Harrow Lake

by Kat Ellis

  I move to the foot of the bed, grab the frame, and drag it in line with the marks. Then I check under it again. There must be something I’ve missed. Maybe another hiding place, like a hole in the wall, or a floorboard that has sprung up without the weight of the bed to hold it in place. But there’s nothing.

  I get up, brushing dust bunnies from my knees. What am I missing?

  The light slanting in through the window shows I’ve been searching for hours. It must be late morning by now. Where is Carter? I look at the carriage clock up on its high shelf, but it hasn’t told the correct time in years, if it ever did. Why would anyone keep something so broken and useless?

  That’s when I notice it. The placement of the bed, and the clock, and the height of the shelf. I’m climbing in a second, ignoring the groan of springs, and balancing my weight so I can put one foot on the frame at the end of the bed, and reach. I must be the same height as Lorelei, because when I stretch as far as I can, my fingers just about close around the sides of the clock’s casing. I slide the clock to the edge of the shelf and—

  The clock hits the floor with a crack like a skull fracturing, waking the jitterbugs. Wood scatters like shrapnel, and a panel at the back of the clock bursts open, spilling out tiny folded squares of paper across the floor—dozens of them. Hundreds.

  A whole heartful of secrets.

  Things I learned from the broken clock:

  Mister Jitters used to come to her room at night.

  After each visit, Lorelei carved another jitterbug. She believed their sound would warn her when he was coming. Didn’t Mary Ann say that, too?

  Lorelei desperately wanted to get away from Harrow Lake, but she was frightened Mister Jitters would find her anyway. Is that what happened? Is that why she left me in the end, and never came back?

  * * *

  • • •

  The more I learn about Lorelei, the harder she is to understand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I go downstairs to call Nolan . . . Larry . . . anyone, really, and find the phone line is dead. Again. Just another thing that’s tightening the grip this town has on me, keeping me here. A search of my suitcase shows Larry didn’t pack a phone charger, so I can’t use my cell either. Suddenly the emptiness of the house feels hungry, contagious. I need to get out before it swallows me.

  If the landlines aren’t working, I’ll just have to go and find Carter.

  I hurry from the house. But as I pass the end of Main Street, I stop. Listen. That song is playing again—Lorelei’s song. But that’s the only sound; Main Street is deserted. I guess it’s around lunchtime by now, but there’s not a soul walking along the street. All the stores are closed. Nobody stands at the counters. Nothing moves behind the glass.

  “Hello?” My voice intrudes on the melody. There’s no answer. I’m alone.

  I run. It’s strange how easy it is to fly along the road. In my own clothes, my own sneakers, I can actually move. There’s no lead band crushing my chest, no tree limbs wrapped around me to me hold me back.

  I slow as I approach the high gates of the fairground. They’re chained, and there’s no sign of movement inside, only the hum of electricity coursing through the fence nearby. I turn back to the path, and as I’m about to run again, the toe of my sneaker disturbs something lying half-buried in the dirt. I reach down and pick up a small, familiar flashlight. It’s hanging from a chain with a broken clasp. This is Ranger Crane’s pendant. She must be nearby.

  I wrap it around the bars of the gates and leave it for her to find.

  * * *

  • • •

  Trees crowd in as I head away from the lakeshore and onto the uneven path snaking around it to Carter’s house. I’m running up an incline, but the void at my back drives me on. That’s what it feels like, the empty town: a void. Like one of Nolan’s sets the day after he wraps filming.

  My vision starts to blacken at the edges, and I stop and lean against a tree for a minute. It isn’t just spots dancing around my eyeballs, though. I don’t need a watch to know it can’t be late enough for the sky to be growing dark. But it is.

  A vibration thrums up my legs, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s the ground under me rumbling, like a creature stretching awake beneath my feet.

  Mister Jitters.

  Run.

  I don’t see Carter’s house until I’m about to slam into his pickup parked out front. There are no lights on. Not here, and not in any of his neighbors’ houses farther along the road. I’m about to knock on his door when it flies open.

  Carter stands in the doorway, looking startled. “Lola? What are you doing here?”

  “Where is everybody? Why is it so dark?” I say. He’s wearing his boots and jacket, like I’ve just caught him leaving the house. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Yeah, kind of. Why are you here? I thought you’d left town already. You weren’t at the house when I called by this morning.”

  “I . . .”

  I steel myself, preparing to tell him about waking beneath the Bone Tree, about Mister Jitters taking Mary Ann, about finding Lorelei’s notes . . . but I can’t. The words won’t leave my mouth. They’re a solid mass inside me.

  Suddenly Carter’s right in front of me and I’m pressing my forehead against his chest, trying not to throw up, and I think he can somehow read my thoughts. For a second, I wish it were possible, that he could just pluck all the shards from inside my head and rearrange the pieces in the right order. But he can’t do that. It’s something I have to do myself.

  It’s true dark now, even though I know that’s impossible. It’s like time is running away from me, leaving me behind.

  “Come in a sec,” Carter says, and leads me inside. I stand in the hallway while he lights some kind of oil lamp and hooks it onto the wall.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask again as he lights another in the living room. “The whole town seems to have emptied out, except for you and me.”

