The Light in the Lake

by Sarah R. Baughman

  “Got any Ferris wheels around here?” he asks. His eyes are still closed, which is probably why he hasn’t spotted the huge one about a hundred feet away.

  “Let’s go,” I say, laughing. “You can see Maple Lake from the top.”

  I’ve turned to lead him in that direction when I literally bump into Darren walking the other way.

  “Oh, um—hey,” I say. Darren nods at me, and then at Tai.

  “How’s it going?” Darren asks.

  “We were just heading to the Ferris wheel,” I say. “Are you and your brother doing the Demo Derby this year, Darren?”

  “Yup. Got a good one this year.” Bits of hay stick to his shirt, his boots. He’s been haying, and from the time or two I helped Uncle Mark and Aunt Mary I know it’s hot, sticky work. Endless work.

  The Demo Derby is one of the most popular events at the fair. People get old cars and take all the glass out and paint them, and then they go onto this big dirt track and just ram their cars into each other. The one whose car lasts the longest wins.

  Maybe it sounds dangerous, but people love it. Darren’s too young to drive, obviously. But he really likes helping his brother get the car ready. I remember going to his house with Amos a couple of years ago and he showed me how his brother had given him a whole section of the car to paint. He looked so proud.

  “Hey, Darren,” Tai says. “Addie’s told me you spend a lot of time on Maple Lake, not just for the Derby.”

  I look quickly at Tai, trying to hide my surprise. I don’t remember telling him that at all.

  Darren turns a little red. “Yup,” he says.

  “Well, I think it would be kind of cool to go out in the boat with you,” Tai says. “You could show us some of your fishing tricks, and we could tell you more about the pollution on Maple Lake. Just so you knew what you were looking at.”

  Darren’s eyes widen. I wonder when the last time was that someone invited him to hang out.

  “Sure,” he says, almost smiling. He kicks at the ground and then says something else so soft I barely hear it: “I used to go out in the boat with Amos sometimes.”

  I remember that. Days when I’d hang out with Liza and Dad would take the boys.

  “My rod wasn’t very good,” Darren says, a little louder. “Just kind of a cheap old one from a tag sale. Amos always made me trade with him. He said he was getting sick of his rod anyway. He said it bored him to use it every time. He wanted a challenge.”

  Darren laughs to himself, then takes a deep breath. Tears blur my eyes.

  When he starts talking again, his voice sounds raw, like the words hurt to say. “That rod was super nice. Not the kind of rod anybody would ever get bored using.”

  My throat thickens and burns.

  Darren swipes a hand across his eyes and looks away. “I always caught a lot of fish on those trips,” he says. “Can’t remember if Amos did. He always spent the whole time telling me how good I was doing.”

  That sounds like Amos. It’s not easy, hearing people who also knew him tell stories like that. It probably isn’t easy for Darren, telling it. Or being around me, when it just makes him think about Amos all over again. But at the same time, the story’s like a present. I want to unwrap it slowly and save it forever.

  I punch Darren’s home number into my phone and promise to invite him out on the boat sometime. After we say goodbye, Tai touches my arm.

  “Darren really misses your brother,” he says.

  “I know he does,” I say. “We all do.”

  A fire engine bell signals the start of the parade. Tai and I dash across the track before enough antique cars, floats, horses, and kids throwing candy will pass by to block us from the Ferris wheel.

  We don’t have to wait long in line, and the wheel starts moving almost before we’re done buckling ourselves in.

  “Get ready,” I tell Tai. “The view of Maple Lake’s coming soon.”

  I like the way my stomach lurches up with the Ferris wheel, almost like it’s shooting its way toward my throat and leaving that empty, bottomless feeling below. This one’s moving kind of slowly, and Tai cranes his neck around to catch the first glimpse of the lake.

  “Hey, there it is!” he says. Then his jaw drops and he nudges me. “Addie. Look.” He reaches up and points down toward the mouth of the Pine River.

  Most of the lake looks flat and glassy blue, but when I look over at the river, I see it: the water dark and churning, and a silver shape rising up, then diving down. Over and over.

