Girl Across the Water
Page 9
cot, a night table, and an old wardrobe. I crossed the room
to open the wardrobe. There was nothing hanging from the
rail, but on the top shelf was a rolled-up piece of paper. I
grabbed it excitedly.
“Hey, look,” I said to Dad, unrolling it. It was a map!
Dad helped me hold it open. “Neat. It’s the lake and
surrounding area.”
I felt like I was ten years old again, playing Spies or
Smugglers. I eagerly scanned the map, looking for clues. It
was drawn with those wavy lines that show height, and
they made the area look confusing.
“Ordinance map,” Dad said. “But no trails or cabins
on it.”
It did show all the islands on the lake, though, which
our realtor’s map didn’t. Even though the map didn’t help
my purposes, I was still excited to find it. We walked over
to the window to look out, holding the map up at the same
time and comparing.
“It’s a good find,” he said. “Too bad there aren’t
hiking trails marked on it. But we can take it with us on our
next hike, and draw them on.”
92
The Girl Across the Water
We left the bedroom and headed for the other room.
The closed door made me think again of the ghost stories,
of the lady hiding in her bed when she heard voices from
on the landing. We’re at the door, we’re at the door…
My heart gave a tremble of anticipation as I pictured
pushing open the door to reveal a skeleton in the bed. I
opened it slowly — there was a bed, but no skeleton. But
then as I walked into the room, something black swooped
at me.
I gave a yell and dropped the map as the black thing
passed over my head. It moved in a strange, zigzag
motion, and I ran over to the window to get away from it.
“What is it?” I shouted. It was the size of a bird, but
moving so weirdly that all I could see was a strange blur.
“Dad!”
He started laughing. “Paul, it’s just a bat.”
I stopped. “Really?” I’d never seen a real, live bat.
It was going crazy now, swooping around the room,
and I ducked several times, flailing away from it as it tried
to dive-bomb me. Dad couldn’t stop laughing ― I guess I
was behaving like a little kid.
“It must have got trapped in here. It probably just
wants out. Paul, open the window.”
The bat had already flown out the door, however,
and was now swooping crazily around the landing. Finally,
it fluttered down the stairs, and Dad and I ran after it. “Try
to direct it to the back door!” he said. I did, waving the
rolled-up map, but this seemed to make it go even crazier.
93
The Girl Across the Water
Dad tried to open the living room window, but to no effect.
Finally, the bat made its way into the kitchen, and must
have smelled the outdoors, because it zipped straight out
the door.
“Whew!” Dad said. “Okay, we’d better shut that
upstairs window before we go.”
I ran up the stairs, shivering slightly as I returned
the bedroom. I’d had enough of this cabin, even though
there were only mice and bats inhabiting it.
What about the banging door? I wondered again.
When I came back down the stairs, I looked for paw prints
on the kitchen floor, but could see none.
Dad was no longer there; I guessed he’d already
gone outside. I followed him out, and couldn’t help noticing
that the back door didn’t swing shut by itself. I closed it
and looked around. Dad hadn’t waited for me, so I pushed
my way through the scratchy bushes to emerge at the front
of the cabin. Still no Dad. Where had he gone?
I stood by the canoe waiting for him. Maybe he was
just taking a leak or something. But when he didn’t appear
after a few minutes, I called out, “Dad?”
No answer. I headed to the cabin again. “Dad!” Still
no answer. I didn’t know which direction to even look in,
which made me begin to feel panicky. Where could he have
disappeared to?
“Dad!” I yelled. “Where are you?”
94
The Girl Across the Water
Genuine fear gripped me. We hadn’t found a single
trace of anyone living in the cabin, but what if someone
was living in the woods, and had just grabbed my Dad? I
pictured a large, gloved hand going over Dad’s mouth as he
was pulled back into the woods…
“Dad!” I shouted, running for the back of the cabin,
squeezing through the bushes, getting scratched all over as
I pressed my way to the back. I stood looking around for a
second, wondering which way to go.
From the trees to my side, a body bolted out, rugby-
tackling me to the ground before I could see what my
attacker looked like. I screamed and flailed around, trying
to loosen the arms and pry them off me. “Get away!” I
yelled. “Dad, help, Dad!”
The body loosened away from me and sat back,
laughing.
“Dad!” I bellowed in a combination of panic, relief,
and indignation. “Don’t scare me like that! What do you
think you were doing? I was worried about you!”
My voice had risen considerably, and Dad stopped
laughing. “I’m sorry Paul, I thought it would be funny. We
used to do that all the time when you were a kid.”
