Arc 1: “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”

  Theme: Wonder, discovery, and the start of something big.

  In this arc, the lazy hum of summer is interrupted by a strange sight out back that sparks a chain of events no one expected. A redheaded girl named Josie Mae Dupree and her ragtag crew of friends set off into the Louisiana bayou on what starts as a simple curiosity. As they follow a trail of cryptic symbols, old maps, and forgotten local legends, they stumble upon a decades-old mystery tied to a man named Lester. With just their bikes, a beat-up raft, and their summer freedom, they begin an unforgettable adventure.

  Think: barefoot kids, sweltering heat, whispering trees, hidden tin boxes, and that feeling that something’s just waiting to be discovered.

  Chapter 1: The View From the Porch

  Scene 1: Something Out Past the Fence

  The screen door gave a soft creak-wheeeeak as it swung open behind her, but Josie Mae Dupree didn’t flinch. She was already planted in the splintered porch rocker like a stubborn patch of moss, her bare feet propped on the railing, red curls stuck to her cheeks in the heavy summer air. In one hand, she held a glass of sweet tea sweating down the sides. In the other—a flyswatter she hadn’t used all day, just liked to keep nearby in case the world got bold.

  It was the first official afternoon of summer, and the sun was playing tricks again, casting streaks of gold across the tall grass beyond the fence. The air shimmered just above the dirt, and the only real movement was the lazy flutter of a bedsheet on the line and the occasional wingbeat of a dragonfly passing by like it had somewhere to be.

  Nothing out of the ordinary, least not until something moved—really moved—just beyond the back fence.

  Josie narrowed her eyes, lowered her tea, and tilted forward on the edge of the rocker. It wasn’t no raccoon or possum. It weren’t her Papaw puttering around with his cane either. This was something different. Something tall and fast, like a shadow had slipped between the trees and then vanished before it could make a sound.

  She blinked. Once. Twice. The trees stood still as judgment.

  The cypress swayed just a little, and the wind—or what passed for it on a thick bayou day—stirred the Spanish moss, but it wasn’t enough to explain what she’d seen. No sir. That thing had moved. Quick, like it didn’t want to be seen.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, gave the porch post a good solid tap with her flyswatter.

  “Y’all better not be foolin’ around back there!” she hollered, her voice slicing through the heavy air.

  Nothing answered but the far-off croak of a bullfrog.

  Josie set her glass down with a clink and stood up, wiping her hands on her shorts. She reached behind the door and grabbed her grandpa’s old field binoculars—the ones he said could spot a heron blink from fifty yards. The leather strap was cracked, and the glass was smudged with years of gumbo grease and tobacco dust, but they still worked just fine.

  She peered through them and swept slowly past the clothesline, across the tall yellow grasses, and into the start of the woods beyond the barbed wire. Trees. Shadow. Trees again. Then—

  There. Right there.

  A shimmer. Not quite smoke, not quite light. A ripple in the air, like heat over pavement but colder somehow. It curled around the base of a leaning pine just past the property line and disappeared again.

  Josie lowered the binoculars, heart tapping a bit quicker in her chest now. She didn’t scare easy—wasn’t raised that way—but this wasn’t just summer heat and an overactive imagination. She knew the woods behind her house like the freckles on her arms, and something out there didn’t belong.

  She glanced down at her dog-eared notebook on the porch railing. The one she used for summer lists: frogs caught, crawfish races won, sandwiches snuck before supper. She flipped to a blank page and scrawled:

  Saw a shimmer out past the fence. Moving. Fast. Not wind. Not normal. Will investigate. Bring backup.

  Then she underlined “backup” twice.

  Josie didn’t know what exactly she’d seen out there—but she knew this: summer had just begun, and something was already calling her out past the safety of her yard and into the wild unknown.

  And whatever it was?

  It was waitin’ for her just beyond that fence.

