The Girl in the Lake

by Kate Hall

  Chapter Seven

  When we’re eating breakfast and Mom is re-dressing the wounds on my wrist and ankle, Rodney appears on our porch. Alyssa opens the aluminum screen door and stands out with him, leaning on the railing and staring out into our pasture. From my perch in the breakfast nook, I can see their lips moving, but I can’t hear a word.

  He leans his head on her shoulder, and his body wracks with sobs. She wraps an arm around him. I desperately want to know what they’re saying, but it’s a private moment that doesn’t concern me.

  “Which one tried to drown you?” Mom asks, breaking in to my thought process.

  “Penelope,” I say. “She has that birth mark on her.”

  “Penelope Wilson? Jack’s wife?”

  I nod and take a sip of my orange juice.

  “I wonder what was happening there that made her turn?”

  I shrug. “It’s not on us to know. Just to take care of them.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “You sound like your grandmother.”

  I shrug again. “You should visit her sometime. I think Nan misses you.”

  It’s mom’s turn to shrug, although I know why she doesn’t go down to the lake. Before I was born, before my parents ever even met, the lake took Mom. Back then, she’d just been Ophelia. Sad, broken-hearted Ophelia. She dove into the water after she caught her high school boyfriend cheating on her with her best friend. Nan had begged it to give her back—offered anything she could give. So it had taken her. After that, Mom was alone on the farm.

  “I’ll go out to the dock tomorrow,” Mom says. She says this every time, but she hasn’t been out since Dad left. I think, subconsciously, she considers going back to the water now that Dad’s gone. The pain of being abandoned is just too much for her to handle, so she stays at the house and runs the occasional errand when absolutely necessary. For the most part, her life is contained to this stone building that her mother’s mother, Ruth, built.

  Alyssa and Rodney come inside, the screen door’s ancient hinges creaking to signal their entry.

  “Can I stay here tonight?” Rodney asks, his voice small, like the little boy that moved in across the way four years ago instead of the tall, confident one that stands here in front of us.

  Mom wraps him in a hug, and he somehow seems small even though she’s half a foot shorter than him. “Of course you can. You know you’re always welcome.” Mom is the only adult who knows Rodney is gay, although she doesn’t know about me being bi. She gets to work baking a pan of brownies, just like the old days. Rodney plays a movie on my phone, and we all crowd in the breakfast nook to watch it instead of connecting it to the much larger TV in the living room. Outside, it’s still raining.

  I use the brownie timer ringing as an excuse to get away from the screen when the cartoon dinosaur dies, and I keep my face toward the oven to obscure my tears. The movie shouldn’t matter considering what’s going on, but it still makes me cry every time.

  I get out forks, and we move to the living room at the back of the house. The TV is the last thing Dad bought before he left, and I thought for sure he’d take it when he was storming through the house and packing up everything he cared about. Now, we barely watch it, but Rodney puts the remainder of the movie on the TV and we sit on the sectional, eating brownies out of the pan. Mom is on my right, and Alyssa and Rodney are on my left. Mom’s skeletal figure is piled as small as can be on the couch, so I make sure she eats extra. With the stress of everyone else’s future, she forgets to eat. I’m terrified that one day, there will be nothing left.

  Alyssa leans her head on my shoulder, and Rodney lays out on the couch and uses her lap as a pillow like a puppy. Within moments, he’s asleep. He’s the one who picked the movie. Just as the credits roll, he sits up, rubbing his eyes. The sun has gone down past the Ozark Mountains, and we’re left in pale blue light that’s fading fast. Mom is out cold, so Rodney carries her to her bed and tucks her in like a kid before we move to the basement, piling into my queen bed together. Pretty soon, Kyle sneaks in through the basement door, and we all squeeze together, falling asleep despite the discomfort.

  Chapter Eight

  The landline never rings unless it’s one of Mom’s clients, but it wakes me up first thing in the morning. After it stops and then starts ringing again, I climb out of bed and jog up the stairs as quietly as possible. Alyssa barely stirs, and the guys are totally unresponsive.

