Jody Kihara

The Girl Across the Water

Contents

Chapter 1 ................................................................ 1

Chapter 2 ................................................................ 8

Chapter 3 .............................................................. 16

Chapter 4 .............................................................. 24

Chapter 5 .............................................................. 35

Chapter 6 .............................................................. 53

Chapter 7 .............................................................. 59

Chapter 8 .............................................................. 80

Chapter 9 .............................................................. 99

Chapter 10 .......................................................... 113

Chapter 11 .......................................................... 122

Chapter 12 .......................................................... 137

Chapter 13 .......................................................... 157

Chapter 14 .......................................................... 162

Chapter 15 .......................................................... 166

Chapter 16 .......................................................... 176

Chapter 17 .......................................................... 185

Chapter 18 .......................................................... 206

©Jody Kihara 2010

www.jodykihara.com

ISBN 978-0-9813111-3-5

The Girl Across the Water

Chapter 1

My paddle cut into the sparkling ripples of the lake,

sucking them back into darker, almost oily-looking gashes

of water. The canoe moved forward, silent but for the drip

of water off the paddle. Dozens of tiny reflections of myself

skimmed ahead on the surface, always jumping away from

me, always staying the same distance out of reach. The sun

beat down on my left side, casting a shadow to the right

that rippled and undulated just below the surface, like

something that didn't want to come up and face the sun.

The peacefulness of the moment was interrupted by

Jasper banging his paddle against the edge of the canoe.

Four patient lessons from me, and still he couldn’t paddle

properly: he kept switching sides, as if we were in a kayak,

even though I'd explained to him that isn't how it works.

With canoeing, you stick to one side and propel the boat

with deep, straight strokes. I sat in the stern, doing all the

work, while Jasper bounced his paddle along in shallow,

splashing strokes, switching sides randomly and not helping

at all. He looked even bulgier than usual in his lifejacket.

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The Girl Across the Water

He was a chubby thirteen-year-old ― well, let’s be honest,

he was fat ― and the jacket wasn’t doing him any favors.

My stepbrother was a year younger than me, but almost a

foot shorter and a couple of feet wider.

Trying to ignore his ineffective splashing, I steered

the canoe towards the island. The lake, surrounded by

steep hills covered with thick evergreen, curved so that you

couldn’t see either end from the shore. It was about a

quarter-mile in length and maybe half as wide, and was

dotted with tiny islands. Most had steep, rocky sides and

thick clusters of trees that dared anyone to penetrate in.

The island we were approaching was the one closest to our

cabin, and it didn’t look like there was much to it: a pebbly

area of beach where we could land the canoe; rising up

from this, a slope covered in trees and scrub; and at the

northern end, a small cliff. Still, it was the most exciting of

the islands, because we could spy on it from our bedroom

window. It reminded me of the smuggling stories I used to

read as a kid, where night-time signals would flash from

the mainland to guide smugglers in.

My dad had rented the cabin for a month. He’d had a

‘stressful’ year, what with Grandfather dying and all, and

had explained that he needed a peaceful vacation. That

translated to: no Disneyland or crowded beaches with

shrieking toddlers, which was fine by me. I loved the

woods, loved exploring. Me, Mom, and Dad used to camp in

the woods in a huge tent, or even better, would stay in a

tiny, remote cabin. We’d never been to this lake, though.

Then, after the divorce, vacations got a bit mixed-up, and

now that my Dad was married to Jasper’s mom, they

included my stepbrother.

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The Girl Across the Water

I was okay with the whole stepbrother thing,

although truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded some time

alone now and then with my Dad. Jasper was an okay kid, I

guess, the only thing that stung was that he got to spend

more time with my Dad than I did (they lived together).

But seeing as Dad was busy tying up my grandfather’s

estate and stuff, which meant spending these first few days

on his laptop or making trips into town, it might’ve been a

bit lonely without Jasper.

“Almost there,” he said, trying to turn around but

getting stuck by his bulky lifejacket.

“Okay, so when the canoe touches the shore, jump

out and grab the front of it, then pull it up onto the beach.

Got it?”

I gave one last strong stroke before resting the

paddle across the sides and letting the canoe glide nose-

first towards the beach. Jasper stood up (wrong) so that

the canoe wobbled (wrong), and tried to hop onto the

beach rather than step into the water. His back toe caught

on the way over, plunging his front leg thigh-deep into the

water. His hands went down to catch himself, and he

splashed in face-first.

“Ow!” He came up, spluttering, water dripping off his

face. “I got all wet.” He looked around. “Oh no, I lost my

shoe!”

I picked up the paddle and gave another steering

stroke, this time maneuvering the canoe parallel to the

beach. When I heard the bottom scrape ground, I jumped

out. Jasper was splashing around, looking for his rubber

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The Girl Across the Water

shoe, which was floating nearby but quickly bobbing away.

I dragged the canoe up onto the beach.

“Got it?” I asked.

He retrieved his shoe and sloshed out of the lake, far

wetter than he’d have been if he’d just stepped in to begin

with. His surfer shorts, now soaking, clung to his bulging

stomach and legs. “Wait,” he said, “I think I cut my toe on

a rock.”

If ever there was a twenty-second episode that

completely summed up Jasper, that was it.

He had to take off his lifejacket to get a look at his

toe, so while he checked it out (not cut), I gratefully took

off my own lifejacket and dropped it into the canoe. It was

still early in the day, but the air was already hot. At some

point, a swim was in order. I wanted to swim to the where

the cliff rose up, to see if the water was deep enough for

jumping.

But first, exploring the island. “Come on,” I said.

Jasper followed, shuffling his foot back into his shoe

and then stopping again to empty it of pebbles. I looked

around. Now that we were on the island, I estimated its

size to equal about three backyards, although the dense

foliage of the slope made it hard to tell. The beach was

roughly thirty feet by twenty, covering the skinny end of

the island, and the rest was all bush that I could barely see

into ten feet. I headed towards it now, searching for some

way to penetrate in. There were no obvious openings.

Pressing my shoulders into a gap, I hoisted some thin tree

branches out my way. Plants and twigs scraped my calves

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The Girl Across the Water

as I pushed in. I turned to say to Jasper, “Stay far enough

back so those branches don’t snap back in your face—”

“Ow!” he squawked.

We pressed on.

The foliage was thick, and I was getting scratched all

over. It would have been better if we’d kept the lifejackets

on.

“This is hard,” Jasper whined. “Hey, maybe we

should’ve brought the paddle to bushwhack.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but I didn’t wanted to turn

back, not before seeing if there was easy way to the top of

the slope for cliff-jumping. Finally the trees thinned out and

we made our way, legs so scratched that there was no

point in trying to guard them any more, through low,

scrubby undergrowth. As the sun beat down on us, sweat

began to seep into my shirt. The smell of greenery filled the

air. Cedar, ferns, salal bushes…

“Are those stinging nettles?” Jasper asked.

I stopped and looked around. “No.”

We were in a tiny clearing, but ahead of us, the

trees seemed thicker and more tangled than ever. I walked

on and tried to peer through the branches, but they were

as dense as a jungle.

“Come on,” I said, “Let’s go back and see if we can

walk around the shore.”

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The Girl Across the Water

We made our way back down the slope, getting

slapped by branches and scratched by razor-sharp leaves

on the way, before emerging onto the beach. I went to

check out the far side of the island. The beach came to an

abrupt end where jagged rocks rose up from the water to

the slope. “Nothing,” I called back, aware of a vague feeling

of disappointment. The island had looked more exciting

from shore ― the kind of place you’d send Morse code

signals to if you were a kid. “Never mind,” I said, “let’s go

for a swim.”

“Um… is it okay if we go back and swim near the

cabin? I’m getting kinda hungry. Do you think Dad has

lunch ready?”

I gritted my teeth against the word ‘ Dad.’ I was the

only person who should be allowed to call him that.

But Jasper’s whining was beginning to grate on my

nerves, and it occurred to me that a swim by myself might

be peaceful while he went off snacking. I nodded in reply,

and we put our lifejackets back on.

Jasper climbed into the bow and sat there, ready to

go, until I explained that I had to push the canoe out

befor e he got in and weighed it down. We finally got it

sorted out — I pushed the canoe into the water and held it

still while Jasper climbed in, then I dragged the stern

around, gave it a shove, and hopped in.

As I pushed away from the island, I turned around to

take one last look, and almost dropped the paddle.

Sticking out from the thick foliage was a girl’s head

and shoulders. She looked about eight or nine years old,

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The Girl Across the Water

with shoulder-length, brown hair pulled into braids at the

sides of her head. Her eyes were dark and fierce, and they

glared at me as she held her finger up to her lips. The

message was clear: ‘ Don’t tell.’

And then she disappeared.

My whole body jerked. I blinked a few times, letting

the canoe drift around.

“Hey, Paul?” Jasper asked. “Uh, I think we’re

drifting...”

My heart beating in staccato, I gave myself a shake

and began to paddle again. Had I really just seen that?

I looked back one more time. There was nothing

there. But then, after a second or two, the face poked out

once more, eyes still intense and glaring. This time, she

pointed: you.

Me, what?

She disappeared again.

Dumbly, I turned and paddled away, like I’d been

ordered to leave and was obeying like a zombie. Well, a

zombie with its heart going like a jackhammer. As I slid the

paddle through the slippery water, the reason I gave myself

for not going back to investigate was that I’d have to

explain it to Jasper, whereas the girl’s message had been

clear: don’t tell.

But really, I think the reason I paddled away so

quickly was that I was completely spooked. The girl was

creepy-looking, almost surreal. What had I just seen?

7

The Girl Across the Water

Chapter 2

I maneuvered the canoe so it butted up parallel to

the shore, and this time Jasper stepped out successfully,

even helping me to drag the boat up the gravely incline

before running off to see if lunch was ready.

I wasn’t hungry, however. I was spooked.

If I hadn’t seen her that second time, I’d have

thought I’d imagined her. Who was she? Was she even

real? She had to be… except that there hadn’t been another

boat.

Could she have swum there? I gazed back toward

the island. A really good swimmer could make it from

shore, but she had looked about eight years old, and

besides, her hair seemed dry and neat. And even if she was

an amazing swimmer, where could she have swum from?

There were only two other cabins in the middle of

these thick woods: an uninhabited one way up near the top

of the lake, and our neighbor’s, a few minutes down the

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The Girl Across the Water

lake. The realtor had told us that the neighbors were

another divorced-dad-with-kids doing the summer-escape

thing. We hadn’t had time to meet them yet. And even if

she was with them… what parent would let their kid swim

out so far by themselves?

The message had been clear, though: don’t tell.

Don’t tell whom? Parents? Authorities?

I felt guilty, knowing I was about to break an

intractable childhood code: ‘ don’t tell the parents’, but I

figured I had to find out if one of the neighbor’s kids had

gone missing. This could be serious. What if she tried to

swim back and drowned? Then it would be my fault. Plus,

her parents might be looking for her right now, going nuts

with worry.

“Hey Jasper,” I called. He emerged from the cabin,

followed by my dad.

“Lunch isn’t for another hour,” Jasper said with a

mournful-puppy expression, like he might starve to death

before then.

Dad laughed. “We’ll barbecue some hotdogs. That

okay with you, Paul?”

Before I could answer, Jasper piped up, “Oh, yeah!”

Dad ruffled Jasper’s hair, making me tense up. This whole

scene was way too buddy-buddy, and it was making me

lose my appetite.

“And then I thought we could go for a hike,” Dad

said. “Check out the area. We haven’t done that yet.”

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The Girl Across the Water

“A hike?” Jasper asked, his smile disappearing and

eyes widening. “Is it far?”

I met Dad’s eyes, and we both smiled, trying not to

laugh. Friends again.

“What?” Jasper asked, his gaze darting back and

forth between me and Dad. “What? Is it far? Is it?”

Dad said nothing, but gave me a wink over the top

of Jasper’s head. There ― he was my dad.

“I was thinking of going to say ‘hi’ to the neighbors,”

I told them. “You wanna come?”

“I guess we should go pay them a visit,” Dad said.

“We’ve been here a couple days already. What do you say

we go after lunch? Make it part of the hike?”

“Uh, I think I’d… better go now.” I didn’t know how

to explain it. “In case they go out for the afternoon or

something. Don’t want to miss them.”

“Well, okay. Tell them I say ‘hi’ and that we’ll all

drop by sometime soon. Or have a barbecue together,

something like that.”

“You coming?” I asked Jasper. “It’ll kill an hour.”

He walked down the porch steps, but didn’t go any

farther. “Uh, I think I’ll just sweep up around here.”

“You sure? I could use the company.”

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The Girl Across the Water

“Yeah… well…” He grabbed the broom that was

leaning up against the porch railing, and aimed it at the

ground. “This bit needs cleaning up before lunch.”

I looked at Dad and tried not to laugh again. We

both knew what Jasper meant: he didn’t want to go for a

walk now if he had to go on another one after lunch.

“Well, okay. See you later.”

“Don’t be too long!” Dad called after me. “I’ll be

firing up the barbecue.”

Jasper was already sweeping the area around the

picnic table. For some reason he seemed to like doing this,

even though the picnic table was set into the ground, and

I’d tried to explain before that you couldn’t really sweep

dirt from dirt. But he’d just shaken his head and continued

to rid the area of cedar twigs.

I left our clearing and headed into the coolness of

the woods. They were strangely silent in the afternoon sun:

no bird calls, which were something I’d have expected in

such dense vegetation. The moss that hung from overhead

branches seemed to shroud everything in a blanket of

quietness. Then, as I walked along, I heard a twig snap

beside me. I turned. Nothing. Some small, hidden animal in

the undergrowth, maybe?

The trees thickened overhead as I continued along,

and the air grew cooler. The place smelled of ferns and old,

decaying wood. On either side of the path, curtains of moss

hung from the broken branches of lopsided, dying trees.

Above, high cedars blotted out the sun, making me

suddenly crave light and heat again.

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The Girl Across the Water

I followed the path south. From the map the realtor

had given us, I knew the path ran parallel to the road that

led up from town. We’d seen the turnoff to the neighbors’

place on our drive up, and I figured it couldn’t be more

than a twenty minute walk.

The path now rose up a slope. It was a shallow

incline at first, but long, and by the time I caught sight of

the neighbors’ cabin, I was puffing. The slope then rose up

steeply, masking me from sight, so I stayed put for a few

seconds while I checked out the area. Their cabin was

bigger than ours, but more ramshackle: a screen door with

a tear in the lower section hung open, and the large

veranda encircling the cabin was paint-peeled and uneven.

On it sat two wooden deck chairs that looked like they’d

come from a thrift store, and scattered around the

rectangle of dirt and sun-dried grass that made up the

‘yard’ were several ugly, old lawn chairs, the kind made

from woven nylon that frays and pokes into your legs. The

neighbor’s truck was parked where the dirt driveway ended.

It was a massive, brick-and-white colored GMC, its front

and sides mud-spattered.

I ascended the steep incline and approached the

cabin. At the same time, a girl ran out of the back door,

letting it slam shut behind her. She clattered down the

wooden steps and came to an abrupt halt as soon as she

saw me. Through a mass of corkscrew, rust-colored hair, I

could see an upturned nose and narrowed, wary eyes.

“Who’re you?” she demanded.

Her hair spiraled out from her head four inches in all

directions, and her body, though not particularly tall, was

skinny and gangly. Her legs, arms, and face were covered

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The Girl Across the Water

with so many freckles that they overlapped, giving her a

blotchy kind of look. I guessed her age to be about twelve.

“Hi,” I tried to say, but my mouth was so dry from

the walk, I don’t think she heard me.

“Hey, Pa!” she screeched, but not in a way that

sounded scared. She reminded me of a feral cat, one I

should be more afraid of than it of me. Although her

features were nothing like the girl I’d seen on the island,

her glare was every bit as hostile.

When the door banged open and ‘Pa’ emerged, I

took a step back. The first word that popped into my head

was ‘ redneck.’ He was a hefty guy, or maybe it was the

beer gut and beard that made him seem so. He wore a

sleeveless grey T-shirt with some kind of sports team

emblem peeling off; frayed, denim shorts; and a

camouflage-colored trucker hat with a John Deere logo. The

bits of hair sticking out from under the hat were sandy-

colored, rather than russet like the girl’s.

I cleared my throat. “Hi,” I tried again. “I’m your

neighbor, Paul. We’re staying at the cabin up the woods.” I

indicated behind me. “I thought I’d come by and say hello.”

The girl shot me a hostile look, like I’d just said

something threatening.

“Hi.” The dad nodded, but didn't smile.

“So, um…” How did I bring up the subject of the girl?

This guy sure didn’t look like a panicked parent. “We were

wondering if you wanted to come and canoe with us

tomorrow.”

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The Girl Across the Water

“Tomorrow, huh?” He sucked his teeth for a

moment. “Probably not, we have to go into town and get

some things.”

I got the feeling I was being dismissed. From near

the truck I heard a noise, and turned to see two boys —

twins? — peeking around the side of it. They giggled before

turning and scurrying off into the woods.

“Oh,” I said, shuffling around. “Well, ah, come by

any time, if you like. There’s a beach we can swim from,

too. Or maybe you’d like to come for a barbecue.”

The man nodded again. But the girl, without another

word, suddenly turned and sped off in the direction of the

boys.

“Anyway, I thought I’d introduce myself to

everyone.” I drew a little closer to ‘Pa’, affording me a

partial view of the kitchen over his shoulder. Leaning up

against the table was what looked like… a rifle? I

swallowed. For hunting, surely?

‘Pa’ shrugged. “Sure, if you can find ‘em.”

It took me a second to remember what we were

talking about.

“Uh, how many kids are here?”

“Three. One girl, two boys.”

I nodded. Well, that answered my main question: No

missing girl.

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The Girl Across the Water

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, and

as Pa wasn’t the chatty type, I figured there was nothing to

do but leave. I headed back toward the path, but then

stopped to turn and ask, “Hey, do you know of any other

neighbors around here?” But he’d already disappeared into

the cabin, letting the door bang shut behind him.

I left the warmth of the sun and stood blinking for a

few seconds before I could see properly in the shade.

Thinking I heard another giggle, I turned to see who it

came from. But my eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, and all I was

left with was the echo of the giggle moving strangely

through the woods.

15

The Girl Across the Water

Chapter 3

I jogged back down the path, the incline giving me

speed this time. The sound of my footfalls seemed loud in

the silence of the woods, but above them, I could’ve sworn

I heard another giggle. I stopped.

Nothing. Nah — it must’ve been a bird. There was no

way those kids could move as fast through the thick forest

as I was down the path.

When I reached our cabin, I was greeted by the

smell of barbecuing hotdogs. I suddenly realized how

hungry I was. From his position behind the barbecue, Dad

waved a spatula in greeting . He was wearing a white apron

over his shorts and T-shirt. “Hey, just in time!” he called.

“Grab a plate and some trimmings.”

Jasper was the first to load up his plastic plate with

char-grilled bun, a few raw veggies, and as many potato

chips as he could heap on the side. I did the same. After

taking a hotdog from Dad, I sat down at the table. Dad

didn’t even bother to take off his apron. We launched in.

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The Girl Across the Water

Food always tastes so good outdoors, and we were

silent as we demolished the first round of hotdogs and

chips. Then, after we’d helped ourselves to seconds, Dad

asked, “So, did you meet the neighbors?”

“Uh, yeah, kinda.” I looked up from my mouthful of

hotdog. “I mean, I met the dad and… sort of met the

daughter. I saw two boys, but they didn’t say anything.”

Dad and Jasper stared at me over top of their

chewing, so after downing a cupful of lemonade, I added,

“They didn’t seem too friendly, to tell you the truth.”

Through a mouthful of half-chewed potato chips,

Jasper asked, “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Just… they didn’t even tell me

their names. And I invited them over, but they said they’re

going into town tomorrow.”

“Oh, well,” Dad replied, still looking cheerful. “We’ll

invite them over some other time. Maybe they’re still

settling in.”

“Yeah…” I took another bite of my hotdog.

The neighbors had been weird all right, but not as

weird as the sight of that girl on the island.

However, with the sun streaming down on our

clearing and the barbecue smoke wafting past my head,

she barely seemed real any more. I was beginning to

wonder if I had imagined her.



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The Girl Across the Water

Our hike that afternoon took us into the shade of the

woods, but in the opposite direction of the neighbor’s cabin.

We were heading north, in the direction of the top end of

the lake, and the path rose up the steep mountainside. It

was as the trees thickened overhead, chilling the sweat on

my body, that the image of the girl’s fierce eyes returned to

me, dark as pools of water when they’re blotted from the

sun.

I kind of wished I’d pointed her out to Jasper so that

I could have confirmed whether or not she was real. But

another part of me was still glad I hadn’t told him. Why? I

wondered. In case he didn’t see her?

Jasper was huffing along behind me and Dad, doing

his best to keep up and actually keeping his whining to a

minimum.

“Are we… there yet?” he gasped. Sweat formed a ‘V’

at the neck of his grey T-shirt.

“I’m not sure,” Dad replied. We were still on the

trail, but the tall trees surrounding us made it impossible to

see how close to the summit we were.

When the path finally leveled off, we stopped to take

water from our packs and guzzle it down. We could barely

see the lake through the trees, and had to crane our necks

to glimpse patches of water.

Dad screwed the lid back on his water and jammed it

into his pack. “Let’s go a but further, maybe there’s a

lookout somewhere.”

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The Girl Across the Water

Jasper emitted a noise that was something between

an ‘aw’ and a strangled cry of desperation. Ignoring it, I set

off behind Dad. Jasper hesitated for a minute, looking

terrified, and then launched his body forward, seemingly

propelled by the weight of his stomach.

Further along, two fallen trees on the slope below

the path afforded us a better view of the lake. We stopped,

and I gazed up toward the northern end. This was the first

I’d seen of it. Scanning the area, I caught sight of

something small and red close to the shore. “Hey, what’s

that?”

Dad took his binoculars from his pack and handed

them to me. After focusing, I swept them around, trying to

locate the red square. And there it was — a cabin. I

brought the binoculars into sharper focus.

It was about the same size as ours, but with a

disused appearance. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like

one of the windows had been broken, and another one

boarded up.

I handed the binoculars to Dad and pointed it out.

After locating it, he said, “That must be that other

cabin we heard about. The abandoned one.”

“What is it? Can I see? Can I?” Jasper bounced up

and down like a medicine ball on legs.

“I wonder if it is abandoned,” I said, while Dad

continued to look. “Or maybe it gets used sometimes? It’d

be good for hunting, I guess.” Not that I knew much about

hunting.

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The Girl Across the Water

“I wanna see!” Jasper whined.

Dad handed him the binoculars, and for the first

minute Jasper complained he couldn’t find the cabin. Then,

after Dad patiently helped him locate it, he said, “Oh. Is

that it?” and handed the binoculars back.

After drinking some more water, we began to make

our way back down the slope. Jasper seemed much happier

now that we were descending. “Hey, what’re we having for

dinner?” he asked over his shoulder, narrowly missing a

tree root with his foot.



I had trouble falling asleep that night. The two

bedrooms were on the second floor, which meant that they

got the heat of the sun all day. Not only that, but the

wooden frame of our window was warped, preventing it

from opening all the way. Tomorrow, I resolved as I lay

there sweating and trying to cool myself in a four-inch gap

of air, I’d fix the window.

Jasper slept in the bed by the wall, snorting,

snuffling, and turning over every few minutes. Every time I

thought I was finally drifting off, he’d make another sound.

How could someone sleep so loudly? It made me glad I

didn’t live with him. When he blew a huge fart into his

sleeping bag, I jumped out of bed, saying “That’s it! ” I

jammed my feet into my runners and headed down the

dark staircase.

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The Girl Across the Water

Once downstairs, I went to open the front door, and,

as I went to unlatch it, noticed it wasn’t locked. Had Dad

forgotten, or did he figure it didn’t matter out here?

Grabbing the big flashlight from the side table, I

headed outside. The woods and lake were so dark that I

couldn’t see anything beyond the beam of the flashlight.

Even walking the thirty or so feet to the lake was difficult:

any rise or dip in the ground that wasn't picked up by the

light made me stumble.

When I reached the shore, the water looked murky,

even when I shone the light on it. It quietly lapped against

pebbles and sand. I stood there staring out towards the

island, but couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me.

Darkness seemed to press in heavily from all directions.

Even the stars seemed weak that night.

Since there was nothing to look at and I was already

beginning to shiver in my shorts and sleeveless tee, I

figured I might as well head back. Then, just as I stepped

away, a noise reached me. It sounded like a tiny moan.

Goose bumps sprang up all over my body. “Who’s

there?” I asked.

Ten feet beside me, a twig snapped. I swung the

flashlight beam towards it. “Who’s there?”

Silence at first, followed by a few more scraping

noises. And then the strange sound came again: it was a

creepy, unearthly noise, sort of like a murmured wail, sort

of like a cry. And sort of human… but sort of not.

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The Girl Across the Water

I crept towards the bushes, my heart pounding.

Tentatively, I pulled aside a leafy branch.

Two glassy, reflective eyes stared back at me. I

yelled and sprang back, dropping the flashlight in terror. As

I tumbled to the ground, a shape darted out of the bushes

and charged away, caught briefly in the beam of light. A

furry body with stripes that blurred by as it ran… a raccoon.

I got up, shaking, and retrieved the flashlight. Now

that I knew it was just a raccoon, I wanted to laugh, even

though my heart was still going a hundred miles a minute.

Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I headed for the

cabin.

My foot was on the bottom step when I heard the

gunshot.

It was distant, and came from the direction of the

neighbor’s cabin. I froze again, my hackles rising. What

the…

Think rationally, I told myself. Last time you got all

spooked, it was just a raccoon.

And before that, my inner voice reasoned back, it

was a freaky girl alone on an island.

My heart was still trembling, but I resolutely forced

myself to climb the porch steps and not look back into the

dark woods. ‘Pa’ must’ve been out hunting, that was all. I

closed the door behind me and made sure it was locked.

Peering up the gaping staircase to the bedrooms, I

decided that no way was I going up there in the pitch black.

22

The Girl Across the Water

I flicked on the hall light and I scurried up the stairs,

shivering as I went. As soon as I opened the door to the

bedroom, Jasper’s snuffling and snorting greeted me. This

time it seemed almost comforting.

I lay back down on my bed, the sound of the

gunshot echoing in my ears.

23

The Girl Across the Water

Chapter 4

When I awoke the next morning, my first, hazy

thoughts were of going into town to ask about the girl. The

image of those dark, glaring eyes still burned in my

memory.

Then, as I awakened more fully, I realized there was

something else I needed to do first, and that was to go

back to the island to make sure there really was a girl

there. And if there was, then talk to her. Why was she

there? Did she need any help?

Jasper was lying on his back with his head off at an

angle, snoring away and occasionally murmuring ‘ Dad’.

Who did he mean — my dad, or his?

I pulled on my dark green T-shirt and hopped into

my shorts. Jasper shuffled around in bed, making grunting,

snorting, waking-up noises. Finally cracking an eye open,

he mumbled, “’Time’s it?”

24

The Girl Across the Water

“Morning,” I answered. That was as much as time

mattered on vacation. Except to Jasper, who probably

meant was it breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

“It’s sunny out,” I added. “Great day for a canoe

trip. A long one.”

I’d planted the idea well, because by the time Jasper

stumbled down the stairs to join me and Dad for our usual

breakfast of three bowls of cereal each, he eyed me warily,

like he would a snake that might suddenly strike.

“I’ve got some more stuff to finish up today,” Dad

said, setting down his coffee cup. “But I hope this is the

last time I’ll have to work a full day. Then I’ll be able to

spend more time with you two, I promise.”

“That’s okay,” I said. For once, I didn’t mind. I had a

task ahead of me.

“So what are you up to today?” Dad asked. “Any

plans?”

Jasper’s mouth was full, so I quickly answered. “I’m

going canoeing again, but this time I want to go all the way

down to the end of the lake.” I glanced at Jasper, whose

eyes widened over his pursed lips, a couple drops of milk

escaping as he gave a slow, worried chomp. “Probably an

all-day thing,” I added. “You up for it, Jasper? It’s a lot

more work, though. You’ll have to paddle for real.”

He coughed, a few tears leaking out, probably from

an unchewed piece of cereal caught in his throat. “Um, I

was thinking I’d read my comics today. I still haven’t read

the ones Mom bought for me.”

25

The Girl Across the Water

Like there was a deadline or something.

Dad shot me the concerned-parent look. “Are you

okay going by yourself? If you want to wait until tomorrow,

I can come with you. Then we can do the paddling, and

Jasper can sit in the middle.”

Poor Jasper ― even Dad could see right through

him.

“Nah, I don’t mind. Actually. it’ll be neat. I’d like to

see how far I can go by myself.”

“You’ll wear your lifejacket, won’t you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Dad. And the lake’s as still as

glass. Don’t worry.”

Dad smiled, but when he glanced over at Jasper,

concern showed in his eyes again. I could tell he was

wishing that Jasper was sportier.



