“Do you see her?” Nora whispered.
“No.”
“She’s asleep,” Nora said, her voice barely audible. “All night she swims out by the dock, then she comes here at dawn. She wants to stay in the darkness.”
“That makes no sense,” I replied in a voice too loud. “Why would she do that?”
“She’s looking for her little girl.”
My throat felt tight when I swallowed. I strode ahead and found both the land entrance and the doors to the river closed and padlocked. The shutters were loose, but the windows were boarded up.
“Where’s the key?” I asked.
“On a hook behind the shutter,” Nora said, hanging back.
I found the key and unlocked the padlock. Nora crept closer. I laid the padlock on the ground, pulled back the latch, then opened the door.
After being in the bright sunlight, I couldn’t see a thing.
Cautiously I stepped inside. The smell of stagnant water, earth, and rot was overwhelming. It wouldn’t be hard to believe that someone was dead in here.
I remembered there was a narrow walkway lining three sides of the building, surrounding the area of water where a boat would float. Along the wall to the right there used to be a light with a pull-chain. I felt my way toward it.
“Where’s the line kept, Nora?” I called out to her.
“In the loft,” she answered softly.
Great. I’d probably climb into a rat colony. But I went on, hoping that in helping Nora I’d win her trust, as well as prove to her that my mother wasn’t here. I felt the beaded chain and yanked down hard. Nothing. I reached up and touched an empty socket.
At least my eyes were adjusting. I saw the outline of the ladder to the loft just a few feet ahead of me and started toward it.
“Don’t close the door, Nora,” I called to her. “I need all the light I can get. Did you hear? I said don’t—” The door shut.
“Nora? Nora!” I shouted. “No-ra!”
five
It was pitch black inside. I kept my hands on the wall and took a step toward the door. “All right, Nora,” I called, struggling to keep my voice calm, “what are you doing?”
Metal scraped against metal. She was fastening the padlock.
“Nora!”
I rushed toward the door. My toe caught on the uneven boards and I pitched headlong in the dark. My fingers touched the ledge of a window frame but slipped off. I teetered on the edge of the walkway, my ankle wobbling. I couldn’t stand the thought of falling into the foul water, the water where Nora said my mother slept.
I caught my balance again and sank down on my knees. I didn’t care whether Nora was playing a prank or truly afraid, I was angry. I banged my fists against the wall. “Nora! Let me out!”
Her voice was faint. “Lauren?”
“This isn’t funny,” I said. “Unlock the door.”
“She’s awake!” Nora cried out.
“What?”
“She’s awake!” Nora sounded out of breath, as if she were running away.
“Come back here.”
There was no reply. I rested my head against the wall, thinking about what to do. Then, in the oppressive darkness and silence, I heard it: the movement of water, its restless shift from side to side in the boat-house. I couldn’t see the water, but I could hear it, slapping the walls, tumbling back on itself. Something was stirring it up.
I listened as it grew more turbulent. Was it some animal?
Had one gotten through the tangle of nets abandoned at the entrance? Something was in the water, something Nora must have heard or seen before.
She’s looking for her little girl, Nora had said. I shivered.
My mother was always looking for me, panicking as soon as I’d disappear from sight. I cowered against the boathouse wall and flinched with each slap of the water, feeling — or imagining — water droplets on my arms.
Then the lapping grew softer. The water became eerily quiet again.
I took a deep breath. Something ordinary is going on here, I told myself. Figure it out, Lauren; two people out of touch with reality is one too many.
A boat wake — that would explain the sudden movement of water. I hadn’t heard a powerboat pass, but I was focused on other things; perhaps I didn’t notice it. I rose to my feet.
What was Nora thinking? I wondered. That she had gotten rid of me, locking me with my mother in the boathouse?
I called out several times and received no response. I needed something heavy to bang against the door. The padlock wouldn’t give way, but the old hinges might I glanced around. Small cracks of light between the boards allowed me to orient myself. I remembered that tools had been kept in the loft and made my way slowly down the walkway. Grasping the ladder, I began to climb it, hoping none of the rungs were rotted through.
