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Savannah is Six
JAMES VAN PELT
For as long as Poul could remember, he’d spent the summer at the lake where his brother drowned.
This year, as they climbed in the van, Leesa said cryptically, ‘Savannah is Six.’
Poul held his hand on the ignition key but didn’t turn it. ‘I know.’
Each year since Savannah was born, it got harder to come out. The nightmares started earlier, grew more vivid, woke him with a scream choked down, a huge hurting lump he swallowed without voicing. Poul took longer to pack the van; he delayed the day he left, and when he finally started, he drove below the speed limit.
They pulled into the long, sloping driveway down to the cottage just after noon. Leesa had slept the last hour and Savannah coloured in the back seat, surrounded by baggage and groceries. Her head was down, very serious, turning a white sky into a blue one. She always struck Poul as a sombre child, for six, as if there was something sad in her life that returned to her occasionally. Not that she didn’t smile or didn’t act silly at times, but he’d catch her staring out the window in her bedroom before she’d go to bed, or her hand would rest on a favourite toy without picking it up, and she seemed lost. She was quick to tears if either parent scolded her, which happened seldom, but even a spilled drink at dinner filled her eyes, the tears brimming at the edge, ready to slip away.
Their cottage sat isolated by a spur of nature conservancy land on one side and on the other by a long, houseless, rocky stretch. He bought the place fourteen years earlier, the year after he married, from Dad, who didn’t use it any more.
Only a couple of hours from Terre Haute, Tribay Lake attracted a slower-paced population; county covenants kept the skiers off, so the surface remained calm when the wind was low. From the air it looked like a three-leafed clover, with several miles of shoreline. An angler in a boat with a trolling motor could find plenty of isolated inlets covered with lily pads where the lunkers hung out.
By mid-June the water warmed to swimming temperature - inner tubes were stacked next to the boathouse for a convenient float - and the nights cooled off for sleeping. Poul and Leesa took the front room overlooking the lake. In the first years they’d opened the big windows wide at night to listen to crickets. Lately, though, he went to bed alone while she worked crossword puzzles, or she retired early and was asleep by the time he got there.
Poul knew the lake by its smell and sounds - wet wood and fish and old barbecues and waves lapping against the tyres his dad had mounted on the pier to protect the boat, the late night birds trilling in the hills above the lake, and an echo of his mother’s voice, still ringing, when Neal didn’t come back. ‘Where’s your brother?’ she’d asked, her eyes already wild. ‘Weren’t you watching Neal?’ She called his name as she walked down the rocky shore looking for the younger son.
Savannah closed her book and said, ‘I’m going to catch a big fish this year. I’m going to see him in my raft first, then I’ll hook him. But I want to visit Johnny Jacobs and his kittens first.’ Over Poul’s objection, Leesa had bought Savannah a clear-bottomed raft, just big enough to hold a child, and it was all she’d talked about for weeks.
Poul said, ‘They won’t be kittens any more, Speedy. That was last fall. They’ll be cats by now.’ Gravel crunched under the wheels. Leesa didn’t move, her sweater still bunched between her head and the window.
Poul wondered if she only pretended to be asleep. It was a good way to not converse, and the lean against the window kept her as far away from him as possible. ‘We’re here, Leesa,’ he said, touching her hand. She didn’t flinch, so maybe she actually had been sleeping.
Leesa rubbed her eyes, then pushed her short, black hair behind her ears. She’d started dyeing it last year even though Poul hadn’t noticed any grey. His hair had a couple of streaks now, but his barber told him it made him distinguished. At thirty-five, he thought ‘distinguished’ was a good look.
‘I’m going to walk down to Kettle Jack’s to see if he has fresh corn for the grill. I like grilled corn my first night at the lake,’ Leesa said. Poul wondered if she was talking to him. She’d turned her face to the side, where the oak slipped past.
Poul pulled the car under the beat-up carport next to the cottage. Scrubby brush scraped against the bumper. Leesa opened the door and was gone before he could stop the engine. Savannah said, ‘I don’t like corn on the cob. Can we have hotdogs?’