As I pushed the canoe into the water and hopped in,

Jasper glanced up guiltily from his comic. He had the whole

stack laid out on the picnic table — his day’s work on

display, in case I tried again to convince him to come

canoeing.

I pushed the canoe away from shore with the

paddle, nudging the craft into deeper water, where I could

26

The Girl Across the Water

begin to stroke towards the southern end of the lake. It

would be a bit difficult, given Jasper’s clear view of the

island, to suddenly change direction and get there without

him noticing. But with any luck, Archie or Veronica would

be doing something exciting by then.

It wasn’t Jasper’s fault he was a bit of a loser. His

Dad, by all accounts, was a complete screw-up. He’d been

in and out of jail a whole bunch of times, mostly for petty

crimes and stuff — theft, a few failed cons ― and once for

some more serious charges: aggravated assault and armed

robbery. Revo was a drifter, moving from state to state,

apparently showing up at Jasper’s mom’s from time to time

‘wanting to see his son,’ but in fact pressuring Vanessa to

give him money. Being used like that must’ve messed with

Jasper’s head. As soon as my Dad came into the picture,

however, Revo was sent packing any time he showed up

trying to wheedle money. I’m sure he wasn’t too thrilled

about that. Apparently, his visits had grown less frequent.

But even with Revo being such a screw-up,

whenever Jasper talked about him, I could see a longing in

his eyes, like a puppy who’s been kicked but still wants

affection. I guess he craved his dad’s attention, or at the

very least, the ability to show up wanting to see his son

rather than a cash handout. I wondered whether Revo

would dare show up at Vanessa’s now that my Dad was at

the lake with us rather than guarding the home-front.

Vanessa had said the reason she couldn’t come on

vacation with us was that she couldn’t get the time off

work. But really, I think she wanted to give the three of us

some time together. Which was nice of her: it wouldn’t

have been fair for the four of us to be here while my Mom

stayed home, even though Mom was studying for her

27

The Girl Across the Water

Masters and probably wouldn’t have wanted to be in some

weird kind of double-family situation.

I glanced back at the cabin, where Jasper sat

hunched over the picnic table, his back to me. Great ― now

I could paddle towards the island unobserved.

With strong, even strokes, I cut straight to the

island. As soon as the canoe touched the ground, I hopped

out and hauled it up onto the beach. I took off my

lifejacket, replaced it with my backpack, and stood looking

around for a minute. The island was completely silent. It

seemed like the water didn’t lap at its shore, nor did any

insects click or buzz.

With my runners crunching against the pebbly

ground, I made my way towards the spot where the girl

had appeared. It took a minute or two of scrabbling around

in the tangle of thick brush and small, spiky trees before I

found a gap in the foliage. A small groove, too thin to be

called a path, led through the bushes. I pushed my way

further in, getting scratched and poked by branches again.

After about twenty feet, I reached a small clearing,

although it was barely big enough to lie down in.

Immediately beyond it, the branches closed in again, and

there was no sight of another path leading away. Frowning,

I turned around in a full circle. When I came to a stop, the

girl was standing there, glaring at me.

I shouted and stumbled back. Thick branches caught

me like hands before thrusting me back into the clearing

again.

“Jeez, you scared me!” I put my hand to my chest

and took a few deep breaths, hating the fact that a little girl

28

The Girl Across the Water

had just seen me terrified. “Who are you? What are you

doing here?”

She glared but didn’t answer. Was she real? She

looked solid enough. Her hair was still in braids, and she

wore a pale sundress, which seemed out of place on this

tree-tangled island. Even stranger, the dress was spotless.

“This is my island,” she said. “What’re you doing

here?”

“Your island? What are you talking about? It doesn’t

belong to anyone.” I realized I was getting drawn into a

childish argument, and stopped. “Look, that doesn't matter,

I came to see if you’re okay. Who are you?”

She glared at the ground and firmly shook her head:

No. Wrong question.

“Are you with the family down the lake? The one in

the other cabin? Is that your family?

Eyes still lowered, expression fierce, she shook her

head again.

“Well, does anyone know you’re here? Did you run

away from home?”

She looked a little confused this time, like her head

didn’t know which way to move. I took that to mean there

were two different answers: No, no one knows I’m here;

yes, I ran away from home.

Clearly, I wasn’t going to get much out of her

without some kind of bartering tool, so I took off my

29

The Girl Across the Water

backpack, set it on the ground, and unzipped it. This made

her take a wary step back.

“Food,” I said. “You want some?”

Although her eyes were still fierce, they brightened

considerably at the sight of what I unpacked: a sandwich,

two granola bars, a candy bar, and two juice boxes. I

handed her the sandwich first. She snatched it from me,

tearing the waxed paper off and wolfing it down like she

hadn’t eaten in days.

“When was the last time you ate?”

The dark eyes looked up from the sandwich, but she

was too busy chewing to answer. I popped a straw into one

of the juice boxes and handed it to her. She grabbed it with

her other hand and sucked greedily, all the time poised

tensely, like she was afraid I’d grab her or something.

I sat down, thinking this might make her relax.

“What’s your name?”

Juice box still at her mouth, she shook her head.

“Look,” I said, “You’re here all alone, and I have to

do something.” Her expression grew wary again. “I’m going

to have to tell someone about you unless you give me

some information.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Tell me how you got here.”

30

The Girl Across the Water

Finished with the sandwich, she crumpled up the

waxed paper and threw it at me, still clutching the juice box

in her other hand. “I swam.”

“From where?”

“From the shore, stupid.”

“There’s miles of shore, and it’s all thick woods. How

did you get there?”

“From the road.”

“So… you walked up the road from town?”

She glowered.

“You have to tell me more. Did you run away from

home?”

I could feel the ferociousness of her mood radiating

out and burning at my skin. She sucked the rest of the

juice out the box before tossing it in my direction. “Yes, but

you can’t tell anyone. You have to promise.”

“Well… why did you run away from home?”

This time, when she shook her head, I thought I saw

tears spring to the dark eyes.

“Were you… being abused?” I asked softly.

Her head shook firmly: no.

“Look,” I said, “I have to do something, I can’t just

leave you here.”

31

The Girl Across the Water

“No!” she shouted. “You promised not to tell anyone,

you promised!”

I hadn’t promised anything yet, but she looked like

she’d bolt off into the thick bush and disappear if I pointed

this out.

“Then will you come back with me? You can stay at

our cabin until we figure out what to do.”

“No.”

“Look, I can pick you up and toss you into that

canoe if I have to. I’m a lot bigger than you.”

“No, you won’t, you can’t! I’ll jump out, and I won’t

swim, and I’ll drown and it’ll be your fault!”

Her blazing intensity made me believe her. It was

then I realized I hadn’t brought the second lifejacket —

drat, how stupid!

“I’ll come back with the other lifejacket and make

you wear it,” I threatened.

“I’ll rip it off!” she shouted. And I could picture her

doing it: tearing the lifejacket off, jumping over the side of

the canoe, putting her arms by her side with her eyes

tightly shut, letting the dark water suck her down…. She’d

drown rather than go with me.

She stood there, glaring. This girl had a vicious

streak like a wildcat, and it put me in mind of the rusty-

haired girl at the neighbors’ cabin.

32

The Girl Across the Water

But she couldn’t be with the neighbors or they’d

have a search party out, combing the whole lake and

woods, wouldn’t they? Or would they hide the fact that

she’d run away?

“Where did you come from?” I asked again.

She squeezed her lips together and began to back

away into the bush.

“Don’t go! I need to know more.”

“You have to promise you won’t tell! ” Her expression

looked fierce and terrified at the same time. “Or I’ll jump

off that cliff and drown!”

“Okay, okay! Do you want me to bring you some

more food?”

She thought about this for a moment, twisting her

lips to the side.

Why was this a hard question?

“Okay. But don’t bring anyone else with you. I mean

it! Not even that stupid, fat kid you were with yesterday.”

“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll come back later with some

more food. Do you need anything else? Sleeping bag,

blankets?”

She shook her head.

“You’re sure? A tent?”

33

The Girl Across the Water

Rather than answer, she turned and disappeared

into the bushes. It took me a few seconds to react, and I

jumped up to follow her. Or tried to: it was like the bushes

and scrub had snatched her away before closing their

fortress against me. How the heck did she get through this

stuff as if she were made of thin air?

She’s real, she’s real, I told myself. I’d just seen her

demolish a sandwich and a juice box. And apparitions didn’t

do that, did they?

34

The Girl Across the Water

Chapter 5

As the canoe glided through the water, I considered

what to do next. On the island, it had made sense to

promise her I wouldn’t tell anyone. However, heading back

to shore was like returning to reality after a strange dream,

and reality threw everything into a different light.

I had to be adult about this, I had to do the right

thing. Should I tell Dad? No― the first thing he’d do would

be to inform the authorities. I had to find out more about

her first. I’d go into town, I decided, and do some digging

around. The first step would be to find out if any missing

persons reports had been filed. And if someone was going

crazy looking for this girl, then of course I’d have to tell the

police. But I’d worry about that if and when it happened.

The canoe touched shore, and I stepped into the

knee-deep water to drag it up the slope, the bottom

scraping loudly against the gravel. Jasper was no longer

sitting at the picnic table, so I headed to the cabin to see if

he was inside.

35

The Girl Across the Water

I found him sitting at the kitchen table, flicking

through a handful of photographs. “Oh, hi,” he said, quickly

turning them face-down, a guilty expression on his face like

he’d been caught doing something bad. Then I noticed his

eyes. They were red and watery. Had he been crying?

“Hey,” I said, turning away to open a cupboard and

rummage around for food. Everyone deserves a chance to

cover up if they’ve been caught crying.

I grabbed a granola bar, and couldn’t help noticing

that the snack food had diminished considerably in the

three days we’d been here. Which meant I should pick

some up in town… I’d need more supplies to take to the

girl.

“So, um, what did you see at the end of the lake?”

Jasper asked.

“End?” I asked, and then quickly recovered. “Oh,

right. Not much. It’s all trees and rocks.”

“Oh. Did you stick to the shore? On this side? Or did

you go down the middle?”

I raised my eyebrows. Why was he so interested?

“Those other islands looked kinda cool,” he added.

“Oh, right. No, I didn’t check them out.”

This seemed to worry him. He screwed up his face,

and under the table his feet bounced up and down. He was

covering the photos with his elbows. What was up with

him?

36

The Girl Across the Water

“Oh. I thought you might.” He shuffled around again.

“Well, um, maybe we can do that tomorrow.”

This was really strange: Jasper’s prerogative so far

had been to avoid doing anything that involved exercise

unless he was forced to or guilt-tripped into it. Maybe he’d

been feeling lonely today. This made me look around and

realize, “Hey, where’s my Dad?”

“Um, he drove into town. Said he had to send some

faxes or something.”

“Dammit!” I slammed the cupboard door shut.

“What? What’s wrong?” Jasper looked panicked.

“Nuts! I wanted to go into town today. Now how will

I get there?” I was almost shouting. “Why did he go

without telling me? He could have waited till I was back.”

“Um... cause... you said you’d be out all day?”

I stood there glaring until I realized Jasper was right.

This didn’t solve my problem, though. Now, I’d have to wait

until tomorrow to go into town. But was it really okay to do

that? The situation could be urgent. “When did he leave?” I

asked.

“Not long ago. Fifteen minutes, maybe?”

I swore loudly. I’d just missed him, then. “Did he say

if he’d be long?”

“Um, no. Didn’t say.”

37

The Girl Across the Water

Drat! Two options now faced me: either walk into

town and hope Dad wasn’t already on his way back —

although he’d probably turn around and give me a ride if I

met him — or walk in and hope to find him somewhere so

that I could get a ride back.

It was a fifteen minute drive into town, which made

it... I groaned. A long walk. Why couldn’t we have bikes

here?

“Do you need something?” Jasper asked, alarmed by

my behavior.

“What? Oh, yeah. Ah... fishing... stuff.”

“You don’t fish.”

“Right. Well, thought I might start.”

“Then we can go into town tomorrow, right? I’ll come

with you, and I can buy some more comics, too.”

With Jasper accompanying me, it would be a lot

more difficult to accomplish what I needed. This decided it

for me: “I’m going to walk in. I could do with some more,

uh, exercise.”

Jasper’s expression grew even more panicked. “Um,

you know what? I think maybe I have enough comics. You

don’t still want me to come with you, do you?”

#

38

The Girl Across the Water

I set off at a fast pace. I needed to hustle if I wanted

to make it into town before Dad left. Otherwise, I wouldn’t

have much time to get things done.

The road through the woods seemed hotter than the

path, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere near the

neighbor’s place. When I passed their driveway, I glanced

down it, and saw a brown car parked behind the GMC. At

first I didn’t think much of it, but then slowed my steps and

came to a halt. Could it be someone looking for the girl?

Could someone — the girl’s family, for instance— have

driven up from town to ask if anyone had seen her?

If that was what it was, then they’d go to our cabin

next, and I didn’t want to miss them. The neighbors

wouldn’t be able to tell them anything, nor would Jasper.

Should I had to wait and see if they came out the

neighbors’ place and headed for our cabin?

But time was ticking by for me to get into town, and

if it was just some friend of the neighbors…

It was hard to imagine ‘Pa’ with friends, especially

out here, so I turned back and jogged down their driveway,

squeezing between the vehicles and an overgrown

blackberry bush.

The rust-haired girl was standing the yard, and when

she saw me, she bolted for the cabin, hollering “Pa!

Visitor! ” at the top of her lungs.

You already have a visitor, I thought. I heard

scuffling and scraping sounds from inside the cabin, like

kitchen chairs were being pushed around, and Pa stepped

39

The Girl Across the Water

out onto the porch. “Stop right there!” he said. “You’re

trespassing!”

I stopped in my tracks, surprised. He’d been

unfriendly before, but not this unfriendly. “Um, I just came

to… say hi.” I couldn’t think of a good lie.

“You already did.”

“Well, I came to invite the kids over tonight,” I shot

back, feeling ticked off now. Why was the guy being such a

jerk?

“I’ll let them know. We’re busy right now.”

I crossed my arms and stood there defiantly. “You

have visitors?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just wondering if…” My defiance faded as I

scrambled for excuses. If the visitor was someone asking

about the girl, surely they’d come outside at the sound of

voices so they could ask about her. “…if your visitors are

heading back into town soon, ‘cause I really need a ride.”

“They’re staying for lunch.”

“Oh.”

I waited another second, trying to think of

something else, while ‘Pa’ glared me down. It couldn’t be

anyone searching for her, then. Seeing as the whole family

was so rude and hostile, I decided I didn’t have to make

any polite excuses: I just left.

40

The Girl Across the Water

I ran back up the driveway again and continued

down the path, keeping up a steady jog. By the time I

reached T-junction where the lake road met the road into

town, I was sweating and had a stitch in my side. I stopped

to stretch out the stitch before turning and heading down

the main road.

This was even hotter. There was no shade at all, and

the sun reflected back off the pavement, hitting me with

heat. My shoulders were soon drenched in sweat. I wished

I’d worn my sports tank-top with the air vents.

No sidewalk bordered the road, so I had to run along

the verge, stopping every time I heard a car or truck and

turning to make sure they saw me. It was tempting to hitch

into town, but my Dad would throw a fit if he found out.

To my surprise, I made it into town in half an hour. I

pulled my watch off, shaking sweat off the band, and

quickly headed for the shade of a building.

The ‘business section’ of town consisted of two

blocks of stores, single-story offices, and diners, before all

the houses started. I decided to wander the few streets

here, looking for notices, before doing anything else. The

grocery store might have a bulletin board, so I headed

towards it, my body reveling in the coolness as I stepped

through the automatic doors. I wandered over to where

there was, sure enough, a big cork board. Posted on it were

a couple of real estate ads, requests for recycled items,

notices for things like church events and a Boy Scout

garage sale... no missing girl.

41

The Girl Across the Water

My sweat-drenched shirt was beginning to chill in the

cold air, so I decided to buy a bottle of Coke and a Mars bar

and head back outside.

The checkout girl was really cute — she had blonde

hair pulled back in a pony-tail and golden-brown eyes that

sparkled, making me want to grin. I did, and she smiled

back. Since there was no one else around, I decided she’d

be a good person to ask about the locals.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Paul, I’m staying up at one of the

cabins on the lake.”

“I’m Mandy.” She rang through my Coke and candy

bar, then tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear before

glancing back up at me. “Yeah, I know those cabins.

They’re empty most of the year. Sometimes we break in

and have parties.” Her smile made me wish I could be here

for the rest of the year and go to one of those parties to

meet up with her.

“So, you know most people in town?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say know them all. But working

here...” She gave a resigned smile and a shrug. “I definitely

see ‘em all.”

“Great!” This was better than I'd expected. “I mean,

it’s just that... I’m trying to find out about the people in the

other cabin.” I leaned forward and rested my palms on the

counter, trying to grin at her and look attractive until I

remembered my sweaty T-shirt, and stood back up.

Mandy jutted out her lip while she thought. “I’m not

sure I know them... what do they look like?”

42

The Girl Across the Water

“Well, the Dad’s pretty big. Looks like a redneck

from a movie.”

She laughed at this. “You'll have to narrow it down

more, in this town.”

“No, seriously,” I said. “Trucker hat, T-shirt with

sleeves cut off, beer gut. The kids are two boys, twins,

about ten years old—”

This made her roll her eyes. “Oh yeah, I remember

those two all right. I had to keep an eye on them while I

was ringing up all the food, 'cause they were all over the

place trying to shoplift candy. I don’t know why they

bothered ― their dad bought so much junk food, it should

last them a month. Probably doing it for kicks. Anyway, the

dad bought a ton of food, so they must’ve been stocking

up. I haven’t seen them since.”

“Oh, wow, great. So... there’s also a girl, about

twelve, kinda scrawny with curly red hair. Orphan Annie

style, but she has this way-pissed-off expression.” Mandy

smiled at this, tucking back the piece of hair that had

slipped out again. “But what I’m trying to find out is... you

wouldn’t happen to remember if there was anyone else with

them? Another kid, that is? I wasn’t sure how many of

them there were.”

While she considered this, I noticed she was wearing

some kind of sparkly lip gloss. This was way too distracting;

I had to focus.

“No, there wasn’t anyone else.”

“You sure?”

43

The Girl Across the Water

“Yeah. Trust me, I’d have noticed, the way they

were all over that candy.”

Oh. Well, that cleared that up.

“Okay. Hey, one more thing... you wouldn’t happen

to know about any missing kids around here?”

She blinked in surprise. “No. If there were, it

would’ve been in the paper.”

“You guys have a paper?”

“Yeah. Well, just a little one, a weekly. Oh right, so it

wouldn’t be in there yet. But I’d have heard for sure. News

travels fast around here. It’s a small town. And a missing

kid… that would be huge.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I tried for another grin. “A lot.”

Mandy smiled back again then looked down, toying with

one of the cash register buttons. “Ah... unfortunately I

have to get going...” I said. We gave each other hopeful

looks. “...so maybe I’ll see you around some time?”

“Hope so,” she said, and it was with sparkly eyes in

my mind and regret in my heart that I left the store.

The next step, I figured, would be to head to the

police station, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. How

would I ask without giving it all away?

When I walked through the doors, a female officer

with brown eyes and chin-length, wavy brown hair looked

up from her desk.

“Hi there,” I said.

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The Girl Across the Water

“Hi, can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah, I was just wondering something. This

may be nothing, but it’s been bugging me.. when we were

driving up to our cabin a couple days ago, I noticed a little

girl walking along the side of the road by herself. It was

pretty far from town. I know it’s a few days ago now, but I

keep wishing we’d stopped to ask if she was okay. So, ah,

there’s no kids gone missing or anything like that, is

there?”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, but that sure was nice

of you to check. What did she look like, anyway?”

“Oh, um... dark hair in two braids, white sundress,

and maybe eight or nine years old.”

The officer tapped her fingers on the desk, but

lightly, like she wasn’t particularly worried. “Doesn’t sound

like anyone I know. If anyone’s gone missing, I’m sure it

would have been reported right away. But thanks for

asking, we really do appreciate things like that. Listen, can

I get your name and number just in case anything were to

come up?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s Paul VanDerMere, and we’re up

at the lake, in the second cabin. There’s no phone there, so

I’ll give you my Dad’s cell, except the reception kinda

comes and goes. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.”

After she’d jotted down the number, I turned to

leave. Beside the door, a glass-covered bulletin board

caught my eye. Pinned to it were lots of newspaper articles,

some older-looking than the rest, all relating to the town.

Things like a new building by-law, changes to fishing

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The Girl Across the Water

regulations. And then, as I scanned them, my eyes came to

rest on a photo that almost made my heart stop.

From the yellowness of the paper, I could tell the

article was old. I leaned in closer and saw that the date was

ten years ago.

Local Child Missing

Corey Johnson, age 8, was reported missing on

Monday evening when she didn’t return home from playing

with friends. Police officers interviewing the friends learned

that the group of four children had gone swimming in the

lake earlier that day, but that Corey had insisted on staying

when the others left. A search of the lakeside was

immediately launched.

The search was called off at midnight, and resumed

again at dawn. No trace of her has been found. One of the

friends later informed the police that Corey had suggested

trying to swim out to one of the islands. The other three

children had attempted to talk her out of it, but left by

themselves because they “didn’t want to get into trouble for

being late.”

Tracking dogs are being brought in to continue the

search.

Underneath this was the photo. It was small, and

made up of black-and-white dots ― I guess the newspaper

was pretty low-tech ― so it wasn’t the clearest picture in

the world. The kid’s chin was lowered, making her hair fall

partially over her face, and the photo quality made it look

like she had dark circles under her eyes. But still, I could

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The Girl Across the Water

tell right away: it was The Girl. I had to reach out and

steady myself against the glass.

Feeling light-headed, I turned to the police officer

and pointed to article. “This case here... was it ever

solved?”

She got up from her desk and came to see what I

was pointing at. “I’m not sure, that was before my time. I’d

have to look.”

“Could you?” I leaned my head against the glass for

a second, hoping it would cool my churning mind.

“Sure, I guess. But if you’re thinking about the kid

you saw, this was ten years ago.” She tapped above the

date and looked at me searchingly, like I was too stupid to

figure it out. “This person would be eighteen by now.”

She headed back to her desk anyway, and began

tapping at her keyboard. After a few minutes, she said,

“No, looks like that one never was solved. The case was

closed, though, even though a body was never found. It’s

assumed she drowned.”

I swallowed. My legs felt wobbly, like my bones had

all turned to jelly.

No body found...

That was ten years ago, I reminded myself.

Giving myself a shake, I turned to leave. “Thanks,” I

remembered to mumble over my shoulder.

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The Girl Across the Water

Stepping outside was like stepping into an oven. I

could even see the ripples of heat waves rising off the road.

I stood there blinking for a moment, wondering what to do

next. Then, to my relief, I caught sight of Dad’s truck. I ran

up to it. No sign of Dad, but that was okay. As long as I

hung around, I was guaranteed a ride home. I stood there

squinting, wishing I’d brought my sunglasses. It was so hot

that sweat was actually running off my forehead. When I

went to lean up against the truck, I jumped away — the

sides were like a frying pan. I guzzled down my Coke, but

didn’t touch the Mars bar; I could tell through the wrapper

that it was already half-melted.

Dad finally emerged from a small office and came

walking across the street, swinging a large brown envelope

in his hand. When he saw me, he gave a huge smile. “Hey

Paul, what are you doing here?”

“I walked in.”

His smile faded. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine… I just felt like checking out the town.”

He grinned again. “Bored of the lake already? Or is it

the company?” Then he looked kind of abashed and said, “I

didn’t mean... what I meant was, maybe you’re bored

without any girls around. Oh heck… look, is everything okay

with you and Jasper?”

“Jasper’s fine.” I didn’t usually talk to my Dad about

girls and stuff, but without Jasper there, it was so different.

Like Dad realized I was growing up, like we were becoming

equals. “Well... there is this really cute girl at the grocery

store...”

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The Girl Across the Water

“Oh, yeah! Couldn't help but notice her.” He gave

me a wink. “Mandy, right?”

“Dad! ” I didn’t know whether to laugh or be shocked.

We both climbed into the truck. The drive back was

fun; it wasn’t often I got to spend time alone with Dad. I’d

forgotten how much he could make me laugh, and it made

me wish we could do this kind of thing more often. Just the

two of us.

On the way, he said, “So, I’ve almost got all the

loose ends tied up with your grandfather’s will. Sorry that

had to run into our vacation, there are just so many details

and formalities and processes I have to go through.”

“That’s okay,” I said. I knew I should have felt

sadder about my grandfather dying, but truthfully I hadn’t

liked him that much. I mean, I didn’t dislike him, I just

found him kind of cold. He’d had kids really late in life, like

in his forties or something, so he was much older than my

friends’ grandparents, and definitely of a different

generation. He had a big old mansion with a huge ‘study’,

in which he spent most of his time, reading and, well,

studying. It seemed a bit pointless to me, though, because

if you learn all this stuff and then you don’t really do

anything with it before you die, well, isn’t it all a huge

waste?

I had barely known my grandmother because she

died when I was six, and that seemed sadder; the little I

remembered of her, she’d been really nice.

“Anyway, I’ve been meaning to tell you about the

will. You know your grandfather was pretty well off, right?”

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The Girl Across the Water

“Uh… I hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, he

lived in that huge house, but he didn’t drive an expensive

car or give us big presents or anything.”

Dad laughed. “Well, that’s often how rich people get

rich. And stay rich — they don’t give a lot away.”

I marveled that my Dad had turned out so friendly

with such a cold person for a father. I guess that was his

mom’s doing.

“No, he kept it well stashed away, and invested a

lot. So your inheritance is going to be pretty substantial.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“He left the majority to me and your Uncle Jack, but

a portion goes directly to you. Except that it stays locked

up in a trust fund until you’re twenty-one. And then if

anything happens to me, my portion of his will goes to you.

Not to Vanessa and Jasper. that was the tricky part of the

will; he’d specified that. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them,

just… well, he figured his money should only go to his

family, and I guess didn’t see them as family even though

Vanessa and I have been married almost two years now.”

I glanced over at Dad, wondering if this made him

mad at all. But he seemed cheerful enough, and I could see

that Grandfather’s old-fashioned ideas wouldn’t have been

too accepting of the new wife, especially as she came with

a kid. Plus, although we weren’t rich, we were far from

poor, so it’s not like we desperately needed Grandfather’s

money.

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The Girl Across the Water

But knowing this sum of money was waiting there

for me was interesting… I wondered how much it was.

Twenty-one was a long time away, though — practically

forever! “So will you be able to release any of my trust fund

money before I’m twenty-one?” I asked. “Say, like, when

I’m sixteen? And need a car?”

Dad laughed. “Nope, I can’t, and even if I could, I

wouldn’t. If you want a car, you’ll have to get a part-time

job and start saving now, because I want my son to learn

the value of money. Sorry, Paul, no shiny red convertible

waiting in the driveway on your sixteenth birthday.”

I pretended to sulk, but I’d always known it would be

that way. A minute later we were joking again, and the

whole thing was forgotten about. Well, apart from the

convertible — that was worth thinking about. Maybe after

vacation was a good time to get my first job…

Dad turned off the main road, and the truck rumbled

up the road into the woods, lurching over dips and

potholes. The groceries Dad had bought were bouncing

around in the back. As soon as we arrived, Jasper came

running up. “What did you buy?”

I wasn’t sure if he meant my fictitious fishing gear or

the groceries. He went straight for the groceries. “Here,” I

said, tossing him my Mars bar. He turned too late, missing

the catch. It fell to the ground, but he snatched it up and

said “Thanks!”, genuinely surprised, like I’d just handed

him a hundred dollars.

I snuck away to get ready for my trip back to the

island, wondering what went on in Jasper’s life that the a

chocolate bar could make him so happy. Not just happy,

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The Girl Across the Water

but surprised. Maybe I’d been a lot less nice to him than I

realized.

It was easy to siphon off some snack food while Dad

and Jasper unpacked the groceries. You’d have thought

Jasper would have been tearing into the junk food, but the

strange thing was, he loved putting food away in cupboards

and stacking it up neatly. He was the one who’d tell me off

for leaving boxes open or all jumbled up.

I decided to make our lunch so that I could wrap up

an extra two sandwiches for The Girl.

After lunch, which consisted of sandwiches, fruit and

chips, and Jasper’s homemade lemonade (what d’you

know? ― the kid was really good at cooking), I grabbed my

backpack and headed for the canoe.

I turned and glanced over my shoulder as I walked

away. “Uh, you don’t want to come, do you?”

“No, thanks!” Jasper replied cheerfully, sweeping his

arm in the direction of the picnic table to indicate his ‘desk’

full of comics.

“I won’t be long!” I shouted back.

Dad waved.

