Lies Beneath

by Anne Greenwood Brown

  “No. Not at all.”

  “You look artistic. Or at least, your clothes did, before you took them off.” I picked through her lace blouse and velvet jacket that lay in a pile by my feet. “You dress like an artist.”

  “Role-play.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to be a poet, so I try to dress like one—or like how I imagine my favorite ones would dress.”

  “You like the Victorians, too,” I said with confidence.

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Your tattoo.”

  She smiled broadly and signaled for me to keep my voice down. “You know that poem?”

  “Some.” I let my mind wind itself backward to my recent study sessions and plucked out the words from memory. “No coward soul is mine, / No trembler in the word’s storm-troubled sphere: / I see Heaven’s glories shine, / And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.”

  She nodded and a honey-colored glow emanated from her shoulders. The light followed the curve of her arms and then intensified into a sugary pinkish orange. I knew the color well. Lily was happy. I could only hope I was the cause.

  “That’s amazing,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  “So, how do you decide what a poet should dress like?”

  She shrugged. “Simple, really. I look at what everyone else is wearing and do the opposite.”

  Nonconformity, I mused. What a luxury. “So let’s hear it, then.”

  “Hear what?” she asked.

  “Some poetry. Your poetry.”

  Despite the cold, a rush of blood heated her face. “I can’t just spout something off.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She sputtered, clearly off balance. “I have to be … inspired. I have to be looking at something beautiful … or, or amazing.”

  I gestured at myself as if to say, What am I?

  She answered the question as if I’d spoken it. “You are an annoying guy who has no problem asking questions but won’t share any answers.” She cupped her hand and flung water at my chest.

  I leaned to my side, dodging the spray. “Let me get you started,” I said. “How ’bout a limerick? There once was a guy most amazing.”

  She shook her head.

  So I continued. “Who thought that his girl had gone crazy.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. I was definitely pushing it with the “his girl” line, but she picked up where I left off.

  “The girl he annoyed,” she said.

  “But she couldn’t avoid,” I added.

  She smiled confidently and finished strong: “His stalking and silence so puzzling.”

  “Ha. You’re right, Lily Hancock. You are a poet.”

  “Oh, shut up. Why don’t you come in? It’s not too bad in the sun.”

  “You’re lying. But even if that were true, I didn’t bring a suit,” I said, waving her off.

  “Swim in your shorts.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Your loss.”

  She enjoyed teasing me. A trail of happy satisfaction burned like pink fire, then spun out of her like a pinwheel. It was a magnet that lured me to her. My hand involuntarily reached forward. She came closer, not realizing the motivation behind my gesture, and shocked me by weaving her fingers through mine. I watched—horrified, spellbound—as the pink shimmer crept from her fingertips, across the top of my hand and over my wrist. My forearm hummed and heated until the warmth pushed up my arm and broke across my chest, finally bursting through my lips with a sudden, surprising laugh.

  “I know you know something,” she said in a low voice. “About what my grandpa saw in the lake. I want you to tell me.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Calder, you say more with your eyes than most people do with their mouths. Right now your eyes are saying you’re afraid. A minute ago they were saying it wasn’t safe in the lake. You might as well say it plainly, Calder. I know you know something.” Then she lowered her eyebrows and faked a terrible Russian accent. “Vee haf vayz uff makeen you talk.”

  “Yeah, well … good luck with that.”

  “Jason!” called Mrs. Hancock. “I’m losing my sun. Can you move me?”

  I dropped Lily’s hand, and it splashed into the water in front of her. “I can do it!” I called to Mrs. Hancock.

  “Brown-noser,” Lily said.

  “I don’t know why you’re so hard to convince,” I said, “but I’m really not that bad of a guy.”

  “Spoken like a true serial killer.”

  My stomach shrank down to a cold, hard pellet. “You’ll see,” I said, forcing a smile into my eyes. “One of these days, you might actually like me.”

