Bell led the group towards the run-down farmhouse that sat, improbably, miles from anywhere.

“Run-down” was perhaps being kind: the sagging roof likely had leaks if not outright holes, several stretches of the eaves were warped, mold and moss were growing in large patches on the siding, and there was peeling on nearly every painted surface. All the windows were boarded up, though some of the planks had rotted away leaving gaps in the barriers. The surrounding fence was losing its battle to contain the tide of overgrown shrubs and weeds.

Bel had stumbled across the house several nights ago while the Night Walkers were having an informal orienteering run. She misread the crudely drawn map Sergiu had created and wandered a quarter mile off course. After figuring out her mistake, she righted herself with a bearing towards the next navigation point and found the abandoned structure directly in her path. She noted the location on the map, and came back during the day to get a better look at it.

Its potential was obvious, and she told Alina about it that evening. Alina told Sergiu, because of course she did, and he wanted to have a look.

“The upstairs is a dump,” she said as they crossed through the gap in the fence line, “but the main floor is in good shape. And there’s a cellar, with an entrance there.” She pointed to the large wooden doors in the ground as they crossed what used to be a manicured yard and was now just a thicket of weeds. “There’s even a well in the back, though I haven’t tried it out.”

“Fireplace, too,” Sergiu said, looking at the brick structure climbing the wall up past the roof.

“Yup. C’mon inside.”

The door protested loudly on failing hinges as Bel pushed it open. Alina and Sergiu went in first. Neena, Hassi, Eduari, and Patia followed. Bel came in last, closing the door behind her. They were all clumped in the entry, looking it over. Their ingress had kicked up a large dust cloud, and Patia had a brief sneezing fit. They could see the sunlight in the air where it shone through gaps in the makeshift shutters.

It was dim inside, but not dark. Not that either would stop a Night Walker.

Sergiu let out a low whistle. “Damn. This would make one hell of a clubhouse for us. A little inconvenient, but you can’t beat it for privacy.”

Alina added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much dust in one place.” She rubbed her foot on the floor, kicking up another small, gray cloud. “No one has been in here for a long, long time.” She pointed to Bel’s boot prints. “Until you came along, of course.” Alina grinned.

Bel smiled back and continued her sales pitch. “The ground floor has a couple of large rooms–the fireplace is in one of those–and a kitchen. Oh, and there’s access to the cellar in here, too.”

She led Sergui and Alina into one of the larger spaces. The others followed closely, murmuring excitedly.

“Looks like the leak is making its way down here in a couple of spots,” Sergiu said, pointing to discolorations in the ceiling. “There and there.”

“But it’s not too bad,” Alina added.

“No. Not too bad.” Sergiu paused. He pointed up with his index finger, and shook his hand slowly as a thought came to him. “I bet I know what this was. I think it’s an old mine office. We should be careful outside; the mine entrance may be nearby. Even if it’s boarded up properly, it’s still dangerous. Last thing we need is someone falling in one and fucking breaking something.”

From behind them came Eduari’s voice. “Was this from one of your dad’s mines, you think?” He was asking the question everyone was thinking.

“I dunno, Ed. I don’t think so? There were a lot of small mines around here a while back. Several of ‘em shut down when they stopped producing. The ones that lasted eventually got bought out, then shut down over the years.”

“You mean ‘taken over’, asshole,” Alina corrected.

Sergiu shot her an annoyed look. “Same difference.”

“But you don’t know,” Eduari replied.

“No, Ed, I don’t fucking know. Dad and I have an agreement. He doesn’t involve me in his business, and I don’t fucking ask about it.”

“So it could have been one he bought out,” Neena suggested.

Bel stayed silent, trying to will the others to do the same. This subject was a sore point with Sergiu, something she learned early on.

He turned to address the group. “Do you geniuses know why I hang out with you all? There’s a lot of reasons, but a big one is that none of us fucking talk about my dad’s fucking mine. Also, because he and his cronies are always talking shit about the people who work in them, and laughing about it like it’s a fucking joke, and I hate being around them. You all aren’t jokes to me, and I don’t want to ruin this thing we have by talking about my dad’s fucking mine!”

