Summer's Edge, page 11
“Maybe we deserve it,” I say. Some more than others. Maybe not. I don’t know anymore.
“No!” Mila pounds the wall with her fist. “We don’t deserve it.” She’s staring at Kennedy furiously, but there are tears in her eyes. “All of this is because of her.”
“It’s not that simple.” Kennedy turns to Chase frantically. “Chase, you know it isn’t.”
“He blames all of us,” Chase says grimly. “It may have been an accident, but we all played some little part.” That’s the story. Isn’t it? The lie. None of us are monsters. None of us are killers.
“Then why did Kennedy use the word murder?”
The others stare at me, wide-eyed, and then at Kennedy.
“Because it was murder in Ryan’s eyes,” Kennedy says. “That’s all that counts.”
“You can debate this as long as you want, Scooby gang. I’m leaving before he finishes his little revenge game. Or whatever this is.” Mila takes a step toward the stairs and then swivels around to face us one last time. “We all know this was never about who’s doing this to us. It’s about what was done to them. Chelsea, I don’t know what those pills did to your brain, but flush them and wake the hell up because your girlfriend is going to get you killed.” Chase’s jaw drops. Mila turns to Kennedy. “Have fun in court when the Joiners sue you for wrongful death.” She turns, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and starts briskly down the hallway.
Kennedy charges after Mila, footsteps echoing through the hall, stomping down the stairs. “This was a group activity, friend. Take a good, long look in the mirror. You came here uninvited. You set all of this in motion because you had to see the stars, and now we have a body count.” I reach the bottom of the stairs close behind Chase to find Kennedy advancing toward Mila. The candle on the living room table is down to just a flicker, and it’s hard to see. I know the lake house like my own home. But Mila’s only been here a handful of times. She can’t walk the halls with her eyes closed. Play murder in the dark. Look for spare matches in a power outage.
And she can’t see that she’s about to back into the open cellar door.
I grasp Chase’s arm, choking on my own voice. “Say,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage for some reason. “Say. Say. Say.” Panic swirls up in me like a cyclone. Chase looks down at me, momentarily distracted. “Say, say.” I squeeze my eyes shut. God, why isn’t my mouth working?
Kennedy stands nose-to-nose with Mila, her expression hardened. “You come into my house and break my rules. Lie to my friends and turn them against me. It’s time for you to go.”
I part my lips and it’s like a bubble bursts. “Cellar,” I gasp.
Mila opens her mouth to answer, then swings her arms out. In the darkness, she’s backed up all the way to the top of the tall, narrow staircase leading down to the cellar, and just stepped one half step too far. Chase makes a grab for her but comes up short, his hands grasping at air. Kennedy freezes in place. I push her aside and reach for Mila just as her weight shifts and she swings down out of our reach.
Time slows. The function of my eyes is redefined. My eardrums filter out the sounds of clocks and plumbing and blood and chemicals moving in my body, so my heartbeat is replaced by the sound of her body thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Then silence.
Kennedy turns, her mouth unhinged, her face ghostly. She shakes her head wordlessly.
Chase clasps his hands over his face, then slides them down to peek over the top.
Mila lies in a sprawling heap, her hair covering her face, her arm bent underneath her. An oily halo of black surrounds her head in the shadowy darkness. Not blood. Blood is bright and slow and unrealistic. It’s a prop. That’s all.
“She isn’t moving,” I whisper.
There’s a sudden flare of light behind us, and I whirl around. The candle has finally burned to the bottom, and I watch with horror as the cards from the board game ignite as if made of some hyperflammable substance. A sudden wind blows the door open, and the cards go swirling into the air like leaves lifted from a bonfire. As each card makes contact with a surface, a brilliant blaze blooms, spreading with almost supernatural speed.
“Shit.” Kennedy runs to the kitchen. “The extinguisher’s missing,” she shouts in a panic.
A sickening sensation of déjà vu floods through me. Chase takes a step toward the cellar, but the door slams shut. He grabs the knob and wrenches it, kicks the door, turns to me with terror in his eyes. “It’s happening again. The fire. Exactly like before. The doors were stuck.”
