The Body in the Boat

by Ami Diane

  A pregnant pause followed.

  “Uh, sorry. Crude joke where I’m from.”

  “How else would he urinate?” Jimmy asked, more curious than sarcastic. “Do the men in the future not stand to use the bathroom?”

  Rose tutted.

  “Actually, there’s this thing you can wear for stadiums and games and such—“ Ella caught Rose’s expression. “Know what? Doesn’t matter. Yes, I’m very hungry.”

  Rose looked over the room. “I was thinking we could eat in here, tonight. It’ll be warmer. These old homes…” Her blonde pin curls quivered as she shook her head in disgust.

  The windows along the exterior walls lit up as bright as day followed a few seconds later by a clap of thunder that pressed against Ella’s chest.

  The lightbulbs flickered, and rain pattered against the windows.

  “Dinner by firelight it is,” Ella said. She offered to help carry dishes and utensils into the parlor.

  As they walked down one of the dimly lit, interior hallways, Rose’s nose perked up in the air. “I think Jimmy forgot to take out the garbage.”

  Ella put space between them. “Huh, I don’t smell anything.”

  “Strange.”

  “Yes, very strange.”

  Back in the parlor, Ella laid the informal dinnerware on a card table Jimmy had brought up from the basement of horrors.

  As they settled into their seats, Ella jostled elbows with Edwin around the cramped space, but she didn’t mind. The old man was sweet and reminded her much of her grandfather.

  Flo joined them, tin foil still wrapped around her beehive like a homing beacon. Rose did a double take at the head covering. Ella leaned sideways and made sure to whisper loud enough for Flo to hear.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and it’ll attract a bolt of lightning. Could you imagine what that’d do to her hair?” Her hands made explosive motions by her head. “Marge Simpson, anyone? No?” To her credit, Edwin chuckled, but she was pretty sure it was to be polite.

  “At least I don’t smell like the walking dead,” Flo huffed.

  “Good show,” Ella murmured.

  A hallway and room over, the front door opened, and Wink’s voice called out.

  “In here, Wink,” Rose hollered.

  The diner owner walked in bearing two loaves of freshly-baked banana bread under her drenched raincoat.

  She had no sooner set the loaves on the card table than Ella and Edwin were tearing into them.

  “For goodness sakes, you two,” Rose chided, “at least use a knife.” When she turned her back to help Wink out of her jacket, Jimmy joined in the fray.

  Wink sniffed the air. “I think you may have had another raccoon die in your crawlspace again.”

  “Yes. I was just going to ask Jimmy to have a look tomorrow.”

  Ella coughed. Flo stared at her, saying loudly, “Yes, it does smell like death, doesn’t it?”

  Ella scratched her nose slowly and pointedly, making sure to only use her middle finger.

  Wink settled at the table. Folding her hands in prayer, Rose looked around at the several mouths already chewing food. “Grace?”

  “What about her?” Flo poked at a chunk of meat that had fallen out of the casserole. “Is this horse?”

  The innkeeper’s pale cheeks flushed to the color of her lipstick. “Florence Henderson, when have you known us to ever eat horse meat?”

  Ella nearly choked on her bread. “Oh my God! Your name is seriously Florence Henderson? Really? Oh, that is so great.” She wiped the tears already forming at the corners of her eyes.

  Crazy Flo blinked at her. “I’m not sure why my name’s so funny.” She turned back to Rose. “Well? What is it, then? Squirrel? Oh!” Her eyes gleamed with an unsettling delight. “Is this Chester? Did someone finally put an end to that varmint?”

  While she’d been talking, Ella was quietly humming the theme song to the Brady Bunch, earning several confused glances.

  “What’s your problem with Chester?” Wink leaned in, chin set, ready for a fight.

  “He bit me. And he smells. Not as bad as this one, mind you.” Flo replied jabbed a thumb at Ella.

  Jimmy globbed butter on his bread. “Seems he has some sense in him, after all.” Rose shot him a dark look but followed it with a wink when Flo wasn’t looking.

