The Vanishing Season

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  Pauline went to a private school in Sturgeon Bay, she explained, and Liam had graduated (he was almost eighteen) and was doing part-time jobs with a catering company to help his dad pay the bills, until he figured out what to do next. All this time Pauline lay, squinting her face up to the sun, legs draped against Liam carelessly, like a little kid. She looked to Maggie, at that moment, so pretty and long-limbed and perfect—her tangled, glossy hair sweeping down behind her over the side of the canoe.

  Eventually Liam turned the boat and started rowing toward a long, deserted beach covered in smooth pebbles. They climbed off the boat, and Pauline started building a little picnic for them: a blanket, cheese, Pepsi, snacks. They lounged back on the blanket and looked out at the water.

  It felt, to Maggie, like they’d paddled to the edge of the earth.

  “Let’s swim,” Pauline said, standing.

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t swim.”

  Pauline was already pulling off her shirt—stripping down to her pale-pink underwear. There was a long, skinny scar down the side of her back, which only seemed to emphasize her beauty. Pauline held up an ugly, orange life jacket. “Sorry, I forgot. We could just wade in. Come on.”

  “No thanks,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “Anyway, it’s too cold.”

  “The lake keeps the heat for a while.”

  Liam snorted behind her.

  Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t bring a suit anyway.” There was no way she’d strip to her undies in front of Liam, and her curves weren’t as easy to miss as Pauline’s were. But really, it was the water itself—dark and deep—that she was resisting.

  “Well, just wade in in your clothes.” Pauline waved her forward. “You’ll dry off in the sun.”

  Maggie sighed, thinking she could stay in the shallows at least. She stood and rolled up her pants above her knees and smoothed back her hair. She waded out into the cold water to Pauline’s side, getting used to the temperature bit by bit, letting just the bottoms of her pants get wet. Pauline reached out to hold her hand, and Maggie awkwardly let her tug her along. Liam stayed on the shore, building a rock pile.

  The water was bracing, but the cold was kind of thrilling. Pauline let go, crouched underwater, and then stood, spitting out a stream of water like a fountain and seeming not to notice her underwear was practically see-through.

  “So how long have you guys been together?” Maggie asked. “Liam said you met when you were little.”

  “Me and Liam?” Pauline’s eyes widened and she pursed her lips thoughtfully, pasting her wet hair back into a Mohawk with her hands. “Oh, we’re not together. People think that sometimes, but . . . nooo. We’re friends.”

  “Oh, I thought . . .”

  “Yeah, everybody thinks that. My mom would be pretty upset if I dated Liam,” Pauline said, low, as Maggie came abreast of her. “She keeps threatening to send me to Milwaukee to live with my aunt, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of him; she says we spend too much time together.”

  Maggie glanced back at Liam, who seemed to be staring with extra focus at his rocks.

  “What does she have against him?” Maggie asked.

  Pauline thought. “Well, his dad’s pretty weird. You’ll see. He’s really antisocial; he has an auto shop, but he barely talks to the customers. But on the other hand he’s this outspoken atheist. He’s got a Russian accent. I guess he moved to the States a few years before Liam was born, and then Liam’s mom moved back. Anyway, people talk about him.” Pauline reflected, then snorted. “The best thing is he’s got this VW Bus painted with all these atheist slogans, and he drives back and forth past the New Community church for twelve-o’clock mass, every Sunday. It’s hilarious. But I guess the downside is people think he’s literally crazy.”

  Pauline began to wade back toward shore, but Maggie stayed behind for a few moments. She saw that, as Pauline climbed out of the water, Liam’s eyes darted up to her and lingered, before he turned back to the ground. Just as Maggie had suspected, he blushed easily, pink creeping up his cheeks. Pauline, apparently oblivious, wrapped her shirt around herself like it was a small towel and jumped up and down to warm herself up. Liam was only a year older, but he gave off the feeling of being much older than Pauline. It was like they’d grown up beside each other but at different speeds. For one, he couldn’t seem to make his eyes stay away from her, while Pauline seemed to have the lack of modesty and self-consciousness of a child.

