The Hag

by Erik Henry Vick

  “Well, okay. This version is no doubt stretched all the hell over the place, but it might be closer to the truth. In this version, the widow was crazy. She had a teenage daughter, as with the ‘Woman in White’ version, but this widow locked her daughter up good and tight. Chained her right to the wall of their cabin. Never let her out. Let no one in to visit her.”

  More sweet-smelling smoke filled the night air.

  “One night, there was one hell of a storm. The widow’s cabin was under these big trees, follow? The wind blew one of them right over. Took one wall clean off the cabin when it came down. You can probably guess which wall the widow had chained the girl to. Well, she up and ran the second she figured out she was free. The widow chased her, right down to the lake. Watching her crazy mother bearing down on her, the girl waded out into the water, chain and all.” Joe leaned forward in his chair and fixed Mary with a steely glance. “That crazy old woman followed her daughter right down into the water. Drowned them both. The crazy old woman is supposed to be the ghost we call the Lady in the Lake.”

  He leaned back in his chair and arched his eyebrow at Elizabet. “Good enough?”

  Elizabet smiled and patted him on the knee.

  Mary looked at Stephen. “You knew the stories?”

  “Sort of. Mom and Dad didn’t buy this place until after I was away at college. I’ve heard the stories, sure, but I didn’t know the history. Or how involved the community was in these legends.”

  “You see, dear? No one means anything by it.”

  Mary didn’t answer, she only shook her head and shrugged.

  4

  After Mary and Elizabet headed to bed, Joe and Stephen sat out on the porch and drank beer in companionable silence. Joe lit his pipe for the umpteenth time that night, and Stephen tried to hide a smile.

  “I can still see that smile,” said Joe.

  “You always could.”

  “Ayup.”

  “So…are you going to tell me?”

  Joe turned his head and arched his eyebrow.

  Stephen looked out toward the black patch that was the lake. “You know what I’m asking you.”

  Joe relaxed back into his chair and drew on the pipe. “Ayup.”

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Stephen cleared his throat.

  Joe cast an irritated glance his way. “Well, if you’re going to nag…”

  Stephen raised his hand to hide his smile.

  “It’s the light. Gray skies, dark water. Plays tricks on a fella. Might make him think he sees something.”

  “Like a dead woman in the lake?”

  Without looking at him, Joe nodded. “Could go that-a-way.”

  “But it didn’t?”

  Joe sighed and drew on his pipe again. “What I saw, was a little boy panicking out in the middle of the lake by himself in a red plastic kayak. Could be, I picked up a touch of that panic myself.”

  “I’ve never seen you panic, Dad.”

  Joe nodded slowly and examined the glowing tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. “It’s hard to explain any other way.” He made a vague gesture with his pipe stem. “Quarter serious or not, those are stories. Tall tales.”

  “What did you see?”

  Joe drew a deep breath and blew his cheeks out. “As I was coming up on Greg, the first thing I saw was the kayak shimmying left and right, all while tilting bow first into the water. Next thing, everything settled down for a minute before the shaking started up again, but with more oomph. I cranked her up—the Mercury. As I got closer, I saw something stretched across the top of the kayak. Something gray, slick.”

  “What was it?”

  Joe shrugged and looked his son in the eye. “Could have been a bike innertube. Something such as that.”

  “Could have been?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Joe snapped. “I was too far away, in a moving boat with the spray, the rain. I didn’t get a good look.”

  “Okay, okay. What then?”

  “Your boy swung the paddle like he was trying to kill something. He really went at it, whatever it was, and then he slapped the paddle against the water hard. The gray thing was off the kayak by that time.” Joe set the pipe down on the metal table between them. “After that, he stopped hitting things and paddled as though his britches were on fire. He made about one or two full strokes, and…”

  Stephen waited, letting his dad tell the story in his own time.

  Joe shook his head. “This next part could make a guy wonder if he was getting the dementia.

