“But is the place called Borrasca? Like have you heard that name before?”

“No, I have not heard that name before.” Dad pulled his boots off and shrugged off his coat, looking toward the kitchen. I could tell I was losing him.

“Have you ever heard of the Skinned Men?” I asked quickly.

“Skinned Men? Good god, Sam. Is your sister telling you these stories?”

“No.” But he wasn’t listening to me anymore.

“Whitney!” He yelled up the stairs.

“No, Dad, Whitney doesn’t even talk to me.” I repeated.

I heard a door creak open upstairs and Whitney peered over the railing, phone in hand and an annoyed look on her face

“Are you trying to scare your brother?” Dad demanded.

“Dad, no.” I said again.

Whitney shot me a venomous look. “Ugh, seriously? As if I’d waste my time.”

“You aren’t telling him stories about ‘Skinned Men’?”

“No, Dad, I told you I heard it at school,” I said.

Whitney gestured to me as if to say ‘see?’

“Alright, well you kids really need to start getting along anyway. You’re family for Christ’s sake.” Whitney rolled her eyes and when Dad walked into the kitchen she stuck her tongue out at me.

“Real mature, Whitney!” I yelled up at her but she was already gone. “I’ll tell Dad about your boyfriend!”

Christmas came and went with surprising smoothness at our house. Whitney and I got almost everything we’d had on our lists, which was a first for us. The town may be smaller but Dad’s paychecks were clearly bigger.

I wore my new Ram’s parka on the first day back to school after Christmas break. Kyle fawned over it and Kimber showed off the blue pearl necklace her mom had gotten her for Christmas. Kyle and I feigned interest but did it poorly. Kimber knew, but just seemed happy we cared enough to fake it.

As we said goodbye to Kyle for the morning Kimber was suddenly slammed from the side. Kyle caught her before she fell and I spun around angrily to see Dark-Haired Girl – whose name I’d learned was Phoebe Dranger – laughing and walking away from us with Round-Face.

“You guys are assholes!” Kyle yelled at them. “When I’m your boss someday I’ll make you clean bathrooms!”

“Yeah, and if Kyle’s your boss, you know you messed up.” I added. Kyle and I high-fived and turned to Kimber but she wasn’t impressed with us – I could tell she was trying to hide her tears in her scarf.

“Don’t sweat those girls, Kimber, nobody likes them. People are just nice to them because they’re related to the Prescotts.” Kyle tried to give her an awkward pat on the back but Kimber turned away from him and ran in the opposite direction.

“I hate those girls. Like I really hate them.” I said.

“I know, they’re bitches.” Kyle agreed.

“Well, I’d better get to class and make sure they don’t try and talk to her again.”

“There’s an assembly this morning. No class until after lunch.”

“Seriously? That’s awesome! Do we have to sit by class?”

“I don’t think so but we’d better get there quick so we can get seats at the back.” Kyle said as we started walking.

“What’s the assembly for?” I asked.

“It’s either D.A.R.E. or the History Society presentation.”

“What’s D.A.R.E.?”

“You know, D.A.R.E.? As in ‘don’t you dare do drugs or you’re grounded until you’re dead’?”

“Oh. I hope it’s the history thing then.”

We found Kimber already in the auditorium. She had collected herself and saved us both seats at the back of the room. She waved us over just as the puffy, stern Mrs. Tverdy walked onto the stage.

“Everyone please quiet down. This morning we have a special presentation for you from the History Preservation Society of Drisking. If you have questions during the course of the lecture, please raise your hand.”

“Like that’ll happen,” Kyle laughed.

“Now, I’d like to introduce to you Mr. Wyatt Dowding, Ms. Kathryn Scanlon and of course, Mr. James Prescott.”

“What! Jimmy Prescott and not his dad? That’s so weird!” Kimber whispered.

“Dude, Thomas Prescott has done this presentation every year for like 20 years,” Kyle said. “It’s definitely weird.”

“It’s not weird,” whispered Patrick Sutton from behind us. He leaned forward. “Tom Prescott went crazy like a year ago. He didn’t do the presentation last year when my sister was here either.”

“I don’t like Jimmy Prescott,” Kimber shook her head. “He gives me the heebie-jeebies. His dad is so much nicer, he’s like a grandpa.”

The presentation was as slow and boring as it possibly could be. Mr. Dowding and Ms. Scanlon talked about the first settlers here: the Cherokee and the trail of tears. They talked about Alexander Drisking’s discovery of a motherlode of ore in the mountains and settling here with his family to mine and refine the iron. Then James Prescott took the stage from there to tell the story of his family’s early journey to the town and their role in the revitalization of Drisking itself in the late 50’s.