  Scene 2: Two Boys and a Fishing Hole

  The road to the fishing hole was more roots than dirt, and Josie Mae Dupree hit every bump on her banana-seat bike like it owed her something. The tires kicked up dust and scattered frogs into the brush as she pedaled hard, hair flying out behind her like a copper flag. The air was thick with sun and swamp-sweat, and the cicadas were singing like they had something to prove.

  She skidded to a stop by the split log where the path bent toward the bayou and propped her bike against a tree already half-eaten by moss. Down by the water’s edge, two boys sat with bare feet dangling off the dock, poles in the water, and trouble in their smiles.

  Willie “Tadpole” Thompson looked like he’d been born in the swamp and just stayed there outta respect. Skinny as a fence post, dark as river mud, and quiet in the way that made grown folks lean in when he did talk. He was sitting back on his elbows, straw hat tilted low over his eyes, like he was dreamin' of nothin’ in particular.

  Next to him was Bo Carter—thirteen and built like a boxcar with too much engine. He had a can of Vienna sausages in one hand and a half-peeled banana in the other, chewing like he meant it. His tackle box lay open beside him, but judging by the dust on his hook, he hadn’t caught anything but sunburn.

  “Y’all ever see something shimmer?” Josie called as she tromped down the slope.

  “Like heat waves?” Tadpole asked without opening his eyes.

  “No,” Josie said, kicking off her sandals and planting herself between them. “Like... shimmer shimmer. Not hot. Not wind. Just strange.”

  Bo squinted, chewing slower. “You been drinkin’ that creek water again?”

  She gave him a look that could’ve curdled milk. “I’m serious. Back by the tree line behind my fence. Somethin’ moved, and then it didn’t.”

  “That’s usually how movin’ works,” Tadpole muttered, sitting up at last.

  Josie swatted his shoulder. “Not like that. It was fast. Tall. Too quick to be Papaw, too big to be a raccoon.”

  Bo wiped banana goo on his shorts and reached for a cracker. “Maybe it was Bigfoot. Or a government spy. I heard they got cameras now that fit in your watch.”

  Josie rolled her eyes. “Bo, you think every shadow’s the end of the world.”

  “I prefer to call it healthy suspicion,” he said, holding up a sausage like a philosopher's pipe.

  Tadpole sat up straighter and adjusted his hat. “You said shimmer? Like light bendin’?”

  “Yeah. But not heat. It was... weird. Like it didn’t want me to see it, but I did anyway.”

  The boys looked at each other, and something passed between them—not belief, not yet, but the itch of maybe.

  Tadpole reeled in his line, slowly, methodically, like a man preparing for a long walk. “You still got them old binoculars?”

  Josie nodded.

  He stood. “Then I reckon we oughta take a look before it gets dark. Whatever’s out there don’t sound like it wants to be found.”

  Bo groaned and looked longingly at his half-eaten snack pile. “Do we have to? I just sat down to my second lunch.”

  Josie grinned. “Bring it with you. Who knows—we might need bait.”

  Scene 3: The Map and the Memory

  Lila Rae Nguyen sat cross-legged on the side porch of her family’s house, a battered composition notebook in her lap and a half-chewed pencil behind her ear. The porch fan above her spun slow, pushing the humid air around more than it cooled anything, but the candle near her elbow—one of those thick-smelling citronella ones—kept most of the bugs from settling on her notes.

  She was charting frogs again. Not for science exactly, but because she liked knowing what time they started croaking and which ones sounded the angriest. Today’s entry had four distinct ribbits marked by pitch, direction, and “grumpiness level.” She was in the middle of ranking a fifth when a familiar voice called from the yard.

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  “Lila Rae! Get your brain ready—we got shimmerin’ trouble!”

  Lila Rae blinked and looked up as Josie Mae stomped through the gate with Bo and Tadpole in tow. Bo had a sausage stuck in his shirt pocket and was carrying the rest of his snack stash in a lopsided backpack. Tadpole followed quiet as ever, eyes scanning the shadows like he expected them to whisper something important.

  “What kind of shimmer?” Lila Rae asked, already closing her notebook.

