The Lake

by Natasha Preston

  It better be worth it. I’ll probably stress the whole damn time that we’ll be caught.

  “Almost to the other side,” Rebekah says as we walk around the lake.

  I hate being this far away from camp.

  Every day after the accident I would almost hyperventilate being so close to where it happened. I still remember taking this very route, then Kayla and I veered left into the woods and things got…bad.

  But that was years ago. I’m not the same person I was back then.

  It was easier to be on this side of the lake earlier, when we finally arrived back from the hike. Everyone was so relieved to have found camp again, I didn’t think about how close we were to the accident site.

  After getting lost in the forest, I don’t much feel like being very close to that place again. But that doesn’t mean I need to fear it.

  The others turn, and I follow them between the trees, my stomach tightening.

  “Will you stop stressing,” Kayla hisses in my ear. “I can see those dark eyes filling with anxiety.”

  “Kayla, I don’t like this—”

  “Stop. You always look on the negative side whenever something is even slightly suspicious. Or not suspicious at all!”

  “This isn’t about the forest thing. I get what that was now, okay?” I shake my head. “It’s passing that place….”

  “Don’t. We’re not talking about that ever again, remember? We made a pact. A blood pact.”

  It can hardly be called a blood pact. We both cut ourselves while we were running through the edge of the forest to get back before the counselors woke up. We promised not to tell and shook on it. There was blood on our hands.

  “Fine. Okay, you’re right,” I tell her. “I thought it would be easier to be back here after so many years.”

  “It freaked me out too at first, but you have to get over it. What happened wasn’t our fault. We were kids, Esme.”

  Smiling, I nod. “I’m forgetting it. Let’s join everyone else; they’re ahead.”

  Olly looks over his shoulder as Kayla and I speed up.

  His frown is wiped away by a smile. “Come on, Esme, we’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?”

  “To the fire damage.”

  Kayla’s steps falter at his words and she trips. I grab her elbow, holding her upright. “Tree roots,” I say aloud to cover up the real reason Kayla almost wiped out.

  That’s where we’re going?

  No way.

  “You okay?” Jake asks, jogging back.

  Kayla blushes. “I’m so clumsy!” Jake holds his hand out and she takes it.

  Can’t she pretend to faint and get us out of this?

  Jake and Kayla walk ahead of Olly and me.

  “Why are we going there?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even and not Minnie Mouse high. Olly doesn’t so much as blink, so I know I sound normal.

  “Andy won’t say much about the fire. I think he’s embarrassed on behalf of the camp that it happened. Kids alone in the woods, starting a fire, almost burning the place down…It doesn’t look good.”

  “Huh? How do you know?”

  “People talk, Esme,” he says.

  Do they? No one was caught. There were rumors circulating, but no one talked. Kayla and I have never talked.

  “What happened?” I ask, trying to figure out how much Olly knows. He thinks the fire was started by someone at camp?

  “Word is a group of kids from town snuck into the woods and their campfire got out of hand.”

  Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks. The fire department and police. I remember the cops the morning after the fire talking to the counselors.

  Kayla and I were petrified that they’d come for us, but the damage wasn’t to camp property.

  “There’s another theory, however,” Olly continues.

  I hold my hands behind my back. “About campers?”

  He nods. “Some people think a group of campers snuck out of the cabin and lit a fire in the woods in the middle of the night. It got out of hand, but by the time counselors were alerted, the campers were already back in their beds.”

  I lick my lips. Diffuse, diffuse, diffuse. “How could they sneak in and out during a fire and not be noticed?”

  Olly shrugs. “Kids are sneaky.”

  Play. It. Cool.

  I gulp down what I think will come out as manic laughter. “True. So, we’re going to look at burned wood. We’ve really peaked on the boredom scale, huh?”

  Olly laughs. “All right, there’s not a lot to do, I’ll give you that. We’re out of here soon and heading into town.”

  “What happens if we get caught?”

  “Andy will likely tell us how disappointed he is. Then we’ll never be allowed out of our cabins in the evening. We’ll have to be asleep by nine like the campers.”

  “We’re not getting caught, then.”

  He laughs again. “No getting caught.”

  I’m good at that. So is Kayla.

  I take a deep breath. Everyone still thinks the fire was caused by kids from town, which means Lillian never spilled either. I just need to get through these six weeks and never return.

  “Here it is,” Tia says, bouncing up and down. She shines her flashlight around. There is a large clearing. A five-minute walk from camp.

  I stand at the edge of the forest and do a three-sixty, looking around in every direction. This is crazy.

  My heart thumps against my rib cage. My chest tightens. A lot of work has gone into these woods to make sure forest fires don’t get out of hand—strips of land between the trees, large circles of rocks around campfires, and fire prevention signage.

  Those rocks saved the woods that night. We accidentally set fire to only three trees. It was contained.

  But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened here.

  11

  Today we’re going to the lake for swimming lessons. Thankfully not taught by me. I’m confident I could swim to save my life, but I’m nowhere near good enough to be able to teach. Besides, I’m not qualified.

