“How do you feel?” he asked, breaking the awkward silence.
“I’ve been better,” I mumbled, “but I’ll live.”
“Yes, you will.” The words were innocuous, the exact response that I would have expected had I given it much thought, but they gave me chills. It was like there was a hidden meaning behind them, one he thought I should be able to infer.
In the distance, Devon and my other friends still called my name, their urgency increasing.
“Endora Lee Andrews!” Devon’s voice was louder, more insistent, than the others.
I thought again about how this boy knew my name. Had we met? I studied his face, searching my memory for one that matched. Nothing. Not even the slightest spark of recognition.
“I’m over here,” I repeated, louder this time. I searched my surroundings for a landmark, since “over here” was pretty vague. All I saw were water and trees.
“By the water, Dev,” I shouted unhelpfully.
I returned my attention to the guy. He was staring at me with such intensity that I felt the need to recoil. But I didn’t. I returned his gaze, losing myself in the depths of his dilated pupils. My fight-or-flight instinct was a nagging voice in the back of my mind, demanding that I choose flight. A different, stronger instinct won out ― the desire to be close to him.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Our faces were so close that if either one of us leaned forward we’d bump noses. My breathing was shallow while his was ragged, chest rising and falling in rapid succession.
The footsteps drew closer. “I’ve got her!” Devon shouted.
More trampling of leaves, cracking of branches, and low voices; but I didn’t acknowledge my friends.
“I should go,” the guy said, but he made no move to leave.
“Wait,” I reached for his hand, “you didn’t tell me your name.”
The guy drew his hand back as if the thought of my touch repulsed him. He said nothing and continued to stare into my eyes as if trying to see my soul. We stayed like that, gazes locked, ignoring my friends and the world around us, for what felt like forever. Despite the growing unease in the pit of my stomach, I didn’t want him to leave. I was intrigued, mesmerized, oddly transfixed, and didn’t want the moment to end.
“Eel?” Devon asked tentatively.
I barely heard her, but the sound of my name broke the trance. He quickly stood and backed away from me. Devon rushed forward, followed by Mandy and Elizabeth.
“Are you okay? Oh my god, I was so scared. You didn’t come up right away, and then you didn’t come up at all. But we couldn’t see well, so Rick thought maybe you had and we just missed it.” Devon wrapped her arms around me, hugging me against her chest. I was about to protest since I was soaking wet, but the comfort of a familiar person was too nice to turn down. I returned her hug, clinging to my best friend.
Over her shoulder, I watched my rescuer disappear into the woods. I wondered whether I’d ever see him again.
“Guess I overreacted, huh?” Devon muttered.
“What?” I asked, only half-listening to Devon.
“We thought you’d drowned,” Mandy said. Even in the darkness, I could make out the relief in her hazel eyes.
“No, I didn’t. That kid, the one who was sitting here with me when you showed up, he saved me.”
Devon pulled back and stared at me with confused blue eyes. “Really?” she asked skeptically. “Who is he?” She turned and looked into the dark woods, searching for the boy.
I followed her gaze, but he was gone. “I’m not sure,” I mumbled.
“Have you ever seen him before?” Devon asked.
Even as I shook my head no, I wondered if I had. He clearly knew who I was.
“Was he alone? What’s he doing out here?” Mandy interjected.
Again, I shook my head, unable to come up with an articulate answer.
“Probably the same thing we were doing before Eel ―” Rick started to say, but Cooper silenced him with an elbow to the ribs.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Devon said. She returned her attention to me, accessing my face for signs of damage. “Are you hurt?”
“I hit my head, but I’m okay.”
Devon looked unconvinced.
“Really, Dev,” I added. “Let’s just get out of here. Where are my clothes?”
“I’ve got them,” Elizabeth supplied. She extended a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, and sneakers in my direction. Apparently, thinking that I’d drowned had a very sobering effect because she was much steadier on her feet than when I’d last seen her.
