The earth in the clearing had a scorched look about it, as if a fire had blown through the trees there and turned them all to ash. It was almost a perfect circle, ringed by oaks and locus and the bramble of wild berries. In its center was a single rock that jutted two feet out of the burned earth and flattened at the top like a small table.

Some said altar.

People, when they spoke of it at all, said the Pagan Stone was just a big rock that pushed out of the ground. Ground so colored because of minerals, or an underground stream, or maybe caves.

But others, who were usually more happy to talk about it, pointed to the original settlement of Hawkins Hollow and the night thirteen people met their doom, burned alive in that very clearing.

Witchcraft, some said, and others devil worship.

Another theory was that an inhospitable band of Indians had killed them, then burned the bodies.

But whatever the theory, the pale gray stone rose out of the soot-colored earth like a monument.

“We made it!” Fox dumped his pack and his bag to dash forward and do a dancing run around the rock. “Is this cool? Is this cool? Nobody knows where we are. And we’ve got all night to do anything we want.”

“Anything we want in the middle of the woods,” Cal added. Without a TV, or a refrigerator.

Fox threw back his head and let out a shout that echoed away. “See that? Nobody can hear us. We could be attacked by mutants or ninjas or space aliens, and nobody would hear us.”

That, Cal realized, didn’t make his stomach feel any steadier. “We need to get wood for a campfire.”

“The Boy Scout’s right,” Gage decided. “You guys find some wood. I’ll go put the beer and the Coke in the stream. Cool off the cans.”

In his tidy way, Cal organized the campsite first. Food in one area, clothes in another, tools in another still. With his Scout knife and compass in his pocket, he set off to gather twigs and small branches. The brambles nipped and scratched as he picked his way through them. With his arms loaded, he didn’t notice a few drops of his blood drip onto the ground at the edge of the circle.