  “No judgments here, Dad.”

  “Yeah, well. There are plenty of those damn things over in this chair.” Joe sat for a few moments, breathing and staring out at the lake. “Well, on that second or third stroke, the paddle stopped.”

  “Stopped? Greg just stopped paddling?”

  “It was the damnedest thing, Son. Greg didn’t stop the paddle, the paddle stopped Greg.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That paddle was sticking straight up and down out of the water, and your boy…well, he was pulling and pushing at it every which way. He couldn’t budge it, not at all. He tried jerking it up, nothing happened. After a few seconds of that, it looked as if something jerked that paddle out of his hands—straight down into the water.”

  “Is that how it looked or is that what happened?”

  “You’re at the wrong house. Fortune-teller’s two down.”

  “Okay. What happened next.”

  Joe hitched a deep breath and let it ease back out. “I was pretty close by that time. Greg was sitting there, slumped over in the kayak, staring into the water to his right. He saw me and yelled for help, said someone was trying to get him or some such. That’s when—‍”

  Joe snapped his mouth shut with an audible click. “If I tell you this, and you don’t believe me, it’s too bad. Ain’t going to no nursing home.”

  “No judgments, remember?”

  “Needed to be said, that’s all. This is the part where I don’t much trust my memory. Perhaps it was panic, as I said before—you know, because Greg was so scared. I think… I thought I saw an arm coming up out of the water behind him. That arm was gray, same as the thing that had been wrapped over the front of the kayak. It looked as if… Greg leaned back, far back like he was going to fall in the water backward.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Most things in the water—most things that want to hurt somebody—they’re scared of the motorboat. I circled around the kayak, spinning that Mercury as fast as it would spin. I cut a tight circle, mind, setting the water all a-roil. I saw nothing else. Greg, he—‍”

  Joe’s voice caught in his throat. “He held out his arms like a little kid, so I grabbed him and pulled him over into the Alumacraft. I wrapped my jacket around him, and away we skipped.”

  They sat in silence for what felt like a long time, both staring out at the impenetrable blackness that was Genosgwa Lake. Joe picked up his pipe and dug out the ash with his pinky. He glanced at Stephen out of the corner of his eye but said nothing.

  Joe set the cleaned pipe back on the metal table. “Well? Am I crazy?”

  Stephen turned and favored him with a penetrating gaze. “Yes. You are crazy, but you always have been.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “I don’t know what you witnessed; I wasn’t there. All I know, Dad, is that you saved my son.”

  Joe looked at his shoes. “Well…”

  Stephen turned and gazed out at the lake once more. “I guess…”

  Joe leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yes?”

  “I guess my only real question is this. What do you think you saw?”

  Joe dropped his head and let it hang. “Son, I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not lying now—‍”

  “Dad, I’m not—‍”

  “No, let me finish. I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not lying to you now when I say I have no idea what to think.” He sat still for a
while, elbows on his knees, head hanging. When he spoke again, it was barely audible. “All I know is that I never want to see it—or anything remotely akin to it—ever again.”

  As fate would have it, Joe would not get his wish.

  5

  As the full moon shone down on the deep, black lake, Will Seeger pushed his fishing boat away from his dock. “Nothing better than a little midnight fishing,” he said to his son-in-law, Chris.

  “You get more action?”

  “Could be.”

  “Definitely not as hot, this time of day. Or night, rather.”

  “True.” Will didn’t much care for his son-in-law. He didn’t much enjoy his company, and he didn’t enjoy hosting him at his lake house—his summer sanctum from a world full of assholes like Chris. He hitched a deep breath and sighed. Chris had married his daughter, and that meant he had to be pleasant. But if he’s doing what I think he’s doing to my Sammy, and I catch sign of it, by God the time for being nice will have ended.

  He piloted the boat in silence for a few minutes, with nothing more than the soft slap of the tranquil lake against the bow. Chris slumped on the bench in the middle of the boat, and every now and again, Will’s gaze left the water and tracked to the back of the younger man’s head.