  “And my mom,” Carter sighs, looking out the window as though Ranger Crane might suddenly appear there. “The whole town’s under an evacuation order. A part of the hill collapsed near the quarry, and there’s a high risk there’ll be follow-on landslides. Major ones, like the one back in 1928. They’re keeping everyone out until the risk is assessed properly.”

  I look down at the bare floorboards, half expecting a gaping hole to open up right under me.

  “Then why are you still here?”

  “I need to go find my mom,” Carter says. “She went into the woods earlier and she . . . I just need to find her.”

  “I found her flashlight near the fairground gates,” I tell him. “Maybe she’s there?”

  “I already checked the fairground,” he says, voice flat. I study his profile. Something isn’t right. He’s avoiding looking at me.

  “Carter? Carter, what’s wrong? Oh my God . . . has your mom disappeared, like Marie?”

  Like Lorelei?

  “No, it’s not like that.” He turns slowly, giving me time to brace myself, I guess. The entire left side of his face is a swollen purple mess, his eye puffed up so badly it’s almost shut.

  “What happened?” I gasp, reaching out, but stopping short of touching him.

  “There was this horse . . .” He tries to smile, but I guess my expression stops him. “I just got into some trouble. It’s no big deal.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Carter scratches his jaw, but drops his hand when he encounters a bruise. “Mom and I got into it about a bunch of stuff. Her drinking, mainly.” He shakes his head. “I should have just left it alone, but I couldn’t make her listen and we needed to get out of here. When she took off, I told Cora to get a ride with Faye and her family. I was meant to find Mom and follow on in the truck.” His expression is stark when he looks at me. “I searched for ho
urs for her. I only came back here in case she’d come home to pass out like she usually does, but there’s no sign of her. And now you show up.”

  “You’re telling me your mom did that to your face?” It takes me a second to make sense of this. Mothers don’t do those kinds of things. I mean, they do. I know that. I’ve read about it. But it’s different seeing it for myself—those marks on Carter’s skin, marks put there by his mother. It doesn’t fit into this strange jigsaw I’ve made; this picture of what a mother might be. “She hurt you?”

  “Leave it alone, Lola,” he says. He sounds so tired. “Tell me why you’re still here. I thought you couldn’t wait to see the back of Harrow Lake?”

  “I will not leave it alone! What the hell gives her the right to do this to you?” I shouldn’t be yelling at Carter. An ugly thought unfurls itself. “Was this because of me?”

  “No,” he says, too quickly. “Well, not exactly. When I went to your grandma’s and you weren’t there, Mrs. McCabe called my mom and told her I’d talked you into running away. My mom had some notion that you leaving caused the land shifts, but she was just drunk and babbling . . .”

  “She thought I’d left, and that pissed off Mister Jitters?” My voice comes out on a croak.

  “Like I said, it was nonsense. Anyway, she kinda stormed out after . . . this.” He gestures ruefully at his face.

  Carter leans back against the windowsill, the woods outside invisible beyond the glass.

  “Where do you think she could be?” I say.

  “I don’t know. I’ve searched everywhere I can think of. The woods, the fairground, the ranger station, all around the lake. Man, this is a shitty time for her to wander off.”

  “Maybe she didn’t,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t. Carter grows wary, like he did when I told him about Mary Ann at the church. I go on quickly. “Maybe Mister Jitters took her.”

  “Lola, no . . . Look, this isn’t the first time my mom’s taken off after an argument, okay? You should just forget about Harrow Lake and all its fucked-up monsters, and go home to New York.” I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me—like I’m being foolish. Like I’m in the way.

  “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  I want to tell him about the eyes at the ruined church. About how I saw Mister Jitters watching us. How my mother saw him, too.

  I reach into my pocket and dig out the handful of crumpled notes I’m carrying. I thrust them at Carter.

  “What are these?” he asks dubiously. “Lola, we don’t have time . . .”

  “Just read them,” I say, then add, “Please.”

  He takes the slips of paper over to a table by the window and begins smoothing them out, one by one, against the wood. I watch as he reads them, waiting for the moment when he understands.

  I can only lie here, dreading the creak of the door opening . . . never truly believed in monsters. Mother says I’m imagining it, making it up. Why can’t anyone see what is happening? I just wish I could leave, get away from this place, but he won’t let me go . . . Nobody will believe me . . .

  “Well?” I say. “This proves she saw Mister Jitters, right?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “One way of looking at it? Did you read the same notes I read?” I snatch the scraps off the table and fold them back into my pocket. “She saw him. I’ve seen him, too. And now your mom is missing . . .”

  Carter’s words are slow and quiet when he speaks at last. “The notes could have been written by someone who saw Mister Jitters. Or they could have been written by someone who was just very scared, and felt trapped, and couldn’t see a way out of a bad situation. Someone who didn’t feel safe writing about what really scared her. Someone who wanted to hide from another kind of monster . . . like an abusive parent.”

  It’s my turn to fall silent.

