Frankie
The water is freezing, colder than I’ve ever felt it.
I’ve also never gone swimming with a waterproof bag strapped to my back. Despite everything I’ve crammed into it, it’s basically
a flotation device, which theoretically should make swimming easier. Except that it doesn’t . . . at first.
It takes me a few strokes to find my rhythm. I should be able to swim this route with my eyes closed, I’ve done it so many
times before. The glow of the fire is all I need to get me to the shore. . . .
And maybe it would have been, if I could see it.
But the fog at the waterline is so thick, all I can see before me is gray mist. Worse, I can’t see where I’ve come from. The
dock and the DeLong boys have been swallowed up by the thick fog.
What is happening? I’m a fairly experienced open water swimmer. I swim this exact path every single day. I’ve even swum through
mist before, plenty of times.
But it’s never behaved like this. The cold gray fog seems to be clinging to my arms every time I lift one from the water, almost as if it’s trying to push my limbs back below. This mist . . . it seems almost alive, like something—or someone—is manipulating it.
But that’s impossible.
That’s when I see it—a shape in the swirling fog.
Only it isn’t the comforting sight of my dock, or the rocky shore of Center Island, or even one of Troy’s swift water rescue
boats coming to save me. It almost looks like a face—a massive human face floating in the fog in front of me.
And then I recognize it. It’s my father, his mouth open in a silent scream. A scream of pain.
I’m so shocked, I forget to swim. And instantly I’m sucked under the dark, turgid water.
Nothing is pulling me under. No unseen hands are tugging me down. I’m merely sinking, sinking deeper and deeper into the impenetrable
cold.
Maybe it’s the cold that jolts me back to reality. I don’t know. But suddenly, as I’m down there in the murky depths, I realize:
that’s not my dad. It can’t be.
I’ve visited with Dad many times in my dreams since he passed. Or rather, he’s come to visit me. I know these dreams are only
my subconscious working out my grief about his passing. But I also know when I see Dad in my dreams, it’s him. It’s really
him. This specter out there in the mist—that’s not.
After my initial jolt of fear, I’m able to recognize what’s happening: I have to be hallucinating.
Not like Richard. This is no theophany. I really am hallucinating.
Could it be hypothermia? One of the symptoms is mental confusion, but I’ve only been in the water a few minutes.
It’s more likely there’s something hallucinogenic in the smoke coming from the island.
I wouldn’t put it past those girls to have incorporated psychedelics into their ritual.
It’s a common practice in many spiritual ceremonies.
Well, I’m not going to fall for it. I give a mighty kick and resurface, taking in a long gasp of air . . .
The face is there again, floating in front of me like a death mask.
This is scary.
But mostly it makes me angry. How dare someone try to drug me without my permission? Who do these witches think they are?
If they think the sight of my dead dad is going to scare me, they are sadly mistaken, because nothing is as scary as the idea
of Ash trussed in tow ropes and being taken, unconscious and against his will, to Satan’s Seat.
It doesn’t matter that he believes his grandmother is a goddess. The only thing that matters is getting Ash home safe . . .
Because I love him.
That’s right. I might as well admit that I love Ash Merit. I don’t want to, but I do. And I will do whatever I have to in
order to keep him safe, even swim through freezing lake water and hallucinogenic fog . . .
It’s then that something completely unexpected happens: the face in the mist disappears, and the curtain of fog before me
parts.
I can’t explain it any other way. The fog parts the way the water of the Red Sea parts in one of my mother’s favorite movies,
The Ten Commandments, which she puts on every Easter after church and before Sunday Gravy, and which I have consequently seen thirty-seven times.
In the movie when the Red Sea parts, there’s an incredible swell of orchestral music.
But when the mist before me parts, there’s no sound at all.
It simply curls away, creating a sort of arched pathway through the fog, leading me directly to the shore.
I can see the narrow, rocky beach ahead of me, lit by the occasional appearance of the moon through the clouds and smoke, and the yellow reflection of the flames further inland.
I don’t waste time wondering how this is happening. I swim as hard as I can for that shore. My legs and arms know exactly
what to do. I’ve never felt stronger. I’m no longer noticing the cold, only my wildly pounding heart. I keep swimming as hard
as I can until I finally feel the muddy bottom. Normally at this point in my swim, I’d turn, plunge my toes into that mud,
and push off to swim back to my own dock.
