The Accident

by Diane Hoh

When they got to the house, Thomas and his father took the boat out. Mrs. Logan went down on the dock to “relax and enjoy the night sky,” and Justin talked Hilary and Juliet into watching a science-fiction movie in the den.

  Since Justin seemed to be enjoying Juliet’s company so much, Megan began to wonder if he would be disappointed when the week was up and the “old” Megan returned.

  I could never be like her, all sparkly and giddy and outgoing. No wonder she was popular forty-five years ago. I couldn’t be like that … could I?

  Hilary, Megan noticed, didn’t seem to be having very much fun, though. She looked almost as lost and lonely as Megan felt. And she kept looking at Juliet, obviously confused by her friend’s un-Meganlike behavior.

  Poor Hil can’t understand why all of a sudden I’m Miss Personality. I wish I could have told her what was going on.

  Megan decided to join her brother and her father out on the lake. Maybe being out in the open would ease her misery.

  The lake was crowded with boaters trying to escape the heat, including many of Megan’s friends. She was happy to see Barbie Winn, a bandage across one side of her face, in a canoe with her boyfriend. She’d been luckier than her older sister. Donny Richardson went by in a boat crowded with people Megan guessed were relatives. The two boys who had rescued Hilary with the ladder went by, and so did Vicki Deems, surrounded by boys Megan didn’t recognize. From a nearby town, probably. Vicki must have already conquered the entire male population of Lakeside and been forced to seek out fresh new territory.

  Unfortunately Megan found that being outside with the trees and the lake around her did nothing to help her mood. Neither did venturing into the depths of the lake, where she discovered the cold and the wet couldn’t touch her. Frustrated and unhappy, she surfaced, only to be again surrounded by laughter and chatter from the boats on the lake.

  I would rather feel the wet and the cold than this terrible, empty feeling. Nothing could be worse than this. Nothing!

  When her father aimed the boat toward home, Megan went, too.

  As they neared the dock, something moving in the water caught her attention. Megan moved in closer to get a better look. What was it?

  A tree branch? Remnants of someone’s lakeside picnic?

  Megan saw hair, splayed like seaweed on the water. She saw two arms, two legs. …

  A voiceless scream soared up through her.

  Her mother was floating, facedown and unconscious on the water.

  Chapter 11

  THE SIGHT OF HER mother’s limp form floating like debris on the black water made Megan feel as helpless as she’d felt in the spiderweb dream. I’ve got no voice, so I can’t scream. I’ve got no body, so I can’t drag her out of the water. And if she dies, it’ll be all my fault. If I hadn’t traded places with Juliet, I could save Mom now.

  Thomas’s frantic shout broke through Megan’s frustration. In a second, he was out of the boat and plunging through the shallow water to Constance Logan, crying out to his father. He grabbed at her shirt, ballooning out around her, full of air and water. His frantic shouting, “Mom, Mom!” was high and shrill with fear. His father arrived at his side, and together they lifted the unconscious woman and carried her up the embankment.

  Megan wanted, needed, desperately to help her family. There was only one way she could do that. She raced up to the house. Mom, Mom, please don’t be dead!

  Inside the house, she sought out the only person who could hear her cry for help. She found Juliet in the den with Justin. They were seated, very close together, on the velvet settee. Hilary was nowhere in sight.

  “Juliet! Juliet, quick! Dial nine-one-one! It’s Mom! In the lake. Hurt. Hurry! I’ll tell you what to say.”

  Juliet flew off the settee and rushed to the telephone on the table beside the bookshelves. At that moment, Thomas ran into the room, crying. He repeated the chilling news. In his panic, he failed to notice that Juliet had already dialed Emergency Services and was beginning to repeat the words Megan fed her.

  “Dad’s doing CPR on her right now,” Thomas told Justin. “But she’s … she hasn’t moved.”

  As Juliet hung up the phone, Thomas turned to her. “I’m scared. She isn’t even moving.”

  “Let’s go!” Justin urged.

  “Emergency Services will be here right away,” Juliet said as they ran out of the house and down the slope. “I told them to come straight down to the dock.”