This speech was followed by an uncomfortable silence, which Alina broke by saying, “You’re going soft on us, Sergiu.”

“Fuck you, Alina.”

“Is that a promise?”

Everyone else snickered at this, most of the kids trying and failing to hold it in. Though they acted otherwise, Bel was pretty sure the two of them were a couple and just went to great lengths to hide it. It was a suspicion shared by every member of the Night Walkers.

“OK,” Sergiu said, sighing heavily and rolling his eyes, “If we are all done being children, can we please go upstairs and see how bad it is up there?”

Bel was eager to move on. She grinned and said, “Right this way!”

She led them to the decaying stairs, and carefully up to the second story. The musty smell of mold assaulted their noses as they reached the top.

Everyone agreed that the upstairs was, indeed, “a huge, fucking mess”.

“Gods,” Alina said, staring at the gaps in the roof. “I’ve seen colanders that hold more water.”

Sergui snorted. “Fuck. Of course it had to be too good to be true. That roof is not long for this world, and it just might take someone with it. Fuck! I really wanted this to work out.”

That was when Hassi finally spoke. “I think we can patch it.”

Neena practically laughed in response. “You think we can patch it? Why is that? Because of all your experience working on roofs?”

“Hey! My parents are carpenters!”

“And because ‘your parents are carpenters,’” Ed mocked, “You are suddenly a fucking roofing expert?”

Bel found this sort of childish bickering exhausting. As much fun as the Walkers could be, they could also be equally exasperating. She stomped her foot and yelled, “Enough! Unless there’s anyone here who does have roofing experience, can we at least listen to the one person who might actually know what they are talking about?”

To Bel’s surprise, Sergiu came to her defense. “Bel’s right. Unless one of you lot knows more about this than Hassi, just shut it and let him talk.”

No one spoke.

“Hassi? Go ahead.”

“Well,” Hassi said, glaring at Eduari, “to patch it properly we’d need plywood and some tar. But that’s not practical.”

“Right,” Alina said. “None of us are carrying hot tar and sheets of plywood half a day from Diamond Lake.”

“But we could do a temporary patch, with a water resistant tarp. We drape it over the apex so water doesn’t just run under it. I’ve seen my folks use them. Not in this exact way, but it should still work.”

“Great!” said Alina. “So where do we get a waterproof tarp? One big enough to cover that?”

Bel knew the answer to this. Her mom worked a lot of odd jobs, and a couple of years ago she spent a good part of the summer making tents. Tidwoad had gotten a large order from the garrison, and didn’t want to lose the sale due to a lack of supply. “We make it from a cloth sheet and linseed oil. You stretch the sheet out and make it as taught as you can. Nail it down around the edges to keep tension in it. Then paint it with linseed oil. I’ve seen my mom do it.”

“Right,” Hassi said. “The tension and the angle help keep the water from dripping through. It just rolls off. The linseed oil makes it more durable. It wouldn’t last forever, or keep the water out like a proper repair, but it’d be loads better than just letting the rain in.”

Alina and Sergiu looked at one another, considering this new opportunity. Finally, Alina nodded her head, and then Sergiu did too. “OK. This is good. This is really good. I think we have a place we can call our own, and a plan for fixing it up.

“Now. Let’s go take a look at that well.”

The well turned out to have drinkable water. It had an odd taste, but not a bad one, and it looked clean. Bel watched from the porch as several of the teens took turns lowering and raising the bucket. They had made some sort of impromptu game out of it, and Bel was trying to work out the rules when Sergiu came over and stood next to her.

“You did good, Bel.”

Bel looked at him warily. Sergiu had stopped being outright mean to her a few months ago, but he’d never even graduated to “indifferent”, much less “nice”. She wasn’t sure if he was being honest with her now, or setting her up for a backhand to the compliment.

