The Last Time I Lied(36)

I kept at it, looking across the water first to Vivian, still flailing, and then to Natalie and Allison, who bobbed in place, frozen with fear, their faces suddenly pale. I watched them watch Theo as he reached Vivian and clamped an arm around her waist. He swam to shore that way, not stopping until both of their backs were on the pebble-specked beach.

Vivian coughed once, and a bubble of lake water spurted from her throat. Tears streamed down her crimson cheeks.

“I-I don’t know what happened,” she said, gasping. “I went under and couldn’t come up. I thought I was going to die.”

“You would have if I hadn’t been here,” Theo said, anger peeking through his exhaustion. “Jesus, Viv, I thought you could swim.”

Vivian sat up and shook her head, still crying. “I thought I’d try after watching you teach Emma. You made it look so easy.”

Standing a few yards away from them was Becca. Her camera hung from her neck even though she was wearing a bathing suit. She clicked off a picture of Vivian sprawled on shore. Then she turned to the lake, picking me out of the crowd of still-stunned campers paddling in the water. She smiled and mouthed four words, each of them silent but unmistakable.

I told you so.





12


I remain on the beach until reveille blasts from the ancient speaker atop the mess hall. The music rushes past me and across the lake, its sound skimming the water on its way to the far shore. The first full day of camp has begun.

Again.

Rather than battle a horde of teenage girls for space in the latrine, I shuffle to the mess hall, shy in my damp robe and clacking flip-flops. It’s mostly empty, thank God. Nobody but me and the kitchen workers. One of them—a guy with dark hair and a patchy goatee—checks me out for half a second before turning away.

I ignore him and grab a doughnut, a banana, and a cup of coffee. The banana is consumed quickly. The doughnut not so much. Each bite brings a flash of Vivian squinting, her lips pursed. Her disapproving look. I set down the doughnut, sigh, pick it up, and shove what’s left into my mouth. I wash it down with the coffee, pleased with my fifteen-years-too-late defiance.

My walk back to Dogwood is spent swimming against the tide of campers making their way to the mess hall. All of them are freshly scrubbed, trailing scents behind them. Baby powder. Noxzema. Shampoo that smells like strawberries.

One scent cuts through the others. Something thick and flowery. Perfume.

But not just any old perfume.

Obsession.

Vivian wore it, spritzing it on her neck and wrists twice a day. Once in the morning. Once in the afternoon. The scent used to fill the cabin, lingering there long after she had departed.

Now I get that same feeling. Like she’s just been here, leaving only her scent behind. I spin among the stream of girls, searching for her in the departing crowd, knowing she’s not there but looking anyway. I reach for my bracelet and tap a pewter beak. Just in case.

The girls surge forward, taking the perfume scent with them. Left behind is a clammy sensation on the back of my neck. It makes me shiver as I stop into Dogwood to grab my clothes for the day. I sniff the air for traces of perfume, detecting nothing but the tang of someone’s deodorant.

In the latrine, I spot Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha amid the morning stragglers at the sinks. Miranda stares in the mirror, fussing with her hair. Beside her, Sasha says, “Can we go now? I’m starving.”

“Just a second.” Miranda gives her hair one last flip. “There. Now we may go.”

I give them a wave on my way to the shower stalls, all but one of which are in use. The empty stall is the last one in the row. Like the others, it’s a cubicle of cedar walls and a door of smoked glass. A pinpoint of white light glows in the center of that door. Behind me, a similar light peeks through a crack in the cedar wall.

Alarm flares in my chest, calming a second later once I understand what’s happening. The white glow is sunlight. Its source is a minuscule crack in the shower wall. The same crack I peered through to spy on Theo fifteen years ago.

I let out a breath, feeling both foolish for not realizing it sooner and relieved that it’s not something worse, like another camera. One is enough to make me seriously paranoid. So much so that I consider waiting for another stall to open up. I decide against it for the simple reason that I’m already inside this one with the water running. And thanks to a morning of heavy use, it’s not getting any warmer.

Besides, Vivian was the only person who knew about that crack. She told me so herself.

So I stay where I am, showering as fast as possible. I give my hair a quick shampoo and an even quicker rinse, closing my eyes as the soapy water cascades down my face. I enjoy that moment of temporary blindness. It allows me to pretend, just for a moment, that I’m thirteen again and experiencing Camp Nightingale for the very first time. That Vivian, Natalie, and Allison are safe within the confines of Dogwood. That the events of fifteen years ago never happened.

It’s a nice feeling. One that makes me want to linger under the shower’s spray. But the water keeps getting colder, turning from lukewarm to the wrong side of chilly. In a minute or two, it’ll be as cold as Lake Midnight.

I finish rinsing my hair and open my eyes.

The point of light on the door is gone.

I spin around, frantically checking the shower wall behind me. No light peeks through the crack. It’s gone, eclipsed by something outside.