  We also have water volleyball. The lake is very deep, and dark, in the middle, but about three-quarters of the way in, there’s a ring of rope that we’re not supposed to go beyond.

  “I remember being excited for a day on the lake,” I say to Kayla, and take a big gulp of my second coffee.

  “Yeah, it was so much fun. The kids are going to love it.”

  This is our first full day in the water and around it. We’re having a picnic lunch on the beach and dinner around the campfire. Andy had a lot of burgers and hot dogs delivered early this morning to feed hungry children.

  I can almost taste the lightly charred hot dogs just from thinking about them.

  “I can’t wait to get in the water. Texas is so hot,” I say.

  Kayla smirks. “You’re getting in?”

  “Totally. I can referee volleyball or something.” I haven’t been able to focus on anything since last night. Not even sleep. I see angry orange flames consuming three trees so clearly that it’s as if it’s happening right now. The screams are imbedded in my memory, refusing to leave no matter how hard I try.

  “Ready to go get changed?” Cora asks, stopping by our table.

  I nod and grab my empty bowl and mug.

  “See you out there,” I tell Kayla.

  Cora and I head out. As we walk, she asks, “Where did you go last night? I saw you guys walking around the lake and into the woods.”

  I lick my lips. “Tia wanted to see the old fire damage.”

  “Gosh, that was so bad. It was lucky the fire didn’t take hold.”

  “Seemed to be held up by the rocks,” I say as if I have no idea.

  “Yeah. The trees in the middle of the clearing were the onl
y ones that burned, thankfully.”

  Cora knows a lot about this.

  My heart skips a beat. “Were you here then?”

  I don’t remember her.

  “No. I had a good look around when I first came as a CIT, though. It’s such a nice man-made campsite, shame the dead trees ruin it.”

  That’s all that’s left. The forest has recovered; new growth has long hidden the mess left behind on the ground. But the burned trees are still there, one of them just a stump. I’m hit with a pang of guilt whenever I think about it. Which has been often lately.

  If the site hadn’t been man-made and the ground cleared to protect the forest when campfires were used, the whole woods could have gone up.

  Kayla and I almost destroyed acres of forest and the campsite.

  Cora heads down to the lake while I return to the cabin to change into my bathing suit. I tie my long hair up on my head, pinch my pale cheeks to give them some color and stare into my green eyes. They really are the color of leaves on a tree. As if I need more reminders of what I’ve done.

  Grabbing my towel, I head to the lake. Some of the campers are in the water already, with the swim instructors taking groups of eight each. The other campers are by the two volleyball nets and split into teams. The Buttercups, who aren’t actually twins or even related, are in the water near the volleyball nets, as are Olly and Jake. I bet Kayla regrets her decision to be on swim watch now.

  Out of nowhere, a young girl from Cora’s group runs in front of me and trips on a large rock. She lands on the ground with a thud. For some reason, when she falls, I startle more than I should.

  “Alana, are you okay?” I ask.

  She’s a shy girl. She looks up from the ground and I can tell she’s holding back tears.

  I sit down next to her. “Let me see.”

  With trembling hands, I inspect her knee. There’s only a slight scrape and it’s not bleeding. Still, I can hear my heart beating in my ears.

  “I’m okay,” Alana says.

  “Do you want me to get you an ice pack?”

  She hesitates, then shakes her head. “I want to get in the lake.”

  “Great. Our groups are doing volleyball first. Shall we go?”

  She stands and her eyes dart to the swimmers. “I can’t swim. I’ve never had lessons.”

  “You’ll be able to by the end of the summer. There are lessons three times a week.”

  We walk around the lake to the others.

  “Most of my friends can already swim,” she says.

  “You’ll be able to tell them you can too when you go back to school.”

  Alana beams, her big eyes alight with the excitement of such a simple skill. She doesn’t want to be the best swimmer in the world or go for the Olympics, she just wants to be able to do it like her friends.

  She seems to have already forgotten about her fall. But I haven’t.

  “Stay waist-high, Alana,” I tell her as she splashes into the lake.

  She shouts a very quick okay over her shoulder and joins her team.

  “All okay?” Cora asks.

  “Um, yeah. Just a small scrape,” I say.

  Cora nods. “Thanks for taking care of her. I’ll follow up later and see how she’s doing.”

  “For sure.”

  I barely hear Cora tell me she is going to check out the water. My mind is still elsewhere. Back at the night of the fire. Only now, new memories are surfacing. They came to me the minute Alana hit the ground and have only grown clearer since. Kayla and I had snuck out. When we reached the clearing, we built a small fire, but we used too many logs. Only after the fire was burning did a young girl come out of the woods. She told us her name was Lillian and that she had run away from home. She wanted to show us something. Something…horrible. Kayla called her a freak and pushed her. Lillian fell, knocking the wood from the firepit. The flames started to spread, hot and vicious, and we all ran.

  Or at least I thought we all ran.

  But now something nags at my mind. The image of Lillian sprawled on the ground.