“Look,” he said, taking on a serious tone. “I’ve been a real shit to you and I just want you to know that I’m sorry. It wasn’t right. I’ve not been fair. I’m still not happy that you came in so young, but that’s on me. Truce?”

He held out his hand for Bel to shake.

Bel was sure his change in tone was, in very large part, a result of her finding the abandoned house, and not some spontaneous change of heart. But, that was still something, and it was a trade Bel was willing to make. It was, in fact, one she was hoping for. So she gripped his hand in hers, and shook it firmly.

“Truce.”

The entrance to the cairn looked as though an enormous maw had opened in the side of the hill, ready to swallow Bel whole. In the light of the nearly-full moon, she could make out the stone pillars that framed it, an obvious sign that this was not some natural cave formation. It was a clear night, and as the wind kicked up she could hear the strange, unmusical tones that gave the Whispering Cairn its name.

She, Sergiu, and Alina stood a dozen paces back from the gaping hole. Behind them, in a loose semicircle, were the rest of the eleven teenagers that made up the Night Walkers.

Sergiu pulled his arm back and then snapped it forward, throwing a dimly glowing rock right through the center of the mouth. Bel watched the blurry streak get swallowed by the darkness, heard the rock hit the ground and skip, then skip again, and again, and again, each one fainter than the last. Alina had assured her that they “never throw it far” and if that was true then Sergiu wasn’t sticking to tradition.

Alina turned sharply to face him, clearly furious. “What. The fuck. Was that?”

Sergiu met her gaze, with an annoying, see-how-clever-I-am grin on his face. “A lucky throw, obviously.” He shrugged his shoulders, trying apparently for sheepish, but he just couldn’t let go of that stupid grin. Bel didn’t believe a word of it, but said nothing. There was nothing she possibly could say that wouldn’t make this worse.

Bel knew he was both lying and not. No one’s aim was that good all the time, so yes, there was no doubt that it was a lucky throw. But he had also been trying to pitch it as far as he could. So lucky throw or not, he was deliberately being a dick, and he had managed to strike gold.

Alina had him pegged, too. “A lucky throw. You’re such an asshole,” came her retort. She turned to Bel and said, softly, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes! She does! If she wants to be a Night Walker, she has to do it.”

“Shut up, Sergiu!” Alina snapped, turning her head to glare at him briefly before facing Bel again. “You don’t. This is bullshit. We never do it like this and he’s being an ass. We’ll redo the throw.”

From behind them, a girl’s voice called out, “No redos! You only get one throw.”

Alina didn’t even turn around. “You don’t get an opinion, Neena! Stay out of it!”

“She’s right, though,” Sergiu said, smirking. “One throw. If it goes in, it’s good. That’s the rule.”

“We don’t throw past the first junction, Sergiu, and you know it.”

“But it’s not a rule, ‘Lina.”

Bel knew he had her there, and she could see Alina knew it too, the way her eyes sank, the slight–very slight–drop in her shoulders.

“I can bring them around. Trust me,” Alina said quietly, her voice gentle and encouraging.

The spats between Alina and Sergiu were all but legendary among the members and initiates. For the two years that the Night Walkers were a thing, they had argued and fought as if it were the whole of their existence. It was a power struggle in miniature, each jockeying for higher status in the family they had created, neither able to permanently usurp the other. Word was, one of the Walkers’ members thought themselves clever, and made a joke one day about Alina and Sergiu “bickering like a married couple”. Neither was amused, and they issued a scathing correction. No one had made a joke like that since.

Bel knew how this argument would end: Alina would lose by winning. If she convinced the others to do another throw, she’d be spending much of the capital she’d built with them. They’d think her going soft. Of playing favorites. Even if they never said those things out loud, the damage would be done.

Bel liked Alina. She was kind, she was smart, she didn’t mind hanging out with someone three years her junior, and she was loyal to her friends, even covering for them when they were in a pinch. And, most importantly, it was Alina that invited Bel to join in the first place. She didn’t want to be the one that cost Alina her standing.

