The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  “You went here when you were our age, right?” Sasha asks.

  “I did.”

  “Did you have campfires?”

  “Of course,” I say, pulling a freshly roasted marshmallow off my stick and popping it into my mouth. Although the hot sugar burns my tongue, it’s not an unwelcome sensation. It brings back memories, both good and bad.

  During my first, tragedy-shortened time here, I loved the campfire. It was hot, powerful, just the right amount of intimidating. I loved feeling its heat on my skin and watching the way it glowed white in the center. The burning logs popped and sizzled, like something alive, fighting the flames until they finally collapsed in a pile of embers, sending tiny dots of fire swirling upward.

  “Why didn’t you like this place, again?” Miranda says.

  “It’s not the place I didn’t like,” I tell her. “It’s what happened while I was here.”

  “Someone vandalized the cabin back then, too?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Did you see ghosts?” Sasha asks, her eyes shiny and wide behind her glasses. “Because Lake Midnight is haunted, you know.”

  “Bullshit,” Krystal says with a sniff.

  “It’s not. People really believe it,” Sasha says. “A lot of people. Especially once those girls vanished.”

  My body tenses. The girls. That’s who she’s referring to. Vivian and Natalie and Allison. I had hoped their disappearance would somehow elude this new group of campers.

  “Disappeared from where?” Krystal says.

  “Right here,” Sasha replies. “It’s why Camp Nightingale closed in the first place. Three campers snuck out of their cabin, got lost in the woods, and died or something. Now their spirits roam the forest. On nights when the moon is full, they can be seen walking among the trees, trying to find the way back to their cabin.”

  In truth, it was inevitable that the missing girls of Dogwood would pass into legend. They’re now as much a part of Camp Nightingale lore as Buchanan Harris’s flooded valley and the villagers caught in the water’s path. I picture the current campers whispering about them at night, huddled under sleeping bags, nervous eyes flicking to the cabin window.

  “That’s not true,” Krystal says. “It’s just a dumb-ass story to frighten people from going into the woods. Like that stupid movie by the guy who made The Sixth Sense.”

  Miranda, not to be outdone, pulls out her phone and holds it to her ear, pretending to answer it.

  “It’s the creepy ghost girls calling,” she announces to Sasha. “They said you’re a terrible liar.”

  * * *

  —

  Later in the night, after the girls have gone to sleep, I remain awake in my bottom bunk, irritated and restless. The heat is partly to blame. It’s a stifling, stuffy night made worse by a lack of airflow inside the cabin. I insisted on keeping the window closed and the door locked. After this morning, it felt like a necessary precaution.

  That’s the other reason I can’t sleep. I’m worried that whoever is watching me will make a repeat appearance. And I worry more about what they plan to do next. So I keep my gaze trained on the window, staring out at heat lightning flashing in the distance. Each flash brightens the cabin in throbbing intervals—a strobe light painting the walls an incandescent white.

  During one blinding burst, I see something at the window.

  Perhaps.

  Because the flash of lightning is so quick, I can’t quite tell. All I get is the briefest of glimpses. Half a glimpse, really. Just enough to make me think once again that someone is there, standing completely still, peering into the cabin.

  I want to be wrong. I want it to be just the jagged shadows of the trees outside. But when the lightning returns, arriving in a bright flash that lingers for seconds, I realize I’m right.

  There is someone at the window.

  A girl.

  I can’t see her face. The lightning backlights her, turning her into a silhouette. Yet there’s something familiar about her. The slenderness of her neck and shoulders. The slick tumble of her hair. Her poise.

  Vivian.

  It’s her. I’m sure of it.

  Only it’s not the Vivian who could exist today. It’s the one I knew fifteen years ago, unchanged. The Vivian who haunted me in my youth, prompting me to bury her in my paintings time and time again. Same white dress. Same preternatural poise. Held in her fist is a bouquet of forget-me-nots, which she holds out formally, like a silent-film suitor.

  My right hand flies first to my chest, feeling the frightened thrum of my heart. Then it drops to my left arm, seeking out the bracelet around my wrist. I give it a sharp tug.

  “I know you’re not real,” I whisper.

  I pull harder, the bracelet digging into my skin. The bird charms clatter together—a muted, clicking sound almost drowned out by my panicked whispers.

  “You have no power over me.”

  More tugging. More clicking.

  “I’m stronger than everyone realizes.”

  The bracelet breaks. I hear a snap of the clasp, followed by the sensation of the chain slithering off my wrist. I fumble for it, catching it in my palm, squeezing my fingers around it. At the window, lightning flashes again. A burst of blinding light that quickly fizzles into darkness. All I see outside are a smattering of trees and a sliver of lake in the distance. No one is at the window.

  The sight should bring relief. But with the bracelet now a curl of chain in my fist, it brings only more fear.

  That Vivian will come again. If not tonight, then soon.

  I’m stronger than everyone realizes, I think, repeating it in my head like a mantra. I’m stronger than everyone realizes. I’m strong. I’m—

  By the time I fall asleep—my heart hammering, body rigid, hand tight around my abused bracelet—the chant has mutated into something else. Less reassuring. More panicked. The words pinging against my skull.

