The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  “Who do you think they belonged to?”

  “A hospital or something. There’s a name on the bottom.” Vivian took the box and shut the lid, holding it closed. When she flipped it over, the scissors inside rattled together. It sounded like broken glass. “See?”

  Engraved on the bottom of the box, in tiny letters dulled by time, were four words: Property of Peaceful Valley.

  “I wonder how it got here.”

  Vivian shrugged. “Tossed into the lake, probably. Decades ago.”

  “Have you asked Franny about it?”

  “No way. I want to keep it a secret. No one else knows about it but me. And now you.”

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  I looked down at the box, a lock of hair falling over my face. Vivian leaned forward and tucked it behind my ear.

  “I’m your big sister for the summer, remember?” she said. “This is what big sisters do. We share things. Things no one else knows.”

  16

  I take the lead in the woods, trying to walk in a straight line, my eyes constantly flicking to the wavering compass for guidance. When I’m not looking at the app, I’m studying our surroundings, seeking out places in the brush where someone could be hiding. Although we’re far from camp, the feeling of being watched stays with me. Every thicket gets a second, suspicious glance. I mistrust each shadow that stretches across the forest floor. Whenever a bird screeches in the trees, I fight the urge to duck.

  Get a grip, Em, I tell myself. The four of you are all alone out here.

  I can’t decide if that makes me feel better or worse.

  If the girls notice my jumpiness, they don’t say anything. Krystal and Sasha walk behind me. Every so often, Sasha calls out the names of trees she recognizes.

  “Sugar maple. American beech. White pine. Birch.”

  Behind them is Miranda, who peels off petals from the flowers I’d picked and drops them to the ground at regular intervals.

  “Why do I have to do this again?” she asks.

  “Always leave a trail of bread crumbs,” I tell her. “It’ll help us find our way back.”

  “From where?” Krystal says.

  “I’ll know it when I find it.”

  The ground slants upward as we walk, slightly at first, the incline hidden under a sheet of amber leaves that fell the previous autumn. We’re aware of the rising land only from the warm ache in our legs and the growing heaviness of our breath. But soon the landscape becomes more obviously steep. A sharp, steady rise that can’t be avoided. We press on, shoulders hunched, legs bent. Along the way we pass whippet-thin saplings, grabbing them for support, hauling ourselves higher.

  “I want to go back,” Krystal says, huffing out the words.

  “Me, too,” Sasha says.

  “I told you there would be hiking,” I remind them. “Hey, let’s play another game. Instead of Two Truths and a Lie, let’s just do truth. Tell me, in all honesty, what you’d like to be doing twenty years from now.”

  I look over my shoulder to Sasha, who’s quickly losing steam. “You start. Any ideas about what you want to be doing?”

  “Plenty,” she says with a nudge of her glasses. “A professor. A scientist. Maybe an astronaut, unless everyone’s already colonizing on Mars. I like to have options.”

  “And what about you, Krystal?”

  She doesn’t need to think about it. The answer is obvious to all.

  “Working for Marvel. Hopefully illustrating my own superhero series. Someone cool that I came up with.”

  “Why do you like comic books so much?” Sasha asks.

  “I dunno. I guess because most of the superheroes start off as regular people just like us. Nerdy and awkward.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Miranda chimes in.

  “Just like everyone but you,” Krystal says, placating her. “But something happens that makes these average people realize they’re stronger than they thought. Then they believe they can do anything. And what they choose to do is help people.”

  “I prefer regular books,” Miranda says. “You know, without pictures.”

  She’s passed Krystal and Sasha on the way up the incline and now walks beside me, the only one of us not fazed by the climb.

  “Ever think about becoming a writer?” I ask her. “Since you like to read so much.”

  “I’m going to be a police detective like my uncle,” she says. “Why write about crimes when you can solve them in real life?”

  “Um, that’s called a superhero,” Krystal says with no small amount of satisfaction.

  Miranda forges ahead to where the incline finally levels off into less wearying terrain, waiting impatiently for the rest of us. Once there, we pause to catch our breath and take in the scenery. On our right, slivers of blue sky peek through the trees. I move instinctively toward them, following the light, emerging from the trees onto a thin strip of craggy ground. Beyond it, the land drops away, and for a dizzying, disoriented moment, I think I’m about to drop with it. I wrap an arm around the nearest tree, steadying myself, my eyes aimed at my feet to make sure I remain on solid ground.

  When the girls reach my side, one of them—I think it’s Miranda—whistles with appreciation.

  “Day-um,” Krystal says, stretching the word into two syllables. She sounds beyond impressed. Awed.

  I lift my eyes to the horizon, seeing what they see. I realize we’re atop the ridge I’d spotted from the canoe, overlooking the stone-walled cliff. The view it affords us is stunning. Lake Midnight spreads out below us, the water dappled with sunlight. From this height, I can see the full shape of the shoreline curving inward, the spot in the distance where it narrows toward the dam.

  Across from us, hazy in the distance, sits Camp Nightingale. It looks so small from here. A miniature. Something placed in the center of a model railroad.