Bel didn’t know for sure why Sergiu had a problem with her–he was the only one in the circle that voted against her initiation–but she could make a guess: it was probably her age. No one had joined before they turned thirteen, and Bel was barely twelve. Sergiu didn’t like it, and as one of the two de facto leaders of the group he was obviously put out. The rules of the Night Walkers were clear on this point, though: it took only a majority to bring someone in, so no matter how Sergiu felt about it Bel was in–assuming she passed the Rite of the Stone, of course. This was clearly Sergiu’s response to being outvoted ten to one.

“I’ll do it,” she said, meeting her friend’s eyes.

“Bel, it’s…” Alina lowered her voice further, speaking softly so others couldn’t hear. “Look, there’s a reason why we don’t throw the stone that far. Sometimes there are animals living there. They think it’s a cave. The farther back you go…” Her voice trailed off. It was a rare admission that what they were doing wasn’t exactly safe–far from it, in fact. Bel understood all that, but she was still determined to see this through. And she was eager to turn it into a victory for Alina.

“I’ll do it,” she repeated.

“If you do it, he wins.”

“No. If I do it, he loses,” she said slyly, and paired it with a matching smile.

Alina thought about this, then smiled back. “Okay. Go show him what you’re made of.”

Bel turned to face Sergiu and said, loudly, clearly, and with conviction, “Give me the lantern.”

Sergiu’s expression was one of disappointment with hints of frustration. Bel knew he wanted her to chicken out. Forcing Alina to ask for concessions would have been a silver medal. Now he had nothing. Slowly, and somewhat reluctantly, he picked up the lantern at his feet and handed it over.

“OK,” he said tersely, “You know how this goes. You get one turn of the sand glass. Find the stone, bring it out.”

The Rite of the Stone was ingenious. Bel didn’t know how it worked, whether it was magic or alchemy or something else, but it worked: Sergiu’s rock glowed faintly in the dark, but in the light it was just a dumb rock. Only it was more than that, too, because it was a rock taken from inside the cairn, itself, so you couldn’t tell it from any of the others. To find the right rock once you were in, you had to extinguish the light. This is where the Night Walkers got their name.

Bel opened the shutter in the lamp and let the red light spill out ahead of her. This bit was Alina’s touch: red light, she explained, didn’t interfere with your night vision, and some animals, including a few predators, had trouble seeing it. It was a lot dimmer than a normal lantern light, of course, but nothing about this was supposed to be easy. Bel didn’t want to know how much the red glass had cost. That was probably Sergiu’s doing. When he and Alina weren’t too busy arguing, they made a formidable team.

Bel had to admit that Sergiu was actually pretty cool for a boy, despite whatever issue he had with her, personally. He was the son of one of the mine owners, which meant his parents were ridiculously rich and in a position of influence that the others could barely imagine, and he certainly had no business hanging out with a bunch of teenagers whose families had to scrape to get by. Some of their parents probably worked in his dad’s mine, but he didn’t hold his family’s status over anyone, or flaunt his money, or even put on airs. He just wanted to hang with others his age that were like-minded, maybe interested in a challenge, open to some fun with a twist of danger and the unknown. He was just another teenager to them, and a pretty decent one at that. Sure, he could be irritating and obnoxious, but that was true of a lot of people.

Bel crept into the cairn slowly at first, picking her way carefully across the rocks and boulders. Once properly inside, the walls and the floor smoothed out, revealing the long hall of worked stone. She could see initials–some carved, some done in ink–just inside the entrance. These didn’t belong to Night Walkers, of course; theirs would be much farther in. Any idiot could make it this far, and they would still be in the light.

As she moved, Bel pictured the stone’s flight in her mind, imagining its arc as it fell. She saw the junction at the edge of the lamplight, bathed in red. The stone, she figured, struck the ground just this side of it, and its momentum carried it down the hall beyond. She closed the shutter as a test, and let the darkness close in around her as she turned her head from side to side. Nothing. Onward.

