My head was spinning. Tucker and Nicky had saved me, after all! I smiled wearily. But there was still more to the story that I needed to know. “What—” I sputtered, “what about Vanessa, and where’s Chet…and…and?” I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t express myself.
The tears in Mom’s eyes unleashed themselves and coursed swiftly down her face. “You were right, sweetie.” She leaned close to me and whispered this. “You were right all along. Chet never loved me, and he had a plenty good incentive for keeping things from me.” She paused a moment, then forged ahead. “He had a fit at the Goldbergs’, Molly, while the paramedics were there. An awful, hysterical, maniacal fit! I had no idea why on earth he’d be so upset—with you all right and everything—and when I asked him about it, he just completely lost it. I don’t believe that he’s a psychologically sound man, Molly—not after what he told me.”
I remembered what Nicky had once said about Chet being a little off. “What did he tell you?” I asked Mom.
She hesitated again, then rushed on and spilled it. “He told me about his daughter Vanessa, under the assumption that I hadn’t already known, about how she had been his little princess, his everything, about her drowning and his sorrow…and about how he was out on his dock, late one night about a month after her accident, when she swam up to him—her ghost, that is—and he couldn’t believe his eyes!
“She visited him nightly from then on, and it was his secret, and his alone, as far as he knew. That’s when he changed the name of the lake from Emerald Lake, after the color of Vanessa’s eyes, to Secret Lake, because of the secret that he now kept. You were right about that honor system, too; if the resort residents never speak Vanessa’s name, they are allowed to use the resort facilities free of charge. Chet was so consumed by his grief—and by his secret—that it drove him mad to hear his daughter’s name spoken aloud.”
I thought about the night—not long ago at all, though it seemed to be so—when I had gone out on the deck to get my romance novel, when I had spotted Chet crouched down at the end of his dock, a flashlight in his hand to pierce the darkness all around. He must have been visiting Vanessa then, must have done it every night that Mom and I were at the house! I swallowed hard and listened as Mom went on.
“One night,” she said quietly, and her voice betrayed great emotion, “Chet was pouring his heart out to Vanessa, saying how much he missed her and wanted her back as she had been before. That was when Vanessa told him that there was a way, difficult though it may be. According to the lore of the lake, if he could find someone about her age and preferably a girl, with the same emerald green eyes that she had, Vanessa would then be able to, by trapping this person and holding her captive, drowning her or whatever it took—” Mom paused, all choked up. “Oh, Molly!” she exclaimed and started to cry.
“It’s okay, Mom, please continue!” I urged, impatient to hear the rest of the story.
Mom drew a deep, shuddering breath and did as I had asked. “Vanessa would then be able to…” she picked up her thread in hushed tones “…drain the life from this person and so absorb it into herself, leaving the person to die and enabling herself to live. That’s why Chet sought me out, after seeing your picture in my wallet at the hotel in Bermuda; all he wanted was you and your rare eye color, in order to have his daughter back.” Mom dropped her head and wept bitterly. “I’m so sorry, baby, for putting you through all this! Will you ever forgive me?”
“I forgive you already,” I whispered, and then I, too, began to cry quite hard, remembering the feeling of my own strength ebbing away beneath the water, remembering the sight of Vanessa, no longer so pallid and drawn, but ruddier and nearly alive-looking. She had been draining me, stealing my life, and leaving me to drown, or just to die from lack of strength, whichever happened first. I buried my face in Mom’s shoulder and sobbed.
She stroked my hair and murmured comfortingly. After a while, I composed myself and drew back, wiping my eyes on my hospital gown. “What’s going to happen to Vanessa now?” I had to know, my voice shaking.
Mom shook her head matter-of-factly. “That was the catch. If Vanessa had succeeded in draining your life, she would have lived. Because she failed, she is no more, Molly, not even her ghost. She’s gone for good now; that’s why Chet was so hysterical. And you, Molly, are here!” Mom hugged me to her in unspoken gratitude.