But today, for the first time ever, I put my feet down into that muddy bottom and walk to the shore, not stopping until the
tiny rocks that line the narrow beach cut into the soles of my feet.
Then I promptly collapse onto those rocks.
I don’t know why I’m so tired. I swim twice this far every day and it doesn’t exhaust me the way this short swim has.
Then again, most days I don’t have terrifying visions of my dead dad floating in front of me as I swim.
When I feel able to move again, I check my fitness tracker and find that my heart rate accelerated so much during that swim,
it basically registered as a cardiac event. The tracker suggests I visit a healthcare provider at my soonest opportunity.
But I don’t have time to worry about that now. I open my swim bag, strip off my suit and dry myself, then slip into the sweatshirt,
yoga pants, and running shoes I’ve brought with me. I’m not cold at all. I’m sweating so much from my swim (and my scare)
that I don’t even feel the temperature anymore.
When I switch on my flashlight to look around to find a path into the woods, I realize I can hear voices ahead through the
trees, near the same place where I can see the glow of the fire.
I also catch sight of the Rubensteins’ pontoon boat. It’s run aground in the rocky sand since there’s no dock to tie it to, which is a shame. It was a big, beautiful party boat . . .
But even the briefest of glances shows me there’s no sign of anyone still being on board . . . or of Ash, either. Tracks—all
made by small women’s sneakers, except for one set that are clearly drag marks—lead from the boat, through the sand, and into
the woods.
So he’s alive. Well, of course he’s alive. They might be witches, but they’re still teenage girls. They aren’t going to kill
him.
Right?
I follow the tracks, listening to the voices I begin to hear more and more distinctly as I head deeper into the forest, thorns
and brambles tearing at my pant legs and shirt sleeves, and mist making everything more difficult to see.
“For far too long,” a confident female voice rings out from somewhere through the deep brush ahead of me, “we witches have
lived in fear—fear of discovery, and fear of the judgment of others. But why?”
I switch off my flashlight because I feel like I’m close enough that one of them might spot it. The light from the fires—and
it isn’t only one fire, I can see now, but multiple bonfires, along with individual torch flames—is enough to guide my path.
“What is it about us that’s so threatening?” the girl asks. “I’ll tell you what it is. They fear us because we’re so powerful.
We’re more intelligent than they are, and they know it. And unlike the rest of humanity, we won’t settle for greed, selfishness,
and ignorance. We want to make the world a better place, and we want to do it now!”
Cheers erupt. Whoever is speaking, her speech seems to be going well. She’s got her audience’s full attention.
It’s only because of this that I’m able to crawl undetected toward the sound of the voice. The girls are too engrossed to notice the crack of underbrush beneath me.
It’s there, on my hands and knees, that I peek through the branches of some kind of prickly bush, and peer over the side of
a deep split in the earth . . . a crevice that, according to my sixth grade biology teacher, was formed many thousands of
years ago, during the ice age, when glaciers moving south just suddenly stopped.
There are ravines like this one all over New England, many of which have rock formations at the bottom of them, boulders that
were carried along by the ice sheet until it melted. I’ve never given a second thought to the name locals gave the rock formation
on Center Island. It’s a tall chunk of limestone jutting out of the earth, with another, flatter chunk sort of collapsed against
it, causing it to look—with some imagination—like a giant chair.
That’s why everyone has always known it as Satan’s Seat: only the Devil is large enough to sit on it.
But viewed from this angle—above—I can see for the first time that the seat isn’t a seat at all. It’s a table.
More specifically, it’s an altar.
I only realize this when I see there’s a man stretched out across the top of that altar, his wrists and ankles bound in what
looks like blue tow rope. His eyes are closed, and he’s not moving.
It’s Ash. And I can’t tell if he’s alive.
But he has to be. He has to be. Why else is there a girl in a long white robe standing below him at the bottom of the altar?
Her back is to me as she addresses her followers—only around twenty or so of them, also dressed in white robes, and kneeling as if in prayer before her.
But I can see the girl in front has long blonde hair that gleams in the torchlight.
Every once in a while, she turns her face enough to show her profile.
That’s how I recognize her from the videos Ash showed me.
Haley.
“Bones symbolize death,” Haley is saying. “And death can be scary. Why else are images of skeletons so popular at Halloween?