by J. L. Murray
I sighed. “Fine. But stay out of my way. Don't try to stop me. And don't go all boyfriend on me, either. That's not what this is about.”
“Whatever you say, Frankie,” he said, pleased with himself.
“You're not even my type,” I said, remembering what he felt like pressed up against me.
“You're not my type, either.”
“I'm glad we understand each other.”
“Frankie?”
“What?”
“This doesn't mean I'm not pissed you stole my car.”
“Whatever,” I said. “You wanted me to steal your car.”
“Seriously?”
“You were going to drive me around anyway. This way it's more interesting. You get to see the countryside, meet new people, experience new things.”
“And that brings us...here,” Dekker said, indicating the empty lot where the church used to stand. “Why are we here?”
I pulled on my jacket, avoiding his eyes. “I'm not usually the sharing type. But I think I might be in trouble.”
“How much trouble?”
“Grab that mirror from the backseat and I'll show you.”
“What the hell am I seeing?” he said. He was looking at the mirror, then spinning around, trying to see behind him. It might have been comical if I didn't know who he was seeing. I stood with my back to him, smoking a cigarette.
“You see her,” I said. “So you know I'm not crazy.”
“Who is she?”
I blew smoke into the air.
“She's my mother,” I said, hating the way my voice wavered.
“Your mother?” he said, twisting from the mirror and back again. “Your mother's still alive. She was at your execution.”
“My mother is here,” I said. “You're looking at her right now. Whatever is walking around looking like her...I don't know. Maybe it's not even human.”
“What is this, Frankie?” he said, lowering the mirror and coming to stand in front of me. “What the hell is going on?”
“It's all connected,” I said, finally believing it.
“What's all connected?” said Dekker. “Look, I saw someone in the mirror, but I'm still in the dark. What the hell is going on?”
“I'm going to die. Worse than die.”
“You're already dead. You told me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely worse than dying. We have to end this. And soon.”
“Do you think maybe you could tell me what the hell is happening first?”
I met his eyes, blinking. The headlights of the car were shining towards us and Dekker was pale as a sheet.
“You're scared,” I said.
“Damn straight.”
“Explaining it isn't going to make it better. You're going to be terrified.”
He nodded. “Tell me anyway. Please. Let me help you.”
He was too close and I took a step back. I wanted to curl up into a ball. I wanted to get in the car and drive away from Helmsville, with or without Thomas Dekker. I wanted to do anything but what I was about to do. What I knew I had to do. Roo couldn't help me, and if I let her get involved, she would most likely die, too. Bea was old, and Shawn was an addict. There was only Dekker and me.
I reached down and grabbed the mirror out of his hand. Framing my face in the glare from the headlights, I looked at him.
“This is me,” I said. “Take a good look.”
“I know what you look like.”
I held up the mirror, taking a deep breath. I met my own eyes. But they weren't my eyes, not anymore. The horns curled back from tousled blonde hair in my reflection. Eyes the same color as mine glared back at me and lips identical to my own stretched into a death-mask grin, giving my own face an unnatural appearance. There was nothing about this face that gave comfort. I stared back at it, keeping my expression neutral, trying not to let Dekker see the terror settled deep in my chest. I could feel my heart pounding fast, hard as a fist. My reflection raised a hand and reached toward the glass.
Dekker grabbed the mirror out of my hand and hurled it through the air, away from us. It bounced against a large boulder and I heard the glass shatter. The gilded frame landed face-down on the ground.
“That's seven years bad luck,” I said weakly. But I couldn't say anything else. Because Dekker was staring at me, eyes wide in terror, his face so pale now it took on a green pallor in the Challenger headlights. I looked away.
“Frankie,” he said, his voice a funeral whisper.
“Shut up. You wanted to know. Now you know.”
“What does it mean?”
“If you do this,” I said, “you have to be aware of how dangerous it is. It's not just chasing a killer. I can do that in my sleep. This is something so much more frightening, so much more insane.”