‘Sure, Speedy.’ On an elm next to the cottage, a frayed rope dangled, its end fifteen feet from the ground. Summers and summers ago, there’d been a knot in the end and Neal hung on while Poul pushed him. ‘Harder, Poul!’ he’d yell, and Poul gave another shove, sending the younger boy spinning. Poul looked at the rope. He didn’t remember when it had broken; it seemed like this was the first time he’d seen it in years. With the door open now, forest smells filled the car: the peculiar lakeside forest essence that was all moss and ferns and rotted logs half buried in loam, damp with Indiana summer dew. He and Neal had explored the woods from the cottage to the highway, a half-mile of deadfall and mysterious paths only the deer used. They hunted for walking sticks and giant beetles, or, with peanut butter jars in hand, trapped bulbous spiders for later examination.
Someone yelled in the distance, a child, and Poul jumped. He stood, his hands resting on the car’s roof. Between the cottage and the elms beside it a slice of lake glimmered and a hundred feet from shore, a group of children played on a permanently anchored oil drum and wood-decked diving platform, whooping in delight.
‘I’d like mustard on mine, and then I’ll go see the kittens,’ said Savannah. She had her duffel bag over her shoulder - it dragged on the ground - and was already moving towards the back door.
‘Sure, Speedy,’ Poul said, although Savannah was already out of earshot. Poul arched, pushing his hands into his back. Sunlight cut through the leaves above in a million diamonds. He left the baggage in the car to walk to the shore. To his left, a mile away, partly around the lake’s curve, Kettle Jack’s long pier poked into the water. A dozen sailboats lay at anchor, their empty masts standing rock-still in the windless day. Partway there, Leesa walked determinedly on the dirt path towards the lodge. Slender as the day they married. Long-legged. Satiny skin that bronzed after two days of sun. He remembered warm nights marvelling at the boundaries where the dark skin became white, how she murmured encouragement, laughing deep in her throat at shared joys.
Poul unpacked the van. Most of the beach toys went around front. He stuck the yellow raft on a high, open shelf in the back of the cottage where rakes and old oars were stored. Maybe she’d forget they had it.
A screen slapped shut behind him. Savannah came down the steps. ‘I couldn’t find the hotdogs, and something smells bad in the kitchen. I’m going to count fish.’
Poul said, ‘Let’s go together. Life vest first.’ He found one in a pile in the storage chest against the tiny boathouse. It had a solid heft that reassured him.
She pouted as he put it on. It smelled of a winter’s storage, a musty, grey odour that rose when he squeezed the belt around her. ‘Guess you aren’t the same size as last summer? Can’t have you grow up this fast. We’ll have to quit feeding you.’
Savannah didn’t smile. ‘Da-ad,’ she said.
Minnows darted away when they stepped on the pier. To the left, weeds grew up from the mucky bottom, starting as a ten-foot wide algae belt next to the shore, and waving languidly below after that until the lake became too deep to see them. To the right, white sand began at a railroad tie border six feet from the cottage and reached into the water, a smooth, pale stretch for thirty feet. It cost two hundred dollars every other season to have several dump-truck loads of sand poured and spread to create the beach. A blunt torpedo silhouette a foot long moved towards deeper water. Probably a bass. Most perch were stockers in the lake, and a foot-long blue gill would be a trophy. Only catfish and bass reached respectable siz
e. Poul watched the fish gliding at the sand’s edge, perfectly poised between the artificial beach and the lake’s invisible depths. Once he’d stood at the same spot with Neal, fascinated by a three-foot-long catfish, nosing its way beneath their feet. Through their reflections, through Neal’s glasses and wide brown eyes and sun-blond hair, and through Poul’s dark hair and blue eyes, they’d watched its broad, black back. Later they’d baited huge treble hooks with liver or soap, but the fish never returned. Dad had told them some catfish lived longer than men. That same catfish might still be prowling the lake’s bottom. Would it remember a summer of two small boys? Or was it now a ghost? Did old ones die to haunt the undersides of piers? Were there places even fish were afraid to go?
