Daughters of the Lake(2)

His thoughts were hazy and random, and highly inappropriate for a crime scene. Johnny Stratton was thinking about true love. He went from the dead woman’s expression to his ex-wife’s sadly familiar morning sneer and then, more pleasantly, to Mary Carlson, his first love, a sweet-smelling, good-natured redhead he hadn’t seen since high school. Johnny remembered the feel of her thigh pressed against his as they drove around town in his dad’s old Camaro, the softness of her small hand as their fingers intertwined, her apple-scented perfume. He wondered, as he stood there on the lakeshore looking at this dead body, whatever had become of Mary. And then he shook off those thoughts. He was at a crime scene, for goodness’ sake.

Fred was similarly mesmerized. He was also thinking about his true love, the woman who was, no doubt, doing the breakfast dishes at that moment—his wife of forty-five years, Beverly. He was glad she wasn’t down on the beach to see this.

Kate broke their reverie.

She was hurrying down the staircase toward the beach. “Dad?” she called out. Her voice startled the two men; they snapped their heads in her direction. “Dad? I heard Sadie barking, so I came to see if you were . . .” Her words, too, trailed off as she drew closer. Kate took one look at the lifeless face of the woman on the beach and fell to her knees, hands muffling a scream that had no sound.

“It’s okay, honey.” Fred hurried to her side and put an arm around his daughter. “Johnny’s calling the coroner right now. Right, John? Come on, now. Let’s go back up to the house and let the sheriff do his job.”

“No!” Kate screamed in a whisper. She threw off her father’s embrace, and before either man could stop her, she lunged toward the woman on the beach and began tearing at her dress. As Johnny and Fred were pulling Kate away from the body, the three of them stopped yet again.

“Holy Christ,” Johnny whispered.

Kate’s wail finally found its voice and pierced the morning calm with a sound so fierce that all the animals within earshot fell silent to listen. There, nestled in the folds of the dead woman’s gown, was a baby. The tiny body was serene and still, as though it were sleeping, cradled in its mother’s arms.





CHAPTER TWO

Great Bay, 1889

The morning Addie Cassatt was born, the fog so shrouded the trees, the houses, and the lakeshore itself that her mother, Marie, didn’t dare make the trip to the doctor’s office alone. It wasn’t far into town—the Cassatts lived less than a mile from the main street—but that morning, Marie couldn’t see beyond her own front doorstep. She stared into the dense, white blanket and wasn’t sure what, exactly, to do. Her nearest neighbor’s house had disappeared into the fog, and Marie’s husband was out on the lake fishing, despite the weather and Marie’s delicate condition. There was no one to help her into town or to summon the doctor to come to her. She was alone in the house and, it seemed to Marie, alone in the world. But the puddle of water at her feet told her that, one way or another, she wouldn’t be alone for long. The baby was on its way.

Marie’s husband, Marcus, and his brother, Gene, were sons and grandsons of men who had fished in these waters since before anyone could remember, and a little fog (let alone a very pregnant Marie) wasn’t about to prevent them from a day’s work. Most of the other fishermen in town thought the Cassatts were fools to go out on a day such as this one. But Marcus and Gene knew the fish liked the velvety fog. The brothers had, more than once, seen schools of them poking their faces above the surface on foggy mornings, just to get a taste of it.

None of that mattered to Marie as she lay down alone in her bed, tossing and turning from the pain that signaled the coming of her first child. Town wasn’t so far away, she kept telling herself as each contraction eased. She walked that dirt road every day with the dogs and knew every dip and turn intimately. Surely she could get there on her own now. Or at least manage to make it to a neighbor’s house, at least that. Come on, now, Marie, it’s just a little fog, she thought. Get up. Get help. This child is on its way.

She tried to rise from her bed, but the pain intensified. She groaned as she laid her head back down onto her pillow. Marie began to swim in a strange sense of vagueness as her body became the river that her baby would cross between another world and this one.

Her thoughts weren’t her own. She could see only blinding white outside her bedside window. She couldn’t be sure the school, the grocer, the post office, or any of the town buildings hadn’t been literally swallowed up. Was anything there? Did the world still exist? Marie was terrified of that white, dense, living thing. She believed that, if she ventured outside, it would turn her around and force her into the thick woods beyond town, and she would be wandering, lost, when the baby came. The fact that Polar and Lucy were barking into the whiteness in the backyard, down toward the lake, further unsettled her.

Help me, Mother was the last rational thought that went through her mind before the contractions took over her body.

Just down the shoreline, Marie’s neighbor, Ruby Thompson, was twisting her apron into knots. She knew that fool Marcus had gone out on the lake, leaving his wife alone on such a day, with the baby so near. Fog or no fog, she was going to make sure Marie was all right.

She wrapped up one of the pies she had baked that morning and walked out into the whiteness to the long row of pines that stood between their two houses. She touched each one, inching along blindly until another tree materialized before her. Being out there, enveloped by the fog, reminded Ruby of one childhood winter day when she had been caught outside during a blizzard. Several people in her tiny community had died that day, taken by the sudden storm. Young Ruby had been walking home from school when the snow began to come down, and just like today, she had crept along from tree to tree to find her way. Now, she felt a chill just thinking about that day. It wasn’t so different from this one. She shuddered with relief when she finally reached the Cassatt home.