  I know the lake’s so far away, but this shape seems like it’s right in front of my eyes. It seems like it’s rising, rising, getting closer—

  I lean back in my seat and grip the edges of the bar in front of us. Before I can look again, we’re swinging back down.

  “I think it’ll take us up two more times,” I say. “Look closely, okay?”

  “Do you have the notebook?” Tai asks.

  I pat my back pocket and little fizzy bubbles start to pop and collide in my head; it’s not there. My brain skitters back to this morning. Darn, I realize.

  “I left it on my desk.” I hope Dad doesn’t notice. “Can you take notes in your phone while I describe what I see? If I try to mess around with mine, I’ll get distracted.”

  Tai reaches into his pocket for his phone and opens the Notes app, ready to go as the Ferris wheel moves up again and a sliver of Maple Lake starts poking through the trees.

  As soon as we get to the top, I train my eyes onto the exact spot by the Pine River where we saw the shape before. Sure enough, the swirling darkness next to the river churns, but now it looks like it’s spreading, creeping farther and farther across the flat blue. Is nobody else seeing this? The people in front of us don’t seem to notice anything; they’re leaning toward each other, laughing about something, not even looking at the lake. I don’t hear anybody behind us exclaiming with any kind of surprise either, as we glide back down to the bottom.

  I describe everything while Tai types, and before we know it we’re on our way up one more time. I feel my hands shaking as we crest the top, but when I look at the lake this time, there’s nothing. It’s just blue, with little ripples of white waves poking through.

  “Hey,” I say. “There’s nothing there anymore.”

  Tai cranes his neck to look. “Huh?” he asks. “What happened?”

  “Look,” I tell him. “It’s just—normal.”

  Tai scans the lake and scratches his chin. “That’s so weird.”

  Too fast, we’re back on the ground again, slowly unbuckling our seat belts, trying to process what we saw.

  “We need to go back up,” I say as soon as we exit the gate. “That was just too strange. Do you think we imagined it?”

  “I don’t know,” Tai says, “but if you want to go up again, I will. Aside from that one spot at the mouth of the Pine River, did you see anything else that looked weird?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. It was just that spot. What’s interesting is… that’s the spot your mom showed me on that map.”

  The line seems to move more slowly this time around, but it might just be because we’re so anxious to get back on the Ferris wheel and figure out what’s going on with Maple Lake.

  Tai bounces on the balls of his feet, cranes his neck. “This is so crazy and cool,” he says. “I wonder if we’ll see anything different.”

  Or anything at all, I think.

  We get up to the top, and Tai and I both whip our heads right around to the mouth of the Pine River. At first, it’s just blue. But then, little points of darkness, almost greenish black, start popping, swirling in a widening circle right at the river.

  “Here it comes,” I say. Little firecrackers start popping around inside my head, and I take a deep breath so I can keep focusing on the swirls far below.

  The dark keeps moving and then, from the center, the silver shape gracefully rises. The tightness in my chest starts to loosen, like a rope unwinding itself. Up the shape comes, and down
it dives again into the deep. My heart seems to move with it, beating hard. Whenever the shape dives, it cuts through the dark, and blue circles of water emerge. Then darkness skitters into it until the silver comes back.

  I can’t stop watching.

  “Hey,” Tai says suddenly, breaking my trance, “are we stuck or something?”

  I guess we have been up here for a while.

  Almost on cue, a voice crackles through a microphone from the ground. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice says, “my apologies, but there’ll be just a slight delay here. Little glitch in the system. Thanks for your patience.”

  Her words barely register; I’m still staring across the landscape toward the river. “I want to see what happens here anyway,” I tell Tai.

  The silver shape moves away from the Pine River and swirls around the whole of Maple Lake. The little whitecapped waves go still, making room for the shape as it rises up, dives down.

  “What do you think it’s doing?” I ask. “Do you think it has to do with what your mom showed me with the topographic map?”

  If there really is a creature, is it trying to help Maple Lake too?

  “I don’t know,” Tai says. “What do you think?”