Poul shivered and glanced up. Savannah was on her stomach at the pier’s end. Her knees not touching wood, her weight precariously balanced. His throat seized up and he walked quickly, almost a jog (although he didn’t want to scare her) to where she looked into the water. Poul put his hand on her back, holding her there.
Savannah’s hands were flat out, fingers splayed, nearly touching the surface. Without a breeze the lake was smooth as glass. ‘Look, Daddy. I’m underwater. Do you think she sees me?’ Her reflection stared at her, its hands almost touching her own, the vision of a little girl six inches deep, looking up.
Poul’s tongue felt fat in his mouth, and it was all he could do to speak without a quiver in the voice. ‘Yes, dear. You’re lovely. Now let’s go in, and I’ll find the hotdogs.’
Savannah held his hand as they walked towards the cottage. The boards creaked underfoot. Through the wide gaps, water undulated in a slow, fractional swell. He shook his head. She’d never been in danger. Even if she’d fallen in, the life vest would have popped her to the surface, and he was right there. He wished he’d signed her up for swimming lessons during the winter. Poul kept his head down, watching his feet next to Savannah’s, her white sneakers matching his small steps. She gripped his little finger and he smiled. After lunch, he’d break out the worms and bamboo poles (anything to avoid the clear-bottomed raft). He’d have to dig up the tall, skinny bobbers and show her again how to mount the bait on the hook.
He remembered fishing with Neal. Dad used an open bail casting reel, sending his lures to splash far away, but they had as much action tossing their bait a few feet from the boat. Poul would stare at the narrow red and white bobber’s point, held upright by the worm’s weight and a couple of lead shot. The marker twitched, sending ripples away. It twitched again. ‘Something nibbling you, Poul,’ said Neal, his own pole forgotten. ‘Yeah,’ said Poul, concentrating on the bobber, which wasn’t moving now. He imagined a fish eyeing it below. Could be a bass, or maybe even a pike, like the stuffed one mounted on a board above the bar at Kettle Jack’s, its long mouth open and full of teeth.
Savannah cried, ‘Help him, Daddy.’
‘What?’
She pulled away, dropped to her knees and poked her head over the pier’s side, trying to look under. ‘Help him!’
‘What, Savannah? What?’ Poul knelt beside her, a splinter poked his shin. ‘Don’t fall in now!’
She sat up, her hair wet at the tips where it had dipped. ‘Where’d he go? Didn’t you see him? He was reaching up between the boards, Daddy. You almost stepped on him.’
The sun dimmed and everything around them faded. Only Savannah was clear. Dimly children shrieked on the distant diving platform. When he spoke, it sounded to him as if they were in a bubble: his faint voice travelled no more than a yard away. ‘What did you see, Speedy? Who was reaching up?’
Her lip quivered. ‘The boy, Daddy. He was under the pier. I saw his fingers right there.’ She pointed. ‘He was stuck under the pier, but when I looked, he’d gone away. Where do you think he went to, Daddy?’
Between the boards, the lake breathed gently, the surface smooth and untroubled. A crawdad crept along the muck. Poul watched it through the gap. ‘I don’t think there was anyone there, Speedy. Maybe your eyes played a trick on you.’
Legs crossed, her hands in her lap, Savannah studied the space between the boards for a moment. Slowly, she said, ‘My eyes don’t play tricks.’ She paused. ‘But my brain might have imagined it.’
Poul released a long, slow lungful of air. He hadn’t known he’d been holding it. ‘If you’re hungry, sometimes your brain does funny things.’ The sun brightened. Poul shivered and he realised sweat soaked his shirt’s sides. ‘Let’s go in and have a hotdog.’
She nodded. He had to open the porch door for her; it was a high step up and her fingers barely wrapped around the knob. Neal had been so proud his last summer when he could grip it.
