What Waits in the Water

by Kieran Scott

  Meanwhile, something prickled at the back of Hannah’s neck. She had the oddest feeling that something else was going on—something Jacob wasn’t telling them.

  “They’re staying here?” Hannah asked Jacob under her breath as they mounted the stairs.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, Your Shyness. You’re gonna love them,” Jacob said.

  Hannah walked inside and saw sandwich fixings—bread, turkey, cheese, tomatoes, pickles—sitting out on the long, oak dining table, along with bags of chips and a few bottles of soda. Colin and Katie were already digging into the food as Katie peppered Colin with questions like how long he’d known Jacob (a while) and where his own house was (in town).

  Hannah looked around. The house was small and cozy. The first floor contained both the living and dining room, with a few plaid couches, the long table, and tons of lake-related knickknacks like carved wooden boats, a lamp shaped like an oar, and an embroidered pillow that read YOU’RE ONLY HOME IF YOU’RE AT THE LAKE. The little white kitchen was off to one side, and at the back of the first floor was a screened-in porch and bathroom. Upstairs, Hannah knew, there were only two bedrooms and one more bath.

  “So where is everyone going to sleep?” Hannah asked, tossing her bag near the stairs, where the pins clattered against the bottom step.

  “I’m on the couch!” Alessandra said, raising a bottle of soda.

  “And Colin and I are bunking in my room.” Jacob rolled Katie’s bag up next to Hannah’s and turned to her with a grin. It was a mischievous grin. A grin that made her insides clench and heightened the suspicion she’d had outside. “And you and Katie have the master.”

  “Wait. We have to share a bed?” Katie said, her mouth half full of a turkey sandwich.

  But Hannah had a better question. “If we’re in the master bedroom, where are your parents sleeping?”

  “That’s the best part.” Jacob’s grin widened. “My parents are away for the weekend,” he announced, making Hannah’s stomach sink to her toes. “Surprise!”

  Dear Future Me,

  I did it. I went to my first surprise party and it even turned into a sleepover!!! The whole afternoon I kept going back and forth over whether or not to go—chickening out and then feeling brave. But it wasn’t until A showed up at my house to pick me up that I knew there was no going back. I was going to have to be social. Of course it helped when A told me I looked “drool-worthy in that dress.” (The black one with the skinny straps and the long flowy skirt. Plus Mom let me wear her vintage gold ring for the first time, and she’s never getting it back. LOL.) After that, my mom only had to give me a SMALL shove out the door. Honestly, if it wasn’t for A I know I wouldn’t have gone at all. I guess I’m a person who needs a wingman. Wingwoman? Wingwoman.

  I blame my parents for moving us around so much. When have I ever been in one place long enough to make real friends and get invited to a real party? Never. Until now.

  But anyway, I’m SO GLAD I WENT because I spent almost the entire night talking to N. It turns out we like almost all the same things! He loves watching vids of service people surprising their families—his dad was in the army—and he thinks chocolate cake is the only food worth eating (I have to bring him Aunt Jerry’s famous triple layer. I mean, eventually. Not yet. Because if I gave it to him now that would be sort of stalker-y, right? Or pathetic? Or needy? Or all three?).

  I’m probably being stupid anyway because school will be done in a little over a month and then I’m sure I won’t see him all summer. I mean, unless I go visit him at work or something. It’s not like he’s going to come visit me. But maybe we’ll bump into each other on the lake beach or something. He said he’s getting a two-seater WaveRunner this summer and sort of hinted that he’d take me out for a ride. Who knows? Maybe he’ll follow through.

  So, P was having a bunch of girls sleep over after the party, even though everyone else was going home. And she asked ME to stay, too. I didn’t have a bag or anything, but she lent me pajamas and A and I got to stay in the upstairs guest room with a couple of other girls. P’s house is sick. It’s totally modern and huge and has three guest rooms! So a lot of girls got to stay. It was so much fun, and this morning her dad made these insane multigrain pancakes that were so good I got the recipe for Mom.