Before I can speak, a wave of heat rises behind us. Kennedy screams. Chase and I are separated from her and the door by a wall of fire. Chase drops to the floor and I follow.
“Someone did this,” he says. “There’s no way a fire goes up this quickly without a serious accelerant.”
I hear a familiar, horrible, crushing sound.
Hands knocking.
Emily screaming from the attic.
Chase was right.
It’s happening again.
Exactly the same way.
30
Before you ask about second chances,
Remember the Summer of Swallows.
SUMMER OF SWALLOWS Two Years Ago
Kennedy
31
The lake house hasn’t changed in a lifetime at least, and neither have my friends. Chelsea and I arrive almost exactly at the same time, and the moment we pull up in my father’s BMW, Chelsea spills out of the car and stretches her arms wide as if to embrace the whole of it: the enormous log mansion, the stately pines, the glittering lake beyond.
“This is home,” she sighs. She flops her arms at her sides and spins around in her sandals, laughing. “Kennedy Ellis Hartford.”
I step into the sun and lift my hair, feeling my shoulders begin to bake already. It doesn’t take very long. My skin is so pale I tend to flash fry. A damp lake breeze infused with wood smoke and pine whips my long hair and white linen dress up behind me like a sail. It smells like heaven.
Chelsea reaches her hand out to me. “You look like an avenging angel.”
“I feel like Marilyn.” I stretch an arm out to her and let her pull me into an embrace and cover my cheek and neck with dozens of kisses. I’m always shy about PDA in front of my parents, but I linger for a moment in Chelsea’s arms, comforted by the familiar scent—warm strawberries and old spice—before retrieving my suitcase from the trunk.
Ryan’s car pulls into the driveway, and I breathe a sigh of relief as he and Emily step out into the sun, opposite sides of the same coin. Emily bursts forward while Ryan dips back into the car to carry their bags. Even though we just saw each other yesterday, Emily and I embrace and jump up and down like we haven’t seen each other in a year. Chelsea flicks a wave, and a hint of an eye roll, and I can’t tell whether she feels left out or thinks we’re being silly. But this weekend is tradition, the most sacred tradition of all, and Chelsea sometimes takes things too seriously. Everything is a competition, even friendship. But then I see her eyes wander over to Ryan, a secret kind of smile playing over her lips, and it’s my turn to lose the magic of the moment.
I don’t like the way he looks at my girlfriend.
“Hey, handsome.” I wrap my arms around his neck and plant a kiss on his cheek. He flushes bright red. Emily cocks her head at me and raises an eyebrow, and Chelsea turns abruptly and heads for the house. I grab her hand, though, and she turns back reluctantly.
Ryan reaches for her backpack and slings it onto his shoulder, which is already weighed down with several of Emily’s bags. She’s a fashion junkie and talented artist, headed for RISD when we graduate next year, and probably New York after that. She designs and makes her own clothes and insists on several costume changes per day. She always looks fabulous, and I let her dress me up like a doll from time to time. Chelsea sometimes wears her designs too, but she has her own inimitable style. She likes to drag me out of bed to wander through thrift stores and pick through yard sales on early Sunday mornings before the church ladies have descended and mine them for vintage dresses, scarves, blouses, cardigans, jewelry, even glasses. Whatever catches her eye, she can do something with. Emily is high fashion, and Chelsea is a junkyard scavenger. Maybe not a junkyard. But certainly a yard of junk.
“You don’t have to,” I tell Ryan, slipping him my suitcase too.
He takes it with a forced smile. “Of course I do.”
Chelsea takes back her bag apologetically. “Sorry. I’ve got it.”
Emily selects a small duffel from Ryan and heads into the house. “Swimsuits first,” she calls over her shoulder. Chelsea heads after her, waving for us to follow. But Mrs. Joiner is still hovering in her ancient pea-green Volkswagen. As usual, my parents have whisked away the suitcases and groceries and disappeared into the house. My guests, my responsibility. I’m the hostess. With all the perks it entails. Food serving, vomit wiping, friend wrangling. Usually I don’t have to babysit parents, though.
