The Search Party

him and Sadie ended up having an argument, and ruining the whole night for everyone else. Sadie accused him of being, like, overbearing or something. Is that the word? Of being like her dad, basically, is what she said. Like, always wanting to know what she was doing, what she was thinking. And Mason said it was only because he loved her, and Sadie said, Well, sometimes it’s just too much. And Mason said, If you feel that way, then why didn’t you tell me? And Sadie said she was telling him, right now, and Mason said, Fine, if that’s the way you feel, I’ll leave you the fuck alone. And he stormed off, and Cora went after him, and I ended up going after Cora, because she had all my stuff in her bag, but not before Sadie started crying. And then, right away after, she was all laughing and that, but in a sad way, going, I guess it’s true what people say, that girls always end up marrying their fathers. Not that she meant actually getting married. I mean, God, can you imagine? Although Mason used to talk about it, too, and he always made out like he was joking, but you just knew, watching him, that actually he wasn’t joking at all. Which I guess is partly what Sadie meant about Mason being like her dad. About wanting to keep her for himself.

So yeah. Arsehole. That’s all I’m trying to say.

And obviously I didn’t want to go inside the cave. Because I wasn’t lying when I’d said I thought someone was following us. Obviously I wasn’t lying. Plus, the cave itself . . . I mean, I’m not totally stupid. I knew what Mason was suggesting. The reason he insisted we look inside. He thought Sadie might have been in there. Somehow. And to be honest, I did, too.

“What’s that smell?” said Fash, as he followed Mason in. The rest of us were hanging back on the edge of the stream. Cora because she was just as scared to go in there as I was, I guarantee you, and Luke because he was acting sort of protective. The way he does sometimes. Because he knew I was worried about what was out there in the woods, and he didn’t want to leave me on my own.

“It’s just cave smell,” I heard Mason saying. His voice had gone all echoey. “Why? What did you think it was?”

Either Fash didn’t answer or I didn’t hear.

“Whoa,” said Mason, after a minute. The rest of us were peering into the opening, trying to see what they could, but all I could make out was their torch beams. And then one of them swung straight toward us, making all three of us wince. “It’s big in here,” said Mason. “Seriously, what’s everybody waiting for? Come on in.”

“Shine that torch somewhere else and we might actually be able to see where we’re stepping,” said Luke, with a hand up over his eyes.

Mason’s torch beam swung back toward the dark.

“Have you . . . Is there anything in there?” I called out. I was asking Fash, but surprise, surprise, Mason was the one to answer.

“Not really. There’s some kind of altar. A satanic thing, I think. And a statue of what looks like a goat, or a demon or something. And . . . is that a pentagram, Fash?”

“Ignore him,” came Fash’s voice, sounding about as fed up with Mason’s bullshit as I was feeling. “There’s nothing to worry about. Come in and get yourselves dry.”

I looked at Luke, who nodded. Cora had already started forward, and after hesitating for a moment, I followed her inside. I was fully expecting Mason to jump out and grab me, but instead he was just standing on his own in a corner, moving his torchlight around the cave. And it was hard to tell in the dark, but I’m pretty sure he was smiling.

I moved away from him and stood next to Cora. She was using one of the other torches to look around. We only had three. Torches, I mean. On account of the fact our phones had gone missing. There would probably have been a light on Sadie’s Nokia—the one we found, I mean—but I guess none of us thought to check. But maybe it’s a good job we didn’t, because otherwise it might have run out of battery, like the torches did later that night. And if it had . . . I don’t know. Maybe we’d all still be out there.

“You were right,” Cora said. “It is big in here. It must go six or seven meters into the bank.”

Actually, it was smaller than I’d imagined. But only because I was worrying it would turn out to be the entrance to an entire, like, network or something. With tunnels and, I don’t know, caverns and that. Like a whole other world. Like in stories. You know?

But it was basically room-sized, with three walls and a roof. There was space for us all to sit down, to lie down if we’d wanted, and the ceiling was high enough that none of us had to stoop. And yeah, it smelled a bit weird, but only of earth and stuff. Nothing . . . bad.

And the other good thing, I suppose, was that at least it was dry. Because obviously, after eight hours or whatever of traipsing about in the rain, we were all completely soaked through. Even my waterproof turned out not to be. What I wanted to do was change into something dry, but when I checked the clothes in my rucksack, they were just as wet as what I was wearing.

“Can we light a fire or something?” I said, trying to wring out my spare jumper.

The others had finished exploring—it didn’t take long—and they sat down and leaned against the walls, sighing like my dad does when he gets in from work and parks himself on the sofa.

Fash put the torch he’d been holding in the middle of the floor, directing the beam toward the ceiling, which