  The only bad part was the ghost story P told us before we went to bed. The story totally freaked me out and then A said that it was TRUE! IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THIS TOWN AT THAT VERY LAKE! After that, I couldn’t sleep for hours. I kept hearing things outside and feeling like someone was watching me. I’d write the story down here, but if I think about it too much I think I won’t sleep again tonight and that would suck because I have a trig test tomorrow. Monday tests are the worst!!!

  I should probably go study now and then go to bed. I never know how to finish these things so I guess I’ll just say, “Good night, Future Me!” xoxo

  “No parents?” Katie said, her dark eyes bright as she nibbled on a potato chip. “This trip just got interesting.”

  “Are you kidding?” Hannah said. “My dad’s gonna freak.”

  Katie pulled a face like Hannah was dense. “So … we don’t tell him.”

  “Please. He’s going to find out,” Hannah said. “All he has to do is call Jim or Frida to check in and we’re toast.”

  “Not if you text him first and tell him everything’s fine,” Katie said, rolling her eyes. “And if you keep texting him with details, he’ll have no reason to call Jacob’s parents.”

  Clearly, Katie had done this kind of thing before. Hannah, however, had not, and she instantly began to sweat. She never lied to her dad.

  She turned away from the others, not wanting to see their expressions, which she knew would be judgy and mocking. In her lifetime, Hannah had been the rule follower often enough to predict the very curve of people’s frowns and sneers down to the millimeter. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she headed back outside to the porch, feeling overwhelmed by irritation and uncertainty. This was the way she felt whenever she was confronted by a situation that forced her to decide between what was right and what other people considered cool. Why couldn’t it just be considered cool to do what was right? Would that be so awful?

  The screen door smacked shut behind her. Hannah stared out at the lake, watching a large bird chase a dragonfly across the water, the bird’s wings skimming the surface before it took flight again. The clouds had crowded out the sun now, and the entire lake was in shadow. Out on Mystery Island, the leaves on the healthy trees turned upside down in the wind, indicating rain was on its way. The blackened, dead trees creaked and swayed. It was eerie how the noise they made carried clear across the water.

  Hannah unlocked her phone. Inside the house, Katie was telling everyone what a lame, goody-goody loser Hannah was. Not that Hannah could hear her, but she could imagine. And Colin and Alessandra and Jacob were all having a good laugh at her expense, she was sure.

  Her dad had always been strict, and had always expected the best out of her—the best grades, the best behavior, her best effort. This was exactly the type of scenario he was always railing on about. “If you ever find yourself at a party and there are no parents there”—because that happened all the time to Hannah, ROFL—“call me right away and I’ll come get you. It’s better to be safe than to end up with a record … or worse.”

  Her dad, an ER surgeon, had seen every horrible, life-altering, deadly accident imaginable, and sometimes it seemed like he spent his nights imagining each gory, horrifying one of them happening to Hannah. If he found out that Jacob’s parents weren’t here and she didn’t tell him, she would be grounded for life.

  Yes, he was overprotective, but still. Hannah kind of liked it. She liked that she was her father’s number-one priority. At least she had been until recently. It wasn’t that she begrudged her dad his relationship with Mylin—not at all—but it had definitely changed things a bit. There was no denying that.

  She had to be honest and just tell him. True,
he would probably order her to come straight home. But at least she wouldn’t be hiding something.

  Hannah dialed her dad’s cell, but when she lifted the phone to her ear, all she heard were three low beeps and then nothing. She looked down at the screen.

  CALL FAILED.

  Hannah tried again. Same exact thing. Except her phone didn’t even try to dial out this time.

  The door opened behind her. It was Jacob, and he was wearing an apologetic look.

  “Your phone won’t work out here. There’s no signal.”

  Her heart sank. “What? Jacob, come on.”

  “I’m not kidding,” he said with a shrug. “With the Wi-Fi you can send email and text, but no calls. I could program your number into the signal booster, but it only takes six numbers at a time, and you have to be on the same network as ours. Plus my dad might have programmed his fishing buddies’ numbers in there last weekend, so …”

  Hannah swallowed a frustrated groan. “It’s okay. I’ll just use yours.”

