The House Across the Lake(90)

I land on my side in an eruption of silt, and the anchor jolts from my arms. I grasp for it, blind in the dark, dirty depths as my body starts to rise. Already, it wants air, and I have to fight to keep my arms from flailing, my legs from kicking.

They try anyway.

Rather, Len tries.

His presence is like a fever, both chilly and hot, coursing through my limbs, moving them against my will. I spin in the darkness, not knowing if I’m floating up or sinking down. Still blind and fumbling, my hand finds the rope stretching between my ankle and the anchor.

I grab on to it even as Len tries to pry my fingers away, his seething voice loud in my head.

Let go, Cee.

Don’t make me stay down here, you fucking bitch.

I keep hold of the rope, using it to pull myself back toward the lake bed. When I reach the end of the rope, I grab the anchor, hoist it to my chest, and roll onto my back. It feels inevitable now that I’m here.

It feels right.

In the same place where Megan Keene, Toni Burnett, and Sue Ellen Stryker were laid to rest.

My limbs have turned numb, although I don’t know if it’s from fear or cold or Len taking over. He remains so desperate to get to the surface. My body jerks uncontrollably against the lake floor. All his doing.

But it’s no use.

This time I’m stronger.

Because I’m giving Len exactly what he wanted back when he was alive.

It’ll be just the two of us.

Staying here forever.

It isn’t long before Len gives up. He has to, now that this body we share is winding down. My heartbeat slows. My thoughts fade.

Then, when every bit of strength has left me, I open my mouth and let the dark water pour in.





Movement.

In the darkness.

I sense it on the distant edge of my consciousness. Two bits of motion going in separate directions. Something approaching while something else slithers away.

The motion that’s stayed has moved to my ankle, the touch feathery as it unwinds the rope knotted there.

Then I’m lifted.

Up, up, up.

Soon I’m breaking the surface and my lungs start working overtime, somehow doing two things at once. Hacking out water while gulping down air. It goes on like this. Out, in, out, in. When it’s over, there’s no more water, only sweet, blessed air.

I feel more movement now. Something being slipped over my shoulders and tightened around my chest until I’m floating.

I open my eyes to a sky that’s dazzlingly pink.

My eyes.

Not his.

My body, containing only my thoughts, my heart, my soul.

Len is gone.

I know it the same way a sick person can tell their fever has broken.

Len has poured himself from one vessel—me—into another.

Lake Greene.

The place he came from and where he’ll hopefully remain.

I turn away from the sky to the person swimming beside me. Katherine beams, her smile brighter and more beautiful than any picture she’s ever been in.

“Don’t freak out,” she says. “But I think you almost drowned.”





What are we going to tell people?” Tom says to Katherine. “I tried to keep it a secret, but word got out you were missing. The police were involved.”

He looks my way, his gaze not quite accusatory but sharp enough to know he’s still annoyed, despite the fact that Katherine’s only back—literally her old self—because of me. He made that clear when we returned to the Fitzgeralds’ basement. At first, Tom looked ready to kill us both. But once Katherine started reciting bits of knowledge only she could know, he became overjoyed at her presence. Less so with mine.

The three of us now sit with Eli in the Royce living room. Tom and Katherine are both freshly showered and changed. I’m in a set of Versace athleisure wear borrowed from Katherine that’s as comfortable as it is ridiculous.

“We tell them something as close to the truth as possible,” I say. “You two fought.”

Katherine turns to her husband, surprised. “We did?”

“You decked me.” Tom leans in to give her a good look at the still-fading bruise under his eye. “Well, he did.”

Len’s name hasn’t been uttered once since Katherine and I returned. I suspect it makes them uncomfortable acknowledging the person who, for all intents and purposes, possessed her.

I’m fine with that. I never need to hear his name again.

“The police will believe that, after the fight, Katherine left in a huff,” I say. “She went for a long hike in the mountains, leaving everything behind.”

“And she got lost in the woods,” Tom says.

I reply with a nod. “You thought she left you, which is why you never reported her missing and posted that photo to Instagram. You were too embarrassed to admit your marriage was falling apart.”

Katherine touches the bruise on her husband’s face. “Poor Tom. This must have been so hard on you.”

“I thought you were lost forever,” he says with a quiver in his voice and tears in his eyes. “I had no idea how to bring you back.”

“I tried,” Katherine says. “I tried so hard to keep it from happening.”

“So you knew what was going on?” Eli says.