Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
I am walking to Susie’s cottage.
Even though I know how stupid that is.
How, if this were a slasher movie, I would be eviscerated for my actions, as the crickets and their earsplitting Psycho-string chirps can attest.
The smartest thing would be to run and alert the others.
I know that, too. Just like I also know there might not be time for that.
I assume Lindy’s searching for the camcorder, which still sits in the parlor of the main house.
Something she’ll realize within seconds.
If I don’t catch her in the act now, there’s a chance no one will.
Crossing the green, I pass beneath the oak. Susie’s clothes remain in the upper branches, an object lesson about what happens to people who go chasing after dark figures moving through the night.
At least I’m armed.
Sort of.
My weapon of choice is a plunger I found beneath the bathroom sink. The best I could do on such short notice. I wield it like a baseball bat, as if that makes it even slightly effective.
Beyond that, I don’t have a plan. Which should make me turn back, which I absolutely want to do.
But it’s too late now. I’m at Susie’s cottage, stepping onto the porch, careful not to make a sound as Lindy continues to move around inside.
I hear her fumbling about, along with a noise that’s startlingly similar to the thwump I’ve heard in my own cottage.
When I burst inside, I spot a woman in the gloom, kneeling on the floor, sorting through something. I scream when I see her. She does, too, and I realize who it is.
Not Lindy.
Heather.
Even in the darkness, I can make out her dress. Navy fabric. White polka dots. In her hand is a dark object that explodes into brightness. A flashlight, aimed right at my face, its beam blinding.
“Jesus, Marin,” she says. “You scared the shit out of me. Also, what’s with the plunger?”
“I thought you were Lindy.”
“Same, girl. Same.”
Heather makes no move to lower the flashlight, forcing me to hold the plunger in front of my face to deflect its glow.
“Could you lower that, please?”
“Not until you tell me what you’re doing here.”
Her accusatory tone makes it clear she doesn’t trust me. The feeling, honestly, is mutual.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I say. “Why are you breaking into Susie’s cottage?”
“To get this.” Heather finally lowers the flashlight, its beam now aimed at the floor. The glow from below illuminates her tired eyes and the worried set of her jaw. She looks the same way I feel. So utterly depleted, so very scared. “I thought I could use it to signal for help.”
“Do you know how?”
“I know basic Morse code.” Heather aims the light at the wall. “Do you think this is bright enough to be seen from the mainland?”
“I doubt it,” I say. Two miles is a long way for a meager flashlight running on a couple of D batteries. “But maybe it’ll be seen by a passing boat.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Heather says, passing me on her way to the door. “It’s better than sitting around doing nothing until we’re all dead.”
I follow her out of Susie’s cottage and back to my own, where I change out of my nightgown and into shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. I don’t care that they’re not era-appropriate. Under these circumstances, my crusty blue dress can go fuck itself.
“Do you really think Susie’s dead?” I ask Heather when I rejoin her outside.
“I’d like to think no, but my gut tells me yes.”
We leave the green and push through the woods behind my cottage, the daisy wheels on the trees there looking like eyes in the flashlight’s glare.
Even with the light, the forest is tricky to navigate.
The uneven turf coupled with the steady decline of the land itself trips up both of us several times.
By the time we reach the lake, Heather and I are clinging to each other for support.
We stand next to a downed tree, its fat trunk stretching from the woods all the way to the lake’s edge.
The upper branches skim the water in a tangle of dead leaves.
Heather aims the flashlight straight ahead, its beam slicing the thin mist rising off the water’s surface.
From this spot on the shore, there’s no indication of the light’s reach.
It could be two miles. It could be twenty feet.
“Let’s see if this works,” Heather says as she flicks the light on and off in three short bursts, followed by three longer flashes, then another three short ones.
S-O-S.
As she repeats the pattern, I look toward the mainland. While I can see lights there, they appear so small, so faint. Not a good predictor of success. Still, Heather is right. This is indeed better than doing nothing.
“Do you see any boats?” she says before flicking the light nine more times.
Three short, three long, three short.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
I do another scan of the horizon, this time focusing on the expanse of water between us and the distant shore. There’s nothing. Another bad sign.
“No,” I say.
“Well, just because we don’t see any doesn’t mean they’re not out there. Walk along the shore to the dock. Visibility is better there.”
While I’m not thrilled about being alone in the dark while a deranged actress is potentially stalking the island, Heather’s suggestion makes sense.
Because it juts out into the water, the end of the dock will give me a better view of other directions.
If I see a boat, I can shout to Heather to aim it their way.