  “The not-hot, not-light, not-normal kind,” Josie said, tossing herself onto the porch floor like a storm rolling in.

  Lila Rae raised an eyebrow. “That’s not very specific.”

  “I saw something,” Josie said, more serious now. “Out past the fence behind my house. Tall. Fast. Then it was gone, but the air—it rippled. Like the water does when a gator moves underneath it.”

  Bo sat down with a grunt and cracked open a root beer from his pack. “She’s got us all stirred up, so we came for the brains of the operation.”

  Lila Rae shot him a look. “You only say that when you want me to do your thinking for you.”

  He winked. “Guilty.”

  Josie leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You ever hear anything ‘bout shimmerin’ things out in the woods? Strange lights? Disappearances?”

  Lila Rae tapped the pencil against her chin. “Well... maybe. Papa used to say there were old trails through the backwoods. Moonshiner paths, mostly. He said some were cursed. Not ghost-cursed. Story-cursed.” She made air quotes as she said it.

  “Story-cursed?” Tadpole repeated, finally speaking.

  Lila Rae nodded. “Like if you find ‘em, something’s bound to happen. Doesn’t matter what—it just will.”

  “That sounds like made-up grown-up nonsense,” Bo said between sips.

  “So’s most of what you say,” Lila Rae fired back.

  Josie sat up straighter. “Your dad ever mention anything specific? Like a map? Or some place to stay away from?”

  Lila Rae’s eyes narrowed as she dug around in a milk crate beside the porch door. She pulled out a folded newspaper clipping, yellowed and soft at the edges. “I found this last summer. Thought it was about pirates. Turns out it’s about a guy who vanished near the bend where the cypress trees lean funny.”

  She passed it to Josie, who unfolded it gently. The headline read:

  “Local Man Missing After Following ‘Ghost Trail’ Into Bayou.”

  Dated June 1968.

  Tadpole leaned in. “That’s over ten years ago.”

  “Yeah,” Josie said slowly. “And I think he’s the same man in the photo I found in that old truck.”

  Bo dropped his root beer. “Wait—what truck?”

  Josie smirked. “I was gettin’ to that.”

  Lila Rae looked from Josie to the article, then out toward the edge of the woods. “If there’s a trail back there... we oughta find it. But we’ll need more than a good story to follow it.”

  Josie tapped the newspaper and nodded. “That’s why we start with this. And I say we go tomorrow.”

  Bo groaned. “Don’t we ever get one summer where we just play baseball and eat popsicles?”

  Josie grinned. “Not with me around, you don’t.”

  Scene 4: Cricket’s Dare

  The sun was sinking fast now, laying long copper shadows across Lila Rae’s porch floorboards. The air had cooled just enough to lift the stickiness from their necks, and for a moment the whole world seemed paused—like it was waitin’ on someone to make the next move.

  That someone arrived in the form of a bicycle skidding sideways into the front yard with all the grace of a runaway wagon wheel.

  Cricket Morales leapt off before it stopped rolling, one sandal flying into the grass as she bounded up the steps two at a time, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.

  “Y’all talkin’ secrets without me?” she declared, hands on her hips, sweat glistening on her forehead. “That’s illegal in this friend group.”

  Bo groaned. “We didn’t tell her, Josie. I swear.”

  “I followed the scent of trouble,” Cricket said with a grin. “And peanut butter crackers.”

  Tadpole chuckled softly, and Josie just shook her head. “We weren’t keepin’ secrets. We were discussin’—privately—whether or not to chase down somethin’ shimmerin’ out past my fence.”

  Cricket dropped her backpack with a thunk, kicked off her other sandal, and flopped onto the porch like a girl who hadn’t sat all week.

  “Ohhh, now we’re talkin’,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “So what is it? Ghost? UFO? Government weather balloon?”

  “None of the above,” Josie replied. “Just... weird. Like the air was alive. I saw it move. Twice.”

  “And there’s a trail,” Lila Rae added. “From that old story—guy who vanished in ’68. Josie found a photo in a truck. Same man, I think.”

