by Dan Poblocki
The rowboat jolted beneath him, somehow yanked several feet backward into the lake. Reed toppled off its side, falling facedown into the shallow water.
Claire paused in her meditation. Her breath hitched. She wanted to turn to the others and scream: RUN. But her father squeezed her hand even more tightly, keeping her still.
Reed lifted up his face from the water. He glanced around in confusion. Then the rowboat was ripped from the shore, disappearing out onto the dark water, too far for the flashlights to reach anymore. “Lemuel, no,” Reed muttered, staggering up onto his hands and knees. “I’m not the one you want. I’m trying to assist you.”
“No, he’s not!” Dolly called out. “He’s been sabotaging you, Mr. Hush! Reed Winterson is your enemy!”
But then a different kind of light became visible several feet from Reed, out on the water. A man rose up from the depths and hovered just above the surface. His fur collar was soaked through with lake water, holding it like a sponge. It dripped down his coat, splashing delicately into the lake. The soft sound defied the rage that was painted across Hush’s face. His eyes filled with burning blue flame. “They’re lying,” Reed spat. “Lemuel, we’re a team!”
“We’re not lying,” said Lucas. Lemuel glanced at the group. “You heard him yourself. He couldn’t risk sending you away. He needs you, Mr. Hush. You do not need him!”
Reed swung the revolver toward the group. “You shut your mouths!” he shouted. In a flash, Lemuel was at the shore, his fingers grabbing at the mayor’s neck. Wide-eyed, Reed rushed away from the water and bolted toward the group.
For a moment, Claire feared that he meant to snatch one of them up, put them in a headlock, hold them hostage. But his eyes were focused beyond them, at the woods. He was merely trying to escape. Claire stuck out her throbbing foot, catching the mayor by the ankle. The man tumbled to the stony beach, the revolver flying out several yards in front of him.
Dolly did not hesitate. She scooped up the gun, then threw it out into the shallows, where it disappeared with a plop.
“Move!” said Miles, leading the group back toward the line of trees, leaving the mayor lying facedown on the shore. Claire looked over her shoulder to see Reed rise up onto his hands and knees. He groaned, then glanced at them with an anger that rivaled the look on Lemuel’s face moments earlier. Lemuel was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Reed was on his feet again. “Get back here!” he called to them. He turned toward the spot where Dolly had thrown the gun and then splashed toward it, dunking his hand under the surface as he scrambled to find it.
“Into the woods,” said Irene. “Hurry.”
“Wait!” Lucas whispered, planting his feet. “Look!”
A thick arm made of glowing blue light zipped up from the water just behind where Reed was crouched. Its ghostly hand clasped the bottom of the mayor’s jacket and then ripped the man backward into the shallows. Reed reached toward the shore, bleating a brief cry before Lemuel Hush dragged him away from the island, out toward the depths, water filling his throat and stopping his voice.
The surface was frenzied for only a brief time.
After a while, it went still again.
AT THE EDGE of the woods, the group waited and watched. No one said anything for a long time—not even to ask if the others were okay. The answer to that didn’t seem important at the moment.
Eventually, Claire spoke up. “We can’t leave things like this.”
Lucas examined her face. There was something about her eyes that looked hopeful and sad at the same time. “What do you mean?”
Claire looked to her father. “We should do what Dolly said earlier.”
“What was it I said?”
“Your mother wanted to rid the town of the graveyard watch.”
Dolly nodded with confusion. “She’d petitioned the mayor to dig up Mr. Hush’s grave. Move his bones somewhere else. But in order to do that, we’d have to—”
“We’d have to reach the bottom of the lake,” Lucas finished. His mind was whirling. He stared at his grandmother. She seemed suddenly goddess-like to him. More magical than he’d ever imagined. “You can do it, Gramma, can’t you?” He glanced at Claire and knew that this was exactly what she’d been thinking.
“I can ask them to help us. The spirits who drowned here.” Irene nodded at the dark water, where the mayor had gone under. She turned to the group. “But I’m going to need your assistance too. All of you. In several ways.”
“Anything you need, Mrs. Kent,” Claire answered. She tugged her father’s hand and looked up at him with a sad smile. “Right, Dad?”
Miles simply nodded.
A few minutes later, with flashlights positioned toward the waterline, the group stood back and observed as Irene once more raised her hands. Her whispering rose up like the wind, like waves, like distant thunder approaching quickly. Lucas thought of his parents. Of their work. And he wondered how much someone like his gramma, or even someone like him, could make a difference along the coast.
Claire and Miles whispered to each other about the orb, using it to keep Mr. Hush at a distance.
The water began to churn, then to spin. It was just like it had been earlier that afternoon, when Gramma had rescued Tanner Worley. The surface dipped as the whirlpool widened. The spirits were listening to Gramma, helping her hold it wide. The mouth of the opening glowed blue, tendrils of color spiking around the hole, then retreating, then spiking again in a mesmerizing display. The portal moved, stopping a short distance from shore. Its watery walls dropped to the lake floor, so that if someone were to stand inside it, their feet would be pressed into the lake muck. The opening grew wider as the portal floor descended the slope, the walls stretching downward, extending a passageway deep into the lake. The rushing sounded just like the waves from Lucas’s visions that day, when Lemuel had tried to scare him.