  I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy.

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  In the morning, instead of reveille blaring from the speakers on the mess hall roof, I was yanked from sleep by “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in honor of Independence Day. Vivian slept right through it. When I climbed to her bunk to wake her, she swatted my hand and said, “Go the fuck away.”

  I did, pretending not to feel hurt as I headed to the latrine to shower and brush my teeth. After that, it was on to the mess hall, where kitchen workers dished out a Fourth of July special: pancakes topped with stripes of blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream. I was told they were called Freedom Flapjacks. I called them ridiculous.

  Vivian didn’t show up for breakfast, not even fashionably late. Her absence freed Natalie to get a second helping of pancakes, which she consumed with abandon, strawberry sauce staining the corner of her mouth like stage blood.

  Allison, on the other hand, didn’t budge from her routine. She put down her fork after taking three bites and said, “I’m so full. Why am I such a pig?”

  “You can eat more,” I urged. “I won’t tell Viv.”

  She gave me a hard stare. “What makes you think Vivian has anything to do with what I eat?”

  “I just thought—”

  “That I’m like you and do everything she tells me to?”

  I looked down at my plate, more ashamed than offended. I had downed two-thirds of the pancakes without a second thought. Yet I knew that if Vivian had been there, I would have consumed only as much as she did. One bite or one hundred, it didn’t matter.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just that—”

  Allison reached across the table and patted my hand. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. Vivian’s very persuasive.”

  “And a bitch,” Natalie added as she slid one of Allison’s untouched pancakes onto her own plate. “We ge
t it.”

  “I mean, we’re friends,” Allison explained. “Best friends. The three of us. But there are times when she can be—”

  “A bitch,” Natalie said, more emphatically that time. “Viv knows that. Hell, she’d say it herself if she were here.”

  My mind flashed back to the previous day. Her witnessing my disastrous attempt to kiss Theo. The smirk playing across her lips afterward. She had yet to bring it up, which worried me. I had expected some mention during the campfire or right before bed. Instead, there had been nothing, and it made me think she was saving it for a later game of Two Truths and a Lie, when it could inflict the most emotional damage.

  “Why do you put up with it?” I said.

  Allison shrugged. “Why do you?”

  “Because I like her.”

  But it was more than that. She was the older girl who took me under her wing and shared her secrets. Plus, she was cool. And tough. And smarter than I thought she let on. To me, that was something worth clinging to.

  “We like her, too,” Natalie said. “And Viv’s been through a lot, you know.”

  “But she’s sometimes so mean to the two of you.”

  “That’s just her way. We’re used to it. We’ve known her for years.”

  “All our lives,” Natalie chimed in. “We knew who she was and what she was like even before we became friends. You know, same school, same neighborhood.”

  Allison nodded. “We know how to handle her.”

  “What she means,” Natalie said, “is that when Vivian gets in a mood, it’s best to stay out of her way until it passes.”

  * * *

  —

  I spent the rest of the morning separated from the others in Dogwood, thanks to another advanced archery lesson. I was relegated to the arts and crafts building, where the camp’s other thirteen-year-olds and I used leather presses to decorate rawhide bracelets. I would have preferred to shoot arrows.

  After that it was lunch. That time, Natalie and Allison also didn’t bother to show. Rather than eat alone, I declined the ham-and-Swiss sandwich on the menu and headed to Dogwood to look for them. To my surprise, I found them before I even reached the cabin. The roar of voices inside told me all three of them were there.

  “Don’t lecture us about secrets!” I heard Natalie yell. “Especially when you refuse to tell us where you were this morning.”

  “It doesn’t matter where I went!” Vivian shouted back. “What matters is that you lied.”

  “We’re sorry,” Allison said with all the drama she could muster. “We told you a hundred times.”

  “That’s not fucking good enough!”

  I opened the door to see Natalie sitting shoulder to shoulder with Allison on the edge of her bunk. Vivian stood before them, her face flushed, hair stringy and unwashed. Natalie had her chest thrust forward, as if in the process of blocking a field hockey rival. Allison shrank into herself, her hair over her face, trying to hide what looked like tears. All three of them swiveled my way when I entered. The cabin plunged into silence.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Allison replied.

  “Just bullshitting,” Natalie said.

  Only Vivian admitted the obvious truth. “Emma, we’re in the middle of something. Shit needs to be sorted out. Come back later, okay?”

  I backed out of the cabin, closing the door behind me and shutting out the raging storm taking place inside. Vivian was apparently having one of those moods Natalie and Allison had warned me about.

  This time, they couldn’t stay out of its path.

  Not sure where else to go, I turned to head back to the center of camp. There was Lottie, standing right behind me. She wore a plaid shirt over a white tee. Her long hair was pulled back in a braid that ran down her back. Like me, she was close enough to hear the commotion coming from Dogwood, and her expression was one of curious surprise.

  “Locked out?” she said.

  “Sort of.”

  “They’ll let you back in soon enough.” Her gaze flicked from me to the cabin door and back again. “First time living with a group of girls?”

  I nodded.

  “It takes some getting used to. I was an only child, too, so coming here was a rude awakening.”

