My hand came up and rubbed my eyes. I was small, sleepy. Confused at being awoken from my dreams. “Something in the middle of the night? What is it?”
“You’ll like it, I promise,” Anne said.
I hesitated. I wanted to make Annie happy, but something felt like it might be wrong. “We’ll get in trouble,” I hedged.
“We won’t if you sneak out quietly like I tell you to.”
“But why?”
She went rigid, and I knew she was getting angry. My throat went dry. She was always so angry with me. I was about to tell her I’d do anything she wanted when she spoke.
“Do you remember the place where they’re building a cellar?”
I nodded. They had tried to build a cellar for extra storage, but the hole they dug in the ground kept filling with water. They couldn’t keep it dry, so they gave up. I’d been strictly forbidden from exploring the still-open hole, because it was dangerous.
“I remember,” I said.
“Well, there’s ducks living in it,” Anne said.
I started to get excited, forgetting my fear, forgetting the rule that I wasn’t supposed to go to the cellar hole. “Ducks?”
“A whole family,” Anne said. “Including babies.”
“Baby ducks?” This was the most exciting thing I could have imagined. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that baby ducks were born in spring, not in autumn, like now. But I ignored it. Maybe ducks could be born in September, too.
The only way to know for sure was to see for myself.
I sat up. “Can we go now?”
“Yes, we can,” Annie said, “but you must be quiet. There’s no time to change. The ducks might be gone by the time we get there. You could miss your chance to see them.”
“I’ll be quick,” I promised. “And quiet, too. Should I put on shoes?”
“It isn’t far,” my sister said, which meant that she didn’t want me to wear shoes, so I didn’t. I slid out of bed and stood in my bare feet. “I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s go.”
—
When I landed on my knees on the floor, I was no longer crying. Cold moonlight shone through the window. Someone screamed down the hall, something crashed, and my own scream was already coming, bursting from my chest. The word that came out of me wasNo.
41
Dodie
This time, I was looking down at the water from above. It was inky black and still. A cold moon was reflected on the surface.
It had never been like this before. My feet were cold.
“Where?” I asked, because I was looking for something—something I was excited about. Birds? Ducks. I was looking for ducks, but it was fall, and it was the middle of the night, and there were no ducks in the water. Of course there weren’t. There never had been.
“Look closer,” said a voice.
“I want to go back to bed,” I said.
“They’re there.” The voice was hideously familiar from somewhere in the depths of my brain. “Look closer.”
When the water came, I curled into a ball with my head in my hands. I didn’t run. It was cold, but only for a second. It covered my mouth and nose, but only for a second.
I stayed curled in a ball as the water washed over me, on and on.This isn’t so bad,I thought.It doesn’t even hurt. Why have I spent all of my life so afraid of this?