Devon helped me stand, aided by Rick and Cooper, who both hurried to grab my arms when I stumbled. Mandy hung off to the side, nervously twisting a lock of short brown hair around one finger.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, embarrassed by the way everyone was fawning over me.
I took my clothes from Elizabeth, handing her the blanket in return. Between the headache from hell and the audience, I decided it was best to just put on my jeans and tee shirt over the wet bathing suit.
“What do you guys say we take this party back to my house?” Cooper suggested jovially.
After nearly drowning and being rescued by a mysterious stranger, I had no desire to celebrate my birthday any longer. Elizabeth spoke up before I was forced to make up some lame excuse for going home.
“Actually, we need to go back to my house,” she said. “Eel, your mom called.” Elizabeth produced a cell phone from her jeans pocket and waved the lit-up display.
Great, I thought, overprotective mother to the rescue. Normally I begrudged her incessant phone calls and text messages, but tonight I was thankful. Since my mother, the Westwood County State’s Attorney, frowned upon breaking into private property, underage drinking and cheap thrills, I had told her that I was going to Elizabeth’s for a quiet night of movies and junk food with the girls. She had still been at the office preparing for a big trial that started the following Monday and hadn’t questioned the lie too closely.
“She said if you don’t call her from my house within the next hour, she will call the cops,” Elizabeth continued. Then, to my dismay, she added, “Anyone interested in late night hot-tubbing is welcome.”
“Party at the Bowers’!” Cynthia Zeleski exclaimed in her high-pitched voice that was an assault to the ears on a normal day, but was particularly grating tonight.
Cynthia started into the woods, followed by the majority of the others. Only Devon, Rick, Elizabeth, Cooper, and Mandy remained.
I shoved my hand into the back pocket of my jeans, searching for the jewelry I’d put there for safekeeping. The new watch Devon’s parents gave me for my birthday was still there. But the necklace, the one my father had given me five years earlier, was missing.
“Liz? Where is my necklace?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even.
“Huh?” Now that she knew I hadn’t met a watery death, she was back to her bubbly self, laughing loudly at something Cooper was saying.
“My necklace; where is my necklace?”
“Oh, Eel, I’m so sorry. Is it not there? I didn’t feel it drop, but…” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off and all the laughter faded from her expression.
I checked my pockets, all four of them. Nothing. I took a deep, calming breath. The necklace was probably up on the cliff. All I had to do was take a flashlight and a couple of volunteers and go look for it.
“Let’s go check up there.” I pointed across the lake at the dark mound rising from the water on the far bank.
“Eel, you’re soaked and shivering. You really need to get some dry clothes,” Devon said.
“But ―” I started to protest, but she cut me off with a wave of her hand.
“Rick and I will go look. You go to Elizabeth’s and call your mom.”
The necklace was important to me. It was all I had from my father and Devon knew that. She was right though; I was freezing, and I needed to call my mother before she sent a search party.
/> “Go,” Devon insisted. She turned to Mandy and tossed her a set of keys. “Take my car. Don’t wreck it.”
Chapter Two
Ten minutes later, I was sitting shotgun in Devon’s Chevy. Mandy was behind the wheel, and Cooper and Elizabeth were in the back seat giggling like school children.
“Do you really think your mom will call the cops?” Mandy asked nervously.
Yes, my mother would call the cops ― she’d done it before. But there was no point worrying Mandy further, and Caswell Lake was only a twenty-minute drive from Elizabeth’s house.
“Probably. Mrs. Andrews is sort of neurotic,” Elizabeth spoke up.
Neurotic was an understatement. Mom went through my cell phone while I was in the shower, or at least she had before the latest one stopped working and she declined to replace it. On nights she stayed late at the office – every night – a police cruiser drove past the house every couple of hours. I had confronted her about the drive-bys once. Instead of denying it, she’d insisted it was for my safety and not because she didn’t trust me. Right, and the Tooth Fairy, Santa, and the Easter Bunny had brunch together every Sunday.