When I got to the top, I reached out gingerly. My fingers touched something metallic and small — a chain, a piece of jewelry. I tucked it in my pocket and continued to search. At last I found an object with a long handle and a cold steel end. Perfect! An ax.
I carefully backed down the ladder and felt my way to the door. Perhaps it would be smart to shout a few more times, I thought, before swinging away like Paul Bunyan.
“Hey! Let me out! Let me out!
I waited for two minutes and screamed again. Giving up, I raised the ax, then froze when I heard someone fumbling with the lock. The door opened and I blinked at the sudden brightness.
“Well, hello,” a deep voice greeted me.
“I told you to be careful,” said another voice — Nick’s.
“There could be an ax murderer inside.”
I lowered the ax and stepped into the fresh air.
Nick looked amused. “What were you doing in there?”
“Building a boat.”
He laughed and turned to the man next to him.
“Recognize her, Frank?”
“Barely,” his uncle replied. “You’ve grown up, girl. You’ve grown up real nice. Welcome home, Lauren.”
“Hey, Mr. Frank. It’s good to see you again.”
“Please, just Frank,” he told me. “Don’t make me feel any older than I am.”
I grinned. His face was lined from all the sun he got and his hairline receding, but his eyes were just as bright and observant, and his smile was the same.
“How did you get locked in there?” he asked. “You couldn’t have done it yourself.”
“Nora helped.”
Frank looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“She asked me to get some fishing line so she could tie up her plants.”
“You mean she set you up? She trapped you?”
“Oh, come on, Frank,” Nick said.
“It’s hard to tell with her,” I replied.
Frank shook his head. “Jule has got to get that girl some help.”
“Let’s not get on that subject again,” Nick told his uncle.
“But it’s true, Nick,” I said. “Nora has become really strange.”
“She’s crazy,” Frank declared. “One of these days she’s going to do some real damage.”
“She’s harmless,” Nick insisted.
“Sorry, kid, but she’s out of touch with reality, and that’s dangerous.”
“Well, if she asks me to get this ax,” I said, “I think I’ll say no.”
Frank laughed. I set the tool inside, beneath the light chain, then closed the door. Frank put the padlock on and returned the key to its hook.
“Seriously, Lauren,” he went on, “you need to convince Jule to get Nora to a shrink. Jule’s got to stop acting so irresponsible.”
I winced; I didn’t want to think the godmother I had adored for so long was anything worse than lax. But in relying on Holly to figure out how to pay the bills and denying Nora’s need for help, she was letting them carry burdens that shouldn’t have been theirs.
“Maybe they can’t afford a doctor,” Nick pointed out.
Fr
ank’s cell phone rang.
“If Jule sold that land of hers, she could afford a lot of things” he replied and plucked the phone from his pocket.
“Hello. You got me. Who’s this?. . Well, is it now? How much riverfront?” He gave Nick and me a salute and headed back to his house, talking real estate and prices.
“Still making those deals,” I observed.
“Seven days a week,” Nick replied, walking with me along the edge of the river toward Aunt Jule’s dock. “I’ve been painting his living room — you know Frank, he likes cheap help — and he’s been using every opportunity to talk me into a double major in business and pre-law. According to him, a law degree is better than a million lottery tickets, if you know how to use it.”
“Meaning it’s the road to riches?”
“If you know how to use it. He’s probably afraid I’ll turn out like my parents.”
I laughed. Nick’s father was an artist, his mother, a poet and professor at Chase, the local college. I remembered their house as a cozy shore cottage stuffed with books and smelling of linseed oil and turpentine. Nick’s father and Frank had grown up in that home, the sons of a waterman with very little money. But Frank had gone on to marry a wealthy woman who owned the house and land where he now lived. She had died several years after he’d completed law school. They didn’t have any children and he never remarried. Having become a prosperous lawyer and real estate developer, I guessed the only thing he had in common with Nick’s parents was their love for Nick.
