So much time had passed since she’d seen the raft that at first she wondered if she was imagining things. There were moments when the world she saw with her own eyes and the worlds that appeared before the eyes inside her head overlapped. They came together and fused with frightening ease. No world seemed entirely safe from intrusion by another. None was absolutely reliable.
But there was the raft! She saw it clearly, proceeding in all its glory across the middle of the pond. Henrietta was overjoyed. Only the dark-haired pond girl was aboard. She was poling hard, seemingly headed for the overgrown bog on the other side.
Henrietta recalled that secluded place in bright detail. Great blue herons used to live there. Also, an immense number of frogs. And once, a pair of gray foxes came out on the bank, lowered their sleek heads, and lapped at the edge. She’d watched, holding her breath from behind a curtain of reeds.
The best thing about a raft was how quiet it was, how you could slip around a bend and catch wild things unaware. As she watched the pond girl pole across the water, Henrietta was filled with a longing so pure and painful that she gasped for air. She wished more than anything to be out there again, to see and feel the pond beneath her feet.
I must waste no more time. I must take possession of my raft again, make contact with the girls, plan my escape. Wait any longer and they’ll forget all about me!
A strong smell of burning stung her nostrils. She lowered the binoculars in time to see smoke drifting around the side of the house. Great billows of it.
“Mrs. Parks! Oh, Mrs. Parks!”
The woman was a perfect loss to humanity. Never around when she should be. Always off in some distant corner of the house.
Henrietta rose laboriously from her chair and went out to the hall. She called again and was attempting to descend the stairs by herself when Mrs. Parks’s ponderous form shot into view.
“Stay where you are, Miss Cutting! We have an emergency on our hands!”
“I smell smoke,” Henrietta called out. “Something’s on fire.”
“I’ve phoned the fire department! Stay upstairs!” Sally shouted back.
Well, that was a ridiculous order. Henrietta was not the sort of person who stayed upstairs while something in her house was on fire. She came down slowly, step by step, recalling for some reason the bonfires her father used to set. He was a great clearer of property. Liked to be out in his leather work boots vanquishing bittersweet and other invasive weeds. When the pile of cuttings stood high enough, he’d set it aflame. She’d go down to stand beside him in the field while he presided with a rake.
“Miss Cutting! What did I say?” Sally Parks was suddenly beneath her in the hall, flapping her hands. “Please go back up and stay in your room. There’s nothing you can do. I’ve called for help. The trucks will be here any minute.” She rushed off toward the kitchen.
Henrietta continued to descend the stairs. She went through the front hall into the dining room, crossed to the windows, and there witnessed an extraordinary sight. The garage was in flames! Red-hot tongues of fire were licking the walls. Rolling clouds of smoke swirled up past the eaves.
Her first thought was for the girls. They’d been in and out of the building for weeks, carrying wood and tools down to the raft. Henrietta’s heart gave a jump of fright. Oh dear, oh dear! Were they trapped inside?
Then she remembered that she’d just seen the pond girl on the raft, miles away, water on all sides. The other, the nervous follower, would not be here alone.
Henrietta pulled a chair over from the long mahogany table (once the site of her parents’ famous dinner parties) and seated herself in comfort before the windows. Directly in front of her the fire roared and crackled.
Two fire trucks arrived with shrieking sirens. Men in black rubber jumped out. They hauled hoses from the trucks and commenced spraying. A third truck arrived. Then a fourth! Fountains of water pounded into the fiery cauldron.
Off to the side Henrietta spotted Sally Parks in an old yellow sailing slicker—of all things! She must have borrowed it from the back hall closet. The woman was running around like a barnyard hen giving orders, as she always did. Useless in this instance. The flames would not obey. They leaped ever higher until the whole garage was engulfed. The roof collapsed. Windows popped out. Gutters melted, trellises fell, and . . . with no effort at all Henrietta finds herself floating up through the smoky air and whisking down to the pond.
She arrives on the raft and begins to look at the flames from her new vantage. Suddenly it seems to her that it isn’t just the garage that’s burning, it’s everything up there. It’s the whole blessed house! Porches, dormers, kitchen wing, solarium, bedrooms, bathrooms. A breathtaking spectacle!
Like a fire in heaven.
Henrietta has her raft pole in hand. She’s about to thrust it into the water and begin her departure. She’s decided to go on, to start a new life on the other side of the pond with the gray foxes. It’s a good time to leave. Everyone is riveted by the fire. No one will miss me!
“Miss Cutting! What are you doing down here!”
Henrietta turned with a jerk. She seemed to have dozed off in her chair. Her mind had wandered away. Now it snapped back into place and there she was in the dining room again, face-to-face with Sally Parks. Some time had passed because the garage outside, while still burning, was not so bright as before. The fire brigade was successfully containing it, though a large amount of smoke was still pouring out.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid Father’s workshop is done for,” Henrietta murmured, embarrassed to be caught napping.
Sally shook her head. “Not at all. We’ve saved a good portion of the back. That part will survive.”