“Well it isn’t funny any more!” I yelled, a build-up of
pressure behind my eyes as if I might burst into tears.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Really.”
I sat there gasping, trying to act normal. For a
second, I was tempted to tell him all about The Girl. That
95
The Girl Across the Water
I’d seen her, that she was coming and going, that she’d
been on the island at night…
“Paul, is everything okay?” he asked as I sat there
panting.
“Uh,” I said, still trying to decide. “It’s this… girl. I’m
kinda… jumpy…. ‘cause…”
“A girl?” he asked. “Oh, Mandy, right?” He grinned.
“The girl in the grocery store. She’s got you all het up?
Gee, Paul, I didn’t think girls made you so nervous.” He
grinned and reached out to ruffle my hair.
“No… no, I mean… I saw this girl.”
“You saw her again?” He raised his eyebrows. “What,
is that why you’ve been sneaking off on canoe trips? You
had a date?” Dad grinned again. “A tryst in the woods?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean…” I was
about to say, ‘ I saw this girl on the island,’ but suddenly it
sounded stupid. Dad was still grinning and ready to make
jokes, so I got the feeling he wouldn’t take me seriously.
“It’s nothing,” I told him.
But I’d set him off on a theme, because as we
canoed back down the lake, I had to listen to endless
joshing about me, girls, Mandy, dating…
“Dad, enough, okay?” I snapped at one point.
“Okay!�
�� he answered in bemusement.
96
The Girl Across the Water
“Let’s go over to the left more,” I said, “I want to get
a better look at the shore.”
“Port, not left,” he corrected. “What are you looking
for, more girls?”
“Dad!” I snapped.
“Okay, okay.”
Without looking back, I could tell he was grinning.
Dad was always good for a laugh but I’d forgotten how
irritating it could get when he kept doing it even when he
knew I’d had enough. I could feel myself getting grumpier.
We steered the canoe toward the shore and I peered
closely, but this side seemed even more overgrown than
the other. As we passed between the shore and the island,
I whipped my head back and forth, looking at both. There
were no traces of anyone, and I couldn’t see where anyone
might stash a canoe or kayak.
“Do you mind if we keep going?” I asked. “All the
way down to the other end of the lake?”
“Well, I would love to, but I think we’d better get
back to Jasper. He’s all alone. Plus, it’s lunchtime. Maybe
we could do the other end of the lake… tomorrow
morning?”
He’d been about to say ‘this afternoon,’ I could tell,
but had figured Jasper would throw a hissy-fit if we went
off without him a second time.
“Okay,” I said begrudgingly. Maybe I could continue
to search the shore by myself after lunch. My stomach gave
97
The Girl Across the Water
a rumble ― going back to the cabin suddenly didn’t seem
such a bad idea.
The day had grown hotter, and I was sweaty and
itchy under my lifejacket. Or maybe I was just irritated with
not finding anything at the cabin, or from Dad’s stupid joke.
Not to mention the whole thing with The Girl.
We reached the cabin, pulled up the canoe, and
called out for Jasper.
98
The Girl Across the Water
Chapter 9
There was no answer, so I went into the cabin and
headed upstairs. Jasper was probably sulking on his bed.
To my surprise, however, he wasn’t in the bedroom.
“Hey Dad,” I called out.
“Yeah,” came the muffled reply from the other
bedroom. I poked my head around the door. Dad was
changing his sweaty T-shirt.
“Jasper’s not here.”
“Must be outside, then.”
I ran back down stairs. “Hey, Jasper!” I called from
the porch. Then I hopped down the steps. “Jasper?”
Dad came down the stairs.
“He’s not here,” I walked to the picnic table and
stood there, looking around.
99
The Girl Across the Water
“Well, he’s probably gone for a walk.”
We glanced at each other. Jasper? A walk?
I ran to the bottom of the hiking trail, cupped my
hands around my mouth, and yelled, “Jasper!” If this was
an exact duplicate of Dad’s prank on me, it wasn’t
impressing me.
Rather than going for a walk, Jasper was probably
sitting a few feet away, sulking behind a bush. It just
wouldn’t be like him to voluntarily do something that
involved exercise… especially at lunchtime.
“He wouldn’t have gone swimming, would he?” I
asked when Jasper still didn’t appear. Dad’s frown turned to
one of genuine worry. Jasper and I had been instructed
when we arrived at the cabin that we were never, ever to
go swimming by ourselves.
But then he shook his head, his expression relaxing.
“This is Jasper we’re talking about.”
I wanted to smile, but neither of us knew what to do
apart from stand there looking around.
“Do you want to wander around and look for him
while I start lunch? I’m sure he won’t have gone far. Hey,
maybe if he went to visit the neighbor kids?”