  She held out her hand for Jacob’s phone. Before he could give it to her, the door opened again and Katie came striding out.

  “Uh, can I talk to you?” she said to Hannah, cocking one hip.

  Yeah, right. She could just imagine how that conversation would go.

  “No, I’m going to call my dad.” Hannah’s hand was still extended, but Jacob made no move to offer her his phone.

  “No,” Katie said. “You’re really not.”

  Katie stormed across the porch, grabbed Hannah’s arm, and dragged her down the three steps to the dirt path, then farther away from the house. Jacob didn’t follow. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts and watched.

  “First of all, you’re making us both look like losers,” Katie said quietly. She cast a glance toward the house, and Hannah saw that Colin was at the window, watching them, too. She felt a little thrill that she couldn’t explain. The guy hadn’t said a word to her since they’d arrived. That was weird, not attractive. Right? And Hannah was in love with Jacob. In love with him. She had been as long as she could remember. Unlike some people who’d swooped in last winter and started flirting like it was a competitive sport.

  “Secondly,” Katie continued, “if your dad tells us to come home, I am not leaving.”

  She crossed her arms over her stomach and raised one eyebrow, as if that would intimidate Hannah into taking her side.

  “Okay, first of all,” Hannah mimicked, “it’s my car. And we’re in this together. If I decide to leave, you’re coming with me.”

  “How many times are you gonna rub it in that you can drive and I can’t?” Katie snapped.

  Hannah could barely contain a screech of rage. “That is not what I’m doing!” She took a deep, calming breath and blew it out. “Katie, come on. Can we just be real for one second? If … no … when our parents find out we were here alone, with no adults, and with a strange guy staying over … they’re going to murder us.”

  Katie shook her head. “Okay, yeah, they’ll be pissed. But we’ll still have had an awesome weekend. Isn’t, like, a week of grounding worth that?” she shot back.

  “Try a month. If not more,” Hannah muttered, hugging herself.

  “You’re such a—”

  “I have an idea!”

  Hannah and Katie both jumped. Jacob had somehow gotten right up next to them without either of them seeing or hearing him approach.

  “What?” they both snapped.

  Jacob was unfazed. He turned to Hannah and lifted his chin. “What if we race for it?”

  Alessandra and Colin walked out onto the porch, both munching on sandwiches. They kept back, but were definitely close enough to hear the conversation, which made Hannah feel like she was participating in a spectator sport.

  “Oh, please. You’re gonna try to make me swim out to the island or something,” Hannah said with a scoff, not wanting to call it by its silly name in front of the others. Mystery Island. Her underarms prickled under the strangers’ scrutiny. She tried to scoff casually, but didn’t exactly pull it off. “You know I’ll never beat you in a long-distance race.”

  “So we’ll do a sprint.” Jacob lifted one shoulder like it was no big thing. “You set the course and pick the stroke. I win, you don’t call your dad. You win, you can call him and feel free to leave and I’ll even convince Katie to go with you.”

  “Hey!” Katie protested, and Jacob laughed.

  Hannah’s heart skipped a beat, and she felt her ambition kick in. Was he serious? Jacob had never beaten her at a distance shorter than 400 meters. Not once. She glanced over at Colin and Alessandra, who were looking on with interest. Surely they had already pegged her as a downer. If she could beat Jacob, at least she’d win some points. She had no idea why she cared, but she did. She hated that people judged her as less-than just because she wasn’t a party animal.

  “Fine.” Hannah yanked her hair tie out and undid her braid, getting her long waves ready to coil up on top of her head. “Two hundred meters, free.”

  Jacob stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

  They shook on it, then headed toward the house to change into their bathing suits. Hannah felt a stiff breeze. The sky was darkening and the temperature was dropping noticeably. She figured they had maybe ten minutes before the storm rolled in.

  Hannah shivered in her bathing suit as she stood on the edge of the dock, and she focused on the lake ahead of her. Clouds filled the sky. Hannah tried not to look at the ominous island in the distance, but she had the weirdest sensation that the island was somehow watching her.

