The sky was still overcast by the time they turned off the highway onto the dirt road that led to the campground. Her dad had insisted on driving his truck back, probably to make sure Penelope didn't run off again. Through the passenger-side window, Penelope watched clouds swirl in the sky overhead, wondering which way the weather would go. Summer weather could be unpredictable. Depending on the day progressed, the sun could either burn off the clouds, make them swell up into a storm, or settle somewhere in between. For the sake of the search, Penelope hoped the weather stayed somewhat mild.

Dust kicked up as they drove down the road. They soon reached the campground entrance and turned off into its long oval-shaped driveway. Penelope understood now why Henry and Lyla had to stay behind. It wasn't even noon and yet the campground was packed, busier than Penelope had ever seen it. Children were everywhere; swarming the playground and running between RVs and tents of every shape and size. Their parents looked on, introducing themselves to each other and chatting over their morning coffee. Penelope wondered how many of them were here for the impending Raven festival. Judging by the deep purple t-shirts emblazoned with various graphics of the Raven—including one particularly striking one that looked like it had been torn from a fifties sci-fi magazine cover—some of the campers definitely were.

Something about it made her feel sick. If only they knew...

Penelope tore her gaze away as the vehicles drove past. At the last turn of the driveway, Beth parked her SUV in front of their house, while her dad pulled his truck into the spot next to Cabin 1. As he put the truck into park, Penelope wondered where they might find Henry. He was usually outside, doing some kind of landscaping work...

Penelope spotted two people standing at the tree line.

There was Henry, as well as Lyla. Penelope had only really met Lyla once, at the game night Beth had hosted. Even at a distance, Penelope could recognize her thick braid of pure-black hair. She was pretty, slight, and deeply tan from always being outdoors. Henry, of course, was back in his signature overalls. They were busy at work, cutting down more foxglove. Despite the work Liam and Henry had done only a short time ago, it had already grown back with a vengeance. A whole long line of towering purple flowers had sprung up all along the edge of the yard, like a pretty but toxic fence.

The pair must've heard their vehicles because Lyla and Henry stopped and looked up from their work. As they spotted the familiar faces, the two of them exchanged a worried look, put their tools down, and began heading over.

"You're back early," Henry said just as Penelope and her dad climbed out of the truck. "Was the search not successful?"

Lyla came up behind him. As she took in their grim expressions, her brows pushed together into a frown over her heavy-lidded eyes. "Or was it?" she asked, her voice gentle. "Did they find something?"

"Yeah, no, it's... The search is still ongoing," her dad answered. "We came back early because—"

But Beth didn't let him finish. "Why didn't you tell me, Henry?" she demanded as soon as she got out of the SUV, slamming the door behind her. She charged forward, heading straight for her brother. "Why didn't you tell me it was happening again?"

"What?" Henry echoed, his expression blank. "What's happening again?" He looked across the group, trying to make sense of their sullen mood. His gaze met his nephew's who was lingering by the SUV. Whatever Henry saw in Liam's eyes, it made him frown. "What the hell happened out there?"

"Before we get into it, why don't we take this conversation inside?" Penelope's dad suggested. He was glancing back, over his shoulder.

Penelope turned to look, too.

A few of the guests had overheard Beth's shouting and stopped to watch.

"Good idea," Lyla agreed, taking Beth by the arm. "Why don't you come over to ours? I've got a fresh batch of cold brew that is just begging for a drink." She began to guide her wife toward their house. Beth went without resistance but kept her gaze fixed on her brother.

Henry didn't notice. He was too focussed on Liam as he followed them into the house.

"You didn't tell me you had an experience of your own," Henry growled, swilling the dregs of his regular coffee in a green milk glass mug. He didn't 'do' cold brew.

The others sat in silence around Beth's dining room table. In the centre of the table was Penelope's phone. She had just shown them the recording of her live stream where she had ventured out in the woods and disappeared... for the first time.