“Father would be so pleased.”
She was taken back upstairs, fed a tuna fish sandwich and milk, and settled once again in her chair by the window while Sally returned to oversee the final act below.
It was then that Henrietta caught sight of the pond girl again. She’d returned from the bog and was standing on the raft in the middle of the pond. She was staring at the fire with fixed concentration, the same way Henrietta had watched it in her recent hallucination.
For a moment Henrietta’s mind slips again and she is standing beside the girl on the raft. Together they watch the garage burn on shore. Henrietta feels a powerful bond rise between them, a burst of recognition that they are one and the same, kindred souls whose lives have intersected and merged.
It doesn’t last, because abruptly the girl steps away from her and goes into action. She plants the pole on the muddy bottom and begins to take the raft swiftly up the pond. She comes to the overgrown spit of sand that reaches out like an arm into the water, rounds the bend, and disappears.
The pond girl disappears and leaves Henrietta behind. She leaves her trapped at the window, alone in the world, pressing a pair of binoculars hard against her watery eyes.
NINETEEN
Did you hear about the big fire?” Julia asked that evening at dinner.
Jonathan sat up. “Where!”
“At the Cutting house. The garage caught on fire. You could see the smoke from the beach.”
“I thought I smelled smoke,” their father said. “Late this afternoon I kept thinking I smelled it.”
“What happened? What happened!” Jonathan bounced in his chair.
“Well, it burned, I suppose,” Julia said. “Somebody said fire departments from three towns were called in.”
“Does anyone know how it started?” Richard Kettel laid a calming hand on his son.
“Can we go see it, Dad? Tonight! Right now!”
“It’s probably mostly out by now. What time was it when you saw it at the beach, Julia?”
“Around four, I think.”
“So it’s out,” he told Jonathan. “You can sit back down.”
Jessie had stopped eating. She had put her hand over her mouth.
“What’s the matter?” her father asked.
“Nothing.”
“Maybe I’ll find out more tonight,” Julia went on. “Apparently, the police were called in too. Like maybe it was foul play.”
“What’s foul play?” Jonathan asked her.
“It’s when something isn’t right, like the fire was started by unnatural means. Like some person did it. On purpose.”
Jessie rose from the table and left the kitchen.
“Are you all right?” her father called.
“I’m just going to look,” she called back. “I’m just going to see if you can still see it.”
“I am too!” Jonathan yelled. He pounded up the stairs behind her. In their room at the end of the hall, they stood at the windows and looked up the pond. A muted glow came through the trees.
“Is that it?” Jonathan asked.
“I think so.”
“Can you see any fire trucks?”
“No.”
“I guess it’s mostly out, then.”
“I hope it’s out.”
“Did the garage burn all the way down, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s foul play?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet it’s foul play,” Jonathan said, “otherwise why would the police have come?”
“I don’t know.” Jessie’s hand had gone up over her mouth again.
* * *
That night, long after Jonathan had gone to bed and her father had retired, Jessie stayed downstairs in the living room, assaulted by dark thoughts.
The fire would bring on an investigation. The police would come to check the scene. They’d want to know what had started the blaze, what was in the garage, who might have been in there recently, who might have had access.
If the garage had burned all the way down, there would be no evidence of a break-in. There would be no sign of what had been stolen by the robbers, or of the tools Terri had returned. What there would be was a trail that led down to the pond. There’d be signs of activity on the shore. There might even be footprints in the mud. Hers. And Terri’s, of course.
Jessie was hunched down on the couch, listening to the pond and feeling the raw creep of danger, when Julia came in, half an hour late. Her hair was in a tangle and her chamois shirt was buttoned up the wrong way.
“Hi,” Julia said loudly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you still up?”
“Because I am. Is that a problem?”
“No.”
“What was going on out there? You sat in the car for about an hour.”
“Nothing was going on. We were just talking.”
“Really! Who with?”
“None of your business.”
“Was it Ripley Schute?”
“Why do you care?”
“Well, was it?”
“Yes.” Julia smoothed her hair and went toward the kitchen. “I’m making tea,” she said. “Do you want some?”
“No.” Jessie followed her and hung in the kitchen doorway. She watched her sister put on the kettle and take a mug from the cabinet.
“Why are you watching me?”
“I’m not!”
“Well, what’s the matter, then?” Julia gave her an angry look. It changed suddenly to concern. “Hey, are you okay? Are you in some kind of trouble? Tell me. What is it?”
Jessie shook her head. “It isn’t me. It’s you. I heard something you might want to know.”
Julia snorted and tore open a packet of tea.
“Don’t get mad. I really think you should know.”
“Know what?”
“About Ripley Schute. He’s a creep. He got somebody in trouble last summer.”
“Who said?”
“Terri told me. She knows about things like that.”
“Oh, Terri! It was probably her.”
“No. She was just nice enough to tell me.”
“I thought you stopped hanging out with her.”
“I have.”
“Well, good!”