  I think Amos didn’t understand the whole story. I think maybe I’m starting to.

  Watching the dark and the silver and the blue, and the river that looks so tiny from up here trickling down into all of it, I’m so mesmerized that I don’t realize how much more time has passed until other people’s voices cut into my thoughts. “Think we’ll have to climb down?” someone’s saying. “I hope they deliver lunch up here,” someone else says.

  Lunch? Wait a second—what time is it? I reach into my pocket and fumble with my phone. 10:50 a.m.

  Oh no. No no no. No! I missed the Shoreland Art Show. And I’m supposed to be in the ring with Rascal in ten minutes!

  I nudge Tai with my elbow and point to the time on my phone, which, now that I look at it again, is clogged with missed text messages from Liza. His eyes get wide. I know he understands right away, but there’s nothing he can do. This is my fault.

  “Here we go, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice from the bottom says, and finally the Ferris wheel lurches down.

  This time, Tai and I can’t scramble fast enough to unbuckle our seat belts.

  “Follow me,” I say. I grab his hand and start to run.

  Chapter 22

  I see Dad first. He’s in the stands, watching the line of kids waiting to lead their calves into the ring. Liza’s close to the back. When he looks at me, I think I’ll dissolve under the hurt in his eyes, but somehow I stay in one piece, even though I can feel my legs shaking. Uncle Mark and Aunt Mary sit next to him, and they’re watching me like they’ve never seen me before and can’t quite figure out who I am. Or who I’ve become.

  The gate opens, and kids start filing into the ring. I can reach Liza before she steps in, but it’ll be close. I sprint up to her, leaving Tai behind.

  If Dad’s eyes dissolved me, Liza’s shrivel me. There’s a calmness in them that’s a little scary. But underneath that calmness, she’s shaking. “Forget something?” she asks.

  “Liza.” I catch my breath and try to say something else, but the words lock up in my throat. I reach for Rascal’s lead rope, but she pulls it away. At the front of the line, someone’s calf is balking. It buys me a little extra time, but what can I even say?

  “I did great, by the way,” Liza says. “In the Shoreland Art Show. First in my age category, and everyone else was older because—you know—only high school kids ever bother entering.”

  “Liza, I—” But she lifts a hand.

  “You’ve been busy,” she says. “I get it. Busy out on that lake, which, by the way, of course your parents didn’t want you out there—but I didn’t actually think you were so busy you’d forget to be here for—” She stops, and I see her lips pressed tight together, ready to say me. But instead, she opens them and lets out a breath. “For Rascal.”

  I look down at my feet. She’s right. There’s nothing really to say. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Liza’s eyes fill with tears. “I’ve got this,” she says, and leads Rascal into the ring.

  And she really does. They’re perfect. I stand there and watch as Rascal does everything she’s supposed to do. She follows Liza. She stops and stands when Liza stops. She turns, and backs up, and stays perfectly still while the judge looks her over.

  That’s supposed to be me, I think. But is it? Should I be showing calves when I didn’t work as hard as Liza did? And when I know full well that even sweet, silly calves like Rascal, who rubs her knobby head against my side and sticks her tongue out and actually likes to be brushed now, could one day contribute to the pollution in Maple Lake?

  A fist squeezes my heart so hard I think maybe there will be nothing left when it lets go. I hear people clapping in the stands, and I see the judge handing Liza a ribbon. I see Rascal nodding her little head up and down.

  I want to pull Liza back to me, make her listen to something, some explanation I’ll hopefully come up with that will mend the rips and tears I made. But I also think I should leave. Images flash into my brain, searing me. I see Liza’s eyes, at the Shoreland Art Show, scanning the crowd for me. I see her in the animal barn, arranging Rascal’s brushes in the show box Uncle Mark and Aunt Mary made for us, and looking around, wondering where I am. Not finding me.

  I walk back to Tai. “We need to go,” I whisper. “Let’s wait by Dad’s truck. He’ll find us there.”

