Lake Thirteen (9 page)

A yellowed newspaper clipping was in the direct center of the case, and the headline screamed “MURDER ON THE MOUNTAIN!”

I swallowed, and started reading.

The town of North Hollow was rocked to its very core with the discovery of the dead body of seventeen-year-old Albert Tyler. The youngster had been bludgeoned to death by what Sheriff Lincoln thinks was a shovel.

This was the first recorded murder in North Hollow since Indian times.

Young Albert had gone missing the day before. He had gone into the forest to pick blackberries and never returned. By nightfall, his father Abram had ridden down to town from Lake Thirteen Lodge to sound the alarm and organize a search party. At first it was feared he might have come across a bear or fallen and been injured. Search parties combed the woods on the side of the mountain. Young Albert had only recently graduated from North Hollow High School, and was going to be attending Columbia University in New York City this fall. Albert was a bright lad, and well liked by everyone.

He was last seen at breakfast on Monday, after which he went hunting in the woods. When he hadn’t returned by lunchtime, his parents became concerned and started looking for him. Mr. Tyler tried to enlist the assistance of his hired man, Robert Shelby, but there was no sign of Shelby anywhere either—he, too, had seemingly disappeared into the woods along with young Albert. Mr. Tyler continued the search throughout the afternoon, to no avail. Once the sun came up the following morning, the search party went out looking. Later that day, a team of searchers found young Albert’s slain body in the woods alongside the stream leading from Beaver Pond down to the Hudson River.

The search for Robert Shelby continues, and Sheriff Lincoln now believes that Shelby may have killed young Albert and run away. He has wired sheriffs in nearby towns to be on the alert for Shelby, that he is wanted for questioning in the murder.

There was a picture with the article, with the caption
Albert Tyler
.

It was the young man I’d seen in my visions—the one who looked so much like Marc.

I gulped and my eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, you’ve found the case,” Miss Tyler said from behind me, startling me. I quickly wiped at my eyes as she and the others joined me.

“Miss Tyler was just telling us about the murder,” Rachel said, her voice hushed. “It sounds like it was a terrible time for the town.”

Miss Tyler took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Uncle Albert,” she said, her hands still covering her eyes. She finally looked back up at me, and her eyes were terribly sad. “My great-uncle, to be accurate. I never knew him, you know. Obviously, he’d been dead quite a while before I was born. He was actually my grandfather’s younger brother.” She blew out her breath in a sad sigh. “I’m the only Tyler still around, you know. The rest have all moved on, moved away. My great-grandfather built that lodge, as you know. My grandfather sold it about the time his mother died. He didn’t live much longer than she did.” She looked at each one of us in turn. “You know, North Hollow has been here since colonial times. It’s a very old town…and in all those hundreds of years, there have only been a handful or so of murders.” She tapped her fingers on the glass case. “Uncle Albert was one of them.”

“Did you hear that, Scotty?”
Carson’s voice was hushed.
“Murdered.”

I bit my lower lip and just nodded. The sadness was filling me again, starting in my stomach, which felt knotted and sour. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to.

Poor Albert. It was Albert I was seeing in the woods, swimming in the pool. It can’t be a coincidence that he looks so much like Marc. I’m going to have to tell them about it, now that they’ve seen his picture here. Murdered. Murdered at the cabin. No wonder it affected me so much to be there. But—

There had to be more to it than just him being murdered. Why would he care if we knew about that?

“It was a terrible, terrible tragedy,” Miss Tyler went on. “My great-grandmother never got over it, and from what I heard, my great-grandfather never did, either. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile, and she rarely laughed. Of course she was pretty old by the time I was born…but my father always used to tell me she was always like that, for as long as he could remember. She mourned her baby boy’s murder until the day she died. He was the youngest, you know. He was her favorite.”

“That’s awful,” Rachel whispered. “I can’t even imagine.”

“My great-grandfather apparently never set foot in church again—they say he cursed God—and he’d been a pillar of the church up till then, a deacon.” Miss Tyler tapped the glass. “This case was my great-grandmother’s. She kept all this memorabilia of his after he died. My grandfather had this case made to keep everything.” She sighed. “Like I said, she never got over losing Albert the way she did.” She tapped the glass again. “He was going to be the first Tyler to go to college, too—the first person from North Hollow, for that matter. Everyone in town thought a great deal of my great-uncle Albert.”

