Speaker 1: I was twenty two when I took the job at
Redfern Summer Camp. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious,
just something to fill the gap between graduation and whatever
came next. A few months in the woods, a little structure,
something to make my CV look less like it'd spent
the year drifting. The posting made its own wholesome in
a very curated way, nature focused, child led development, unplugged creativity,
a kinder place where kids built rafts out of driftwood
and came home with bug bites and self esteem. The
camp itself looked exactly like you'd expect when funding runs out,
but the philosophy stays ambitious. The cabins were built from
dark stained timber with gravel paths that turned to mud
after rain. The mess halls smeled faintly of pine cleaner
and old oat meal. Everything was a little crooked, but
still functional. We had about thirty campers the first week,
ages seven to eleven. Most of them came from the
Seine two or three towns near by. You could tell
by the way they already knew each other's names. There
was the usual chaos you expect from a group of
kids dumped into the woods together, but they lined up
when asked, and they listened when spoken to. Even the
youngest ones kept their voices hushed as if they were
in a library, so there was hope to keep some sanity.
After this job, the kids were separated into assigned cabins,
each a team to earn points through various camp activities,
with prizes and praise to be earned. Their first task
was to elect a head counselor for each cabin, one
who best represents their cabin. I got a signed to
cabin Redfern, one of the smaller ones, tugged near the
edge of the tree line. Eight campers, all on the
younger end of the age bracket. They greeted me politely
when I walked in, as if I were a substitute teacher.
On the first day of term, one of the girls
asked if I'd like to meet the head counselor. I
figured they meant one of the older kids had taken charge,
the natural leader type who organizes games and settles arguments.
I played along, Sure, I said, where are they? They
exchanged glances. A few of them smiled, He's already here.
One of the boys said, we elected him. Elected who
They moved toward the back corner of the cabin, where
a shoe box sat on a low crate, a flat
stone placed in front like an offering plate. I laughed
under my breath. O K, I said, what's his name?
They all looked back at me, and not in a
mischievous way, just serious, mister soft. One of them quickly
reached for the lid. Another stopped to gently placing a
hand over it. Slower, she said, he's resting. They gently
opened the lid together. Inside the shoe box lined with dirt,
leaves and a bit of bark, arranged with surprising care.
Pine cones had been pressed into the corners. A few
pebbles were arranged in a rough circle, like someone had
tried to build a fence. In the center of it
lay a pale and thick worm. It was large, but
not larger than any worm I'd expect to find under
a log. Its body was smooth and faintly translucent, kind
of soft pink you see when skin has emit the
sun in years. It moved slowly, pushing through the soil
with an unhurried rhythm that felt less like wriggling and
more like breathing. One of the girls leaned in close
and started humming under a breath, a low, tuneless sound
that made the others fall quiet. Another picked up a
pine branch from the window sill and began fanning gently
over the box. We elected him fair and square. The
boy from earlier said he got the most votes. I
waited for someone to laugh. No one did. There was
nothing playful about it. They weren't giggling like it was
a joke. No glances to see if I was impressed.
At lunch, I watched them slide carrot sticks and bits
of sandwich crusted into napkins. Instead of eating them one
by one. They took the scraps into their pockets for later.
A girl told me when she caught me looking, we
bring them back for mister soft. I mentioned it to
the director that afternoon, half amused, half concerned. He didn't
seem bothered. They're pretending, he said, pouring coffee from a
dented thermos. Probably saw something online or a movie reference.
Let it run its course. That night, after lights out,
I stepped back into the cabin to check for any
kids staying up. The shoe box was still in the corner,
but it wasn't where they left it. It had been
pushed a few inches closer to the center of the room,
and the lid wasn't open anymore. Over the next few days,
the kids in red Ferns stopped talking over each other.
They waited until the person before them had finished, even
if it meant uncomfortable pauses where everyone just sat in silence,
watching the speaker think. There were also no more arguments,
no games that involved chasing or shouting. They played quietly
if they played at all. Most of the time they
sat cross legged on the floor, reading or drawing, or
arranging things they collected in careful little lines. They also
started waking up at the same time early, with no
need to repeatedly jostle someone awake. All eight of them
would sit up at once, as if responding to the
same sound I couldn't hear. Other kids began drifting from
different cabins. At first, there was just one or two
stopping by to ask if they could borrow a marker
or play a card game. But by the third day
I'd walk in to find four or five unfamiliar faces
sitting on the floor near the shoe box. They didn't
touch it, They just leaned in and whispered. I caught
the same phrases more than once. Softest, peace, softest patience,
soft dis ours. They said it softly, like a rhyme.
