Genna stood at the end of the driveway and squinted in the bright sunlight, cursing the fact that she’d left her sunglasses on the dresser in the hotel where she’d spent the previous night. Shielding her eyes with her hands, she could see that the number on the Cape Cod style house—18—appeared to be the correct one. A glance at the name on the mailbox confirmed that this was indeed the Wright home. Slamming the car door, she set off up the drive, noting that the lawn, if somewhat dried from the hot August sun, was as neat and well trimmed as the flower beds that outlined the path from the front door to the end of the drive. She rang the doorbell and waited before ringing it once, twice more. When there was no answer, she walked around to the rear of the house, where she found an elderly woman wearing a large straw hat bent over and pulling weeds from around a birdbath that sat in the middle of the yard.
“Excuse me?” Genna called.
When the woman didn’t answer, Genna called again, a little louder this time. She was within twenty feet of the woman before she noticed the headphones under the hat and the Disc Man clipped to the woman’s waist. She opted to approach from the other side, where her shadow would precede her, rather than from the back where a tap on the shoulder would surely startle.
“Oh!” The woman jumped slightly when Genna was almost upon her. Removing the hat and the earphones in almost one motion, she stepped back and said, “Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Wright?” Genna asked.
“No. Mrs. Wright isn’t here. Something I might help you with?”
“You are. . . ?”
“Jeanne Maynard. I live next door. I told Doris I’d keep an eye on the place while she was gone. . .”
“Gone?” Genna repeated. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Sometime Monday, I think she said. She’s visiting her sister down in Scranton.” She paused, then asked again, “Is there something I can help you with?”
“If I leave my card with you, will you ask Mrs. Wright to call me as soon as she gets back? It’s very important.” Genna searched for a card, then as an afterthought, took a pen from her bag and wrote Patsy’s phone number on the back of it. “Tell her she can reach me at any of these numbers.”
Jeanne Maynard glanced at the card, her eyebrows raising slightly. “FBI, huh? You’ll be wanting to talk to her about Barbie, then, I suppose.”
“Do you know Barbie?”
“Certainly. She was born right over in Jamestown, you know. Didn’t move to Connecticut till she was, oh, fourteen, maybe. Then, of course, Sarah, her mother, remarried, and Bob, her dad, married Doris, and for a long time, Barbie and her father didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. ’Course, I always held that it was Sarah who didn’t have much to say to Bob or Doris, frankly, but that’s none of my business. Wasn’t till Bob got sick that Barbie finally came around. I’ve always said it was a blessing that she did, there at the end, so’s that Bob could go to his grave having said good-bye to his only blood child, you know.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years ago, maybe.”
“And up until that time, Barbie didn’t see her father?”
“I don’t recall that she did.”
“Do you know why?”
Jeanne Maynard considered the question, and in the time it took for her to do so, Genna knew the answer. Of course, she knew.
“Well, I think that’s a question for someone else to answer.”
“Someone like who? Doris? Sarah?”
“Either one that cares to.” Mrs. Maynard crossed her arms over her chest and added, not unkindly, “It just isn’t my place to talk about another’s family troubles, you understand.”
“Any idea why Sarah and Bob divorced in the first place?”
Mrs. Maynard seemed to deliberate this carefully, then replied, “She wanted to move back to Connecticut. He didn’t. His business was here.”
“Was the business losing money?”
“Makin’ it hand over fist, best I could see. Bob always made a good living.”
“Then why would she want him to move hundreds of miles away. . .”
“I don’t know that she cared if he went with her or not. I think she just wanted away from. . .”
“Away from what?”
“From here,” she said uneasily.
“Why? What happened to her here?”
“You’ll have to ask Doris.” The woman turned her head as if aware she’d possibly said too much.
“I’ll do that. Will you be sure to ask her to call me?”
“I will. Certainly.” Mrs. Maynard nodded.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Genna smiled and turned away.
“Miss. . .” Jeanne Maynard took Genna’s card from her pocket and glanced at it again, “. . . Snow. Miss Snow.”
“Yes?” Genna turned back to her.
“Is Barbie. . . do you think Barbie is. . .” The woman struggled with her words.
“We don’t know, Mrs. Maynard. I don’t want to even speculate. Right now, we’re just trying to find out what might have happened to her.”