  “Horizons Past Present Future, how can I help you?” I answer, out of breath.

  “Heather, check Twitter. Or Facebook. Or anything.” Janna. Her tone is quiet and careful. I look out the window while I search for Mom’s tablet, since my phone is still plugged in next to my bed. The iPad is buried in the cabinet under a box of cereal—it’s never in a normal place—and I have to log in to my account while Janna waits.

  As soon as it’s open, I see what she means. This morning, a little girl disappeared into the lake.

  In Kimberling City. That’s miles away.

  From what I can find, she had been splashing in the shallow water in the early-morning drizzle, and her dad had watched her disappear, sliding underneath in a foot and a half of water. He’d searched and searched, but she was simply gone.

  A pair of arms wrap around me, and Alyssa whispers in my ear, “Why are you up so early?”

  I don’t mean to flinch away from her, but I do, and her eyes are hurt.

  Quickly, I move back to her and show her the iPad, scrolling through the posts. She glances at the blinds to the now sunny day. They’ll never find her. If they’d looked when she first disappeared, though, they would have only seen a monster.

  We walk back to the dock together, avoiding looking at each other. There is too much going on, and it just keeps getting worse.

  All five horses are standing around the round bale, and they don’t even turn to us as we pass. For them, the world isn’t falling apart.

  When we get to the dock, I toss some cereal flakes and strawberries into the water, and Winny and the rest come up. Nan is the last to arrive, and she is followed by a smaller fish that’s black as night.

  “Bella?” I say gently, the name from one of the Twitter posts. She swims up higher, splashing over the surface. She rams her head into the ladder before swimming in circles.

  Despite almost getting sucked back into the water the other day, Alyssa climbs in. “I know,” she whispers to the new fish, who’s the size of a toddler. “I know it’s scary.” I keep tossing food to the side for everyone else, keeping them from dragging Alyssa out into the water again. Sure, it’s sunny now, but I can’t trust the deceitful sky again.

  The smaller fish weaves around Alyssa, whose eyes find mine. “We have to get her out,” she pleads.

  The pain in her eyes is so raw that I can’t look into them for long. “We can’t.”

  She climbs out of the lake, and my breath comes out in a rush. Her hand wraps around my upper arm, her grip a vice. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  “I messed everything up,” I say. “I tried to fix it, but it didn’t work. I can’t do anything else. I’ve tried.”

  Her eyes harden, and she drops my arm. The coldness in her expression turns my heart to ice.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. A hot summer breeze whips around us, and the fish retreat into the deep, herding their new charge down with them. A shiver runs through me.

  Chapter Nine

  Rumors travel fast in Ginger Hills, and it isn’t more than a few hours before there’s a knock at my door. Alyssa has been out in the pasture with the horses all morning, sitting in the hole they’ve made in the round bale and occasionally passing them handfuls of food like some sort of hay faerie. Rodney and Kyle were gone when we returned, but left a note saying they’d be back later.

  There’s a man standing on our porch, tall, dark-skinned, and sullen. I open the wooden door but leave the screen latched.

  “Can I help you?” I ask slowly, giving him a once-over. I recognize him as a po
lice officer, one of our five total. He’s middle-aged and worn, his beard speckled with hints of gray. Although he isn’t in uniform, and his car is a plain blue Honda, my hand tightens on the frame. He’s probably just here for a reading, but I can’t be too careful.

  He glances down the driveway then back at me. “Hello. I’m Darrel Murray. Are you Heather?”

  Instead of confirming, I say, “Do you have a warrant?” Mom would be appalled at my lack of southern hospitality, and Dad, who once punched a state Senator, would be proud of my distrust of any and all authority.

  A smile cracks his lips, and he says, “No, but I’m not here on official business. I just want to chat.”

