At Yellow Lake

by Jane Mcloughlin

He heard music, something played on a wooden flute, high-pitched but mellow. The music came from his tiny bedroom, from the cabin itself, from which it permeated the air like a slow mist or a dense, warm cloud.

  Things got blurry, distorted, as if this sound was covering his face. Still he could hear her voice.

  ‘Listen, listen.’

  Still he could feel her presence, and the beat of her heart like distant thunder.

  ‘Listen, listen.’

  The cabin music got quieter as other sounds intruded on his sleep – crunching, slamming, shuffling. His mother’s voice persisted, even as the sounds of the outside world grew louder, but the words became less audible. They were words, though, they brought meaning.

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  Those were the words he sensed as her soothing grip on his body gently let go. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ He struggled against wakefulness. He wanted to stay where he was, with Mum, but he felt something forcing him back into reality, a tugging, as if he was being trussed and hoisted upwards, lifted into the sky by a piece of gossamer cabling.

  The sounds that woke him were cars.

  ‘Listen.’

  More than one this time – that was obvious from the crunching on the driveway, the slamming of doors, the chorus of low male voices.

  Peter pounced silently off the bed. He crept into the kitchen. The door was locked. The window’s thin curtain was slightly open. . .

  The gun guys were back.

  There were two cars, and four men were outside them, huddling together, nodding, glancing into the cars, then towards the woods.

  There was another thing, too, but before he could make sense of what he was seeing, something pulled at him, dragging him away from the door, hauling him back into the living room, pointing him towards the windows.

  The others. Etta and Jonah. He’d forgotten about them.

  He opened the door, careful not to make any sound, and stepped onto the porch. Jonah couldn’t possibly have heard him from the beach, but he stepped away from his fire, turned toward the cabin and bounded up the hill in huge, effortless strides. Etta moved instantly, too – caught up in Jonah’s swift-footed wake.

  It was as if an invisible rope had bound them together. All Peter had to do was tug at it, and it hoisted them safely and silently back inside.

  Moments later, as Etta crumpled into his arms, and Jonah locked the door behind him, Peter realised the other thing he’d seen through the window.

  Inside the cars were four more men, two in each back seat. They were sitting completely still, like mannequins or dummies. Bound and gagged, Peter thought

  Maybe already dead.

  JONAH

  His fire had burned in vain. The spirits hadn’t answered his prayers. Bravery was what he’d asked for, a way to make amends, to heal the shame of his cowardice. All he felt was fear.

  Still, as Peter and Etta stumbled towards the bedroom, he managed to pull shut the living room curtains. None of the men he’d seen had been around this side of the cabin before, so they wouldn’t have known whether they were opened or closed. Less exposed, comforted by the darkened room, he moved back into the kitchen. There was no one standing outside the window over the sink. No one was peering in through the small sheer curtain on the door, either, so it was safe to look out. He bent down to a crouch and slowly edged to the door. He straightened up.

  Out on the driveway, the men were still standing by their cars in a close huddle, heads locked together, nodding, agreeing on something.

  Jonah recognised Charlie straight away – how could he ever have doubted that it was the same person? The weasel boy with the shovel was there, too. So was the younger one who drove the boat and looked like a chipmunk.

  There was another man, a biker type with a beard and wiry, blonde hair, who acted as if he were in charge. He nodded at the tied-up men inside the car, then pointed to a spot in the woods. He took out a pack of cigarettes and the other three scrambled to get a light for him. While they fumbled in their pockets, he looked towards the cabin, cocking his head, holding his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun.

  Jonah ducked into a crouch.

  He knows we’re in here.

  He slouched towards the living room, his heart thumping shamefully, his hands shaking like a cowardly child’s.

  Then he remembered – he still had some herbs left. He took them out of his pocket and walked into the living room, scattering the dry crushed leaves onto the wooden floor, grinding them with his bare heel into the woven braid rug in front of the fireplace, until all that was left on his hands was a powdery dust. He covered his face and breathed in the sweet aroma. He closed his eyes and sang under his breath the line of an Ojibwe prayer he’d learned from the internet – the only line he remembered.