  What was it Liza said back when we were drawing the moon in Mr. Dale’s class? That the darkness had a shape too? Right now, standing in the heat of the fair, I feel all the time I didn’t spend with her, all the things I didn’t say, taking shape and swelling inside.

  Losing Amos taught me how emptiness could fill a room. The second I saw Liza step into the ring with Rascal, I knew why I’d avoided her, why I’d let her down. She lost Amos too. She knows what darkness feels like. And being with her makes me feel it all over again.

  Chapter 23

  I take a deep breath before knocking on Liza’s door. When Dad dropped me off and helped me unload my bike from the back of the truck, I didn’t say how long I planned to stay, and he didn’t ask. He barely said anything to me, the whole way back from the fair, dropping Tai off and then going to Liza’s. When Dad’s upset, he just gets quiet.

  “Hey, Liza,” I say when she opens the door. “I, uh—I need to talk to you.”

  Liza looks at me for a long time. “Do you?”

  “It’s about the lake,” I say, “and the research we’ve been doing.”

  “I’m not really interested in hearing about the lake.” Liza’s voice is cold.

  “I know I messed up,” I say. “I wasn’t there to help with Rascal.”

  “Help.” Liza shakes her head. “Help with Rascal.”

  “I should have come over more often.” I’m fumbling over my words. “I tried—”

  “You think I really needed help with Rascal?” Liza asks. “I’ve been showing calves since I was ten.”

  Suddenly I know what she’s saying, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before. It makes me wish I could disappear.

  “I did this for you,” she says. “Mom and Dad thought it was such a good idea. They said it would give you something to focus on, something to feel good about.”

  For just a second, I close my eyes and picture Liza and her parents sitting around the kitchen table, their voices quiet, making a plan. A plan for me.

  At first, thinking about it feels like draping a blanket over my face and trying to breathe through thick cloth. I squirm, wanting to pull it away. But the blanket slips down to my shoulders and holds me close. Then it’s just warm. Safe.

  “I didn’t even want to show a calf at all this year!” Liza says. “I was going to focus more on art. Spend more time on my portfolio.” Her voice shakes. “But I didn’t. I wanted to help you.”


  “You did help,” I whisper.

  “It’s really not just about Rascal, though. Or the Shoreland Art Show.” Liza’s voice strengthens, evens out. “You haven’t been around at all. My entire summer has consisted of trying to keep DeeDee and Sammie from stealing my pencils and Baby Katy from eating my sketches.”

  “I know I haven’t been around as much,” I say.

  “Mom and Dad said I needed to let you be. And I wanted to, but—it’s really hard.” Her voice cracks on hard and she buries her head in her hands.

  “Liza?” I should reach out and touch her shaking shoulders, but she feels so far away.

  “It’s just… it’s like I lost you both.” Liza looks up, her voice small. “It’s like I have to miss you both.”

  Both. My mind reels. Amos. Liza still misses Amos. Obviously she would, but I’ve never really asked her about it. I mostly thought that her full house and her loud sisters would fill up every space in her heart.

  But they can’t. She has a space that will always be empty now too. Just like I do.

  It might not be the exact same space. Amos wasn’t her twin. But he was her cousin, and she loved him.

  “Can I come in?” I ask.

  At first, she doesn’t move. Her outstretched arm blocks the door. She shakes her head.

  “I just don’t get where you’ve been, Ad,” she says. “It just doesn’t feel like you’re ever with me anymore. And I don’t just mean at my house. I mean, like—are you with me in here?” She points at her heart.

  “I’m here now,” I say. “Can I please come in?”

  Liza breathes in, out. Then she moves to the side, lets go of the doorframe. And I step inside. Finally.

  Up in her room, we sit on the floor, our backs against her bed.

  “I let you down,” I say.

  Liza doesn’t argue. And she doesn’t look away either. So I know it’s true.

  “I really did,” I say. “And I’m sorry, Liza.”

  Maybe she’s been waiting to hear me say that for a while. To show her that I see what’s happening, that I see her. Because once the words come out, the air in the room changes. Liza’s shoulders sag a little, and she wipes her eyes.