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Chapter 6

I canoed to the island with swift, even strokes. I

seemed to be getting faster each time. Along with the food

in my pack, I’d brought a flashlight, some note paper, and

two blankets, even though the girl had said she didn’t need

any. I didn’t see how she couldn’t, though; I just wished I

had a tent to bring along.

My heart sped up as I approached the island. I kept

telling myself that the photo in the police station had to be

some weird coincidence. After all, I'd seen her in person.

And I'd seen her eat.

I hauled the canoe up onto the beach and scanned

the area. “Hello!”

No girl emerged from the bushes. No problem, she

was probably still hiding, and her hideout could be

anywhere in the vast tangle of foliage . “It’s me, Paul!” I

called out, loudly enough that she could hear me but not so

that my voice would carry across the water.

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The Girl Across the Water

I waited for her to appear. Still nothing, and there

were no sounds of anyone making their way through the

brush. I began to feel impatient and twitchy. All this work

for her; hadn’t she been watching for my arrival? She was

real, right? the little voice inside my head asked.

Grunting in frustration, I shouldered my pack and

pushed my way to the clearing. My legs and arms were

once again scratched by thorns and branches, as I made

my way in, and the higher branches made zipping sounds

as they clawed at my backpack. When I reached the

clearing, it was empty. Hmm. I’d seen her disappear

towards the far side of the island the last time, so I forced

my way through the bushes in that direction, pushing

through tangled branches, twigs snapping into my face the

whole time. “Hello?” I called again.

I stood still for a minute, listening. From behind me

came a ‘ crack. ’ I swung around. “Hey! You there?”

Silence.

“Look, if you’re playing a joke, you can quit it. I

brought this stuff to help you, remember? Now hurry up

and come out.”

Another ‘ crack’ came, this time from the opposite

direction. Fed up with this game, yet at the same time

worried, I turned and charged towards the sound, holding

my backpack in front of me as a face shield. I pushed on

like a soldier running through a war zone, ignoring the

branches clawing at my arms and legs. I pretended I was in

a war movie set in the jungle, with my Sarge yelling “Go,

go, go!” right in my ear. I’d had enough of this girl’s

weirdness: I was determined to find her. But with the

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The Girl Across the Water

backpack in front of my face, I couldn't see where I was

going, and my front foot suddenly plunged into thin air.

I yelled and tossed the backpack to one side,

instinctively throwing myself down to the other. My arms

gripped the trunk of a small tree, my face pressing into its

base, before I even knew what had happened. Clinging to

the tree, I tentatively lifted my head. My body was on solid

ground, one leg curled behind me, my forward leg was

hanging… right over the edge of the cliff. “Jeez!” I shouted.

My insides were trembling, but my hands were glued to

that tree. I don't think I could have let go at that point,

even if I'd wanted. Slowly, still clinging, I raised my torso.

It seemed I was all in one piece, unbroken, unhurt; but the

sight of the lake water thirty feet below my dangling foot

was enough to make my heart do triple-beats. I’d almost

run straight over the edge!

I swung my front leg all the way back, only letting

go of the tree when my entire body rested on solid ground.

I lay there on my stomach, clinging to the grass, peering at

the cliff edge. When my nerves had steadied a bit, I

shuffled forward so that I could look over.

The water appeared perfectly calm, although my

memory of only a few seconds ago saw it as huge, crashing

waves. I guess my rocketing adrenalin had distorted

everything. There didn’t appear to be any rocks below, but

still I had no idea how deep ― or more to the point, shallow

― the water was. I couldn't help but wonder, with morbid

fascination, what would've happened if I’d gone straight

over. Jeez!

I flopped onto my back and lay there panting, my

insides vibrating. When my breathing finally steadied, I

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The Girl Across the Water

raised my head and looked around for my backpack. There

it was, lying at the cliff edge a few feet from me, flopped

over like it, too, was recovering from a minor heart attack.

I got up to retrieve it. Gripping another tree branch,

I leaned forward to stare once more at the water below.

Then, in angry determination, I swung around and went

crashing through the foliage back down the slope — this

time watching where I was going.

I must have searched every square foot of that

island, and the girl was nowhere to be found. Finally, I

stomped back to the beach and sat down in the canoe like

Jasper had, but with my arms crossed, fuming. I was still

shaking, partially from the cliff experience, partially from

anger. Then I jumped out of the canoe again, kicking at

rocks on the beach. “Where are you? ” I shouted at the top

of my voice, not caring if Dad or Jasper could hear me from

the shore.

She was gone. What did it mean?

My anger evaporated, to be replaced by an unsettled

feeling. I wasn't sure whether it was some kind of post-

stress comedown or whether The Girl was spooking me out

again. I tried to put out of my mind the newspaper clipping

in the police station.

That was ten years ago…

I glanced around.

Well, I was leaving the stupid supplies, anyway. I

made my way to the small clearing, almost hoping she

didn’t appear — another shock probably would've finished

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The Girl Across the Water

me off. I almost laughed, then, imagining the shout I’d give

if those dark eyes were to suddenly materialize.

I didn’t know what was going on any more.

Nevertheless, I unpacked the food, blankets, and flashlight,

piled them up along with the note I’d written, and weighed

it all down with a rock.

Here’s the food and some blankets. I brought the

flashlight so you can signal to me. I can see the island from

my bedroom window, and I'll be watching for you at night.

One flash for Hello

Two flashes for I’m okay

Three flashes for I Need Help.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Paul.

Tired now, I walked back to the canoe, sweat

stinging as it settled into my scratched skin. I reached for

my lifejacket, and only then noticed the state of my arms

and legs. It wasn’t sweat that was making my skin sting:

my T-shirt and shorts were in tatters. Criss-cross slashes of

blood stood out on my skin where I’d been scratched by

razor-sharp branches, and my right knee was bruised,

probably from hitting the ground. Dad was going to freak

out when he saw me! ― I looked like I’d been in a fight

with a tiger.

I debated going for a swim to get rid of all the blood

and sweat. Plus, it might cool down my churning anger and

adrenalin. But after the near-accident at the cliff, I wanted

to get off the island as soon as possible, and so I pushed

the canoe away, hopped in, and paddled away. After a few

strokes, I stopped to trail my arms in the water, then

cupped water and splashed it over my legs, wincing a bit as

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The Girl Across the Water

it hit the cuts. I was going to be a prime target for

mosquitoes that night.

As soon as I reached the cabin and dragged the

canoe onto the shore, I ditched the lifejacket, stripped off

my T-shirt and runners, and plunged straight into the

water. It felt icy cold. Perfect.

“Hey Paul!” Jasper called out. “What’re you doing?”

I lay on my back so that the water closed over my

ears and drowned out any sounds, and closed my eyes

against the sun.

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Chapter 7

We sat at the picnic table eating dinner that evening,

the setting sun casting everything in a warm, golden glow.

Then, as evening progressed and the sun sank lower, our

surroundings began to take on a slightly hazy look. It was

from this fuzzy, growing darkness that the three neighbor

kids stepped out of the woods.

Me, Dad, and Jasper stared in surprise. For a

second, the way they trailed from between the darkening

trees, they looked like ghosts.

They walked over and stood near the picnic table,

surveying us. The girl’s expression was hostile, and the two

boys were giggling, squirming, and poking each other. It

seemed like neither of them could stay still for a second.

The boys were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts. The girl

wore an open flannel shirt over her T-shirt, but her skinny

legs stuck out of frayed shorts, like she scorned the

coolness of evening.

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The Girl Across the Water

Jasper and I exchanged glances. They were so

clearly unfriendly… why were they here?

“Well, hi there!” Dad said. “You’ve just missed

dessert, but we can get the campfire going and toast some

marshmallows.”

The boys jumped and cheered at this, and then, for

no apparent reason, began a frenzied game of kicking dirt

at each other. Their sister seemed satisfied with the

mention of marshmallows, but still she stood with her

hands on her hips, one freckled leg sticking out to the side.

“This is Jasper,” I said after a pause. “And I’m Paul.”

The girl snorted and sat down at the end of the

table. “I know that.”

“What are your names?” Dad asked all three. He got

up from the table and briefly joined in the boys’ dirt-kicking

game, swerving around them like in soccer, before

gathering up our dessert plates. The boys giggled.

“I’m Rusty!” one of them piped up.

Rusty! That couldn’t be for real… had ‘Pa’ named

them out of the Redneck Book of Baby Names?

“No, it’s not!” the other said, giving a goofy laugh

and displaying the gap of a missing front tooth. “Stupid!

Don’t you remember?” This time he didn’t open his mouth

wide to laugh, but giggled through his gap. A bit of snot

flew from his nose at the same time. Great — one of those

always-snotty kids. At least there was some way of telling

them apart.

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The Girl Across the Water

“Oh, yeah!” the other said, giggling in the same way.

“Right! I mean, no wait …” He was so busy dodging around

his brother and continuing to kick dirt that he apparently

couldn’t remember his own name.

“His name’s Jason,” the snotty one said before

attacking his brother with a fierce flurry of dirt. “He wants a

dog called Rusty, but Pa won’t get us one, so we have to

call him that.”

They both dissolved into laughter. Then Jason began

barking, high and loud. I exchanged looks with Jasper,

whose eyes were wide. “I think I’ll help clear up,” Jasper

said, and scurried off to the cabin. I glared after him.

Thanks, Jasper.

“His name’s Brendan,” Jason said, and the two burst

into another fit of snot-punctuated laughter. Brendan

kicked dirt back in protest, and gave Jason several punches

on the arm. “It’s not, it’s not! Brendan’s a stupid name!”

“I know, that’s why we call him Bren. No wait…

Brenda!”

They laughed so hard that they had to stop kicking

dirt for a minute. A still-attached piece of snot flew in and

out from Brendan’s nose, like one of those paddle balls on

elastic.

I edged away from another flurry of dirt and snot.

“What’s your name?” I asked the girl, wishing Dad and

Jasper would hurry up and get back.

“Coralie,” she said, glaring at me like I might argue

the point.

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The Girl Across the Water

Coralie… Corey. My heart gave a quick beat. There

couldn’t be any connection, could there? So she had a

similar name to the young girl who’d gone missing ten

years ago… that was a pretty weak link. Still, it reminded

me of The Girl, and I found myself wondering again where

she’d disappeared to. I didn’t imagine it all, I told myself.

“Well?” Coralie asked.

“Huh?”

“I asked you—” She rolled her eyes like I was totally

stupid. “—how long you’re here.”

“Oh, right. A month. How ‘bout you?”

She shrugged, then jumped up and, for no apparent

reason, ran over and punched one of her brothers in the

back. He merely laughed, the gap in his teeth showing

again.

Dad walked out of the cabin carrying a bag of

marshmallows. The twins immediately ran over, tore the

bag from him, and started stuffing marshmallows in their

mouths. I wondered if there’d be any left to roast.

“I’ll get the campfire going,” Dad said, regarding the

crazed kids with a bemused expression.

It was getting dark now, and as Dad built the fire,

our view of the lake was blotted out by the gathering dusk.

By the time the fire was crackling, the woods were a fuzzy

curtain of dark, indistinguishable shapes.

I love the sound of a roaring fire, but I could barely

hear it over the commotion of the two boys fighting. Their

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The Girl Across the Water

punches, shouts of ‘ ow!’ and giggled protests continued,

only pausing when they took a break to stuff more

marshmallows in their faces. Dad handed everyone sticks,

and the twins, of course, started a swordfight with theirs. I

moved away from eye-swiping range to sit on one of the

logs by the fire.

Coralie sat down on the other log, at right angles to

mine. Jasper seated himself next to me, as far as possible

from the kids. He’d managed to quietly remove the bag of

marshmallows while the boys were sword fighting, and he

now speared three onto his stick. I did the same, before

tossing the bag to Coralie. Her brothers quickly seated

themselves next to her, or rather, next to the

marshmallows.

Dad sat down next to me, and we all toasted our

marshmallows quietly while he was there. “So how long are

you here for?” he asked cheerfully. Coralie glared at him,

like he should’ve known I’d already asked that. Holding her

marshmallow out on its stick, she put her elbows on her

knees and her chin in one hand, not bothering to answer.

Dad glanced over at me. I shrugged.

Dad left after that, I guess so we could all ‘get to

know each other.’ But as Jasper wasn’t saying a word and

Coralie only glared, and the twins were incapable of rational

conversation, I found myself wishing they’d hurry up and

leave. The boys took their sticks away from the fire and

tried to eat their marshmallows too soon, of course burning

their mouths. Laughing, Jason pushed Brendan off the log,

at which point Brendan suddenly burst into tears. “You got

more marshmallows that me!” he protested through snotty

sniffles.

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The Girl Across the Water

Jasper shuffled around. I gave him a don’t-you-dare-

leave look.

“I know!” Coralie said, sitting up with sudden

interest. “Why don’t we tell ghost stories?”

I sat up in surprise. It was the first relatively friendly

thing she’d said.

“Well, okay.”

“You first!” she declared.

I was about to point out that it was her idea, then

figured I’d never win an argument with Coralie. “Okay, let

me think.” I wracked my brains and finally remembered

one from my days of backyard sleepovers.

“Okay, so. This guy is having a drink in an out-of-

the-way pub he’s never been to before. He’s about to

leave, and this other guy asks him where he’s going. He

tells him the route, which happens to be along a dark,

country lane. The second guy says ‘Well, whatever you do,

don’t pick up any hitchhikers.’ He says he won’t, and heads

off. So then he’s driving along this winding, narrow road, all

he can see is the beam of his headlights, and suddenly this

girl appears, almost right in front of him. He slams on the

brakes and the girl goes to the passenger window. He rolls

it down. She’s about nineteen, and has long blonde hair

and a really pale face, and she looks scared and forlorn.”

“What does that mean?” Jason whispered.

“It means sad, stupid,” Coralie muttered. Then

louder, to me: “Anyway, I’ve heard this one.”

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I whipped my empty marshmallow stick down in

exasperation. “So do you want me to tell it or not?”

Coralie shrugged. Her brothers, however, were

squirming and giggling, and saliva was bouncing in and out

of Jason’s tooth-gap. “Tell it, tell it!” he said, bouncing

more. “What did the guy do?”

With a silencing glare at Coralie, I continued. “The

girl said she was out by herself and needed a ride home. So

because she’s young and scared looking, the guy says of

course. But instead of getting in the front of the car, she

gets in the back. So then he’s driving along and asks where

she lives. And she says, just up ahead.

“The road turns a sharp corner and he hears her say,

‘Thanks for stopping for me. No one else ever does, they’re

too scared.’ But when he looks in his rear-view mirror,

there’s no one in the car.

“So he yells and hits the brakes, and gets out the

car, figuring she must have jumped out when it was still

moving or something. But when he looks around, he can’t

see anything in the dark. He grabs a flashlight from the

trunk and shines it around. And just to the side of the road,

the light picks out an old, rusty metal sign on a set of gates

that are falling apart. And the sign says…” I lowered my

voice. “CEMETERY.”

The twins squealed at this, and started bouncing up

and down like a couple of Mexican jumping beans.

“That’s so cool, that’s so scary!” Brendan squealed.

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The Girl Across the Water

Through his giggles, Jason asked, “I don’t get it,

where’d the girl go?”

Coralie reached out and slammed her fist into his

arm. “She was a ghost, stupid. It means she was buried in

the cemetery.”

“O-o-oh,” he said. “Now I get it!”

I rolled my eyes. Good lord. Tough crowd.

“I’ve got one, I’ve got one!” Brendan piped up,

bouncing up and down on the log.

I looked at him in surprise. This kid had the brain

capacity to remember an entire story?

“Okay, this guy’s driving along this really dark road,

and he’s never been there before―”

“You’re copying his!” Jason protested.

“No I’m not, this is different! Okay, well it’s this lady

driving along, and she sees this guy by the side of the

road--”

“Copycat!”

“No, I’m not! Cause he’s all bloody! He’s bleeding

and he asks if she’ll stop and help, so she does…”

Coralie and Jason started pummeling him. “You don’t

have a story!” they both yelled.

“I have one,” Jasper said quietly.

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The Girl Across the Water

The neighbor kids stopped, mid-pummel, and turned

towards him. I turned in surprise, too; Jasper hated being

the centre of attention.

“It’s called ‘the children on the stairs’. Have you

heard it?”

“No,” Coralie said, and they all leaned forward, their

faces orange in the glow of the fire. “Sounds creepy.”

“It is. Okay, so there’s this lady, see, and she has

seven young kids. But she’s really, really evil. One night…”

Jasper leaned forward, “…she gets a hatchet and leads

them all away from the house and into the woods. And

then… she murders them all.”

The twins gasped.

“Then she chops up the bodies and buries them, and

goes back home to her big, empty house. She lives on her

own in this creepy, old mansion, way out in the woods, so

at first no one knows about the kids going missing. But

then when they don’t show up at school, people start

asking about them. Then the cops come to the lady’s

house. She says the kids all went out to play one evening

and never came back. The cops don’t believe her, but even

though they search and search, they can’t find anything, so

they can’t accuse her of murder.

“Weeks later, the police finally give up on the case.

And the day they mark the case closed, the lady goes to

bed that night, and she’s lying in bed with the lights out,

when she hears a noise from the bottom of the stairs. So

she flicks on her nightlight. And she hears a faint chorus of

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seven little voices. And they’re saying: ‘ We’re at the bottom

of the stairs! ’”

Coralie and the twins leaned further forward, their

eyes wide.

Jasper continued, “She jumps out of bed, ‘cause it

sounds exactly like her kids’ voices. She goes to the landing

and looks down the stairs, but there’s nothing there, so she

figures she must have been hearing things. Only, when she

goes back to bed, she hears these little singsong voices

again, and this time they’re saying, ‘We’re coming up the

stairs!’

“So the lady rushes to the door and looks around

again, but sees nothing. This time, when she runs back in

the bedroom, she locks the door before getting back in bed.

Then, just as she pulls up her quilt, she hears voices again.

‘We’re on the landing, we’re on the landing!’

“She knows must be hearing things. So she closes

her eyes and pulls the covers up. Then the voices sing:

‘We’re outside the door!’

“The lady’s totally freaking out now. And then, all of

a sudden, her nightlight goes out. The room is totally dark.

And in the darkness, she hears the click of her door lock

opening. And then the chorus of voices says: ‘We’re at the

foot of the bed!’

“She tries to click the light switch on, on, on… but

nothing happens. Finally the light switches on, and she

looks down at the end of the bed, totally freaked out,

feeling like she’s going to have a heart attack. But there’s

no one in the bedroom!”

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The fire gave a fierce crackle, making me and the

neighbor kids jump about a foot off our logs. Both Brendan

and Jason squealed. Jasper lowered his voice to continue.

“She’s convinced by now that she’s going crazy and

hearing things. So when she hears the voices chant, ‘ We’re

under the bed,’ she leans over the edge of her bed, slowly,

with the light still on, and even more slowly, pulls the cover

up to look… and she screams.”

Brendan gave a tiny squeal, but Coralie quickly

silenced him with a punch.

“The police officers coming to investigate the scene

the next day can’t understand what they find. The bed is

completely blood-soaked. But there’s no sign of the

woman… instead, there are the bodies of…” He whispered,

“the seven dead children.”

The fire gave a loud pop, and we all jumped again.

Jasper sat back, not bothering to say ‘the end’. I

shivered. Even though I knew the story was fake, the night

suddenly seemed blacker, and woods creepier. The twins

giggled once or twice, but they were slow, nervous giggles,

like both boys might burst into tears any second.

I picked up my empty marshmallow stick and poked

the end into the fire. If I needed a weapon, a smoldering

stick would make a good one.

We were silent for a moment, and then Coralie

shuffling around on her log. “That was a good one.” She

paused, staring at her outstretched foot, before turning to

me and saying, “I know a real one. From here.”

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“No, don’t!” the boys protested, squirming. “That

one’s too scary!”

“That’s the point,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“They’re scariest when they’re real.” She turned to me. “Do

you know about the ghost girl in these woods?”

Mid-lifting my stick to see if the tip was glowing, I

froze. “What ghost girl?” My mouth went dry, and I glanced

over at Jasper. His eyes were wide.

The boys were still making protesting, whispered

giggles, squirming like a couple of ferrets.

Coralie looked smug. “The girl who died here.” She

leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands, watching

me closely. “There were a bunch of kids playing in these

woods one day. Three boys and a girl. They were daring

each other to swim out to one of the islands on the lake.”

My heart gave a heavy thud. The twins had stopped

squirming, and stared at Coralie with scared grins on their

faces.

“But none of the kids would do it. Only, the boys

were making fun of the girl, so finally, to make them stop,

she said she would. She didn’t have a swimsuit, though, so

she started to swim out to the island wearing her dress and

shoes. But she forgot that her shoes would weigh her

down, so she started to sink.”

My thoughts leapt straight to the girl on the island.

Had she been wearing shoes when I saw her? I couldn’t

remember. My heart began to hammer. Stop it, I told

myself. The girl I saw was real, she was real.

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“So what happened?” I asked, my voice croaking

slightly.

“She went under the surface of the water, and the

boys saw her hands waving for help. But they got scared.

The girl’s hands came up again, and then her head, and she

gasped, ‘help me,’ and then went under again. The boys

were too scared to swim out and try to save her, probably

‘cause they thought by the time they got to her it would be

too late. They were afraid of having to drag a dead body

out the lake, and then when they got home later all wet,

everyone would know it was their fault. So they turned and

ran… even before they knew for sure she’d drowned. And

as they ran away, the girl’s head came up one more time.

She saw them leaving her as she struggled to stay up. They

could have helped her. But they didn’t. And the last thing

she saw before she went down the final time was the boys

running away. She was scared and sad ‘cause she knew

she was going to die, and she was angry, too, because they

could have rescued her but didn’t even try.”

The fire gave another angry crackle, and I let my

stick fall from my hand.

“The boys ran home and didn’t tell anyone. When

people started asking about the girl, they said they hadn’t

seen her that day. It was only when the police asked them

that they started crying and said they’d all gone to the

woods together. But the boys lied and said the girl had

wanted to swim out to the islands, and that they’d tried to

stop her. They didn’t tell people that they’d dared her and

made fun of her. And they didn’t say how they ran away

while she was still drowning. They said she was way farther

out than she really was, and that she disappeared before

they could do anything. Which wasn’t true.

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“The police searched the lake for the body but never

found it. And so the girl’s ghost came back to haunt the

woods because no one knew the truth about her death. The

boys were too scared to ever go into the woods again, and

so she came to their homes to haunt them.

“One night, she visited the first boy, and he freaked

out and told his parents the next day. But the family didn’t

tell anyone else. They moved away because they were

ashamed. Then the girl haunted the next boy, and he

freaked out and started crying too, only he told everyone,

and that’s how the truth came out. His family moved away

too.

“Then the girl went to find the third boy and make

him confess, and he was the one who’d been meanest to

her. But his family had already moved away. And so she’s

still wandering in the woods, to this day, trying to find him

and make him sorry.”

I tried not to shiver in my jacket. Jasper sat

immobile.

Coralie stuck her leg out further and pivoted the foot

back and forth. Then she glanced slyly at us. “You’ll see her

in the woods sometimes. Even in the daytime, if it’s cloudy

or foggy. Just quick visions here and there. You think you

see a girl, and when you look back, she won’t be there. But

it’s at night you can see her clearly. She’s searching for the

boy, see, and she does that till it’s dark out. Then, at

midnight, she has to go back to the lake. She walks to the

water’s edge, and keeps walking till she’s completely

underneath again. Some people say she’s walking all the

way to the island she tried to swim out to when she

drowned.”

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My back started prickling as if someone was standing

behind me, but I refused to turn and look.

“And if you do see her…” Coralie leaned further

forward so that her face rippled in the firelight. “be careful,

because … she hates boys.”

The two boys squealed at this, then jumped up from

the log to run around in circles, shrieking and doing mid-air

shivers like two maniacs. This made me feel even jumpier

— my body wanted to thrash around in a similar way, in an

effort to shake off the scared feeling.

Coralie punched one of her brothers as he ran by,

and then grabbed the other by the arm. “Sit down, stupid.”

They sat, but continued to giggle and squirm.

“I have to go to bed now!” Jasper announced. He

suddenly jumped up and ran to the cabin, letting the door

bang shut behind him.

Coralie and the boys laughed. “Man, is he stupid,”

Brendan said in his snot-punctuated giggle.

“He’s sca-aaared!” Jason taunted.

Smirking, Coralie turned to me, as if she’d just laid

down a challenge.

I kept my face straight and stared back. No way was

I going to let her see that her story had freaked me out.

She stood up. “I guess we’d better go. Hope you

guys’ll be fine alone.” She crossed her arms over her chest

and gave me a smirk.

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“Will you be all right walking back?” I asked quietly.

“Walking through those dark woods, all by yourselves?”

“Oh-oh-oh!” Her two brothers jumped up from the

log, then down again, then up, like they had ants in their

pants. They were both giggling, but in a freaked-out way,

and looked genuinely scared. Coralie glared at me.

“Cor-a-lie!” Brendan said. “I don’t wanna walk

through the woods!” He dodged away from the fire, then

back again. “Corey, make Pa come pick us up.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid, we don’t need

him.”

But I thought I detected some fear in her eyes.

My dad came out of the cabin, then, I guess because

of Jasper running inside. “You kids leaving?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re goin’,” Coralie said, rolling her eyes.

One of her brothers was still making a creepy “oh-oh-oh”

sound.

“Do you have a flashlight to see your way back?”

Dad asked.

They all stared at him.

“Uh,” Coralie said. “I guess we forgot.”

“Well, you can borrow one of ours. As long as you

bring it back tomorrow.” He walked back into the cabin.

“Dad,” I hissed when he came back. “If you give it to

them, we won’t have one.”

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“But we have another one, remember?”

Except we didn’t ― I had left the it on the island for

The Girl.

Coralie flicked the big flashlight on and waved it

around, blinding us as she passed the beam in front of our

eyes.

“Hey!” I snapped. “Watch it.”

“This thing is neat!” she said, and turned to leave.

“Seeya!” she shouted, and ran for the woods.

The boys bolted after her, yelling and shrieking the

whole way. “Corey, wait up! Don’t go too far, we can’t see!

It’s da-a-a-aaark!” Their voices trailed off as they

disappeared into the forest like a pack of crazed jackals.

I turned to Dad and met his gaze.

“Well,” he said. “Um. They’re quite something.”

We both laughed, and I was glad the laughter hid

my tension. We shoveled dirt onto the fire before heading

into the cabin.

Once inside, I kicked dirt off my runners and left

them by the door. “Where’s Jasper?”

“Upstairs. I think he’s reading. So, any idea what

you want to do tomorrow?”

“Um,” I said, my thoughts still consumed by

Coralie’s story. “Not sure yet. I’m going to bed now.”

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“Okay, see you in the morning.”

I ran up the stairs to the bedroom. To my surprise,

the lights were out and Jasper was in bed, sleeping. It was

curious, though, how silent he was. I couldn’t help but

wonder if he was pretending. After changing, I got into bed

with my blankets pushed back. I’d forgotten to fix the

window, but I wasn’t sure it mattered tonight — either the

air had grown cooler, or Coralie’s story had given me

enough of a chill to keep the heat away.

It’s just a story, I told myself.

Except that it wasn’t. Parts of it, at least, were true.

I tried again to reassure myself. The fact that a

drowned girl from ten years ago looked similar to the one

you saw is just a coincidence.

But the suspicious part of my brain reasoned back:

They looked more than just similar. It was her. I turned

restlessly on the bed, trying to keep the nagging thoughts

at bay. Pushing myself up on one elbow, I stared out the

window toward the island. All I could see was blackness.

So if she was real… then who was she? Where had

she come from?

I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to

signal her… and now the neighbors had the other flashlight.

“Dammit!” I muttered.

Wait, I thought, Jasper has a Maglite. “Hey Jasper,” I

whispered. No answer came. “Jasper!” I tried again, this

time louder.

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No sounds came from him, not even a snort or a

grunt, making me even more suspicious that he was

pretending sleep.

I was pretty sure that rifling through his stuff would

make him magically ‘wake up’ if he really was pretending,

so I crept over to his night table, slid open the drawer, and

began to rummage. My hand closed around a stack of

photographs, and then hit the Maglite. I withdrew it and

turned the top so that the beam of light was low, then

flashed it over the photos. The top one was of Jasper and

his dad.

Jasper seemed to be even more silent now. Had he

stopped breathing? If he was pretending to be asleep, he’d

got himself into a fix — there was no way he could stop me

looking through his stuff. I lifted another photo: Jasper’s

Dad again.

I guess Jasper missed him, even though Revo was

such a screw-up. Well, I didn’t have time for family drama

now, so I pushed the drawer shut and crept back over to

my bed. My heart sped up as I looked out to the island and

remembered Coralie’s words. ‘She walks to the edge of the

water when the night is completely dark… and she keeps on

walking. She goes into the lake, further and further, until

she’s submerged. Then she walks all the way out to the

island she was trying to get to when she drowned.’

Shivering, I turned the Maglite on full beam and

flashed once towards the island. Hello.