They were afraid to forget. I asked one of the
boys where they'd heard it. He looked at me like
I'd missed the point. We just remember, he said. That afternoon,
while the kids were down by the lake for swimming hour,
I lifted the lid of the shoe box again. Missed
the soft lay where he'd been before, coiled loosely in
the soil. But he didn't look the same. It wasn't dramatic,
not enough to make me jump, Just more of him,
a slight thickness along the middle, a length that seemed
to fill the box more completely than it had on
the first day. By midweek, the atmosphere in the cabin
had started closing in on itself. The kids didn't invite
me in anymore. If I stepped inside during free time,
conversations would trail off, drawing would stop. Someone would move
subtly to stand between me and the shoe box. One afternoon,
when I asked him to head out early for archery,
a girl shook her head. We don't want you to
upset him, she said, glancing back at the corner. He's
helping us be good. I asked what she meant by that.
She didn't answer, just went back to folding a blanket
with slow, careful hands. Later that day, out by the trail,
one of the campers from another cabin screamed. I ran
over to find him crouched in the dirt, sobbing over
a worm. It had been crushed into the soil by
the heel of his shoe. He kept saying it was
an accident, that he didn't mean to. His hands shook
so badly I had to help him stand. The red
fern kids silently gathered around the spot, digging a small
hole with sticks and fingers. They placed the worm inside,
covered it gently, and then knelt around the mound softest peace.
One of them whispered, softest patience. Another replied, soft dis ours.
They said it again and again. I tried to interrupt,
to tell them to wash their hands before dinner, but
they didn't seem to hear me. I had lost the
little authority I had. Back at the staff cabin that evening,
I mentioned it to the other counselors. One of them laughed.
If it keeps them quiet, let the worm lead, he said,
reaching for another marshmallow. The joke got a few tired chuckles.
I could only dwell on how hard it was to
describe things without sounding pedantic. The next morning, the loudest
kid at camp stopped talking. His name was Jamie, ten
years old, non stop energy. He'd been in trouble every
day since check in, but now he sat perfectly still
during breakfast, hands folded in his lap. He didn't throw
food at the other kid's or cause any trouble. He
just smiled and followed the rules. His eyes didn't seem
to focus on anything at all. At the end of
the week, I started at seeing the same patterns in
other cabins. Kids sitting in silence during wreck time, waking
before the morning bell without being told, meals eaten and neat,
identical bites, softest peace, softest patience, soft disaurs. Some one
built a second place for him. I found it by
accident behind the camp stage, a hollow scooped out beneath
the planks, lined with moss and twigs. A shallow bowl
of damp soil rested in the center with bits of
apple peel and carrot arranged around the rim. There was
no worm inside, but the dirt was warm, and I
touched it. Later that day, I noticed the boy from
blue cabin, the one with the inhaler he kept on
a lanyard around his neck, wasn't wearing it any more.
I asked him where it was. I don't need it,
he said, calm as anything. He helps us breathe better.
I reported it to the nurse. She checked his bunk
and found the inhaler wrapped in leaves, tucked under his mattress.
The cook started locking the pantry after that, not because
of theft, at least not the usual kind. We weren't
missing sweets or soda or anything obvious. Instead, it was
things like dried mushrooms, tree bark from the foraging bin,
ground oats, and salt, anything dry enough to crumble. One afternoon,
she found four kids in the craft room using a
mortar and pestle from the pottery station. They filled it
with bark, shavings and something that looked like lichen. That evening,
one of my campers pulled me aside while the others
were brushing their teeth. He's helping us get ready, she said,
quietly for what. She thought about it for a second,
as though checking the answer again something I couldn't hear.
