looks like, it didn't have a beak. Just a towering mass of feathers. He didn't see much else before he ran off."

It was a rough description, but it was enough to give Penelope shivers as her imagination filled in the blanks. She pictured a huge inky-black mass of feathers, more akin to a shadow person than a bird.

"Who was—" Penelope started.

But Liam didn't let her finish. "That's the story and all I know. Besides, I don't think your viewers signed up to watch me blather on. That's your job." He held his hand out, ready to take the phone again.

Penelope glowered at him but handed her phone back. She'd corner him about it later. He'd have to tell her eventually.

Once the phone was back in his hand, he aimed its camera at her again. Penelope readjusted herself, though a hundred questions were burning in the back of her mind. At least she could ask some of them on camera...

"In what part of the woods did the kid see the Raven?" Penelope asked Liam.

Liam frowned like he was annoyed that she was still paying attention to him. "Well, I think the fire was there," he said, pointing to the centre of the clearing where Penelope had just been standing, "so I think he went thataway?" He moved his arm so that it led a straight line from the centre to the tree line.

Penelope approached the centre again, the camera trained on her as she went. It was very faint—and more likely from a recent hunter's fire—but there was an old-looking scorch mark in the dirt where nothing grew. Some old stones were strewn about as if they had once formed a protective ring. From there, Penelope turned to face the forest. In the overcast of the day, the woods didn't look nearly as sinister as she imagined them from Liam's story. But she was sure it looked even worse in the black of night.

All the more reason to do it now.

Penelope looked over her shoulder at the camera and her viewers. "Well," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "I've got to go in there, don't I?"

"Uh, yeah," Liam replied. "That's the whole point of doing this, isn't it?"

Penelope rolled her eyes. "That was rhetorical," she grumbled before starting towards the tree line.

From afar, the forest seemed sparse, barren even, despite the fresh green of the summer. But as she got closer the forest seemed to thicken, getting denser. She reached into her hoodie pocket and wrapped her fingers around Liam's phone inside. It was all too easy to get lost in the woods...

At the tree line she stopped to give one last glance back to the camera, to Liam, to her watchers... then stepped inside. Inside, the air was different. Fresher, almost. It was quiet, too. No bird song, no chattering squirrels... Just the movement of the branches as they swayed in the light breeze.

The clouds seemed to be moving in, darkening everything. Or maybe it was the canopy of the leaves. But either way, it was darker. And colder. Penelope was suddenly glad she had decided to keep her oversized hoodie on.

There was no path, so she had to fight her way through the undergrowth. She stepped over a fallen log and around a tree, taking in her surroundings. Despite the quiet and the cool, it was a beautiful place, especially in the full bloom of the summer—

A flutter of feathers captured her attention, sending her heart rate spiking. She turned to the right...

And found a raven sitting, proud, on the stump of a dead tree, the same one she had just stepped over. It was not her pudgy little friend from the campsite. In fact, it reminded her a lot of the other raven she had seen when she had been opening her phone in the park. Immense in size, sleek and shiny black.

It peered at her, tilting its head like it was suprised to see her here.

"Hi there," Penelope said, teasingly. "Are you an omen or something?"

As if on command, the bird opened its beak and croaked, "FOLLOW ME."

"Did you catch that?" Penelope asked, spinning around to see if Liam had captured that for the live stream.

But Liam wasn't there.

"Liam?" she called, turning around again, looking for him. But he was nowhere in sight. Penelope didn't understand it—Liam had been right on her heels as she stepped into the woods, and she hadn't gone far into the forest...

If this was his idea of a joke, she was going to kill him. She pulled out his phone, ready to call him. Her heart sank as she saw that it had no service in this part of the woods.

Maybe that's what happened—the live stream got cut off and Liam had stopped to try and fix it, and they had gotten separated. She headed back the way she came, expecting to find him at the line of trees...

But the woods went on and on, continuing for much longer than she thought she had walked when she headed into the forest. She wondered if she had gotten turned around while searching for him. Panic began to brew inside her chest, making it hard to breathe...

"Liam?" Penelope screamed into the dense, endless woods. "Where are you?"

The only response was another flutter of wings. The raven again, catching up to her. This time it sat on branches of a new tree, staring down at her.

"FOLLOW ME," it croaked again.

"No, I don't have time for that," Penelope snapped, turning away. She struggled through the underbrush, trying to find her way out of the damned woods. Her mind was racing as she tried to remember what to do when you got lost in the woods—

"HELP ME."

Penelope froze, then turned.

The raven was still sitting there, watching her.

"What did you say?" Penelope gasped.

The bird ruffled its feathers at her as if to pretend it didn't say anything.

It was then that Penelope noticed the tree it was sitting in. It was tall but thin, so it must've been fairly young, but its branches had been woven together in an intricate braid. The strands lower down had fused throughout its trunk as if someone had been coming out here for a while and braiding the branches of the tree when it was still very young.

The raven took flight, pulling her attention away. It landed only a few short feet away, on another tree—another braided tree. As Penelope looked further into the distance, she could see a line of them, leading into the depths of the forest.

"FOLLOW ME," the bird said again.

Penelope's gaze snapped back to the raven on the branch. For the first time, she debated listening to it. After all, this was exactly what she had been searching for... 

That indescribable feeling, the knowledge of more...

"PENELOPE!"

"Liam?" Penelope called back, snapping out of her daze. "Liam? Is that you?"

"PENELOPE, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"I'm here, I'm here!" Penelope cried. She wanted to follow his voice, but she wasn't sure where it was coming from and she didn't want to get more lost.

She didn't have to chase it. Soon enough Liam appeared, staggering through the undergrowth. He was wild-eyed and panting, clutching her phone in his hands. "Penelope!" he gasped at the sight of her and then threw his arms around her neck. "Where the hell did you go?"

"I—I," Penelope began, her voice muffled by his sweatshirt. "I was going to ask you the same thing! I thought you were right behind me, and—"

"No, no," Liam sputtered between gasps, pulling her back from him to look at her. "Where did you go? You were here one minute and then—"

"I was just walking! And then there was a raven and these trees—" Penelope turned to show him...

But the raven was gone.

And so were the braided trees.

"You don't understand," Liam said, ignoring her attempts at explaining. His eyes were wide and, Penelope noticed for the first time, full of fear. "You need to see this footage."

What do you think Liam saw while filming?