“So are you turning out like them? Do you still write and draw?”
“Yeah, but I don’t do anything personal or profound. My parents take life way too seriously. I like to make people laugh. I had a regular cartoon feature in the school paper and created some for the yearbook. Social satire stuff. I’ve done a couple political cartoons for Wisteria’s paper and just got one accepted in Easton’s, which has a much bigger circulation. Impressed?” he asked, grinning.
“I am,” I replied. I didn’t point out that cartoons can be profound and personal, especially if he was doing political and social satire.
“So explain to me,” Nick said as we walked toward the dock, “how you can ever meet guys at an all-girls school.”
“There aren’t a lot of chances,” I admitted, “but I like it that way.”
“You do? You’re kidding. You have to be.”
“No. We have an all-boys school nearby, and there’s a regular dating exchange going. I take guys to dances, like escorts, but I don’t want to date — not till I’m in college. I don’t want to get hooked like my mother did and become dependent on some guy to make me feel like a person. I’m getting my life and career together first.”
He looked me as if I had just landed from Mars. “That doesn’t mean you can’t date,” he said. “I’m not getting hooked, either, and I’m dating everybody.”
I laughed. “And breaking a few hearts along the way?”
He peeked sideways at me. His lashes were blond. I always knew that, but I had never thought much about his golden lashes, or his green eyes, or the way they brimmed with sunlight and laughter. Now, for some reason, this was all I could think about.
“How can you be so sure,” he asked, “that you’re not breaking hearts by not dating guys?” He turned toward me, blocking my path. “How do you know you’re not breaking my heart?”
His sudden nearness took my breath away. I stepped around him. “I’m not worried about you, just Holly, who’s really looking forward to the prom.”
He thought about that for a moment, then caught up with me. “I’ll always be grateful to Holly,” he said. “If she hadn’t shown mercy, I’d be taking my mother to my last big high school event.”
“What happened to all those others you’re dating?” I asked.
“Well, Kelly invited me to the prom and I said yes. Then Jennifer asked me to the senior formal. And I said yes. I didn’t know they were the same thing.”
I laughed. “Moron!”
“Now neither of them is speaking to me, and their friends, of course, must be loyal. That kind of narrowed the playing field.”
“You got what you deserved,” I said, grinning. “Holly should have said no.”
“Hey, does my stupidity give you the right to bruise a tender heart?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m bruising a heart made of Play-Doh.”
He laughed, then turned toward the water and whistled sharply.
I had been looking toward the house, my eyes avoiding the dock, but now I saw a dog in the river. He swam toward us, stood chest deep in the water, then came bounding forward.
“Put on your rain slicker!” Nick cried.
“What?”
The big dog stopped in front of us and shook hard, sending river water flying.
“Too late,” Nick replied. “But you won’t have to shower tonight. This is Rocky.”
“Rocky. Hi, big guy,” I said and knelt down. “Wow! What eyes!”
“Careful, he stinks, “ Nick warned.
“All water retrievers do,” I replied, running my hands over his thick coat. It was a rich brown and wavy. “He’s a Chesapeake Bay, isn’t he? His fur looks like it.”
“Mostly — he’s enough Chessie to swim in ice water.”
“You are gorgeous!” I said, gazing into his amber eyes.
“Don’t let it go to your head, Rocky,” Nick told his dog.
“She doesn’t date.”
I glanced up. “Now, a dog,” I said, “that’s something I miss, living at school.”
“Maybe you can get an exchange going with a kennel,” Nick suggested.
“No, no,” I said. “I want a dog of my own to love and pamper.”
Nick grunted. Rocky wagged his tail.
I petted around the dog’s wet ears and scratched under his chin. “Such an intelligent face!”
“Yeah, but he’s a lousy dancer.”
I grinned and stood up.