I touched my forehead to the cool windowpane.

Would I be able to see a flashlight from here? More

importantly, would she be able to see such a small one?

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Dammit, I thought again, cursing that the stupid neighbor

kids had our best flashlight.

No response came ― maybe the Maglite beam was

too small. After waiting another minute, I tried again.

And then it came back: one flash. I almost dropped

the Maglite in surprise.

I waited a second before giving gave two flashes.

You okay?

Another pause, and then two small flashes returned.

‘ I’m okay’.

I didn’t know what else to do. Our communications

were limited, so I flashed once again, hoping she knew it

meant ‘bye’. But it meant a lot more, too: I’ll be back

tomorrow. Are you scared? Who are you, what are you?

Dammit, why are you there?

I continued to press my face against the cold glass,

waiting for the final flash, but it didn’t come. Why not? This

made me itch with anger. What, I bring you food and

supplies, and you can’t even flash goodbye? I waited

longer, but only darkness met my determined stare. What

was this all about? Had she already stopped looking? Had

she gone to sleep? Or was she walking back into the lake,

continuing in until the water came up to her waist, then up

to her, chest, then completely submerged her…

The back of my neck ran with goose bumps; I could

swear someone was standing behind me. “Paul,” a voice

whispered, and I jumped about a foot, yelling and dropping

the Maglite before turning to see Jasper’s outline in the

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darkness. “Dammit!” I hissed. “Don’t sneak up on me like

that!”

“Whatcha doing?” he asked in a sleepy voice,

rubbing his eyes. Maybe he’d really been asleep, then.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “Just looking outside. Go back

to bed.”

He did, and I lay there with my heart hammering

wildly. When it finally slowed to a normal pace, I thought

again of the girl. She was real, she had to be. Because one

thing I knew for sure: ghosts couldn’t work a flashlight.

I fell asleep wondering how she was getting to and

from the island. No way was she swimming, not at night. A

canoe, then? If so, it had to be from the other side of the

lake, or I’d see her coming and going. I decided that the

next day I needed to check out the far shore. If I didn’t find

her on the island first.

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Chapter 8

I awoke to a swirl of hazy, dream-steeped thoughts,

and remembered thinking I’d heard a motorboat during the

night. But even at the time, I had been aware that it might

be part of a dream.

My sleep had been deep, but not refreshing, and

now I felt stupid with tiredness. I wondered whether even

thinking I’d heard the motorboat had been part of a dream.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. What was I supposed

to do today? Of course: the island. The girl had signaled

back, so I had to go and see if she was still there. If she

was, then this time I was going to hold her down and

interrogate her until she told me just what the heck was

going on.

Jasper’s bed was empty, which meant I must have

slept later than usual. I pulled on my shorts and a T-shirt

and ran downstairs. Jasper was sitting at the table

demolishing a stack of pancakes, while Dad stood at the

stove flipping more.

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“Paul!” Dad greeted me with a smile. “Just in time. I

told Jasper to go and wake you.”

Jasper’s eyes widened over his pancake-filled

cheeks. “I was going to,” he said through a mouthful of

food.

As I slid into my chair, Dad set two more plates of

pancakes on the table: one for me, one for him. I poured

myself a glass of orange juice and glugged it down, then

set about drowning my pancakes in syrup. The sugar hit did

a lot to wake me up, but I felt like I still needed more. “Can

I have some coffee?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t like

coffee.”

I didn’t, but with three spoonfuls of sugar it was

drinkable, and as soon as I got it down, I felt more

charged.

“So what do you two want to do today?” Dad asked.

Oh, rats. Dad was finally ready for some bonding

time, and I needed to get to the island. Alone.

“Um,” I said. “I was thinking of going on another

canoe trip.”

“You’re sure into canoeing this year,” he

commented.

“Well, we are at a lake,” I pointed out, strangely

irritated.

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Jasper, as usual, slowed down his eating to shoot

worried looks from me to Dad. “I thought maybe we could

play some games today,” he said. “We’ve got Monopoly,

Cranium, Risk…”

Thank you, Jasper. Saved.

Dad looked torn. I could tell he wanted to go

outdoors and get some exercise. “Well, how about we play

games this morning, then go canoeing in the afternoon?”

he asked.

“Perfect!” I answered. “Uh, you two don’t mind if I

go for a quick canoe trip right now, though, do you? Just to

the island and back. You can start a game, and I’ll catch up

later. I just want to, um, warm up.”

“Well, I thought it would be nice if we all spend some

time together,” Dad said.

I shot him a pained look.

“…but you won’t be that long, right?”

“Sure.”

After we’d cleaned up the breakfast dishes, I

surreptitiously slid some food into my backpack and headed

off.

She’s there, I told myself as I canoed to the island. I

had seen her signals the night before; she had to be real.

And in the morning sunlight, Coralie’s story of a ghost girl

walking into the lake didn’t seem as scary any more.

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For some reason, though, it was Jasper’s story of the

kids on the stairs that stuck with me. Each time my paddle

splashed into the water, I imagined the chorus of little

voices: We’re at the bottom of the lake…

Stairs, I told myself. Stairs, not lake.

I didn’t slow down enough as I approached the

island, and the hard crunch of the canoe against ground

pitched me forward. After righting myself, I set the paddle

in the canoe, stepped out, and pulled the canoe up onto the

beach. This time I headed straight for the clearing without

calling out.

When I reached it, she wasn’t there. Again. But

sitting right where I’d left them, stacked the exact same

way, were the blankets, flashlight, and note… as if they’d

never been touched.

Dammit! This was getting beyond annoying. I knew

she existed. She’d signaled back last night. Plus, the food

was gone. I sighed. Okay, this meant for sure she was just

messing with me. And likely someone else was in on it,

because I doubted a young girl could arrange all this by

themselves.

But why? Was it just a stupid practical joke?

I wondered again about the neighbor kids. It had to

be them. Why, though? Just for laughs? It seemed like all

they needed for entertainment was the ability to kick dirt at

each other. Plus, they didn’t seem smart enough to pull

something like this together.

But who else could it be?

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I stood there frowning, considering the logistics of

how someone could carry this out. They’d have to be

staying someplace nearby. I thought of the cabin at the top

of the lake. When we’d seen it through the binoculars, it

had looked deserted… but I wanted to check it out to make

sure.

#

When I got back to the cabin, Dad and Jasper were

sitting at the picnic table playing Risk. “Hey, Paul! Coming

to join us?”

“Uh…” We all loved Risk, Dad included, but it’s such

a long game, and I was impatient to get to the deserted

cabin. “I guess so… are we playing right to the end?”

“Of course,” Jasper said, looking indignant. “But the

thing is, I don’t know how you can join in now, Paul, ‘cause

we’ve already started. You might have to wait till the next

game.”

Dad’s eyes widened. Much as he loved Risk, I could

tell he didn’t want to spend the whole day playing it.

I sat down next to Dad. “Well, how about ditching

this game, seeing as you’re not very far in, and then we

start another one this evening? I’ve thought of something

really cool we can do.”

Jasper looked suspicious. “What?”

“I want to go up to the end of the lake and check out

the deserted cabin.”

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Jasper blinked rapidly. “All the way to the end? Isn’t

it really far?”

“Not with three of us paddling.”

“But Paul,” he whined, “We said games first! We

said. And I don’t want to stop this one. Anyway, we’ve

already gone canoeing. Do we have to go again?”

We both transferred our gaze to Dad, who sat there

looking pulled in two directions.

“You decide,” I told him.

Jasper got so much time with my Dad that it

suddenly seemed unfair my stepbrother was even here. He

had Dad all the rest of the year, and alone, apart from the

weekends when I stayed over. I never got alone-time with

Dad anymore. Every time I saw him, Jasper was with us.

And he was my Dad! How come me and Dad couldn’t have

a month together without Jasper?

“Ah…” Dad said. “Well, it is a great day… maybe

games would be better for the evening. We can play them

in the living room when it’s dark out.”

“But you said!” Jasper protested, looking like he

might burst into tears. “Games in the morning!”

“Jasper, we all have to compromise a bit when there

are three of us,” Dad said.

Jasper jumped up from the picnic table, knocking the

game so that the pieces bounced. He ran for the cabin, and

I exchanged a startled look with Dad, who, with a sigh, got

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up to follow Jasper. I could hear Jasper running up the

stairs. Dad disappeared into the cabin after him.

Irritated, I walked back to the canoe. It looked like

I’d be going on another trip by myself. And even though I’d

wanted to be alone the last few times, this time it nettled

me.

Should I go now, I wondered, or wait and see if

Jasper might change his mind? I picked up the paddle and

drove the end into the dirt, grinding it in small circles.

To my surprise, Dad emerged from the cabin a

minute later. “Jasper doesn’t want to come,” he said, the

pulled-in-two-directions look still on his face. “He’s going to

stay and read while we go.”

“You’re coming with me?” I asked in surprise.

Dad put one arm around my shoulder. “Well, I

explained to him that I don’t get much time with you, so he

has to learn to give on these things sometimes. Plus, it’ll be

nice for us to do something together, just the two of us.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Well…” He flashed me a rueful smile. “Not exactly.”

Through the bedroom window, I thought I could hear

the sound of Jasper’s sobs. I felt vindicated rather than

sorry, though — he could be such a baby! I mean, crying

over a canoe trip?

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

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Dad walked to the shed where the canoe was kept

during the winter, and got his lifejacket.

We pushed the canoe into the water and climbed in,

Dad sitting in the stern. We began to paddle, and it was

amazing how fast the canoe cut through the water with two

people doing the work. The shore passed by at speed, and I

peered closely, looking for places a person might hide. It

was all thick scrub and densely clustered trees, with only

here and there little tiny beaches that had no openings or

paths leading to them from the woods. It was an

impenetrable wall of foliage surrounding the lake. Where

would someone come from?

This made me feel even more hopeful about the

cabin.

We continued to paddle, the sparkles on the lake

almost blinding. Again, I’d forgotten my sunglasses. Dad

chatted to me about all kinds of things: school, home, how

mom was doing.

The lake began to curve, and we followed it around.

As we approached the end, my heart began to beat with

anticipation: what would we find? Or who? Imagining some

grizzled old hunter with a rifle and a bad attitude, I was

glad to have Dad with me.

The cabin could be seen through the scattered trees,

its red door standing out against the surrounding greenery.

It looked like the area around the cabin had once been

completely clear all the way down to the lake, but now salal

and salmonberry bushes were taking over.

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“Here we are,” Dad said, and we gave another

stroke. The bow of the canoe touched the beach, and I

hopped out first, the lake water cold around my feet and

ankles.

The beach was longer and sandier than ours. We

pulled the canoe up and stood looking back at the lake.

Really, this was a beautiful spot. You couldn’t see as much

of the lake because of the curve, but it was neat seeing it

from a different angle. Like we were in a completely

different place, like our own cabin didn’t exist any more.

“Let’s take a look, then,” Dad said, tossing his

lifejacket into the canoe. I did the same, and we headed for

the cabin.

It appeared as deserted up close as it had through

the binoculars. The cabin itself and the front door looked

solid, but the window to the right was boarded up, and the

left one, which was opaque with dirt, had a hole in one

corner like someone had thrown a rock through it.

The three front steps were weathered and cracked,

so I treaded up them carefully while Dad waited on the

grass. The top step gave a loud creak. We’re on the stairs,

we’re on the stairs, I thought again, then shook my head,

trying not to concentrate on ghost stories as I closed my

fingers around the door handle. I pulled, but the door didn’t

budge, not a millimeter.

“It think it’s nailed shut,” I said. If it was locked, it

would have moved a tiny bit.

“Let’s go around back, then. Probably a door there.”

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Just as I stepped back on the ground, a loud bang

like a door slamming came from the back of the cabin. I

glanced at Dad. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” He went to peer through the front

window, and I followed.

All I could see was a dusty room with one straight-

backed chair in it, and nothing else that I could make out

through the grimy glass. I turned to Dad. “Do you think we

should go around back? It sounded like someone’s here.”

I must have looked more scared than I realized,

because he gave me a reassuring grin and said, “Probably

just a raccoon or something.” I remembered, then, the

raccoon from the other night, and tried to relax my

expression.

“Oh, right, yeah.”

Could a raccoon bang a door, though?

We walked to the side of the cabin and began to

make our way around. Dad went ahead, pushing long,

thorny strands of salmonberry bush out the way, holding

them for me so they didn’t snap back into my face. Some

smaller ones scratched against my arm, and we had to

squeeze close to the cabin to get through.

Behind the cabin was more overgrown than the

front. I wasn’t sure whether there had once been a yard or

not, but now only a small clearing surrounded the back

door. There was a window beside the door, and I peered

into a bare-looking cabin. Already, the place made me

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shiver. I felt like we were doing something wrong. “Do you

think it’s okay to go in?”

“I don’t see why not. If it’s deserted, we’re not

disturbing anyone or trespassing.” Dad pulled hard on the

back door, and to our surprise, it opened so easily that he

staggered back. He flashed me a grin ― “Well, that was

easy!” ― and held it open for me.

Taking a deep breath, I climbed the steps and

entered.

The room I was standing in was a small kitchen. It

smelled of dust and mice. There were cupboards, an old,

broken-looking stove, and a warped table with one chair.

No refrigerator, no heater.

“No lock,” Dad said, indicating the side of the door

before letting it swing shut. “It was probably just banging

in the wind.”

Except there was no wind.

I walked over to the cupboards and slowly opened

one, wondering if I’d find food. That would be the surest

sign of someone living here. I peeked in, and then gave a

shout and stepped back.

“What is it?”

“Uck. Dead mouse. No wonder this place smells.”

Dad grinned. “Not afraid of mice, are you Paul?”

“No,” I said, flustered. “It just surprised me, that’s

all.”

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“Well, there are probably more of them. You sure

you want to go on?” He winked.

“Very funny,” I snorted. I closed the cupboard and

stalked into the living room. Apart from the straight-backed

chair I’d seen from outside, there was a lumpy old two-

seater sofa covered with fuzzy grey fabric that looked like it

was beginning to decay. Probably the sofa was an

apartment building for mice.

I swung around to look through the back window

again, feeling like there were eyes watching us from

outside. All I could see was trees, though; I guess I was

just jumpy.

My footsteps were loud against the wooden floor as I

made my way to the front door. It wasn’t nailed shut, as I’d

thought, but locked with a deadbolt. Why deadbolt it if the

back door didn’t even lock? Opposite the front door was a

staircase, and beside it, another door. I pushed the door

open to reveal a study or a bedroom, I couldn’t tell which;

there was nothing in it other than an empty set of

bookshelves.

Dad was behind me, looking around, examining the

walls and ceiling with a bemused expression.

“Upstairs?” I suggested.

“Sure, but be careful on the stairs. This place looks

like it’s falling apart.”

It looked pretty solid to me, but nevertheless, I put

my hand on the wall rather than the banister as I began to

climb the stairs.

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The words ‘we’re on the stairs, we’re on the stairs’

echoed through my mind again. This time I smiled. It was a

pretty good story — the kind you thought of every time you

climbed a staircase.

There was a small landing at the top, with a door to

each side: one shut, one ajar. I headed for the ajar one and

pushed it further, revealing a bedroom with an army-style

cot, a night table, and an old wardrobe. I crossed the room

to open the wardrobe. There was nothing hanging from the

rail, but on the top shelf was a rolled-up piece of paper. I

grabbed it excitedly.

“Hey, look,” I said to Dad, unrolling it. It was a map!

Dad helped me hold it open. “Neat. It’s the lake and

surrounding area.”

I felt like I was ten years old again, playing Spies or

Smugglers. I eagerly scanned the map, looking for clues. It

was drawn with those wavy lines that show height, and

they made the area look confusing.

“Ordinance map,” Dad said. “But no trails or cabins

on it.”

It did show all the islands on the lake, though, which

our realtor’s map didn’t. Even though the map didn’t help

my purposes, I was still excited to find it. We walked over

to the window to look out, holding the map up at the same

time and comparing.

“It’s a good find,” he said. “Too bad there aren’t

hiking trails marked on it. But we can take it with us on our

next hike, and draw them on.”

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We left the bedroom and headed for the other room.

The closed door made me think again of the ghost stories,

of the lady hiding in her bed when she heard voices from

on the landing. We’re at the door, we’re at the door…

My heart gave a tremble of anticipation as I pictured

pushing open the door to reveal a skeleton in the bed. I

opened it slowly — there was a bed, but no skeleton. But

then as I walked into the room, something black swooped

at me.

I gave a yell and dropped the map as the black thing

passed over my head. It moved in a strange, zigzag

motion, and I ran over to the window to get away from it.

“What is it?” I shouted. It was the size of a bird, but

moving so weirdly that all I could see was a strange blur.

“Dad!”

He started laughing. “Paul, it’s just a bat.”

I stopped. “Really?” I’d never seen a real, live bat.

It was going crazy now, swooping around the room,

and I ducked several times, flailing away from it as it tried

to dive-bomb me. Dad couldn’t stop laughing ― I guess I

was behaving like a little kid.

“It must have got trapped in here. It probably just

wants out. Paul, open the window.”

The bat had already flown out the door, however,

and was now swooping crazily around the landing. Finally,

it fluttered down the stairs, and Dad and I ran after it. “Try

to direct it to the back door!” he said. I did, waving the

rolled-up map, but this seemed to make it go even crazier.

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Dad tried to open the living room window, but to no effect.

Finally, the bat made its way into the kitchen, and must

have smelled the outdoors, because it zipped straight out

the door.

“Whew!” Dad said. “Okay, we’d better shut that

upstairs window before we go.”

I ran up the stairs, shivering slightly as I returned

the bedroom. I’d had enough of this cabin, even though

there were only mice and bats inhabiting it.

What about the banging door? I wondered again.

When I came back down the stairs, I looked for paw prints

on the kitchen floor, but could see none.

Dad was no longer there; I guessed he’d already

gone outside. I followed him out, and couldn’t help noticing

that the back door didn’t swing shut by itself. I closed it

and looked around. Dad hadn’t waited for me, so I pushed

my way through the scratchy bushes to emerge at the front

of the cabin. Still no Dad. Where had he gone?

I stood by the canoe waiting for him. Maybe he was

just taking a leak or something. But when he didn’t appear

after a few minutes, I called out, “Dad?”

No answer. I headed to the cabin again. “Dad!” Still

no answer. I didn’t know which direction to even look in,

which made me begin to feel panicky. Where could he have

disappeared to?

“Dad!” I yelled. “Where are you?”

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Genuine fear gripped me. We hadn’t found a single

trace of anyone living in the cabin, but what if someone

was living in the woods, and had just grabbed my Dad? I

pictured a large, gloved hand going over Dad’s mouth as he

was pulled back into the woods…

“Dad!” I shouted, running for the back of the cabin,

squeezing through the bushes, getting scratched all over as

I pressed my way to the back. I stood looking around for a

second, wondering which way to go.

From the trees to my side, a body bolted out, rugby-

tackling me to the ground before I could see what my

attacker looked like. I screamed and flailed around, trying

to loosen the arms and pry them off me. “Get away!” I

yelled. “Dad, help, Dad!”

The body loosened away from me and sat back,

laughing.

“Dad!” I bellowed in a combination of panic, relief,

and indignation. “Don’t scare me like that! What do you

think you were doing? I was worried about you!”

My voice had risen considerably, and Dad stopped

laughing. “I’m sorry Paul, I thought it would be funny. We

used to do that all the time when you were a kid.”

“Well it isn’t funny any more!” I yelled, a build-up of

pressure behind my eyes as if I might burst into tears.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Really.”

I sat there gasping, trying to act normal. For a

second, I was tempted to tell him all about The Girl. That

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I’d seen her, that she was coming and going, that she’d

been on the island at night…

“Paul, is everything okay?” he asked as I sat there

panting.

“Uh,” I said, still trying to decide. “It’s this… girl. I’m

kinda… jumpy…. ‘cause…”

“A girl?” he asked. “Oh, Mandy, right?” He grinned.

“The girl in the grocery store. She’s got you all het up?

Gee, Paul, I didn’t think girls made you so nervous.” He

grinned and reached out to ruffle my hair.

“No… no, I mean… I saw this girl.”

“You saw her again?” He raised his eyebrows. “What,

is that why you’ve been sneaking off on canoe trips? You

had a date?” Dad grinned again. “A tryst in the woods?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean…” I was

about to say, ‘ I saw this girl on the island,’ but suddenly it

sounded stupid. Dad was still grinning and ready to make

jokes, so I got the feeling he wouldn’t take me seriously.

“It’s nothing,” I told him.

But I’d set him off on a theme, because as we

canoed back down the lake, I had to listen to endless

joshing about me, girls, Mandy, dating…

“Dad, enough, okay?” I snapped at one point.

“Okay!” he answered in bemusement.

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“Let’s go over to the left more,” I said, “I want to get

a better look at the shore.”

“Port, not left,” he corrected. “What are you looking

for, more girls?”

“Dad!” I snapped.

“Okay, okay.”

Without looking back, I could tell he was grinning.

Dad was always good for a laugh but I’d forgotten how

irritating it could get when he kept doing it even when he

knew I’d had enough. I could feel myself getting grumpier.

We steered the canoe toward the shore and I peered

closely, but this side seemed even more overgrown than

the other. As we passed between the shore and the island,

I whipped my head back and forth, looking at both. There

were no traces of anyone, and I couldn’t see where anyone

might stash a canoe or kayak.

“Do you mind if we keep going?” I asked. “All the

way down to the other end of the lake?”

“Well, I would love to, but I think we’d better get

back to Jasper. He’s all alone. Plus, it’s lunchtime. Maybe

we could do the other end of the lake… tomorrow

morning?”

He’d been about to say ‘this afternoon,’ I could tell,

but had figured Jasper would throw a hissy-fit if we went

off without him a second time.

“Okay,” I said begrudgingly. Maybe I could continue

to search the shore by myself after lunch. My stomach gave

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a rumble ― going back to the cabin suddenly didn’t seem

such a bad idea.

The day had grown hotter, and I was sweaty and

itchy under my lifejacket. Or maybe I was just irritated with

not finding anything at the cabin, or from Dad’s stupid joke.

Not to mention the whole thing with The Girl.

We reached the cabin, pulled up the canoe, and

called out for Jasper.

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Chapter 9

There was no answer, so I went into the cabin and

headed upstairs. Jasper was probably sulking on his bed.

To my surprise, however, he wasn’t in the bedroom.

“Hey Dad,” I called out.

“Yeah,” came the muffled reply from the other

bedroom. I poked my head around the door. Dad was

changing his sweaty T-shirt.

“Jasper’s not here.”

“Must be outside, then.”

I ran back down stairs. “Hey, Jasper!” I called from

the porch. Then I hopped down the steps. “Jasper?”

Dad came down the stairs.

“He’s not here,” I walked to the picnic table and

stood there, looking around.

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“Well, he’s probably gone for a walk.”

We glanced at each other. Jasper? A walk?

I ran to the bottom of the hiking trail, cupped my

hands around my mouth, and yelled, “Jasper!” If this was

an exact duplicate of Dad’s prank on me, it wasn’t

impressing me.

Rather than going for a walk, Jasper was probably

sitting a few feet away, sulking behind a bush. It just

wouldn’t be like him to voluntarily do something that

involved exercise… especially at lunchtime.

“He wouldn’t have gone swimming, would he?” I

asked when Jasper still didn’t appear. Dad’s frown turned to

one of genuine worry. Jasper and I had been instructed

when we arrived at the cabin that we were never, ever to

go swimming by ourselves.

But then he shook his head, his expression relaxing.

“This is Jasper we’re talking about.”

I wanted to smile, but neither of us knew what to do

apart from stand there looking around.

“Do you want to wander around and look for him

while I start lunch? I’m sure he won’t have gone far. Hey,

maybe if he went to visit the neighbor kids?”

I frowned again. This seemed unlikely ― he hadn’t

liked them any more than they’d liked him. Unless he’d

been that lonely, or bored, or sulking…

Then, just as I took a few steps towards the trail to

the neighbors’, Jasper emerged from it.

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“Oh!” he said, looking surprised and guilty. “You’re

back!”

“We said we’d be back for lunch,” Dad replied,

smiling. “Glad to see you, we were starting to get worried.”

Jasper looked even guiltier. “I just went for a walk,”

he said quickly.

“Where?” I asked.

His eyes darted around. “Um… nowhere. I went

down the trail a bit then turned back.”

“Did you run into the neighbor kids?”

“No!” His eyes grew huge, but they still held the

guilty expression.

“Well, I’m going to get the barbecue fired up,” Dad

said. “How do hamburgers sound?”

“Awesome!” Jasper said, his expression transformed

to one of happiness.

Dad wandered off, clearly not bothered by Jasper’s

strange behavior. But Jasper was the world’s worst liar, and

I could tell he’d been lying about something.

I followed him to the picnic table. “So what did you

do all morning?” I persisted.

“Um, nothing. I mean, went for a walk.”

“How come? You don’t like walks.”

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“Yeah, I do!” He looked up, wide-eyed, and said,

“I’m going to read comics till lunch,” before fleeing to the

cabin.

Weird. Oh well, I had more important things to deal

with than Jasper’s strange moods.

Sitting down at the picnic table, I put my chin in my

hands and thought again about the neighbor kids. Coralie’s

surliness, the boys’ crazy, giggling energy, the sudden

silence and seriousness as Coralie told us the local ghost

story…

Wait a minute, I thought. How would they know a

local ghost story? They weren’t from here.

I drummed my fingers on the table. This was

important! If it was a story from the area, and this was

their first time here… then who had told it to them? It

would have had to be someone from town, and as far as I

was aware, they didn’t know anyone there. They’d only

been here a few days longer than us.

Stories had a way of getting around among kids,

though… maybe on one of their trips into town, they had

talked to some local kids.

But the idea nagged me, and I wanted an answer.

Also, how true was the story? Maybe I should go into town

and find out. Where could I go? …Mandy, I thought, and

hoped she was working today. Growing up here, she’d

know any local tales. So, my option for the afternoon was

to go into town and ask about the story, or canoe down to

the other end of the lake, looking for where The Girl might

have come from.

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Soon the smell of hamburgers wafted my way, and I

stopped thinking about all that stuff so I could enjoy lunch.

While Dad had been barbecuing the burgers, Jasper had

chopped up vegetables and grabbed a bag of potato chips,

and was now wobbling towards the table with plates and

napkins in his hands. I jumped up to help.

I went and got lemonade and cups, and we all sat

down to eat, silent as we bit into the thick burgers,

barbecue sauce oozing out and smudging our faces.

We were so focused on our food that we didn’t even

notice the weather clouding over, and it was only when a

raindrop bounced off the table that we all stopped and

looked up.

“Wow!” Dad said. “Wasn’t expecting rain today!”

The sky had turned a gloomy grey, but only random

drops were falling. One bounced off the dirt near me, and

some could be heard hitting the trees, but we were dry.

Nevertheless, we darted more glances up at the sky as we

finished our food, and, just as we were gathering up the

plates and cups, the rain started pelting down. By the time

we made our way to the cabin, it was pouring, and we

dashed inside. After dumping the dishes in the kitchen, we

all went upstairs to change. The air was suddenly cold, and

we were in our shorts.

I gazed out the bedroom window at the lake. It was

socked in with grey clouds, and the island was a greenish-

grey blur. Well, there’s no girl out there, I told myself,

transferring my gaze to the rain that hammered down.

Drops ricocheted off the dirt around the picnic table below.

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By the time we came downstairs in our jeans, it had

stopped.

Dad peered out the window. “Hm. Can’t tell if it’s

stopped for good, or if it’s going to start up again.” He

turned to Jasper. “Well, guess it’s games time!”

Jasper beamed.

Drat… now there was no option of going canoeing or

going into town. Much as I wanted to get both done, I

didn’t like the idea of canoeing or walking when the air was

clammy and it was likely to rain again. But even if the

weather suddenly cleared, no way would Jasper let me

abandon the next game of Risk, which meant I was stuck.

He appeared with the box and set it on the floor. I

sighed, resigning myself to the fact that my investigations

would have to wait.



I did love Risk, however, and we got so engrossed in

the game that we didn’t notice how much it had cleared

until a sunbeam cast a rectangle right across the living

room carpet.

I turned to look out the window. Most of the sky was

still grey, but there was one patch of sun peeking through.

As I got up to see more, Jasper said desperately, “Paul, you

can’t leave the game, you already ruined this morning’s

game!”

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“It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.” I scanned the

sky. On the horizon, it was still dark grey. “Just wanted to

see how much it’s cleared up.”

The game finally ended, and I jumped up to peer out

the window again. The sky was now an even grey, which

made it hard to tell what time of day it was. It hadn’t

rained since that first short burst… did I still have time to

do anything? I leaned back to glance at the clock in the

kitchen. Almost five o’clock! Which meant Dad would be

starting dinner soon, and couldn’t give me a ride into

town… he probably wouldn’t want me to go canoeing,

either. There was nothing I could do that would take less

than an hour. I stood there fuming. I had to find out where

those kids heard the story! It was bugging me.