The Prescott story was the first interesting thing I’d heard all morning and I found Jimmy Prescott to be infallibly charismatic and entertaining. I was so busy laughing at his jokes and absorbing his stories that by the end of the presentation I realized I’d actually learned quite a bit. So much so that I was interested enough to ask a question, which Kyle quickly warned me was social suicide.

Mr. Prescott scanned the room and answered a few other questions before he finally got to me at the back.

“Yes, the young man in the blue shirt.”

“Um, Mr. Prescott, why did the mines close? Are there any still working?” I asked.

“That’s a very good question. What did you say your name was?”

“Um…Sam. Walker.”

“Ah, I believe I met your father the other day at the Sheriff’s office. Welcome to Drisking! As for your questions, most of the mines were closed in 1951 after a long period of unprofitability: the mountain had simply ran out of iron ore. The mills and refineries were abandoned and the town suffered for years. The miners and their families moved away, stores went out of business, schools closed and Drisking became a ghost town, as I was explaining before.

That would have been the end of it if it weren’t for stubborn families like mine who refused to leave. We refused to give up the town and after many, many years of hard work Drisking became the picturesque little haven in the Ozarks that it is today. As for your second question, yes, I believe there may still be one mine in operation. Good questions. Anyone else?”

I sat back down and Kyle shook his head at me. “Bro…”

The assembly suffered through another fifteen minutes of awkward Q and A until Mrs. Tverdy finally cut us loose. We were released into the cafeteria to wait for the lunch lines to open. Kyle, Kimber and I sat in our usual corner.

“That was SO boring,” Kyle whined. “When are they going to realize that no one cares about Drisking’s history? Seriously, I fell asleep like three times.”

Kimber nudged me. “Sam seemed to care,” she teased.

“I just wanted to know about the mines. Mines are creepy, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but all our mines were blown up. You can’t go in them anymore.” Kyle said.

“Blown up?” I asked.

Kimber nodded. “Some kids died after going into the mines so the city set off some ‘controlled blasts to implode the caverns’, at least that’s what my mom said. They messed up, though, and I heard they blew up the water table or poisoned it or something.”

“What, how do you know that?” Kyle asked.

Kimber shrugged. “I heard my dad talking about it.”

“Did they use C4 or something?”

“I guess.”

“So like, we all drink the water so we all have C4 in our bodies and we could explode at any minute!” Kyle said excitedly.

“Do you think that’s what happened to all the missing people?” I asked him. “Just sitting there one day and BOOM!”

“Yeah, dude,” Kyle grabbed my shoulders. “And that’s where the Skinned Men come from.”

I made the popular gesture of ‘mind blown’ and we laughed hysterically.

“You guys are dumb,” Kimber rolled her eyes but then she laughed when Kyle fell on the floor pretending he was exploding. I remember thinking in that moment that I was happy here in Drisking, Missouri with these two people. Happier than I’d ever been anywhere else.

It was the last truly moment of joy I ever had. Less than an hour later Mr. Diamond’s phone rang and he exchanged a few quiet words with the person on the other end, his eyes flicking to and from my desk. It was hard to be surprised, then, when he hung up and asked me to come up to the front.

He quietly told me that my mom was waiting for me in the office and I was going home for the day. I traded a confused and worried look with Kimber and then packed up my backpack and went to the office. When I got there, my mom was crying.

We drove home in a strained silence. I was too afraid to ask what was wrong. Mom stopped the car a block from our house, which was blocked in by several police cars. When an explanation wasn’t forthcoming I broke the silence myself.

“Is it dad?” I asked quietly.

“No, honey, Dad is fine,” she whispered.

“Then what is it?”

“Whitney- Whitney never made it to school this morning.” Her voice broke over my sister’s name.

“Oh.” I said. “Oh! Wait, I think she ditched, Mom! I actually saw her leave this morning and it was really early, like 6, and she was with her friends. Um, Pete Whitiger and that kid Taylor!”

“We know about all that, Sam. But they made it to school and Whitney wasn’t with them. They said she wanted to stop by the Circle K near Drisking High so they left her there. And no one has seen her since.”

“Well…” My brain struggled to come up with an explanation. “Maybe she’s ditching.”

“No, honey.” My mom put the car back in drive and drove up to our house, parking behind a police cruiser. “The police, as well as your father, think that Whitney is with Jay.”

“But she has a new boyfriend here!”

“We found all her books on the floor of her room this morning and half her clothes gone along with some cash of your dad’s.”

“But-”

“Right now we think that she hitched a ride to St. Louis and that she’s with Jay. The Sheriff’s office is trying to contact the boy’s parents now.”