  “To the first buoy and back, yeah?” Jacob said, standing beside her, looking gorgeous in his swim trunks. His green eyes were bright with a confidence that Hannah couldn’t wait to squelch. “That’s two hundred meters, give or take.”

  Hannah snapped her swimmer’s cap into place and adjusted her goggles above her nose. Katie thought she was a dork for packing the goggles, but Hannah needed them; she always felt so disoriented when she opened her eyes underwater without her goggles on. So she brought them everywhere she went—as long as there was going to be a place to swim. Jacob had brought his goggles along, too, which made Hannah feel entirely vindicated.

  See? Jacob and I have so much in common, she told Katie silently, hoping she could communicate entire sentences with a glance. Even things you think are lame.

  Katie just glared at Hannah from where she stood behind her on the grass, along with Alessandra and Colin.

  Hannah turned back around. “That’s the plan,” she told Jacob as she stretched out her shoulders. “Enjoy watching my backside.”

  Jacob smirked, and Hannah’s blush was nuclear.

  “I didn’t mean … I was just trying to … I couldn’t say eat my dust, so I—”

  “I got it, Webster.” Jacob pulled his own goggles down. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

  Hannah’s heart ping-ponged around inside her chest and she felt like she might throw up. Had Jacob really just called her cute?

  “Are you ready?” Alessandra called out from behind them.

  No! No! I’m actually having a stroke!

  “Get set!”

  Jacob gave Hannah a triumphant look, like he had this in the bag. What was with all the cockiness?

  This is a sprint, dude, she thought. A sprint! Get ready to suck my wake.

  Suck my wake. Why hadn’t she thought of that before she’d said—

  “Go!”

  Hannah flung herself into the lake. The second the cool water parted around her, she understood that her breath was all wrong. Jacob had thrown her off with his comments and his attitude. Was that on purpose? Had he been trying to mess with her head? Screwing with her just so he could win? Dang it. Hannah never let herself get psyched out by anyone. That was part of her strength as a swimmer. Even Junior Olympian Annie Snow, with her entourage and Team USA bathing suit, hadn’t intimidated her at their meet back in June.

  But then, if Jacob won,
that meant she had to stay. So maybe he was psyching her out because he wanted her to stay. The very idea sent a thrill down her spine even as she kicked and stroked. Jacob wanted her to stay.

  She felt Jacob pull ahead and a switch flipped inside her—the competitive switch. Her adrenaline kicked in.

  Get out of your head, she admonished herself. Get into the race.

  If she won, she could still change her mind and decide to stay, but if she lost … well, that would suck on a number of levels.

  Hannah focused. She tuned into her shoulder muscles and felt them fire. The water ahead was murky and she couldn’t see the buoy yet, but she could sense from years of experience swimming these distances that it should be coming up any second. She brought herself up even with Jacob and, after three full breaths, felt herself pulling ahead. She saw the buoy, made the turn, and Jacob wasn’t even there anymore. He’d definitely fallen behind.

  That would teach him to challenge her to a sprint.

  Now she really dug in. She felt her rhythm normalize and knew it would be a cake walk—a cake swim?—from there. She could even hear Alessandra and Katie screaming and cheering and … was that Colin? That deep, thrumming voice? It was hard to separate it out from the beating of her own heart in her ears.

  Hannah was just about to turn on the last-leg speed when she felt a tug on her ankle. Startled, she shook it off, assuming it was some sort of lake vegetation. But then it tugged again. And whatever it was, it was solid. It didn’t feel like a weed or a reed. It felt like … a hand. Like long fingers snaking around her flesh.

  Was it Jacob? Was he messing with her? Trying to cheat?

  She looked back, throwing off her rhythm entirely, and saw nothing but dark lake water. Even though her eyes told her there was nothing there, she felt the tug again, and this time it didn’t just pull her back, but down.

  Hannah stopped swimming and kicked as hard as she could, kicking at the thing—kicking out. Her pulse was in full-on panic mode now. What was it? A fish? What kind of fish had fingers?