Wait, I suddenly thought. Why not go ask them?

Duh, Paul, I told myself, and as Jasper put the game

away, I darted into the kitchen where Dad was making

coffee. “Do you mind if I go to the neighbors? Just quickly?”

He glanced at the clock. “Well, I guess so, but I’ll be

starting dinner soon.”

“I’m hungry!” Jasper called from the living room.

“What’re we having?”

“How about one of the frozen chicken casseroles

your mom sent along with us?”

“Oh, yeah!” Jasper said. “Can we have fries, too?”

“We’re not having fries with casserole. They don’t go

together.”

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“Aw, but Dad, we’re on vacation!”

“Dad!” I interrupted. “Can I go, or not?”

He peered out the window. “Well, I suppose, but

you’d better take the flashlight. With the weather being like

this, it’s hard to tell how dark it’ll be, especially in the

woods… be back by six, okay?”

“Okay!” I said, and ran to get my jacket.



The sky was a strange color. Another patch of

sunlight was trying to force its way through the clouds, but

not succeeding, so the tiny bit of light was filtered to a

strange, grayish-white hue. And even those weak rays of

sun were setting, dousing the woods, as I entered them,

with an eerie combination of the strange grey light and

darkness. Everything around me glistened with water, but

several feet away from the path, the woods had a fuzzy,

melting look. I shivered.

Although the rain had stopped hours ago, the

occasional drop of water fell onto my neck from tree

branches, and the ground was soggy under my feet. I

looked down at the path as I jogged along -- my runners

were going to be a mess by the time I got back.

Likely it was the usual sounds of the woods, but

every now and then I heard the snap of a twig or a rustle

through the undergrowth. Every time you’ve been freaked

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out s o far, it’s been mice, raccoons, or bats, I reminded

myself.

And a freaky girl on the island, the cynical part of my

brain added.

I groaned out loud and set off at a jog at that point

— these internal arguments were beginning to drive me

crazy. Like I was schizophrenic or something. At this rate,

I’d start hearing the voices in my head chanting like seven

small children.

We’re in the woods, we’re in the woods…

Stop it! I told myself. I was doing it again.

Thankfully, I reached the neighbors’ cabin before I

could drive myself fully crazy. It seemed much lighter now

that I was out the woods; still, I couldn’t take too long

before heading back or I’d be going through completely

dark woods. I ran up the neighbor’s stairs, opened the

screen door, and banged on the wooden door.

First I heard a scrabbling sound, like chairs were

being pushed out the way and people were running out the

room. No one answered. I’d seen lights from the other

windows, though, so I knocked again, this time harder.

“Hello?” I called out when no one answered. “It’s

me, Paul! Your neighbor.” I banged again.

“What do you want?” a voice asked. It sounded like

Coralie.

“To ask you something.”

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“Go away!”

I sighed. “Coralie, is that you? It’s just one question.

Can I come in?”

“No! Go away! We don’t want to see anyone!”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

I could hear scuffling and banging again, as if two

dogs were tearing around the kitchen, knocking over

chairs. Likely it was the twins.

“Go to the window!” she instructed.

I looked around. “Which one?”

“The veranda, stupid!”

I walked around the corner. There was a big window

there, and I looked into a darkened living room. It was

furnished with old, lumpy furniture and a patterned rug.

From the light of the doorway to the kitchen, Coralie

emerged. She ran straight to the window and stopped

abruptly, her nose two inches from the glass. As usual, she

was glaring at me.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

From behind her, the twins ran out of the kitchen,

yelling, flailing, and tearing around the room like they were

having some kind of mid-air seizures. “We seen her, we

seen her, we seen her!” they shrieked.

“Seen who?”

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“The ghost girl, the ghost girl!” They continued to

run around like they were being given jolts of electricity.

My skin went prickly, and I stared at Coralie. “What

are they talking about.”

“The ghost girl. In the story. Don’t you remember,

stupid? She’s real. We saw her in the woods!”

“No you didn’t.”

Coralie grabbed the curtains and whisked them shut

in front of my face. “Go away!” she yelled again.

I took a quick look behind me. They had to be

playing a joke… but the twins were clearly terrified.

“Coralie!” I said, knocking on the window. “Tell me

what happened!”

She opened the curtains a few inches, and behind

her, a light blinked on. The room was now flooded with

light, which seemed a relief, but at the same time it made

the yard and woods behind me seem darker.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

“Noooooo!” the twins wailed. “Don’t let him in,

Coralie, don’t open the door! Not till Pa’s home!”

She glared at me again. “No way. That door stays

locked. You’d better go home before you see her. She’ll be

walking back to the lake.”

I tried to keep myself calm, but inside, I was starting

to feel jolts of electricity too.

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“What did you see?” I asked.

“A girl. She was about seven years old and had dark

hair and dark eyes and she was creepy, and she was

standing—” Coralie pointed straight behind me “— right

there.”

I turned around. Beyond the cabin was the yard, and

then a thick section of trees, and way through them, the

misty grayness of the lake. Daylight was fading fast now.

“In the woods?” I asked.

“Right at the edge!” Coralie said, her voice high and

nervous, making her sound more like the twins. Her glare

was gone, and she looked as taut as a piece of wire.

“Where did she come from?”

“I don’t know! We were on the veranda and suddenly

she was just there! So we ran inside. And then we heard…”

Coralie started bouncing up and down “… a scratching at the

door! ”

Both twins shrieked at this, and began zooming

around the room like a couple of deranged ferrets. Then

they whipped straight out the living room, through the

kitchen, and disappeared off to wherever.

I hated to admit it, but I was feeling really scared

now. “What did you do?”

“We ran upstairs and hid, stupid!” Coralie’s voice

was angry, but scared.

“Well, didn’t you see to look where she’d gone?”

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“I know where she went. She walked back into the

lake!”

“Oh, stop it,” I snapped. “It’s probably just some kid

from town playing a trick.”

“Then how did she get here?”

“She… walked.”

“In the rain? All that way? Then how’d she get to the

front of the cabin without us seeing her? We were playing

on the veranda!”

I swallowed.

“And she looked like a ghost!” Coralie insisted. “I’m

going upstairs now, so you’d better go home! ”

I glanced around nervously. Ghost girl or not, Coralie

was right: I had to get going. The last of the grayish light

was blurring away to a charcoal color, and if it was dark out

here, it was going to be even darker in the woods. Plus, I

wasn’t going to get my answers from the kids today, and I

was having a hard time not believing their story. Their fear

was palpable.

Then, as I headed for the steps, I looked down at my

hand and stopped dead. Dammit, I realized, the flashlight!

I’d forgotten it.

I glanced nervously at the woods. They looked

ominously dark. Would I even be able to find my way back?

The only flashlight at the cabin was the weak one,

but still, it would have been better than… of course! I

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remembered. The kids had our big flashlight! A wave of

relief hit me. “Coralie!” I shouted, turning to bang on the

door again. “I need my flashlight back!”

“I’m not opening the door!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! It’s our flashlight, Coralie, and

you were supposed to return it. I need it, so give it back!”

The only answer returned was the sound of feet

running up stairs.

“Coralie!” I banged on the door again, but this time

there was nothing but silence. She’d run and hidden,

without giving me my flashlight! I could have strangled that

girl. Except I was genuinely spooked now, and my biggest

wish was to run away, and fast.

Then footsteps clattered down the stairs, and the

door snapped open just far enough for a hand to thrust the

flashlight out. The hand disappeared, the door slammed

shut, and I caught the flashlight before it tumbled from my

grasp.

Coralie had one small grain of mercy in her, then.

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Chapter 10

I hurried along the path, shining the flashlight beam

on the ground ahead of me. I was tempted to swing it from

side to side so that I could see into the trees, but I didn’t

want to risk tripping, because it would slow me down ― all

I wanted was to get back to the cabin as fast as possible.

As I ran, I had the prickly feeling that someone was

watching me from the murky darkness of the woods. I

heard a scuffling noise to my left, but didn’t slow down. It’s

just a raccoon, I told myself. But then I heard it again, the

exact same distance away… again. Raccoons don’t follow

humans, they run away from them.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more. I stopped and

swung the beam in the direction of the scuffling, and

quickly around the area when I saw nothing. I stopped and

waited a couple heartbeats. There was nothing but silence.

The beam seemed to fade a bit, so I gave the

flashlight a shake, and the brightness returned. But then,

as I continued on, it faded again. The battery was dying,

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and I was only halfway there! Drat it, Coralie and the twins

must have been playing with the flashlight, for the battery

to be so low. Again, I wanted to pummel her. I quickened

my steps, watching the beam grow weaker and weaker.

And then finally, in the middle of the woods, it gave out

completely.

I stopped. A scuffling sound came from my left

again. “Who’s there?” I called out. The scuffling stopped.

“Hello?”

All I could hear was my pulse pounding in my ears.

Then, a distinct ‘snap’ sounded. I gave the flashlight three

hard shakes until it emitted a faltering beam, which I

swung towards the woods. There, just behind a couple

bushes… was that a human form? The beam died before I

could make out for sure. I turned and ran away, not caring

whether I stumbled or not.

I could see the lights of the cabin through the trees,

so I kept going, my feet pounding into the moist trail. I

burst out into the clearing, ran for the porch steps, and was

up them and inside the cabin, slamming the door, locking

the lock, standing with my back against the door so fast it

was all a blur. I stood there for a minute, trying to catch

my breath.

“That you, Paul?” Dad called out.

“Yeah,” I croaked back.

“I was starting to get worried. It’s dark out.”

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This time my voice came out in a hoarse whisper: “I

know.”

I continued to stand there, panting, closing my eyes

for a second while I told myself, she can’t be a ghost.

But I could picture her at the edge of the woods,

staring at the neighbor’s cabin, so clearly that it was like I’d

seen her myself.

#

That night I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling,

unable to sleep. It was raining on and off, which meant that

I either heard the rattle of rain against the windowpane, or

the more creepy-sounding drip-drip of water off the roof.

Jasper was silent. Maybe he really had begun to

sleep without snorting and snuffling the whole time... But

then he gave a big snort, shuffled around, and got out of

bed. He clicked the hall light on as he went out the room,

and a chunk of light fell through the partially open door. I

heard him stumble down the stairs, likely to the bathroom.

When he returned, he closed the door, got back into

bed, shuffled around in the bed with a few more snorts and

grunts. Then he was silent again.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

I’m not sure whether I dozed or not, but at one point

a sound from downstairs made my eyes spring open. What

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was that? My heart began hammering as I lay there,

listening intently. The click had sounded exactly like the

front door opening.

I shifted onto my side so that I faced the bedroom

door, where a crack of light showed at the bottom. Jasper

had left the hall light on.

There were no more sounds, which meant I must

have imagined it. I turned back over, facing the window,

and huddled under my blanket. Then a distinct ‘click’ came,

just like the door closing.

Was there someone in the cabin? My heart began to

speed up again.

My next thought was, ‘We’re at the bottom of the

stairs!’

Don’t be stupid, I told myself. But then I thought of

The Girl standing at the edge of the woods, staring at the

neighbor house. Why was she staring? What did she want?

I strained to hear any more sounds, and thought I

heard the creak of one of the stairs. No! I told myself. It

can’t be! Someone really is in the cabin! My heart began

pounding.

We’re on the stairs, we’re on the stairs…

Another creak ― I definitely wasn’t imagining it!

There was someone walking up the stairs.

We’re on the landing…

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I wanted to get up out of bed and look, but I was

paralyzed with fear. I lay there, eyes wide but seeing

nothing other than darkness as I strained for more sounds.

Did I hear the sound of feet treading down the hallway? I

wanted to shout out, to wake Jasper up, but even my

throat was paralyzed. I squeezed my eyes shut, telling

myself I was imagining it all.

And then I heard a creak just outside the door.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, terrified of what I’d see.

At the bottom of the door there was still a crack of light…

but this time it was interrupted by two dark patches. Feet.

My throat was so frozen, I couldn’t have shouted if

I’d wanted to. Nauseous with fear, I slowly pushed myself

out of bed. I was moving in slow motion, like I was in a

dream. Part of me was still in bed, part of me was

screaming for Dad, part of me was walking towards the

door. Was this a dream? No, it was too real, I was aware of

too much: I could feel the floorboards under my feet as I

slowly crossed the room. I reached out and gripped the

doorknob, which was cold in my palm. I turned it and

opened the door.

Standing there, dark eyes, dark hair, dark dress,

dripping wet, was The Girl. She glared up at me, grey

shadows under her eyes, and hissed, “You said you

wouldn’t tell! ”

This time I yelled.

I stood there yelling for all I was worth, calling for

Dad, still shouting as the girl turned and ran down the

hallway, down the stairs, and disappeared.

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Dad burst out of his bedroom. “What’s going on,

what is it?”

“The girl! Did you see her? She was standing right

here! You saw her, right?”

He looked around wildly, his hair messy and eyes

bleary. “What are you talking about?”

“Dad, it was her! The Girl! She was in the cabin,

right here? Didn’t you see her? She just ran down the

stairs!”

Jasper appeared behind me. “What’s going on?” He

sounded petrified, but it was nothing compared to how I

felt. I was practically screaming. “She was here!” I

repeated. “Dad, she was in the cabin! She was right here!”

It took him several minutes to calm me down, and

then to calm Jasper down, who was freaking out because I

was freaking out. Dad flicked on the bedroom light, made

me sit on my bed, and then sat down beside me while I

took in big lungfuls of air.

“Okay, slowly. Tell me what’s going on.”

I jumped up again. “But we have to see if she’s still

there!” I ran to the doorway.

“Paul, no. Not until you tell me what’s going on.” He

got up to drag me back to the bed, but I was already on my

hands and knees, feeling the carpet. It was wet.

Ghosts didn’t drip real water, did they?

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

After practically dragging us down stairs and then

forcing us stay put at the table (Jasper didn’t want to sit

where someone from outside might see him, whereas I

kept jumping up to the window with the big flashlight and

shining it into the woods), Dad made hot chocolates and

placed them in front of us.

“Okay, from the beginning,” Dad said.

I had stopped shaking, but felt like I might start

again at any second. Jasper sat in wide-eyed silence.

“It was — at the island,” I began. “I saw this girl on

the island when we were canoeing away.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Jasper asked. “I didn’t see anyone!”

Dad frowned at him and shook his head: Don’t

interrupt.

I haltingly explained the whole story. During my

recital, Dad’s expression changed from shocked to frowning

again, but he waited until I’d finished before speaking.

Then his first question was, “Paul, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know… I’m not sure! It was like I’d promised

her something. So I had to find out more. And then I did

almost tell you, but by that time, I figured it must all be a

stupid joke. And then just when I thought it was a joke…” I

trailed off.

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“Well,” he said. “We have a few options. If it’s a

joke, we can either try to find out who’s playing it, or

simply ignore it. She may be some kid from town, just

having fun at an outsider’s expense. And I don’t think this

girl is doing any harm...” He hesitated. “Paul, are you really

sure you saw her here? Are you sure you didn’t imagine it

because it’s been on your mind so much?”

“Dad, the carpet was wet! I showed you! And the

door was unlocked when we came downstairs. And I know I

locked it tonight.”

“Well, okay,” he said. “Second option, then: she

really is staying on the island, in which case she needs

help, and her family needs to know where she is. So we try

to find her and talk to her. Third option,” he said, then

hesitated again, this time looking uncomfortable. “Well, no,

more of option two, really. We should go tell the police.

Even if she is just playing a joke, she’s playing one that

could get her killed, going back and forth to the island by

herself like that.”

But the hesitation and the guilty look told me what

he had really wanted to say: Option three: you’re going

crazy and you imagined the whole thing.

“Dad, I don’t want to go to the police, at least not

yet. I mean, what can we tell them?” That they’d believe,

of course. I was pretty sure they’d also think I was going

crazy, or that we were wasting their time over a stupid

joke.

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“We’ll go to the island, then, and look around,” he

said. “First thing tomorrow morning.” So that I can figure

out whether you’re going crazy or not.

Jasper gulped. “Do I have to come?”

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Chapter 11

The next morning was overcast. Dad and I canoed

quickly to the island, and Jasper waited back at the cabin,

protected by his stack of comics. I paddled with

determination, praying The Girl was there, looking forward

to finally making her confess to what was going on. She

might have lied easily to me, but I doubted she could lie to

Dad. Things were always different with an adult around.

As soon as we arrived at the island, I led Dad to the

clearing. It took him longer to follow as he was bigger, and

had a harder time squeezing through the bushes.

The clearing was empty. “She was here,” I said,

indicating the small area.

Dad glanced around. “Well. Shall we check the rest

of the island, then?”

We pushed our way through more branches.

Although the island was small, checking the whole thing

was difficult because of the scrub being so thick. I glanced

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back now and then to see Dad frowning contemplatively. I

could tell what he was thinking: there was no girl. With

growing panic, I peered through every gap in the foliage,

searching for signs of her.

We pushed our way to the top of the cliff and stood

there, looking around. I peered over the edge at the water

below, grayish and still on such a cloudy day, and

remembered when I’d almost run right over the edge. Had

the girl led me there deliberately? No ― surely she wouldn’t

have been able to do that.

Dad sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I

don’t know, Paul, I don’t see any trace. I wish I were a

better tracker. Maybe then we could tell where she’s been

coming and going.”

If she really exists. If you didn’t imagine the whole

thing, was the implication.

I looked around desperately. There had to be some

trace of her! Broken branches, footprints… but of course,

even if we found those, they could be mine.

We made our way back down to the beach, passing

through the clearing again. As we crossed the small patch

of grass, my eyes raked over the ground. And then I

spotted it. There, partially hidden under a plant was the

tiniest clue that the girl had been here ― the corner of a

granola bar wrapper.

I seized it and thrust it towards Dad. “There! See?

It’s a granola bar wrapper!”

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He took it from me. “That could have been left here

anytime, though, couldn’t it? I’m not sure the police will

take this as proof.” Or that I will, he probably meant.

“But it’s not just any granola bar wrapper,” I

explained. “It’s the kind I brought her. Remember? I

brought her food twice? Well, this was one of the things she

ate!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am!”

“Well, okay.” He looked around, examined the tiny

piece of wrapper again, and looked back at me. “Let’s go to

the police, then.”



We set off for town as soon as we got back. Jasper

chose to remain at the cabin. I didn’t think he’d want to be

on his own with the possibility of a ghost girl stepping out

of the woods, but he seemed to feel safe enough barricaded

in the bedroom with his stack of comic books and a bag of

potato chips.

When we got to the police station, I was aware of a

slight feeling of apprehension as I climbed out of the car. I

was glad Dad was there with me, lending some authority to

the story; even so, I wasn’t sure the police would believe

me.

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This time it was a male police officer who sat behind

the desk. I was surprised that such a small town would

have more than one police officer. He greeted us with a

friendly nod as we walked in.

Dad strode up to the desk. “We have kind of a

strange thing to tell you about,” he began. “My son here—”

He indicated me. “―has seen a young girl from time to

time, on one of the islands on the lake. We don’t know how

she’s getting there, as there’s no sign of a canoe. But then

last night…” He paused. “…she came into our cabin.”

The police officer raised his eyebrows. “Go on.”

“So we thought we’d better tell you about it in case

there’s a child reported missing. Of course, it could be

someone from town playing a joke,” Dad added.

“One of the cabins up the lake, you mean? And she

came into it? Where did she say, where did she come

from?”

“Well,” Dad replied, and I tensed, knowing what was

coming next. “I didn’t actually see her. It was Paul who

did.”

The officer turned to look at me, and I tried my best

to look like a responsible young man rather than some

hallucinating loon. “She came up the stairs when we were

in bed,” I explained. “But then she ran back downstairs and

outside before we could do anything.”

The officer frowned. “What time of night was it?”

“Late. It was dark out, we’d already gone to bed.”

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His frown deepened. “Well, she must have gone

somewhere… did you hear a car?”

“No.”

“Maybe she’s staying at the next cabin, then?”

“No. We’ve already met the neighbors, and there’s

one girl, but she’s older. It definitely wasn’t her.”

“Well,” he said again, like he wasn’t sure what to do.

I got the impression that if I’d been on my own, he would

have brushed off the whole thing. But Dad was there, so he

had to treat it with some seriousness. “And before this, you

saw her on one of the islands?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which one?”

“The one right across from our cabin. It takes a

couple minutes to get there by canoe. You could swim it if

you’re a really strong swimmer… but I doubt a kid could.

Even if she has a boat, we can’t figure out where she’s

coming from.”

He nodded. “Well, there are a lot of boats down this

end of the lake. That’s the only other place boats are

moored, so she must be coming from here.”

“We figured it must be someone from town,” Dad

said. “Likely she’s not going back and forth alone.”

The officer shrugged, although he was still frowning.

“Could just be a few kids playing a joke. They’re not

actually doing any harm, are they?”

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“No, we were just concerned in case the girl really is

on her own. Away from home, that is. Maybe you could

check for any missing persons reports, just in case?”

“She did say she’d run away,” I added.

The officer peered at me suspiciously. “I thought you

didn’t talk to her.”

“I did. On the island.”

His eyes narrowed more. “When was that?”

“I—” My mind suddenly went blank. “I can’t

remember which day. Three days ago, I think.”

“Three days ago? And you’re reporting it now?”

“No! I was here before, asking about missing kids.

But the police officer — the other one — she said there

weren’t any.”

Dad turned to me. “Paul, I didn’t know you’d been

here before.”

I flushed. I could feel myself getting panicky; my

story sounded like it was changing. “I guess I forgot to tell

you that part.”

“And you told the other officer about this young

girl?” the officer asked.

“Yes. No, I mean…” I felt my face growing hotter.

This was coming out all wrong. “When she said there were

no missing kids, I didn’t bother to tell her about the girl.

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There didn’t seem to be any… point,” I finished weakly.

Because I was so freaked out that she might be a ghost.

The officer nodded. “Well, I can run a wider check,

but I suspect it is just a joke.” Although the look he gave

me said, either that, or you’re making this up.

I glanced nervously at Dad. I could see he was

feeling less convinced by my story, too.

Picking up a pen, the officer asked for our phone

number in case he found out anything.

“I can give you my cell phone number, but it only

gets reception randomly up at the cabin. If I go upstairs

and lean out the window,” Dad said with a rueful smile.

The officer jotted down the number. “Well, I doubt

we’ll turn anything up. We’d have received any missing

persons reports from the next towns. But I’ll leave a

message if I have any news for you.”

“Thanks,” Dad said.

I felt myself slump. Not only had we failed to find

out anything, it seemed no one would take me seriously.

Just a joke… kids from town. We headed for the glass

doors.

But wait… there was one thing I still didn’t know:

how had the neighbor kids had learned about the ghost

story?

As Dad pushed open the heavy door and headed

outside, I turned and darted back to the cop. “I just wanted

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to ask you,” I blurted out, “do you know any ghost stories

about a girl? In these woods?”

The look he gave me confirmed that he thought I

was a deranged loon. “No, but we don’t pay much attention

to ghost stories, son. Maybe ask the librarian.”

I ran out feeling stupid yet elated. The librarian! Why

hadn’t I thought of that?

Dad was turning to see where I was.

“Hey, can we go to the library?” I asked as I ran up.

“Sure. I guess we’ll need something to read if the

weather stays like this for awhile.”

I glanced up at the sky. The day was still overcast,

but growing darker, like it might rain again.

“Do you mind if I drop you there while I go check

one other thing, though?” Dad asked. “Seeing as we’re in

town, I might as well check my email and see if I can finish

off this legal stuff. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” I said, momentarily wavering over the idea of

going to check my email, too. But this was more important,

and I’d have to hurry if I wanted to finish up before Dad;

I’d just had another idea that might give me some clues.

“Take your time. Meet you back at the car?”

“Unless it starts to rain, then I’ll come pick you up at

the library. Can you pick me up a spy novel or something?”

“Okay!” I ran off.

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“Uh, Paul?”

I turned and jogged backwards. “Yeah?”

“It’s the other way.”



I ran up the stairs and pulled open the heavy glass

door to the library. The place was tiny, only the size of one

of the rooms in the library back home. A heavily built

woman sat behind the desk, glaring down at some papers

in front of her. She wasn’t the librarian, was she? Her

bulging arm muscles and wide shoulders made her look like

she should be the town cop, if not an army major. I slowed

my steps, debating doing some online research instead.

The only problem was, I didn’t see any public computer

terminal in the library. Life in a small town…

Still glaring, she looked up. “Can I help you?”

“Um. Yeah. Just wondering if you know of any local

ghost stories.”

“Oh, you’re looking for ghost story books?” Her

expression grew much friendlier. “Yes, we have some. I’ll

show you where they are.”

“Um, actually, no…” But she was already striding

towards the stacks. I followed.

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Before I could speak again, she was pointing out

books on the shelf. “This one’s a collection of short ghost

stories. Maybe for a younger audience, but they’re still fun.

This one is civil-war-era ones… a bit heavier going, but

good and scary. And this volume is ghost stories from

around the world…” From her delight at having someone to

give books to, I got the impression that no one in this town

ever read.

“Actually, what I’m really after is local ghost stories.

Do you have any of those?” She gave me a blank look.

“Um, they don’t even have to be in a book. Even a

magazine or whatever.”

Clearly this idea didn’t make her happy. Her frown

returned. “I don’t think there have been any books

published on local stories. I’d have heard about them.”

“Oh, well… I was just wondering if maybe you…

knew any. That you’d heard, I mean.”

She considered this. “No. No, definitely not.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say and so, not

wanting to risk her wrath over not leaving the library with a

book, I randomly grabbed one of the ones she’d pointed to.

As we walked back to the desk, I asked, “You’re sure

there aren’t any? Ones that kids tell, maybe?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d know. I do the story-time here at

Halloween.”

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I mulled this over as I left the library. If there was

no ghost story, did that mean the neighbor kids had made

it up?

It’s from around here... that makes it scarier.

The trouble was, I doubted Corey had the creativity

to make up a story like that. The twins definitely didn’t.

And when I considered it more, why would the librarian

necessarily know? She was all about telling stories out of a

book, not listening to new ones. When I was a kid, we

didn’t share our ghost stories with the adults.



I glanced at my watch as I jogged to the realtor’s.

Hopefully Dad was still busy. The realtor looked up as soon

as I entered her small office. “Hi there,” I gasped, already

out of breath.

“Well, hello. Paul, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“How’s the cabin? No problems, I hope?”

“No,” I said, still panting. “I just wanted to ask you,

was it you who rented the other cabin, too?”

“Yes. In fact, I thought you would have met your

neighbors by now. I’m surprised you haven’t.”

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“No, I have, I mean… I wanted to find out a bit more

about them.” I was finally breathing normally. “I was

wondering if you could help with that.”

She frowned, but not in a mean way, just like she

was thinking. “Well,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t. Client

confidentiality and all. There are privacy rules I have to

follow.”

“Oh!” I said. Drat, I hadn’t thought of that.

“Why?” she asked. “You’re not having any problems

with them, are you? Because if you are, I can certainly try

to help. That’s what I’m here for.” She opened a drawer

and pulled out a file.

I hesitated, considering making something up so

that I could get some of the information that was in that

file. “Are you allowed to tell me how many kids there are?”

“I don’t see why not… after all, you’ll be running into

each other. There are three.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Should I tell her about the girl? Would that make her

investigate the neighbors?

“So is there a problem?” she asked, opening the file.

“Um…” I hesitated, then gave up. “No.”

As I turned to leave, she said, “If you want to know

where they’re from, you could always look at their license

plate. I can’t stop you doing that.”

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The Girl Across the Water

I turned back in surprise. I was way stupider than I’d

realized! I hadn’t even thought of that.

She gave me a smile and said, “Look, if it’s

something publicly displayed like a license plate, then I

suppose there’s no reason for me not to tell you that.

They’re from Alabama.” She smiled again. “But that’s all I

can do.”

“Thanks,” I said, and leaned forward quickly. There,

first page in the file, was a photo of their license plate. I

quickly memorized it, hoping I didn’t get it wrong from

looking at it upside-down. “Um, bye,” I said, and left,

repeating the number again in my head.

Alabama… well, it fit the redneck bill. Unfortunately,

it didn’t tell me anything useful about them.

I stood debating what to do. There didn’t seem to be

any more I could find out today… but I was determined to

do as much as I could while I was in town, and this whole

‘just a joke’ thing was still making me uncomfortable. Was

‘Pa’ really hiding a run-away-from-home daughter?

I headed back to the police station.



“Nope, no missing children reports,” the officer said

with a sigh, clearly tired of the topic.

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“I’m just worried in case it isn’t a joke,” I said. This

time I looked straight into his eyes. “What if she’s with the

family in the next cabin and is trying to run away from

them? What if it’s ‘cause she’s being mistreated? Shouldn’t

someone at least look into it? I mean, if she tries to get to

that island again by herself and drowns in the process, then

it would be our fault because we didn’t listen to her…”

The cop shifted around in his seat once or twice,

then turned to his computer. Now that I’d raised the

possibility a kid drowning, it looked like I might see some

action.

