“I don’t know,” Eric replied. “But I know who could tell us. If she’s still here.” A few seconds later he turned into the library parking lot, where only one car sat by itself.
Less than a minute later they pulled the library door open and went inside, their footsteps echoing in the silent building.
The librarian’s nameplate still read MISS EDNA BLOOMFIELD, just as it had five years ago, but no one sat at the desk.
“Hello?” Kent called.
A small voice came out from between massive shelves of books: “I’m here!” Then Miss Bloomfield herself appeared, patting her hair nervously. She was exactly the same as Eric remembered her, but even older and tinier. She hurried toward her desk, rubbing her hands briskly as she sat down. After adjusting the single pencil that sat on the desk, she looked up at the three young men. “Oh, my goodness! We don’t often get patrons anymore. I tend to talk to myself, so I didn’t hear you come in.”
“We were wondering if maybe you could tell us exactly what happened here,” Kent asked. He glanced at Tad and Eric, but when neither of them said anything, he spoke again. “Our families used to come here when we were kids, and now—” He hesitated, but found no better way to say it. “It looks like the town’s been deserted.”
Edna Bloomfield sagged visibly in her chair, and when she replied, she didn’t quite meet their eyes. “It was something that happened about five years ago.” She shook her head sadly, took a deep breath, then went on, but now her voice was barely audible. “Twenty-four people were killed,” she whispered. “And I don’t know how many more were hurt. It was terrible…just terrible.” Finally, she managed to look directly at them. “The town never recovered. First the tourists stopped coming — I mean they just stopped, overnight — and the people started moving away.”
“The crazy guy,” Eric murmured almost to himself. “The one with the axe.”
Miss Bloomfield’s head bobbed and she bit her lip. Then she took another breath, straightened herself in her chair, and folded her hands on the desk. “It was a horrible thing,” she said. “But I’m an optimist, and always have been. The town will come back to life. All things have their cycles.”
All things have their cycles.
The thought sent an icy shiver down Eric’s spine. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a question came from his lips. “Whatever happened to the axe? Do you know?”
Kent and Tad glanced at each other uneasily.
“Now, why would you want to know that?” Miss Bloomfield replied, but before Eric could formulate a reply, she leaned forward as if to confide some kind of secret. “But it’s the strangest thing! The axe simply disappeared.” She spread her hands wide, as if still barely able to believe it. “Right out of the sheriff’s office. One day it was there, the next day it wasn’t.” She shook her head, her expression turning sorrowful. “Sheriff Ruston lost his job over it, of course. It was quite the scandal. And, I guess that was the beginning of the end, really. The thought of that terrible axe still being out there somewhere…” Edna Bloomfield’s voice trailed off, and she shuddered as if a draft had just chilled her.
“But you stayed,” Tad said.
“I wouldn’t know where else to go,” the ancient librarian replied. “I suppose when I die, they’ll close this old place, at least until Phantom Lake picks up again.”
“What about Cherie—” Kent Newell began, then faltered and looked to Eric for her last name.
“Stevens,” Eric said.
“Did you know Cherie Stevens?” Miss Bloomberg asked, brightening.
All three nodded.
“The last I heard of Cherie, she and her husband had moved to Minocqua. Now, what was the name of that nice young man she married? Not that terrible Mosler boy, thank heaven. I always thought he was trouble. If you ask me, I’ve always thought he must have had something to do with…”
As Edna Bloomberg prattled on, Eric wandered away, knowing deep inside himself that whatever Adam Mosler had done over the years, he’d had nothing to do with what happened that night.
Kent Newell and Tad Sparks thanked the librarian and slipped out, joining Eric on the front porch. Edna Bloomberg’s voice could still be heard until the heavy library doors swung closed behind them.
Eric’s arms felt like lead as they got back in the car. Suddenly, he wished he’d never suggested this trip; it would have been better at least to remember the town as the beautiful place it had once been before that awful Fourth of July when everything changed. And yet even as he wished he hadn’t come, he knew the trip wasn’t over yet.
He still had to at least try to find out what had happened all those years ago when he and Kent and Tad were plagued by nightmares that turned out not to be illusions at all, but twisted refractions of things that had actually happened.
But how had they happened?
What had caused them?
“What now?” Tad asked. “And where are we going to stay? I don’t think there’s even a motel here anymore.”
“Let’s at least go out to The Pines and take a look around,” Kent suggested. “I bet it’s still the same. Then we can get a room down in Eagle River or someplace.”
Eric took a deep breath and started the car. Going out to The Pines — no, going out to Pinecrest — was what this trip was all about anyway. Though they hadn’t talked about it — not directly anyway — all of them had known that was why they had come all the way up here: to try to make sense of something that he — that all of them — only vaguely remembered. But if he didn’t remember those things — if he didn’t close that particular chapter — it would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Perhaps it was different for his friends, he thought. Tad was headed for graduate school at Northwestern next year, and Kent was taking a research job in Salt Lake City. But he hadn’t quite decided on the next step of his future yet, and he knew why.
There were things he had to put to rest before he could go on.
Steeling himself against the heaviness that threatened to paralyze his arms, he steered the car out of town.
THE ENTRANCE SIGN to The Pines was overgrown with weeds and green with moss, its carved letters barely legible. As Eric drove slowly down the long lane, they could see that a few of the houses — a very few — had been kept up, but the rest looked as if they’d been abandoned for years.
Kent and Tad said nothing as they passed the summer homes that had been so inviting only five years ago but now crouched in the forest, empty and sad. The farther they drove, the deeper the melancholy that hung over the area imbued the car, and when they finally came to the gates at the head of the long Pinecrest driveway, Eric almost changed his mind about turning in. Yet going back to Pinecrest wasn’t something he — or any of them — could avoid. Whatever lay at the end of the drive, he had to come to grips with it.
Had to know.
Had to remember everything that had happened, or dismiss what memories he had as nothing more than the dreams they seemed to be.
“What are you waiting for?” Kent asked, and nudged Eric’s arm.
Eric turned into the driveway and drove to the house.
It stood as solid and as foreboding as the first time he’d seen it, but even with the first look, he knew there had been no one living in the house for years. The lawn was choked with weeds, and long-dead branches still lay where they had fallen years earlier. The wind had piled leaves against the front door; the fountain was choked with a vile-looking muck.
Despite the warmth of the summer day, the house and grounds felt dark and cold.
Eric parked the car and the three of them got out, their eyes going instantly to the old carriage house.