“I’ve been prayin’ for that girl ever since I heard about it on the news the other night.”
“You just keep on doing that, Mrs. Maynard. You just keep on praying for her until we find her,” Genna said before turning to walk back down the drive, adding, as she went, “and pray that we find her real soon. . .”
Patsy dipped the paddle into the water and eased the kayak out onto the lake. Behind her on the dock, Crystal sat, legs dangling inches from the water’s surface, her head bent over the book she had selected from a shelf in the living room. Patsy would have liked to have had her along on this little trip around the lake, but there’d been too few books in the girl’s life, too few opportunities for Crystal to sit and read by the last light of a summer day, and Patsy didn’t have the heart to press her to come along. Besides, she could do with a little solitude tonight. A little time to reflect on all that had happened over the past few weeks.
“It’s been a doozy of a summer, that’s for sure,” she muttered as she passed the Williams’s dock and waved to old Mr. Williams, who was, by Patsy’s estimation, roughly ninety-two this year, give or take.
First, of course, there was Crystal.
“Poor baby,” Patsy sighed.
Patsy shook her head. All those years she’d had Genna in therapy, hoping that someday it wouldn’t all hurt her quite so much to look back on the past, and then hadn’t the past just popped up out of nowhere, just like that? And while Patsy’s first concern had been for Genna—hadn’t she made it from the cabin to Genna’s apartment in record time, leaving poor Kermie with a few days’ supply of cat food and insulin at the McDonoughs’ down the road, so that Genna wouldn’t have to deal with her sister alone, after all these years. The sight of Crystal sitting on the sofa, her hands folded in her lap as if waiting for disaster to fall from the sky, well, that had just about done Patsy in. She hadn’t known for sure what she’d expected to find when she arrived, but Patsy knew she hadn’t been prepared for Chrissie’s fragility. What could Patsy do, but take her under her wing and try to help out a little? After all, what had that girl had to give her a solid footing in this world? A father who beat her and a mother who stood aside and let him?
And she’s such a pretty little thing when she smiles. And she has smiled more lately. A little more each day.
“I’d wish I’d been able to get my hands on Crystal back then, when I’d taken in Genna,” Patsy spoke softly as she skimmed the surface of the lake, all deep blue now as the sun dropped a little behind the clouds. “I’m not bragging, Lord, you know that’s not my way. But I can’t help but think that a loving home and a little stability would have meant the world to this child.”
She paddled through a cluster of waxy white water lilies and watched the shadows lengthen across the water. A bat darted overhead, dining on mosquitoes, and off to her right, a fish jumped as the kayak approached. The end of another summer day on Bricker’s Lake, with the sky turning shades of pink and lavender and orange. Peaceful. Serene. Patsy rested the paddle across her knees for just a moment, coasting a little before heading back toward her dock, humming a song she’d heard on her favorite Frank Sinatra tape that morning.
She floated as close as she could to the shore before hopping out and walking through the shallow water to haul the kayak onto the shore. It was darker now, and Crystal must have gone inside to start dinner. She was real good about things like that, Patsy reflected. Helpful as could be, with a willingness to join in whatever task needed to be done. She was, in fact, a joy to have around.
Patsy hadn’t taken but ten steps up the grassy slope that led to the cottage before stopping in her tracks. In the quiet dusk, a figure loomed between her place and Nancy’s.
“Hey! You! What are you doing over there? Step on out into the light, you hear?” Patsy called into the shadows.
The figure stood stock still, then stepped toward her.
“It’s me, Ms. Wheeler. Kenny. Kenny Harris.”
“Now, what are you doing, lurking around here like that? Good Lord, Kenny, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
“Sorry, Ms. Wheeler. I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just taking a walk around the lake, and you being down there on the lake, and me seeing someone in your cottage, well, I thought I should take a closer look. I didn’t realize that Ms. Snow was here this week.”
“She’s not. Well, it’s Miss Snow, but it’s not Genna. It’s her sister, Crystal.”
Kenny stared at her for what seemed to be the longest time.
“What?” Patsy asked, wiping her still wet hands on the front of her shirt.
“I didn’t know. I mean, I thought it was Miss Snow. The one we’re supposed to be watching after. I didn’t know there was another one.”