But now he didn’t find the sound scary.
Instead, it filled him with wonder.
Standing at the tunnel’s mouth, Lucas stared straight down into the depths of the reservoir. He imagined what he would find at the end of the watery passage, but there was no way to know until he made the journey down. “Is everybody ready?” he asked.
Irene took the lead. She continued whispering, talking to the spirits, asking them to part the water. Lucas and Dolly followed several feet back, directing the flashlights. Claire and Miles took the rear, still meditating on the protective light.
The tunnel felt like a cave—damp, dark, dangerous. It was strange to climb down this slope. Once upon a time, people had lived here. How long had it been since they had walked on this ground? Lucas glanced upward. The ceiling and walls of the tunnel looked like glass. Every few steps, there was another bluish flash along their surface that reminded him of where he was, of the magical thing that was happening, of what they were about to do.
Down and down they went. When the ground leveled off, there were patches of muck so thick, Lucas wasn’t sure they would be able to continue on. But each of them managed to pull their feet up and out, taking only a few steps before struggling again and again.
Soon, something appeared in the water beyond the walls of the tunnel, a great structure that flashed when Lucas and Dolly moved their lights across it. Lucas knew what it was. He’d seen it in his nightmare last night. The old Hush homestead. Its tower tilted slightly. The line of its roof drooped like a Slinky toy. But the double doors stood shut, just as he had seen them. And if the doors were there, that must mean the graveyard was—
He turned to find the passage slithering out before him. He remembered the sounds he’d heard. Tap. Tap. Tap. But down here, it was quiet now. Claire and Miles’s meditation must be working.
“I can’t believe this,” said Dolly. “I never imagined …” She shook away her amazement. “Which gravestone are we looking for?”
“It should be … this way.”
Now the group was following him. He trod across limp lake weed unt
il he reached one particularly large stone. He crouched and moved his hand across it, revealing the name engraved there.
Lemuel Hush.
And that was all. No epitaph. No dates. It was as simple as simple could be. As if the family had buried the man quickly and efficiently and then were done with him.
“How do we dig him up?” asked Dolly. “With our hands? That’ll take all night.”
Lucas shook his head. He peered to the left of the stone, where a pair of rusted spades were half buried in the mire. He grabbed them both, then handed one to Dolly. “You have somewhere else to be?”
She smirked. They looked to the others, who were doing their own kind of work. Then they plunged the spades into the thick lake bottom.
IT TOOK SOME time and lots of sweat, but Lucas and Dolly eventually dug down until they felt their spades clank against a solid surface.
The casket was made of wood. And the wood was thoroughly rotted. With a few hard whacks, they broke through the plank. Inside, soaking in the wet black depth of the grave, a skull stared up.
Dolly squealed and Lucas drew back. But only for a moment. Despite the nausea churning at the back of his throat, he knew there was still a lot of work to be done. He looked up and noticed Irene and Claire and Miles peering down at them. Each was soaking wet, covered with filth, their faces etched with shock and revulsion. Over their heads, another blue spike flashed, and Lucas took it as a sign to hurry up.
Dolly had already begun chipping away at the casket lid. He joined in. Soon, there was space enough to reach inside. But Lucas hesitated. What if bony fingers closed around his wrist? What if the rotting jaw chomped his fingers? Dolly didn’t wait for him. She grabbed Lemuel’s skull and yanked it from the coffin. She glanced at it briefly with disgust before tossing it up out of the dank hole. They worked together, removing bones, until the casket was empty, then they crawled out themselves.
Irene and Miles had already fashioned a type of satchel out of Miles’s windbreaker. Miles stood shivering in a button-down shirt. The bundle sat on the ground between them, bulging with Lemuel’s remains.
“Time to go?” Lucas asked his gramma. She nodded.
Together, the group dragged the bones across the muck, past the drowned mansion, toward the slope. Then they made their way up what had once been a hillside in the center of Hush Falls. And when they crawled out at the top, tumbling onto the stony beach, lying breathless, each of them stared up at the starry sky above them.
The portal collapsed with a crash so loud it made Lucas cringe and cover his head. Everyone sat up and looked out from the shore, where the water flickered and glimmered with light.
At first Lucas thought it was the rippling waves distorting a reflection of the stars, but then he realized it was the spirits, still lingering just below the surface.
“What now?” asked Claire.
“Are we safe?” asked Dolly.
“Look,” said Lucas. He sat back, astonished. They followed his gaze.
The bluish lights were rising up, breaking through the lake. They no longer looked like the people they had once been. Now they gleamed—stretching and breaking, the way clouds change shape while moving across a summer sky.
Dolly stood, running close to the water’s edge, holding up her hands as if to catch rain. “Mama!” she called out. “It’s me! It’s your Dolly!”
“Careful, Dolly,” said Claire.
But Dolly didn’t care. “Mama! You’re free!” A piece of the blue glimmer wafted toward her, almost touching Dolly’s wiggling fingertips. She broke into wild laughter as her mother faded into the night.