  “Do you have a crystal ball you haven’t told me about?” Justin asked Juliet as they raced through the darkness.

  “What?” Juliet asked.

  “You had already gone to the phone before Thomas came in. How did you know something was wrong?”

  “Oh,” Juliet said, startled. “I saw them. Through the den window. I knew something was wrong.”

  Apparently satisfied with that explanation, Justin nodded and increased his speed.

  When they reached the dock, Megan’s mother was half sitting, half lying against her husband’s chest. Although she was choking and coughing and gasping for breath, they were all relieved to see that she was conscious.

  A siren in the distance announced the approaching ambulance.

  “You okay, Mom?” Thomas asked, kneeling at his mother’s side. “What happened? You’re a good swimmer.”

  “I wasn’t swimming,” she answered weakly. “I was sitting. On the dock. Just thinking, enjoying all of the lights out on the water. And … and something hard hit me from behind. That’s all I remember? She tried to smile. “Like they say in the movies, everything went black.” She moved one hand to the back of her head, and when she brought it back down, the light from the boat lantern shone on a red, sticky mess.

  With a dying shriek, the ambulance arrived. Megan’s father rode with it to the Medical Center. He asked Justin to follow with Juliet and Thomas.

  Megan, too, went in the ambulance. While the attendants cared for her mother, she fought rising panic. First, her closest friends had been attacked, nearly killed. Now someone had deliberately hit her mother on the head and watched as she fell into the lake, leaving her to drown.

  But who? Everyone liked Megan’s mother. Like the other victims, she had no enemies. Until now.

  We have to switch back. Now! I hate to go back on my promise and disappoint Juliet, but I can’t just stand by and watch while some maniac hurts my family. I hope Juliet understands. I never should have agreed to switch in the first place.

  When Constance Logan had been comfortably installed in a hospital bed, a thick white bandage on the back of her head, her husband announced that he was staying with her all night.

  “No!” she cried, her eyes, clouded with medication, snapping open with alarm. “I want you home with the children. I don’t want them in the house alone, not now!”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Tom Logan agreed, and he took his family home.

  When Juliet had told Justin good night and gone upstairs, Megan followed.

  “Juliet, I’m scared. Seeing my mother lying there in the water made me realize how helpless I am like this. I mean, I couldn’t pull her out, and I couldn’t scream. It was really terrible. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. We have to switch back. Now!”

  Juliet, searching through Megan’s denim shoulder bag, scattering papers and old tissues every which way on the bed, had just located the hairbrush she’d been seeking and had begun to brush the dark curls absentmindedly. At Megan’s words, she dropped the brush, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, no, Megan, you can’t mean that!” she cried. “You can’t! I haven’t even had a whole day yet!”

  Megan felt like she was yanking the wings off a butterfly. “I know. And I’m sorry, Juliet, I really am. I know I promised you a whole week. But I didn’t expect anything like this to happen. Not being able to help my mother, Juliet, it was … it was horrible!”

  To her dismay, Juliet burst into tears. Between sobs, she begged, “Megan, please, please, don’t do this! Your mother’s goin
g to be fine, the doctor said so. This means so much to me! It’s the only chance I’ll ever have. I’ll help take care of your mother for you, I promise!”

  Oh, God, I want this to end now, Megan thought even as Juliet’s pleas tore at her resolve. She had never seen anyone so desperate. “Juliet, it’s just such a bad time —” she began weakly.

  Juliet interrupted with fresh tears. “Megan, I told you,” she gasped, “there isn’t any other time for me!” Skinny rivulets of mascara streaked her face. “Any other time will be too late for me.” Her voice fell to a heartbroken whisper. “Too late, too late …”

  The last ounce of Megan’s resolve disintegrated in the face of Juliet’s anguish. She had never in her life caused anyone so much pain, and she couldn’t stand it. “All right,” she said with a helpless sigh, “we won’t switch back tonight. Now stop crying, okay?”

  Juliet lifted her head, her face filled with hope. “You mean it?”