  Another flash of lighting filled the room with bright light, and a boom of thunder followed on its heels, rattling the windows. The lights flickered then blinked out for good.

  Rose released a lady-like sigh while Flo swore loudly.

  Now their sole source of light, the flames in the fireplace flickered and sent shadows dancing along the walls.

  “Well, this is cozy,” Ella said. “It’s a good thing the lights went out. They were really throwing off the vibe in here.” She made a noise with her mouth. “Yep. I was just thinking how much I wanted to wander a big house in the dark.”

  “We have candles, dummy.” Flo poked at her food again before testing it with her tongue. She must’ve figured out it was decidedly not squirrel or horse because she devoured it a second later.

  While they ate the remainder of their meal by firelight—and candlelight once Rose returned—they discussed the expansion of the wind farm and the overfishing of the lake.

  When the topic of Twin Hills came up, Wink became conspicuously quiet and stared at the fire. The light deepened the shadows around her eyes, aging her ten years.

  Plates cleaned and chairs pushed back, a lull in the conversation came. Ella seized the moment.

  “I’ve been thinking… since I’m new and all, and still getting the ropes of the town, it might be kinda nice to know the boundary line for Keystone. You know, so I don’t accidentally end up on the other side right before a flash.”

  The memory of their previous mayor popped up unbidden. She’d stranded him in the desert in some unknown year, but she took comfort in the fact that he’d killed his own daughter and had tried to kill her.

  “It’s usually pretty obvious,” Jimmy said.

  Rose gathered their empty plates. “I guess I’ve never really thought about it. We’re so used to knowing where the boundary is.”

  “No one’s mapped it out or anything?” Ella found that hard to believe.

  “Oh, I suppose Will probably did when he came to town. He tried so hard to get home, to stop the jumping, didn’t he, darling?

  Jimmy nodded. “He had the hardest time adjusting I think, compared to most of us.”

  Wink finally spoke up. “I get the feeling he left someone very important behind, even though he won’t talk about it.”

  As curious as Ella was about Will’s past, the mystery of the time and space traveling was more important. “What about the sheriff? Didn’t he map out the border?”

  “Ol’ Chapman?” Flo situated her tinfoil hat which had gone slightly askew during dinner. “That man’s had his hands full with Six ever since they strolled into town.”

  “I wouldn’t call riding in on horses, shooting at each other like the O.K. Corral, ‘strolling into town’,” Jimmy said.

  “Whatever. Point is, Chapman’s an old frontier law man. He doesn’t concern himself with the minutia of the town or our… predicament.”

  “Doesn’t he want to go home?” Ella asked.

  “I’m sure he does,” Rose said. “But what can we do?”

  Jimmy stood, signaling an end to the conversation. “Everything that’s been thought of, we’ve tried, Ella. There’s no way to stop the traveling, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can build a life here.”

  He pushed his chair back into the table and mumbled something about needing to wash up. He strode out of the parlor, taking a candle with him and leaving the room just a bit dimmer.

  Rose turned to Ella. “Don’t you pay him any mind. He means well, but this subject always makes him grumpy. Honestly, I think he’s just scared of leaving.”

  Ella watched the flames of the nearest candle. It seemed to twitch
and shiver in some secret rhythm with the rain pelting the glass. A gust hit the inn, and she shivered.

  With the table cleared, Edwin and Ella scooted it closer to the fire while Rose lit more candles. After Ella learned the basics of bridge, they played several hands. Rose opted to watch and keep score, but really, her unofficial title was peacekeeper between Flor and Wink.

  The game wore on into the deep hours of night as the storm raged on. The more Flo swigged from her flask, the more she talked about the supernatural and UFOs. Wink kept encouraging this behavior because it kept her and Edwin winning.

  When it was nearing midnight, Ella’s stomach ached from laughter, and she’d long since wiped away the last of her mascara.

  After a round of “goodnights,” Ella ascended the stairs, helping a staggering Flo with one arm, the other holding up her phone as a flashlight.