  I unfold the papers again, read through them over and over, scanning for proof that it was Mister Jitters Lorelei was writing about . . . not my grandparents. Mister Jitters’ name was on the note I found hidden inside the jitterbug, wasn’t it? I think so . . . damn it! I wish I could read it again to make sure. But it’s lost among the roots of the Bone Tree.

  Then I hear my grandmother’s voice again, telling me about the special bond Lorelei had with her father, how he adored her.

  I picture the old man in the photograph on the mantelpiece, his arm wrapped tightly around Lorelei’s waist. Lorelei trapped. Neither of them smiling.

  Nolan has never once laid a hand on me. But maybe Lorelei’s father was different. Maybe I didn’t see it because I didn’t think to look for it.

  “Are you saying you don’t believe Mister Jitters is real?” I ask Carter, my voice shaking.

  He purses his lips and looks away.

  No. I’ve seen too much for Mister Jitters to not be real.

  Like I saw Mary Ann.

  “All right, what happened to Marie, then?” I snap.

  He still won’t meet my eyes. “She probably fell into a sinkhole, like you did . . .”

  “I know that isn’t what happened! I’ve seen him, and so did Lorelei. Why won’t you admit he’s real?”

  I want to bash my head against the wall. Crack it open so all the little fragments can come pouring out like these slips of paper, and I can put them in an order that makes sense. No more secrets. No more lies.

  “Carter, you’re wrong. Of course Lorelei would be vague in the notes—that was just in case anyone ever found them. She says here nobody would believe her, and they wouldn’t have, would they?”

  “Did your mom actually write them, though?” he says.

  “What? Who else could have written them?”

  He looks at me intently. “You.”

  The paper crumples in my fist. “Why would I make up lies about my own mother, Carter?”

  “I don’t think the notes are about your mother,” Carter says gently. “I think they’re about Nolan. The way he suffocates you and refuses to let you have a life of your own.”

  “Me?” It takes me a moment to get what he’s saying, what he means. “You think I wrote these things about Nolan?”

  I raise my hand to hit him. Carter doesn’t move. I think that’s what stops me.

  “Nolan protects me.” I will him to see the truth in my anger. “He wants what’s best for me.”

  Safe in my little cage, like an ornament. A perfect trophy. Good job, Nolan! Such a pretty little thing, isn’t she? She’s so lucky to have a father like you.

  Blood in the cracks . . .

  Carter’s frown carves ruts in his forehead.

  “Jesus, Carter! Don’t feel sorry for me. Just believe me.”

  Mother says I’m imagining it . . . My grandmother didn’t believe her own daughter. And Carter doesn’t believe me or Lorelei. He’s trying to twist Lorelei’s words into something they’re not. I won’t let him. Lorelei’s secrets were her truth, and she wrote about Mister Jitters. He is real. He is.

  So why can’t I shake that image of Lorelei sitting in her father’s lap?

  “Look, we can sort all this out later,” Carter says. He sounds so tired. “But for now I need to find my mom. You should get out of here.”

  I know Carter doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get me. I let a mask slide into place—not some character from a story this time. Something harder. Unbreakable.

  “Don’t project your own crap onto me, Carter.”

  He winces like I really have slapped him. “My dad never—”

  “I’m not talking about your dad,” I cut him off. “I’m talking about how your whole family treats you like garbage—Grant beats you; your mom does, too, and screws up any chance you have to leave this town. Even Cora talks about you like you’re hopeless. What kind of life do you have, Carter?”

  Silence falls. It’s like
the void I felt on Main Street has finally caught up with us.

  “It’s not like that,” he says quietly, close to tears. “My mom’s not well. She needs me . . .”

  “She’s your mother. She should want what’s best for you.”

  Carter reaches up to close his hand around the pendant hanging at his throat.

  “I didn’t write the notes,” I tell him. “Mister Jitters is real, and my mother saw him. I’ve seen him, too. He took Mary Ann.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. Carter shakes off whatever pain my words caused and fixes me with a worried gaze.

  “Lola, stop. There is no Mister Jitters, no Mary Ann. You need to just forget all this and go home.”

  “Mister Jitters is real—I’ll prove it!” Carter grunts as I shove past him and run out of the house. He staggers out into the front yard after me.

  “Lola, stop! The hillside could collapse any second!”

  I’m not leaving without answers. And I refuse to let them be buried here.

  “Okay, you’re right!” he yells. “Lola, please—I’m sorry!”

  Nolan’s right after all: Sorry is an empty word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The town is just as deserted as it appeared from across the lake. I take the same path as before, walking now. My clothes are damp with sweat and growing colder by the minute.

  As the gates to the fairground come into view, I see a light. The pendant is hanging right where I left it—but now it glows, showing me that the gates are open.

  I reach for the pendant, pulling it free. Carter said he’d searched the fairground already. Why didn’t he see it?

  Suddenly light floods the path as the fairground blazes to life beyond the fence, machines accelerating to a clatter, and the chipper 1920s jazz drags itself up to tempo over the PA system. I gape, a statue on the path. But someone must be here, because the gates are open. Someone turned on those lights—someone inside the fairground.