  I dig the map from my pocket and give it a quick peek. Vivian drew nothing to indicate the cliff where we now stand. From what I can gather from her crude markings, we’re close to the raggedly triangular rocks. Sure enough, when I turn away from the water and point north, I get a glimpse of rocks through the thick forest.

  I’m getting closer. To what, I still have no clue.

  The rocks on Vivian’s map differ greatly from the ones I see in person. These are boulders. Dozens of them. Massive ones that only get larger as we approach, their weight palpable, so heavy and unwieldy it’s a wonder the earth can support them. They sit in a line running up a sharp rise similar to the one we’ve just climbed.

  The girls spread out among them, scaling the boulders like kids in a playground.

  “I bet these rocks used to be part of the mountain’s peak,” Sasha says as she clambers up a boulder twice her height. “They froze and broke apart, then glaciers took them down the hill. Now they’re here.”

  Explanation aside, the boulders still unsettle me. They make me think of the rumored survivors of Lake Midnight’s creation. I picture them when the moon is full, creeping around these very boulders at night, searching for new victims. To push away the unease, I check both the compass and the map, making sure this is where we should be. It is.

  “Hey, girls,” I call out. “We should keep moving.”

  I squeeze between two boulders and edge around another. That’s when I get a view of another rock farther up the incline. One bigger than the others. A monolith.

  Nearly two stories tall, it rises from the ground like an enormous tombstone. The side facing me is mostly flat. A sheer wall of rock. A large fissure runs diagonally through it, widening at the top. A tree grows inside the crack, its roots curling along the rock face, seeking soil. Standing beside the tree, looking up into its branches, is Sasha.

  Krystal is up there, too. She takes a step toward the boulder’s edge and peers down at me. “Hey,” she says.

  “W
hat are you doing up there?”

  “Exploring,” Sasha says.

  “I’d prefer it if you stayed on the ground,” I say. “Where’s Miranda?”

  “Right here.”

  Miranda’s voice emanates from the northwestern side of the giant rock. It sounds watery, akin to an echo. I follow it as Sasha and Krystal scramble down the boulder’s opposite side. I work my way around it, seeing another large crack in the rock’s side. This one runs in a straight line, widening at the bottom. It opens up completely about a foot from the ground, creating a hole large enough for a person to crawl into.

  Or, in Miranda’s case, crawl out of. She climbs to her feet, circles of mud dotting her knees and elbows. “I wanted to see what was in there.”

  “Bears or snakes, probably,” Sasha says.

  “Exactly,” I say. “So no more exploring. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Krystal says.

  “We understand,” Sasha adds.

  Miranda stands with her hand on her hip, annoyed. “Isn’t that why we’re out here?”

  I say nothing. I’m too busy looking past her, my head tilted, eyes narrowed in curiosity. In the distance behind her are what appear to be ruins. I can make out a crumbled stone wall and one jagged wooden beam pointing skyward.

  I start to creep toward it, the girls behind me. When I get closer, I see that it’s the remains of what might have been a barn or farmhouse. The walls are mostly now a pile of rocks, but enough are intact to be able to make out the building’s rectangular foundation. Inside are several pines that have sprouted from what’s left of the building’s roof and floor.

  In much better shape is a nearby root cellar built into the slope of the land. There’s no roof—just a slightly rounded mound of earth. A fieldstone wall forms the front. In the center is a wooden door, shut tight, its rusted slide bolt firmly in place.

  “Creepy,” says Sasha.

  “Cool,” says Miranda.

  “Both,” says Krystal. “It looks like something from Lord of the Rings.”

  But I’m thinking of another, more ominous tale. One about a flooded valley, a clan of survivors hiding in the woods, a thirst for revenge. Maybe a small seed of truth lies in the legend Casey told me. Because someone used to live in these hills. The foundation and root cellar make that abundantly clear. And although there’s no evidence showing it was the same people from Casey’s story, my skin nonetheless starts to tickle. Goose bumps, running up my arm.

  “We should—”

  Go. That’s what I intended to say. But I’m stopped by the sight of a large oak sitting fifty yards away. The tree is large, its thick branches spread wide. In its trunk is a familiar letter.

  X

  Immediately, I know it’s not the same tree Vivian led me to fifteen years ago. I would have remembered the crumbled foundation and creepy-cool root cellar. No, this is a different tree and a different X. Yet I get the feeling both letters were carved by the same hand.

  “Stay here,” I tell the girls. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Can we look inside that hobbit house?” Miranda asks.

  “No. Don’t go anywhere.”

  They mill about the crumbled foundation while I dash to the tree and search around its trunk. I take a step, and the ground beneath me thumps. A muffled, hollow sound.

  Something is down there.

  I drop to my knees and start scraping away years’ worth of weeds and dead leaves until I reach soil. I swipe my hands back and forth, clearing the dirt. Something brown and moist appears.