  After depositing the drowsy woman into a position that didn’t look like she’d choke in her sleep, Ella went to her room. After tucking into a t-shirt and sweats, she stood at the window, watching the storm. The lamplights were out around the lake, but each flash of lightning lit the world outside.

  With one bolt, she noticed the torrid surface of the lake, pelted by the driving rain. On the next, she noticed a dark object on the water.

  Ella pressed her nose closer to the glass, her breath fogging her view. She swiped away the condensation and waited for the next flash of lightening.

  The sky lit up, clarifying the object. A rowboat. And there was a person inside.

  With the next flash, the figure had moved, but she was unable to make out what they were doing. It had almost looked like they were leaning over the side.

  A strange knot twisted in her gut. Who on earth would be out in the middle of the lake in a storm like this? At midnight?

  CHAPTER 4

  THE storm raged through most of the night, rolling right over Keystone Village. Ella listened to clap after clap of thunder and the hammering of the rain on the shingles overhead. If Thor was real, he certainly wasn’t happy.

  All the while, she couldn’t get the figure on the lake out of her mind. In the early morning hours, the storm passed, and she was finally able to drift off to sleep.

  The alarm on the nightstand sent out a shrill cry far too early. She fumbled with the unfamiliar device, eventually gave up, and threw it against the wall. The effect was instantaneous in that the device shut up, but now she was wide awake, wondering why in the hell she was up so early.

  She rolled off her bed and checked her phone. Slowly, it all came back. The late night, the figure on the lake, the power off thus forcing her to use the windup clock she’d just demolished. She was supposed to meet Will at the docks in then minutes.

  She dressed in the dark with what she hoped were jeans and a sweatshirt then descended the stairs, yawning, nearly missing the bottom step. Without time to brew a new pot of coffee, being desperate, she dumped Monday’s contents into a mug and downed it room temperature, sans cream.

  Her face sorted through a dozen different expressions, ranging from a grimace to gagging to resignation. It was too soon for the caffeine to hit her system, but the bitter brew alone was enough to wake her.

  Shoving her near-dead phone into her pocket, she slipped out the back door. At some point, the power had come back on, but not enough to charge her battery. She’d have to charge it later.

  Outside, the humidity hit her like a wall. Mist rose from the lake, and the grass squeaked underfoot. The horizon was yellow and turquoise from a rising sun.

  As she walked along the trail, she spotted remnants from last night’s storm, mostly in the form of downed branches, twigs, and mud. Despite the early hour, she was already considering discarding her sweatshirt. It seemed the weather couldn’t quite agree if it was the summer side of fall or the fall side of winter.

  Water lapped at the pylons as she reached the docks. Will hadn’t arrived yet, so she on the damp wood of the nearest dock and dangled her feet over the water, too tired to care about what was happening to her backside by doing so.

  The faint blush of the sun changed to fire then gold, spreading its amber across the water. Now that it was brighter, she could see across the lake.

  Her mouth dropped open. The boat still bobbed in the middle of the lake, probably anchored. But now, it was empty.

  Before she had time to puzzle over the mystery, the sound of footsteps on the wood planks behind her pulled her attention.

  Will strolled down the dock, wearing a straw boater hat, looking as dapper as an inventor from the 1920s could look. His usual three-piece suit was conspicuously absent. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “Nope. Just a couple of hours.” She stifled another yawn. “I can’t help but notice your lack of scuba equipment.”

  He motioned her to follow him to a small, weedy boathouse. She was surprised it survived last night’s storm.

  “This is like the beginning to every horror movie. Are you going to kill me? You’d tell me, right? No, wait. Why would you? That’d be silly.”

  “I am not going to kill you.”

  The door creaked not unlike the sound effects used in those terrible made for TV movies.

  He stepped aside for her to go inside first. She looked from him to the dark space inside. “Chivalrous manners aside, Will, would you mind going first? Not that I don’t trust you, but that’s what every murderer would say. No offense.”

  He shrugged, and she followed on his heels.

  The structure was roughly fifteen feet by twenty feet, made of weathered wood and shingles so old, they probably had asbestos in them.