And with that, Kenny mumbled something imperceptible and shuffled off back up the lawn and across the street.
“I swear there’s a full moon on the rise tonight,” Patsy muttered as she went into the house, where she found Crystal in the kitchen. She was peering down the short hallway that led to the front of the cabin, where the screen door stood open.
“Something wrong?” Patsy asked.
“No. I guess not. Just for a minute, it felt like someone was watching through the door,” Crystal told her.
“That was Kenny. I just saw him outside.” Patsy gestured toward the side of the house that faced Nancy’s cabin.
Crystal continued to stare at the front door, then walked to it, pulled it shut, and locked it.
“Chrissie, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. I just figured no one else was here this weekend, with your friend over there, Nancy, not here, and the people in the cottage on the other side having left on Wednesday.”
“Well, it is quiet, that’s for certain.”
“Well, it won’t be quiet for long.” Crystal turned to Patsy and smiled. “Genna’s on her way.”
“Genna!” Patsy grinned back. “I thought she was tied up with that kidnapping mess. . .”
“She is. She had to come to New York—someplace just over the state line, she said—to interview someone who won’t be back until Monday, and since it’s so close to the lake, she decided to come and spend tomorrow with us. She figures to be here early in the morning.”
“Well, isn’t that a pleasant surprise.” Patsy glowed with anticipation of the unexpected visit. “Maybe we should bake something special.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, one of Genna’s favorite treats, maybe.” Patsy seemed to be deep in thought.
“I don’t know what Genna’s favorites are,” Crystal told her.
“Well, then, we’d best get busy.” Patsy smiled. “Now, you just grab that cookbook there, the one with the red paisley cover—yes, that one—and take it into the living room. I’ll bring us some tea, and we can look through the list of Genna’s favorites. And while we’re doing that, you can tell me which are your favorites, and we’ll start a list for you, too. . .”
“So, big sister, tell me about the past couple of weeks.” Genna lay back on the dock, resting on her elbows.
It was ten o’clock on a steamy August morning. The fog had long since burned off the lake. Overhead, clouds drifted past the sun to darken and gather slowly off to the south. Genna and Crystal had taken an early morning sail and now rested lazily in the sun to dry off.
“Well, it sure is different, being here,” Crystal told her.
“In what way?”
“Busy.” Crystal shook her head good-naturedly. “Patsy is one busy lady. Goes from one thing right into the next, doesn’t she?”
“I guess it could take a little getting used to.”
“A little? Ha! I never knew anyone like her. Up at the crack of dawn. ‘Let’s go for a swim before breakfast.’ ‘Hey! It’s a great morning! Let’s just kayak on over to the general store across the lake and get the paper.’” Crystal effectively mimicked Patsy’s facial expressions, right down to the raised eyebrows.
“That’s our Pats, all right,” Genna laughed.
“Oh, look who’s coming to join us.” Crystal sat up and pointed to the end of the dock, where Kermit strolled as nonchalantly as a British lord out to take the morning air.
The cat rolled over on his back between the two women and accepted the adoration of both.
“Now, where have you been?” Crystal asked the cat, who responded by closing his eyes and purring loudly. “Don’t be acting like you don’t know what I’m saying. You best not have been after those little goldfinches again, Kermie.”
Kermie scootched closer to her, never opening his eyes.
“You’re just a big lovey, you are,” she told the cat. Looking up at her sister, she said, “You know, I never did have a pet before. Daddy wouldn’t hear of letting an animal in the house.”
“I remember,” Genna told her.
“Did you have pets, growing up?”
“We had a little bit of everything, actually. When I first came to live with Patsy, she had an old dog named Pickle. After he died, she took me to the SPCA to pick out a new pet. That’s where we found Kermie.”
“Did you know he had diabetes then?”
“No, that was something that developed as he got older. A vet we had once told us that it wasn’t uncommon in male orange tabbies, but I don’t know if that’s true. It’s only a problem if he doesn’t get his insulin. He’s prone to having seizures, and they’re terrible to watch. I’ve never seen Pats get as upset as she does when Kermie has a seizure. And we’re always afraid we’ll lose him to one, so we move heaven and earth to make sure he gets his shots on time, don’t we, old boy?”
“How old is he?”
