“Yes.” Marlowe swallowed hard, saliva thick and tobacco-bitter, and flicked the rest of her cigarette into the lake. She smoothed her left hand over the oar handle, her right dangling above her knife.
Heather smiled like her skin hurt and she enjoyed the stretch of it over her skull. “You don’t want to do this, Marlowe. You don’twantthis.” She stubbed the cigarette out under the oarlock, and residual heat blistered Marlowe’s fingertips. “Does Mercy Hospital know what kind of company their staff keeps?”
A deafening noise roared in Marlowe’s ears.
They’d believe Heather.
Mercy Hospital never let their reputation be tarnished by infidelity or drug scandals, but they considered homosexuality a blight to be burned out of their organization at the first whisper.
Everyone had always believed Heather.
The knife’s handle warmed as she closed her hand around it. Marlowe’s elbow jolted the flashlight next to her as her muscles twitched and its yellow beam skittered across the water.
Nestled in the algae mats, a swan watched.
Marlowe’s lighter bulged in its throat, silver-scrolled metal blinking through its open beak.
Dead Eyes Golden Eyes
Caution tape fluttered from the bird’s rotten neck and its head lolled against the waterlogged stick holding up its corpse. Feathers trailed after it like bits of skin after a bad sunburn as it drifted sideways.
“What the fuck is that?” Marlowe didn’t even recognize her voice, hardly heard the thin noise escape Heather as she twisted around.
Marlowe didn’t even mind when Heather pressed against her on the same seat, pine-vanilla nauseating scent no longer bothering her, because what thefuck.
“The kids—the kids have been gone since the flood,” Heather whispered, as if the dead swan could hear, as if assurance that the campers didn’t do this made itbetter.
Marlowe could have almost believed the trumpeter got tangled in the caution tape protecting the nest.
An accident.
Except for her lighter wedged in its throat.
Knife forgotten at her feet, Marlowe shook her flashlight, rattling the beam until it blasted each decaying feather in harsh light.
The swan angled toward them.
Plumage stained swamp-green, the corpse parted swaths of algae, cutting toward the rowboat in stiff precision.
Golden eyes stared at them from underneath the swan.
Round.
Unblinking.
Reflecting light.
Too large to be human.
Blood rushed in Marlowe’s ears, her flashlight clattered away, and she reached across Heather’s lap to snatch at the oars.
The rowboat, wood sodden with lake water, groaned as Marlowe bore down, the hull lurching out of the water.
Bobbing in place, the corpse drifted.
Rock scraped the boards underneath them.
The boat shuddered, and Marlowe knew there were no rocks in the center of the lake. There had never been any rocks.