He says, the quiet will come soon. I didn't sleep
much that night. Some time after three, I heard movement
outside the cabin, a low rustling that didn't belong to
wind or animals. I stepped on to the porch in
the open field beyond the tree line, A dozen of
them stood in a loose circle. They were moving, dancing
slowly and deliberate, eyes closed, hands lifted as though feeling
for something in the air. Their feet shifted to the
grass in perfect silent rhythm. One of them turned toward
me as I stepped closer. It was Jamie. His smile
was wider than before, and then they all ran back
to their bunks. I went straight to the director's office
after breakfast, didn't wait for a staff meeting, just walked
across the gravel with that sick electric feeling in my
chest that comes when you know you've let something go
too far without saying anything. The door was already open.
He was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded,
staring down at a stack of paperwork. I knocked once,
then stepped inside. Do you have a minute. I think
a kid's game is going too far. He looked up
when I said his name, blinking slowly, like I pulled
him out of a dream. They're not pretending, he said,
that's what's beautiful about it. I hadn't told him what
I'd come to talk about yet. I backed out without replying.
The landline in the staff cabin gave me nothing but
a low, steady tone. My phone still showed signal, but
every call I tried dropped before the first ring. I
checked the van. The keys weren't on the hook where
they were supposed to be. By lunch, I couldn't find
two of the other counselors. The bunks were empty, the
phones still charging, and the windowsill. The ones who were
left didn't seem concerned. They're probably helping set up for tonight.
One of them said, eyes fixed on the mess all wall,
despite nothing being there. Campfire started just after sunset. We
usually did songs on Fridays, skits, s'malls if the cook
had the patience for it. This time, no one brought instruments,
and no one asked for marshmallows. The shoe box had
been placed on a stump near the fire pit. Kids
from every cabin lined up without being told. One by one,
they stepped forward and knelt in the dirt. Some closed
their eyes, others pressed their foreheads to the lid. No
one spoke above a whisper. I pushed through the back
of the crowd and reached for the stump. The lid
was already off. The soil inside had been disturbed, hollowed
out in the center, like something had pushed its way free.
Mister soft wasn't in it anymore, and when I looked down,
I saw a narrow, child sized opening at the base
of the stump, fresh wet earth crumbling inward, a tunnel
leading under the camp. I turned around, looking at the
lining crowd, tried to do a fast headcot, but they
moved around too much to confirm. But I had to assume,
and it was a strong assumption that some of the
kids had crawled in. Feeling like I was the only
sane person here, I felt like my responsibility to get
them out and shut this whole thing down. The tunnel
was narrower than expected. I had to crouch almost immediately,
one hand braced against the top as I followed the
slope down the air smelled wet. The kindness been turned
over too many times, packed and repacked until it holds
its shape. This was too big for the kids to
have done in an evening. I had to pretend it
had been here the whole time, opened up by the kids,
because the alternative was too overwhelming to think about. I
thought it would open up eventually, that there'd be some
kind of chamber where they'd build to nest, a hollowed
out room with a worm in the middle, surrounded by
candles or leaves, or whatever it was they thought they
were doing down here. It didn't. The tunnel split, then
split again, low crawl spaces branching off in different directions,
all of them shallow enough that I had to get
my hands and knees to follow. The soil had been
pressed smooth along the walls, as if someone had taken
the time to pat it down with their palms. I
picked one path at random. After a few feet, the
ground dipped slightly. A shallow depression had been carved into
the dirt, just enough to cradle something the size of
a fist. Inside it was a worm. It lay coiled
in on itself, pale against the dark soil, moving with
that slow, steady traction I'd come to recognize in the
box back of the cabin, and beside it a child.
He was lying on his back, eyes open, hands folded
neatly over his chest. I recognized him from Cabin Blue,
the one who always forgot his water bottle during hikes.
He didn't react when I said his name, didn't blink,
just kept breathing, slow and measured. I called further, another hollow,
Another worm, Another child beside it, this time a girl
from my cabin. Her braid had come loose and spread
out in the dirt behind her, like something rooted. A
worm rested across a collar bone, its body rising and
falling with each breath she took further. In a third,
the worm had been placed across the child's mouth. His
body curled gently along the curve of his lips. He
didn't move, didn't flinch. They weren't afraid of being down there.