  Cricket’s eyes lit up. “You found a photo in a truck? Why does everything exciting happen when I’m not around?”

  Bo mumbled, “We were gonna maybe go tomorrow—if the sky stays clear.”

  Cricket sat bolt upright. “Tomorrow? No no no. You don’t wait to chase shimmerin’ air ghosts in the woods. You go now. That’s rule number four of being alive.”

  Lila Rae arched a brow. “And what, pray tell, are rules one through three?”

  “Don’t step on frogs, always pack snacks, and never bet against your gut,” Cricket rattled off. “Now come on. I got a flashlight, a fresh roll of fruit chews, and no fear of snakes. Who’s comin’?”

  Josie grinned despite herself. It wasn’t that she’d been unsure—but now she was certain. If Cricket was in, it was real. That was her magic. Cricket didn’t just believe in mysteries. She dragged them into the daylight by the collar.

  Tadpole stood slowly and stretched. “Sun’s almost gone. Best we get movin’ before dark swallows the trail.”

  Bo moaned like he was being marched to the gallows. “Y’all are gonna get me eaten by a panther or a ghost or worse—mosquitoes.”

  Lila Rae rolled up her notebook, stuck it in her bag, and stood. “I marked the tree line on your dad’s old map, Josie. If we follow the dry creekbed behind your fence, we can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Cricket whooped and bolted down the steps barefoot, grabbing her flashlight and snapping it on with dramatic flair.

  “Well then,” she shouted, running backward across the yard, “last one to find the shimmer buys me a moon pie!”

  Josie looked at her crew—mud-caked, bug-bitten, sunbaked, and ready. Every one of ‘em.

  She grabbed her flashlight and hopped off the porch after Cricket.

  “Let’s go find what’s waitin’ out there.”

  Scene 5: Crossin’ the Fence

  The light was nearly gone by the time Josie Mae Dupree crept up to the sagging back fence behind her house, flashlight in hand, breath puffing just a little faster than normal. Not from the walk—just nerves, the kind that scratch at your ribs when you're doing something you ain’t supposed to, but it feels too important to stop.

  The others caught up one by one, bikes hidden under the bushes by the tool shed. Bo brought the last of his root beer, Tadpole carried a coil of rope just in case, and Lila Rae had her daddy’s old canvas satchel slung across her shoulder with the map, bug spray, a notebook, and probably three pencils sharpened to legal weaponry. Cricket bounced in place like a coiled spring, the beam of her flashlight jittering across the trees.

  “You sure this is the spot?” Bo asked, eyeing the fence like it was gonna bite him.

  Josie nodded. “Same fence I’ve been starin’ at every summer since I was six. That shimmer was right past that bend—by the leaning pine.”

  Cricket was already halfway up the fence before anyone else moved. She swung one leg over like she was mounting a horse and grinned. “Last chance to chicken out!”

  Bo muttered something about “sensible regrets,” but the rest followed. One by one, they scrambled over the weathered wood, landing in the tall grass on the other side. The world shifted the second their feet hit the ground. It was quieter here. Not silent—no, the woods were never truly still—but everything was hushed. The cicadas had faded. The tree frogs croaked low and slow like they knew something.

  Tadpole took the lead, his steps barely rustling the underbrush. Josie stayed close behind, flashlight down, beam just skimming the dirt trail barely visible through the scrub.

  “You think it’s still out here?” Lila Rae asked in a whisper.

  Josie glanced back. “I think it never left.”

  Bo stepped on a stick that cracked like thunder. He winced. “Sorry.”

  They moved like ghosts, their lights small and jittery in the growing dark. The deeper they went, the more the air changed—cooler somehow, and thick with the smell of wet bark and old mud. Spanish moss drooped from the trees like tired ghosts. Every so often, a firefly blinked once and vanished.

  Then they came to it.

  A break in the trees. The ground sloped downward into a shallow hollow, the brush thinner here. Up ahead, leaning just a little too far to one side, stood the pine Josie had marked from her porch. It was unmistakable—bark scarred near the bottom, like something had scraped it once long ago.