  For a split second, Maggie wished someone would look at her like that. She’d gotten the nickname Saint Margaret back in Chicago because she’d barely even kissed anyone. But Maggie was no saint—it was just that her friends pretended sex wasn’t complicated. Maggie wasn’t ever going to walk into anything with her eyes closed, even if all her friends were jumping in with both feet. Still, she wanted things other people wanted. She just carefully wanted them.

  They packed up and started canoeing home just as the sun was starting to set. The air was getting cooler each night, and goose bumps prickled along Maggie’s arms and legs. Liam must have noticed, because he threw her the flannel shirt that was balled up in his lap. Once they were on dry land, they put the canoe in the boathouse. “Hey, I wanna show you guys something,” Liam said, leading them up into the yard.

  Pauline glanced back at them. “Can’t. My mom and I have a date to watch Friday Night Lights on Netflix.” She sighed. “I wish she’d go on a real date and let me off the hook.” She threw her arms around Maggie and then Liam and jogged up to her back deck. She waved over her shoulder before she disappeared into the big, white house.

  “Well, I can still show you,” Liam said, obviously disappointed but putting on a kind face. Maggie was wet and cold, but she was curious. They made a diagonal into the woods and toward the water, walking past Liam’s property and farther on. They seemed to be turning away from the water when the trees opened up and they were looking at a little inlet, almost as round as a pond, surrounded by trees and bathed in the early moonlight. What startled her were the brown-and-white-speckled shapes. There had to be about a hundred of them, swirling around the water and perched on the banks. Canada geese. Many of them sleeping, some of them preening themselves or each other.

  “They rest here on their way south from Canada,” Liam said. “Every year. Same time.”

  A flock of geese wasn’t something Maggie would have paid attention to back home. But there was something magical about the sight of their white tail feathers rustling in the twilight. It seemed weird to her that, all the years she’d lived in the city, every fall the geese had been here—not so far away—inhabiting a whole different, quieter world. She and Liam hunkered back against an old tree stump, and the few geese that had seemed suspicious began to settle in. A couple of them even swam up to the edge, then waddled out of the water, shaking their feathers. They came right up to Liam.

  “Sorry, guys, nothing for you this time.” He reached out his hand slowly and gently, and one of the geese examined his empty palm.

  “I usually bring food. A lot of them are the same ones from other years—they always come back to the same spot. So they know me.” He wriggled his fingers and turned his palm downward, and the goose lost interest and waddled away. “Pauline loves them, but she never remembers that they’re coming back, so I usually can surprise her. Actually she tried to get me to catch her a goose once, when we were ten. It didn’t go very well. I ended up in the lake.”

  “Do you do whatever Pauline asks you?” Maggie asked, teasing, a little touched by his devotion. It seemed old-fashioned—not like the way modern boys were.

  Liam frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t help it. My dad taught me that’s what guys are supposed to do. If a girl wants something, you’re supposed to do whatever you can to give it to her. Not that it really worked out for him.” He sat back and looked up at a cloud passing over the new moon; it was almost a pale pink against the darkening sky. “You want that cloud?”

  Maggie laughed. “Yes, please. I’ve
had my eye on it for quite some time.”

  Liam began drawing numbers on his palm with his finger, brows knitting together. “Just calculating the angle and velocity I need to shoot it out of the sky.” Maggie laughed, and two geese lifted off the lake and landed a few feet farther away. Liam looked toward the water again and began counting to himself in a whisper—counting out the number of geese. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Maggie thought about touching the back of his neck, how warm it would feel in the cold air.

  “I’d better get home,” she said, standing and brushing off her legs. “My parents will wonder where I am.”

  Without a word, Liam nodded and led her back through the woods, even though darkness had fallen almost completely. He knew the way by heart, taking turns where she could see only shadows ahead. At the edge of the lawn, Maggie handed him his shirt. “Good night. Thanks for the geese.”

