“We aren’t tormenting you,” Mariana said. “We just want to go home. You’re Arthur... Benedict? Is that right? Arthur Benedict? You were the boy who went missing from the camp, the last time the Lake House was a camp.”
“What happened to you?” Claire asked in as kind and curious a voice as she could manage. If they could calm him down... Keep him talking. Earn his trust. She still didn’t understand what he wanted, why he’d taken Jack, or what he was afraid of.
He seemed to wilt. “I was forgotten.”
“You weren’t,” Reyva said. “You became a legend. Jack told us about you.”
“But no one knew what happened to you,” Claire said. “You were missing. Have you been here this whole time?” It had been two decades. Why hadn’t anyone rescued him?
Years alone, lost in the woods. She couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. Or maybe she could: the loneliness, the hunger, the fear. She’d had a taste of all that.
“I was forgotten,” he repeated. “We ruled the summer, the five of us. One night, we snuck out of the Lake House. Broke the rules. Weren’t supposed to go out at night. Weren’t supposed to go into the woods without a counselor. But we did because we weren’t afraid. We’d never been afraid, until that night, the night it all changed, the night I lost myself.”
Claire said nothing, letting him talk.
“We found the cave. Uncovered it. Opened it. And that was our mistake. We letitout.”
She shivered, though what he was saying didn’t make any sense. It was like some kind of horrible ghost story, one you knew wasn’t going to have a good ending and weren’t sure you wanted to hear.
“What did you let out?” Reyva asked.
“Old,” he said. “So very old.”
He seemed caught in a memory. Claire didn’t think he’d heard Reyva.
“An earthquake, years and years ago, released it from the bowels of the earth. It should have dispersed into the world—but it didn’t. It didn’t reach the surface. It was trapped in that cave for so very, very long. Trapped, caught, buried, sealed away. It festered. It twisted. It learned towantandneed. And when we opened its cave that summer night, it knew it wanted one of us,” Arthur said. “It would let the rest go, it promised, but it wanted one of us. So the others left me. They sacrificed me. Abandonedme.Betrayedme!” His hands curled into fists. His knuckles were so white that she felt as if she were seeing his bare bones.
“I don’t understand,” Claire said. “You got left behind, yes, but why didn’t you find your own way back to camp? Why didn’t you leave this island?”
“Itwouldn’t let me!” he screamed.
Claire flinched.
“Okay,” Reyva said placatingly. “It wouldn’t let you. We believe you.”
“I shouldn’t have been here for so long,” he said. “They were supposed to come back. To replace me. It planted a compulsion in them, before they left the island—so deep, so hidden, so strong. They shouldn’t have been able to resist. But they didn’t return. And years passed. And my body... It’s failing. So that’s why it had me light the fire. To lure a replacement, since they didn’t come before I began to weaken.”
Claire felt as if her entire body had been doused in ice. There was only one important fire she knew of. Was he saying? Did he...? “Youburned down the Lake House.”
“Yes! I had to make a big fire so someone would see, with smoke reaching up to the stars and, oh, the beautiful flames! And it worked! The man with the gun came! It took him! I should have been free! It should have let me leave.”
All of them began to back away.
“Youdestroyed the camp?” Reyva said.
“All the people...,” Mariana said. “All the other campers...”
The wild man snorted. “There was no camp.”
“Of course there was,” Mariana said. “And you...” Shecouldn’t speak. “Kids. Like us. How could you?”
“You killed all those people,” Reyva said, “because you wanted to make a big fire?”
“I killed no one! I’m no killer. It couldn’t make me a killer.”
“Then what happened to all the people in the Lake House?” Claire asked. “Where are all the other kids? And all the counselors? Did they escape? Where did they go?”
He gawked at her. “I told you: There was no camp. There were no campers. There was no one.”