I stepped away from the case and walked over to the window. I was having some trouble breathing.

“He’s gorgeous,” I heard Rachel say behind me. “What a good-looking young man he was.”

“He went missing,” she went on. “The lodge had been doing really well, so they’d hired someone to help out. They built a cabin for him to live in, a little farther down the mountain—his name was Robert Shelby. He worked for them for a couple of years, and then one summer Albert went missing.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “They found him in the woods, by the side of the creek that runs out of Beaver Pond. His head had been smashed in—they assumed he’d been hit with a shovel, and Shelby had disappeared. Everyone was shocked, and they never found Shelby. They figured he went down to New York City and just disappeared there, changed his name. No one really knew much about him to begin with, he was just a drifter who’d shown up looking for work.”

But I’d seen Albert, shirtless, coming out of Shelby’s cabin. Chopping wood—he seemed at
home
there.

None of this made any sense.

There’s more to this story than anyone knows.

“Wow.” Logan breathed. “That’s—that’s
awful.”

“We don’t really have anything here about the murder, of course, other than that one article there my great-grandmother kept.” She sighed. “But the town library has copies of the town paper from back then, of course.”

“Were there any stories in your family about…” Carson swallowed. “Anyone seeing Albert’s ghost?”

I winced. I couldn’t believe he asked that.

“Carson!” Rachel slapped his shoulder.

“It’s a fair question.” He defended himself. “Violent deaths can result in hauntings.”

“Let me apologize for my brother, Miss Tyler,” Rachel went on. “Ever since he interned for that crazy TV show about hauntings earlier this summer, he sees ghosts everywhere. I’m so sorry.”

Instead of being offended, though, Miss Tyler threw her head back and let out a big laugh. She wiped at her eyes when she was finished. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. But there’s no such thing as ghosts, you know. And no one ever saw Albert after they put him in the ground. Believe me, I’d have heard about that.”

We thanked her and walked out to the sidewalk. We stopped at a café a few doors down, and after we’d ordered, Carson said, “Well, there you have it. That’s why Albert hasn’t passed over to the other side. He was murdered, and there’s something he wants us to know, and once we know what it is, he’ll pass over. Maybe”—he hesitated—“maybe he can’t rest because he never got justice.”

“Great,” Logan said with a laugh. “Unless that Shelby guy somehow managed to live to be over a hundred, I’m sure he’s been dead for quite some time. So poor murdered Albert isn’t getting any justice anytime soon.”

“I don’t know, I can’t believe that Robert Shelby killed him,” I said slowly. Everyone turned to look at me, and I bit my lower lip. Now was the time to tell them, at least part of it, at least the part about the guy I saw. But not that he was Albert, and not that he looked like Marc. When I was finished, Carson’s face turned red.

“You can’t not tell us everything you’re experiencing.”
Carson’s voice shook with anger. “That’s cheating, Scotty, and—”

“It’s not happening to
you,”
I snapped. “And I’m really tired of everyone treating me like this is some kind of game, or I’m some kind of freak! Brain tumors and possession and ghosts!” I rubbed my eyes. I felt so tired suddenly, tired of them, tired of the situation, tired of everything. I pushed my chair back. “I’m going to go outside and make a call.”

Once I was outside, I took a few deep breaths and leaned against the building. I really needed to talk to Marc.

I pulled out my phone and checked it. I had four bars, and I quickly texted:
I really miss you and want to talk to you.

It wasn’t like I could tell him what was going on. How do you put that in a text? Especially one his dad might read?

Marc didn’t have a smartphone. His father didn’t approve of teenagers having their own phones, in general, so both Marc and his sister had crappy, cheap pay-as-you-go cell phones, with limited data plans. Both Marc and his sister had to pay for the phones themselves, and Marc always had to be careful to make sure he conserved his minutes. The one advantage to his phone was he could receive an unlimited number of text messages, so I always texted him first and he would call me if he could. As I stood there, watching the townspeople go about their business, I closed my eyes.