“If the spirits are no longer trapped in the lake,” Lucas said, glancing at the parcel filled with bones, “does that mean Lemuel is no longer here either? Did digging him up release his spirit too?”
“Listen,” Irene answered.
Lucas shook his head. “What am I supposed to hear?”
“What do you hear?”
He thought for a moment. “Nothing.”
Irene smiled. “Me neither. Lemuel Hush is no longer with us. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“And neither can the mayor,” said Claire. “Right, Dad?” She turned to where her father had been lying. But he was no longer there. She looked around. “Dad?” she called out. Her voice echoed across the lake. “Did any of you see where he went?” She grabbed one of the flashlights and swung it around, sending its white spot across the small beach.
Lucas’s stomach clenched. He glanced at his gramma. When he saw the look on her face, he understood. Staring at Claire, he felt a stinging in his nose. She continued to wave the flashlight, searching for her father.
Searching.
Searching.
Searching.
THEY MADE IT safely back to the other side of the lake. Claire had ridden with Irene this time. She’d sat in stunned silence the entire way, staring straight ahead, as if looking into a different dimension.
She hadn’t believed Lucas when he told her. He’d been caught up in the moment and hadn’t realized the truth until Miles had suddenly vanished. When Irene confirmed it, Claire had shut down.
The man they had discovered out on the island had been her father’s ghost.
They hadn’t reached him in time.
No one knew why Miles hadn’t looked like the others, all bluish and transparent. Maybe, Lucas thought, it was because Miles hadn’t known he’d been dead. Or maybe spirits appear differently to different people.
Though Lucas was more spirit-sensitive than ever before, he had no way of foreseeing what would happen in the next few hours: How Dolly’s grandparents and father would come racing out of the motel office when Irene’s truck pulled into the lot, how they’d scoop her up and hug her and then yell at her for running off, shout at all of them for taking their Dolly away. How quickly the police would arrive after Irene called them. The looks on their faces when Irene showed them what was inside the makeshift satchel. How many questions they would ask after Lucas told them his version of the story.
How Claire found it impossible to speak to them.
To him.
To anyone.
The next morning, the police scoured the island. They found Miles lying in the same spot that Claire had found him, next to an ash pit where he’d built himself a fire. After examining him, a doctor determined that the blow he’d received from the mayor’s baseball bat had caused a slow bleed inside his head, and that after he’d fallen asleep beside the blaze, he did not wake up again.
Dear Claire,
It’s been a while now. I hope you’re feeling better. I sure am. At least, I think I am.
Since you never wrote back a couple of months ago, I wanted to try again, to let you know that I’m still thinking about you.
I probably always will be.
Things are different here now. All those things that the mayor said he wanted to happen? Well—they’re happening. After the news broke about what he’d done to your father, to my mother, to who knows how many others, people started showing up in Hush Falls Holler. They want to see where it all happened. My grandparents’ motel has been packed every weekend, but Gram and Gramps have been nice enough to let me keep my room to myself. They turn away paying customers! Just for me! I guess they feel bad about what I went through with you guys.
I feel bad about it too.
I don’t care that the town is doing well now, or that there’s talk about people wanting to start moving back to this area, or that we might even get a new library. I don’t care about any of it. In fact, I asked my gram if we could leave. She said she’d think about it, but I bet she didn’t really mean it. Not now that business is booming.
Claire, I wanted to ask you a question. What is it like to feel haunted? I mean, you would know, right? You’re the ghost hunter’s daughter, after all. There are some days when I think I can sense my mother nearby. Does that mean she’s haunting me? Or does it mean that I’m just remembering her?
All I kno
w is that I miss her. More than anything.
I bet you’re feeling the same way about your parents. I’m sorry.
Do you know who else I miss? You and Lucas.
I was hoping that maybe one day I could come visit you in Archer’s Mills. And I could bring my ghosts with me and introduce them to your ghosts and we could all have a nice tea party or something.
You probably think I’m a weirdo. But I don’t care. You know who else people thought was weird? My namesake. Good ole Dolly Parton. And look what happened to her! She’s totally famous, just like I plan on being one day.
*winkety-wink*
I’m so glad I have someone to write to. It’s a lonely feeling putting words to paper and not having someone answer you. I used to do that all the time. Not so much anymore. Write me back, Claire, if you don’t mind. You might find that it helps you too.
Your friend,
Dolly Snedecker
ONE AFTERNOON NEAR the end of summer vacation, Lucas was lying on the couch reading a spooky book about some kids trapped in a haunted mansion, when he heard a knock at the door. His first instinct was to cringe, then shoot up to see who, or what, was there. But his gramma had been teaching him techniques that were allowing him to slow down, to notice his surroundings, to not let his brain jump to conclusions. So he took a deep breath. He stood, walked to the door, and without thinking whether or not it was one of his “visitors,” he turned the knob. Claire stood on the front porch. She was turned slightly, gazing off into the distance, toward the breezy horizon where green trees swayed and danced. Her bike was propped up near the bottom of the steps. After a moment, she looked at him and smiled.