Whitney? Run away? Anyone who knew my sister knew she was prone to dramatics and empty threats. Plus, she was dating Chris Whitiger’s older brother Pete. I was sure of it.

We walked up the steps and into a house of stale coffee and quiet murmurs. I tried to remember if Whitney herself had ever actually confirmed she was dating Pete but I drew a blank. When we walked into the kitchen, I saw my father sitting at the table staring at phone records, head in hand. He looked up when I came into the room and gave me a weak smile.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Dad, I have to tell you something.”

I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and turned to look up at a solemn Sheriff Clery.

“Everything and anything you might know, son. No matter how trivial you think it is.”

I nodded and sat down at the table with my dad as my mom handed the big man a cup of coffee.

“Here you go, Sheriff,” she said, weakly.

“Please, Mrs. Walker, call me Killian.”

My mother nodded and retreated back into a darkened corner to talk quietly with Sheriff Clery’s wife, Grace.

“What do you know, Sam?” My dad asked as he rested his chin on his interlaced hands.

“Well, just, I heard Whitney had a boyfriend, that guy Pete Whitiger that she’s been hanging out with, and I saw them and Taylor Dranger leave this morning before me.”

“What time did they leave?” Asked the Sheriff.

“I don’t know…like before seven.”

He nodded. “That matches the statements of Taylor Dranger and the Whitiger boy.” My father’s head sunk lower into his hands and I knew I’d let him down.

“But,” I rushed, “I don’t think she went back to St. Louis because she was dating Pete and I don’t think she wanted to be with her boyfriend back home anymore.”

“I understand that, Sam, but a teenage girl’s mind is a complicated thing. My officers are trying to get ahold of the boyfriend’s family back in St. Louis.” Clery nodded to my father. “Now why don’t you head up to your room and let us work, Samuel.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “What? No I wanna stay down here and help.”

“No, son, there’s nothing more you can do here. You’ve been a good brother, now let us handle this.”

“But I can help!”

“You already have.”

“Dad!” I looked over at my dad with begging eyes.

“Go to your room, Sam.” He said quietly after a moment. I balked.

“Dad…”

“Now.”

I was so angry. I turned away from them in a rage and stomped upstairs, slammed the door behind me when I got to my room. I sat down on my bed in disbelief. The tears came then and I laid down feeling helpless, worthless and scared for my sister.

I thought about all the places Whitney could be. Was she scared? Was she alone? Was she…dead? When the sun began to set, I finally got out of bed and went to check my email. I was expecting lots of messages from Kimber and Kyle but there was only one.

Did Whitney go to the treehouse?

I sat staring at the computer screen for a long minute, Kimber’s words from last fall tumbling around in my brain.

”If you enter the treehouse without the proper ceremony you’ll disappear and then you’ll die.”

I didn’t buy that Whitney had gone to Circle K that morning and I especially didn’t believe that she’d hitchhiked out of town. Nothing they were saying downstairs made any sense if you knew my sister – but maybe this did. Maybe she and her boyfriend went to the treehouse to make out or something and maybe he’d left her there. Maybe she’d gotten lost or maybe the Skinned Men had found her. That was the worst thought of all.

I didn’t need to sneak out because the police were too busy with my parents to care about me anyway. I snuck my bike out of the garage and rode the three miles to the West Rim Prescott Ore Trail. When I got there I was surprised and relieved to see two bikes already locked to the signpost and my two best friends sitting in the snow next to them.

“I knew you’d come,” Kyle said when I pulled up to them and Kimber jumped up to hug me.

“I’m so sorry, Sam.”

There was really nothing for me to say and they didn’t push. Kimber took my arm and we started up the trail. The silence between us was stretched, but comfortable. We trudged through the snow and all the while I searched for the telltale shoeprints of Whitney’s wretched Ugg boots but the snow was coming too fast to see. The hike up the mountain was harder and wetter than when we’d come in the fall and when Ambercot Fort finally came into view over the ridge it was a welcome sight. The sun was getting low and we hadn’t brought flashlights.

I stumbled as I ran up to the tree, calling my sister’s name in the quiet wild. Kyle was right behind me and leapt impressively onto the rope ladder, climbing quickly up the planks. I kept calling Whitney’s name, waiting for Kyle to yell that he’d found her or some sign of her.

And then Kimber quietly said my name from where she stood at the Triple Tree. I ran over and followed her finger to what I already knew was there. I found it, freshly carved near the top.

Whitney W.

My breath froze in my chest and my vision blurred with unwelcome tears. And as the sun took its last desperate breath before plunging into the deep of the horizon, a deafening metallic whirl rang out from the wilderness and spilled down the mountainside.