  Maggie was halfway across the kitchen when her mom appeared in the archway, a look of relief on her face.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re home, Mags. I’ve been worried,” she said. Then she turned back the way she’d come. “We’re just watching the news. How was your day?”

  Maggie followed her in through the glass doors to the parlor, where her parents had set up their small, ancient TV. “Why were you worried?” she said.

  Her eyes followed her mom’s to the television screen, which showed a high school graduation photo of a girl holding a rose. A news announcer was describing her as bright and beautiful and promising. Second girl missing, it said at the bottom of the screen.

  “She went hiking on the dunes and didn’t come back,” her mom said. “You always think about your own kids when something like this happens.”

  Maggie watched, bothered. Why did reporters always mention how the dead or missing girls looked? As if it mattered. Did they say missing guys were handsome? The young, handsome missing boy . . .

  “How was canoeing?” her mom asked. “Does Pauline have friend potential? What’s she like?”

  Maggie thought. “Yeah, I guess so. She’s”—she tried to think of the best word to describe Pauline—“really pretty.” Then thought what a hypocrite she was.

  Her dad cocked his eyebrows at her wryly. “Is that good or bad?”

  Maggie stuck her thumbnail in her mouth, absently. “Both, probably. For her.”

  “Well, you’re the best-looking girl I know.”

  “You’re genetically predisposed to say that.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  That evening, after getting the chill out of her bones with a long, hot bath, Maggie sat on the back porch, bundled in a blanket, with a European history textbook on her lap, staring at the lake. Instead of thinking about the day on the water, she wondered if the missing girl might be out there somewhere, lost in the watery dark.

  * * *

  To Maggie and Pauline and Liam, Lake Michigan must look as pristine as a blank sheet of paper. But I’ve had a deeper view.

  I’ve been to the bottom of the lake I can’t remember how many times, and here’s what I’ve seen: old cars that once tried to cross the ice in winter and fell through; houses that have disintegrated along the water’s edge; things that people have thrown in, in the hopes they’d never be seen again: diaries, tires, refrigerators, even photos. If you’re a wisp like me, you can sink down underwater and see for yourself what’s been lost to the world above: skeletons trapped in boats, the rusted windows and doors of iron trawlers half sunk in sand. I don’t know where the ghosts that belong to these skeletons have gone. They’ve left only their bones. I’ve been looking for other spirits all along the shore, wanting to ask my questions, but it seems I’m the only one.

  In the cellar, where I sleep, there’s one thing that frightens me, and I’d like to ask about that too—maybe most of all. It’s a pinprick of light coming from the floor by the far right wall. It’s impossible for that to be, but there it is.

  I won’t go near it. Something deep down tells me it spells the end of me. I’m not ready.

  And I think something is coming for one of these girls, or both. I think I’m here to save them.

  * * *

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  5

  THE BEAUTIFUL, PROMISING GRADUATE WAS FOUND THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, floating by the main dock in Ephraim, arms spread out like she was trying to fly away. As with the first girl who’d died, there wasn’t a mark on her to indicate a struggle. The coroner ruled it death by drowning. Everyone at Elsa’s Lost World Emporium was talking about it when Maggie walked in on Sunday morning.

  The temperature had dropped drastically overnight, and after hurrying across the parking lot without her coat, the warm air of the Emporium felt welcome to Maggie despite the smell of dust and burned coffee. Elsa had the Gill Creek Crier spread out across the front counter and refused to look up from it even when a customer stood waiting for her.

  “It’s antiques,” she said unapologetically, after Maggie slid in beside her and watched her slowly ring up the woman, “it’s not brain surgery. People can wait.”

  Maggie leaned against the counter and read over her shoulder. Elsa poured her a cup of coffee. “It’s getting cold out,” Maggie said.

