part0053

“Helmet, gloves, and safety glasses.” Les handed one each to both Maggie and Nicole who donned the gear, grinning stupidly at each other. “All right, now for the fun part—choose your weapon.” She pointed to the two sledgehammers leaning up against the side of the building.

“I’ll take the orange one.” Nicole hefted it. “Whoa, it’s heavy.”

“All the better for demolition, my dear.” Les cackled and lifted the yellow one, handing it to Maggie. “This one is my personal favorite.”

“Badass.” Maggie slung it across her shoulders and draped her arms across each side, her lip curling in a comical snarl.

Nicole snorted a laugh at her theatrics. “You’re so rugged.”

“All right, ladies, follow me.” Les led them into the building and pointed at the floor-to-ceiling dividing wall in the middle of the room. “See this wall?”

“Knock it down.”

“The whole thing?”

“No, just the bottom third.” Les eyed it hands on her hips.

Nicole and Maggie shared a confused look. “How the hell are we supposed—”

“Yes, the whole thing, you ninnies. Good god, I’m glad no one is watching right now.”

“Well, how do we…”

Les grabbed the sledgehammer from Nicole and motioned for them to back up before taking a mighty swing and sending the head all the way through the wall to the other side and jerking it back out in a shower of drywall and wood chips. “Tear it the hell down, girls. Pretend it’s the patriarchy!”

Maggie stood in front of the wall and cocked her hammer back, sucking in a deep breath and letting the hammer go with a triumphant cry. It embedded in the wall several inches and took her a couple of jerks to get it back out to Nicole’s mocking laughter.

“Come on, muscles,” Nicole teased.

“Whatever, you do it, then.”

Les rolled her eyes. “All right, enough about you, girls. You have your assignment. I’ll be back later. Don’t bash each other.”

Maggie and Nicole grinned wildly and stepped away from each other, each sizing up their portion of the wall.

“Ready?” Nicole asked.

“So ready.” Maggie nodded.

The sledgehammers bashed against the wall in alternating rhythm for several minutes.

“Are you okay still staying here?” Maggie asked, pausing to adjust her too-big gloves which were slipping off her hands.

“What do you mean? Your house is cool,” Nicole grunted and swung the hammer, cracking a two-by-four in half.

“I meant the lake. Some really weird and bad stuff happened to you here,” Maggie said, swinging her own hammer and putting a new hole in the wall.

“Some really weird and good stuff happened too.”

“Willa got the answers to why Emily died, for one. That was fucked up—in a good way, I think.”

“I can imagine there are a lot of complicated emotions around that for her, but it must really ease some of that heartbreak.”

“That’s what I just said.” Nicole adjusted her safety glasses and swung the hammer. “And me and my sister are getting to know each other like we haven’t before. I think we may even like each other again.”

Maggie grinned. “You call her your sister now.”

“Well, she is.” Nicole leaned against the hammer for a moment to catch her breath.

“Yeah, but before you always had to make sure that half was in there. You don’t do that anymore.”

“Huh.” Nicole shrugged. “Maybe I’m just lazy.”

“And Will reconnected with Lee again and I know that makes her really happy.” Nicole picked up the hammer again. “Pretty sure your mom is happy about it, too.”

“They’re pretty great together.”

Nicole stopped hammering again and turned to look at her. “And I met you.”

“What?” Maggie paused, staring at the space where the wall used to be.

“You heard me.” Nicole kept working, a quirky grin splitting her face.

Maggie dropped the hammer and leaned on it, coughing and wiping sweat from her face with her sleeve. “Um, I’m done with my part. What’s taking you so long?”

Nicole gritted her teeth, swinging hard at the last framed boards, knocking them at the joints and sending two-by-four fragments flying in all directions. “I had more on my side.”

“Or you just suck at this.”

“Suck this.” Nicole grunted, knocking the last board free with a crack and sending it skittering across the floor. She tossed her hard hat across the room and grabbed the sledge in the middle of the handle, holding it parallel to the floor before letting it drop with a crash. “Nic, out.”

Maggie doubled over with laughter and Nicole moved until she was standing right in front of her.

“Hey,” Maggie said.

“Hey.” Nicole eyed her up and down. She reached up and removed Maggie’s hard hat, letting it drop to the floor. Her gaze held her eyes and then moved down to rest on Maggie’s lips, her intention clear.

“Les is going to be back any minute,” Maggie said, breathing heavily.

“I bet this isn’t anything she hasn’t seen before,” Nicole said, stepping close enough their breath mingled in the air.

