From the moment she had trekked into the brush and under the cover of the trees, flitting through the dappled afternoon light, Tess had felt an underlying shift in her reality. There was the familiar aggrandizement of the imagination as the woods thickened into an Amazonian jungle and the familiar-trampled paths took on the mystery of long lost trails to the famed El Dorado, and yet there was also something more; beneath it all, a scratch on the lens tainted the view through her youthfully naive, rose-tinted glasses.

Although she could not entirely define the cause of her unease, it enveloped her like a twisted, tangle of blanket, clinging to her no matter how much she tried to shake it. As she delved deeper and deeper into those woods, the hairs on her neck rose as her flesh goosepimpled; goosepimpled as it had months prior on the afternoon that Ricky went missing. That connection was not lost on Tess, and as those bumps formed and her hairs rose, she hastened her steps, glancing back over her shoulder as she did.

The woods stretched out behind her, empty of anything other than the usual covering of leaves and twigs and the chattering of chipmunks; though even that latter seemed in spare supply, the forest abnormally quiet. Despite the evidence to the contrary, Tess couldn't buck the feeling that she was being watched.

She quickened her pace, yet even so, the feeling persisted, never slackening. It bore down upon her with great force, and she could almost swear that the hot whisper of a stranger's breathe played against the back of her neck, carrying with it the pungent smell of rot. She swatted at it, slapping against her spine as if batting away a mosquito, but as she did the breathe teased across her fingers.

She did not place a hand upon her neck again. Instead, she broke into a run, always aware of that something just out of sight. It never abated.

As such, when at last her treehouse came into view, it came as a great relief - and not just because of the sense of security that it offered her, but also because of the very real lessening of that gaze. The smell and the tickle of that breath upon her vanished, and at least for a moment a true peace descended upon her.

Uncle Eddie had helped her build the treehouse two years prior, the same summer that the dead worm had baked on the rocks of the jetty. Her mother never would have allowed such a thing to be erected in their yard, her always being so cautious to guard Tess against any potential harm. She wouldn't even let Tess visit a friend's house if they had a trampoline, afraid she'd break her neck - whether it had a safety net or not. Her mom never would have let her have a treehouse. Even if she hadn't been so protective, there was no way Oma Flora would have approved, reminding Tess that treehouses were unladylike.

Yet, Uncle Eddie always wanted to please, and so he had helped her build the treehouse in the woods. Technically, he had said he was building it for Little Ed, and that had appeased all involved, but she and her uncle knew the truth. Even if she had to share it, the treehouse was hers - her special getaway.

Now it hung above her, balanced over two knotted branches of a thick oak, its flooring supported by crossbeams nailed into those same branches, then levering out over the opposite side of the trunk. The single-room house encircled the tree, a blue tarp wound around the trunk and attached loosely to the roofing to guard against leaks, while still allowing the tree to pierce the body of the fort. Off of that main body, a small balcony formed an L around two sides, its railing providing a peaceful lookout where Tess had spent many a spring and summer afternoon.

On the corner of that balcony a small wooden sign proclaimed 'No Jerks Allowed!" Tess had added that last bit herself the previous fall, after many of her cousins had decided to adopt her Tessy Messy nickname into their vocabulary.

"Hey, l... l... loser. You c... coming up, or what?"

Alex Baker peered down at her through the open shutters of the treehouse's sole window. They had been in classes together since preschool, and he was Tess's best friend; perhaps even her only real friend to which she wasn't actually related. Even so, they didn't have a whole lot in common. He was the bookworm to her athlete and the naysayer to her adventurer; and yet no adventure seemed complete without him.

Although Alex had never managed to talk Tess down from any planned exploits, she had learned a little from his caution. That need for caution was why he was there. Not only did the treehouse provide a home field advantage, but also Alex's presence provided moral support and the superiority of numbers. Always be prepared. The Boy Scouts may not have let her into their club, but she knew their motto better than most.

"Hold your horses." Tess grabbed the bottom rung of the rope ladder and began her ascent.

"W... w... whatever."

Always that stutter when he was nervous. Some of the older kids liked to call him Stuttering Stanley, though the moniker never made much sense to Tess. His name was Alex, not Stanley. Either way, she never would have used it anymore than he would have called her Tess the Mess.

As Tess reached the top of the ladder, bathed in the shadow of the treehouse, that sense of unease crept back in, prickling up her arm as she hoisted open the trapdoor. Hauling herself in, she slammed the door shut harder than she had intended, forcing it down with great gusto as if both the haste and force of the door slamming might bar that unease entrance into her haven. It did not belong here, not in the safety of her treehouse.