  18

  THREAT

  An hour later a van pulled up and the Pettits piled out, slamming the doors behind them. Jack’s eyes were searching. When he found Lily sitting by me around the campfire, he frowned. Gabrielle ran up quickly.

  “I invited the Pettits over for the cookout,” Hancock said to his wife. “Martin, help yourself to beer in the cooler.”

  “I should really get going,” I said, standing up.

  “Already?” Lily asked, taking the bag of chips from me and rolling the top down noisily.

  It had been over twelve hours since I’d been in the lake, which would normally be a piece of cake, but the fire was drying me out to an uncomfortable degree. I really needed to go, but Jack looked too pleased about my announcement, so I changed my mind.

  “I guess I could stay for a while,” I said, pulling my chair closer to Lily.

  Jack grumbled something under his breath and Lily laid her hand lightly on the armrest of my chair.

  Hancock poked the fire, sending a spray of sparks into the air. “How are you kids doing? Glad school’s winding down?”

  Jack looked away from Lily’s hand on my chair to her father. Mr. Pettit spoke up. “Jack didn’t go to school this year.”

  “I just took a year off,” said Jack. “I’ll start college next fall if things work out. For now, I’m taking some art classes at the community college.”

  “Oh, you’re an artist?” Mrs. Hancock asked, her face glowing in the firelight. “You should come over and paint with me sometime.”

  “I’d like that. Right now I’m taking an art and mythology class. All the Greek classics and then some Celtic and Native American stuff, too. I did an oil painting on the Passamaquoddy legends from up in Maine. I showed it to Lily.”

  “I’m not familiar with that one,” said Hancock.

  “It’s like the manitou stories from around here,” explained Mr. Pettit. He shook a bag of sunflower seeds into his mouth and filled one cheek.

  “There are lots of Anishinabe manitous,” Jack said while Mr. Pettit spit shells into the fire. “One lay face-up on the bottom of the lake. The Indians offered him tobacco or chunks of copper so he wouldn’t capsize their canoes.”

  Lily sat up and looked anxiously at her father.

  Hancock shifted in his seat. “I know about the ancient copper mines,” he said. “That’s part of my curriculum for next term. But there are no monsters in the lake.”

  “I didn’t say anything about monsters,” Jack said as Mr. Pettit roared with laughter.

  “Don’t get Jack wrong,” Mr. Pettit said. “We’re not superstitious, but there was a big resurgence of manitou stories back in ’sixty-seven after …”

  Hancock got up and retreated toward the house. Lily looked at her mom, who shook her head to silence her.

  “… well, you know …,” finished Mr. Pettit, his voice trailing off to nothingness.

  “What about ’sixty-seven?” asked Lily. Her question was for Mr. Pettit, but her eyes were fixed on me.

  “Just drop it, Dad,” said Gabrielle. She pulled her dark hair to one side and began braiding it into a long rope.

  Jack moved his lawn chair closer until his knee pressed up against Lily’s.

  “It didn’t take too much for the manitou legends to m
utate into stories about mermaids. Let’s just say some people around here got what you might call mermaid fever,” continued Mr. Pettit. He spit through his teeth, shooting sunflower seeds onto the hissing coals. “T-shirt vendors made a small fortune. People were convinced that a lake this big, this deep, had to have something. But it just lasted a summer. People got saner after that. I’ve still got a T-shirt somewhere.”

  “So you don’t think there’s anything in Lake Superior?” asked Lily.

  Gabrielle rolled her eyes, and Mr. Pettit chuckled warmly. “It’s the Great Gitche Gumee,” he said. “Ancient and unimaginably deep. I wouldn’t go so far to say there’s nothing in the lake.”

  “It could be true,” said Jack. His voice was quiet and unsure and we all turned to look at him. Jack rolled another log into the fire with the toe of his boot.

  “What’s that, son?”

  “I said it could be true. About mermaids. There’s the November Witch.”

  “The November Witch is the name of a storm,” said Gabrielle.

  “The legend,” Mr. Pettit said, “is that the November Witch had three sisters who prowled Gitche Gumee.”