Relief like a tidal wave washed over me. No more Vanessa! “And Chet?” I asked after a moment.
Mom sighed deeply. “Chet’s back at his house, ranting and raving. He’s history, Molly; I’m leaving him, of course; I can’t be with anyone who wishes harm upon my daughter! ” She kissed my forehead firmly and went on. “Gabbie now knows the entire story, and she’s trying to contact Chet’s sister in Wales. A family member’s consent is needed in order to get him the psychological treatment that he desperately needs. It’s all turning out just fine, Molly.” She smoothed her hands through my hair and kissed me again, and I kissed her back, finally content.
The Most Special Girl
Just as Mom had told me, I was released from ER the next morning. I felt well rested and much better, though my mind was still reeling from the incredible ghost story I had managed to live through.
Tucker and Nicky met me at the door to my cubicle after I was up and dressed (in my newly washed and dried sundress and bolero; the hospital had taken care of them for me) and just about ready to leave. Mom had spent the night with me, sleeping in a chair, and she looked just as surprised and happy to see the guys as I was.
I dropped my purse, which Mom had rescued from the Goldbergs’ strip of beach where I had tossed it, along with my denim pumps, and rushed headlong into Tucker’s arms. “You’re my hero!” I told him. “You really, truly are!” I pulled away then (rather regretfully, I must say) and went to Nicky. “And you, too! You’re both my heroes, you guys! How did you ever do it? How did you save me from Vanessa?”
They both laughed a little, and Tucker smoothed my hair, then pulled me back against him and wrapped his arms around my waist. Mom and Nicky both gave us knowing smiles, and I felt myself flush happily pink.
“Well,” began Nicky, addressing my question, “as soon as we reached you, we tried strong-arming Vanessa, but she was like a steel trap, that girl, clawing at us, fighting and sneering and laughing and holding you down, Molly, all at the same time! I mean, she was holding up her end against two super buff dudes!” Here he laughed, good old Nicky! “But we weren’t going to give up. So what did we do? Well, I leaned over and kissed her on the mouth—yes, I did it again!—and caught her totally off-guard, so Tucker was able to reach down real quick and pull you to the surface! Then we both swam with you as fast as we could back to the dock, with Vanessa hot on our trail.”
“At first we thought you might be dead already,” Tucker continued emotively, “and Vanessa seemed very much alive for a little while there. She had color in her face—”
“Her lips were warm when I kissed her,” Nicky put in.
“And,” Tucker went on, “she was screaming like mad, loud like a banshee. She knew she hadn’t gotten you, Molly, and she was spittin’ mad about it, saying how she’d even made herself to look like some drowning little kid, so that you would come to her, instead of the other way around. That way, she said, you’d be very receptive of her, enabling her to gain more power over you. That’s what gave her the almost superhuman strength, I guess. But too bad for her, she didn’t get you, and since she failed—”
“No more Vanessa!” Nicky concluded jovially. “Too bad, so sad.”
All four of us laughed, and then I hugged Tucker and Nicky again, and Mom did the same.
“Who’s up for breakfast?” Mom asked. We all were quite hungry after the ordeal we had been through, we agreed unanimously, and Mom treated the guys and me to breakfast at The Pancake Shack in downtown Indian Falls.
Over the meal, Mom announced, as I’m sure we had all been expecting, that she and I were going to stop by Chet’
s house that day just long enough to pack our things. After that we would be leaving Secret Lake and the town of Indian Falls for good.
As eager as I was to escape my awful memories of The Resort at Secret Lake, I was very sad to be leaving Tucker and Nicky behind—especially Tucker. I could tell that the guys were upset, too, and after breakfast, Tucker surprised me by taking me into a little souvenir shop where they sold jewelry, handcrafted by the local American Indians, and letting me pick out a piece that I wanted—any piece. I chose a sterling silver necklace with a thin chain and a tiny turquoise pendant, and after Tucker had bought it, he clasped it around my neck. I turned to him with tears in my eyes, whispering my thanks.