“How much time do we have to get to Liz’s?” Mandy asked, pressing the accelerator to the floor. The Chevy’s engine groaned before reluctantly gaining speed.
I angled my wrist, trying to catch enough moonlight to read the time on my new watch. The hour hand was on the eight, the minute hand between the fifth and sixth hash marks, and the second hand was frozen over the twelve. A new record. I’d worn the watch for only an hour before it stopped working.
Groaning, I flicked the mother-of-pearl face, as if it would make the hands miraculously start moving.
“What’s wrong?” Mandy asked.
“The watch is broken,” I muttered.
Elizabeth laughed. “Eel, the electrocidal maniac, strikes again.”
That had been a joke among Devon and Elizabeth since freshman year, ever since it had become apparent to my friends that iPods, cell phones, watches, and anything else with a battery mysteriously stopped working after I touched them.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cooper asked, confused.
While he, and most everyone else, called me Eel, few knew the nickname’s origins. Mandy had been part of my inner circle since moving to Westwood the previous fall and had picked up on Devon and Elizabeth’s teasing. To my more casual friends, though, I didn’t advertise my bizarre talent for short-circuiting electronics.
“Nothing. Liz is just being silly,” I told Cooper and shot Elizabeth a warning glance over my shoulder.
Several seconds of awkward silence passed in the car; J.T.’s Suit & Tie played in the background. The rural landscape passed in a blur of trees interspersed with a random house. I stared out the window, pondering the irony of nearly dying exactly eighteen years after being born. Even more ironic, it was also exactly eighteen years since I’d died the first time. I shuddered at the memory - well, not exactly the memory. I didn’t actually remember dying.
“Wasn’t your party awesome?” Elizabeth asked, dragging me from my thoughts.
I blinked in amazement. Was she serious? Sure, the party was fun, at least until I practically jumped to my own death. Nearly drowning kind of put a damper on the night, though.
“Yeah, it was great, Liz,” I replied with a sarcasm that was lost on her. “Best birthday ever.”
All the lights in Elizabeth’s house were off when Mandy pulled into the circular driveway with minutes to spare before my mother’s deadline. At the front door, Elizabeth fumbled with her house keys, trying to fit several wrong ones in the lock before she found the right one.
“Mom! We’re home!” Elizabeth shouted once the four of us were inside, standing in the foyer. Mrs. Bowers didn’t answer. “Figures,” Elizabeth mumbled. She took off through the foyer, up the staircase, and headed for her mother’s bedroom.
I hurried to the house phone sitting on a small table to the right of the doorway and dialed my own house phone number from memory.
My mother answered on the first ring. “Endora,” she said crisply.
“Hey, Mom. We’re back at Elizabeth’s now. We decided to go to the theater instead of renting movies,” I told her.
“Is that so?” she asked, employing the tone she normally reserved for cross-examining lying witnesses.
Crap. I’d violated the first rule of testifying: don’t offer more information than was asked for.
“What movie did you see?” Mom asked. I envisioned her ears perking up like a bloodhound that had caught a scent.
“Night of Horrors,” I replied automatically. The movie was currently playing at the local theater, and I had seen it the weekend before.
“How was it?”
“Bad. You know, your typical horror movie.” I forced a laugh. “Well, we have to get to bed. Lacrosse practice in the morning.”
“I expect you home afterwards,” Mom told me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Goodnight, Endora. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks. Night, Mom,” I whispered as the dial tone filled my ear.
I replaced the receiver and turned to find Mandy and Cooper staring at me. Mandy’s hazel eyes softened when she asked, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Everything was fine. Mom had remembered my birthday, at least; that was something. Mom didn’t believe in birthdays. “Celebrating one’s own birth is narcissistic,” my mother always said. “You weren’t the one in labor for thirty-three hours. You had nothing to do with bringing yourself into this world. If anyone should get gifts and a cake, it is me.” Admittedly, she had a point. But her logic was little comfort when I was five and the only girl in kindergarten without a Dora the Explorer cake. Or when I turned eight and Tia Ross accused me of intentionally not inviting her to a birthday party that I never had.