  Chris was a fancy Wall Street man—a banker or some such—always making calls late at night or lording his financial knowledge over everyone—playing the big man, in other words. To Will’s mind, it was yet another mark against him.

  Sure, he provided Sammy with a good life…though Will believed she was paying for it. But there wasn’t anything explicit he could point to, no strange bruises, no injuries from walking into doors or tripping down steps. It was only a feeling, but Will was a good judge of character, and to his mind, Chris didn’t have much of that.

  “What’s that?” asked Chris. He pointed off the bow to port.

  Will let his gaze drift away from Chris long enough to check out what he was pointing at. “A log.”

  “Is that… Will, that’s no log.”

  Will squinted, cursing his old eyes in silent annoyance, and he turned the boat to bring them alongside whatever it was in the water. “We’ll take a look.”

  As they drew closer, it became more and more apparent that the thing floating in the water wasn’t a log. Not unless a log had a head, two arms, and two legs.

  “Uh, Will?”

  Will hated the sniveling sound of his son-in-law’s voice. He kept the boat pointed toward the body floating in the lake and kept the propeller spinning.

  “Will, we should head back to the house and call the authorities.”

  Will scoffed. “If we do that, and that body sinks again, they have to drag this lake and the depth—‍”

  “Yes, but we shouldn’t disturb the crime scene.”

  “Crime scene? You’ve been watching too much television. This isn’t the crime scene, Chris.”

  “Maybe not, but we shouldn’t disturb the body.”

  Will shook his head and spat over the gunnel into the black water. “Son, do you think somebody’s going to be out here with crime scene tape and chalk? No. We’ll deal with this and afterward, go call the police.”

  “It’s your boat, and everything, Will, but I’m not comfortable with this.”

  Even though his son-in-law was facing the wrong direction to see it, Will shrugged and sneered. “You’ll get over it.”

  Chris hunched his shoulders as if he were pouting, but he said nothing more.

  Will cut the engine when they were close enough and drifted up alongside the bloated body floating in the water. The girl was swollen and shriveled at the same time, and there was a waxy substance coating her.

  “Help me get her in the boat.”

  “Nuh-uh. No way.”

  “Chris,” Will said with a trace of steel in his voice. “I can’t get her in by myself. Get up off your ass and get over to the side and grab her legs.”

  “We should—‍”

  “Do what I say! We’re not leaving here without this body.”

  Chris swiveled at his tone and stared at Will with an ugly, strong emotion crawling around underneath the skin of his face. His eyes were blank, almost glassy, and for a moment, Will expected they might exchange a blow or six—boat or no boat. Then, without another word, Chris turned and positioned himself along the port gunnel.

  That bastard hits her. I’m almost sure of it, Will thought. When I am sure, by God, this sniveling little coward better pack his lunch.

  Will took the young girl’s body by the armpits and motioned with his head for Chris to grab her lower legs. “On the count of three.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Will! Lift!” Chris hauled on her legs.

  Shaking his head, Will lifted the girl’s torso out of the water, and they lay her on the bottom of the boat.

  “Now, Will, turn this goddamn boat around.”

  Will held his son-in-law’s eyes for a heartbeat and another. The words were there, lounging on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t dare ask them now. Because if he did, Chris might answer, and if he was angry enough to let Will see the darker side of him, he might be angry enough to answer with the truth.

  And, if that happened, there would be two bodies in the bottom of the boat. One way or another.

  Will crawled back to the outboard and started it. He turned toward the bow, and his gaze tracked down to where the girl lay. She was young—prepubescent—and the clothes she wore…it seemed she been in the water a while. A lump formed in his throat for the little girl’s father.

  He whipped the boat around and opened the throttle full. They roared back to the dock, and Chris jumped out before they’d tied up. He ran up to the house and slammed the door going in.