“Julia, listen. A lot of people know about Rip, they just aren’t telling you. Because he’s part of their crowd and his family has money. He’s a con artist. He picks on girls who just got here, who don’t know anything.”
“Well, thanks. You can go to bed now,” Julia snapped. “You stayed up all this time to inform me of this important fact?”
“No.”
“Yes, you did. You could hardly wait to tell me.”
“Julia—”
“Leave me alone!” Julia exploded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
She walked furiously out the back door into the night, where she waited for Jessie to go upstairs before coming back in.
In the dark of her room Jessie stood at the window and looked out toward the Cuttings’ house again. A faint glow was still visible there, a rustle of movement. Perhaps a fire engine was still at the scene. Or was a policeman already poking around for clues?
She hoped the garage had burned to the ground. If it had, there’d be less chance that the looting and robberies would be discovered, and no reason to investigate a crime that might lead back to her and Terri. At least the tools weren’t still down on the shore. She thought of how Terri had put them back, taking the risk of running into trouble so Jessie wouldn’t have to worry. So they could be friends again.
Friends. If it was hard before, it was impossible now. Things had gone way too far. Poor Terri. Whatever way she turned, life worked against her. No matter how awesome she was determined to be, no matter how much she wanted to get out and start over, it was already too late. She’d never do it. She’d never win. How maddening it must be to find yourself always on the losing side. So maddening that you might even . . .
A terrible thought weaseled its way into Jessie’s mind. Standing at the window, with Jonathan asleep in his bed behind her, she remembered Terri’s fire wand. She saw Terri flick it on with a smile of triumph.
“Pretty cool, right?” she heard her say. “You can light anything with this.”
TWENTY
There was nothing Jessie could do but wait and pretend.
Pretend that the fire at the Cuttings’ was no business of hers. Pretend that she was mildly interested when she heard that part of the garage had been saved. Pretend to be shocked when arson was said to be the cause. Pretend not to care that the Carrs were under investigation. Naturally, they would be, since they’d gotten away before with burning down a whole barn. (Julia said this.)
Pretend not to be wondering all the time about Terri and what was happening to her.
What was happening began to leak out toward the end of the week. Jessie heard it from Julia, who heard it from her group at the beach. Their father heard it from the helpful desk clerk at the library. Even Jonathan heard it. Philip’s mother talked about “a child out of control” to her friend at the pool.
Terri was being questioned.
“They found a kind of camp she made down on the pond,” Jessie’s father said, looking at her.
“Sure. I told you about it,” Jessie said.
“She’d been making fires there.”
“She was living there. She had a campfire for cooking. She couldn’t go home, remember?”
“They found lighter fluid. A can half-full.”
“Well, she’d been using it to light her fires!”
“They think lighter fluid was used to start the Cutting fire.”
“Anybody can buy lighter fluid, Dad! Half the people here have it for their outdoor grills.”
The authorities hadn’t yet discovered the fire wand, because the next thing her father said was:
“They found a whole box of wooden matches at Terri’s camp. Jessie, could she have done this? Set this fire?”
“No!” Jessie said. “Terri wouldn’t do that. She’s basically a good person.”
It wasn’t easy to say that, knowing what she did. Or to keep on saying it with Julia around always thinking the worst. Being h
appy to think the worst, as if the depths of Terri’s nature had been confirmed. As if she were depraved, beyond help, an apple rotten to the core.
“That kid’s been heading down the drain for a long time,” Julia said.
“And how would you know?” Jessie demanded. “You’ve only been here a month. You never knew her before that.”
“I heard about her. If you really want to know, I could tell by looking at her.”
“Julia!”
“It’s true.”
“So what was it, her cutoffs or her flip-flops? Was it her hair or her face or her feet that told you?”
“All of that,” Julia said. “She never looked clean. And she had a sneaky expression. And her teeth are brown.”
“Julia, I think you’re going a little overboard on appearances,” their father said. “None of that makes someone a criminal. I think you’re judging too harshly.”
“Just wait,” Julia said. “You’ll see I’m right. People who look a certain way are usually what you think they are. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Especially in Terri’s case.”
* * *
The Kettel family had ten days left of their East Coast vacation when Terri’s smoke began to drift down to their end of the pond. It arrived at the front door in the shape of a local policeman, the same shirtsleeved officer Jonathan and his father had encountered up at the station when they went to report the stolen laptop.
“Hello, sir. I’m Sergeant Jared Smith. Nice to see you again. How’s that little son of yours?”
“He’s fine. Off swimming at a neighbor’s house.”
“It’s certainly a good day for a swim. Hot as blazes! Sorry to bother you, sir. The reason I’m here is we’re following up on a report that some kids were seen on a raft out there on the pond. . . . Yes, in the last month or so. We know you’ve been renting here for about that long, and we wondered . . . I see. Your daughter? Well, it’s probably nothing, but would it be possible for me to ask her a few questions? We’ve had a terrific fire up at the Cutting residence, don’t know if you’ve heard about it. We believe it may have been purposely set. Perhaps your daughter could shed some light on the case. Her name is . . . ?”
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