“Yeah, but who’s going to come all this way to prove you pulled a trout out down here? You need a parent with you for it to count,” Ned said to Adam.
While the boys argued over the rules and whose parent would be willing to walk all this way, Cougar had wandered farther down near the stream. He yipped and whined. Caroline went to see what was wrong. She had to weave around trees and wind her way around moss-covered rocks. A thorn bush pricked her thigh, and her sneakers sunk in the deepening mud.
“What did you find?” she asked the dog. “Bring it here so I can see it.”
Cougar yelped and whimpered.
Her first thought was that he must be hurt, but then she saw something lying on the ground near his paws. She took a couple of steps closer. In the mud, not far from where she stood, was Sara’s body. Her braids splayed in the puddles surrounding her head, and her eyes, cold and lifeless, stared into the night sky. Her bathing suit was tattered and torn. The skin on her arms and legs was shredded. Only the ghostly glow of her face hadn’t been touched, as if the snappers had known to leave something for her mother.
“Guys.” Her voice cracked. “Guys,” she said a little louder. Cougar continued to paw at the muddy water near the body, whimpering and whining as if he knew he had found what everyone was looking for.
“Guys!” she yelled, and stumbled backward. She turned and ran back the way she came, slipping on the rocks, tearing through the thorny brush. Cougar followed on her heels. “Guys,” she said out of breath when she had finally reached them.
Adam looked as though he had been crying. The twins must’ve been really giving it to him. She bent over, putting her hands on her knees. She thought she might be sick. The boys stared at her, sensing whatever was wrong was important.
“Cougar,” she said. “He found Sara’s…” She couldn’t finish. She couldn’t say the word body.
They didn’t ask what she meant. They didn’t have to. Every kid knew Sara’s name. Every kid knew she hadn’t been found. They may have been pretending she hadn’t drowned the last few days, but they didn’t forget even if their parents had moved on. Kids wouldn’t forget about another kid dying.
“Are you sure? Where?” Ned asked.
Caroline pointed downstream. “It’s her,” she said, swallowing the warm saliva in the back of her throat.
“How did she get all the way down here?” Ted asked. “It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It’s totally possible,” Adam said, his wet eyes darting from Caroline to the twins. “The water current carries a lot of cool stuff here.” He scrunched up his face. “You know what I mean.” He continued, “Once, I found an old license plate and a Coke bottle. And don’t forget about the snappers. They love the mud. Maybe they drag stuff here and, you know, eat it. I know they like to burrow in mud so only their eyes and nostrils stick out. Then they wiggle their tongues like tiny worms to attract small fish. When the fish gets close”—he smacked his hands together—“they grab it and chomp it to pieces.”
“I thought they only ate dead stuff,” Ted said.
“No. They eat small fish and plants, too. But I think they prefer the dead stuff.…” Adam’s voice trailed off.
Maybe they realized the impact of what Adam was saying because after this, they were quiet. Even Cougar didn’t make a sound. In the silence Adam and the twins stared at one another, each muttering to the other, “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” All Caroline heard was the sound of her own breathing.
Adam put his finger to his lips.
She strained to listen.
“There it is again,” Adam said.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
Adam looked at her. “It’s a full moon,” he said, and pointed to the sky, his hand shaking. “You can hear the horse during a full moon.”
“I bet it’s because you found Sara,” Ted said to her. “I mean, she drowned the same day Adam found that bit.”
“It was probably the wind,” Ned said.
“You didn’t hear anything?” Adam asked her.
“No,” Caroline said. “I didn’t.” She knew Adam was disappointed in her. But what could she say? Too much had happened. She no longer believed in the things she once had at the start of summer, the kinds of things that only kids believed in like lake legends. She wasn’t the same girl who had once accepted the world as it was without question. For her the world had forever changed.
Megan and Jeff came crashing through the brush. “What?” Megan asked, and looked at them. “What’s going on?” It was obvious Megan and Jeff didn’t hear anything either.
“Cougar found Sara,” Caroline said, because finding the little girl was the most important thing. “I know where she is.”
“You do?” Megan asked. “Where?”
“Maybe it’s not even her,” Ned said. “We’re all a little spooked right now.”
Caroline shook her head. “It’s her.” There was no mistake. The image of Sara’s body flashed in her mind’s eye, the face of an angel resting peacefully on a tattered body.
“Let’s make sure,” Ted said to the others. “Adam, you stay here with Cougar. We don’t want that dog to get a hold of her. If it’s really her,” he added.
“Cougar wouldn’t do that,” Caroline said at the same time the dog lowered his head as though he were ashamed. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said to Cougar.
“I’m coming with you, guys,” Adam said.
“No.” Caroline reached for Adam’s hand. “Stay here with me. You don’t want to see.” She didn’t want to treat Adam like a baby, but she knew it wasn’t something he should look at. He was too young. It was bad enough the others were going to look.
No kid, no matter how old, should ever have to see another kid’s dead body.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Kevin stood on the balcony of the Pavilion, which overlooked the lake. It was a clear night. The sky was littered with stars, and the moonlight bounced off the still water. The air was warm, but not uncomfortably so. He kept his back to the bar and the crowd inside. The live band belted out a cover song, the electric guitar singing louder than the girl’s voice into the mic. He had stepped outside in need of fresh air, which was ironic, since the first thing he did was light a cigarette.
He took a deep drag, welcoming the smoke into his lungs. He had waited on the docks for Patricia to leave Hawkes’ cabin for as long as he could without drawing attention to himself, but she never came out. He wasn’t sure why he had bothered, but something about her troubled him, and it had nothing to do with her little girl drowning. He had spent much of the afternoon and evening alone, stopping briefly at The Pop-Inn, but no one was there.
Eventually he wandered into the bar and spent the last several hours hanging out with Eddie and Sheila. The two were still hopelessly in love. Or perhaps he was thinking like the silly romantic Jo had always accused him of being.
The smoke snaked from his mouth in slow, deliberate swirls. His stomach churned from too much beer and lack of food. He hadn’t eaten in hours. His temple throbbed. He was dehydrated. He licked his dry cracked lip.
But no matter how bad his stomach clenched in need of food or how bad his body needed water, his feet were rooted to the spot. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the two boys in the middle of the lake on the floating pier. It was as though he were staring into the past, looking out at two ghosts.
He recognized Johnny and Chris and realized just how distinguishable he and Billy must have looked under the same moon. His mind had gone back to that night so many times before, but now, looking in from the outside, it was a miracle no one had witnessed what he had done.
* * *
Billy had climbed the ladder right after Jo had swum to shore. They stood and watched her run across the beach, staggering and falling in her attempt to flee. She grabbed her clothes and disappeared behind the Pavilion. She had listened to Kevin when he had told her to run home and tell no one. She was terrified, thinking she had pushed Billy into the lake and that he had drowned.