  It’s hard to trust him, but I tighten my eyes and say, “We can talk on the porch. Would you like something to drink? We have water, sweet tea, and lemonade.” There’s that southern hospitality. Mom would be proud if not for my tone.

  He nods, looking off into the distance. “Sweet tea sounds delicious.”

  I go into the kitchen and fix two glasses—tea for the officer and lemonade for myself.

  “So what can I help you with?” I ask, handing over his tea before sitting on the porch swing. He leans against the railing, considering his words.

  “Heather, I’m sure you know I grew up here. And so did my parents. And their parents. Kind of like a lot of people around here.” He takes a sip of his drink, and I just wait quietly for him to continue. “I know the legends as well as anybody else. About disappearing into the lake. About the monsters that wait for the rain.” I suppress a laugh. He clearly doesn’t know the legends as well as me, as his details are a bit off, but I don’t tell him that.

  He chews on his bottom lip before speaking again. “I also know that the Stephens’ daughter was stolen two years ago, but she came back.”

  This time, when I wait, he doesn’t keep talking. I raise my eyebrows at him when he finally makes eye contact.

  “My wife disappeared fifteen years ago. She’d gotten in a big fight with her parents when they found out she couldn’t have a baby.”

  I remember hearing something about that, about poor sad Lyla Murray and how she’d never pass on her parents’ farm, so they’d been forced to put her cousin Irene into their will instead. They hadn’t wanted to, but they’d had no choice. All these biased rumors were, of course, spread by her parents.

  “She and I never wanted kids, but her parents…they were horrible. Acted like she wasn’t a person because of it.” He moves across the porch and sits on one of the plastic green chairs near me.

  “I can’t bring her back,” I say, my voice firm despite the sadness radiating off him. “I would if I could, but…”

  He looks back up at me, his eyes red and shining with tears. “Is that why that little girl is gone? Because Alyssa came back?” I’ve never seen a grown man cry, and I shift in my seat with discomfort. I don’t even notice that Alyssa has returned to the house until she speaks.

  “Yes,” she says, her eyes refusing to meet mine. She leans against one of the posts, arms crossed. I want to tell her I’m sorry, to make her see why I can’t do anything, but it won’t happen if she won’t even look in my direction.

  “Well then you have to do something,” he says, his voice turning accusatory. I should be thankful it’s not at me, but instead, I get defensive.

  “What’s she supposed to do? She doesn’t even know how she got out!” I jump out of my seat and stand in front of her.

  Darrel’s eyes turn dark, and he stands up, setting his cup on the glass table between the plastic chairs. “She might not,” he says, his eyes boring into mine. “But I’m sure someone can figure it out.”

  With that, he goes back to his car and pulls out of the driveway.

  Chapter Ten

  Despite everything that Darrel and Alyssa have said, I can’t get anyone else back. I’ve screwed everything up enough as it is. Mom finally comes out of her room while I’m cooking a pot of spaghetti big enough to feed everyone in the too-crowded house. She immediately goes to the kitchen table and lays her head on her arms.

  “Why were the police here?” She asks.

  I sigh. “They weren’t. Just the one. Lyla’s husband.”

  Mom nods slightly, and I join her at the table. “It happens sometimes. People think we can bring them back. What they don’t understand is that for someone to come out, someone has to go in.”

  I hold my breath. If I let it out again, I’ll speak, and I don’t want to know what I’ll admit if I do. Mom must suspect that I did something to bring Alyssa back, but she hasn’t actually spoken to me about it.

  “There has to be a way,” Alyssa says, and I startle. When did she get so sneaky? This is the third time she’s snuck up on me, although the first was the moment she burst out of the water a few days ago.

  I simply shrug, this time being the one to avoid her gaze. Despite Mom’s presence, Alyssa strides over to me and pulls my chin up to meet her stormy gaze. We’re so close that I can feel her gentle breath tickling my lips. “I know it sucks,” she whispers, “but we have to.” I can’t help but glance at her full lips, which are pulled into a frown. She doesn’t like this situation anymore than I do. I’m tempted to kiss her, right here in the breakfast nook in front of my mother, but I control myself.

