Girl Across the Water
Page 10
would have to wait.
I did love Risk, however, and we got so engrossed in
the game that we didn’t notice how much it had cleared
until a sunbeam cast a rectangle right across the living
room carpet.
I turned to look out the window. Most of the sky was
still grey, but there was one patch of sun peeking through.
As I got up to see more, Jasper said desperately, “Paul, you
can’t leave the game, you already ruined this morning’s
game!”
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“It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.” I scanned the
sky. On the horizon, it was still dark grey. “Just wanted to
see how much it’s cleared up.”
The game finally ended, and I jumped up to peer out
the window again. The sky was now an even grey, which
made it hard to tell what time of day it was. It hadn’t
rained since that first short burst… did I still have time to
do anything? I leaned back to glance at the clock in the
kitchen. Almost five o’clock! Which meant Dad would be
starting dinner soon, and couldn’t give me a ride into
town… he probably wouldn’t want me to go canoeing,
either. There was nothing I could do that would take less
than an hour. I stood there fuming. I had to find out where
those kids heard the story! It was bugging me.
Wait, I suddenly thought. Why not go ask them?
Duh, Paul, I told myself, and as Jasper put the game
away, I darted into the kitchen where Dad was making
coffee. “Do you mind if I go to the neighbors? Just quickly?”
He glanced at the clock. “Well, I guess so, but I’ll be
starting dinner soon.”
“I’m hungry!” Jasper called from the living room.
“What’re we having?”
“How about one of the frozen chicken casseroles
your mom sent along with us?”
“Oh, yeah!” Jasper said. “Can we have fries, too?”
“We’re not having fries with casserole. They don’t go
together.”
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“Aw, but Dad, we’re on vacation!”
“Dad!” I interrupted. “Can I go, or not?”
He peered out the window. “Well, I suppose, but
you’d better take the flashlight. With the weather being like
this, it’s hard to tell how dark it’ll be, especially in the
woods… be back by six, okay?”
“Okay!” I said, and ran to get my jacket.
The sky was a strange color. Another patch of
sunlight was trying to force its way through the clouds, but
not succeeding, so the tiny bit of light was filtered to a
strange, grayish-white hue. And even those weak rays of
sun were setting, dousing the woods, as I entered them,
with an eerie combination of the strange grey light and
darkness. Everything around me glistened with water, but
several feet away from the path, the woods had a fuzzy,
melting look. I shivered.
Although the rain had stopped hours ago, the
occasional drop of water fell onto my neck from tree
branches, and the ground was soggy under my feet. I
looked down at the path as I jogged along -- my runners
were going to be a mess by the time I got back.
Likely it was the usual sounds of the woods, but
every now and then I heard the snap of a twig or a rustle
through the undergrowth. Every time you’ve been freaked
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out s o far, it’s been mice, raccoons, or bats, I reminded
myself.
And a freaky girl on the island, the cynical part of my
brain added.
I groaned out loud and set off at a jog at that point
— these internal arguments were beginning to drive me
crazy. Like I was schizophrenic or something. At this rate,
I’d start hearing the voices in my head chanting like seven
small children.
We’re in the woods, we’re in the woods…
Stop it! I told myself. I was doing it again.
Thankfully, I reached the neighbors’ cabin before I
could drive myself fully crazy. It seemed much lighter now
that I was out the woods; still, I couldn’t take too long
before heading back or I’d be going through completely
dark woods. I ran up the neighbor’s stairs, opened the
screen door, and banged on the wooden door.
First I heard a scrabbling sound, like chairs were
being pushed out the way and people were running out the
room. No one answered. I’d seen lights from the other
windows, though, so I knocked again, this time harder.
“Hello?” I called out when no one answered. “It’s
me, Paul! Your neighbor.” I banged again.
“What do you want?” a voice asked. It sounded like
Coralie.
“To ask you something.”
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“Go away!”
I sighed. “Coralie, is that you? It’s just one question.
Can I come in?”
“No! Go away! We don’t want to see anyone!”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
I could hear scuffling and banging again, as if two
dogs were tearing around the kitchen, knocking over
chairs. Likely it was the twins.
“Go to the window!” she instructed.
I looked around. “Which one?”
“The veranda, stupid!”