  And right there, just beyond it, shimmered the faintest twist in the air.

  It wasn’t bright. Wasn’t flashy. It was barely anything at all—like someone had dipped a spoon into water and stirred the world just a touch. A soft ripple, round the size of a door, wavering like heat but cooler somehow, like the shimmer of moonlight on rippling bayou water.

  Cricket stepped closer. “I see it.”

  “So do I,” whispered Lila Rae.

  Bo stood behind them, mouth open but no sound coming out.

  Josie took one step forward, heart thudding in her ears.

  Tadpole spoke low and firm. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Josie whispered back, though her hand twitched just a little.

  For a long moment, they stood still. Watching. Waiting. Listening to the sound of their own breathing and the chorus of distant frogs.

  Then the shimmer vanished—like a curtain dropped all at once.

  Gone.

  The woods were just woods again.

  Cricket let out a low whistle. “Well now… that don’t feel like nothin’ at all.”

  Josie stared at the empty air. “No,” she murmured. “That feels like the start of everything.”

  Scene 6: Something’s Still Out There

  The woods held still, like breath caught in a chest.

  Where the shimmer had just been, only the air remained—quiet, dense, and darkening by the minute. Fireflies blinked cautiously from the trees, as if unsure whether to return to their nightly business. Somewhere far off, a whippoorwill called once, then fell silent.

  Josie Mae took a slow step back from the leaning pine. The hair on her arms was standing up straight as matchsticks.

  Bo swallowed hard. “So, uh... we all saw that, right? I mean, I didn’t imagine the wavy door thing?”

  “You saw it,” Tadpole said. “So did I.”

  “It felt cold,” Lila Rae murmured, adjusting the strap on her satchel. “Like something moved through the air from the wrong direction.”

  Josie turned slowly in a circle, flashlight in hand, beam low and wide. The world looked the same as before—but now it felt… watched.

  Cricket broke the silence first. “Y’all feel that?”

  Everyone paused.

  “What?” Josie asked.

  Cricket’s voice was low, eyes scanning the tree line. “Like we’re bein’... followed.”

  Bo groaned, already backing toward the trail. “Don’t say stuff like that. Not out loud.”

  “No,” Tadpole said suddenly, holding up one hand. “She’s right.”

  And then they heard it.

  Not loud. Not far. Just the gentle crunch of leaves—once—off to the left, maybe thirty feet past the shimmer spot. Then a second step. Heavier. Slower.

  Crunch.

  Then nothing.

  The kids froze.

  Josie’s flashlight beam jerked toward the sound, catching nothing but branches and hanging moss. “Could be a deer,” she whispered. “Or a hog.”

  “Too heavy,” Tadpole said, voice still calm but firm. “That was two feet, not four.”

  Cricket clutched her flashlight like a club. “Y’all know I ain’t scared of much, but if we don’t move now, I might be.”

  Lila Rae pointed back toward the fence. “We’ve got the trail. Let’s go.”

  Nobody argued. Feet moved fast but careful, breaths tight, flashlights twitching back and forth like nervous eyes.

  Behind them, the woods gave one last whisper. A rustle. Maybe a breath. Maybe wind. Maybe something else entirely.

  They didn’t look back.

  By the time they reached the fence, the moon was up—half a pale coin caught in the branches. One by one, they scrambled over, boots scraping wood and hearts thudding loud enough to hear. Bo was the last over, and for a second he froze at the top, staring back into the woods.

  Josie looked up at him. “You see somethin’?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No... but it’s still there. I can feel it.”

  The group didn’t say much as they parted ways, bikes wheeling quietly into the night. Lila Rae gave Josie a long look before pedaling off. Cricket whistled as she rode, but it was more for comfort than celebration. Tadpole just nodded, solemn and knowing.

  Josie lingered on her back porch, flashlight off, eyes on the trees.

  That shimmer might’ve gone—but something was still out there.

  And she had the strange, sure feeling that it was waiting for them to come back.