  That was all he could do for now – pray, chant.

  The rest was up to the spirits.

  The blonde boy and the girl – why couldn’t he remember their names? – came out of the bedroom. The girl took hold of his arm, led him away with her, saying frightened words in a language he couldn’t make any sense of – it was English, right? It had to be, so why couldn’t he understand her?

  Then everything around him went quiet – as though he’d smashed into a wall of silence.

  Whoa, he thought. What’s going on?

  He followed the girl into another room, helpless, stumbling, falling into a hole where the world disappeared and visions came – people were dancing around a fire, lighting up the darkness.

  This is cool he thought. Weird, but cool.

  Sounds filled his head – drums, chanting and singing. A prayer – his prayer.

  He smiled and closed his eyes, humming along with the music, mumbling the words. He wasn’t afraid any more because he knew what was happening. This was all for him, and for his friends – Etta, Peter, that’s what they were called. The spirits were with them, keeping them safe.

  PETER

  Get to the phone. Call 999. No. 911. Which one was it?

  Peter hunkered down, half-crawling back into the kitchen. He checked the door again – locked, but what difference did it make? If the men wanted to get in, they could have it down in minutes. No – seconds. Maybe he could shore it up in some way. There would be tools, hardware somewhere. He tried a drawer – a hammer, a chisel, some nails, a box of screws. Then he crawled into the store cupboard. There was a stepladder hanging on the wall, there were a few pieces of timber. . .

  He scuttled back to the kitchen. What the hell was he thinking? The men outside would hear the pounding. They’d rush the door, break it down in an instant, shoot him dead right there in the kitchen.

  Just call. 911. That was it.

  He reached up for the phone. Stretching the cord into the hallway so that he could still see out the window, he dialled and counted the rings. One, two, three. An answer. A confident female voice. He asked for the sheriff’s department, and she put him straight through.

  ‘Sheriff’s office. Bryson.’

  A man’s calm, deep voice. Bryson. Was that the name of nice guy who’d called earlier to find out if they were OK? He had that same small-town lilt that made every man sound like Uncle Ken.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’d like to report some men. They’re in cars. And they’re trespassing on private property, and they have guns.’

  ‘OK.’ The deputy on the phone spoke slowly, dragging out each syllable, as if there were nothing to worry about. Even words like ‘trespassing’ and ‘guns’ didn’t seem to be setting off any alarms. Was carrying a gun completely normal around here?

  ‘Are they behaving in a threatening manner?’

  Peter’s voice was a harsh whisper. ‘Threatening?’ He was gasping for air, trying not to break down and cry. ‘They’ve got men tied up.’

  Silence.

  ‘And guns. Did I say about the guns?’

  Nothing. Didn’t the man care?

  ‘Hurry, please,’ Peter croaked. ‘They’re going to do something dreadful.’
>
  ‘I heard you,’ the man said.

  Another silence was followed by a rustling sound like the shifting of papers, then a squeak, like the man on the phone was one of those fat TV cops, twirling around in a swivelling chair.

  ‘And where is the property located?’ The man’s voice had changed. It was still the same person, but he didn’t talk like a nice uncle any more. He sounded mechanical and unnatural, as if his body had been taken over by robots or aliens.

  ‘You still there?’

  ‘A cabin on Yellow Lake.’

  ‘Which cabin?’

  ‘About two miles from the Black Bear Tavern. There’s a turning in the—’

  ‘Junction of County D?’

  Yes. Yes.

  ‘Robinson place?’

  Finally. Yes.

  ‘Is that where you’re calling from?’

  Something was wrong. Something in the man’s voice – that tinge of shrill tension – didn’t quite fit.

  ‘No.’ Peter squeaked out the word – an obvious lie.