I walked around the corner. There was a big window
there, and I looked into a darkened living room. It was
furnished with old, lumpy furniture and a patterned rug.
From the light of the doorway to the kitchen, Coralie
emerged. She ran straight to the window and stopped
abruptly, her nose two inches from the glass. As usual, she
was glaring at me.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
From behind her, the twins ran out of the kitchen,
yelling, flailing, and tearing around the room like they were
having some kind of mid-air seizures. “We seen her, we
seen her, we seen her!” they shrieked.
“Seen who?”
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“The ghost girl, the ghost girl!” They continued to
run around like they were being given jolts of electricity.
My skin went prickly, and I stared at Coralie. “What
are they talking about.”
“The ghost girl. In the story. Don’t you remember,
stupid? She’s real. We saw her in the woods!”
“No you didn’t.”
Coralie grabbed the curtains and whisked them shut
in front of my face. “Go away!” she yelled again.
I took a quick look behind me. They had to be
playing a joke… but the twins were clearly terrified.
“Coralie!” I said, knocking on the window. “Tell me
what happened!”
She opened the curtains a few inches, and behind
her, a light blinked on. The room was now flooded with
light, which seemed a relief, but at the same time it made
the yard and woods behind me seem darker.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
&nbs
p; “Noooooo!” the twins wailed. “Don’t let him in,
Coralie, don’t open the door! Not till Pa’s home!”
She glared at me again. “No way. That door stays
locked. You’d better go home before you see her. She’ll be
walking back to the lake.”
I tried to keep myself calm, but inside, I was starting
to feel jolts of electricity too.
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“What did you see?” I asked.
“A girl. She was about seven years old and had dark
hair and dark eyes and she was creepy, and she was
standing—” Coralie pointed straight behind me “— right
there.”
I turned around. Beyond the cabin was the yard, and
then a thick section of trees, and way through them, the
misty grayness of the lake. Daylight was fading fast now.
“In the woods?” I asked.
“Right at the edge!” Coralie said, her voice high and
nervous, making her sound more like the twins. Her glare
was gone, and she looked as taut as a piece of wire.
“Where did she come from?”
“I don’t know! We were on the veranda and suddenly
she was just there! So we ran inside. And then we heard…”
Coralie started bouncing up and down “… a scratching at the
door! ”
Both twins shrieked at this, and began zooming
around the room like a couple of deranged ferrets. Then
they whipped straight out the living room, through the
kitchen, and disappeared off to wherever.
I hated to admit it, but I was feeling really scared
now. “What did you do?”
“We ran upstairs and hid, stupid!” Coralie’s voice
was angry, but scared.
“Well, didn’t you see to look where she’d gone?”
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“I know where she went. She walked back into the
lake!”
“Oh, stop it,” I snapped. “It’s probably just some kid
from town playing a trick.”
“Then how did she get here?”
“She… walked.”
“In the rain? All that way? Then how’d she get to the
front of the cabin without us seeing her? We were playing
on the veranda!”
I swallowed.
“And she looked like a ghost!” Coralie insisted. “I’m
going upstairs now, so you’d better go home! ”
I glanced around nervously. Ghost girl or not, Coralie
was right: I had to get going. The last of the grayish light
was blurring away to a charcoal color, and if it was dark out
here, it was going to be even darker in the woods. Plus, I
wasn’t going to get my answers from the kids today, and I
was having a hard time not believing their story. Their fear
was palpable.
Then, as I headed for the steps, I looked down at my
hand and stopped dead. Dammit, I realized, the flashlight!
I’d forgotten it.
I glanced nervously at the woods. They looked
ominously dark. Would I even be able to find my way back?
The only flashlight at the cabin was the weak one,
but still, it would have been better than… of course! I
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remembered. The kids had our big flashlight! A wave of
relief hit me. “Coralie!” I shouted, turning to bang on the
door again. “I need my flashlight back!”
“I’m not opening the door!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! It’s our flashlight, Coralie, and
you were supposed to return it. I need it, so give it back!”
The only answer returned was the sound of feet
running up stairs.
“Coralie!” I banged on the door again, but this time
there was nothing but silence. She’d run and hidden,
without giving me my flashlight! I could have strangled that
girl. Except I was genuinely spooked now, and my biggest
wish was to run away, and fast.