  “I … I guess so. We’ll give it a little more time. But if anything else bad happens, Juliet, to my family or my friends, we’re trading back.”

  “Of course, Megan.” Wiping her tearstained face with a towel, Juliet smiled and nodded. “But no more bad things are going to happen. I can feel it. Everything’s going to be fine.” Happy again, she slipped into Megan’s white pajamas and climbed into the canopied bed. “If we hadn’t switched,” she said calmly, “you wouldn’t have been down on the dock to find your mother and rush up to the house to call for help. So it’s not all bad, is it, Megan? Being me, I mean?”

  She had a point. But Megan wasn’t consoled. The days and nights loaned to Juliet felt like years, centuries. On this, only the first night, they stretched ahead of her like an endless, dark, deserted highway. How would she ever get through them?

  “Oh, by the way, Megan,” Juliet said cheerfully as she pulled the sheet over her legs, “when Hilary left, I asked Justin to your party. And he said yes. So now you can quit worrying.” She slid down in bed and closed her eyes. “Everything’s going to be great. Your mom will be fine, and Justin is coming to your party. So relax, okay?”

  “Juliet, what happened to Hilary tonight? Why did she go home so early?”

  “Oh, I guess she felt like a third wheel. Good night, Megan. See you tomorrow.”

  A minute later, the sound of her deep, even breathing told Megan that Juliet was sound asleep. Just then, something on the worn blue carpet beside the bed caught Megan’s eye. She knew what it was immediately, and the realization sickened her. How could another drawing have found its way into her home?

  She knew she had to look at it. Otherwise it would lie there all night like some dreadful insect, tormenting her.

  The picture was on lime-green paper. There were two crude crayon drawings. One was of a man in a gray-and-black-striped uniform. A convict. The second drawing was of a leg, awkwardly bent to emphasize the knee. CON. KNEE. Connie. Mom.

  She remembered Juliet pulling things out of her shoulder bag. The drawing must have been in there. But how had it got there?

  The mall. Someone had to have slipped it into her purse while she was there. If she hadn’t been so distracted all day by the thought of what was ahead of her that evening, she would have noticed the drawing sooner. Then she could have done something, anything, to protect her mother. She could at least have warned Juliet not to leave her mother alone for a second.

  At least her mother was alive. And she was going to be okay. She’d be home tomorrow, safe and sound.

  But … it might not be over. What if there was another attack, this time on Juliet? Juliet had said she could prevent that. What if she couldn’t? Maybe she was wrong.

  If she was … if something happened to prevent their trade on Saturday night, something that kept Megan from returning to her own body … what would become of Megan?

  Megan had to know, and she had to know now. “Juliet! Wake up, Juliet! I have to talk to you.”

  “What …” a sleepy Juliet mumbled from bed. “What is it, Megan?”

  “There’s one thing you haven’t told me, and I must know. What would happen to me … if you were … if something happens to my body while you’re in it? I need to know that, Juliet.”

  “If something happened to stop you from returning to your own form by midnight Saturday,” Juliet said slowly, “you’d … you’d be trapped in my world.”

  Megan gasped. “And you weren’t even going to tell me, were you?”

  “I didn’t want to frighten you, Megan. Because nothing bad can happen to me. I can steer clear of evil better than you can. Your body is safer with me than it would be with you.”

  Megan heard none of what Juliet was saying. All she could think of was being trapped in this horrible, empty world … forever. It was too terrifying to comprehend.

  Megan went out on the terrace roof to try to fathom what Juliet had just told her. Everything was perfectly still. Not a single leaf on the oak tree stirred. The lake was quiet, lying between the two shores like a giant ink stain. One by one, the lights in the houses bordering the lake went out, until, with no moon visible in the pouting gray sky, the darkness was complete.

  Megan had never felt so alone in her life.

  Chapter 12

  RESIDENTS OF LAKESIDE WERE severely shaken by the attack on Connie Logan. There was talk of hiring a private security patrol for the area. But the proposal was voted down because of the expense.

