So, how are you doing, really?” Ryan asked. “The no-bullshit answer, please.”
I didn’t know who else to tell about Lexie’s ashes, so I had gone to Ryan. We were settled into a corner table at the Blue Heron with lattes. Soft rock from the ’70s drifted from the speakers, America singing “Tin Man”—the kind of music Ryan’s parents had always played. I rubbed my eyes. “Okay. The truth is, I think I’m going crazy.” I was unsure where to start. I wasn’t ready to tell him about dropping the flashlight in the pool and then finding it on the edge. Or that there was a real girl who drowned who had the same name as Rita’s imaginary friend. Martha wasn’t such an uncommon name, was it? So I said, “My father is insisting that Lexie is visiting him. He’s been sketching her as proof. I’ve seen pictures he’s done of her in the attic, bedroom, and kitchen. The details… they’re unsettling.”
“Where’s your father now?” he asked, his voice serious.
“At Sparrow Crest. Diane’s there with him. She thinks he’s had a total psychotic break.”
“And what do you think?” he asked.
That maybe I’m having one, too.
“Last night, after he put her ashes in the pool—dumpedthem in, really—he pointed at the water and said Lexie was there.” I paused;here was the tricky part. Did I admit it? And what had I really seen?The only thing in that water is what we bring in with us.“I saw something,” I admitted. “A flash of white. Like an arm and hand coming up, breaking through the surface. Then it was gone.”
He looked at me, then down at the foam on his latte. His face had lost all its color.
At that moment, Terri brought over two raspberry muffins, fresh out of the oven. “So nice to see you, Jackie,” she said. “How are you holding up?”
I smiled back at her and lied. “I’m doing okay, thanks.”
“And your father?”
“Oh, you know. He’s managing.”
“How long will you two be in town?”
“We both leave on Sunday.”
“Well, if you can manage it, I hope you’ll have a chance to see my mother again. I heard you had a lovely visit. I know she’d love to say goodbye before you go.”
I nodded. “Absolutely.” Terri went back behind the counter. I turned back to Ryan. “Maybe my father’s not the only one having a psychotic break.” I forced a laugh. “Maybe it’s grief. Guilt. Lack of sleep. Or likely all of the above.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said, keeping his voice low so that his mother wouldn’t overhear us. Terri went back into the kitchen, leaving the register to a young man with a pierced eyebrow.
Ryan looked at me. “I don’t think Lexie was either.” He took in a deep breath and let it out. “She told me she believed there was something in that water. Something terrible. Something that had been there a long, long time.”
The hairs on the back of my neck felt prickly. “Shetoldyou that? When?”
“The last time I talked to her—we were sitting right here, actually. But I thought it was just Lexie being Lexie. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.”
“And now?”
He picked at the muffin on his plate, pulling it apart. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, eyes not meeting mine.
“Okay.” But it didn’t feel okay. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, whatever it was.
“That same day—the last time we talked—Lexie asked me if I remembered what happened to me that afternoon in the pool when we were kids. That day Lexie and I had the contest?” His voice was small and squeaky, as though he was turning back into his twelve-year-old self.
I nodded. “The last time you were in the pool.”
“Right. Anyway, she asked if I saw anything down there in the water.” He frowned hard, sighed. “I told her I hadn’t seen a damn thing. She got really mad. Wouldn’t believe me. She sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and said she wasn’t leaving the bakery until I told her the truth. She even did the whole ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire’ thing.”
“Was this what your fight was about?”
He nodded. “I held my ground. Told her it was nothing. I let her think she was crazy for believing otherwise. It was such a shitty thing to do.” He looked away, rubbed at his eyes. “She got so mad at me. Said the reason the water had power was because of its secrets. Because no one ever talked about what they’d really seen, things that had really happened there. She stormed out. That was the last time I saw her.” He looked down at his ruined muffin, pushed the plate away, looked up at me. “But the thing is… I lied to her. I did see something that day. But what I saw, it didn’t make any sense. Not then or now. And I guess I thought that by not talking about it, not admitting what I’d seen, that would make it less real.”
I nodded, understanding completely. And I steeled myself for whatever he was going to tell me. “What was it?”
There was a long pause.