  He looked out of the window. He recognised Charlie and the shovel boy, the one Etta said looked like a weasel. Jonah’s chipmunk boy was there too. The fourth man – he was acting like the leader, so it must have been Kyle – put his hand in his pocket, pulled out his mobile, took a call. The others backed up and cocked their heads, listening. Then they looked at the cabin. It was as if they knew what Peter was doing inside, it was as if they were listening.

  ‘So, you’re not on the premises?’

  ‘No.’ Another squeak. ‘I just saw, like I said, when I was driving by.’

  The man’s voice changed again, back to nice-guy uncle voice.

  ‘Well, you know I don’t think you got much to worry about. Probably just some hunters out setting bait for the bears.’

  ‘They have guns. They have men tied up.’ The words came out before Peter could stop them. ‘I’ve seen them before. One guy’s called Charlie.’

  Another silence. Another crunch of metal from somewhere far away. Oh, Jesus. Why had he said that?

  ‘So you are in the cabin?’ Bye-bye, nice uncle, welcome back, RoboCop.

  Peter didn’t answer. Put down the phone, he told himself. Walk away from the phone.

  He stayed on the line long enough to hear what came next. Something about how people had the right to shoot trespassers around here, and if something bad happened to him, it’d be his own goddamn fault.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ETTA

  I stood next to the window beside the bed where Jonah was curled up like a baby, rocking back and forth.

  I needed to pull the curtains open for a second – have a good look, find out what was going on outside, who was really there on the lawn – but my hands just wouldn’t budge.

  Jonah coughed and wheezed. Had he breathed in too much of that strange smoke? Weird noises – half sung, half said – came from the back of his throat and gurgled out like dark, boiling liquid.

  Outside on the lawn, a car door slammed.

  I touched the edge of the curtain.

  Don’t be such a chicken, Etta. Just look.

  I turned it back an inch or two.

  There. See? Blink, why don’t you. Look again, just to make sure.

  They were standing in front of Kyle’s blue car, exactly how I’d imagined them – Charlie the fat guy, the weasel boy, the other kid that Jonah said looked like a chipmunk. And Kyle, carrying a rifle. Not an old shotgun like Charlie’s, but a skinny-barrelled black thing with a scope on the end.

  I saw something else that I wasn’t expecting. Four more men were sitting in the other car, totally still, not moving a muscle. I couldn’t see their faces, but their stiff bodies looked like statues. I pushed the curtain back a little more to get a clearer look. What was it Kyle had said on the phone that time? ‘We gotta show those Chicago guys we mean business.’ Is that who those men were? The Chicago guys?

  I closed the curtain. All of a sudden, it hit me – Kyle wasn’t looking for me, after all. This was about something else – that powder on our kitchen counter, the crumpled-up money stacked up in a pile, those men in the car. Me, Peter, Jonah – we’d just picked the wrong cabin to hide out in, that was all. This was just a coincidence, some kind of sick joke.

  Peter stumbled in from the living room. He was shaking all over – what the hell had happened out there? Hadn’t he got through? Somehow he managed to turn the lock on the doorknob and close the door.

  ‘The sheriff won’t be coming to help us.’ His voice shook and his lips hardly moved while he croaked out the words. ‘Nobody will.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They’ve got somebody in on it, whatever they’re up to, Kyle and his gang. That fucking deputy – he told them we’re here.’

  On the bed, Jonah’s chanting got louder. His breathing was off, too – raspy and shallow – like his lungs were filling up with water.

  I looked outside. Kyle was looking straight at the cabin. He said something to the other men, and then he came loping toward the door with big arrogant strides.

  ‘He’s coming,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to go through the windows, out the back way.’

  I rushed across to the other side of the room, opened the windows and tried to unhook the rusty screens. ‘Jonah’s path to the lake – we can swim for it if we have to.’

  Behind me, Jonah was still droning his weird song. Peter took my place at the curtains. ‘Not a chance,’ he said, numbly. ‘He’s already at the bloody door.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  Peter didn’t move.