In response, he took my arm and led me out of the shop and onto the sidewalk, where he wrapped me in his arms and kissed me long and tenderly—our best kiss to date! “Dang it, Molly, I’ll miss you so much,” he said, and his voice was abnormally thick.
“I’ll miss you, too!” I replied, and started to cry.
Tucker just held me tight and smoothed my hair. “It won’t be forever,” he whispered. “I’ll be home in Stanton the middle of August. Remember, that’s only thirty miles from Pinewood, thirty miles from you!” He poked me playfully. “We’ll see each other again before you know it.”
I drew back, my eyes wide in surprise. “You mean…you still want to see me back in Illinois?”
Tucker laughed gently. “Are you crazy, baby? Of course I do! You’re the most special girl I’ve ever met, and I don’t intend to let you go anytime soon!”
I brushed away my tears and rushed back at him, holding him fast. “You rock, Tucker Anderson!” I said through happy tears.
Farewell
Later that day, Tucker and Nicky stood waiting in the road by Chet’s driveway as Mom and I got ready to leave Secret Lake. Chet was cooped up in his bedroom, anguished and moody, and had refused to even look at either of us when we had gone inside to pack, which was just fine with me. The creep! Gabbie, on the other hand, had bid us quite an amiable farewell, and I knew that I would miss her.
I ran over to the guys and hugged Nicky, then hugged and kissed Tucker all over again. We all three vowed to keep in touch via telephone and e-mail while we were apart.
“Tuck sometimes visits me in New York during spring break,” Nicky told me. “Next time, you’re invited to come along, too! I’ll show ya around the Big Apple, and if you’re really lucky, one of my zillions of relatives might decide to get married or turn thirteen, and then you can have your very first taste of the crazy Jewish social scene. We’ll have fun, go wild out on the town, pull some dance moves that would put John Travolta to shame. Whaddaya say, Molly?”
I laughed. “Sounds fantastic, Nicky!”
Mom honked the car horn and I ran up the driveway, calling out a final goodbye to the guys. I slid into the passenger seat, and, once we had pulled out past the end of Chet’s driveway, I waved out my window at the guys until they were no longer in sight. Then I sank back, resigned, against my seat. I already missed Nicky, and Tucker even more so, but I felt at rest, peaceful, quiet, and happy in a manner too complex to express with words.
“Well, you sure picked a great man, Mom,” I quipped to fill the pensive silence in our car.
Mom laughed wearily. “Don’t you even remind me! I’d like nothing better right now than to completely erase and eradicate Chet Hollingsworth from my memory.” She shuddered. “That awful man! I guess that old saying, ‘Mother knows best’, doesn’t hold true for you and me, now does it? We should reword it: ‘Daughter knows best.’ There we go!”
“All right, Mom!” I added, and we both laughed.
Then Mom asked, “So, Molly Dolly, what do you think about you and me stopping off in the Wisconsin Dells for a few days on our way back home? We’ll just kick back, relax, and start putting Secret Lake behind us once and for all. We can stay in a hotel, eat out, go shopping, see shows, visit a waterpark, maybe—if you’re up to going swimming after what happened last night—just have us some fun, mother-daughter style, before we head back to Pinewood. Yes? No? Give me some feedback,” she said.
I laughed. “Sounds awesome, Mom!” I cried, and reached over to pat her arm. “Do you think we could get some good old Mexican food for dinner? Or even stop at Denny’s for a cheeseburger? After all those fancy restaurants Chet took us to, I’m definitely up for something a little lower class.”
Mom laughed this time, happily, and I loved the sound of it. “Sounds good to me!” she agreed. She turned on the radio and we both sang along to oldies.
Just wait until I got home! Just wait until I got the chance to talk about my outrageous vacation trip with Kathryn, with my other friends, with Nanny and Gramps. Just wait! Would they even believe me? I laughed to myself, and flipped down the mirror in front of the passenger seat.
I studied my reflection, as I love to do, and my emerald eyes sparkled back at me. Just wait! I thought. Just wait!
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