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her bike a few yards into the woods and propped it against a tree. Aidan did the same. Sarah got the flashlights out of the backpack and handed one to Aidan. They turned them on and shone the beams into the woods. There was no path—only trees, underbrush, and shadows. To Aidan the flashlights somehow seemed to make the woods seem even darker.
    “Okay,” said Sarah, setting off. Aidan, with a glance back, followed quickly. They trudged forward on a course roughly perpendicular to the road, sometimes veering to avoid thicker patches of brush and bramble. Sarah checked the GPS constantly, making small corrections. After about fifteen minutes she slowed, then stopped, then began moving in a slow circle, her eyes riveted to the screen. Then she stopped again.
    “It’s somewhere around here,” she said.
    They swept their flashlight beams in circles.
    “All I see is trees,” said Aidan.
    “It might not be this exact spot,” said Sarah. “Look around.”
    They separated, but not by much; Aidan had no intention of getting out of sight of his sister in these woods. They wandered among the dark trees, sweeping their light beams left and right. Ten minutes passed.
    “I think we should go,” said Aidan. “There’s nothing here but trees.”
    “There has to be something here,” said Sarah. “There has to.”
    “Maybe there was something once, and it’s gone now.”
    “I’m going to keep looking.” Sarah started off in a new direction.
    “Okay, you do that. I’m going to…” Aidan’s light beam fell on a looming shape ahead. “Sarah! Come here!”
    “What is it?” said Sarah, trotting through the brush toward Aidan.
    “I’m not sure,” said Aidan. “But it’s not a tree.”
    Sarah reached him and saw that he was aiming his flashlight beam at an outcropping of massive boulders, some ten feet high. She moved closer. There was a narrow space between the nearest two boulders. She shone her light into it and saw that the space closed up after only a few feet. She started walking to her left around the outcropping, playing her light on the boulders. Between the fourth and fifth one she came to a bigger opening, three feet high and perhaps a foot wide at most. She crouched down and shone her light inside. She saw a space large enough to crawl in; after a few feet it turned to the right.
    She took off her backpack and pushed it through the opening.
    “What are you doing?” Aidan asked nervously.
    “I’m going in.”
    “In there?”
    “Yep,” said Sarah, dropping to her hands and knees.
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Aidan.
    But Sarah was already squeezing her shoulders through the opening. In a moment she was completely inside. Aidan watched nervously as she crawled forward, disappearing as the crawlway turned right. He glanced around nervously at the dark woods. He did not like being alone out there.
    “Sarah?” he called into the opening. “What do you see?”
    There was no answer.
    “Sarah!” he repeated, frightened now. “Are you okay?”
    Another pause, and then Sarah’s voice, muffled, excited: “Aidan! Come here!”
    “Why?”
    “Just come here.”
    Reluctantly, Aidan dropped to his hands and knees and pushed through the opening, feeling the cold, rough stone through his jacket. Shining his flashlight ahead, he worked his way around the narrow right turn. The space became wider there and the path slanted downward, giving Aidan enough headroom to rise to a crouch. He could see a slightly larger area ahead, lit by the light from Sarah’s flashlight. He moved toward her, ducking to keep from hitting his head on the hard stone above him.
    “What?” he said.
    “Look!” Sarah said, moving aside so he could see where she was aiming her flashlight.
    Aidan looked.
    “Oh my god,” he said.
    Sarah’s light was shining on a door.
    It was made of dark-gray metal and it stood in a roughly rectangular space framed by massive boulders.
    It had two symbols drawn on it: a star,