Later, while Savannah put mustard on her meal, Poul said, ‘Why did you think it was a boy under the pier if all you saw was his fingers?’ Savannah swallowed a bite.
‘He had boy hands. Boy hands are different. I can tell.’ She pushed the top back on the mustard.
In the evening, Poul walked to the end of the pier. A breeze had picked up and on the lake two sailboats glided side by side, their sails catching the sun’s last yellow rays. Now all the lake was black. If he jumped in here, the water would barely come to his chest - it would be just over a six-year-old’s head - but within a couple of strides was a steep drop-off. The wind pushed waves towards him, a series of lines that slapped against the piles as they went by. He could feel the lake in his feet. Deep in his pockets, his hands clenched. Cottages on the far shore glowed in the last light, their windows like mica specks in carved miniatures. Behind them, forest-covered hills rose to the silence of the sky.
They’d found Neal ten feet from the pier’s end, his hands floating above his head, nearly on the surface, his feet firmly anchored on the bottom. Poul stood on shore, his fists jammed into his armpits, and watched them load him in the boat, wearing the face mask and snorkel, limp and small, his arms like delicate pipes, his six-year-old skin as smooth and pale as milk, black boots on his feet. They were Poul’s snow boots, buckled at the top and filled with sand.
Long after the sun set and the boats disappeared and lights flickered on in cottages, music and voices drifted across the water, Poul came in to go to bed. On the porch, Savannah slept on the daybed. He checked the screens to make sure they were tight - mosquitoes were murder after dark - then locked the deadbolt, taking the key. Sometimes Savannah woke before he or Leesa did, and he didn’t want her wandering outside. In the kitchen, he shook as he poured a cup of tepid coffee. A humid breeze had sucked the heat out of him. The cup warmed his hands. Moths threw themselves against the windows, pattering to get in. Leaves hushed against themselves. Years ago he’d sat at this same table, sipping hot chocolate, laughing at Neal’s liquid moustache. That day they’d swum. The next they’d fish, and the summer at the lake stretched before them, a thousand holidays in a row.
Poul slipped up the stairs, keeping his weight on the side next to the wall so there would be no creaks. He left his clothes on a chair. Dock lights through the windows illuminated the room enough for him to get around without running into anything. A long lump on the bed, swaddled in shadows, was all he could see of Leesa. Except for his own breathing, there was no other noise, which meant she was awake. When she slept, she whistled lightly on each exhalation. From the beginning he’d found it charming, but never mentioned it, guessing it might be embarrassing. If he spoke now, he knew, she wouldn’t reply.
Three years ago when they were at the cottage, she began suffering headaches at bedtime, or sore throats, or stomach cramps, or pulled muscles, or dozens of other ailments. That same summer she went from sleeping in just a pair of boxer shorts to a fall flannel nightgown. She’d start complaining about her night-time illness before lunch and after a while he figured they were all a charade. The last time they’d made love had been a year ago, in this bedroom. He remembered her back to him and he pressed against her; he could feel her muscles through the flannel, her hip’s still delicate flare. She didn’t move away, so he pushed against
her again. It had been months since the last time, and the day had been good. She hadn’t avoided him. She laughed at a joke. Maybe she’s thawing, he’d thought, so he watched her, and when she went to bed, he followed. No chance for her to be sleeping before he got there. But she undressed in the bathroom, came out with the collar buttoned tightly at her neck, didn’t look at him and laid down with her back towards him. He didn’t move for a while. They’d been married too long for him not to recognise all the ways she was saying, ‘No’. Still, it had been months. He moved next to her, his erection painful. Outside, waves slapped upon the shore. The boat rattled on its chain.
A third time he pressed against her. Finally, without rolling, she reached back with her hand and held him. He took a sharp breath, moved into her palm, slid against her fingers. She squeezed once, not moving in any other way. When he came a few minutes later, sweat heavy on his chest, his breath quivering, Leesa slowly pulled her hand away and wiped him off on the sheets, as if she were already mostly asleep. It was the most loveless act he’d ever committed. Within moments, her whistling snore began.
Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 6