They weren't afraid of anything. They were copying it. Each
child lay beside their own hollow, matching the worm's posture
as best they could, stillness, whether should have been fidgeting,
silence where there should have been whispers. Their chests rose
and fell in time with one another identical. I tried again,
said their names, louder this time nothing. Then one of
them turned their head toward me, just a slow, careful
motion that kept the rest of her body perfectly aligned.
Her eyes met mine. He's teaching us, she whispered, Oh,
to be soft. I reached for the boy closest to me.
It was Aaron. He cried the first night because he
missed this dog. He used to talk through every activity,
narrating what he was doing, even when no one asked.
Now he lay beside the hollow with his hands folded
neatly over his chest, watching the ceiling of packed dirt
above him. I took hold of his wrist and pulled
His arm came up easily, slack at the elbow, fingers
still curled in that same relaxed shape. When I tried
to sit him up, his body followed in pieces, head,
last spine loose, like he'd forgotten how to support himself.
Behind me, I heard movement. The other children were sitting
up now, One at a time. They lifted themselves from
the dirt and turned a look at me with faces
full of concern. He doesn't like it when we struggle.
One of them said, I turned back to Aaron. His
eyes hadn't left the ceiling. He's helped us. Another voice added.
No more fighting, said a third, No more shouting, no
more wanting things. The boy with the inhaler lay two
hollows down, chest rising and falling with the same slow
rhythm as the rest of them. The lanyard was gone,
so was the tightness they usually showed up around his
mouth when he laughed too hard. One of the younger
girls picked up the worm from a hollow and placed
it gently into her open palm. She pressed down until
the skin of the base of her thumb turned white,
until the soft body beneath her hand bulged at the edges.
Keen is loud, she said, smiling faintly. Soft is quiet.
They weren't worshiping it. They were practicing learning how to
lie still, how to let things happen without resistance, how
to stop asking, stop objecting, stop moving. I backed out
the way I came. No one tried to stop me.
The tunnel stayed quiet behind me, just the slow, shared
breathing fading as I crawled toward the light. By the
time I pulled myself out into the open air, my
hands were shaking hard enough that I couldn't tell if
it was from the dirt or something else. I went
straight to the cabin. The door was open. One of
the missing counselors was lying on the lower bunk, perfect posture,
hands folded neatly over his chest, eyes open. For a second,
I thought he was dead. Then I saw his throat move.
A worm rested in the hollow just above his collar bone.
Its body curved gently along the dip where his neck
met his chest. It rose and fell with each shallow
breath he took. I said his name. Nothing. I stepped
closer and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him once, then harder.
His head rocked with the motion, but his eyes didn't shift.
They stayed fixed on the ceiling, unblinking. When he spoke,
it was barely louder than a breath, soft his peace.
I let go. He wasn't sick or hurt. He was corrected. Outside.
I heard footsteps on the gravel. When I turned toward
the door, they were already there. A handful of kids
from different cabins stood just beyond the threshold. More gathered
behind him, moving slowly out of the trees. No one pushed,
no one tried to come inside. They were waiting. You
don't have to be scared, one of them said, it's
easier when you stop trying. A girl from red Ferns
stepped up beside the doorframe, her hands clasped in front
of her. She looked at me the way you look
at someone who's struggling with something simple. Do you want
to be good too? I rushed past them. No one
reached for me or tried to block the door. The
girl by the frame moved just enough to give me space,
the way you would if someone needed to leave the
room in a hurry and you didn't want to make
it worse. Outside, the clearing had filled. Campers from every
cabin stood in loose rows across the gravel and grass,
some still in pajamas, some barefoot, all of them facing
their cabin like they'd been waiting for something to finish.
They stood in silence, with their hands folded, watching me
the way the others had watched from the tunnels. Calm,
patient and unafraid. I walked down the steps. No one followed,
past the fire pit, past the empty benches, through the
line of trees that marked the edge of the main field.
My legs felt unsteady, like I was stepping through water.
But nothing reached out from the dark. No one called
my name, no one ran. When I reached the path
that led to the road, I turned back. Once they
were still in the clearing, every one of them waiting.
One of the younger boys lifted his hand and gave
a slow, careful wave, not good bye, just acknowledgment, And
from somewhere behind him, or maybe from all of them
at once, I heard it again, soft enough that I
almost missed it, soft as peace, softest patience, soft disaurs,