“How was the drive?” I turn and wave to Mrs. Joiner, who sticks a hand out of the car window to wave back at me. My parents don’t come out of the house to greet her, and she doesn’t get out of the car to say hello. She just watches us walk to the porch, then backs out of the driveway and leaves.
“It was fine,” Ryan says.
“Your mother okay?”
He opens the door for me. “Women and children first.”
The house smells like it always does when we walk in the door, warm and wooden and inviting. My mother bustles around in the kitchen, filling the refrigerator with clinking bottles, dropping ice into glasses, and crumpling empty cardboard grocery bags. My father is already out back working on the boat. I start up the stairs just as I hear gravel crunching in the driveway again. Chelsea and Emily begin to stampede down toward me, already in swimsuits, smelling of coconut sunscreen. Emily is holding her long, sandy hair above her head, and Chelsea is running, laughing, trying to rub in a big white spot of sunscreen on Emily’s back.
Ryan sighs and kicks at my insole, and I almost topple over. “Chase est arrivé.”
But as we pile onto the porch and Chase parks his car, something unexpected happens. Chase bounds out of the car with his customary Every day is summer grin at the precise moment that the passenger door swings open and a tall, tanned girl in a tiny dress and doubtful smile steps out. She flicks her bangs out of her eyes and sticks a cigarette between her lips, and I start hyperventilating.
Emily grabs my arm with one hand and Chelsea’s with the other. “Who the hell is that?” she whispers.
“Ohhhh shit,” Ryan whispers back.
Chase slings an arm around her shoulder casually and kisses her neck in a way that makes me cringe. “Okay if I bring a guest, Ken?”
But it’s not really up to me. The house isn’t mine. It’s not even my mother’s or father’s. The house has always belonged to others, before us, maybe even before my grandfather. I still think of them—the quiet people—by the names I first used for them when I was a toddler, which makes them seem silly, but none of them have ever spoken, and for all I know, they don’t have names. They may be cross-dimensional glimpses of some parallel universe, something Chelsea would absolutely adore. Or some record skip in the space-time continuum.
The truth is, though, they don’t look like glimpses.
They look dead.
They were clearest, most tangible, when I was young. Like some cosmic transmitter was perfectly in tune, beaming them through an invisible screen, or maybe beaming me to them. I could reach out and touch a cold hand in a game of pat-a-cake or play a game of catch. They faded over time into pastel shimmers, then cool spots, like in the movies, and finally to just a faint sense, difficult to describe, but familiar as my own skin. I do still feel them. I know when they’re pleased or angry or when they simply disapprove.
Well. Everyone knows when they’re angry.
They just don’t know that they know.
They notice the broken dishes, feel things somehow slip out of their hands, or a sudden burst of emotion as if from nowhere. Everyone notices the power blinking out for seemingly the millionth time. It’s impossible to miss something like that.
But only I know why.
It’s dangerous to make them angry. They’re summoned by anger, and I’ve learned over time to keep the peace in this house in order to pacify them. They don’t like it when we fight. They don’t like it at all.
But they weren’t always a threat.
My parents used to look at me oddly as a child when I had tea parties with the backward girl and the blue lady or chased butterflies with the crushed man. I stopped mentioning them after my parents shipped me off to that awful school, where there were silent, ice-cold faces peering around every corner. A lot of people die in older institutions. I’ve learned not to talk about these things. Even to people like Chelsea, people with bright, open minds and bright, open hearts. Because believing opens up worlds of possibilities. But I don’t believe. I know. And knowing is dangerous. Because they don’t want to be known. Because no one really wants to know about them. And because if you do say a word, sooner or later people who don’t believe find out—people with the power to send you away from everyone and everything you love. And truth isn’t worth losing people like Chelsea. Nothing is worth losing her. And nothing is worth losing your home. Dead people know that better than anyone. They’re fiercely protective of their homes. And right now I’m extremely nervous about Chase bringing an uninvited friend, because the real hosts of the lake house are highly particular about their guests.
And they aren’t pleased.