“This?” Maggie whispered.

“This.” Nicole raised her hand, brushing a sweaty lock of hair from Maggie’s face and cupping her cheek. “Is this something you want?”

Maggie licked her lips. “I think so.”

Nicole closed her eyes, eliminating the inches left between them until their lips came together fully and awkwardly in a sloppy, erratic, teeth-crashing first kiss that had them bouncing apart a moment later.

“Sorry.” Maggie’s hand went to her lips as if checking for an injury, her face flushed red and she was unable to meet Nicole’s gaze.

“No, uh, that was…” Nicole took a step back and laughed, uncomfortably. “…um, I didn’t expect…”

“You wanna, um, try again?”

Nicole blushed and tilted her head. “You go right.”

They connected again, lips meeting stiffly, hands tense on the other’s shoulders. Nicole opened her eyes to see Maggie looking right at her and she barked a laugh, pulling away abruptly. “Sorry, that was me.”

“It’s okay.” Maggie grimaced. “I’m sorry. I, um, thought that would feel different.”

“You’re not into girls?”

“Uh, no, I am. I think. You?”

“Totally. Sometimes.” Nicole touched her lips, eyeing Maggie sheepishly. “But, you know, I can tell when it’s not, um…”

“Yeah, me too.” Maggie gushed a relieved breath and grinned crookedly. “Friends?”

Nicole grinned back. “Sisters.”

Lee sighed and opened her eyes, blinking into the setting sun over the lake. Her headache from earlier had eased and she was warm with the fleece blanket across her lap and her sweatshirt on. She wiggled her fingers, held tightly in Willa’s hand, still sitting in the chair right next to her on the deck.

“Are you feeling better?” Willa asked and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah, sorry.” Lee rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long, less than an hour.”

“God, I’m like a narcoleptic.”

“You’re fine. Give it some time.”

“Where are the girls?”

“Helping Les and the crew clear out the old arts building and getting it fixed up in time for the first session,” Willa reminded her.

“Oh, right, just like I asked them to.” Lee grimaced and touched the shaved patch of hair above her left ear, feeling the sutures that still had four days before they could come out. “I think half my brains must have leaked out.”

“Speaking of your short-term memory, um…” Willa fidgeted and adjusted her booted foot on the stool in front of her. She was in it for the next four weeks before being reassessed and likely facing reconstructive surgery. The boot, at least, allowed her to walk, albeit slowly.

Lee sighed and rolled her head toward her. “What else did I forget?”

“Uh, well, I don’t know that you forgot but we haven’t talked about what I said to you out at the fire pit. I mean, there was a lot going on and you were hurt, so if you don’t remember…”

Lee’s brows knit together. “Give me a hint?”

Willa winced, her cheeks reddening. “You know what? Never mind. We can talk about it another time.”

Lee’s grin spread slowly, cracking her face wide open, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I’m kidding.”

Willa blinked at her. “What?”

Lee held her gaze. “I love you, too, Will. I always have.”

Willa swatted her arm. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, you took off so fast at the time, and after that, honestly, I thought my feelings were pretty obvious.”

“That’s it?” Willa gaped at her.

“No, that’s not it.” Lee smiled, feeling warmth fill her chest and letting it shine through her eyes. “It’s just the beginning.”

Willa relaxed against her chair. “What are you planning on doing with that space?”

“The old building under construction.”

“Oh, yeah. I was thinking about trying out something new this year if I can pull it together.”

“That’s exciting. What’s it going to be?”

“I’m going to build a library. Camp is an exciting time to try so many new things, make new friends and have new adventures, but I think it’s still important to offer kids times of solitude and the opportunity to be alone with a good book—maybe sitting under a tree overlooking the lake.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.” Willa beamed at her. “What do you need?”

“Books to start and maybe a little bit of money. You know, I was even thinking about a creative writing class, if I can find someone to teach it at this late notice.”

“Hmm,” Willa mused. “I may know someone who can help you with those things.”

“Yeah? I thought you might.”

“Will you do something for me, though?”

“Tell me what you think happened.”

Lee stared at Willa a long time before looking away across the lake. “What I think?”

“I need to know, Lee. I need to know I’m not crazy.”

“Of course you’re not crazy, Will. I think the universe is vast and mysterious and there are many, many things that happen that defy rational, observable, or scientific explanation.”

Willa scoffed. “That’s very nice and vaguely worded.”

