Page 63 of The Unknown

“It’s real,” I say, moving to the edge of the clearing.

“Just like in the screenplay,” Violet says.

Yes, that, too, but I had meant Daisy’s diary. The clearing is exactly how she described it. The trees ringing it form a circle so perfect that it had to have been intentional. Someone created this place, likely a long time ago. Why it hasn’t grown over in the intervening decades is a mystery. Only moss covers the clearing—now a dull brown, not the blazing red Daisy described—surrounding the massive rock in its center.

I step into the clearing, awed and anxious. The circle seems to hum with an energy missing from the rest of the forest. I suspect it’s the moss. All that moist earth beneath it makes it feel like it’s just rained.

Or maybe it’s because of the rock, which is so large it emits a sort of gravitational pull. I move toward it, Violet right behind me. I’ve beenhiking before. I’ve seen boulders in the wild. Huge, shapeless monoliths. This isn’t like that. Waist-high and flat, its shape seems purposeful. Like it’s some kind of ancient ruin. Part of the earth but also seemingly placed here.

But the way it looks is not the strangest thing about the rock.

That would be the digital camcorder that sits atop it.

Although it’s unclear how long it’s been there, I assume it hasn’t been long. Save for a couple of scratches on its side, there’s nothing to suggest wind or rain damage. When I press the power button, it starts up immediately.

I turn the camcorder over and open the back. Inside is a battery exactly like the one I saw in Susie’s cottage, along with an SD card.

“Something might be saved on it,” I say.

“We shouldn’t watch,” Violet says, not elaborating if it’s because she doesn’t want to invade the camcorder owner’s privacy or is simply scared of what we might see.

“We have to. I think it belongs to Susie.”

Despite her protests, Violet joins me at the rock. We lean against it, huddled together, as I flip open the camcorder’s LCD screen.

Then, with a deep breath, I press play.

Fifteen

The screen is filled with an extreme close-up of Susie Hutchinson frowning into the camera.

“Coming!” she says, backing away to reveal the interior of her cottage. She’s dressed in a thin cotton nightgown with, judging from the way it clings to her body, nothing underneath.

The camcorder sits a few feet off the floor, most likely in a chair and hidden beneath what I assume is a blanket. A dark blur surrounds the frame, obscuring a third of it. The camera has been angled toward the bed and a sliver of nightstand, on which sits a lit hurricane lamp. Other lamps and candles have been lit as well, sitting just out of frame, only their flickering glow visible on the walls.

Off-screen, Susie says, “Hey, you.”

All of us watch the scene unfold from the parlor of the main house, where we sit clustered around the camcorder on the table. For Ronan, Heather, and Julianne, it’s their first time seeing it. Only Violet and I know what’s coming next—Ronan, also off-screen, his voice emanating from Susie’s doorway. The reverse angle of what I witnessed last night.

“You needed to talk to me about something?”

“I do,” Susie says. “Come on in.”

She reappears, now trailed by Ronan. I look from the recorded version of him to the live one seated beside me.

“Did you know she was recording this?”

Ronan goes pale. “No.”

On-screen, he stands motionless as Susie perches on the edge of the bed.

“So what’s this all about, Susie?”

“I’ve been going over the script,” she says, reaching for her vape. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have some notes.”

What follows is a combination of what I assumed last night—that Susie was trying to get my part through seduction—and what Ronan described about becoming uncomfortable, ending the conversation, and leaving.

At the point in the video when Susie spreads out on the bed and invites him to join her, the live version of Ronan gulps and says, “Why was she secretly recording this?”