  “A fisherman found her while he was headed back in. Her parents lost it.” Elsa pointed to the article as if Maggie needed proof that parents would “lose it” in that situation, then fanned her face with her hand, getting flustered. “It’s too much of a coincidence—two girls in three weeks. Someone killed those girls.” Elsa shook her head. “Why them? Is it because they were young, or are older women a target too?” She shook her head again, harder, this time clicking her tongue. “Things like this don’t happen here,” she sighed. It seemed to Maggie that Elsa was enjoying herself a tiny bit. Maggie tried to change the subject, but Elsa kept circling back to it: the girl, her straight As, how pretty she was. “I’m not a good person in situations like this,” Elsa went on. “I’m the first person to get hysterical. I drove all the way to Target this morning to buy pepper spray.”

  “You know, you just have to think of the statistics,” Maggie offered. “Statistically it’s highly unlikely anything will happen to you.” She didn’t like to linger over the terrible things in the news.

  “Do you know some guy drove to Nashville from California because he wanted to capture Taylor Swift and keep her in his basement?” Elsa went on, as if she hadn’t heard her. “There are crazy people out there.” Elsa had a pile of People magazines beside the cash register to prove it, and Maggie was beginning to think that Elsa saw Taylor Swift, and possibly Lindsay Lohan too, as part of her extended family. “Some crazier than others.” Elsa’s eyes lifted to follow Gerald as he walked past carrying the horn of an old gramophone.

  Two weeks in, Maggie was already getting used to the Emporium’s rhythms and its weird smells and quirky vendors. Gerald had a stall near the back of the store, where he sold mostly gramophones, old radios, and old record players, one of which was usually going at any time. He always played oldies, and Maggie liked to hear the music drifting from the back of the store, usually Billie Holiday or Etta James. He did look crazy—he had stark-white hair, a bony face, and big, protruding, piercing, blue eyes that reminded her of an eagle. Maggie sometimes caught him eyeballing her. Now, with Elsa staring him down, he apparently didn’t have the nerve to gawk and kept walking to the back of the store.

  Elsa leaned her elbow down on the counter and nodded toward Maggie conspiratorially. “It’s him. I’ll bet you. We’re working with a . . .” And then Elsa mouthed the word psychopath.

  “Just because he looks weird doesn’t mean he’s a killer,” Maggie said. “Older guys who like to stare at teenage girls aren’t that rare, unfortunately.”

  Elsa folded her arms, gazing down the aisle, then reached a finger up to dab at the corner of her lipstic
k. “Well, it doesn’t mean he isn’t.”

  At that moment a sound drifted to them from the back of the store. He’d put another record on the gramophone, something old and jazzy and instrumental.

  Elsa raised her eyebrows. “You tell me listening to old, scratchy records isn’t something a psychopath does.”

  “A psychopath or a music lover,” Maggie said sardonically.

  Elsa smirked, rolled her magazine, and swatted Maggie with it. “Next time I’ll hire a B student. You’re a smart aleck.” They both glanced up to see a girl coming toward them from the opposite direction. “Oh here she comes,” Elsa muttered, and moved to the farthest edge of the counter with her magazine.

  Hairica was what Elsa had christened her, though her real name was Erica. About Maggie’s age, she occasionally worked in the shop covering for her mom. Their booth had the ugliest stuff in the Emporium: frilly, lace napkins and gaudy, overdecorated lamps. “Stuff only your dead great-grandmother would love,” as Elsa said. Elsa, who happened to be Erica’s next-door neighbor, had given her the nickname Hairica because she was unusually hairy: She had long hair down to her waist, a low hairline on her forehead, hairy temples, and very downy hair along her cheeks and chin. The first time Elsa had used the name to Maggie, Maggie had frowned hard at her to avoid laughing. She tried not to encourage Elsa’s snarkiness, but it wasn’t easy.

  Now Maggie smiled kindly at Hairica as she approached the desk with a bright green imitation Louis XIV lamp, painted with bewigged people frolicking on a lawn.

  “Can you put this in the ledger and ring it up?” Hairica asked, shyly glancing up at Maggie. “I just sold it.” Maggie goggled at the price: 365 dollars.