“I’ll run a background check on the father,” he said.

“Okay, thanks. I don’t know their last name, but the

realtor will, and I can give you their license plate number if

that helps.”

He gave me a strange look as he reached for his

phone and dialed I was supposed to wait around or not. I

glanced at my watch, wondering about Dad.

He looked up briefly as he waited for an answer and

said, “We’ll call you if anything comes up. But if something

does … it’s a police matter, then. You know that, right?”

“I just wanted to help,” I said guiltily, and left.



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I’d forgotten to get a book for Dad, so as soon as I

found him, we went back to the library. I hoped the

librarian wouldn’t talk to me about the ghost story in front

of him.

Dad found a book for himself and one for Jasper, and

after checking them out, we headed to the truck. As we

climbed in, two raindrops hit the windshield, and we both

glanced up at the sky. It looked much darker than before,

and as more raindrops bounced off the truck, leaves on the

nearby trees shivered in the wind.

“I wonder if we’re in for a storm,” Dad said. “Looks

pretty ugly.”

I continued to gaze at the sky as we drove up the

road. When we turned onto the dirt road that led into the

woods, everything seemed to grow darker still, and

treetops swayed overhead.

“That came on fast,” I said, and wondered if we

should’ve got more books. I hadn’t even got anything good

for myself; just the book of Civil War ghost stories, and I

wasn’t in the mood for ghost stories right now.

One advantage to the storm, I supposed, was that

no mysterious girl was likely to put in an appearance. At

least I hoped so, but then imagined her emerging from

dark, dripping woods, or rising up from the dark grey water

of the lake…

No, I told myself. She’s real, and no real person was

going to crawl walk through a rain-drenched forest with a

storm moving in.

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Chapter 12

When we got back, Jasper was fidgeting, waiting to

hear what had happened. There wasn’t much to tell when it

came down to it: Dad filled him in on the conversation with

the cop, and I kept quiet about my trips to the library, the

realtor’s, and the police station again.

Once Jasper knew what had happened, he seemed

to lose interest in the topic. I was kind of surprised that he

didn’t want to ask me more about The Girl and all the times

I’d seen her. This made me wonder if he didn’t believe me,

either.

For the rest of the day, we played games, ate, read

our books, and listened to the rain battering against the

windows. I read some of Jasper’s comics instead of the

book I’d brought back, but after a while gave up as Jasper

kept glancing over with a watchful eye every ten seconds to

make sure I didn’t crinkle any pages or handle his comics

wrongly. He kept them in pristine condition.

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With a sigh, I got up and wandered to the window.

The rain seemed to have let up a bit, but the wind was

gusting now, shaking the trees and making a low, eerie

sound as it blew through our clearing.

I wished the police would phone with some news

about the neighbors. Likely there would be none, but even

so, I grabbed Dad’s cell phone, ran upstairs, and walked

into each bedroom to see if I could get reception. There

was none.

That evening, we had another marathon game of

Risk, and Dad won. We all traipsed up the stairs

afterwards, yawning ― it was already late. Jasper and I

both settled down to go to sleep. Just as I was about to

drift off, I thought about the girl again, and raised myself

on the bed for one last look out the window. And then I saw

them, coming from the island: three flashes.

I shook myself to make sure I really was awake and

not dreaming it. Nope, definitely awake.

Three flashes again: I need help.

“Dad!” I yelled, leaping out of bed and running to

the door. “Dad, come quick!”

He came out of his bedroom. “What is it?”

“Come look! Dad, she’s on the island and needs

help!”

“How do you know? Paul, you can’t even see the

island, it’s dark out.”

“What’s going on?” Jasper asked.

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Dad flicked our bedroom light on, but I turned it

back off and ran to the window. She had to be able to see

my signals. I snatched up the big flashlight, and, making

sure Dad was looking, flashed twice. You okay?

Three flashes returned. I need help!

“That’s the signal!” I explained. “One for ‘hi’, two for

‘I’m okay’, three for ‘I need help.’” I turned to see Dad’s

reaction: he was frowning. “Dad, we have to go help her,

she’s in trouble!”

“Well, there’s someone out there, but Paul, we don’t

know this isn’t just a joke. We don’t even know it’s that

girl.”

“But what if it is, and she really does need help?” I

asked. “Dad, it’s dark out, and windy, and raining, I can’t

see someone dealing with all that just to play a joke.”

“Well, I suppose we could call the police… if I can get

reception, that is.”

“There isn’t any, I checked earlier. Dad, we have to

go out there!”

“To the island?”

The three flashes came again, this time more slowly.

“She needs us!” I insisted.

Dad ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I

don’t know what to do, Paul. There definitely is someone

out there... I guess if it’s not too windy, we could go out in

the canoe to check things out, and if they need help, we’ll

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pick them up, and if they don’t…” His expression turned

grim. “… then we’re going to put and end to this once and

for all.”

“Okay, but we have to hurry!”

“Get dressed. Warm clothes.”

Dad went into his bedroom to get changed, and I

threw on jeans, a T-shirt and a hoody while Jasper flustered

around making incoherent protests. “Are you sure you

should go? I mean… don’t you think…?” But he didn’t have

any good reasons, either, why we shouldn’t go, so I ignored

him, ran downstairs, and pulled on my sneakers.

Dad followed me, grabbing the big flashlight as we

headed out the door.

“But what about me?” Jasper wailed from the

doorway.

“You stay here. Three people’s too many for the

canoe — we might have a passenger on the way back.”

With the flashlight beam guiding the way, Dad walked to

the canoe. I glanced back at Jasper, outlined in the light of

the cabin doorway. Somehow I didn’t think that was what

Jasper had meant with the ‘what about me’. He was

probably just as scared to be left on his own as he was to

get in the canoe.

We went to grab the lifejackets from the shed. I took

mine from its usual hook, and Dad swung the light around

looking for the other two. But there was only one other —

Jasper’s.

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“Where’s mine?” Dad asked, continuing to swing the

light around.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking around as I fastened

mine up. Jasper came running, the sound of a stumble and

an ‘ow!’ announcing his presence.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“My lifejacket’s missing,” Dad said. “Jasper, do you

know where it is?”

“No, I didn’t take it!”

“Well, it didn’t just walk off by itself. One of you

must have had it. Where did you put it?”

Jasper and I looked at each other. I raised my

shoulders — I had no idea.

“I don’t know!” he protested again. He was looking

scared enough to cry. “You better not go! You should stay

here!”

It wasn’t raining, but the wind was really kicking up.

I ran to the water’s edge to peer out toward the island.

Three more flashes: I need help. This time they were

slower and weaker, as if the flashlight battery was dying.

“Dad, she’s still signaling!” I yelled. “And I think her

flashlight is about to die — we have to go get her!”

Grimly, Dad took Jasper’s lifejacket and put it on.

Even though Jasper was on the large side, it didn’t fit Dad

well; he could snap the lower strap shut, but not the chest

one.

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“Is it rated for adults?” I asked.

“It’ll have to do,” Dad said.

I was kind of worried, but reassured by the fact

Dad’s weight couldn’t be a whole lot more than Jasper’s.

“Let’s go,” he said, and behind us, the wind gave a

howl.

“I don’t think you should go!” Jasper wailed. “If

there’s someone out there, they can just wait till the

storm’s past, right? They won’t die or anything!”

“But Jasper, she’s signaling!” I pointed out.

Jasper was still making protests as Dad and I got

into the canoe. Dad sat in the stern and I sat in the bow

with the flashlight gripped between my knees. Not that it

would help us much: it could only shine about ten feet

ahead in the darkness. I had to hope the Girl would keep

signaling, or else we could be in real trouble trying to find

our way there.

We paddled in the direction of the island, but the girl

must not have realized we’d need her to guide us; either

that, or her flashlight had died. The wind was blowing hard

and the waves on the lake were choppy and irregular,

buffeting the side of the canoe and making it rock.

“Can you see where we’re going?” Dad called out.

“Yes!” I lied. Someone was on that island, and they

needed our help, so we had to try. But the canoe rocked

harder, and I could feel water sloshing around my feet as

waves splashed over the sides.

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“Paul, this isn’t good! I think we should turn back!”

“We’re almost there!” I said.

“What? I can’t hear you!”

I turned around. “I’m sure we’re almost there!” But

the truth was, I could barely see the island. It suddenly

occurred to me, how would we see the beach? If we didn’t

guide the canoe to it… we could crash on the jagged rocks.

“Paul, I think we’re going to have to turn back!

Whoever is there, they’re safer on the island than in this

canoe.” And then we both realized― “Dammit!” Dad cursed.

“The lifejacket!”

How could we have been so stupid? We’d been in

such a rush and occupied with the fact Dad’s lifejacket was

missing that we’d completely forgotten, we had no spare

lifejacket for a passenger! And there was no way we could

put a person into the canoe without a lifejacket, not at

night and in this crazy weather.

“You’re right!” I yelled over the howl of the wind.

“We can’t take them anyway!”

“Okay, I’m turning us around. They’ll just have to

wait the night out and we’ll go get them in the morning, or

phone for help.”

It was as Dad was turning the canoe that I heard it,

faintly and between gusts of wind — the sound of an

engine.

“Dad, do you hear that?”

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“What?” he yelled back.

But I didn’t turn around again, because I wanted to

paddle as hard as I could. The cabin was completely lit up,

so finding our way back wouldn’t be a problem.

Then I heard it again, much clearer, coming from

down the lake — it was the sound of a motorboat. They’re

coming to get the girl! I thought excitedly. Even though it

should have ticked me off that this likely proved this was all

a prank, I was relieved to know The Girl was going to get

help, and that there was no real danger.

The noise grew louder, but the way it reflected off

the water or was carried by the wind made it sound like it

was heading for us rather than the island.

And then, a few seconds later, I made out the shape

in the darkness — the motorboat was bearing straight down

on us! Why didn’t they have a light? All boats had to, at

night. “Dad!” I hollered.

He turned and saw it. “Paul! LIGHT!” he bellowed.

Suddenly clueing in to what he meant, I turned to

shine our flashlight directly at the motorboat, praying

they’d see it in time — it was all we could do, as they were

almost on top of us.

The motorboat made a sharp swerve to starboard,

veering away from shore and towards the island, missing

us by what seemed like ten feet. As it sped away, the huge

wave it cast came our way, ready to hit us side-on, the

worst way possible.

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“Wave!” I yelled, but we didn’t have time to turn the

bow of the canoe.

It took us fully side on, and tossed us. I tried to

jump as I was thrown, so that I wouldn’t be hit by the side

of the canoe as it tipped over. I plunged into the cold water

and the canoe smacked down, the side of it missing my

head by a couple of feet. I shook my head, trying to get

water out of my hair and eyes so I could see. “Dad!” I

yelled, panicked he’d gone under. The flashlight was gone,

and waves kept hitting me - I couldn’t see a thing. “Dad!” I

screamed. If he hadn’t had item to jump, the canoe might

have hit him and he could be unconscious―

“Dad!” I yelled again, swimming towards the stern.

My lifejacket was bunched up under my arms, preventing

me from swimming properly, and I was tempted to rip it

off. But I knew better, especially in the dark with the high

waves around me. After taking a few mouthfuls of water as

waves hit me in the face, I grabbed for the canoe,

spluttering and trying to hang on to the slippery side as I

looked around for Dad.

With a gasp, he came up. “Paul!”

“Dad!”

“You okay? Thank God!”

“Where were you? I couldn’t see you!”

“Under the canoe. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” I coughed. “Just freezing.”

“Daaaaad!” came Jasper’s wail from shore. “Paul!”

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“We need to turn the canoe over!” I yelled to Dad.

“Forget it! Just swim.”

He was right — the canoe was too unwieldy, and

with the waves so high it wasn’t worth the risk of staying in

the cold water any longer. We swam back to shore, our

lifejackets making it much harder work than it should have

been.

Finally we got there. We stumbled out of the lake as

soon as our feet touched ground. Dad was pulling me

along, even though I didn’t need his help, and Jasper was

standing there screaming and crying. “I’m so sorry! I’m so

sorry!”

“Not your fault,” I gasped as we staggered towards

the cabin.

“But it is!” Jasper wailed. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry,

it’s my fault! I’m so sorry!” He burst into tears, crying in

toddler-like wails, like one of us had just died or something.

My head was a whirl of shock and adrenalin, so I

didn’t pay much attention to him, figuring it was the usual

Jasper cowardice-and-drama. Dad and I stumbled up the

cabin steps, flinging our lifejackets onto the ground, and

staggered inside. We were soaking, freezing, and shaking.

“Go take a hot shower, right now,” Dad ordered.

“You first,” I wheezed, but he propelled me into the

bathroom.

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Jasper was crying like a two-year-old, I mean really

screaming-crying, and I wished he’d shut up; it was like

having a chainsaw going on in the background.

I tossed my wet clothes onto the bathroom floor and

turned the water on full force. As soon as it ran hot, I got

under the shower, and it felt so good. I had to remind

myself to be quick so that Dad could get in ― otherwise, I

could have stayed there for an hour.

I resolutely shut off the water, wrapped myself in a

towel, and opened the door. Cold air hit me. “Your turn,” I

croaked, but Dad didn’t need to be told — he’d been

waiting right there, and headed straight in as I left. “Put on

your warmest clothes,” he said over his shoulder. Like I

needed to be told. “Jasper, put on the kettle!” he added

before closeting the door.

I ran upstairs and dried myself briskly, wishing the

cabin had heating. Maybe Jasper was building a fire in the

fireplace right now. That would be perfect.

After putting on my one remaining pair of jeans,

then thick socks, two T-shirts and my jacket, I went back

downstairs.

Not only was Jasper not building a fire, the kettle

wasn’t even on. He was lying face down on the sofa,

sobbing his guts out.

“Oh, for God’s sake Jasper!” I snapped. I couldn’t

help it — my adrenalin was up, and Jasper’s uselessness

was like a match tossed onto a tinderbox. “Get up and do

something useful! Why are you never any help in these

situations? All you do is make things worse!”

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This made him sob into the sofa cushions even

harder. “Build a fire or something!” I yelled. “Or at least put

the damn kettle on like Dad said.”

I didn’t think I had the strength to build a fire, so I

put the kettle on and turned the oven on too —that would

heat the kitchen.

“I’m sorry!” At least that’s what it sounded like

Jasper wailed into the cushions. His voice was muffled, but

I thought I identified the words, “It’s all my fault!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked grumpily. I

longed to slump onto the sofa, but Jasper was taking up

the whole thing, and someone really needed to build a fire.

I walked into the dark living room and tossed logs

randomly into the fire, then jammed some newspapers

underneath for kindling. Not wanting spend long getting the

fire going, I broke the entire box of fire starter into cubes

and wedged them in between the logs. Then I lit the

protruding bits of newspaper and flopped down in front of

the fireplace, waiting for the blaze.

Jasper turned his head, making his sniffles more

audible. “I’m so sorry!”

“Stop saying that!” I sighed. “It’s not your fault, but

you’d make things a lot better if you’d help out now.” I

wondered if the motorboat had picked up the girl. I was too

tired to go look out the window, and I likely wouldn’t be

able to see anything anyway.

“But it is my fault!” he insisted in a high whine. “He

said it was just a joke! He said no one would get hurt! But

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you did! You almost drowned! You could have di-i-ied!” His

speech dissolved into sobs again.

I turned my head. “What?”

Jasper continued to sob.

“What did you just say? What joke? Who’s ‘he’?”

Panic, suspicion, and anger bubbled up inside of me… but

mostly suspicion. “Jasper, what are you talking about?”

He kept his eyes shut as he sobbed out, “My dad! He

said it was all just a prank and that he just wanted to shake

things up, but that nothing bad would happen!”

I froze, my eyes wide. Dad came out of the

bathroom, and I yelled, “Dad, go get changed, and get

down here fast!” He took in the scene, frowning, and

obeyed me.

“What are you saying?” I demanded of Jasper. “That

Revo had something to do with this? The whole girl on the

island thing?”

“I’m so-o-o-or-ry!” Jasper wailed again, and I had

the urge to get up and hit him.

“Jasper, stop crying and tell me what this is all

about!”

Dad came down the stairs, in his clothes, but with

his towel still around his neck. He continued to dry his hair,

asking, “What’s going on?”

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I jumped up. “Ask Jasper! If you can get sense out

of him, that is. apparently Revo was behind all this. And

Jasper knew it!”

“What?” Dad asked incredulously. Mid-toweling his

hair, he stopped moving, and let the towel slip from his

grasp. It fell to the floor.

“Ask him!” I shouted.

Jasper had put his face back in the cushion, and was

sobbing again.

Dad went over and although he put his hand on

Jasper’s arm gently, but is voice was firm. “Jasper, what’s

going on? Is what Paul said true?”

“Oh sure, ask if I’m lying!” I exploded. I’d had

enough of people not believing me.

“Into the kitchen,” Dad ordered. I wasn’t sure at first

if he meant me or Jasper, but seeing as he was hauling

Jasper up by the arm, I guessed he meant all of us.

He sat Jasper in a chair and pulled his own right in

front of it so that he could hold Jasper by the arms and give

him a quick shake. “Jasper, pull yourself together! If you

have something to tell us, you need to do it right now.”

Jasper looked down at the floor, tears still running

down his fat cheeks — he couldn’t face us. “I’m sorry,” he

whispered for about the hundredth time. I felt my blood

begin to boil.

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Dad and I glanced at each other. Dad seemed to be

keeping his cool, but I could see from his face he was

almost as mad as I was.

“From the beginning,” he ordered.

Jasper gave a protracted sniff, and when he began

speaking, his words came out in a babyish voice. “He said it

was just a prank. I mean, it was just to scare you a little,

but he said he had to because you made Mom cut him off,

and if he couldn’t get any money then he’d have to go

away and he might never see me again! ” His words

dissolved into sobs again.

Dad an I exchanged glances again, this time worried

ones. This was all some plot of Revo’s… to get money?

“Jasper,” Dad demanded, “How was he going to use

this to get money? By scaring Paul? What was his plan?”

“I don’t know,” Jasper wailed. “He wasn’t really

clear. He said something about… shaking things up… and…

and…” He continued to cry. “I guess after the prank then he

was going to ask you for money.”

Dad’s jaw twitched with anger. I knew we were both

thinking the same thing: Revo had gone to jail for some

badly-planned cons in his time, but no plan could be as bad

as this… there had to be more to it. Much, much more.

Jasper wasn’t totally stupid; he probably hadn’t wanted to

know, or had listened to some pack of lies Revo told him,

and had gone along with it out of some screwed-up,

misplaced loyalty.

“So who is the girl?” I asked.

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“She’s the neighbor’s kid,” Jasper said, still crying

and looking at the floor. “It was all a joke. My Dad found

out about the story of the girl in the woods, and she

happened to look just like her and…” The rest got

incoherent.

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “So

Revo saw the neighbor kid and… what? How did he get

them to go along with it? A bunch of strangers? And why

was he even here?”

“He knew them already, they’re friends…” Sob, sob,

sob. I thought of the car I’d seen in the neighbor’s

driveway that one time… Revo’s? Was that why Pa had

been so hostile, and why the visitor had stayed hidden?

“Jasper,” Dad said firmly. “Did Revo know about the

will? Did he know I was busying tying up my father’s will

right now?”

My jaw dropped. Whoa. Dad was way ahead of me…

but he was right. Revo wouldn’t put some elaborate plan

together just for one of his usual, petty cash handouts.

He’d have to be after something much bigger. And

Grandfather’s will… that would be big, all right.

Jasper stopped crying and looked up. “What?”

There was no deceit in his eyes, just surprise.

“The will. Did you tell Revo about it?”

“Um…” He wiped his nose with his sleeve, his glance

darting away, but just before, I saw a look of panic flicker

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in his eyes. “No,” he said quickly. But I’d spotted the lie:

the look of panic had stated ‘yes’.

To say Dad looked grim was an understatement. “He

must have found out somehow. Maybe Vanessa let it slip.”

Jasper’s gaze darted around, giving the lie away

again. He’d told him, all right. He probably hadn’t meant to,

though, or hadn’t seen the harm in it... I mean, no one had

instructed him that it was a big secret or anything. At least,

not that I knew of.

“But how would he have got any of it, anyway?” I

asked Dad. I frowned and shook my head again; it still

didn’t make sense. “Blackmail?” Was Revo trying to drive

me crazy, and was somehow going to blackmail Dad with

that? Or blackmail me? Except that I couldn’t touch the

money till I was twenty-one... but Revo wouldn’t have

known that if I’d only just found out about it.

Dad’s expression was black. “The motorboat,” he

said to Jasper. “Was that your dad?”

Jasper burst into tears again. “He said no one would

get hurt! He said it was all harmless!”

Shocked, I stared at Dad, suddenly getting what he

was implying.

“Revo…” I said out loud. “Was he trying to kill us?”

Dad met my shocked look, his mouth a straight line.

“But… but…” I stammered. “The boat turned! He

could have run us down, but he didn’t, he turned as soon

as he saw us…”

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“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Maybe the whole point

was to keep hoping a convenient ‘accident’ would happen.

The storm, the signal from the island just when it was at its

worse… he would have known I wouldn’t let you go alone…”

“He knew!” I shouted, turning to Jasper. “Revo knew

I’d told Dad about the girl! Dad wouldn’t have agreed to go

out to the island if I hadn’t already told him about it. How

did he find out?”

Jasper looked down, more tears falling.

“How did he know?” I demanded again, and then my

brain kicked into gear. “You’ve been in contact with him,

haven’t you? The whole time! Your walks in the woods…

staying home at the cabin… where’s Revo been staying?”

Jasper put his elbows on his knees and his face in his

hands. He could only sob in reply.

“Is he living with the neighbors? Is that where he’s

been hiding out?”

Jasper jumped up from the chair, knocking it over,

and ran up the stairs. I heard the bedroom door slam shut.

Dad and I sat staring at each other for a minute before Dad

got up and said, “We have to call the police.”

“What do we tell them?” I asked, getting up to follow

him as he headed up the stairs and into his bedroom. He

grabbed his cell phone off the dresser, then stopped for a

second, giving thought to what I’d just said.

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“I don’t know, exactly… it’s either another of his

badly thought-out plans gone wrong, or…” Dad’s expression

darkened again. “…attempted murder.”

I stood there, my mouth open.

Dad began dialing, and I wondered again about the

motorboat: had he been aiming at us, or had he really not

seen us because it was dark and my flashlight was pointed

away from him? Then again, why didn’t he have his light

on? Maybe Revo was too stupid to know how to work it…

Attempted murder, I thought, and my insides chilled. Revo

wouldn’t go that far, would he?

“Dammit!” Dad snapped.

I jumped. “What?”

“No reception!” He used a few more words I’d never

heard from him, before hurling the cell phone onto the bed.

“We can drive into town,” I said. “Go to the police

station.”

“It’s probably shut. No wait, at least my phone will

work in town.” He ran his hand through his hair, a few

more curses escaping him, and then sighed.

“What?” I asked. “Let’s go! We have to, right?”

“Yeah, I just… I don’t even know what we’re

charging him with. And then… there’s Jasper to think of.”

“What…? You’re not serious, are you? Dad, you can’t

not report Revo because of Jasper!” My anger was bubbling

up again. “Jasper was in on the whole thing, Dad, he

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almost let us get killed!” I suddenly wanted to run into the

bedroom and beat the snot out of Jasper. I knew he was

weak and stupid and easily swayed, but I never would have

thought he was capable if this level of deceit, not to

mention serious harm. “If we don’t go now, Revo might get

away! Dad, he’s probably heading out of town right now!”

“You’re right,” Dad said. Although I could see he was

tempted, for a second, to let Revo run.

And just then, from outside the cabin, we heard four

loud gunshots.

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Chapter 13

We remained frozen for a second, staring at each

other, before springing into action. I ran out onto the

landing, Dad right behind me. The other bedroom door was

open, which was strange, because it had been shut when

we’d come up the stairs. “Jasper?” I asked, storming in. He

wasn’t there. “Dad, Jasper’s not here!”

“Jasper!” Dad shouted, running downstairs.

I followed, and as we pounded down the stairs, we

both saw the front door was open.

“Jasper!” Dad called again, his voice rising in panic.

He was about to run outside, but I barreled past

him, slammed the door shut, and pulled him down. “Are

you nuts? We just heard gunshots, you can’t go out there!”

I reached up and locked the door. “Stay down!” I ordered,

feeling proud of myself for learning so much from TV. “We

don’t know who’s out there, and we don’t have a gun!”

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Dad pushed me off him and got up. “Paul, Jasper’s

out there. I have to go!”

“Maybe he’s somewhere in the cabin,” I said, pretty

sure he wasn’t. Keeping hunched down, I ran through the

kitchen and into the living room, calling out for him —but

he wasn’t there.

“I have to go find him,” Dad said. I knew he was

right, but outside there might be a potential killer, and as

long as we didn’t have a weapon, we were sitting ducks.

“We don’t have a flashlight!” was my final protest as

Dad unlocked the door and headed out. I stopped to think

for a second before turning off the hall light and closing the

door behind me as I followed him. With no flashlight and no

backlighting, we’d be less of a target.

“Jasper!” Dad called again, running across the yard.

I wished he’d stop shouting; it made me think: target!

Again.

He got as far as the truck and halted. I ran up

behind him, taking in the scene that was lit up by the

headlights of another truck — a big GMC. Standing in front

of it was Jasper, and behind him a man, his hands resting

on Jasper’s shoulders. When Dad yelled, “Damn you!” and

lunged for him, I realized it must be Revo. I’d never met

him before, and wished I could get a better look at him, but

with the glaring headlights behind him, I couldn’t make out

his face.

“Stop right there!” bellowed another voice, and ‘Pa’

stepped into the scene, shotgun raised to his shoulder.

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Jasper screamed, “No!” at the same time that I

yelled “Dad! ” My dad stopped in his tracks, his head

moving to glance from ‘Pa’ to Revo and back again. “Let

Jasper go!” he shouted.

Revo gave a nasty laugh. “Nope. I’m taking my son,

seeing as you’ve taken everything else of mine. Just

thought we’d make sure you can’t follow us. Pretty handy

that your phone doesn’t work out here.” He gave another

chuckle.

I turned to look at our truck and realized the tires

were completely flat. So they’d shot them out — and of

course, we only had one spare.

Dad stood there, tall and strong, and I marveled at

how unafraid he seemed. “At least you’re above killing us in

cold blood,” he said. “But did you know that even if you had

managed to arrange an ‘accident’, none of my father’s

money would go to Jasper? My share of the will goes

entirely to Paul in the event of my death, and if Paul were

to die―” Dad’s voice got really low at the mention of this―

“then it goes to Paul’s mom. Not Jasper, not Vanessa.

They’d get a portion of my own savings, but you can be

damn sure I’ve got that tied up so that you can’t get at it.”

I couldn’t make out the expression on Revo’s face

because of the light behind him, but I assumed it was

murderous. He spat at dad, hard, like a redneck out of a

movie. “Damn you, VanDerMere! You rich SOBs are all the

same — all you care about is keeping your money to

yourselves.”

“I care about my family,” Dad answered coolly.

“Which is more than you can say, Revo. You’ve never come

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to see Vanessa and Jasper except for a cash handout.

When did you ever come for the sake of seeing your son?”

“Plenty of times!” Revo spat out.

Dad, don’t make him madder, I silently willed. Not

while there’s a gun pointed at you.

“Not true, Revo. You’ve only ever come to blackmail,

swindle, or beg. And here you are trying it again. And just

like all your other failed cons, this plan’s a complete

shambles.”

“You forced me into it! Ever since you made Vanessa

stop giving me alimony. It was never your place to

interfere, you tight-fisted bastard!”

Dad almost laughed. “Alimony? You owe her child

support, not the other way around. Years’ worth!”

Stop getting him angry, I prayed again . Think, Dad!

“Look, you screwed this one up badly,” Dad

continued. “But if you let Jasper go, I won’t charge you.

You can just disappear from our lives. But you’d better stay

gone this time, Revo, I mean it. If you make another

appearance, I’ll put out a restraining order on you.”

“No!” It was Jasper’s voice that cut through the

strange, misty scene. “I’m sorry.” he sobbed. “I’m really,

really sorry. But now that I’ve messed everything up I think

I should go.”

“See?” Revo said. “He wants to be with his dad. His

real dad.

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Even I knew Revo didn’t want Jasper; he was only

doing it to spite my father.

“Jasper!” Dad said firmly. “Of course you don’t have

to go. We can go back home and work this all out. Where

would you go, anyway? Revo’s got no home, no job,

nothing. You’ve got a home, you have school… and what

about your mom?”

Jasper was crying hard. “I’m sorry,” was all he could

say.

“We’re walking away all right,” Revo said, and from

the tone of his voice I could picture the sneer on his face.

