It’s a short walk to the lodge from our cottage. The path there is no different than the trail that goes from our cottage toward the lake. In fact, it’s probably the exact same worn-down path that goes across this whole stupid resort with little wooden arrows saying stuff likeLodgeandPool, so that, contrary to what Emily thinks, you’d have to be an actual idiot to get lost.
When we get there, there is a man standing outside the lodge entrance, smoking as we approach with his eyes on me; if Skylar were here, she’d tell him to take a picture because it lasts longer. Skylar always knows what to say in situations like these. Me? Not so much. Instead, his staring makes me self-conscious, and I think about what Emily said before.Is that what you want people to think? That you’re a slut?I adjust my shirt, avoiding eye contact as the man barely steps out of the way to make room for us to pass. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, almost blowing the smoke in my face before letting his eyes drift to Mae, who’s fallen behind Wyatt and me. As I watch, he takes in the thin, bare legs that stick out from beneath her denim overalls, one strap too big so that it slips to her upper arm. “Hurry up, slowpoke,” I say to her, seeing her spaced out, kicking up rocks and dirt with the toe of her gym shoes.
“You walk too fast,” she whines.
“You walk too slow. Hurry up.”
I make Mae go inside before me, praying to God this creep doesn’t follow us in and that he’s not still here when we leave.
Inside the lodge, slot machines and arcade games line a wall, which Wyatt takes immediately off for, leaving Mae and me behind. Mae spots the DVD rentals and asks if we can get one. I have three dollars in my pocket and so I say fine, whatever, if she gets Emily to pay me back, because they cost a dollar each and I’m not a bank.
“Why do you call her that?” Mae asks.
“Call her what?”
“Emily.”
“Why not? It’s her name, isn’t it?”
“Her name isMom.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t call them Emily and Nolan to their faces. Not anymore, not after Emily told me it was a “sign of disrespect” and that I was “devaluing her authority.” Now I just think it and say it behind her back, because that’s what Skylar does, she calls her momCaroline, like they’re friends.
I watch as Mae wanders away to peruse the infinitesimal selection of DVDs, which look like they were made before I was born, while Wyatt feeds quarters into some arcade game, feeding his own gambling habit. He’s gotten into trouble for it before: for online gambling, for stealing Emily and Nolan’s credit card for things like buying loot boxes and other in-game purchases, for racking up debt on fantasy football. I don’t know how he got around the whole legal-gambling-age thing, but he did. When they caught him, they took away his phone and computer for a month and made him do chores to pay back the money he stole, which was in the thousands. They think it solved the problem. It didn’t. Instead, Wyatt started selling his old Pokémon cards and Grandma’s antique silverware (she’s not dead, not yet, but she’sgetting ready for it, offloading things she no longer needs) that Emily keeps in a bin in the basement for cash to gamble with, but they haven’t noticed and I’m not going to be the one to tell them because if I did, Wyatt would murder me in my sleep.
I wander aimlessly, killing time. The lodge is a dive. Kids walk around barefoot and wet, like they’ve just come from the pool or beach. There are giant taxidermy fish on the walls beside neon Budweiser signs. There is a sign for some missing girl. I go to the sign and read it, seeing that the girl was four foot ten and ninety pounds when she went missing. She was last seen riding her bike home from a friend’s house almost five years ago, which tells me the odds of her still being alive are slim to none. There is a Facebook page to find her,Help Find Kylie Matthews. The sign asks for anyone with information to call the police or visit the Facebook page. Mae sees me looking at the sign and comes over to ask, “Who’s that?” about the girl, and I say it’s no one.
“It doesn’t look like no one,” she says, and I roll my eyes. “Then who’s that?” she asks, pointing to another picture beside the first one, on the same sign.
“Same girl,” I say because it’s an age-progressed picture.
“No it’s not,” Mae says, giving me a look like I’m dumb.
“Yes it is. That’s her before,” I say, motioning at the first picture. “And that’s what she’d look like now if—” I start to say, moving my finger to the next picture and wondering what it would be like for her family to see her grow up in pictures but not real life.
“If what?” Mae asks when I cut my words short, not wanting to say to her:if she’s not dead, because I don’t want to scare her, for one, and because she’d probably say something to Emily and then I’d get in trouble for talking about dead girls.
“Did you find a movie yet?” I ask instead.
She hasn’t. Mae runs away, and I go to the other side of the room, where there is a coin-operated pool table with tornfelt where a couple kids play while their parents sit at the long wooden bar with mugs of beer, getting drunk, having fun. I doubt they get out much if they think this place is fun. It’s dim in the lodge. The walls and floor are wood, and the only lights look like they’ve been here since 1970, which they probably have. They’re covered in dust and grease and give off a nearly nonexistent amount of dull, yellow light. I take a picture of the stuffed fish for posterity’s sake (hashtag worst vacation ever) and am feeling sorry for myself again—wishing I was anywhere but here—when I see him through the small window on the other side of the lodge, the boy I saw earlier walking in the woods, and from the minute I see him, everything changes.
My heart catches. All of a sudden, my body feels lighter, like I’m floating. I lose track of time, tuning out the rest of the world—the music, the people at the bar, the smell of fried fish, Wyatt, Mae—so that it’s only me and him.
I forget all about what Emily said about keeping an eye on Mae.
Courtney
Cass screams. Mae draws back, blanching at the sound of someone tugging roughly on the door handle before battering the lodge door, which is locked, as if with the heel of a hand.
I fold my arms around both girls, drawing them into me, pressing their faces against my chest. My heart pounds as I wonder who’s at the door and whether it’s the police or if it’s someone else.
Cass’s scream is a reflex, something involuntary, but then, realizing what she’s done and knowing she needs to be quiet so that whoever is on the other side of the door doesn’t know we’re here, she clamps both hands down over her mouth and goes silent, her eyes wide as full moons.
Ms. Dahl looks toward the door. She sets the rag down on the countertop, stepping out from behind the bar as Cass pulls away from me, crying out in a scream whisper, “No! Don’t open it.”
“She won’t, honey,” I say in a low voice, stroking her hair. “Not until she sees who it is. Isn’t that right?” I ask for Cass’s sake as well as mine. We’re easy targets. I don’t know who I can trust, if I can trust anyone. I regret not taking a knife from the cottage before we left or Elliott’s multitool, something like that, something to protect ourselves with. I search the bar with my eyes, seeing a box cutter, though it’s out of reach. I could lunge for it if I need to, though the blade on a box cutter is something like an inch or two. I don’t know how much damage it would do.
“That’s right,” Ms. Dahl says. Still, I feel scared as she closes in on the door, my heart pounding in my chest and up my neck.