  Lily shivered.

  Jack’s forehead furrowed. “And I heard another story once,” he said, pausing to consider his words.

  “That’s enough, son,” said Mr. Pettit.

  Jack went on. “Up at the Peterson fish house. I got talking to an old guy. He told me there were people who were descended from manitous, but they didn’t know it. He said they were walking around town, just like you and me.”

  “I don’t think you can quit being a sea monster,” I suggested. It was too good to be true, and if it was possible, I would know.

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Jack said, his voice snapping like a beach towel. “I’m not saying they quit. I’m saying they don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m spooked out,” I said with a laugh. “I think I really need to head out this time.”

  Lily reached toward me and tentatively touched my hand.

  “Well, if you’ve got to go,” Hancock said as he returned to the campfire, rubbing Vaseline into his hands. The flickering light of the bonfire reflected off the windows behind him. He didn’t sound disappointed about me going, so I was surprised when he added, “But we haven’t even broken out the hot dogs. Maybe we could have you and your mom and dad over for dinner some other time?”

  I nodded curtly. If I wanted to go before, now it was a necessity. Here it was—the invitation I’d been working toward, coming even sooner than planned—but even the implication of my mother’s name on his lips was blasphemous. It stirred up an anger I hadn’t felt in years. If I could have killed Hancock on dry land, I might have done it right there. In front of everyone.

  “Calder, are you okay?” Lily’s voice was alarmed.

  I could only imagine the crazed expression on my face. I jogged to my car and jumped behind the wheel. I was vaguely aware of Lily following me. She grabbed the edge of my door and leaned in. “What’s your hurry?”

  The concern in her eyes tugged at some untested corner of my heart. I wanted to tell her not to worry, that I didn’t always act this crazy. Instead, I threw the car into gear and spun my tires on the gravel driveway, covering her in dust. I couldn’t afford to be polite. I needed to be prudent; right now, that meant getting far, far away.

  But the funny thing was, getting away from Hancock meant getting away from Lily. And the bigger the dust cloud between me and her, the cozier that interloping Jack Pettit would no doubt get. Lily Hancock was tricky enough without having to deal with a testosterone-fueled saboteur.

  I hit the brakes hard and staggered out of the car, slamming the door behind me. Squirrels scattered as I stomped through the woods toward the water. I waded into the lake, fully clothed, willing myself not to change. It was still hard to do, but not impossible anymore.

  It took all my concentration. My legs trembled beneath me; my lungs burned for the water. I satisfied myself with saturating my body from the outside. I wanted to be ready if she needed me, although I wasn’t sure what that need would be. It wasn’t like I was going to charge out of the water just to put mustard on her hot dog. I had enough self-control not to do that. Didn’t I?

  The smell of burning birch led me back. I slogged through the water until I could see the campfire’s reflection. The Hancocks’ and Pettits’ faces glowed with light and heat against the blackness. My heart plunged when my eyes settled on Lily. She was staring intently at the fire. Sparks flew in her direction, but she barely reacted. Gabrielle Pettit sat on her left, Jack on her right. His face was turned toward her, and I could see it clearly. He laid one arm around the back of her chair and leaned to whisper something in her ear. My fists clenched involuntarily. Okay, so I wasn’t completely insane yet. I was right. Jack Pettit was a threat.

  19

  WHAT I WANT FROM YOU

  Sometime after midnight I crawled into the hammock the Hancocks had strung between two white pines. It was kelly-green canvas, trimmed in white cotton fringe, and it was the perfect place to hide, to sleep, and to get some time away from my sisters. Tonight it had an added advantage in that Gabrielle Pettit had stayed for a sleepover, and the hammock was a convenient place from which to eavesdrop on her and Lily chattering in Lily’s room; they showed no sign of sleeping.

  Their voices drifted through the open bedroom window. They had already covered the requisite subjects of school, fashion, and movies. Gabrielle had given Lily the lowdown on all the popular kids in town—not that Lily seemed much interested or concerned—and now they had moved on to a subject that promised to be more useful to me.