  Wood. A pine plank dyed brown from more than a decade underground. I sweep away more dirt before burrowing my fingers into the soil underneath it, prying the plank loose. Its bottom is coated with mold, mud, a few bugs that scurry away. Beneath the plank someone has dug a hole the size of a shoe box. Inside the hole is a yellow grocery bag wrapped tightly around a rectangular object.

  I unfurl the bag and reach into it, feeling more plastic. A freezer bag. The kind that can be zipped shut. Through the clear plastic, I see a splash of green, the stubble of leather, the edges of pages kept dry by the double layers of protection.

  A book. Auspiciously fancy.

  I peer inside the yellow grocery bag, checking for anything else that might be inside. There’s just a second freezer bag, empty and crumpled, and a single strand of hair. I set it on the ground and carefully open the other bag, letting the book slip out of it. It’s floppy in my hands, made pliant by fifteen seasons of being frozen and thawed and frozen again. Yet I’m able to peel back the cover to the first page, where I see the chaotic swirl of someone’s handwriting.

  Vivian’s handwriting, to be exact.

  “What are you doing over there?” Miranda calls.

  I slam the book shut and shove it into my backpack, hoping my body shields the action from the girls’ view.

  “Nothing,” I reply. “It’s not what I was looking for. Let’s head back.”

  I place the now-empty bags back in the hole and cover it with the plank. I kick some dirt and leaves over the wood, more out of respect for Vivian than caution. I want to keep her secret safe. Because whatever’s inside this book, Vivian thought it important enough to hide it here, on the other side of the lake, as far away from prying eyes and Camp Nightingale as possible.

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  “Two Truths and a Lie,” Vivian said as we rowed back to camp. “Your turn.”

  I dipped my paddle into the lake, arms straining to push it through the resistant water. Vivian wasn’t only older than me; she was also stronger. Each stroke of her oar forced me to paddle even harder just to keep up. Which I couldn’t. As a result, our canoe curved through the water instead of cutting straight across it.

  “Do we have to do this right now?” I asked through labored breaths.

  “We don’t have to,” Vivian said. “Just like I don’t have to tell Allison and Natalie you were too chickenshit to play today, even though I probably will.”

  I believed her, which is why I opted to play. I didn’t really care what Allison and Natalie thought of me. Vivian’s opinion was the only one that mattered. And the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was chickenshit about anything.

  “One: My mother once got so drunk that she passed out in our building’s elevator,” I said. “Two: I’ve never kissed a boy. Three: I think Theo is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re cheating,” Vivian said, her voice singsongy. “None of those are a lie.”

  She was almost right. My mother had passed out waiting for our building’s elevator. I had found her facedown in the hallway, snoring lightly, a small puddle of her drool seeping into the carpet.

  “But I’ll allow it,” Vivian said as she pulled her oar from the water and set it aside. “Just this once. Mostly because of your incorrect guess during my turn.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I totally know you don’t have a flask. Besides, I saw that you can’t swim.”

  “Guess again.”

  Vivian stood suddenly, the canoe rocking as she shed her clothes. There was no bathing suit underneath. Just matching pearl-colored bra and panties, silky and shiny in the afternoon glare. Before I could utter a word of protest, she dove into the lake, making the canoe pitch so sharply I thought I was going to tumble in as well. I yelped, grabbed the sides of the boat, waited for it to stop rocking.

  It was only then that I noticed Vivian slicing the water like a knife through butter. Her strokes were quick, powerful, elegant. Tanned back flattening as her arms swept out in front of her before arcing to her sides. Feet flicking in short, strong kicks. Hair billowing like cream in coffee behind her. A mermaid.

  When she finally came up for air, she was ten feet from the canoe.

  “Wait,” I said. “You really can swim?”

  She grinned. Her s
mile was slanted, sly, colored pink by her lip gloss.

  “Duh,” she said.

  “But the other day—”

  I stopped talking as Vivian ducked below the surface again, emerging with a mouthful of water that she squirted through pursed lips, like a fountain.

  “You told Theo you didn’t know how,” I said.

  “You can’t believe everything I tell you, Em.”

  I thought about the drama of that day on the beach. The panic. The splashing. Vivian’s wide-eyed terror as she flailed. I remembered Becca, her camera trained on the chaos, yet her attention aimed at me.

  I told you so.

  “I thought you were drowning,” I said. “We all did. Why would you lie about something like that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it wasn’t one of your stupid games!”

  Vivian sighed and began the swim back to the canoe. “Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it’s the only way to win.”

  17

  The dinner hour is torture, and not just because of the food, which is predictably awful. Runny sloppy joes and french fries. Despite having consumed next to nothing all day, I can only stomach the fries, which glisten with grease. Right now, my main concern is getting back to Dogwood and learning what’s in the book Vivian had buried. And that requires privacy, which is in short supply.

  Skipping dinner to read it would only make the girls more suspicious than they already are. On the canoe trip back across the lake, they bombarded me with questions about the map, the rocks, our purpose for roaming so far from camp. My vague, mumbled answers did little to appease them. So I force myself to suffer through dinner, delaying the reading of the book until the girls are at the campfire.