  “You were a camper here?”

  “Yes, in my own special way,” Lottie said. “But what I learned is that each summer there’s always a fight or two in these cabins. It comes from being shoved together in such close quarters.”

  “This one sounds pretty bad,” I said, surprised by how shaken seeing them fighting had left me. I couldn’t stop picturing Vivian’s cheeks flaring red or the tears glistening behind Allison’s hair.

  “Well, I know of a friendlier place we can go.”

  Lottie put a hand on my shoulder, steering me away from the cabin and into the heart of camp. To my surprise, we headed to the Lodge, skirting the side of the building to the steps that led to the back deck. At the top stood Franny, leaning against the railing, her eyes aimed at the lake.

  “Emma,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “There’s some drama in Dogwood,” Lottie explained.

  Franny shook her head. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Do you want me to defuse it?”

  “No,” Franny said. “It’ll pass. It always does.”

  She waved me to her side, and the two of us stared at the water, Lake Midnight spread before us in all its sun-dappled glory.

  “Gorgeous view,” she said. “Makes you feel a little bit better, doesn’t it? This place makes everything better. That’s what my father used to say. And he learned it from his father, so it must be true.”

  I looked across the lake, finding it hard to believe the entire body of water hadn’t existed a hundred years earlier. Everything surrounding it—trees, rocks, the opposite shore shimmering in the distance—felt like it had always been there.

  “Did your grandfather really make the lake?”

  “He did indeed. He saw this land and knew what it needed—a lake. Because God had failed to put one here, he made it himself. One of the first people to do that, I might add.” Franny inhaled deeply, as if trying to consume every scent, sight, and sensation the lake provided. “And now it’s yours to enjoy any way you’d like. You do enjoy it here, don’t you, Emma?”

  I thought I did. I loved it here two days ago, before Vivian took me out in the canoe to her secret spot. Since then, my impression of the place had been chipped away by things I didn’t quite understand. Vivian and her moods. Natalie and Allison’s blind acceptance. Why the thought of Theo continued to make my knees weak even after I humiliated myself in front of him.

  Unable to let Franny know any of this, I simply nodded.

  “Wonderful,” Franny said, beaming at my answer. “Now try to forget about the unpleasantness in your cabin. Don’t let anything spoil this place for you. I certainly don’t. I won’t let it.”

  23

  I wake with the dawn, my fingers still curled around the broken bracelet. Because I spent the night clenched with worry, my lower back and shoulders hurt, the pain there beating as steadily as a drum. I slide out of bed, shuffle to my trunk, and dig out my bathing suit, towel, trusty robe, and drugstore sunglasses. On my way out, I do a quick check of the door. Nothing new has been painted there. I’m grateful that, for now, seeing Vivian again is the worst of my worries.

  After that, it’s more shuffling to the latrine, where I change into the bathing suit, then to the lake and finally into the water, which is such a relief that I actually sigh once I’m fully submerged. My body seems to right itself. Muscles stretch. Limbs unfurl. The pain settles to a mild ache. Annoying but manageable.

  Rather than full-out swim, I lean back in the water, floating the way Theo taught me. It’s a hazy morning, the clouds as gray as my
mood. I stare up at them, searching in vain for hints of sunrise. A blush of pink. A yellow glow. Anything to take my mind off Vivian.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised by her appearance. Honestly, I should have expected it after three days of nonstop thinking about her. Now that I’ve seen her, I know she’ll return. Yet another person watching me.

  I take a deep breath and slip beneath the lake’s surface. The colorless sky wobbles as water comes between us, rushing over my open eyes, distorting my vision. I sink deeper until I’m certain no one can see me. Not even Vivian.

  I stay submerged for almost two full minutes. By then my lungs burn like wildfire and my limbs involuntarily scramble for the surface. When I emerge, I’m hit once again with the sensation of being watched from a distance. My muscles tighten. Bracing for Vivian.

  On shore, someone sits near the water’s edge, watching me. It’s not Vivian, thank God. It’s not even Becca.

  It’s Franny, sitting in the same grassy area Becca and I had occupied two mornings ago. She still wears her nightgown, a Navajo blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She waves to me as I swim back to shore.

  “You’re up early,” she calls out. “I thought I was the only early riser around here.”

  I say nothing as I dry myself with the towel, put on the robe, and slip on the sunglasses. Although Franny appears happy to see me, the feeling isn’t quite mutual. With Vivian now fresh in my thoughts, so, too, is her diary.

  I’m close to finding out her dirty little secret.

  That line, the appearance of the camera, and Franny’s noticeable lack of support after Mindy accused me of vandalizing my own damn door have left me in a state of deep mistrust. I’m debating whether to walk away when Franny says, “I know you’re still upset about yesterday. With good reason, I suppose. But I hope that doesn’t mean you can’t sit with an old woman looking for a little company.”

  She pats the grass next to her—a gesture that squeezes my heart a little. It makes me think I can forgive the camera and her failure to rush to my defense. As for Vivian’s diary, I tell myself that she could have been lying about Franny keeping secrets. Being dramatic for drama’s sake. It was, after all, her forte. Perhaps the diary was just another lie.