“Have you seen this before?” he said, his voice tight. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
I swallowed hard before meeting his eyes. He was too close again. Why was he always so close? There was something in his eyes that made me want to run away, to get in my car and drive as far and as fast as I could. Something that scared me even more than my reflection. I took a step back and tore my eyes away, looking at the ground.
“I've seen it before,” I said. “But I didn't know anything back then. I was just a kid.”
“You mean your father,” he said softly. Gently. I hated how gentle he was. It made me feel weak. “I read the police reports. In Florida you said–”
“I was out of my mind in Florida,” I snapped.
He was quiet for a moment. “I know,” he said finally. “What they did to you, after your arrest...I'm sorry.”
“It wasn't you.”
“But it may as well have been,” he said. “I would have done anything to get your confession. You were notorious. You made the careers of those detectives.”
“They said I was trying to act crazy,” I said. “To try to get an insanity plea. I'm not crazy, Dekker.”
“I know, Frankie.”
“If you're going to understand,” I said, “I'm going to have to tell you how my father died.”
“I already know.”
“You don't know anything.”
“Your mother and your sister,” he said. “They murdered him. I believe you now. It wasn't an accident.”
“Not just that,” I said. “Even farther back.” My eyes teared up, but I didn't care. I was seeing it all over again. It was so long ago I'd almost forgotten. “Long before my father was killed. When I was still a child. Everyone around me convinced me it was a bad dream, my imagination gone wild. And I believed them. I put it out of my head. But now, all this...I know it’s true.”
I focused on my boots, the edge of the foundation, a knot of weeds dried up in the ground. I wrapped my arms around myself, the leather of my jacket creaking. Dekker put his hand out to touch me, but I shrank back as if in pain.
“Frankie,” he said softly. “You're shaking.” He stepped toward me and I let him put a hand on my arm. I felt like I couldn't breathe.
“I just realized what happened to her. I was so young, just a little girl. But it was real.”
“What was real?”
I met his eyes then. I couldn't speak for moment, my voice frozen in my throat. “My sister, Rebecca. Everything we thought is wrong.”
“We?”
“Roo and Julia and Beatrice the witch. We were wrong. It didn't start when my dad died.”
“Witch?” he said. “Frankie, just tell me. I'm here, I can take it. You're not alone anymore. You don't have to do this yourself.” He moved closer again, and I didn't pull away this time. I looked up at him, so close, so warm. I remembered the wraith back at the motel, mocking me.
You can't keep him, Frankie.
I caught my breath, and when I spoke, Dekker didn't run. He didn't laugh and he didn't look at me like I was crazy. He fixed those dark eyes on me, and I knew he would believe me no matter what I told him. He had every right to think I was lying. I'd s
tolen everything from him, but he was here. He was here.
“That was the day she really died,” I whispered. And it was more than admitting the truth. Me trusting Dekker was dangerous. But I had no choice. I needed help. “The day the lake swallowed her whole.”
chapter eight
I
've always been afraid of water. Not showers or swimming pools, but deep water, even when it's so clear you can see moss-covered logs at the bottom, like looking through a window into some deep green universe. That's the way Mirror Lake was.
Rebecca wasn't afraid. She would strip down to her underwear on hot days and dive in, headfirst. It was so hot that day that I had sticky rashes on the insides of my arms that I kept scratching until pinpricks of blood stood out on my skin. I climbed a tree by the water and watched my sister slithering through the clear, clear water like a fish. She rose up and saw me watching and smiled a mocking smile that brought a sting to my eyes and a ball of fire to my belly.
“You're not afraid to climb a tree, but you won't even get your feet wet?” She laughed in that way I hated. The laugh when she knew she was better at something. And it seemed to me she was better at everything. She was our mother's favorite, able to memorize Bible verses that made no sense to me. She sewed and crocheted beautifully, where I could barely manage to unravel knots I seemed to create all on my own. She could swim, and I screamed every time anything brushed up against my feet in the water.