  Will watched it all, shaking his head. He tied the boat off himself and glanced toward the house. Sammy came to the screen door and looked out but said nothing. “Tell your mother to call Tom Walton,” Will called up to her.

  Sammy nodded and turned back into the house.

  Under the dock’s lights, the state of the body became visible. Before she’d gone into the lake, someone had done a number on her. She was bruised, battered, and slashed with something wicked sharp. It sickened Will, but he didn’t seem to be able to turn away.

  His gaze continued to crawl down her body, coming to rest on her feet. She’d lost her shoes, and her feet were shredded, but whether by a natural process in the lake or abuse before she died, Will couldn’t say.

  The longer he looked, the worse he felt. He glanced toward the house and imagined Chris striking Sammy, and his pulse and respiration accelerated. His hands ached as if they longed to be around his son-in-law’s neck.

  6

  The phone jarred John Morton out of a deep sleep, but he’d been a cop for years, and when he was awake, he was awake. “John Morton,” he said.

  “Hey, John. Tom Walton. I’ve got a question or two for you.”

  John scrubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and peered at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was just shy of six in the morning. “Give me a second, Tom. I’ll call you right back.”

  “Sure thing. I’m at the office.”

  He got out of bed and padded to the hall door, closing it with as little ruckus as he could. He shuffled out to the kitchen and dialed Tom’s direct number.

  Tom picked up on the first ring. “Seems that one of your missing people back in ‘79 was a young girl?”

  “Yeah, sure.” John set about making coffee.

  “I may have her.”

  “What? Alive?”

  The line hissed and popped for a moment. “No, not alive. A body floated to the surface of Lake Genosgwa last night. Fishermen found her.”

  “Ah. I suppose you need an ID?”

  “It would help. Do you have contact information for the parents?”

  “Well, that one’s going to be difficult. They split up after the little girl disappeared. Her mother pointed the finger at her father. Drunk
, worthless. Got himself wrapped around a telephone pole coming home from Oneka Falls one night.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Gone. I’ll ask around, find out if anyone has contact information on her.”

  “She didn’t leave contact information? What if you found her daughter?”

  John sighed. “Her mom and dad were cut from the same cloth.”

  “I see. You still have pictures in your files?”

  “I do, and I’ll bring them by later this morning. Nine o’clock sound good?”

  “Yeah, it’s not as if she’s going anywhere.”

  7

  Joe was sitting in the same chair he had sat in the night before when Stephen came out with a steaming mug of coffee. He was looking out at the lake, at the Sheriff’s Department boat that was going back and forth along the shore on the other side.

  Stephen pointed at it with his coffee mug. “Little early for fishing, isn’t it?”

  Joe grunted and shifted his weight in the chair. “Dragging the lake, I imagine.”

  “Why would they do that, Dad?”

  They watched as the boat reached the end of its search line, and they pulled the drag out of the water. From their vantage, it looked empty. The deputies turned the boat and threw the drag out behind as they started back the way they had come.

  “Evidence.”

  “Evidence of what, Dad?”

  Joe lifted both hands and held them out toward the lake. “Of whatever they’re looking for. A body, perhaps.”

  Stephen thought of the story his father had told him about rescuing Greg. About the arm coming up out of the water and grabbing his son. “Could it… If it is a body they’re looking for, it could have been what you saw. What Greg saw. He could’ve snagged it somehow, and in his panic…”

  Joe’s only answer was a shrug. He glanced at his son’s mug of coffee. “Sure, I’ll take a cup.”

  Shaking his head but grinning, Stephen handed the mug to his father. “Haven’t even touched it. I’ll go get myself another.”

  “You’re a good son.” Joe’s gaze slipped away, back toward the Sheriff’s boat zigzagging back and forth across the lake.

  They got their answers on the noon-time local news. All the Cantons, except for Greg, watched the broadcast in silence. When the coverage ended, Joe stood and snapped the television off.