Penelope and Liam shared a sheepish glance before looking away, looking anywhere but the many other eyes that were fixed on them. Liam sipped innocently at the end of the silicone straw that was stuck in his mason jar of cold brew even though it was mostly melted ice now. Penelope's gaze went to study the dining room wall. The inside of Beth's house looked just as it did on the outside—a rustic, mid-century home. Stepping inside was a bit of a timewarp, really. It had original mid-century furniture, fixtures, and art. The only signs that they hadn't stepped back sixty years were the newer kitchen appliances and the large flatscreen TV in the living room.

"They didn't tell me either," Penelope's dad added, his tone almost hurt.

"It's not like we were hiding it," Penelope replied, moving her gaze to the picture window set along the back of the room to avoid his eyes. She couldn't see the rest of the campground from this angle, just the forest. The sun was coming out now, making the green leaves almost glow. The weather had decided on hot, then. "We literally posted it on the Internet."

"Forgive me, I'm not really a—" Henry began, leaning over her phone again, checking the screen, "—YourTube kind of guy."

"Neither am I," her dad said, narrowing his eyes at his daughter. He knew her excuse was weak. "And you usually show me if you find something like this."

He was right; she did usually show him. Even after she started working with Daevon, her dad was still the first person with whom she shared her latest and greatest evidence.

"Like I said, it was so small, I didn't know if it meant anything," Penelope said with a shrug. That was mostly true.

"Until today," her dad added, echoing her earlier words.

The others exchanged serious looks. Penelope had also told everyone exactly what she experienced when she went missing from the search party.

"You still should've told me," Henry said.

"I really thought you knew," Penelope said, finally sneaking a look at the older man. "I thought that's why you wanted to do an interview with me. I thought you knew what kind of work I did. "

"Sure, I did know you were one of those ghost hunters or whatever," Henry said, pulling off his hat and rubbing at the back of his neck, "after I heard Liam telling his mom about you—"

Across the table, Liam quietly went red, the shade spreading all the way across his cheeks until it reached his ears. Penelope pretended not to notice.

"—but I thought you were just doing a documentary or something," Henry continued.
"I didn't know you were actually trying to find the Raven... If I had, our conversation would've gone very differently."

"It's kind in the name," Liam replied, fiddling with his straw as his red slowly began to fade. "The hunt in ghost hunter implies that she goes looking for that stuff."

Henry's beard bristled as he scowled. "Alright, fine then, I should've done my homework. I'll admit that I was a little blinded by the idea of finally getting one over Gunnar, so I'm not completely innocent in this... but you still should've told me."

"And me," Beth added, staring her son down.

Liam's shoulders sank. "I know. I'm sorry. I just didn't want to dredge it all up again in case it didn't mean anything. And I didn't think... I didn't think it'd get this bad. When we started, I thought the best we might get was some blurry footage of the thing, like with the Sasquatch. I didn't t-think it'd start going after Penelope."

His uncle shook his head. "I could've warned you."

"I-I'm sorry," Lyla piped up, raising her hand like she was back in school. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I am so lost. I didn't grow up here, I don't know the, like, lore. I knew you guys had some kind of beef with Gunnar over the Raven, but you're telling me..." She gave a shuddering breath. "You all think that it's real?"

"It is real," Henry said, his voice firm.

Lyla's eyes went wide as she stared at Henry as if he had just turned into a stranger, before slowly turning to face her wife.

Now it was Beth's turn to look sheepish. She gave Lyla an apologetic smile, placing her hand over hers. "I know, hun, I know. I should've told you when you moved up here, but I really thought this whole thing was over and done."

"Do you believe it's real?" Lyla whispered.

"Let's discuss this later," Beth whispered back. "It's not really something we like to talk about in—"

Lyla didn't want to wait for later. "Do you believe the Raven is real?" she repeated.

Beth pressed her lips together. "It's complicated."

Lyla looked stunned like Beth had just confessed to believing the Earth was flat.