32
The attic is sweltering. It’s about eight thousand times hotter than it is outside. Chelsea and Emily and I sit in our usual arrangement on layers of towels, surrounded by a fortress of suitcases. Before us are an array of cold drinks and a deck of tarot cards. We used to hide from Chase and Ryan up here when we were little. It’s the only place they wouldn’t follow us. They couldn’t stand the heat. We were made of tougher stuff. We would spread out towels, strip to our swimsuits, sip frozen drinks, and whisper secrets about love and the future and dark truths no one else could ever find out because it might ruin us. Emily read our tarot cards, and I read scenes from my mother’s romance novels. These were the topics we never discussed with Chase and Ryan. It would have been coy on Chase’s part and depressed on Emily’s, because she has always been into him, and he has never wanted her back. Ryan liked Chelsea, even as kids, but she was always mysterious about it. In a way, I don’t think Emily would ever have forgiven her for choosing her brother over her. Not in a romantic sense. Just as a matter of fact. You couldn’t spend more time with Ryan than with Emily, because we were Emily’s friends first. Ryan was the tagalong. The secondary friend. The extra seat at the table.
Now Emily keeps shuffling and reshuffling the tarot cards, insisting every time she begins to deal that she made a mistake.
“Her name is Mila,” Chelsea says in a hushed tone. We have to speak quietly up here because the sound carries down to the second floor, but it’s still the most private place on the property. She reaches for Emily’s hand and gives it a concerned squeeze, and I feel a ribbon of warmth encircle us. Chelsea is chaos where I am order, but Chelsea is safety and loyalty and love.
This is how I fell in love with her. After we broke up, I told Emily we couldn’t do the lake house anymore because it would be too awkward, but I didn’t know how to tell Chelsea. It was hard enough breaking up with her, and I couldn’t face her again. Emily said she’d take care of it. For some inexplicable reason, she took it upon herself to tell Chelsea that I said some precious family heirloom had gone missing and one of my friends must have seen it, or moved it, or borrowed it or something. Chelsea, in high-dramatic fashion, had shown up at our doorstep in the pouring rain, and informed my mother that she wasn’t a thief, she wasn’t afraid of our family, she didn’t care what anyone said about her, I was a liar, and she loved me anyway.
The problem with Chelsea is how she jumps to conclusions that aren’t there.
But the second she said the words, I realized that I did love her. Unfortunately, those words also sparked an all-out war within our group. I naturally assumed that Emily had told her I accused Chelsea of stealing from my family. Emily was furious that I was angry at her instead of Chelsea. Chase, my oldest friend, naturally took my side, and of course Ryan took hers. Chelsea sort of folded into herself, and I died inside. I tried passing her note after note, but she refused to speak to me until finally, about half a year later, I showed up on Chelsea’s doorstep in the freezing snow and, when she opened the door, told her she wasn’t a thief, I wasn’t afraid of my family, I didn’t care what anyone said about me, she was a liar too, and I’d do anything to win her back.
You know what? It worked.
“When did he have time to get a girlfriend?” Emily’s face is streaked with charcoal lines. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, but dark eyeliner on her lower lid is her signature. It’s an unfortunate choice on sad days.
“He didn’t,” Chelsea says. “Not that I know of. Ryan said they weren’t really dating.” I swallow a thousand questions. When did Chelsea and Ryan have a chance to talk about Chase and Mila? Five seconds. It only takes five seconds to look away, to stop paying attention, and secrets start spreading like rot. I blame myself for not paying attention. Things happen when you aren’t paying attention. And who can you blame but yourself? Chelsea continues. “They met at an away game, and it was kind of a one- or two-time thing. That’s why none of us heard about it. You know Chase. He doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Emily’s shoulders drop. “So they… just kissed?”
How to put this gently. “Do you think he would have brought her here to hold hands and sip lemonade on the porch?” Another thought occurs immediately. “Oh god, do you think he’s planning to use the lake house as his personal motel? He has his own weekend home. Much closer by.” I doubt that will sit well. And I stand behind the quiet people. The house deserves to be respected. Loved as a home.