Alex jumped with the bang of the door, Tess's skateboard slipping from his grasp and skittering against the wooden planks of the flooring. "W... w... what the hell, T... T... Tess?"

Although he gave off a nerdy vibe, Alex had a potty mouth for a third-grader. Tess was fairly certain it was one of the reasons she liked him so well. Much like her, he wasn't what he was expected to be.

"Sorry. Where's Charlie?"

"S... sh... shit if I know."

"Are you okay?" She didn't have to explain. They both knew his stutter was always worse when he was nervous.

"J... j... just my... my... my mom.  Sh... sh..."

"She," Tess offered.

"...would kill me, if sh... she knew I was here."

"Yeah, my mom told me she and yours had at it. Sorry."

"It's okay. A... all good. W... wh... when are we going to t... take this out?" Alex gestured towards the skateboard.

"Whenever everyone calms down a bit."

"S... s... so, never then?"

"I don't know." Tess made her way over to the window, past Alex, glancing out into the woods. The leaves rustled as the afternoon's soft breeze continued it's gentle caress. Yet the chittering of the chipmunks had ceased. Was it Tess's imagination, or had all the animals gone silent? "Charlie should be here by now," she continued.

"J... j... just Charlie?"

"Yeah. Just Charlie."

"Huh."

Tess plopped down beside Alex, no longer comfortable staring out into the woods. For a moment she even considered shutting the shudders to further bar out whatever it was lurking and watching, but that was silly wasn't it? There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Of course, in a world where radio stations appeared out of thin air, the line between something being there and not there might be relatively thin.

Reconsidering, Tess rose and shut the shudders, casting the treehouse interior into a dim blue light as the sun filtered through the rooftop tarp like a central skylight. That done, she dropped back down beside Alex.

"Huh what?" she asked.

"I sa... sa..."

"Saw?"

"Yeah. Some of your c... cousins m... m... milling about."

"Like Charlie?"

"No. T... th... they were ou... ou... ou... Fuck." Alex winced, threw up his hands, and then pointed towards the exit to the balcony. "That way."

Tess knew better than to push him when he was this lost in his nerves, so she let Alex be, rose, and went to the balcony. She'd only been in the dark of the treehouse for a few minutes, and yet the glare of the sun stabbed at her as she exited. Shielding her eyes, she peered down scanning for any sign of her cousins.

It did not take long for her to spot them; though technically only one of the boys was a first cousin: Jimmy, Ricky's brother. The other she barely recognized, only just placing him as a 3rd of 4th cousin with whom she had little contact.

In an instant, Tess's nerves shattered and she thought that she just might know what it was like to be Alex, with that constant tug of anxiety. Of course, this was well beyond any situation that Alex had ever had to deal with, wasn't it? She had not invited Jimmy with good reason. She'd lost his brother; the last thing that Tess wanted to do was to confront him about that day.

She drummed her fingers against the railing, chewing at her lip. Words tried to form, fought to free themselves from her constricted throat, but Tess could only manage the merest whisper of Jimmy's name. She was less than surprised when it didn't catch his attention.

He waited, back against a tree, staring off down one of the many worn trails, hands in his pockets, and earbuds firmly locked in his ears. She'd walked in on him listening to his music plenty of times in the past, but she'd never understood it. The music either came across all dark and tense and eerie, like something she'd expect on Halloween or in a horror movie, or it sounded like angry screams. It had never made much sense to her, but of course the world had been a much brighter place just two months ago, and she'd had very little about which to be either angry or afraid.

How quickly life can throw you a curve.

Beside Jimmy, the other boy, who also looked to be about Jimmy's age if not a year or so older, milled about, pacing, and taking a puff from a cigarette, which Jimmy declined. The boy had thick, dyed black hair, that matched his nearly all black attire, contrasting sharply with his alabaster skin. He seemed almost cartoon-like in the vibrance of his appearance. As he smoked, he shielded his eyes with his other hand and squinted up through the trees. Pivoting mid-puff, still gazing upwards, his shielded gaze locked with Tess's own.

He nudged Jimmy and pointed at Tess, Jimmy plucking his earbuds from his ears and shifting, then catching sight of Tess as well. She cast him a weak smile, and he yelled up to her.

"Come on down."

That wasn't the plan. Tess drummed her fingers some more, and thought about Alex back in the treehouse and her plan to speak with Charlie on her turf, with the advantage of numbers. With Jimmy and Mr. Snow White down there, she had already lost the latter advantage.

"No," she said, but too weak to carry. Forcing up courage from a well she didn't even know existed, she tried again; this time louder. "You come up here."

Jimmy and his companion exchanged glances and must have come to some sort of agreement as the dark-haired boy dropped his cigarette crushing it under his heel and the two made for the rope ladder.