“He’s sixteen, almost seventeen. Old for a cat. Patsy keeps thinking about getting a kitten, but every time she comes close, she decides to wait just a little longer. She thinks Kermie will be upset.” Genna grinned. “I think he’d ignore it, frankly.”
“It must have been fun,” Crystal said wistfully, “growing up. With her.”
“It was.”
“I wish. . .” Crystal began, then stopped without completing the thought.
“So do I.” Genna reached out and took her sister’s hand. “But you’re here now.”
“I’m glad. Thank you for sharing her with me. For sharing. . . this.” Crystal gestured around toward the lake, then back to the cottage.
“Well, it’s your turn, Chrissie. All those things you didn’t get to do before, you can have a chance to do now. So tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“We hiked. We fished. Kayaked, of course. I really liked it, once I got the hang of it. Sailed, something else I’ve never done. So it’s been a lot of firsts. And we spent a lot of time baking and cooking. I don’t think I’ve ever, in my entire life, eaten as much as I have since I’ve been here. I figured I must have piled on about ten pounds over this past week, but I haven’t. I’ve actually lost a few, if that scale in the bathroom is to be believed. I guess we’ve just been running so much the fat never had a chance to catch up to my hips.”
“Patsy loves to eat, but she hates to eat alone. And she is a good cook, as I’ve noticed you are, as well.” Genna leaned over the side of the dock to watch a young bass swim through the lily pads. “Are you sleeping well?”
“Yes. . .” Crystal replied slowly. “Why?”
“Just wondering,” Genna shrugged. “And did I hear a but after the yes?”
“Well, I fall asleep most nights as soon as my head hits the pillow. From exhaustion, I guess.”
“But. . .” Genna urged her to continue.
“But then some nights I wake up. . . I don’t know, I guess maybe I’m just a little restless.” Crystal rubbed under Kermie’s chin and the cat purred louder.
“Nightmares?”
Chrissie sighed. “Sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?”
“All right, most nights. Don’t tell Patsy, though, okay? I don’t want her to think I’m not happy here. I am. Happier than I’ve ever been, really. I think it’s just because we’re so close to. . . you know.” Chrissie pulled at her hair nervously.
“To camp,” Genna said. “It’s because we’re so close to the old campgrounds.”
Crystal nodded.
“Did you ever go up there, Gen? I mean, since. . .”
“No.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding? Why would I?”
“Don’t you wonder what it looks like now?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“Maybe it’s all different now. Do you suppose the cabins are still there?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“How could you not have thought about it?”
Silence, and the morning, spread around them, bit by bit. They watched Kermie rise and stalk a dragonfly that posed on the bulkhead.
Finally, Crystal said, “I want to go, Gen.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking your permission. And I wasn’t asking you to come with me. But it just seems that every nightmare that I’ve had for close to twenty years now, begins and ends in that place. It has too much power over me. Maybe if I go there, maybe I can take the power back.”
Genna shook her head.
“I haven’t even been able to bring myself to drive past the entrance, Chris. I just can’t face it.”
“Well, I’m going up there tomorrow. You’re welcome to come with me. I’d like it if you did, but I’ll go alone if I have to.”
“Why?”
“You face down your fears, you steal their power and you become stronger than them, stronger than you were.”
“I can’t, Chris. I’m sorry. I just can’t.” She raised her head, her eyes hollow with regret. “I guess you’re the brave one, after all.”
But early the next morning, when Crystal crept into the kitchen on tiptoes to avoid waking Patsy or Genna, she found her sister, already up, the coffee made, waiting for her.
“Do you think we should tell Pats?” Crystal asked, and Genna shook her head.
“I think it will just worry her.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure.” Genna nodded. It was a decision that hadn’t come easy, and she wasn’t about to back down from it now. Besides, if Chrissie could be brave enough, she could, too.
“Do you remember how to get there?” Crystal asked.
“Are you kidding? I’ve been avoiding it for years. It’s right up off the old county road.”
They stole quietly from the house, slipping through the early morning fog and out to the car without making a sound. Genna backed out of the drive and drove slowly up to the main road.
“Gen, you don’t have to go with me. You can drop me off out by the road and wait in the car.”
“Don’t be silly.” Genna’s jaw set tightly. “If you can do it, I can do it.”
