Night Film(144)

I tapped the metal end of the bulb against the wires. It remained dim touching the first two. But on the third, the one closest to the ground, the bulb glowed orange and blew out.

After all these years, it was still a live wire. I stepped closer to the stream, following the cable’s path as it hung slackly between the severed links, dangling across the top, continuing on the other side.

“There’s an electric current in the wire,” I said, stepping back to them. ”It just blew out the bulb.”

“Killer security system,” Hopper said. “No pun intended.”

“It’s not funny,” said Nora, looking at me uncertainly.

“There’s enough room to pass,” I said. “We each lie down. Go through one at a time.”

The other option was to swim through—without the boat, it’d be easy to get by unscathed—but for us all to be soaked from the neck down in temperatures about to fall below twenty degrees would be a major handicap, making a systematic search of the property difficult. Passing under the wire inside the canoe was our best bet, so long as we each stayed lower than the boat’s rim. The canoe was fiberglass, but there was aluminum detailing along the outer edges. I wasn’t an electrician, but it seemed possible it might conduct current if the wire grazed it.

“Hopper,” I said, “you’re first.”

He shoved his backpack into the center of the canoe and, lying down in the hull, crossed his arms.

Pulling away, we took a moment to reposition ourselves, angling the bow toward the mangled opening. It was probably just my eyes adjusting to the fading light, but as we glided forward, I swore the fence’s wires seemed to constrict, squirm like plants sensitive to movement.

When we were two feet away, suddenly we slipped into a strong current and were whipped sideways, crashing against the opening, the wire lowering from the impact.

“It’s about to touch,” whispered Nora.

“Keep your arms off the metal,” I ordered.

She raised her paddle as I shoved mine in, forcing the bow through, the chain links scraping the boat. We eased in another few inches, and I realized the wire was lowering again—as if it were a rigged trap. Before I could react, it struck the rim of the canoe. I waited for a white blast of electricity.

Nothing.

I thrust the paddle into the water, keeping the canoe steady in the undercurrent. I propelled us forward another foot or so. Hopper was on the opposite side, the wire in front of Nora, the chain links rasping.

“You’re clear,” I said.

Hopper sat up. Nora slid the oar to him, and she inched forward, curling up into a fetal position in the hull.

“If I get zapped and it’s my time to go, I just want to say I love you both and these times have been the best in my life.”

“It’s not your time quite yet, Bernstein,” I said.

We jostled forward. There was no sound but the water, the screech of the wires as they curved, protesting against the boat. Suddenly, we hit something submerged and the wire dipped, tapping the sides. I swore I heard a faint sizzle of voltage charging around us, though as soon as I did, the wire raised, we slid through, and it was my turn.

I lay down in the hull, the water rumbling around me.

“Any last words?” Hopper asked.

“Try not to kill me.”

The canoe lurched, that thin wire striking the sides inches from my nose. It slipped over my head and was gone.

“We’re in,” whispered Hopper.

I sat up, checking behind us, surprised to see the fence was already quickly retreating. The current had increased, the water pooling, as if excited by the prospect of delivering us to—what? But that fence wasn’t actually a fence. It was a booby trap. Maybe Marlowe hadn’t mentioned this secret entrance so innocuously, but to plant a seed in our heads, so we’d try to enter exactly this way. Why? To annihilate us on that wire? Or was it to get us securely inside Cordova’s property, trapping us in here?



As we paddled on, the night descended around us like a black tide coming in.

Before, the forest had been blanketed with an unsettling stillness. Now noises echoed from every direction. Branches snapped. Leaves rustled. Trees shuddered—as if all the wild animals that hid during the day were rousing now, crawling out of their holes.

My eyes gave up trying to discern anything beyond Hopper’s silhouette at the bow and Nora’s hunched shoulders in front of me. I recalled, with a twinge of anxiety, the feeling of suffocation Olivia Endicott had described when visiting The Peak. I wondered if I was experiencing it, a vague sense of disorientation, detachment, drowning. I assumed it was just adrenaline and nerves, but then I felt, very clearly, a marked heaviness, as if after inhaling all of this moist air, it was now suffused inside me, slowing my limbs, suppressing my thoughts.

Hopper motioned ahead. Visible at the end of this black tunnel of trees was a shimmering surface.

Graves Pond—where Genevra, Cordova’s first wife, had drowned.

We reached the mouth in less than a minute, pulling over to the bank, listening. Nora pulled the binoculars away, nodding, and we silently eased the canoe out, veering right, keeping tight to the perimeter under the cover of overhanging branches.

Far to our left on the opposite side, a wooden dock became visible.

It looked abandoned, a crude wooden ladder hanging over the side and into the water. Steps led onto a stone path that twisted up a steep hill gradually coming into view.