  Barely.

  “Fine,” I breathe, and she releases me. The absence of her touch, despite her intense stare, leaves a hollowness in my chest.

  My phone vibrates from the pocket of my vintage shorts, and I pull it out, glad for the distraction. A photo of Kyle, which Rodney took, fills the screen. In it, his blonde hair is dry and sticking up from the wind, and he stands on the swim deck of Janna’s boat, his tan skin glistening with the slight spray that hit him when I sped past them on the jet ski at Becker’s Point. His wakeboard is tucked under his arm, and his distinctive nose is silhouetted against the trees.

  “Hello?” I say, standing up to move toward the living room as to not disturb Mom.

  “Hey,” he says, his voice slow. “We were thinking about going on the water again. Everything has been so stressful, especially with that little girl…”

  I plop down on the couch and wait for him to continue. Alyssa follows behind me and joins me on the sofa, her thigh inches from mine and the heat immeasurable. We shouldn’t go out—we should stay in and strategize, research, plan.

  “We could use their help,” Alyssa says. “And you should get your dad’s jet ski back. We might need it.”

  I chew on my bottom lip, considering. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

  It’s late afternoon and early summer, which means the lake is already slammed by the time Janna picks us up in her parents’ sedan. Thankfully, the boat and jet ski are tied to the dock when we arrive, so we get to Becker’s point pretty quickly. It doesn’t matter, though. If it rains, anyone can be taken. Anyone in the whole lake.

  When we arrive, I help tie the boat to one of the old trees that were unlucky enough to be this far into the valley when it was flooded. Kyle is stretched out over Rodney’s lap on the rear bench, I tie my jet ski to the boat and move to the passenger seat. Janna is in the driver’s seat, and Alyssa is standing between us.

  Alyssa finishes explaining the situation, which started with her disappearance two years ago. She describes the monsters that come out when it rains, their hunger for flesh. Any flesh. She doesn’t mention what happens on days it’s not raining. “When I was let out, though, something else was released. Unbound. Whatever it was that kept the fish here.” This is news to me. What else was bound to the lake? And why didn’t she tell me this?

  For a moment, nobody speaks.

  Then, with a calm tone, Kyle says, “So how are we getting them back?”

  I chew on the inside of my lip but don’t say anything. I still have no intention of actually going through with this dangerous plan, but if everyone else wants to try, I can at least keep them from fucking it up as badly as I did.

  Janna is the next to speak,
“Could we just, I dunno, pull them out? I mean sure, they’ll try to eat you, but if Alyssa turned back yesterday, they should, too. Maybe when it’s not raining? My aunt—”

  “No!” Alyssa and I shout simultaneously. Everyone makes eyes at us, looking back and forth in an almost comical motion.

  “Haven’t you heard about the famously hard-to-catch giant fish around here?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. Kyle is the first to realize, and he sits up quickly before bracing himself on Rodney’s shoulder. His mouth is open in a wide “O.”

  “You mean,” he says in a rush of air, “that those are…” He can’t finish the sentence. Of course he can’t. It’s too horrible to say out loud.

  “People,” Alyssa finishes, her mouth set in a grim line.

  Janna gags, covering her mouth with her towel.

  “So fishermen have been…” Rodney’s eyes are calculating. “Catching and killing people?” This is the first time he’s indicated that he believes anything that’s going on with the lake, and it brings a bit of tension off my shoulders.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “It’s really rare. And we—Mom and I—try to keep it from happening, but sometimes…” Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, and I have to blink them back. Janna hops over from the driver’s seat to crouch beside my chair, wrapping her arm around my shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Heather,” she says. “I wish we’d known. I can’t believe you had to do it all on your own.”

  My eyes follow Alyssa as she staggers over to me and sits, her pale thigh touching my sun-tanned one. Her eyes shift to mine for the first time all day, and relief settles into me.