“I know I keep asking, but are you okay?” Teresa asked.

I opened my eyes and smiled at her. “Yeah, sorry I was such an asshole.” I swallowed. “It’s just a lot to handle, you know? And all this time I thought it was
Albert
calling me
.
Now, I’m not so sure.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I stared at my phone, scrolling through pictures. “And I really miss my boyfriend…”

“Well it’s all kind of crazy, if you think about it.” Teresa replied with a smile and grabbed my phone. “Wow. He’s hot.”

I grinned back at her and scrolled through thumbnails, then clicked on an extra-hot pic. I’d taken it at a carwash the football team had had earlier in the summer. Marc was wearing long white basketball shorts and no shirt—and someone had just sprayed him with the hose, so he was dripping wet and completely adorable.

Teresa stared at the picture before handing my phone back. “I miss my boyfriend, too.” She leaned against the wall next to me. “Try not to be so hard on Carson, though. I know this whole thing is crazy, but you know he means well.” She took my hand in hers. “You know we all love you, Scotty. You’re family. No one gave a crap about the gay thing, but that had to be really scary for you, sending that e-mail. I don’t know if I could be that brave.”

“I don’t know.” I smiled at her. “Thanks, Teresa. I appreciate it. I suppose I should apologize to Carson.” I swallowed. “This is just so weird. I—I want to believe that it’s ghosts, because the alternative is that I’m going crazy. But to listen to everyone argue about what it might be, like I’m not even there—it’s a bit too much to take.”

“Come on,” she said, pulling on my hand. “Carson really feels like crap.”

I followed her back inside and sat back down at the table. Before anyone could say anything, I said, “Sorry, you guys. I shouldn’t have snapped like that, but please understand—I’m scared. This is all a bit much to wrap my head around, okay?”

“I’m sorry too.” Carson replied. His voice was contrite, and he wouldn’t look up from his plate. “I get a little carried away because, you know, I’m excited. If this really is a haunting—”

“I’m sorry, too.” Rachel cut him off. “I didn’t really want it to be a brain tumor.” She swallowed. “I’d rather it be a ghost, to be honest.” She looked over at Carson. “And I’m sorry, Carson. I should be more supportive of your interests.”

“No, no, it’ s okay,” Carson insisted. “We always need a skeptic, someone who doesn’t believe, to keep us honest.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, are we all going to sing ‘Kumbaya’ now?” Logan rolled his eyes.

We all laughed, the tension cut.

Marc never called. He didn’t even text me back.

The drive back up to the lodge was pretty quiet other than the music pounding through the car stereo—Rachel, Teresa, and Carson fiddled with their phones until we passed Cemetery Road and all signals were lost. When we got back to the lodge, the parents were all sitting around, waiting for us. They’d had their lunches and didn’t want to waste another minute of the trip without some family time—and the plan for the rest of the day was waterskiing. Mr. Bartlett met us down at the dock on Lake Thirteen, where the boat was tied up. After going over boat safety and making sure there were enough life preservers on board for everyone to use, he headed back up to the lodge.

We spent the entire afternoon out on the lake, waterskiing in the cold water. At first, it seemed surreal—after everything that had been going on, the normality of spending time with our parents, either piled in the boat or sitting on the dock watching, seemed strange. There was never an opportunity for us to talk about anything, as at least one parent was always around. I’d always enjoyed waterskiing, and this time was no exception. The tug on the rope pulling me up to my feet, skimming across the surface of the water at high speed, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair—when I was out on the water, I could forget everything else that was going on. I could forget about Marc not texting me back, the possibility of ghosts in the forest, a ruined cabin and seeing visions of the past when I wasn’t expecting it. I was able to forget all of it, and just enjoy myself, relax and laugh and have fun with my family and my friends—the way the trip was supposed to go, the way all the ones we’d taken together in the past had gone.

It was late when we decided to quit, the sun hanging low in the western sky. But even then, we didn’t get a chance to do anything, to hang out and talk and discuss what we wanted to do next, or compare notes on everything we’d found out so far. We all had dinner at the lodge, and after the dessert plates were cleared, the adults flatly refused to let us go hang out in the game room, insisting we play cards with them until my eyes were crossing from exhaustion.