I frowned again. This seemed unlikely ― he hadn’t
liked them any more than they’d liked him. Unless he’d
been that lonely, or bored, or sulking…
Then, just as I took a few steps towards the trail to
the neighbors’, Jasper emerged from it.
100
The Girl Across the Water
“Oh!” he said, looking surprised and guilty. “You’re
back!”
“We said we’d be back for lunch,” Dad replied,
smiling. “Glad to see you, we were starting to get worried.”
Jasper looked even guiltier. “I just went for a walk,”
he said quickly.
“Where?” I asked.
His eyes darted around. “Um… nowhere. I went
down the trail a bit then turned back.”
“Did you run into the neighbor kids?”
“No!” His eyes grew huge, but they still held the
guilty expression.
“Well, I’m going to get the barbecue fired up,” Dad
said. “How do hamburgers sound?”
“Awesome!” Jasper said, his expression transformed
to one of happiness.
Dad wandered off, clearly not bothered by Jasper’s
strange behavior. But Jasper was the world’s worst liar, and
I could tell he’d been lying about something.
I followed him to the picnic table. “So what did you
do all morning?” I persisted.
“Um, nothing. I mean, went for a walk.”
“How come? You don’t like walks.”
101
The Girl Across the Water
“Yeah, I do!” He looked up, wide-eyed, and said,
“I’m going to read comics till lunch,” before fleeing to the
cabin.
Weird. Oh well, I had more important things to deal
with than Jasper’s strange moods.
Sitting down at the picnic table, I put my chin in my
hands and thought again about the neighbor kids. Coralie’s
surliness, the boys’ crazy, giggling energy, the sudden
silence and seriousness as Coralie told us the local ghost
story…
Wait a minute, I thought. How would they know a
local ghost story? They weren’t from here.
I drummed my fingers on the table. This was
important! If it was a story from the area, and this was
their first time here… then who had told it to them? It
would have had to be someone from town, and as far as I
was aware, they didn’t know anyone there. They’d only
been here a few days longer than us.
Stories had a way of getting around among kids,
though… maybe on one of their trips into town, they had
talked to some local kids.
But the idea nagged me, and I wanted an answer.
Also, how true was the story? Maybe I should go into town
and find out. Where could I go? …Mandy, I thought, and
hoped she was working today. Growing up here, she’d
know any local tales. So, my option for the afternoon was
to go into town and ask about the story, or canoe down to
the other end of the lake, looking for where The Girl might
have come from.
102
The Girl Across the Water
Soon the smell of hambur
gers wafted my way, and I
stopped thinking about all that stuff so I could enjoy lunch.
While Dad had been barbecuing the burgers, Jasper had
chopped up vegetables and grabbed a bag of potato chips,
and was now wobbling towards the table with plates and
napkins in his hands. I jumped up to help.
I went and got lemonade and cups, and we all sat
down to eat, silent as we bit into the thick burgers,
barbecue sauce oozing out and smudging our faces.
We were so focused on our food that we didn’t even
notice the weather clouding over, and it was only when a
raindrop bounced off the table that we all stopped and
looked up.
“Wow!” Dad said. “Wasn’t expecting rain today!”
The sky had turned a gloomy grey, but only random
drops were falling. One bounced off the dirt near me, and
some could be heard hitting the trees, but we were dry.
Nevertheless, we darted more glances up at the sky as we
finished our food, and, just as we were gathering up the
plates and cups, the rain started pelting down. By the time
we made our way to the cabin, it was pouring, and we
dashed inside. After dumping the dishes in the kitchen, we
all went upstairs to change. The air was suddenly cold, and
we were in our shorts.
I gazed out the bedroom window at the lake. It was
socked in with grey clouds, and the island was a greenish-
grey blur. Well, there’s no girl out there, I told myself,
transferring my gaze to the rain that hammered down.
Drops ricocheted off the dirt around the picnic table below.
103
The Girl Across the Water
By the time we came downstairs in our jeans, it had
stopped.
Dad peered out the window. “Hm. Can’t tell if it’s
stopped for good, or if it’s going to start up again.” He
turned to Jasper. “Well, guess it’s games time!”
Jasper beamed.
Drat… now there was no option of going canoeing or
going into town. Much as I wanted to get both done, I
didn’t like the idea of canoeing or walking when the air was
clammy and it was likely to rain again. But even if the
weather suddenly cleared, no way would Jasper let me
abandon the next game of Risk, which meant I was stuck.
He appeared with the box and set it on the floor. I
sighed, resigning myself to the fact that my investigations