“Gen, I don’t know that that’s a good enough reason.”
“Oh, hell, Chris, I probably should have done it a long time ago. And you’re right. The longer you put something off, the worse it gets. Maybe it’s time I got this over with.”
Genna followed the narrow, slightly winding road to a sharp right that led uphill before flattening out and stretching straight ahead. They rode in silence for almost a mile before Genna began to slow down and scan the scenery beyond the windshield.
“The road down to the camp should be off to the right up here someplace.” Genna slowed a little more and pulled to the shoulder to permit a pickup to pass.
“I don’t see a road.”
“It was a dirt road, so I would imagine it to be well overgrown after all these years. I know the state police had the place blocked off for a long time.”
“Gen, look.” Crystal pointed toward a weathered sign nearly covered by tall brush.
Genna stopped the car on the shoulder and read aloud.
Welcome to the Way of the Shepherd.
Enter in peace, and follow my path.
“Jesus had nothing to do with what went on here,” Crystal said softly.
“I can’t believe that sign is still there.” Genna shook her head. “You’d have thought they would have taken it down long ago.”
“Well, at least we know we’re at the right place.”
“You still want to go back there?”
Crystal nodded.
Genna accelerated and made a right turn onto the dirt road.
“Someone’s been here,” she frowned. “Look at how the brush is packed down, going down the hill to the camp area.”
“Probably kids. I’ll bet this place gets lots of teenagers out for a thrill.”
The road was rutted and bumpy, narrow and steep. At the first quick bend that elbowed sharply to the left, Genna stopped the car and said, “Last chance, Chrissie.”
“We’re here, Genna. Let’s see it through.”
The car inched downhill, Genna leaning forward to peer over the steering wheel in an attempt to avoid the worst of the ruts.
“Omigod, what’s that?” Crystal gasped, pushing herself as far back into her seat as possible, and pointing out the front window at a low hanging branch.
Genna stopped the car again, her gaze following her sister’s.
“Geez, I hope that’s not an omen,” Genna laughed nervously.
“What the hell is it? I never saw anything so damned ugly in my life.”
“It’s a vulture,” Genna told her. “There are a lot of them up around here.”
“Well, don’t that beat all. We finally get the nerve to haul our butts up here after all this time, and what do we find waiting for us but a damned vulture.” Chrissie giggled.
“Still want to go on?” Genna hesitated, not quite as amused as Crystal appeared to be.
“Aw, sure. It’s just a big old bird. Ugly as sin, though, don’t you think?”
Must be nervous laughter, Genna told herself as she once again proceeded down the hill. Whistling in the dark and that sort of thing.
At the bottom of the hill was a clearing surrounded by dense woods, solid as a castle wall of stone. Thick vines knit the trees together tightly, and the smell of honeysuckle was staggering.
Genna stopped the car, allowing the engine to idle momentarily as she and Crystal looked around in silence.
“I thought it was bigger than this,” Crystal said softly.
“We were just smaller,” Genna replied.
“Look down there.” Crystal pointed ahead. “That’s where the pool was.”
“And there’s the old changing house,” Genna said. “Remember coming down here and putting on our bathing suits to swim in the afternoon?”
Crystal nodded but made no move to leave the safety of the car.
And so the sisters sat, wrapped in the hush of early morning and in memories inside their shelter of steel and fiberglass.
Finally, Crystal asked, “You going to get out?”
“Might as well.” Genna turned off the engine and pulled the key from the ignition and pocketed it. The sound of the car doors slamming in unison echoed across the clearing. The air was thick, humid, and heavy with the scent of summer. Crickets chirped and cicadas hummed, and through the trees, wary birds darted.
And overall, in spite of it all, there hung a stillness, a sense of isolation.
“Want to walk down to the pool?” Genna asked, her voice somber and subdued.
“Sure.”
They walked side by side, their hands shoved into the pockets of their jeans, Genna’s fingers unconsciously toying with the car keys as if to ensure a quick exit if need be.
“Perhaps we should be whistling,” Genna said. “You know, to cover up the sound of our knocking knees.”
“My knees aren’t knocking, but I do admit to a chill running up my spine.”