  “Let me guess. Dance studio?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, Footloose! Are we going to dance? Wait, no. That was a warehouse. Never mind.”

  “I’ve no idea what any of that means. But this is a sort of community storage meets boathouse.”

  She looked around, inhaling the odor of dust and fish and other things with a big fat question mark. No, they definitely were not going to break out into dance.

  Most of the boathouse consisted of old rods and reels and tackle boxes, a few floatation devices, broken oars, several piles of ropes, and for some strange reason, a bowling pin.

  Will jumped over a dilapidated skiff with a busted keel and disappeared into the shadows. He returned a moment later with a dolly, toting his homemade scuba gear, complete with mask and fins.

  As he reeled it down the docks, it made a steady thump over each plank of wood. They passed two skiffs, an old rowboat, and a motorboat, before stopping in front of a rather nice speedboat.

  While Will and Ella loaded the gear into his boat, she noticed both his “regulator”—or some crude semblance of one—and mask were already wet.

  “I thought you were waiting for me to take your tank on her maiden voyage?”

  Beneath the brim of his hat, his face scrunched in confusion. “I did.”

  Ella dropped the subject, figuring the old boathouse probably had a leak or two or twenty.

  Will straightened. “Alright. Let’s get—” He turned around. “Where’s my boat?”

  “What? This isn’t yours?” She pointed at the nearest skiff.

  “No. It’s a green rowboat.” He turned another full circle, scanning up and down the dock. Ella squinted to the middle of the lake.

  “That it?”

  He followed her finger, his hat shielding his eyes from the morning glare off the lake. “What on earth is it doing out there?”

  “Uh, I think it was commandeered.” She told him what she’d seen during the night.

  Will stepped into another boat and grabbed the oars.

  “Oh, good. Now it’s our turn to steal one.” After a dubious look at the small craft, she stepped in, wheeled her arms around to maintain her balance, then dropped to a squat like a sumo wrestler.

  “Very graceful,” Will said as he undid the mooring lines.

  “Thanks, I thought so. So, who’s is this?”

  “Stewart
’s. The owner of the market.”

  “The old guy with the war stories?” she asked. Will nodded. “I love that guy.”

  He’d been kind to her, letting her take apples, oatmeal, and soap for free when she hadn’t had any cash her first couple of weeks. She’d tried to trade something of hers in exchange as most of the locals did, but he’d refused. Or maybe he’d had no use for a hair straightener.

  Will’s shouters rolled as he tugged at the oars, his face taught with indignation. If there was an aquatic version of road rage, he had it. Boat rage.

  “You don’t just go and steal another man’s boat,” he said as if counting a conversation.

  “What about a woman’s boat?”

  “Phonus balonus. Honestly, what kind of bushwa is that?”

  “The bad kind?” Ella guessed.

  “When I find out who it was, I’ll give them a piece of my mind.”

  His grip on the oars tightened, and she didn’t wonder if a “piece of his mind” involved a piece of his fist.

  After scooting her backside around on the hard seat to keep blood flow to her lower extremities, Ella decided to take his mind off his boat. “So, why did you want to test your gear at the crack of dawn?”

  “‘Cause no one comes out this time—”

  “There’s someone.” She pointed across the lake at the row of cottages sitting at the edge of the forest. A lone fisherman stood in waders casting out a line.

  “Okay. No one besides Jonas. I didn’t want any curious eyes seeing what we were doing. I get enough people poking around, asking about my inventions as it is.”

  “Jonas? Like, the angry farmer with the leased wind farm Jonas?”

  “The very one.”

  Ella studied the distant fisherman before letting out a large yawn. She’d already burned through her morning caffeine. “The least you could’ve done was bring coffee.”

  “The least you could’ve done was bring breakfast.”

  She arched her eyebrow at him. “Touché. I think you forget, I don’t bake.”

  “I’m well aware. I’m still digesting your attempt at pumpkin pie.” He laughed when she splashed him, and some of the tension in his face melted. “What I meant was, you could’ve brought Grandma Wink’s banana bread. It goes great with coffee.”