I barely had the energy to undress in my room and get under the covers. I was asleep almost the moment my head hit the pillow.

And of course, I dreamed.

I was walking through the woods again, on the same path we’d followed that morning, the one that led to the cabin. I was alone as I walked this time, but I was in a really good mood—my step was light and I was grinning from ear to ear. The forest was alive with sound—the chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, the call of wild animals rustling through the underbrush. I wasn’t afraid—there was no sense of fear or danger anywhere in the woods that morning—because it was morning, a beautiful spring morning with everything blooming and the mixed scents floating gently on the warm breeze. The winter was definitely over, and now the only sign remaining of it was the sharp bite of chill I felt only when I walked through the shadows in the forest. If anything, I was excited.
I’m going to see him.
My heart was singing, and the anticipation was so much I could hardly stand it. I was whistling. I loved him and he loved me and we were going to be together, we were going to spend the entire day together, and no one would know. Everyone else was gone. We were the only two people on the mountain, which was a rare enough occasion as it was, but I was so happy and thrilled I could barely feel the ground beneath my feet as I walked, it was like I was walking on air—for that matter, I was so happy I felt like I could fly. I’d never been so in love like this before, I’d never felt so close to another person and had never thought I’d ever feel this way. I could even believe in God now, because after a lifetime of cursing him and hating him for making me the way I was, now I understood. I couldn’t feel this exquisite, almost-painful joy were I not made the way God had made me, and it all made sense now, now that I had met him and had fallen in love and he loved me, too. Sure, we had to keep it all a secret from everyone else—I knew all too well how no one would understand, I had already suffered and I wasn’t willing to suffer that way, ever again.

And at the end of summer we were going to go away together once and for all! No one would ever be able to keep us apart.

I had never believed I could be this happy.

I came around the corner and there was the little cliff and the roof of the cabin, which always made my heart lift a little bit every time I saw it. And there he was, my love, my true love, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. He had his back to me, was swinging his ax, and the sun was shining down on his bare back, and I just stood there watching as the muscles moved underneath the skin, and then he stopped and turned and looked up at me, and his face broadened into a huge smile—

—and it was Marc, my Marc, and my heart lifted and I broke into a smile and I started running down the path, hurrying down the little footpath down to the level clearing, and he was waiting for me at the bottom and I ran into his arms and he put his arms around me and our mouths came together as he lifted me up and swung me around and I loved him so much, so very,
very
much, that my heart almost was hurting, it was so big and beating so hard against my ribs I could almost feel it and he was whispering in my ear how much he loved me and wanted me and how we were going to be together forever—

—and a cloud went over the sun and everything got dark, and I sensed it, something was watching us, and whatever it was, it hated…it hated us and wanted to destroy us…

I sat up in my bed, shivering.

The clock on the nightstand read 3:10 a.m.

And I heard it outside, the voice calling, and the heartbreak and pain and the loss, oh God, the loss, was there in the tone of his voice. It made my very soul hurt.

“Bertie…”

I wrapped my arms around my legs and shivered, it was so cold, so cold I felt like I might never be warm again. I reached over and turned on the lamp on the bedside table, flooding the room with light, and I blinked until my eyes adjusted. The air conditioner was running, and I got out of bed and ran over to it, hit the button to shut it off, and with a sigh it went off.

“Bertie…”

The sadness was so horrible to hear, the voice sounded like a sob, and I could feel it deep inside of my soul, in every part of my brain, every fiber of my very being.

The voice was calling to me.

And I wanted to go to it. The sound was pulling at me as I slipped on my shorts and the shirt I’d worn, still shivering in the cold.

And still, the voice called to me.

The pain…the pain in that voice was breaking my heart. I had to do something. I had to find the caller and put my arms around him, kiss away his tears, hold him until he realized I was there for good, we were together and would never be separated again, we were meant to be together which was why it hurt so bad…and I choked back my own sob, wiped the tears from my own eyes as I got up and walked to the back door.

I hesitated with my hand on the knob.