The front door opened and Cynthia walked in, followed by a handful of junior girls from the lacrosse team and their boyfriends.
“Eel, you look awful!” Cynthia exclaimed.
“I did nearly drown, Cynthia,” I snapped, only to immediately feel badly about biting her head off.
“Rowr.” Cynthia clawed the air in my direction in a good imitation of a cat. With her obsidian eyes and ginger hair, Cynthia sort of resembled a tabby, too.
I glanced at a mirror hanging on the wall above the phone. My brown-green eyes were bloodshot, dirt streaked both of my cheeks, and a dime-sized patch blazed red against the unusually pale skin over my right cheekbone. Tangled clumps of half-dried auburn hair framed my face. I really did look awful. And I felt worse than I looked. My entire body ached, my head throbbed, and the places where I’d imagined the lake creature touching me burned. The rest of me was numb, still cold from the water.
“Hey, guys,” Elizabeth called, appearing at the top of the staircase. “Hot tub’s on the back deck. You know the way.”
“What about your mom?” Cooper whispered loudly.
Mandy and I exchanged a knowing look.
After Mr. Bowers married Mrs. Bowers #2, Elizabeth’s mother turned to sleeping pills and copious amounts of Merlot to console her bruised ego. While the affair and subsequent divorce were still town gossip, Mrs. Bowers’ coping mechanisms were not.
“She’s a heavy sleeper,” I mumbled. Technically, that was true.
Elizabeth bounded down the staircase a moment later. “Let’s take this party outside.”
Cynthia, Cooper, and the others followed Elizabeth through the house, towards the sliding glass doors that led to the back deck, leaving Mandy and me standing in the foyer. Headlights pierced the windows on either side of the front door, signaling the arrival of more partiers.
“I don’t feel like swimming,” I said. Actually, I didn’t feel like doing anything besides crawling into bed and pretending like the entire night was nothing more than a bad dream. “I’m just going to go lie down.”
“Want me to come with you?” Mandy offered.
I shook my head. “Nah. I’m exhausted. You go have fun with the others.”
Mandy chewed her thumbnail, hesitating for a moment before mumbling, “If you’re sure.”
In response, I made a shooing motion, indicating that she should go. Mandy opened the front door and stepped outside. “Hey, Kevin,” I heard her call.
Glad I have an excuse to miss spending time with Kevin Mathis, I thought. He was Rick’s best friend, and I’d been the unwilling object of his lecherous affections for a while now. He always made excuses to put his arm around me or touch my hair, and no matter how many times I shot him down, he never gave up. I headed for the stairs before he decided to come inside.
Elizabeth’s bedroom was on the second floor at the far end of a long hallway. I flipped the light switch on the wall, and a soft glow illuminated the room. Elizabeth’s bedroom was comforting to me, and her canopy bed with its burgundy drapes was as familiar to me as my own. I spent a lot of time at my friends’ houses. As always, the room smelled like Elizabeth: a mixture of Pleasures perfume and Dr. Pepper lip gloss.
Weariness had settled into my bones, and my foot and head throbbed in perfect unison. I sat on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed and removed my tennis shoes. The inside of my left sneaker was stained red. The sight of my own blood caught me off guard and I gasped.
A sliver of shiny material, as long as my pinkie and half as wide as its nail, was lodged in the arch. The memory of kicking the lake creature came back to me. Just a hallucination, I reminded myself. She isn’t real; lack of oxygen plays tricks on the brain.
Fingers trembling slightly, I tried to grab the sliver with the nails of my thumb and index fingers.
“Hey,” a voice said, startling me.
My head shot up, and I saw Devon standing in the doorway to the bedroom. “Did you find my necklace?” I asked immediately.
Devon shook her head, blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Rick and I looked, but even with a flashlight it was too dark up there to really see anything. We can go back tomorrow or Sunday.”