This had all gotten very awkward. Penelope now understood why they didn't like to talk about it, even with family.

"It's not really a giant bird-man like that stupid statue, is it?" Lyla asked, glancing around the table, looking a little woozy.

Penelope couldn't help but give a little laugh. Even after everything she had experienced today, picturing a creature that looked like the town statue stomping around the woods was more than a little ridiculous.

"Not at all," Henry explained, shaking his head and smirking. "It doesn't look much like a bird. More of, you know, a large shadow person."

By the look Lyla gave Henry, Penelope could guess that she did not know.

"A shadow person is a paranormal entity that appears as a humanoid shape made out of, well, shadow," Penelope explained.

"Right," Lyla echoed, like she understood, though her expression was still blank. "But if it's not a bird, then why do they call it the Raven?"

Henry shrugged. "The ravens seem to have some kind of reaction to it, plus it's dark and it flies around. People aren't always the most creative when it comes to naming things. You know, like calling the Sasquatch Bigfoot." He snorted.

Lyla put her head in her hands. "This is blowing my mind," she mumbled. She was starting to look a little green now, too. "I can't believe... Where did the thing even come from? Is it some kind of creature from native legend, or...?"

"Well, it's hard to say," Henry began, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He actually looked pleased to finally be able to talk about this at length, like it was what he'd been waiting all along. "The local indigineous people do have legends about ravens, but Liam's mom—Liam's dad Liam, not the kid—was from one of the local Gitxsan bands and he said—"

Penelope's dad stood up suddenly, the chair pushing back with a squeak across the old linoleum. He was shaking slightly.

"I'm sorry," her dad began, his voice shaking too. "I don't mean to cause offence, but... You're all missing the point. I don't care what it is, where it came from, the legends, the theories, whatever. That stuff doesn't matter. What matters is that this thing tried to hurt Penelope."

"But it does matter," Henry replied. "It's related. Whatever came to me that night is coming for Penelope, now, too. The more we understand, the better prepared we are to—"

"No. No. The only thing I'm worried about," her dad said, his voice sharpening, "is Penelope's safety. So I don't care what that thing is, but if it is coming for her, going after her, then... is she in danger?"

No one had an answer for that, not even Henry.

"If she's in danger," her dad said, "then I don't want to stay here another minute." He reached down and took Penelope by the wrist, pulling her up from her seat.

"Dad, no!" Penelope cried. She struggled against his grip, but her dad held tight as he pulled her towards the door.

"She's not in danger!" Henry called after him.

Her dad paused, then turned slowly, narrowing his eyes at Henry. "Oh, really? She's not?" he said, then gave a sharp, hollow laugh. "Something almost led her off a cliff. Is that not dangerous?"

"I don't think that was meant to happen!" Penelope interrupted, twisting her wrist out of her father's grip. "I don't think I was meant to be at the cliff edge." The memory of the distant neon tape on the other side of the river flashed through her mind. "I think we, like, lost connection or something, and I ended up in the wrong place. I-I think that was an accident."

Her dad just shook his head and scoffed, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"She's not wrong," Henry added, standing up from his own chair. "When I encountered it in the woods that night, it never hurt me. It never tried to even touch me."

"Well, good for you," her dad challenged, his face going blotchy and red. He was really getting angry. "What about Daevon? And that other guy and his crew? What happened to them? They went into those woods looking for it, and now they're missing. What about them?"

"Maybe they just got lost," Beth added, her voice going soft in an attempt to calm everyone. "Isn't that what Martha said? That they just got lost?"

"Or maybe they're faking it," Liam muttered.

Penelope shot him a glare. Not this again.

"Maybe they are faking," her dad said. "Or maybe they're lost. Or maybe whatever took Penelope took them, too. No one knows anything! But what I know is that maybe isn't good enough for me, or Penelope." He turned to his daughter. "I'm going to pack our things. Say your goodbyes."

"No, Dad!" Penelope cried. "WAIT!"

But he was already out the door.