She re-opened the shutter about half way and pressed on. She stopped at the junction, closed the light again, saw nothing (as expected), then re-opened the shutter. The names carved here–if you made it this far, you made sure your record was permanent–were mostly ones she recognized. Shahab. Rita. Sveigh. Petre. Neena. And of course Alina and Sergiu. Those brave few who spent the night in the cairn also did so here (Bel hoped to join that exclusive club some day, too).

A breeze kicked up, and sent more of the atonal music echoing through the hall. The echoes were louder in here, and some sounded faintly like voices. Bel ignored them. Most other kids thought the cairn was haunted, but real hauntings were rare. Those rumors were probably started, and encouraged, by the Night Walkers, themselves.

Most kids in Diamond Lake ran with a group of some sort because there just wasn’t that much to do unless you were an adult who drank and gambled. Most were just social circles, but gossiping children wasn’t Bel’s idea of fun. A few were little more than gangs of petty thugs, which was absolutely not her thing. But the Night Walkers? They were something different. They did stuff. Stuff that mattered. And best of all, they did most of it at night. A lot of kids were afraid to go out in the dark. The Walkers didn’t merely embrace the night: they lived it. Scavenger hunts, capture the flag, exploration, hunting, all done by moonlight. Sergiu and Alina taught them real skills that few people had, much less kids, and did it in a way that was exhilarating. But doing that stuff in the dark took nerve, and that’s what the Rite was all about. If you couldn’t make it through this, you’d never make it through the rest.

The junction was far behind her now, and instinct told her it was time to check again. She closed the light, and turned her head slowly from left to right, scanning the darkness. Just as she was ready to move on, she saw it: a faint glow on the ground straight ahead, maybe another 30 or 40 feet away.

She cracked the light open just enough to see the floor in front of her, but not so much that she would lose the stone. She had maybe two minutes left to get this done, so there was no time to waste. She crept forward until the glowing stone vanished at the edge of the light, closed the shutter, and inched along the final few feet in the darkness, feeling her way ahead. The glowing stone had returned and served as her guide. She stumbled on her last step, but managed to catch herself using the wall on her right. And then she was right on top of it. She bent over carefully–it was easy to lose your balance with no reference point, as she had just recently learned–and her hand closed around the stone.

From up ahead, she heard a low, canine growl. Alina’s voice echoed in her head: Sometimes there are animals living there. They think it’s a cave. Bel froze. Then the growl came again. A wolf? A coyote? A wild dog?

She forced down her panic. It was pitch black: she couldn’t see it, and it couldn’t see her. It probably caught your scent when you stepped inside. And then you startled it when you almost fell. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached into her pocket, dropped the stone into it, and pulled out a glass vial filled with cayenne, capsaicin powder and black pepper. It had cost her every copper she had, but it was her only contingency plan. She hoped she wouldn’t need it.

With the vial clutched in her right hand, she used the tips of her fingers to crack open the lamp’s shutter as she turned it around in her left. Dim, crimson light spilled out behind her, giving her the barest outline of the passage that would be her retreat. It was just enough to keep her footing as she slowly stepped backwards.

The growl came again, but softer this time. Less angry. It just wants you to leave. Keep backing away. Don’t. Run. Except she didn’t have time for this; she didn’t want to give Sergiu the satisfaction of seeing her fail (a part of her brain suggested that, perhaps, she didn’t have her priorities straight, but the rest of it was running on adrenaline and wasn’t listening).

The next growl was shorter, softer, less threatening, and with time running out she risked a faster step. This time there was no response.

Confident she was in the clear, she turned around and walked at a brisk pace, resisting the urge to break into a run. She slipped her hand back into her pocket, replacing the vial before she accidentally peppered herself, and pulled out the stone. You did it! You actually did it!

Bel exited the cairn with half a minute to spare. The group whooped and hollered as she casually walked up to a sullen Sergiu and dropped the glowing stone at his feet.

Alina was absolutely beaming, and laughed as she closed an arm around Bel and pulled her into a hug. “Welcome to the Night Walkers!”