Not that he'd ever,ever admit that maybe he'd just freaked out.

The heat dried his damp skin and brought on the sweat. It made him wonder how Gage could stand having his shirt clinging to his sore back. Because, man, those marks were all red and bumpy, and really had to hurt. He'd seen Gage after Old Man Turner had gone after him before, and it hadn't ever, ever been as bad as this. He wished Gage had let him put some salve on his back.

What if it got infected? What if he got blood poisoning, got all delirious or something when they were all the way to the Pagan Stone?

He'd have to send Fox for help, yeah, that's what he'd do-send Fox for help while he stayed with Gage and treated the wounds, got him to drink something so he didn't-what was it?-dehydrate.

Of course, all their butts would be in the sling when his dad had to come get them, but Gage would get better.

Maybe they'd put Gage's father in jail. Then what would happen? Would Gage have to go to an orphanage?

It was almost as scary to think about as the woman in the pond.

They stopped to rest, then sat in the shade to share one of Gage's stolen Marlboros. They always made Cal dizzy, but it was kind of nice to sit there in the trees with the water sliding over rocks behind them and a bunch of crazy birds calling out to each other.

"We could camp right here," Cal said half to himself.

"No way." Fox punched his shoulder. "We're turning ten at the Pagan Stone. No changing the plan. We'll be there in under an hour. Right, Gage?"

Gage stared up through the trees. "Yeah. We'd be moving faster if you guys hadn't brought so much shit with you."

"Didn't see you turn down a Little Debbie," Fox reminded him.

"Nobody turns down Little Debbies. Well..." He crushed out the cigarette, then planted a rock over the butt. "Saddle up, troops."

Nobody came here. Cal knew it wasn't true, knew when deer was in season these woods were hunted.

But itfelt like nobody came here. The two other times he'd been talked into hiking all the way to the Pagan Stone he'd felt exactly the same. And both those times they'd started out early in the morning instead of afternoon. They'd been back out before two.

Now, according to his Timex, it was nearly four. Despite the snack cake, his stomach wanted to rumble. He wanted to stop again, to dig into what his mother had packed in the stupid basket.

But Gage was pushing on, anxious to get to the Pagan Stone.

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 gotall 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.

Or the way the blood sizzled, smoked, then was sucked into that scarred earth.

Fox set the boom box on the rock, so they set up camp with Madonna and U2 and the Boss. Following Cal's advice, they built the fire, but didn't set it to light while they had the sun.

Sweaty and filthy, they sat on the ground and tore into the picnic basket with grubby hands and huge appetites. As the food, the familiar flavors filled his belly and soothed his system, Cal decided it had been worth hauling the basket for a couple of hours.

Replete, they stretched out on their backs, faces to the sky.

"Do you really think all those people died right here?" Gage wondered.

"There are books about it in the library," Cal told him. "About a fire of, like, 'unknown origin' breaking out and these people burned up."

"Kind of a weird place for them to be."

"We're here."

Gage only grunted at that.

"My mom said how the first white people to settle here were Puritans." Fox blew a huge pink bubble with the Bazooka he'd bought at the market. "A sort of radical Puritan or something. How they came over here looking for religious freedom, but really only meant it was free if it was, you know, their way. Mom says lots of people are like that about religion. I don't get it."

Gage thought he knew, or knew part. "A lot of people are mean, and even if they're not, a lot more people think they're better than you." He saw it all the time, in the way people looked at him.

"But do you think they were witches, and the people from the Hollow back then burned them at the stake or something?" Fox rolled over on his belly. "My mom says that being a witch is like a religion, too."

"Your mom's whacked."

Because it was Gage, and because it was said jokingly, Fox grinned. "We're all whacked."

"I say this calls for a beer." Gage pushed up. "We'll share one, let the others get colder." As Gage walked off to the stream, Cal and Fox exchanged looks.

"You ever had beer before?" Cal wanted to know.

"No. You?"

"Are you kidding? I can only have Coke on special occasions. What if we get drunk and pass out or something?"

"My dad drinks beer sometimes. He doesn't, I don't think."

They went quiet when Gage walked back with the dripping can. "Okay. This is to, you know, celebrate that we're going to stop being kids at midnight."