  Did she run?

  And if she didn’t, what happened to her?

  Where is Lillian now?

  12

  Kayla and I are sitting on the bottom bunk in our room. The campers are having s’mores after dinner and we’ve come inside while Andy tells some of his “infamous” ghost stories. I haven’t heard any of them yet, but Cora says they’re pretty lame, though highly entertaining.

  “So, you don’t think Lillian ran?” Kayla asks. Her fingers knit together and then she unfolds them like she’s performing jazz hands.

  Her back is straight as a board and I don’t think she’s blinked in the past few minutes.

  “I can’t be sure. But I don’t remember seeing her get up,” I say.

  “That doesn’t mean she didn’t.”

  “I know that.”

  Kayla shakes her head.

  “She could have.” I take a breath that feels like I’m swallowing razors. “But she was already hurt.”

  “Maybe she was still there when the cops arrived and they picked her up?”

  I kick my feet up on the mattress. “Maybe. But last night Olly said that no one knows who started the fire. If the cops picked Lillian up, then surely they would’ve pinned it on her.”

  “What if the cops couldn’t say anything publicly because she was a minor?” Kayla says.

  “Okay, I’m not really interested in what the cops think.”

  “You should be, Esme!”

  “We know she didn’t light the damn fire—we did! What I’m worried about is what happened to her after we ran. Were we the last ones to see her? Did she get into some sort of trouble?”

  Kayla and I panicked and ran, flattening ourselves against trees and watching to see whether any lights came on in the cabins. We never bothered to look back.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” she says.

  I shake my head. “I guess because I wasn’t sure. But every time I think about it, I hear the roar of the fire and those screams.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Kayla sits even taller. “Right. Okay. Right.”

  Ugh, I want to throw something at her. “Kayla, use other words!”

  “I’m thinking! You know, it wasn’t our fault. We weren’t the ones who started the trouble that night.”

  That sounds like something you say to justify your actions. Are you guilty because you didn’t stop something from happening? Yes. We had the power that night to help and we didn’t do anything.

  “We need to find out where Lillian is,” I tell Kayla.

  I can’t stop thinking that maybe she was injured more than we thought.

  “I’m going to Google her. There could be an article about it, right?” I say, pulling my phone out of my bag on the floor.

  Kayla leans forward to look over my shoulder as I type fire, Texas and Lillian Campbell into the search bar.

  I shake my head, scrolling as I pass names and faces that don’t match.

  Come on.

  I bite my lip in frustration. No one looks familiar.

  Please.

  “None of these kids look like Lillian,” I say.

  “Well, that’s good. We don’t want to find her in the news.”

  “True,” I mutter. I sigh and drop my phone in my lap when the internet comes up empty. “Okay, I’ve got nothing.”

  “Good.” Kayla brushes her hair over her shoulders. “That means we didn’t do anything.”

  I side-eye her. “It only means it’s not online. What we did was very real.”

  “Esme.” Kayla says my name like all of this is exclusively my fault.

  We were so dumb that night, thinking we were cool for sneaking out like the older kids. Kayla was so excited
as we left the cabin, thinking about how she was going to tell them the next day.

  But when we got into bed that night, we vowed to never tell anyone.

  That night she also lost her desire to be popular. Mostly.

  Kayla wants this to all go away, for it to be a buried memory that she never digs up.

  Something is wrong here. I feel it in the skittering of my heart whenever I think about that night. Lillian was a little girl alone in the woods. We had no idea who she was; we only spoke to her for about five minutes before the fire got out of hand.

  “Come on, let’s go join the others before they get suspicious,” I say, sliding my useless phone back in my bag. This is getting us nowhere.

  Kayla hops up and knocks her water bottle off the dresser at the end of our bunk. It rolls under her bed.

  “Damn it,” she hisses, kneeling on the floor to reach under the bed and pick the bottle up.

  At this point, we don’t even need me to state the obvious. Kayla is worried too.

  She ducks her head, refusing to meet my eye. I wasn’t going to say anything to her anyway.

  “Let’s get a s’more,” I say as we walk outside.

  That’s code for “let’s act normal.”

  “All right, campers,” Andy says. “We need you to get a good night’s sleep tonight because tomorrow there is a summer school exam you’re required to take.”

  A rumble of unhappy conversation tears through the groups of kids.

  Kayla and I look at each other.

  “What’s this about?” I ask Cora as we sit next to her.

  She shrugs, her mouth failing to hide a smile.

  Oh, I get it. Andy’s pranking them.

  “Settle down, settle down,” he says, waving his arms up and down. “This will be the only test you have to take and it’s for us to see what math group to put you in.”

  “Math!”

  I don’t know who said it; I only know that the sound pierced my freaking eardrums. Wincing, I plug my knuckles into my ears and rattle them until the ringing stops.

  Andy laughs and addresses the loud child. “All right, Cady.” He turns to the group. “I was, of course, joking. There are no tests at camp.”

  The children grumble at his lame attempt to prank them but cheer for the lack of tests.