“How long should I stand there?”
Heather sets her jaw. “For as long as it takes.”
I set off along the shore, stumbling over the unwieldy combination of rocks, mud, silt, and water.
The moon, angled on the opposite side of the island, is no help at all.
Instead of guiding me, it casts shadows of trees across the ground, making the trek even darker.
All I have to see by is Heather’s flashlight, the pattern repeating at my back.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
At one point, I take a wrong step, hitting not solid ground but the mud right next to it. My sneaker sinks into the muck all the way up to my ankle. I yank my foot out, the mud sucking at my foot.
Even without the mud, this feels worse than my walk to Susie’s cottage.
At least then I could see better. At least then I had a plunger.
There’s nothing in my hands as I replay Susie’s video in my head, shivering at the memory of those dark woods, her terrified look, the tumble of the camera before everything went black.
What did Susie see in that moment? Lindy? Azra? Something else entirely?
Molly.
The name jabs into my brain like an ice pick. I shake it away. No, it wasn’t her. That is a road I refuse to go down.
Still, the idea that it’s my sister who’s doing all this makes me turn to Heather for reassurance. Either she’s moved up the shore or I’ve traveled farther than I thought, because she’s now a small figure at the water’s edge, barely visible. I mostly see the flashlight, still signaling.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
Resisting the urge to head back, I push on, finally making it to the dock, where visibility is slightly better. There’s a light here—a boxy solar one strapped to the wood, signaling the dock’s presence to passing boaters.
Not that any boats are out at this hour. When I reach the end of the dock, I scan the lake, seeing nothing but Heather’s flashlight, now just a blinking speck.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
The water is calm, quiet, mirror-black. It makes me think of our backyard pool. How dark it seemed on summer nights. The kind of water that threatens to trap you in its depths.
I look Heather’s way again, comforted by the light.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
It makes me feel a bit like Gatsby, staring at that green light, pining for Daisy.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
It occurs to me that I’m now also a Daisy. Worlds removed from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s silly, insipid beauty.
One two three. One…two…three. One two three.
I hope my Daisy will be just as memorable, though. I think, with Ronan’s help, that’s possible.
One two three. One…two…three. One—
I watch, waiting for the rest of the pattern.
It never arrives.
Rather than blink, the flashlight emits a steady glow, the beam lower than it was a second ago.
Like, on-the-ground low.
Like, Heather-isn’t-holding-it low.
I cross the dock in four rattling stomps. Back on land, I sprint along the shoreline, one foot splashing in the water, the other kicking up pebbles, never taking my eyes off the flashlight’s unceasing beam.
When I get closer, I see the flashlight sitting on the ground, beam aimed outward. A diagonal zag of light. Heather, though, is nowhere to be found.
I reach the spot next to the downed tree where she had been standing, accidentally kicking the flashlight as I screech to a halt, sending the beam spinning. I swoop down, pick it up, aim it first to the woods, angling for a glimpse of Heather being whisked away through the trees.
Or running in fear.
Or writhing in pain on the ground.
Seeing nothing, I face the lake, scanning it for a boat speeding away from the island or Heather wading into the water or—God forbid—floating face down on the surface.
Again, nothing.
Heather is gone.
Not missing. Not lost. Not taken.
Just.
Completely.
Gone.
I call her name, desperately hoping I’ll get a response.
“Heather? Where are you?”
I pause, waiting for a reply that, deep down, I know will never come. After five seconds, I resume shouting, my voice growing scratchy from strain.
“Heather? Heather?!”
I run through the trees, gripping the flashlight tight, its beam bobbing as I scramble to the top of the island.
Every so often, I aim the light into the woods on either side of me, naively hoping to glimpse Heather.
All I see are trees and stumps and ferns, their fronds an eerie green in the flashlight’s beam.
I emerge from the woods directly behind Heather’s cottage and stomp toward it, thinking and hoping and praying she’s inside.
I don’t think about why she’d need to return there so quickly, without her flashlight and without telling me.
Because she’s not there. I know it before I aim the flashlight through the darkened windows and see nothing but empty cottage.
It’s the same when I open the door and peek inside.
No Heather.
I head to Susie’s cottage next, just in case she went back there for some reason. I get halfway across the green before I’m stopped by something in the oak tree, a few branches away from Susie’s clothes.
I aim the flashlight into the foliage, illuminating something dark blue with white polka dots. All breath leaves my lungs as I stare up at it, stunned and dizzy and terrified because somehow—impossibly—Heather’s dress is now in the tree.