Then footsteps clattered down the stairs, and the
door snapped open just far enough for a hand to thrust the
flashlight out. The hand disappeared, the door slammed
shut, and I caught the flashlight before it tumbled from my
grasp.
Coralie had one small grain of mercy in her, then.
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Chapter 10
I hurried along the path, shining the flashlight beam
on the ground ahead of me. I was tempted to swing it from
side to side so that I could see into the trees, but I didn’t
want to risk tripping, because it would slow me down ― all
I wanted was to get back to the cabin as fast as possible.
As I ran, I had the prickly feeling that someone was
watching me from the murky darkness of the woods. I
heard a scuffling noise to my left, but didn’t slow down. It’s
just a raccoon, I told myself. But then I heard it again, the
exact same distance away… again. Raccoons don’t follow
humans, they run away from them.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more. I stopped and
swung the beam in the direction of the scuffling, and
quickly around the area when I saw nothing. I stopped and
waited a couple heartbeats. There was nothing but silence.
The beam seemed to fade a bit, so I gave the
flashlight a shake, and the brightness returned. But then,
as I continued on, it faded again. The battery was dying,
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and I was only halfway there! Drat it, Coralie and the twins
must have been playing with the flashlight, for the battery
to be so low. Again, I wanted to pummel her. I quickened
my steps, watching the beam grow weaker and weaker.
And then finally, in the middle of the woods, it gave out
completely.
I stopped. A scuffling sound came from my left
again. “Who’s there?” I called out. The scuffling stopped.
“Hello?”
All I could hear was my pulse pounding in my ears.
Then, a distinct ‘snap’ sounded. I gave the flashlight three
hard shakes until it emitted a faltering beam, which I
swung towards the woods. There, just behind a couple
bushes… was that a human form? The beam died before I
could make out for sure. I turned and ran away, not caring
whether I stumbled or not.
I could see the lights of the cabin through the trees,
so I kept going, my feet pounding into the moist trail. I
burst out into the clearing, ran for the porch steps, and was
up them and inside the cabin, slamming the door, locking
the lock, standing with my back against the door so fast it
was all a blur. I stood there for a minute, trying to catch
my breath.
“That you, Paul?” Dad called out.
“Yeah,” I croaked back.
“I was starting to get worried. It’s dark out.”
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This time my voice came out in a hoarse whisper: “I
know.”
I continued to stand there, panting, closing my eyes
for a second while I told myself, she can’t be a ghost.
But I could picture her at t
he edge of the woods,
staring at the neighbor’s cabin, so clearly that it was like I’d
seen her myself.
#
That night I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling,
unable to sleep. It was raining on and off, which meant that
I either heard the rattle of rain against the windowpane, or
the more creepy-sounding drip-drip of water off the roof.
Jasper was silent. Maybe he really had begun to
sleep without snorting and snuffling the whole time... But
then he gave a big snort, shuffled around, and got out of
bed. He clicked the hall light on as he went out the room,
and a chunk of light fell through the partially open door. I
heard him stumble down the stairs, likely to the bathroom.
When he returned, he closed the door, got back into
bed, shuffled around in the bed with a few more snorts and
grunts. Then he was silent again.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
I’m not sure whether I dozed or not, but at one point
a sound from downstairs made my eyes spring open. What
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was that? My heart began hammering as I lay there,
listening intently. The click had sounded exactly like the
front door opening.
I shifted onto my side so that I faced the bedroom
door, where a crack of light showed at the bottom. Jasper
had left the hall light on.
There were no more sounds, which meant I must
have imagined it. I turned back over, facing the window,
and huddled under my blanket. Then a distinct ‘click’ came,
just like the door closing.
Was there someone in the cabin? My heart began to
speed up again.
My next thought was, ‘We’re at the bottom of the
stairs!’
Don’t be stupid, I told myself. But then I thought of
The Girl standing at the edge of the woods, staring at the
neighbor house. Why was she staring? What did she want?
I strained to hear any more sounds, and thought I
heard the creak of one of the stairs. No! I told myself. It
can’t be! Someone really is in the cabin! My heart began
pounding.
We’re on the stairs, we’re on the stairs…
Another creak ― I definitely wasn’t imagining it!
There was someone walking up the stairs.