  ‘We can’t give up now, can we? What’s the matter with you?’

  I managed to get one of the metal hooks unfastened, but the other one was fused to the window.

  ‘Help me!’ I screamed. Finally, Peter sprang into action. He crossed the room and pushed his shoulder against the screen, swearing non-stop, like that would make him stronger.

  ‘Push,’ I said.

  Too late.

  Kyle’s hard-fisted knock on the front door shook the whole cabin.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Peter stopped pushing. ‘The bathroom,’ he whispered. ‘It’s safe in there.’

  The bathroom? Had he gone completely crazy?

  He held my shoulders. ‘Mum always said. In a tornado or a bad storm.’

  ‘This isn’t a tornado, Peter,’ I said, pulling away. ‘We’ve got to get out.’

  ‘No. They’ll catch us.’

  ‘We’ll be sitting ducks in there.’

  ‘It’ll be safer, OK? Another locked door.’

  The pounding on the front door got louder. The men were shoving something against it – a board or a log. There was noise coming from the lake side, too, shattering glass, breaking windows. Someone was on the porch, trying to break through the back door – kicking at it, banging away.

  ‘Let’s push the beds over, Etta. Once they get inside, that bedroom door won’t hold.’

  Jonah came out of his coma for a few seconds and offered an unsteady hand. The three of us heaved the beds on top of each other and shoved them against the door. We turned the double bed on its side, stood it against the window facing the lake. There was a flimsy wardrobe in a corner. That went against the other window, held in place by a little armchair.

  ‘Right, then,’ Peter said. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  He guided me into the bathroom and Jonah shuffled in behind us. Peter switched the light on, closed the shutter on the window, fastened the metal hook.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Safer for a while.’

  It didn’t feel that way. Even Peter didn’t believe it, the way he was shaking again. And Jonah? He was more out of it than ever. His eyes were closed and his body was moving slightly, like he was listening to music that only he could hear.

  Lucky for him, I thought, to be so zoned out, to not know the cabin was being smashed to the ground, to not hear—

  ‘Hey in there! Anybody home?’<
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  Kyle’s voice was like an angry giant’s. The words ‘fee fie fo fum’ ran through my mind. Peter laughed – was he thinking that too? He leaned against the door, taking in deep breaths – as if that could keep out the memory of the words that came next.

  I smell the blood of an Englishman.

  JONAH

  He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t even asleep, although he wasn’t entirely awake, either.

  His prayers on the beach had finally been answered – he’d been transported to another world, a better place. So why did these white kids keep trying to lure him away from it, dragging him back to a reality where he didn’t want to be?

  The tiny room’s stark fluorescent light blinded him – he had to get back to the dark again. Pulling away from the English boy, he stepped into the bathtub. It seemed soft, fluffy, like a cotton cocoon – but too glaring, too bright.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, covered his face with his hands. The music in his head grew louder as voices – one, two, a whole choir – murmured their rhythmic chant. What was this song? He’d heard it before, hadn’t he? Something his grandfather had sung to him when he was a baby – it must have been. A hymn, handed down from generation to generation.

  He heard the others talking – the girl, the white boy – but he couldn’t understand their words. The world of his mind got darker and darker until finally it was night, and there, before his eyes, a million stars danced across the sky in circular formation, twisting and swirling like whirlpools of light.

  He was flat on his back, looking up, amazed. A vague memory crept into his awareness – a hot, sticky summer night, in his other world. He tried to shake it, but it wouldn’t let go. He’d been out with friends, drinking beer in a park in South Minneapolis. A girl from school, the pretty one he never could quite erase from his memory, had brought a couple of joints with her. She had shared one of them with him, and together they lay down on the damp grass, laughing, kissing, holding each other tightly, rolling in the coolness of the dew. Then the girl made him stop.

  ‘Look,’ she had whispered. ‘The sky.’