  “So,” Gabrielle hedged. “Before. When we were moving you in.”

  “Yeah?” Lily asked.

  “You didn’t sound interested in getting set up with Jack.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was just wondering,” Gabrielle continued, “if you have a boyfriend back in Minneapolis.”

  “No. How ’bout you?”

  Gabrielle laughed. “Not the easiest thing to manage when you have Jack as a brother.”

  “He’s protective?”

  “I guess he’d call it that.”

  “I always wanted an older brother.”

  “You mean like someone who’d bring his cute friends around? Trust me. It’s not that great. And since all Jack’s friends went off to college, there’s no one around anyway.”

  “I meant more like someone to talk to about stuff. I had an imaginary friend when I was younger. I’d tell her everything.”

  I smirked in the hammock. Seemed Lily and I had at least one thing in common there.

  “Like what?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I don’t know, things I was scared of, things I was excited about, things I didn’t want my parents to know.”

  “I had a dog like that. She was a good listener.”

  “Exactly,” Lily said.

  “So, what are you scared of?”

  Lily hesitated. “I don’t know … mainly I worry about things falling apart.”

  Score two for having things in common. Not that I was worried about “things” falling apart—only myself.

  “Are your parents getting divorced?” Gabrielle asked.

  Lily laughed. “Hardly. I meant it literally. This house, my mom, me … I worry about things literally falling apart.”

  Gabrielle fell silent—probably wished she hadn’t stepped into something so personal. Then a sharp sound escaped the window—scrape, scrape, scrape—metal on metal. Orange blossoms billowed on the air. “These are some … um … interesting outfits you have,” said Gabrielle. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “This one’s kinda cute. Bohemian chic, maybe.”

  “Thanks? I guess?”

  “No, seriously. It’s pretty cool.” Scrape, scrape. “Hmm. So, back to boys. Oh, can I try this one on?”

  “Sure,” said Lily.

  “It was good to see that Calder guy again.”

  I droppe
d my foot to the ground and put the brakes on the hammock’s gentle swaying. Lily didn’t say anything. I wished I could see her face.

  “Did you invite him over?” Gabrielle asked.

  “No. Not really.”

  Someone fidgeted and the bedsprings creaked.

  “So? He just showed up?”

  “We’re working together at the café,” Lily said.

  “No shit?”

  Lily laughed nervously. “He brought me home, and Dad asked him to help with some stuff. So, yeah.”

  “And then he just stuck around?”

  “I guess.”

  “He is so gorgeous. He’s not even real-looking. He talks funny, though. Did you notice? It’s like his words are liquidy. They run together funny.”

  Lily didn’t respond. Did this mean she agreed? Disagreed? Gabrielle didn’t seem to know how to take Lily’s silence, either.

  “Don’t you think so?” she prodded.

  “Of course he’s beautiful,” said Lily with a sigh. “How could I not think so? But he knows it, too.”

  The smirk dropped off my face.

  “Oh,” said Gabrielle. “Stuck on himself?”

  “More like he knows how to use it. He can look at you and … well …”

  Gabrielle giggled. “I’ll have to get closer and check that out.”

  Lily didn’t respond at first. I waited through the silence, wondering what they were doing. Eventually Lily asked, “How come Jack didn’t want to go to college?”

  “You’ll have to ask him. He was supposed to go, but something changed last summer, and he just got weirder—moodier—through the fall and winter. I thought maybe having a girlfriend might get him back to his normal self. That’s why I was wondering about you. He looks at you funny.”

  “Funny strange or funny ha-ha?”

  “Funny as in I think he’s interested in you.”

  “Sorry, Gabby, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Yeah, I kinda got that feeling after tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Well, it’s obvious Calder’s into you. Bummer for me.” She laughed a little.

  “I sincerely doubt that,” Lily said. “He’s not even a good candidate for that older-brother type.”