“But I’m sure you’ll be sending some money now and then,

so that Vanessa can hear from her son.”

I could tell Dad wanted to launch himself at Revo,

but Pa’s shotgun was still leveled at his chest. Revo backed

away towards the driver’s side of the truck, pulling Jasper

with him. They got in, slammed the door, and the truck

gunned to life.

“Take a few steps back,” Pa ordered Dad, motioning

with the gun. “In fact, all the way to the cabin. Inside, and

shut the door.”

We were helpless. We had to follow his instructions.

Dad pulled the door almost shut, and stood watching

as the truck backed away fast, spraying dirt and gravel as it

barreled down the road.

Then he opened the door and ran back outside.

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Chapter 14

“Where are you going?” I yelled after him.

“I’ll have to follow them on foot! They’re probably

going to their cabin.”

“Wait, it’s dark, you can’t see where you’re going,

and you don’t know if they’re waiting for you somewhere

with that gun. Dad, please!” He turned in a full circle,

clearly desperate.

“I’ll get the cell phone working,” I said. “If they go to

their cabin, they’ll only stop a minute, and then they’re out

of there. Do you think they’re going to wait around till

morning?”

“I have to get Jasper back,” he argued, but he

sounded weary.

“Well, you won’t do it on foot. Help me onto the roof,

and I’ll get reception from there. And if that doesn’t work,

we have to at least have the phone with us when we run

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into town.” He saw the logic in this, and came back to the

cabin. “Or we could canoe down the lake and reach town

that way!” I said excitedly. But then I remembered: the

canoe was floating somewhere out in the middle of the

lake, upside-down or maybe even sunk to the bottom.

“Roof,” I said, feeling years older as I ran up the

stairs ahead of Dad. I guess he was so worked up, he

couldn’t think straight. But I knew I could get onto the roof

from his bedroom window, and the cell phone should get

reception from there; on a clear day, we’d got it just by

leaning out the window.

“Paul, it’s too wet out there, the roof will be

slippery,” he protested, but I knew he wanted me to try.

“Safety me with a rope, then,” I said. “There’s one in

the hall cupboard.”

He ran off to get it.

I wedged the phone firmly in my inside jacket pocket

― the last thing I wanted was to have the phone tumble

from my pocket as I climbed.

The window opened vertically, giving me a gap of

about three feet. I pushed it until it wedged open, and

stuck my head out, drops of water falling from the eaves to

my neck. Twisting around so that I was half-seated on the

windowpane, I looked up at the roof, trying to figure out

how to do this. The climb looked way harder than I’d

imagined, and I wondered if I could make it, especially

given how dark and wet it was.

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“Wait!” Dad said, coming in with the rope. I sat

there facing him, the pane of glass between our heads, as

he tied the rope around my waist.

“Okay, hold my legs, I’m going to stand on the sill

and try and get reception from here first,” I said. Dad put

his arms so tightly around my legs that my whole body

tipped backward, and I almost fell. “Dad!” I squawked, my

hands grabbing for the top of the window frame. There

wasn’t much to hold on to, and the wood was wet.

“Sorry,” he said, loosening his grip. I pulled the

phone out, and the backlight came on as soon I opened it.

Now I could see the reception indicator… just one tiny bar

out of five, and even that one was flickering. But at least it

was there.

I dialed 911, hit ‘send’, and held the phone close to

my ear. Nothing. I pulled it away to look at the signal

indicator again ― the phone was still trying to connect.

Finally, a ringing sound. “Got it!” I told Dad.

A female voice answered. “This is 911, please state

your emergency.”

“There’s been a kidnapping!” I said. “And an

attempted murder. We’re out in one of the cabin on Mair’s

Lake, the second one, just up from Stanton, and this phone

might cut out any second. Please, can you send a police

car, our tires have been shot out.”

The lady first asked if anyone was hurt, then

confirmed where we were and said there was a car on its

way. I told her Jasper had been taken, and described Pa’s

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truck and well as Revo’s car as best I could. Then the

reception went crackly.

“We’ll put out an APB on those vehicles,” she told

me, before the phone gave a blast of static so loud that I

had to pull it away from ear.

“What?” I asked.

This time I heard her: she cautioned us to stay

inside and keep the doors locked until the police arrived.

I wondered what she’d think if she saw me standing

on the windowsill on the outside of the cabin, perfectly

backlit by the bedroom light. Target. “Will do,” I told her,

and clicked the phone shut.

Dad helped me get back inside, and we both sank to

the floor, breathing heavily. After everything that had

happened that night, standing on the windowsill ready to

fall to my death was the one thing that had made me

physically shake. Or maybe it was the events of the past

days finally taking their toll. I looked at my arms and

hands: they were trembling.

“Thanks, Paul,” Dad gasped.

I nodded, unable, for a moment, to speak.

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Chapter 15

Nothing until now had felt as frustrating as waiting

for the police. We couldn’t do anything apart from pace the

cabin restlessly, and it seemed to be taking them forever to

get here from Stanton. It was only a fifteen minute drive,

maybe twenty in the dark, but it felt like an hour was

slowly ticking by. We didn’t bother staying away from the

windows ; Revo was no doubt driving off with Jasper, rather

than waiting in the woods with a gun. I didn’t think any of

them, redneck family included, would be stupid enough to

remain at their cabin knowing we’d have the cops after

them sooner or later. The longer the head start they had,

the easier it would be for them to get away. I pictured

Jasper in Revo’s car (assuming Revo and ‘Pa’ were each in

their own vehicles) and wondered, was Jasper crying,

distraught, ashamed? He should be, I thought, and a bitter

taste came to my mouth as I thought of his involvement in

the whole thing. We could have died!

Dad was clearly impatient too, because he kept

running his fingers through his hair and pacing in

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semicircles. Finally he turned to me and said, “I wish you’d

told me about it sooner.”

I felt myself flush with anger “How would that have

helped? We’d never have figured out that The Girl had

anything to do with Revo,” I snapped.

“Sorry, Paul.” He sat down, stood up, ran his fingers

through his hair again. “I should have known something

was up with Jasper. I guess he was acting moody, but I

didn’t see it, it just seemed so…”

“Normal,” I finished.

He sighed, and for a moment seemed to accept that

he couldn’t have done anything differently. This didn’t last

long, however, and after a few minutes he started rambling

on another self-guilt trip: “should have known… quieter

than usual… didn’t spend enough time with you two…”

I tried to tune it out as I paced the cabin in

frustration — Hurry up! I thought. What was taking the

cops so long? “Do you think there’s only one car?” I asked.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told them to come out here,

because we need them to follow Revo! What if there’s only

one car and we’re taking it up because I said there was an

attempted murder, and I should have told them it’s the

kidnapping that’s important!”

“I’m sure they’ll send reinforcement from

somewhere else,” Dad said, but I could see he was worried,

too. How many cars would a middle-of-nowhere town like

Stanton have? Compared to how many possible directions

there were for Revo to head off in?

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Finally we heard a car engine, then saw by two

headlights sweeping down the drive. We were at the cabin

door before the police had even opened their car doors.

Two male cops, fully uniformed, got out the car and walked

towards us — too slowly for my liking. Dad ushered them

in.

First, they wanted to make sure we were okay, and

once we assured them that we were, they asked for the

whole story. All Dad cared about, however, was: how many

police were out looking for Revo’s car, had they found

Jasper yet, were they closing all the roads out of town, had

they notified all the neighboring towns? Would they close

those roads down too? How easy would it be for Revo to

get away, how hard would it be for them to catch him?

The conversation was getting nowhere with both

sides trying to talk about different things, so I stepped in.

“Can you please let us know how soon you’ll hear about

Revo and Jasper, and then we’ll answer everything?”

“If they find them, they’ll radio the station and then

the station will get in touch with us.” the older officer said.

He had a wide stomach and bristling mustache.

“Wouldn’t it be faster if we waited at the station?” I

asked.

“Yes,” Dad said, getting up from his chair, “and then

we can get to Jasper faster when they catch them.”

After a moment’s deliberation, the cops agreed. We

climbed into the back of their car, and they drove slowly

down the bumpy, winding dirt road. I wished they’d hurry it

up.

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“What will you do with Revo if you catch him?” I

asked them from the back seat.

“When,” Dad said firmly.

“Whoever finds him will bring him to the station for

questioning, which is why we need your statements first.”

This was the younger cop. Officer Herd, I think he’d said his

name was.

“And Jasper? They’ll bring him there too?”

“Yes, of course.”

I was glad we’d be at the station before them,

because Jasper would have a meltdown if he were dragged

to a cop station along with his deadbeat dad in cuffs.

Once we got onto the main road, it only took another

minute to get to the station, and I hoped Revo wasn’t

already there — I hated the thought of him telling them a

pack of lies before we’d given them the real story.

But he wasn’t, and there was still no word on

locating him and Jasper. The lady officer I’d spoken to on

my first visit to the police station — Officer Tully, she

introduced herself — was handling the phones and radios,

and she reassured Dad that the police in each of the four

surrounding towns were out searching too, and that all

neighboring motels had been notified in case Revo and

Jasper stopped for the night. I doubted Revo would stop,

though. Not till he was in the next state.

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“But they could be been miles past those towns

already,” Dad said. “What about the next towns? Can they

notify the whole region?”

“Don’t worry, once an APB goes out, all the police

stations will get it,” she reassured him. “We’re doing

everything we can.”

Dad and I were both worried, though, and the

questioning that followed didn’t exactly help ease the

tension.

The police wanted to know about the kidnapping

first, especially about ‘Pa’ pointing the shotgun at Dad,

which meant the story came out backwards, and took

several tries to explain. Once we’d worked back to the

beginning, I was the one who told most of it, but it didn’t

help that Dad interjected here and there, and that the cops

listened to him more closely than me.

“Why didn’t you tell us about the girl?” they asked

me.

“I promised her I wouldn’t.” I was already feeling

defensive from them not believing my story the last time.

“Didn’t you think a kid running away from home was

a serious issue? Why didn’t you tell your dad?”

“I did!”

“But not till much later.”

“No, I mean, I did think it was serious. But that was

part of why I didn’t tell — I thought maybe she’d run away

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because she was being abused or something, and I didn’t

want to send her back to a dangerous situation.”

“You didn’t think the appropriate authorities would

look into the possibility of abuse?”

“Yes… well, I mean, I guess I didn’t at the time, but

she threatened to drown herself if I told anyone!”

They looked skeptical.

“I did try to find out who she was, and if she had run

away from home,” I pointed out. “And it’s not like I didn’t

come here to the station. And the police officer told me

she’d have heard for sure if there were any missing kids.

So then I figured it could have all be a prank. Which it

was,” I reminded them.

“But even if it was a prank, didn’t you think she

might have drowned if she’d tried to swim away from the

island, or suffer exposure or hypothermia?”

“Yes, that’s why I left her a blanket. And the

flashlight.” My explanations were starting to sound weak,

even to me, and everything was getting twisted to make

me come across like a liar. But they all knew my story was

true, otherwise Revo wouldn’t have run off with Jasper! I

shifted around in frustration.

Dad finally stepped in. “Look, we all know now that

Paul should have reported it sooner. But that’s not getting

us anywhere now.”

I gave him an indignant look. “You didn’t believe me

when I told you! You didn’t!”

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It took him a second to admit this was true. He

sighed. “I’m sorry, Paul, but the story was a bit…”

“You see?” I said. “I knew no one would believe me,

and everyone would think I was making it up or crazy,

because there was no missing girl!”

“Yes but you’d seen her and you knew she was real,

and therefore probably in danger, so you still should have

told someone,” the younger cop said, making me want to

jump up and shout my lungs out.

“This is pointless!” I burst out. “Look, they set up

this big hoax because they wanted me and Dad to have an

accident, or if an accident hadn’t happened, then Revo

might have taken it further and really hit us with the

motorboat sometime. I mean, he was after the will money,

and the only way you can get that is if someone dies! ”

“Yes, but we can’t prove that,” the older cop said.

“We don’t know what he hoped would happen, and you

can’t charge someone with what they might have done

next. I don’t know if we can even charge them on setting

up the hoax — there isn’t any real proof so far. It’ll all

depend on the statements of Revo and the other fellow.”

“Hale Daewood,” Officer Tully said, looking up from

her desk. “It’s in the report from when we ran the check on

him. He’s been in and out of jail a bunch of times.”

“You knew he’d been in jail and you didn’t tell us?” I

asked.

“No crime had been committed at that point,” she

said, but kindly, and I gave her a grateful look. So far she

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was the only one who was being nice to me. Still, that

meant the police hadn’t told me when they’d said they

would; how come no one was giving them a hard time for

withholding information?

“What I am concerned about is that this Daewood

fellow pointed a gun at you, and that Revo took Jasper him

against his will,” the older officer said.

“Uh,” I said, exchanging glances with Dad. We’d

maybe forgotten to mention that Jasper hadn’t exactly

gone against his will. Dad gave a brief shake of his head,

and I raised my eyebrows in surprise — so we were going

to keep quiet about that little part?

I guess he didn’t want to complicate things more, as

our allegations seemed pretty shaky already. Plus, Vanessa

was Jasper’s legal guardian, so it was probably illegal for

Revo to take Jasper anywhere without her permission, even

if Jasper said it was okay.

“Daewood’s jail terms were mostly for petty theft,

some fights, and one instance of carrying a concealed

firearm without a license,” Officer Tully added, reading from

her computer monitor.

I wondered again about the beginning of the whole

setup — had Revo come here scouting the place out, and

found that his friend happened to be here? Or had he

plotted the entire thing, including installing the neighbors in

the cabin next to ours?

“Greenville, Oklahoma, Montgomery,” Officer Tully

finished.

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I gave her a confused look.

“The prisons he was in.”

“Montgomery!” Dad burst out, looking ready to

explode.

“What, what?”

“Revo spent a few months in Montgomery.”

“So maybe that’s where they met!” I said.

“Or they already knew each other and were in for

something they’d pulled together.” Dad turned to Officer

Tully. “Can you find out for us?”

She started typing.

“That would help prove they did this together,

right?” I asked.

The older cop scratched his head. “Well, it would

lend some weight to the story, but it wouldn’t really prove

anything. You can’t charge someone for something they’ve

already served time for. We’ll just have to hope they’re

caught, and then wait for their statements.”

“Unrelated charges, anyway,” Officer Tully said, and

stopped typing. “So maybe that was how they met. But

Officer Davis is right, it doesn’t prove anything.”

I was still itching with frustration, and Dad seemed

that way, too; he kept looking at his watch. “Surely if they

would have caught them by now, if they’re able to.”

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An uncomfortable silence went by. Then finally, the

desk radio clicked into life. We all jumped up as Officer

Tully took the call.

“Officer Tully,” she answered, and we waited. “You’re

sure? Where? Okay, we’ll be waiting.” She put the radio

down. “They’ve found them. Both parties — Revo and

Jasper, and Daewood and his kids.”

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Chapter 16

Revo came in snarling and straining like a Pitt bull,

and I almost jumped away from him before I realized his

hands were cuffed behind his back. This pit bull was

restrained by a ‘leash’, in the form of two burly police

officers at either side of him. Jasper followed behind them

all, bawling.

“You took my son!” Dad shouted, springing forward.

This time we all jumped up in a confused mess: Officers

Davis and Herd moved quickly to hold Dad back before he

could get to Revo.

“Step son,” I muttered in response to Dad’s

comment, regarding Jasper as he stood there blubbering

like a three-year-old.

Revo continued to thrash around, his anger was now

directed at Dad. “You always mess up everything! Always!”

he snarled. The two looked like they were going to burst

free from the cops holding them and tear at each other’s

throats.

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“You had no right to take him!” Dad yelled back.

“Now I am going to put a restraining order on you.”

“He’s my son!” Revo raged.

“You have no legal guardianship — you can’t move

him a foot without Vanessa’s permission, and you know it.”

“Stop it!” Officer Davis ordered, “Or I’ll put you both

in the cells.”

They stopped shouting, but both were clearly

seething. Now it was only Jasper’s wails echoing around the

small station.

“Oh, give it a rest,” I muttered, and then watched in

fury as Jasper ran to Dad, who threw his arms around him.

“I’m sorry!” were the words that Jasper seemed to

be sobbing into Dad’s T-shirt.

Revo was manhandled towards a doorway and

pushed through. “In there until you calm down!” one of the

officers holding him yelled. I guessed the jail cells were

back there.

“Now, Jasper,” Officer Herd said, turning to him.

“We’re going to need you to answer some questions.”

Good luck with that, I thought. If they could get any

sense out of Jasper at this point, they all deserved

promotions.

“Look,” Dad said, still holding him tightly, Jasper’s

face buried in his sweater, “It’s five in the morning.”

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Looking at my watch, I saw with amazement that he

was right.

“We’re all tired. The boys must be more worn out

than I am. I don’t think now is the best time for more

questioning — can’t we go home, get some sleep, and

come back tomorrow for all the rest?

Officers Davis and Herd glanced at the clock on the

wall. Officer Tully was back at her desk, the phone to her

ear.

“It is late,” Officer Davis said. “We can do that… but

you have to come back tomorrow. As soon as you’re up.”

Dad sighed. “Don’t worry. I have to make sure he―”

He jerked his head towards the back room. “―gets what’s

coming to him.”

“I’ll drive you back,” Officer Herd offered, picking up

his keys.

“Wait!” I said, and everyone looked at me. “What

about ‘Pa’ — I mean, Daewood? Did they catch him, too?”

Officer Tully was putting the phone down as I asked

the question. “They’ve got him,” she said. “In Still Creek.

He was headed in the other direction, but they picked him

up at about the same time. His kids are with him.”

“Will they bring him here?”

She shook her head. “No, they’ll keep him at Still

Creek and get his statement there, and then we’ll see what

happens.”

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I slumped, disappointed I wouldn’t get to see him

hauled in, and, more importantly, to see those kids again. I

wanted to see the looks on their faces — were they guilty,

ashamed, did they know they’d done something wrong? Or

was it all just a big joke for them, were the twins still

punching each other and laughing till snot flew out their

noses?

One of their conversations surfaced in my memory.

“His name’s Rusty — no, Jason!”

“His name’s Brendan. No, Brenda!”

“No it’s not!”

“Yes it is, remember?”

And a lightning-bolt of anger ripped through me. I

wondered what Coralie’s real name was. And what about

The Girl? She’d been the biggest perpetrator, apart from

Revo. Had she enjoyed the hoax, did she like making me

run around like an idiot? Or did they have to persuade her

to do it? Had she been scared when she was all alone on

that island ― or was she so fierce that nothing could scare

her?

If she was anything like Coralie, I couldn’t imagine

her being scared; yet she was the youngest, and had to do

the most.

I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake

her. Why did you do it? Did you know where it was all

going? Did you know I might nearly get killed?

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We walked out to the police car with Officer Herd.

Jasper was still clinging to Dad, who ushered him into the

back seat before climbing into the front passenger seat. I

was too slow to figure out what was going on and I ended

up having to sit in the back, beside Jasper. I’d rather have

ridden up front. Jasper and I sat as far apart as possible.

He looked down and continued to sniffle. I longed to

give him a good, hard punch and tell him to stop trying for

sympathy. Instead, I stared stonily forward, my whole body

tense. Jasper sniffled the whole way back, and every time I

heard him, I fought to stay rigid rather than launch myself

at him and beat him to a pulp.

Dad sat talking to Officer Herd, which I guess was

why he’d got in the front. They were discussing getting

someone out the later in the morning to replace the shot-

out tires of Dad’s truck. I’d forgotten all about that until

now.

The car turned off the main road and up the dirt one,

bumping along the way. It was daylight, now, but not fully,

and I wished the sun would stay down; I wanted darkness.

My eyes burned with tiredness. Soon the cabin came into

sight. The second the car slid to a halt, Jasper ran straight

out, not even bothering to shut the car door behind him,

and bolted into the cabin like a scared rabbit.

Dad said goodnight to Officer Herd, but I didn’t say

anything; I was still sore over how the cops had treated

me. Revo, Pa, and pretty much everyone but me were the

criminals — even Jasper! ― yet they’d acted like I was the

liar and the cheat.

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When Dad and I finally trudged inside, the main floor

of the cabin was vacant, which meant Jasper had already

run up to the bedroom. “Great,” I muttered. “Now I have to

sleep on the couch. He should be the one sleeping on it.”

No way would I be able to sleep in the same room as him,

listening to his sniffles — I’d definitely snap this time, and

likely spring out my bed, yelling, pummeling, until Jasper

stopped whining and took some responsibility for what he’d

done.

Dad sighed. “Look Paul, this is an awful situation,

but go easy on Jasper. He’s had a rough time.”

“He’s had a rough time? Dad, he almost got us

killed! He might be a loser, but he’s not completely stupid.

He knew what he was doing was wrong! And dangerous,” I

added.

“We’ll figure it all out tomorrow. Today, I mean.

Now, come on,” he put his arm on my shoulder. “You can

sleep in my room.”

I shrugged my arm away. Underneath all the

adrenalin and anger, an immense, heavy tiredness waited

for me, but right now I was too keyed-up to sleep. I wanted

answers.

“What’s going to happen?” I demanded. “Will Revo

go back to jail? Will Jasper end up in juvenile detention?”

The thought of Jasper being there was almost cartoon-like:

no way would he last five minutes in juvey. He’d probably

pass out before he made it through the doors.

“We’ll find out more tomorrow,” Dad said. “Right

now, I don’t know. I don’t know if we even have enough

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evidence to charge Revo. I guess a lot will depend on

Jasper’s side of the story.”

“Jasper!” I snapped. “He was in on it! They should

both be punished.”

Dad sighed again. “I know he did something wrong,

Paul, but I’m sure Revo was guilt-tripping him into it. Don’t

forget, Jasper hasn’t had a good upbringing like you did. So

don’t be too hard on judging him.”

Good upbringing! I wanted to shout in his face:

What, like divorcing mom, like replacing us both? Like

never spending time with me alone because Jasper throws

a hissy-fit every time he doesn’t get his way? How is that

being a good parent? Maybe from Jasper’s point of view it

was, but what about me?

“So, what, if Jasper lies and tells the police it was all

a big joke just so he can save his own butt, then Revo will

get off too?” My voice rose. “Why should they listen to

Jasper? He’s been lying to us since before we got here! He’s

the liar! I was the only one telling the truth! And you didn’t

even want to believe me at first!”

Dad reached his arm out again. “Paul―”

I flinched my arm away. Now that I’d opened the

floodgates, it was all coming rushing out. “You’re always

letting Jasper get his own way, you’re always spoiling him

so he doesn’t have his little-baby crying fits, and look what

it’s done! Look what you’ve made him ― not Revo! Jasper

thinks he can get away with whatever he wants, because all

he has to do is cry and people will forgive him. Dad, he

knew what he did was wrong, Revo didn’t take him away

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and brainwash him! You’re the one who made him think he

can get out of anything just by acting like a three-year-

old.”

“I was hoping you’d be more understanding.”

Wow, nice try with the guilt-trip, I thought. But wait,

let’s review: didn’t you just say it was wrong for a parent to

guilt-trip their kid?

By now, I was shouting. “No, Dad, I’m not terribly

understanding when my stepbrother tries to kill me! And

then my dad — my Dad, not his — expects me to feel sorry

for him. I come from a divorced family where my Dad

doesn’t have time for me, remember?― and yet somehow,

somehow, I don’t go around killing people!”

“Paul,” he said again, and I thought I saw tears in

his eyes. Oh, lord not tears! This was too much.

“I’m going up to bed!” I yelled. “I’ll sleep in your

room and you can sleep with the brat!”

I ran up the stairs and banged Dad’s door behind

me. Sunlight was already shining through the window, so I

yanked the faded brown curtains shut, wishing they were

thicker. Then I kicked my runners off, got undressed, and

flopped onto the bed.

I was so mad, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at

all, but as soon as I was lying down, the thick tiredness

that had been waiting behind everything pulled at me, and

I realized my whole body was aching.

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Alone now, I regretted storming off; I’d rather have

slept in the same room as Dad just so Jasper was forced to

be on his own. I hoped Jasper had been lying awake,

feeling alone, or better yet, hearing my words. But knowing

Jasper, he was probably sleeping like a baby.

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Chapter 17

Sometime later that day, I awoke to semi-darkness

and heat. You know when the room’s darkened, but you

can still tell it’s daytime? I came awake slowly,

remembering the previous day’s events. They seemed too

unreal to be anything but a bizarre dream, yet here I was

in Dad’s bed.

Police station, I remembered. We had to get down

there to continue with the questioning. I wanted to tell my

story before anyone else, even though I’d already told it.

More importantly, I had to be there to refute any lies or

excuses Jasper might come up with. I knew that if I was

right there in the room with him, able to stare him down

whenever his voice wobbled with the beginning of a lie, he

wouldn’t be able to continue — all he’d do is cry. And then

they’d see who was telling the truth.

Important as that was, however, my body still

craved sleep. No sounds came from downstairs, so with any

luck, Dad and Jasper were still sleeping. Then I

remembered that someone would have to replace the truck

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tires before we could go anywhere. Knowing the sound of a

truck would wake me, I let myself go back to sleep for a

little while.

I jerked awake a second time, the cabin still silent,

but this time I somehow knew I was the only one in the

cabin. I don’t know if it was a different quality of silence, or

the empty feeling, or what, but I could sense that Dad and

Jasper weren’t here. I stumbled out of bed and parted the

curtains, my hand immediately going up to shade my eyes.

It was sunny outside and looked like it might be mid-

afternoon. As my gaze travelled around I realized… the car

was gone.

“Dad?” I called out anxiously, throwing yesterday’s

clothes on. When I opened the bedroom door, I saw that

the door to my and Jasper’s room was wide open, and the

room was empty. I ran down the stairs, knowing before I

reached the kitchen that they weren’t there. Had they gone

outside? And where was the car, had someone taken it

away to fix? I knew Dad wouldn’t have left without me.

There were dirty dishes covering the stove, counter

and table. It looked like a big breakfast had been eaten.

With growing anxiety, I dashed over to stove. Sure enough,

a thick film of bacon grease covered the bottom of the

frying pan. And was the bowl on the counter caked with…

pancake batter? I looked around, getting angry now —

there was no covered plate of food waiting for me. They’d

cooked a huge bacon and pancake breakfast, and hadn’t

left any for me!

My gaze came to rest on the only thing they had left

me: a torn scrap of notepaper. I snatched it up from the

table and read Dad’s handwriting:

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Paul,

You were asleep, so didn’t want to wake you. Truck

tires fixed so have headed in to police station. Hope to be

back mid-afternoon. Love, Dad

Adrenaline shot thought my body ― they’d gone to

the police station without me! Now Jasper would be there,

telling his lies and twisting the story to make it sound like

he’d been the victim, or that it had all been a joke… and if

Revo was with him, corroborating it, then the cops would

never hear the truth.

“I hate you!” I shouted to no one in particular. I was

burning with anger, and wasn’t sure who I hated more right

now: Jasper, Revo, or my Dad, for taking off without me.

How could he? He knew I had to be there!

I paced the kitchen, fuming. Already, I figured, Dad

was letting Jasper wheedle his way out of it. I looked down

at my fist and saw I’d crumpled the note into a tight ball

without realizing it.

A quick glance at the clock told me it was two

o’clock. Two! What time had they left here? Unfortunately, I

hadn’t checked the time when I’d first woken up. I quickly

debated running into town to get to the station; maybe

they’d only just got there. But it was a long run ― this I

knew from the last time ― and they might already be

leaving the station. Plus, if I arrived there this mad, I’d

probably strangle Jasper on the spot. Well, at least it would

save the cops the effort of hunting me down for murder.

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“Dammit!” I yelled, anger continuing to build inside

me like a slow-rising volcano. And the volcano was going to

explode if I didn’t do something soon.

The sound of truck tires on the dirt road made me

dart to the door. It was Jasper and Dad, back already! My

body twitched, I wanted so badly to run out there and slam

my fist into Jasper before he’d even climbed out the car.

But I held myself motionless, fists still clenched, my anger

building as they got out the car and walked towards the

cabin.

Halfway towards the cabin, Jasper looked up, saw

me, and froze. He turned and darted into the woods like a

rabbit.

“Jasper!” Dad called out, turning to look after him.

“Where are you going?”

His gaze travelled back, looking for an explanation,

and came to rest me. His expression changed to one of

resigned guilt.

There were a million things I wanted to say, but

right now, I was too furious to speak.



“What do you mean, there’s nothing to charge him

with?” I demanded. “Revo tried to kill us!”

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We were in the living room, Dad sitting on the sofa,

me standing in front of him, refusing to sit down.

“We don’t know that he did, Paul,” he explained.

“Yes, he almost hit us with the motorboat, but we have no

way of knowing for sure what he meant to do. He says he

was out looking for Jasper―”

I gave a snort, and Dad’s expression relented. “Well,

you and I know that isn’t true,” he admitted. “But we didn’t

have a light on the canoe, so he could have actually been

on his way to the island to pick up the girl, or trying to see

what was going on. He didn’t know for sure Jasper wasn’t

with us in the canoe.”

