“I’m not worried.” Still, Cal jolted when a fat jay zoomed out of the trees and let out an irritated call.
Two
HESTER’S POOL WAS ALSO FORBIDDEN IN CAL’S world, which was only one of the reasons it was irresistible.
The scoop of brown water, fed by the winding Antietam Creek and hidden in the thick woods, was supposed to be haunted by some weird Pilgrim girl who’d drowned in it way back whenever.
He’d heard his mother talk about a boy who’d drowned there when she’d been a kid, which in Mom Logic was the number one reason Cal was never allowed to swim there. The kid’s ghost was supposed to be there, too, lurking under the water, just waiting to grab another kid’s ankle and drag him down to the bottom so he’d have somebody to hang out with.
Cal had swum there twice that summer, giddy with fear and excitement. And both times he’d sworn he’d felt bony fingers brush over his ankle.
A dense army of cattails trooped along the edges, and around the slippery bank grew bunches of the wild orange lilies his mother liked. Fans of ferns climbed up the rocky slope, along with brambles of wild berries, which when ripe would stain the fingers a kind of reddish purple that looked a little like blood.
The last time they’d come, he’d seen a black snake slither its way up the slope, barely stirring the ferns.
Fox let out a shout, dumped his pack. In seconds he’d dragged off his shoes, his shirt, his jeans and was sailing over the water in a cannonball without a thought for snakes or ghosts or whatever else might be under that murky brown surface.
“Come on, you pussies!” After a slick surface dive, Fox bobbed around the pool like a seal.
Cal sat, untied his Converse All Stars, carefully tucked his socks inside them. While Fox continued to whoop and splash, he glanced over where Gage simply stood looking out over the water.
“You going in?”
“I dunno.”
Cal pulled off his shirt, folded it out of habit. “It’s on the agenda. We can’t cross it off unless we all do it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But Gage only stood as Cal stripped down to his Fruit of the Looms.
“We have to all go in, dare the gods and stuff.”
With a shrug, Gage toed off his shoes. “Go on, what are you, a homo? Want to watch me take my clothes off?”
“Gross.” And slipping his glasses inside his left shoe, Cal sucked in breath, gave thanks his vision blurred, and jumped.
The water was a quick, cold shock.
Fox immediately spewed water in his face, fully blinding him, then stroked off toward the cattails before retaliation. Just when he’d managed to clear his myopic eyes, Gage jumped in and blinded him all over again.
“Sheesh, you guys!”
Gage’s choppy dog paddle worked up the water, so Cal swam clear of the storm. Of the three, he was the best swimmer. Fox was fast, but he ran out of steam. And Gage, well, Gage sort of attacked the water like he was in a fight with it.
Cal worried-even as part of him thrilled at the idea-that he’d one day have to use the lifesaving techniques his dad had taught him in their aboveground pool to save Gage from drowning.
He was picturing it, and how Gage and Fox would stare at him with gratitude and admiration, when a hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him underwater.
Even though he knew it was Fox who pulled him down, Cal ’s heart slammed into his throat as the water closed over his head. He floundered, forgetting all his training in that first instant of panic. Even as he managed to kick off the hold on his ankle and gather himself to push to the surface, he saw a movement to the left.
It-she-seemed to glide through the water toward him. Her hair streamed back from her white face, and her eyes were cave black. As her hand reached out, Cal opened his mouth to scream. Gulping in water, he clawed his way to the surface.
He could hear laughter all around him, tinny and echoing like the music out of the old transistor radio his father sometimes used. With terror biting inside his throat, he slapped and clawed his way to the edge of the pool.
“I saw her, I saw her, in the water, I saw her.” He choked out the words while fighting to climb out.
She was coming for him, fast as a shark in his mind, and in his mind he saw her mouth open, and the teeth gleam sharp as knives.
“Get out! Get out of the water!” Panting, he crawled through the slippery weeds and rolling, saw his friends treading water. “She’s in the water.” He almost sobbed it, bellying over to fumble his glasses out of his shoe. “I saw her. Get out. Hurry up!”
“Oooh, the ghost! Help me, help me!” With a mock gurgle, Fox sank underwater.
Cal lurched to his feet, balled his hands into fists at his sides. Fury tangled with terror to have his voice lashing through the still summer air. “Get the fuck out.”
The grin on Gage’s face faded. Eyes narrowed on Cal, he gripped Fox by the arm when Fox surfaced laughing.
“We’re getting out.”
“Come on. He’s just being spaz because I dunked him.”
“He’s not bullshitting.”
The tone got through, or when he bothered to look, the expression on Cal ’s face tripped a chord. Fox shot off toward the edge, spooked enough to send a couple of wary looks over his shoulder.
Gage followed, a careless dog paddle that made Cal think he was daring something to happen.
When his friends hauled themselves out, Cal sank back down to the ground. Drawing his knees up, he pressed his forehead to them and began to shake.
“Man.” Dripping in his underwear, Fox shifted from foot to foot. “I just gave you a tug, and you freak out. We were just fooling around.”
“I saw her.”
Crouching, Fox shoved his sopping hair back from his face. “Dude, you can’t see squat without those Coke bottles.”
“Shut up, O’Dell.” Gage squatted down. “What did you see, Cal?”
“Her. She had all this hair swimming around her, and her eyes, oh man, her eyes were black like the shark in Jaws. She had this long dress on, long sleeves and all, and she reached out like she was going to grab me-”
“With her bony fingers,” Fox put in, falling well short of his target of disdain.
“They weren’t bony.” Cal lifted his head now, and behind the lenses his eyes were fierce and frightened. “I thought they would be, but she looked, all of her, looked just…real. Not like a ghost or a skeleton. Oh man, oh God, I saw her. I’m not making it up.”
“Well Jee-sus.” Fox crab-walked another foot away from the pond, then cursed breathlessly when he tore his forearm on berry thorns. “Shit, now I’m bleeding.” Fox yanked a handful of weedy grass, swiped at the blood seeping from the scratches.
“Don’t even think about it.” Cal saw the way Gage was studying the water-that thoughtful, wonder-what’ll-happen gleam in his eye. “Nobody’s going in there. You don’t swim well enough to try it anyway.”
“How come you’re the only one who saw her?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I just want to get away from here.”
Cal leaped up, grabbed his pants. Before he could wiggle into them, he saw Gage from behind. “Holy cow. Your back is messed up bad.”
“The old man got wasted last night. It’s no big deal.”
“Dude.” Fox walked around to get a look. “That’s gotta hurt.”
“The water cooled it off.”
“I’ve got my first aid kit-” Cal began, but Gage cut him off.
“I said no big deal.” He grabbed his shirt, pulled it on. “If you two don’t have the balls to go back in and see what happens, we might as well move on.”
“I don’t have the balls,” Cal said in such a deadpan, Gage snorted out a laugh.
“Then put your pants on so I don’t have to wonder what that is hanging between your legs.”
Fox broke out the Little Debbies, and one of the six-pack of Coke he’d bought at the market. Because the incident in the pond and the welts on Gage’s back were too important, they didn’t speak of them. Instead, hair still dripping, they resumed the hike, gobbling snack cakes and sharing a can of warm soda.