“Mom's going to be mad if you get all wet.”
“I'll dry off before I get dressed,” she said, easy as anything. Everything was easy for Rebecca. Not like me. It seemed every day was a struggle. That's why I liked going to Beatrice's. Bea didn't make me feel like I wasn't good enough. Rebecca went with me, but on the way home she always mocked me for being better than her at the tasks Bea set us at.
“You're only good at it because you're wicked,” she once taunted as we were returning from Bea's.
“No, I'm not!”
“She's a witch,” Rebecca said, laughing. “Don't you know what that means?”
“It means she helps people. She helped Mister Conroy's wife when she had her baby.”
“It means she lies with the devil,” said Rebecca.
“Stop it, Becky.”
“Maybe you lie with the devil, too,” she said, dodging me when I ran after her. But I was faster. I tackled her and we both tumbled to the ground. By the time we got home, I'd ripped her dress and stained mine, and Rebecca had a bloody nose. My mother had whipped me with a belt until I had welts all over the backs of my thighs. That night, Rebecca had whispered from her bed toward me.
“Serves you right.”
I was exposed nerves by that time, and hungry, as my mother had sent me to bed without supper, even though I hadn't eaten lunch.
“I'm going to fuck the devil and tell him what you did,” I whispered.
Rebecca didn't say anything else to me, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face. After that, she'd seemed a little wary of me, and didn't mock me nearly as much. But now, looking at her grinning face as she backstroked and spit water and floated along, I knew she wasn't afraid of me anymore. I scratched at my arms, yearning to dive into the cold water, but the thought of the things my feet would touch sent a shiver of terror through me. I climbed higher up through the branches, my face scrunched up, my mouth salty and thick with thirst.
“Frankie, come in the water,” she called. “Nothing's going to hurt you. We can play Marco Polo.”
“I can't.” I looked at the moss on the bottom of the lake, imagining how slithery and slimy it would feel on bare feet.
“If you believed in God, you'd come in.” She tipped her head back into the water to get her hair wet. She looked like an angel from my vantage point. She was so pretty, her movements graceful even in her underwear. I wiped my nose on the back of my arm.
“I believe in God,” I said.
“Only because you love the devil.”
“No I don't.”
“You said you did. You said you were going to fuck him.”
I froze. My perfect sister had never so much as said damn or hell, and here she was saying the granddaddy of swear words.
“You're not the only one who can cuss,” she said, smiling and closing her eyes. “I don't really think you love the devil. You can't help it.”
“Help what?” I lowered myself onto the branches below me, starting to descend. I hadn't worn shoes, and though the bottoms of my feet were tough and stained black, the boughs of the tree had little stubs where sticks had broken off that poked up into the nerves in my feet.
“You can't help you'll always be wicked. It's not your fault. Mama says you'll end up like one of those ladies at the saloon. Waiting for men and whiskey.”
“Shut up, Becky,” I said, my descent painfully slow. I glared over at her. She was laughing.
“You'll have to come into the water if you're mad. I can stay here all day.”
“You'll get cold at night. You're not better than me at fighting.”
“That's why you're the wicked one.”
“Mama didn't really say that,” I said. “She wouldn't.”
“Maybe she did. Maybe you should just go kiss the devil with Beatrice.”
“Beatrice is nice to you!” I missed my foothold and slipped, skinning my elbow as I grabbed onto the branch for support.
“She's a witch. She wants us to be witches, too.”
“No she doesn't,” I said. “You're just mad she likes me better.”
“No one likes you better than me.” But I could tell she was getting angry. The idea I was actually getting to her excited me. I'd never been able to get to Rebecca, but now I could see her swimming faster, sending little death glares at me over her shoulder.
“That's not true,” I said, my feet finally touching down onto the pine needle blanketed ground. “Daddy loves me more than you.”