  Megan called Juliet’s attention to the drawings. “Keep your eyes open for more of these,” she said. “If someone else is going to get hurt, you might get another one. Check the art cubbyhole every day and the mailbox here at the house. And Juliet,” she warned, “I think Mom is right. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out alone. It might not be safe.”

  Juliet didn’t argue. She didn’t want to be alone, anyway. She wanted Justin with her, preferably at all times. “I know he’s your boyfriend,” she told Megan happily, “but it’s okay because he thinks I’m you. So it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong, right, Megan?”

  She didn’t seem to be taking the drawings seriously. That bothered Megan. How was she going to keep watch over Juliet and her family, too?

  Megan wished she could feel as confident about Juliet’s safety as Juliet seemed to. If there was a list of potential victims somewhere, Megan’s name was surely on it. Everyone who had been hurt was close to her. If she could be next, that meant Juliet could be next.

  She couldn’t forget Juliet’s answer to her question the night before. “Juliet,” she said as Juliet checked out the clothes in Megan’s closet, “I wish you’d pay more attention to what’s going on in town. You don’t seem to care at all. But if something happens to you …”

  Juliet selected several outfits and carried them to the bed. Spreading them out like food on a picnic table, she said nonchalantly, “Goodness, Megan, nothing’s going to happen to me! I told you, I’ll know if something evil comes near me.”

  But that wasn’t good enough. It was making her crazy. “But if something does happen … I’d have to stay … like this … forever?”

  “The same thing would happen to you that will happen to me, come midnight on Saturday. I’ll disappear, poof!” She smiled happily. “But it’ll be okay now, because you gave me this week. Stop worrying. Nothing’s going to happen to me before Saturday.”

  Poof? She would go poof? And disappear? Forever? The sharp-toothed edges of Megan’s trap closed around her. She could only pray that the hours and the days would fly by quickly.

  And that Juliet was right about being able to protect herself.

  Megan’s father brought his wife home from the hospital at noon. While she slept, he gave Juliet permission to go to the library with Justin. Reluctant at first to have any family member leave the house, he relented when Juliet pointed out that she had a report due in social studies.

  “Nobody is going to attack me in the library, Daddy,” Juliet pleaded. “Besides, Justin will be with me.”

&n
bsp; He gave in then, and Juliet ran happily upstairs to change her clothes.

  But Megan wasn’t so sure the library was perfectly safe. The auditorium at Philippa should have been perfectly safe, too. But it hadn’t been for Hilary, had it? Maybe no place in Lakeside was safe. And if Juliet and Justin got lost in each other the way they had the night before, an army of attackers could surround them and they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

  By the time Justin arrived, Juliet, in a full white skirt and a silky red long-sleeved blouse and red sandals, Was waiting at the front door. Her makeup was still slightly exaggerated, but she looked very pretty.

  The look on Justin’s face as Juliet came down the stairs depressed Megan. Would he wear that same expression when she was herself again?

  When Justin had learned from Mr. Logan that Megan’s mother was okay and sleeping comfortably, he and Juliet left, hand in hand.

  Megan left, too. The only advantage to this horrible feeling of separation from the world was her ability to watch and listen without being seen or heard. She might as well use it. But it didn’t take her long to realize that she wasn’t going to learn anything on a dismal, cool Sunday afternoon in a village whose residents were too scared to venture from their homes.

  The town was virtually deserted. A damp gray mist fell steadily on a lake empty of boats, on streets bare of automobiles and bicycles, on lawns free of children and pets, on deserted tennis’ courts and pools. Curtains and blinds were drawn on every house, gates closed and locked, garage doors firmly latched.

  And Megan had no idea what to look for. A stranger with maniacal eyes skulking through backyards seeking out victims? Or someone familiar who seemed no different — but on the inside was sick and twisted?

  It had to be someone she knew, someone who knew her. Someone who knew which art cubbyhole was hers, since there were no names on the boxes, someone who knew that denim shoulder bag belonged to her.

  All kinds of people had been in the lake area last night. Which one of them had attacked her mother? And who did they intend to attack next?