“Are you headed up to the house?” Nick asked.
“Yes.” As we climbed the hill, Rocky ran ahead of us, then circled back and ran ahead again. We stopped at the porch.
“You know the rules, Rock,” Nick said to his dog. “No stinky animals inside.”
“Are you kidding? Aunt Jule won’t mind.”
“I’m here to see Holly.”
“Oh. Of course.” She had told me he was coming. Why else did I think he was walking me to the house?
“We have yearbook work to do,” Nick explained.
“At this point in the year?”
“The supplement,” he answered.
“Well, Rocky can hang out with me.” I stroked the dog’s head. “Come on, big guy.”
Rocky licked my hand and complied, walking next to me as I headed toward the side of the house.
A shrill whistle split the air. “Rocky!” Nick called, sounding exasperated. “Come here. Come!”
The dog trotted back to him.
“What’s going on? You’re not supposed to go off with anybody who pats you on the head. Where’s your training?”
I looked back at Nick, amused. “Jealous?”
“Not of you,” he replied, then motioned to the dog. “Okay, go with Lauren. Go,” he commanded.
The dog raced toward me and I continued walking. With Rocky trotting beside me, I checked the greenhouse and garden in search of Nora. Though I wanted to question her about what she had done, part of me was relieved that she wasn’t in either place. As strange as Nora was as a child, she had never given me the creeps. She did now. Before, when she answered someone who wasn’t there, I figured it was an imaginary playmate. So what if she had one longer than most kids? But my dead mother, that was a different kind of invisible presence. I didn’t want to think about it.
Passing the garden, I came to the old oak tree with the swing. It was tied the same way as always, with a loop dangling about three feet off the ground.
“What do you think, Rocky? Am I still the champion swin
ger of the group?”
I grabbed the rope and gave it a hard yank, then put my foot in the loop and pulled myself up with my hands, making sure the rope was as strong as it appeared. Jumping down again, I carried the rope to another tree and climbed to “the platform of death,” as we used to call it — a wide branch on an old cherry.
“Here goes” I slipped my foot in the loop, grabbed the rope, and pushed off.
With the first swoop I remembered why I had loved swinging. It was wonderful! It was flying! It was being Peter Pan! The earth fell away, the sky rushed to meet me. I was free and flying high.
Then the rope jerked. It happened so suddenly it caught me off guard. The rope writhed out of my hands. I grabbed for it frantically, but I couldn’t catch hold and fell backward.
With my foot caught in the loop, I hit the ground upside down, back first. The rope snapped, releasing me from the tree and tumbling on top of me.
I lay on my back stunned, the wind knocked out of me.
Rocky nosed my arm. I sat up slowly and gazed up at the tree, which still had a piece of rope dangling from it. The rope had been in too good shape to be snapped by my weight. I quickly examined it, the part that had fallen on me.
About four feet above the foot loop was a knot. My mouth went dry. I thought of the knot in the lamp wire, the knots in my mother’s scarves and jewelry. I had assumed that someone tied those knots before they were discovered, but I hadn’t seen this one when I grasped the swing’s rope.
I just didn’t notice it, I told myself. Still, an icy fear ran through my veins. I didn’t know how to explain what had just happened. I didn’t know who or what to blame. Then I glanced up to the second floor porch and saw Nora watching me.
six
Before I could call to her, Nora disappeared inside. I coiled up the rope and left it under the tree, then entered the house, slipping past the dining room, where Nick, Holly, and Aunt Jule were talking. When I arrived upstairs, Nora’s bedroom door was closed. I could hear her moving behind it.
I knocked, lightly at first. “Nora? Nora, I want to talk to you.” I knocked harder, but she wouldn’t answer. I thought of opening the door myself or sneaking around to the porch and trying to surprise her, but I didn’t want to do something to Nora that she could do back to me. I gave up. As soon as I got a chance to talk to Aunt Jule alone, I’d tell her that Nora needed help and I’d offer to pay for it.
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