It was Rebecca's turn to freeze. I giggled at the look on her face. Her mouth hung open and her eyes went wide. Then her face scrunched up as she tread water, staring at me. I stopped laughing then, because she was crying big ugly tears. I had made her so sad she was now bawling, and the thrill from earlier turned in my stomach, and my mouth tasted like ash.
“I'm sorry, Becky. I didn't mean it.” I ran to the edge of the lake, stopping just short of the waterline. A ripple shuddered through the lake and the ice cold water kissed my toes. I wrapped my arms around myself at the chill of it.
“Frankie,” Rebecca said. She wasn't crying anymore. She was looking at the water around her. Another shudder sent a new wave of soft ripples through the water. It made the lake look like a giant target like the ones my dad used to practice during bow hunting season. And Rebecca was right in the bullseye.
“Becky,” I said, unable to make my voice louder than a whisper. “Come out, Becky. I promise I won't hit you. Hurry.”
Rebecca saw the look on my face and her features smoothed into a mask of calm.
“Don't be silly,” she said. “There's not even fish in this lake.”
But she started to swim toward me, a look of concern in her eyes she couldn't smooth away. I could see down into the bottom of the water, a dark green fairyland under the glassy surface. I thought I saw movement in the center of the lake and I gasped. But a ripple shook the lake, so strong this time that I felt a rumble under my feet where I stood on the shore.
“Becky!” I said, my voice a raspy screech. “Becky, get out of there! Get out, get out, get out!”
She met my eyes, stopping her swim strokes. She seemed frozen where she was.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Come on!”
“Do you see it?” Her mask was gone. Her face was white as a ghost, circles of pink on her cheeks where she'd gotten too much sun.
“I think I saw something.” My knees were so shaky it felt like they would give out.
“What is it?”
“Just swim, Becky,” I said, panicked. “Why are you stoppe
d? Get out!”
Her breath was shaky, wheezing. I could hear it from where I was standing. I realized that maybe she couldn't move and I started to cry.
“Becky,” I sobbed.
“Tell me what you see, Frankie,” she whispered. “Please.”
I blinked hard, but the tears kept coming. I angrily wiped them away with the heels of my hands and narrowed my eyes where I'd seen movement before. My heart was beating fast and it felt like I had a hummingbird in my chest. I watched, trying to make my eyes sharp. And then I saw it. Movement. I opened my mouth to warn her, but Rebecca moaned and I looked at her. Her face was a mask again, but this time a mask of terror.
“What is it, Frankie? Why can't I move? It feels like ice.”
I opened and closed my mouth like fish until I found my voice. And when I did speak, it was barely above a breath.
“I think it's the devil.”
Rebecca began to scream. So did I, shrieking until my throat felt raw and bloody. I tried to put a foot in the water, but it didn't sink in. I just stood there, standing on top of the crystalline lake, watching my sister scream.
I felt the next ripple as it shook the ground, sending branches falling from the trees. I watched the mountains around us as rocks tumbled down the slopes, trees in the distance falling like they were nothing more than twigs in a strong breeze.
“Frankie,” said Rebecca, and I forced my eyes back to my sister. She looked like she was a corpse now. Not just pale, but bloodless. I took another step toward her, unable to sink through the surface of the lake.
“Becky, I'm sorry.”
“Don’t cry, Frankie.” This time her smile wasn't mocking. It wasn't mean. It was serene and beautiful. “You're walking on water.” Her smile faded. “I'm sorry. I'll never be mean again. I promise. Please.” She cast her eyes slowly to the sky, and I realized she wasn't talking to me. She was praying. “I’ll be so good, I swear.”
The center of the lake was bubbling, with a cracking sound like ice cubes in water. The water in the center turned white, fanning out, turning the clear water to solid ice. It didn't seem possible. It was past Fourth of July. But as quickly as it came, the water turned clear again, water shooting up from the center of the lake.