At my stony expression, he added, “Okay, or he was

trying to scare us. But there’s still no way of proving he

meant harm. Or knowing whether he did.”

“But what about the whole setup?” I demanded.

“There have to be a ton of things to charge him with! Intent

to extort money from you, setting up a con with the

intention of tricking or injuring us―” I didn’t know the legal

terms “―and what about using the girl? And Jasper? I

mean, they’re just kids! Using them like that can’t be

legal.”

“We could try and get into a big legal battle to prove

all those things,” Dad said, “but as long as Revo and

Daewood stick to their stories, there just isn’t much we can

prove. Yes, I think any judge would believe us, but without

actual evidence, even a judge couldn’t legally do anything.

I think the best I can do is take the fact that Revo was in

contact with Jasper without Vanessa’s permission and put a

restraining order on him.”

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“So he just gets away with it?” I shouted. “That’s

so… wrong!”

Dad put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his

nose and pressed, like he had a headache. “I know it is,” he

sighed. “But are other considerations. One, the time and

money it would take to try.”

“We have the money!” I snapped back. “You won’t

use it to put someone behind bars who tried to hurt me?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “Don’t forget, everything I

inherited is eventually yours, and after spending months

tying up all the legalities around that will, the last thing I

want to do is waste it on something that I truly think would

go nowhere. But it’s not so much the money that’s

important; it’s the time and stress involved. Who knows

how long it could all go on for? And the whole time it’s

going on, it’s stress for all of us — you, me, Vanessa,

Jasper.”

“Oh, Jasper!” I snapped. “Admit it, Dad, that’s what

this is really about! Once again, you’re trying to protect

Jasper. At my expense!”

“That’s not true!”

“Oh, really? So tell me, what punishment do you

have in store for him?”

He shifted awkwardly. “Look Paul, this is all a

gigantic mess.”

“No kidding!”

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“Jasper… is going to need a lot of help getting over

this.”’

“Help!” I exploded. “Are you kidding me? The only

thing he needs help with is learning about a thing called

consequences! Or maybe, you know, how not to conspire to

murder!”

Dad raised his voice this time, which surprised me.

“Revo really messed him around,” he said. “Okay, I admit

it, another part of the reason I don’t think it’ll do any good

to try and put Revo behind bars again is, how will that do

Jasper any good? He already has to live with the fact he’s

got a father who’s a convict, who’s been in and out of jail a

half-dozen times, who’s never been there for him, and who,

even worse, repeatedly uses him to get money. How do you

think that makes Jasper feel? He’s not starting from a good

place, Paul. I know you think he needs to be punished for

this, but believe me, he’s learned his lesson.”

I wanted to speak, but was practically choking. I let

my head roll and my hands fall to my sides, slapping the

sides of my legs.

“And I am aware, Paul, that all the time I’ll have to

spend on Jasper is time taken away from you. I thought

before that we could do everything together, as a family,

but I see now we can’t. I need time for you separately. So

I’m stuck — if I try to charge Revo with a whole bunch of

things to satisfy you, then I’m caught up in a legal battle,

and it’s ultimately less time for both you and Jasper. And if

I’m trying to put his own father behind bars, that would

likely mess Jasper up even more, which means he’ll need

even more time and attention—”

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“What about Vanessa?” I interrupted. “Why isn’t she

the one spending time with him? He’s her kid.”

Dad rubbed his eyes, looking tired.

I knew he was right about the time and the legal

battle but it was so unfair! That Jasper and Revo should

both get off scot-free? Not to mention ‘Pa’.

“What about Daewood?” I blurted out, realizing we’d

forgotten about him. “Does he just walk away, too?”

Dad put his fingers down and blinked. “He’s getting

charged with pointing a gun at us. The police will probably

need your statement for that.”

“Then doesn’t that prove the rest of the story?” I

asked. “Wouldn’t that support everything else?”

“Not really.” Dad sighed. “Daewood claims he was

helping his friend get his son back, and that Revo told him

Jasper was legally his. Daewood’s story is that he was

‘doing the right thing.’

I made another choking noise.

“What about his kids?” I asked. “They just stay with

a Dad who’s like that? Who put his own daughter on an

island by herself, at night? Isn’t that negligence or

something, can’t they charge him with that?”

“I think social services will end up looking into that.”

Dad sighed. “Again, it depends how much Daewood and

Revo — and the kids — stick to their story.”

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“But surely it’s wrong for his kids to stay with him!” I

said. “I mean, what values is he teaching them? How to

swindle people and not get caught?”

“He’s no role model father,” Dad said. “But if they

take the kids away from him, without any other family to

go to they might end up in a home, and possibly separated.

Is that better? For them to have no parent at all?”

Yes, I wanted to say, but in truth, my head spun —

these questions were way too much for me. In a home,

they’d be away from ‘Pa’s influence… but would they just

get more resentful, more out of control? I pictured Coralie

in a home… she’d be raging like a wildcat. If she didn’t

have to be straight-jacketed away in a padded room, she’d

probably become the gang leader of the whole place, and

teach all the other kids how to shoplift or shoot rifles or

something… Oh, lord…

“I agree he should be put away,” Dad said. “But I

honestly have no idea what’s best for those kids.”

There was silence for a moment; I didn’t know what

else to say. I could feel my anger simmering back down

again, like someone had turned down the burner, but it was

still there, hot and heavy in my stomach. Dad turned to

look out the window. It was a bright, sunny day, which

seemed wrong: it should have been dark and gloomy, to

suit my mood.

Dad shifted back awkwardly. “Paul, I’m sorry, but

I’m going to have to go out and find Jasper. It’s been an

hour, now, and I’m worried about him, in the frame of mind

he’s in.”

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Instantly my anger flared back up, sending white

heat from my stomach to my head. “Jasper!” I said in

disgust. “He’ll be sitting ten feet in the woods, somewhere

you can very conveniently find him. Dad, can’t you see,

you’re playing right into his cry-baby routine? In fact,

you’re encouraging him! How will he ever grow up if every

time he pulls this trick, you let it work for him? He’s going

to stay thirteen forever, with the maturity of a ten-year-

old, if you keep letting him do this! Let him stay out there!

He’ll come in as soon as he’s hungry.”

Dad pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose

again. “Paul, I wouldn’t be any kind of parent if I didn’t go

check on him. If I thought he’d gone far, I’d be out looking

for him already, but I can’t not make sure. The way he’s

feeling right now…”

“Oh, screw it!” I snapped. “This is so pointless. He’s

going to stay a whiny little cry-baby forever, so that he can

get your time and attention. Well, I don’t need your time

any more, Dad. You made the decision long ago that Jasper

was more of a priority than me.”

I turned and stormed out of the cabin. The door

banged behind me, and I didn’t stop to see if Dad was

following. Likely not; he’d go find Jasper instead. Not that I

wanted to talk to Dad any more right now. Knowing Jasper

was probably sitting right at the edge of the woods,

huddled up next to a tree and pretend-crying, I headed in

the opposite direction and ran to the lake.

When I got to the water’s edge, I was surprised to

see our canoe sitting there. How had it got there? I thought

it would be floating around halfway down the lake by now.

It must have drifted towards shore. Maybe Dad had been

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the one to haul it out; there wouldn’t have been anyone

else to do it.

Not only had the canoe made it back, but one of the

paddles, too. Perfect — I could paddle away as far as I

wanted, and stay out till dark.

“Jasper!” I heard Dad calling. Instantly, my volcano

of rage came to the surface, and this time it really was

about to explode. The day was hot, and rather than having

the sun beat down on me as I paddled, and sweating under

a damp lifejacket, I decided I wanted to swim.

There was no way I was going back to the cabin to

find my swim trunks, so I kicked off my runners, stripped

off my t-shirt, and strode into the water in my shorts. The

cool water enveloped me, and I couldn’t dive under the

surface fast enough. I cut through the water fast, and cold

though it was in the deeper water, it still wasn’t cold

enough to extinguish the heat inside of me.

I’d never swum so hard and fast before. I headed

straight for the lake in an anger-fuelled front crawl, not

having to stop once to rest. It was like it gave me

superhuman strength. When I reached the island, I

emerged from the water and stood there dripping, amazed

at how fast I’d come.

My skin was cool from the water, but inside I still

burned. I realized that it wasn’t just Dad and Jasper I was

mad at: it was Coralie, it was Pa, and most of all, right here

on the island, it was The Girl.

The gravely beach was sore against the soles of my

feet, but, ignoring this, I strode towards the entrance to the

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bushes. This was going to hurt like heck: branches

scratched at my bare arms and torso as I pushed my way

through the tangle of foliage towards the clearing.

I knew, obviously, that The Girl wasn’t here, yet still

I felt a flare of frustration when I reached the clearing and

didn’t see her. It was like the emptiness mocked me: the

heavy, sun-drenched silence of the woods seemed to say ,

she’s not here, you’ll never get answers, you’ll never feel

finished with her. Like she was a witch, and would always

have some strange hold over me.

Why did you do it? I wanted to shout. How did they

make you? I pictured myself grabbing her by the shoulders

and shaking her. If you were so tough, how come you

didn’t run away from home for real? Or did you enjoy

leading me into danger?

Silence mocked me again.

The heat of the sun was like a magnifying glass on

kindling. I needed to cool off, and the swim hadn’t done it.

Knowing I’d be scratched to pieces, I nonetheless turned

and pushed my way towards the cliff. Each time a branch

clawed at me, it sliced a needle of heat into me. By the

time I reached the cliff, my skin was radiating with white-

hot scratches.

Shuffling to the edge, I peered over. The water

looked calm and inviting. Was it deep enough? I’d never

properly checked, but the water was an even dark color,

with no sign of any rocks. However, it was also in the

shade, so that could explain the dark color. But I knew if

you looked at how the land sloped above water, you could

get a good idea of what it did underneath, and the cliff

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edge appeared to go straight down, well underneath the

surface.

Pa, Coralie, the twins, The Girl… Revo, Jasper… Dad.

The thoughts still fought and raged through my head, and

without waiting any longer, I jumped.

I crashed through the surface, and cold water

boomed around me. Opening my eyes a crack, I saw

swirling clouds of bubbles in the darkness. They hung

motionless for a moment and then, as if collectively

deciding, rushed on up. Kicking my feet and pumping my

arms, I followed them up to the surface and burst through,

gasping in the warm air and shaking my head in the glaring

sunshine.

This time, the cold water seemed to leach my anger

away. Not all of it, but enough to make me focus on the

immediacy of the moment rather than the crazed tumult of

thoughts that had swallowed my rationality earlier. The

temperature of the water was far lower in the shade, and

as the coldness drove itself into me, I instinctively kicked

my feet. I turned to swim toward the beach side of the

island, where sunlight sparkled off the surface so fiercely it

almost blinded me.

I swam more slowly this time, gazing up at the

island — the jagged rocks, the beach, the tangled foliage

rising up the slope — they looked so… solid compared to

the fluidity of the water around me. Like they’d been there

for eons, would continue to be there for eons, and didn’t

care what happened to me. I didn't want to stand on the

jagged pebbles of the beach again, with the sun beating

down on me and stirring up all the anger and craziness, so

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instead, I turned and began to swim away from the island,

back to the cabin.

My stomach gave a tiny, gnawing complaint as I

swam, making me realize how long it was since I’d eaten.

It must have been dinner last night, and that was almost

twenty-four hours ago! It was strange to think how much

had happened in that time ― it seemed like a week rather

than a day. There’d been the light flashes from the island,

going out in the canoe in the dark, the motorboat bearing

down on us, me and Dad capsizing not far from where I

was right now; and then Jasper’s whole story, Pa and Revo,

the shotgun, the police station, waiting to hear if they’d

been caught. And it was then that things had seemed to

get even more twisted. It wasn’t so much Revo’s badly

thought-out plan that had messed everything up, rather the

mess he’d left behind to clean up. And it had all been left

for Dad. I hadn’t exactly helped things, I now realized. I’d

made the mess… well, even messier.

As I swam through the cold water, it occurred to me

how crazy it all was. It also seemed more distant, like I was

no longer caught up in the middle of the whirlwind. Jasper,

I thought, and felt a small twinge of sympathy for him.

Sympathy? For Jasper? What was wrong with me?

Maybe it was the cooling effect of the water, but

when I thought of him, I could only picture the times I’d

seen him looking unhappy. In fact, how many times had I

ever seen him look happy? Unless it was when dinner was

being put on the table.

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I looked up as I swam. From where I was, I could

see that the area around the cabin was deserted. No Dad,

no Jasper. Probably they were inside.

I was about three-quarters of the way back when my

stomach gave a sharp twinge. Hunger again, no doubt. I

continued to swim, but after a few strokes, a lightning-bolt

of pain shot through my abdomen. My limbs sprang into

retraction, and my whole body curled up before I even had

time to even think about it. The pain was so intense that I

couldn’t uncurl, so I let myself roll onto my side. This way,

I could still stay afloat. Stupid, I realized, going for a swim

without having eaten for so long. Although to be fair, adults

were always telling us not to swim after eating; no one had

ever said anything about making sure you had eaten.

The pain was still sharp in my stomach, and so

severe that it wouldn’t allow me to straighten my body. I

tried to paddle with my hands, but it was all I could do to

stay buoyant; I couldn’t get any closer to the shore until

my muscles unclenched a bit.

Gnashing my teeth against the pain, I tried to

straighten out enough to lie on my back and give short

forearm-paddles to move me through the water. But then

another bolt of pain slammed into me, making my body curl

even more tightly, and time I went under the water. I came

up spluttering, bobbing around as I tried to find some kind

of equilibrium, but my position forced me to roll over like a

log, and I took a gulp of water as I spun.

I was clenched up, coughing, and trying to fight the

worst cramp I’d ever experienced. I’d never had a

swimming cramp before, and always thought it was some

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kind of low-level tension, not something that takes over

your whole body and makes you want to scream in pain.

Gasping, trying to use my forearms as stabilizers

and uncurl enough that I didn’t sink like a rock, I looked

towards the cabin. “Help,” I gasped, barely loudly enough

to be heard ten feet away. “Help!” I tried again. But even if

my voice had carried to the cabin… there was no one there.

It was as quiet as the lake.

“Help!” I tried again. It came out like a short bark

this time, the desperation in my voice obvious even to me.

This scared me even more. I was going down, and there

was no one around!

I’d never imagined I could be twenty meters from a

lake shore and unable to get there. There was no current

pulling at me, no undertow snatching my body and tossing

into churning waves… everything was calm and still, just

waiting, waiting. And the water, before so calming as it

leached my anger away, now seemed vengeful, sucking my

strength away. It seemed dark and angry, like I’d done

something to offend it and it wanted revenge.

In a desperate surge of panic, I flailed around,

hoping to propel myself towards the shore. I knew my

flailing would only get me a few feet, but if I did it hard

enough, maybe the momentum would send me bobbing the

rest of the way.

“Help!” I tried again. I floated a few feet before my

momentum was quietly strangled by the dark water.

I was going to die, I realized. A mere twenty meters

from shore, in a calm, sunlit lake, within easy sight of the

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cabin, and I was going to drown. “No,” I whispered. Surely

it wasn’t possible! And all of a sudden, I wanted to cry. This

was so stupid! I hadn’t been anywhere near death when

the motorboat had capsized us and I’d been caught in dark,

choppy water, disoriented and trying to find Dad — and

now I was going to die for doing the simple things you’re

told not to do: going swimming without letting anyone

know, without making sure there’s someone around to keep

an eye on you, and going too far from shore by yourself.

I felt my strength ebbing, slowly but surely, into the

water. “No,” I whispered, rolling onto my back, the most

buoyant position I’d found so far. Only twenty meters…

surely I could stay afloat long enough to steadily paddle

myself there! It couldn’t be that hard. But then another

cramp hit me — smaller, this time, but right in the side of

my gut, crumpling me like a piece of paper. I heard

splashing as I swallowed more water. I spun, but coughed

at the wrong time, sucking down more water. This time I

made sure my eyes were open when I found air and

gasped.

I thought I heard a voice say, “Paul!” as I coughed

and splashed, fighting to stay face-up. But there was water

in my ears, and besides, I knew there was no one around.

“I’m coming!” the voice seemed to say, and I figured I was

either imagining it, or truly dying: if it was my guardian

angel, then unless they were carrying a lifebelt, they were

coming to take me away rather than save me.

“Hang on! I’m almost there!”

Still writhing like a snake, I was too occupied with

my twisting, with the water, with trying to breathe when

my face was up, to look towards the sound. But then I did,

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and I thought I must be dreaming. Jasper seemed to be

heading towards me in the canoe.

“Paul!” he called, paddling badly, bouncing all over

the place as he tried to guide the canoe.

I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating! — At least, I

didn’t think so, because in a dream Jasper wouldn’t have

been so intent on getting straight to me that he was about

to run me down rather than save me.

All I could manage to rasp was, “Jasper!”, hoping to

communicate by my tone ‘ you’re about to hit me!’ He must

have thought I was still calling for help, because he paddled

harder, the bow of the canoe aimed straight at my head. I

put my hand up to catch it, managing to move my head out

of the way just in time. The side of the canoe pushed

against me and I rolled with it, swinging my other hand up

to catch the gunwale as I rotated to face Jasper.

He tried to stand up and reach for me, but wobbled

and almost fell over. The paddle slipped from his grasp as

he tried to maneuver it into the canoe, and it slid towards

me, the sharp end of it almost taking my head off. Still

clinging to the side of the canoe with my left hand, I caught

the paddle with my right and heaved it back towards

Jasper.

“I’ve got you!” he said, trying to find his balance. He

didn’t have me; in fact, he was about to fall on top of me.

“S’okay,” I gasped, slapping my right hand back

onto the gunwale again. “I’m okay.” As long as I had the

canoe to cling to, I could wait a few minutes while I

gathered enough strength to heave myself in. I coughed

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heavily a few times, trying to rid myself of the water

rattling around in my throat. Now that I knew I was safe,

my strength seemed to be returning, my panic abating. In

fact, the feeling of my heart pounding so heavily in my

chest reassured me that I was not only alive, but strong. I

closed my eyes, listening to nothing but the beating sound.

That was, until a stumble and a yelp made me open my

eyes ― Jasper was grabbing for the paddle he’d almost

dropped again.

“Take hold of this,” he said, waving it dangerously

near my head.

Rather than stepping into the Laurel and Hardy

routine Jasper was in danger of creating — visions of me

falling back into the water with a bruise on my head from

the paddle, or worse, Jasper trying to help me, then falling

in himself — I resolutely strengthened my grip on the side

of the canoe and, hand over hand, shuffled my way back to

the bow, the safest place to climb in.



The trip back was painfully slow. The canoe wove

uncertainly towards shore, its bow now and then drifting

around to point down the lake, then bobbing up and down

as Jasper tried to guide it back on course. I’d tried half-

heartedly to convince him that I should paddle, but Jasper

had been resolute on this point: he was going to take me

back. Truthfully, I hadn’t had the strength to argue, and

was grateful to sit and let someone else do the work. Until,

that was, I saw how slowly this was going to go, and my

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impatience to be on dry land began to overtake my

tiredness.

I turned to look at Jasper, who was sitting in the

stern and sweating, his lifejacket preventing him from

paddling easily. “Maybe we should switch,” I said weakly,

but he shook his head, not looking at me, whether from

concentration or not wanting to talk, I couldn’t tell.

When the bow finally touched the ground, I jumped

out, my knees almost buckling beneath me as my legs took

the unexpected weight of my body ― I must have been in

the water longer than I’d thought. As soon as I found my

balance, I began to heave the canoe up onto shore,

staggering back and almost falling as, mid-heave, Jasper

decided this was a good time to step out. The movement of

the canoe acted like a rug pulled from under his back foot,

and he went face-down into the water. It was only up to his

knees, and after his hands went down to catch him, he

stood up again and dragged the canoe by its side as he

stumbled towards shore.

I sat down heavily. Jasper took his lifejacket off, set

it in the canoe, and, head-down, not meeting my eyes,

began to walk back to the cabin.

“Jasper,” I said.

He glanced up and met my eyes for only a brief

second, instantly darting his gaze away again.

I’d assumed the reason he’d insisted on paddling me

back was so he would be fully the rescuer, rather than

having to be taken back by the rescuee. I also assumed he

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wanted my gratitude. And yet here he was, leaving before I

could say anything.

“Jasper,” I repeated, but then wasn’t sure what to

say. If he wanted my gratitude, he’d earned it by saving

me from a horrible drowning; yet the situation was, he’d

almost got me and Dad drowned a short time ago, and I

wouldn’t have gone swimming alone today if it weren’t for

him.

As if reading my thoughts, he turned and began to

walk towards the cabin again. He walked slowly, as if I

might call him back again. But I couldn’t think what to say.

And so he continued on.

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Chapter 18

I tore another bite from my pizza like a wild animal

pulling flesh from a carcass, this time finally slowing my

chewing and letting myself breathe between bites. My eyes

wanted to droop shut as the feeling of fullness expanded in

my stomach. I had demolished almost an entire pizza by

myself, and even though the stuffed feeling was now

turning to discomfort, I still had the urge to cram more

food into my mouth.

Dad finished his piece and reached for another. He

hadn’t eaten as fast, and still had two-thirds of his pizza

left. He’d come back to the cabin with three whole pizzas,

not because we didn’t like the same kind, but because he

knew how hungry we all were. Although I don’t think he’d

realized that I was half-starved.

The reason he hadn’t been around when I’d almost

drowned was that he’d driven into town to get pizzas,

thinking I’d gone for a walk. He hadn’t checked by the lake

before leaving; I knew this, because if Dad had seen my

clothes lying there, there was no way he’d have gone. He

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would have been straight out in that canoe, looking for me.

I hadn’t told him about any of it, so as far as he knew, I

had gone for a walk.

Jasper was upstairs in the bedroom. When Dad had

come through the door with the pizzas, Jasper had quietly

appeared, taken one of the boxes, and shuffled off upstairs.

Dad, to my surprise, didn’t go after him. Instead, he sat

with me at the kitchen table, and we silently tore into the

pizzas.

As soon as I finished eating, he’d probably want to

talk, which was another reason to keep trying to eat. But

my eyes drooped again, my hand fell to my plate, and I

stopped. I was exhausted. Maybe he’d let me go sleep, and

we could talk later.

“So, I was thinking,” he said.

Drat.

“We probably won’t want to stay here any more.”

I looked at him in surprise. My mouthful of pizza

prevented me from talking, but I wouldn’t have been able

to do much more than blink, anyway. I hadn’t thought

about what we were going to do in the immediate future;

all my thoughts had been of later things. Revo, Jasper, jail,

juvenile detention.

“I figure we won’t want to stick around here what

with everything that’s happened. It’s probably best we just

get away, get some distance from it all. Literally and

figuratively. Plus,” he said, tapping his piece of pizza

against his plate, “I phoned Vanessa, and she needs to be

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with Jasper. And Jasper needs to be with her. But if for any

reason you did want to stay here, Paul, we do have the

cabin for a month, so I could drop Jasper off with Vanessa

and come back here to spend the rest of the time with you.

It depends how you feel about being here.”

I chewed my food and tried to swallow, but it

seemed to get stuck in my throat. “Um,” I finally said,

clearing my throat. “I don’t know.”

He was right, though: there was nothing left for us

here but bad memories. I was impressed that he’d already

decided to make time for me, and I hated to pass up the

one chance that might not come again. But the only things

to do here were hike, swim, and canoe, and I was done

with the last two for a while.

“Well, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with

the rest of your summer, and how we can salvage some

kind of vacation. And I thought that maybe what would be

best is to get away some place completely different.

Someplace where we can all ― I mean, you and me ― can

relax.”

Yeah, Dad hadn’t had much of a vacation so far.

“And now that the will is sorted out, we do have a lot

more disposable income than before, you know. Like I said

before, most of it’s going into savings and a trust fund, but

that’s not to say we can’t enjoy some of it. So I was

wondering… what would you say to a surf vacation?

Someplace hot, sunny… Costa Rica, maybe? Or Hawaii?”

I sat up. “Surfing?” Dad knew how much I wanted to

try it, but we’d never been able to afford a surf vacation.

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And… Hawaii? I wanted to run off and pack my bags this

second.

But then I frowned. Everyone I’d met who’d surfed

had lived through at least three near-drowning experiences,

and after everything that happened here, did I really want

to put myself into crashing waves with no lifejacket? Maybe

it was just my current state of exhaustion, but surfing

suddenly didn’t seem so appealing. I hoped this wasn’t a

one-time offer, because someday I wanted to, in fact,

burned to. But right now, the idea of just lazing around on

a beach — which used to sound so boring to me — was

looking pretty good.

“Or if you don’t want anything quite so…

adventurous,” Dad said, making me wonder if he felt the

same way, “we could always try Club Med or something.

Lots of beach and pool, but also sailing and waterskiing and

stuff like that if you want. And, you know, lots of girls.” He

winked.

I sat up straighter. This was sounding really

appealing. I wondered if we could invite Mandy. Hey, want

to come on an all-expenses paid trip to Club Med? I

couldn’t imagine anyone turning that down. Then again,

this was meant to be bonding time for me and Dad.

He was staring at me, and I realized I hadn’t spoken

more than one word.

“Um,” I said.

I wondered if Dad had phoned Mom today, and what

she’d said. I suddenly missed her, and wanted to see her.

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“Maybe Mom could come.”

This time it was Dad’s turn to look surprised.

He and Mom got along fine, it wasn’t like there’d be

any weirdness between them. I just figured she hadn’t had

a vacation in so long. Although, when Dad and I spent time

alone together, would she be bored? Would she need

company?

“And maybe Vanessa too,” I said. She and Mom got

along well. Although I was now beginning to wonder if I

was creating a really weird scenario.

“And, you know. Um. Jasper.”

Dad looked really surprised this time, before his face

broke into a huge grin. “Really? Do you mean it?”

This made me scowl. I didn’t want him to be quite so

happy that Jasper might be there. Oh great, what had I

done now, taken the offer of a vacation alone with Dad and

thrown the whole family into the mix? My brain must have

had an attack of the stupids from the pizza-carb rush. I

wondered if I could backpedal out of this.

“If he wants, I suppose,” I said grudgingly. “Club

Med has kids’ camps, right? He could go off and do that

stuff.” Face painting and three-legged races. We might

have been only a year apart, but Jasper was a kid. I wasn’t.

“Sure!” Dad said brightly. “He might really enjoy

that! Meet some more kids his age.”

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This mollified me slightly: Dad saw him as a kid, too.

And realized Jasper needed friends his age, not just Dad all

the time.

“But he’d have to room with Vanessa,” I added

quickly. “Not you with Vanessa and me with Jasper. No

way. You and I would be rooming together, okay?”

That would sort things out ― Jasper could room with

Vanessa and Mom (sorry Mom) and that way get all the

smothering he wanted. And Dad and I could go off and do

guy-stuff. We’d see them for meals, that would be okay.

“Sure!” Dad said. “And you and I can go off and hit

the bars at night.”

“Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. I knew he was trying

to make me smile… and it was almost working. “I’m too

young to drink,” I reminded him, managing to look serious

again.

“Club Med is French. France has no drinking age.”

I reached my foot out under the table and kicked

him, trying not to laugh. “Dad.”

He smiled, then looked serious again and stared

straight into my eyes. “Thanks, Paul.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I knew what he meant.

“Well, I guess I’ll go tell Jasper, then?”

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I shifted my attention back to my remaining uneaten

bit of pizza, and nodded.

“He’ll be… really glad, Paul.”

I nodded again, cramming the piece into my mouth

and picking crumbs off the plate with my other hand.

“Maybe we can start packing up tonight, and finish in

the morning,” Dad said. “You look really tired, even though

you slept so much. I guess this has taken a lot out of us.”

I gave a shrug and finished chewing my pizza. Yeah,

that and the near-drowning you don’t know about.

“My cell phone’s getting reception again, so if you

want to call your mom, you can.”

Dad headed on up the stairs to tell Jasper. I

wondered again if I’d done something completely insane.

But Dad no doubt knew he’d need to keep the Jasper-focus

to a minimum, and let Vanessa step in instead.

Imagining her shriek of delight when she heard the

plans, I picked up the phone to call Mom.

212

Paul VanDerMere is looking forward

to a summer of canoeing, swimming,

and hanging out with his dad at their

lakeside cabin in the woods. At first,

the only thing getting in the way of

his enjoyment is his stepbrother

Jasper. But when Paul and Jasper

are canoeing back from a small,

uninhabited island on the lake, Paul

glances back and sees a young girl

staring back at him. He’s not even

sure if he saw her – was she real, or

an apparition?

He’s soon drawn in to the

unsettling mystery of a

strange girl who randomly

appears and disappears

from the island. When he

hears a local ghost story

about a young girl just

like her, he begins to

wonder if he’s dealing

with a real person… or

something entirely

different.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18