“Did we witness one of those events? Do you need me to say we witnessed the unexplainable? That we’ve been in the presence of a ghost? Because I don’t know if I can do that.”

“So, you’ve been able to rationalize what happened with Nicole? A couple of margaritas with a splash of teenage angst equals perfectly recreating my sister’s death moment? But you’re willing to believe there was a ghost walking the beach for the last twenty-five years, which we now know was probably Sasha Mathers?”

Lee was quiet a long time. “I haven’t heard her out there.”

“Do you think we will?”

“No,” Lee admitted. “I think she’s gone.”

Willa stared out at the lake. “You heard that tree fall, didn’t you? You remember the first one?”

“How could I forget? It was the night we took Em out to the pit to try and contact Sasha Mathers.”

“The night she died,” Willa said softly.

Lee stared across the lake for a long time. “You know the thing I don’t understand?”

“Just one thing?”

“Emily’s presence was so, hmm, active, I guess.” She waved a hand vaguely. “She was able to interact and influence Nicole to get her message across in a short period of time.”

“And Sasha Mathers walked the last place she remembered being alive for twenty-five years without a purpose?” Willa added.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“If I were writing it, I would argue Emily came back willingly and had something she wanted to say. Sasha Mathers didn’t. We brought her back when we opened that door to her and never closed it. She didn’t want to be here and didn’t know what to do or how to cross back over, I guess.”

Lee frowned. “It kind of breaks my heart that we did that to her after everything she’d already been through.”

“We were just kids, Lee. We didn’t know what we were doing or what would happen. I think it’s safe to say we’ve done right by Sasha Mathers, now.”

“Yes, I suppose. I don’t know what to think, Will, but I know what I feel and as confusing and disturbing as it all is, I feel at peace now. It feels different here in a way I can’t explain, but I think whatever happened is finished and we can move on.”

“Funny you should mention that.”

“My publicist has been after me to do some of the interviews that have been requested.”

“Reggie Knight, a believer in ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’?”

“First of all, when Reggie and I split up, we split up all the way so don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ve been working with Elaine Toth for years.”

“Sorry,” Lee mumbled, smiling sheepishly.

“Secondly, I don’t think there’s any reason this has to be bad publicity. In fact, I want to do it. I realize the world is titillated by the bizarre circumstances surrounding the discovery of the remains of a missing eight-year-old girl. I will discuss it, but I am in no way interested in exploiting the Mathers’s tragedy for personal gain. I will be speaking with them before I do this. If they have any reservations at all, then it won’t happen.”

“So, what’s your angle?” Lee asked curiously.

“I choose to believe it’s true what they’re saying now, that Leah only wanted to play with Sasha and never intended to hurt her. She was a kid with an abusive father, worried Sasha was going to get her in trouble for taking the boat out without permission. She drowned her out of fear and covered it up with the help of her loving brother who was just trying to protect her the way he protected her his whole life. I have to believe it because to believe people we grew up with were child predators is just too much for me. What happened to Sasha Mathers is still an unspeakable tragedy, but so is what happened to Leah and James Earl and their brothers.”

“And that poor child, Esther. Oh, my god.” Lee sighed and shook her head. “How did no one know what was going on in that house? I appreciate how difficult it would have been for Betty Sims to put herself out there for a family she barely knew, but how hard would it have been to call for another wellness check? She can’t possibly not have known about that child.”

“I know.” Willa reached over to place her hand against the back of Lee’s neck, running fingers through her hair. “The whole thing just seems so utterly depraved, but despite all that I do see the other side.”

“Please, tell me you see the helpers.”

“The Mathers survived the most horrific life event I can imagine. Their marriage is still strong, their son is successful with a family of his own, and they went on to have another child. The love and support they received from their friends and family allowed for that and people should know, and it should be celebrated. It’s truly inspiring what they have accomplished in the face of devastating trauma.”

“And you want to speak to that for them?”

“I do. Noah and Paul Earl are another example. They got a second chance and were fortunate to be placed, while not together, in loving foster homes. They overcame their early upbringing after their father’s abuse and mother’s complicit neglect was finally discovered. Now, Esther has that chance, too.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Lee agreed.

“There is immense humanity and redemption here and that’s the lens through which I choose to share this story,” Willa finished.

Lee eyed her, knowing there was more. “And for you? What is there for you?”

“It’s time I talk about Emily. I know what happened now and I want the world to know, too. My sister was a hero.” Willa swallowed hard and smiled. “Both of my sisters, in fact.”