Trixie Belden stared at the wreck of her bicycle, dumbfounded. Who would have thought that veering off the trail, skidding through several feet of brush, and ultimately coming to an abrupt stop via a pine tree could do so much damage? Not her, that was for sure. And probably not the terrified rabbit which had darted across the path and set off the chain of events, either.

After dusting the damp dirt from the knees and seat of her jeans, Trixie attempted to right the bicycle, but the front wheel was so bent that it was useless. There was no way she could ride the bike, or even walk it home. She’d have to leave it where it was and come back for it—with someone who could fix it or who could find a way for her to bring it home.

Who that someone would be, however, remained a mystery. She certainly wasn’t asking any of the male Bob-Whites to help her. Not after they’d refused to let her and Honey go riding with them. Too much of a chance of bad weather, they’d said. Bad weather! It was perfectly sunny—

Trixie frowned. Well, it had been sunny… In the time it had taken her to recover from her tumble off the bicycle, a thick fog had rolled in. The bad weather the boys had warned her about, she realized. Shivering, she jammed her hands into the pocket of her hoodie and picked her way out of the brush and back to the path. Only it was hard to tell where the path was, exactly. She’d never seen fog so thick. Tendrils curled around her feet, giving her the oddest sensation that she was being herded. With a last look into the bush where her mangled bicycle lay, she attempted to commit the area to memory. After all, she’d have to lead someone back to this very spot if she wanted to recover her bike.

But all she could see was mist. And trees.  And… something red? A soda can! Trixie scrambled to pick it up, marvelling at her good luck. If she placed it at the side of the path, it ought to remain undisturbed and serve as a marker to find her bike again. The aluminum can was a little rusty, but there was enough colour still visible that— She frowned. It was a brand name soda, but the logo looked different than she remembered. Different, but still familiar. She snapped her fingers, recalling where she’d seen it. An old photo that Moms kept in a little box. It was of Moms and her sister when they were children, and Aunt Alicia had been drinking from a can with the same logo.

Trixie regarded the aluminum can with a mixture of wonder and revulsion. Was it really almost a quarter of a century old? The paint was bright enough that she would have guessed that it had been discarded only a few seasons ago.

Odd.

But it didn’t matter. She placed the can at the edge of the path, hoping that it wouldn’t blow away or be knocked out of sight by another rogue rabbit tearing across the path. As she left the bicycle behind and trudged down the path, the mist thickened until Trixie started to feel as if she were fighting her way through a cloud. A few minutes, or a few hours later, she sensed a dark patch in the fog off to the side of the path. A dark patch that wasn’t just another tree waiting to trip her.

She squinted, trying to trace the shape of the dark mass. The fog, however, was impossible to penetrate. Unless… Knowing that she was probably doing something incredibly stupid, Trixie took a step off the path. The mist parted, just for a second, and Trixie’s heart leapt in relief.

A house! The dark mass was a house! And not just any house. It wasn’t uncommon to come across an abandoned shack or two in her rambles in the preserve, but this was an honest-to-goodness house! Three stories tall, she judged, and old.

She frowned. What on earth was a house like that doing in the preserve? But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that if she could reach the house she could get her bearings and maybe call for someone to pick her up. It might be an old house, but it had looked well-maintained. Surely someone who could help her would be home!

The mist thickened again, hiding the house, but Trixie didn’t care. She had the direction of the house set in her mind, and hurried toward it, barely even noticing as she tripped over roots and brushed against trees. Reaching the clearing on which the house was situated, she caught a glimpse of the structure again. As she broke into a sprint to cover the final distance, she heard a familiar call and stopped short.

Bob, bob-white! Bob, bob-white!

She turned toward the sound, relief freezing her in place. “Jim?” she called. “Brian? Mart? Dan?”

“Stay there!” Jim called. “We’re coming!”

Trixie fidgeted, waiting impatiently for the boys to pick their way through the mist to her.

“Thank goodness,” Jim said, his face almost as white as the fog surrounding them when he drew near enough for Trixie to see him plainly. “Stay there, guys! I’ve got her,” he called back to the others.

For one long moment, Jim, astride Jupiter, looked down at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck. “I thought we’d never find you,” he said, his voice low. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been gone? And what were you thinking going out in this weather?” His voice rose along with his temper.

Trixie’s temper rose to meet his. “It wasn’t foggy when I left the house,” she argued. “And I would have been just fine if it hadn’t been for that rabbit.” Planting her hands on her hips, she glared at her rescuer. “And I’ll have you know that you didn’t need to come out looking for me. Look! I was just on my way to that house to call for someone to come get me.” She gestured to the mansion behind her.

“And what were you going to use to call home?” Jim demanded. “Two cups and a string?”

Trixie’s jaw dropped open as she swivelled to face the mansion. “No!” she exclaimed. “Look! I’m sure they would have driven me home or let me call for help!” She could just make out the outline of the house. A third floor window came into view, the curtain waving with the mist.

“Trixie,” Jim said carefully, his anger replaced with concern, “what are you looking at?”

The mist cleared, leaving the mansion perfectly visible for a few seconds. Only it wasn’t a mansion, Trixie realized. At least, not anymore. It was a crumbled ruin. The mist had been playing tricks on her eyes, she thought numbly. There was no way that she would have found any sort of help if she’d made it to the house. In fact…

“We’re at the old Martin house, aren’t we?” Trixie asked, her voice small as the mist crept back and obscured the ruin.

“Yes,” Jim said grimly. “On the edge of the marsh.”

Trixie’s knees wobbled as the import of his words sunk in. The edge of the marsh. If Jim hadn’t found her, she might have wandered into it. And in this fog, it was doubtful that she would have ever found her way out.

“Come on,” Jim said, and reached down to help her mount Jupiter. “Let’s get you home.” She settled into place behind him, and if she hung on to Jim a little more than was strictly necessary, neither of them mentioned it.

    

“Thanks for coming with me, Dan.” In bright sunshine, the preserve was an entirely different place, Trixie thought. A much better place.

“No problem,” Dan replied, grunting when Mr. Maypenny’s game carrier snagged on a branch. “Do you have any idea where to start looking?” he asked, carefully righting the wheeled contraption.

“Not a clue,” she said cheerfully. “I figure we’ll just look for the soda can.” Before Dan could express an opinion on the chances of their success locating the bicycle, Trixie broke into song to distract him from their abysmal odds. Her own spotty sense of direction combined with the fact that she’d wandered considerably farther from home in the fog than she’d realized made even her doubt that she’d ever see her bike again.

“I’ll sing you a song of the Catskills, oh!”

Dan joined in on his favourite part. “I’ll take the second, you take the first. Of all a man’s troubles—”

Trixie stared at the soda can on the side of the path. It was nothing short of a miracle that she’d spotted it, considering how it blended into its surroundings. If she didn’t remember it being red, she never would have been able to identify a colour through the rust. It looked every day of its probable age. In fact, she would have assumed that it wasn’t the soda can she was looking for if she couldn’t see her bike just off to the side of the path, still wrapped around the pine tree.

A soda can that aged twenty years in a day? A mansion that hadn’t been whole for almost three quarters of a century appearing in perfect condition?

“Of all a man’s troubles his own mind’s the worst,” Trixie muttered before helping Dan to load the bicycle onto the game carrier.