“Looks like you were right about vandals.” Genna grabbed Crystal’s arm as they approached the old bathhouse, where the door had long ago been pulled from its hinges and tossed onto the ground and now lay rusted and bent. Pieces of an old porcelain toilet lay broken upon the concrete walkway that led down to the enclosed pool.
“Can you believe there’s still water in there?” Genna leaned over the cyclone fence to the pool.
“And who knows what else? Talk about your black lagoon! Ugh! That’s really disgusting. I’ll bet it’s filled with snakes and. . .” Crystal shivered and turned away. “I can’t even look at it.”
“Well, which way then?” Genna asked.
“Maybe back up the other way. Toward the dining hall.”
“That would be up to the left, if I recall.”
“I think you’re right.” Crystal fell in step with her sister, and following their memories, the two women went back up the hill.
“There’s the old kitchen,” Genna said, pointing to an open doorway.
Overhead, clouds drifted past the early morning sun, casting a shadow.
“Looks like we’ll get that storm after all,” Crystal paused at the threshold.
“Good. It’ll give us an excuse not to stay too long.”
Together they stepped inside and onto the linoleum floor, long cracked and faded, past the stainless steel counters and the old double sink. Cupboard doors stood open, their contents long since removed. An old stove sat in the middle of the floor, no longer connected, the burners missing. They stepped past it and peered through the doorway into the dining hall beyond.
“It’s dark in here,” Crystal whispered. “It’s so creepy.”
“This place would be creepy under any circumstances. The fact that it’s dark inside, and it’s getting dark outside, only adds to the atmosphere.”
“Look, the old piano’s still there.” Crystal pointed across the room. “I wonder if it still plays.”
Genna crossed the bare wooden floor and tapped on a few keys.
“Nothing,” she said. “The insides have either rusted out or been eaten out by mice.”
“I hate mice,” Crystal muttered. “I’ll bet there are tons of them in here. Just the thought of what could be lurking around here makes my skin crawl.”
“Look down there.” Genna pointed to the far end of the long, narrow room.
Piles of mattresses, apparently stripped from the cabins, littered the floor. Some bore charred evidence of having been set on fire. Across one wall, the names Courtney and TJ had been written in huge red letters.
“Wonder if Courtney and TJ’s parents know they’ve been whooping it up in the old camp dining hall,” Crystal mused.
“Judging by the mountain of beer cans over there,” Genna pointed behind them, “I’d say they weren’t alone.”
She walked over and peered at the aluminum pyramid that stood against one wall, then said, “Looks like we missed the party by months, if not longer, judging by the amount of dust on the cans. I guess whoever was using this place as a hangout either moved away or outgrew it.”
“Maybe they were summer people who didn’t come back,” Crystal offered.
“Maybe. Frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t evidence of more recent intrusion. You’d think a place like this would be a magnet for the local kids.” Genna brushed the dust from her hands onto her jeans. “Seen enough in here?”
“Yes.” Crystal nodded.
“Where do you want to go next?” Genna asked once they had passed back through the kitchen and out into the what had once been the cook’s kitchen garden, now gone to weeds.
“I guess down there,” Crystal pointed in the direction of the cabins.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I came here to exorcise this devil, Genna. Might as well get it all out of my system.”
Without speaking, they walked close to one another through overgrown shrubs and entered onto a clearing.
Once white-washed clapboard cabins stood in a semicircle, like long, embracing arms that held a grassy clearing. In the center stood a pile of stone, once a podium of sorts from which the counselors addressed their young charges three times each day: early morning, noon, and evening. The grass, once lush and thick, now grew in sparse patches, as the dense canopy of surrounding trees had meshed quite solidly overhead.
“Dear Lord, it’s so damned creepy,” Crystal whispered.
Behind them a screen door, nudged by the wind, banged loudly, startling them both.
“SHIT!” Genna exclaimed, then laughed nervously and turned to look back at the cabins that stood in a perfect arc behind them.
It seemed that, over the years, the woods had grown closer, close enough to breathe down the necks of the deserted cabins. Peeling paint left weathered streaks across the front walls, and masses of assorted vines crept up broken steps and across sagging porches to climb toward shingled roofs. Windows were broken out here and there, and doors bore the remains of jagged screens.
And to the right of each door, a large number had been hastily—and sloppily—painted on the wall in watery black that dripped down the wall like afterthoughts.
“Where do you suppose those numbers came from?” Crystal pointed to the number that defaced the cabin closest to them.
“The state police painted them, as a means of identifying the crime scenes by cabin,” Genna said without emotion.
“Crime scenes,” Crystal repeated softly, as if she’d never thought of what had happened there in those terms before.
“The girls who testified used the numbers when they spoke with the detectives and told them which of the cabins they’d been taken from.” Genna pointed straight ahead. “Cabin number five. Mine.”
She turned her head briskly and pointed to the small building that was set apart slightly from the others and that bore a 12.
“The infirmary. The girls who testified said that after he’d raped them, he’d taken them to the infirmary and left them for Sister Anna to care for in the morning.”
“I lost count of the number of times I. . .” Crystal shook her head and turned back toward the clearing.
Genna put an arm around her sister’s shoulder to comfort her. “Do you think Sister Anna knew?” she asked.
“Sure, she knew.” Crystal nodded. “She’d give us aspirin for our ‘headaches’ and something to make us sleep, but she had to have known what had happened to us. She always brought extra desserts when we stayed there. As if an extra slice of cake could make up for having been abused by her wacko brother.”
“Was she Michael’s real sister?”
“I thought she was, but I don’t know for sure,” Crystal conceded. “Did it come out at the trial?”
“Sister Anna didn’t testify, as I remember,” Genna told her.
“How could she not testify?” Chrissie frowned.
“I think they couldn’t find her. I don’t remember exactly. It was a long time ago, and they didn’t let me in the courtroom until it was my turn to take the witness stand.”
A sharp breeze pushed through the trees, rustling the leaves noisily and bending the branches slightly with its force. A rumble nearby caused them both to jump, then laugh uneasily.
“I think it’s time to leave,” Genna said.
“I just want to see the track and maybe the soccer fields.”
“We’d better make it fast, then. That storm is moving in pretty quickly.”
“I think the path used to be over there somewhere. . .” Crystal started off to the right, then stopped and pointed, saying, “Well, it looks like it still is. Imagine that.”
The shrubs at the edge of the woods were bent and angled, the brush tamped down carelessly, as if, sometime in the not too distant past, someone had tread there.
“Maybe Courtney and TJ ran a few laps before they retired to the dining hall for a couple of cold ones,” Genna said dryly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find that kids were using the sports fields, Gen. I remember the facilities as being pretty nice.”
“I never got to play on them too much. Except for softball. You had to be ten to play on the soccer team,” Genna recalled as she followed her sister down the narrow path.
An enormous crack of thunder shattered the silence.
“On second thought, maybe we’ve seen enough for one day.” Crystal did an immediate about-face and grabbed Genna’s arm. “We can always come back to see the soccer field another time.”
“I take it you’re ready to leave.”
“More than ready.” Crystal tugged on Genna’s arm to hurry her along.
“Don’t like thunder, eh?” Genna said as they came back up the hill.
“Not when it’s that close,” Chrissie shook her head. “And look, over there, at the lightning.”
Ragged streaks flashed across the ever-darkening sky, and thunder rolled all around them.
“If we hurry, we might make it to the car before the rain. . .” Genna held up a hand. “Oops, too late, here it comes. Looks like we’ll have to make a run for it.”
They ran through the clearing, past the cabins, just as the first fat drops began to fall like long-held tears. Crystal reached the passenger side and hopped in, slamming the door behind her. Genna hurried behind the car, then stopped, tilting her head, as if listening for a sound she wasn’t sure she’d heard. As a child, she’d believed the woods around the camp were haunted. Night after night, she’d thought she’d heard cries drifting through the dark.
Funny, she thought as she looked back toward the long-neglected buildings, even now, she could swear she heard those anguished voices, little more than whispers, carried on the summer wind.
Please. . . please. . .
Shivering as the rain fell cold and hard against her skin, she opened her car door, slid inside, and started the engine immediately. Suddenly, she could not get back to the sanctuary of Patsy’s cottage quickly enough.
And yet later that night, she dreamed that she heard them. Loud enough inside her head to awaken her from her sleep, she had bolted upright, then gone to the window to listen. It was as if the wind had carried the sound of voices that were not quite voices, all the way to the lake.
Please. . .
Please. . . help. . . us. . .