Maybe I shouldn’t go out there I don’t know who or what is calling me but it’s definitely calling me it needs me and I don’t sense the evil, whatever that was in the dream I felt, whatever it was I felt down at the cabin yesterday morning it can’t harm me because I love him and he loves me and—

But I was still afraid.

I opened the back door, and it was pitch-black outside. There was no moon, no stars, no light, other than the yellow light on the back deck, nothing but pure black outside the slight area lit up with the bright yellow light, and I could still hear the voice calling me, from deep inside the woods.

“Bertie…Bertie…Bertie…”

Terrified as I was, I knew I couldn’t just stand there listening. I took a deep breath and walked down the steps and could feel the chilly dirt beneath my bare feet and I started walking up the path, and once I stepped out of the circle of yellow light it was indeed dark, so dark I couldn’t see my feet when I looked down, could barely see my hands when I held them in front of my face, it was so damned dark. And the trees were moving in the wind, rustling and seeming to whisper as branches rubbed against each other.

But I kept walking and my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out the shapes of trees in the murkiness and kept walking, up the path into the woods, turning right at the fork, heading for the ruined cabin hidden so deep in the woods, away from prying eyes and away from everything and everyone.

He was waiting for me there.

“Berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-tiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee.”

The longing, the aching, the sadness and want and need in the voice broke my heart, and I walked faster, tears forming in my eyes and running down my cheeks, I couldn’t stand it, he sounded so heartbroken and sad and lonely, and I kept going, one foot in front of the other and the woods were silent, completely silent, no birds no nothing and on I went, leaving the safety of my own cabin far behind me, and then I was there, I’d made it.

I could barely make out the ruined roof.

And I realized the voice had stopped calling.

I stood there and felt the fear start at the back of my neck, the goose bumps starting to rise, my skin crawling…There was something else there, not him, not the one I wanted, something that wanted me, wanted to do me harm, that
hated
me, hated me with such a horrible intensity that it went deep inside my soul, I’d never known that such hatred was possible but clearly it was, it wanted to kill me and destroy me because it thought I didn’t deserve not only to be happy but I didn’t deserve to live, and I could feel the terror I was so terrified but I couldn’t move, my feet had taken root on the spot, I needed to start running, I needed to get out of there, I had to get out of there, something,
someone
was there that wanted to do me harm, who hated me so much that it was single-minded in its determination to hurt me and punish me and make me suffer it wanted to see me suffer and would laugh at my agonies and would watch as I lay dying at its feet and I was afraid so very afraid and it was there, I could see it, something dark coming down the path from the woods and it was evil and dark and it was coming for me and I opened my mouth to scream—

*

“And that’s when I woke up—and it was morning.” I shivered, picking up my coffee cup and taking another big swig. Even now that it was daylight, and I was in the dining room of the lodge, with a plate full of food and my friends gathered around me, I couldn’t shake the horror and terror I’d experienced. It had been so vivid, so real—even more so than the first night. The first dream had been bad enough, but to dream that I’d woken up into another nightmare? “I’m still scared, to be honest,” I said, lowering my voice. “If this is the kind of dream I can expect to have every night I’m here—I don’t know that I want to go bed, you know?” I speared a sausage and popped it into my mouth.

“You poor thing.” Rachel shook her head, her dark hair bouncing. “You’re sure it was a dream? You didn’t actually go walking in the woods?”

“Well…” I closed my eyes and thought about it. “No, I’m pretty sure.” I shuddered and speared another sausage. It seemed a little unreal to be sitting in the dining room, eating and talking so calmly about nightmares. I barked out a small little laugh. “I do feel like I’m going to lose my mind a bit, you know?” I tried to find the words to put it properly, to make them understand. I waved my fork with the sausage on the end. “Like this might not be real, like this is going to suddenly turn into something awful and I’m going to wake up all over again.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible that must be.” She shivered. “I think we can all agree this is getting worse, not better.” She glanced over at the table where the adults sat, laughing and joking and eating and making plans for the day. “Really, you guys. I don’t think we can keep this from his parents much longer.”

“She has a point, much as I hate to admit it,” Logan said after swallowing a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “We’re going to have to tell them at some point, and they’re not going to be happy we kept this from them this long. They’re going to be pissed we didn’t come to them right away. You know how they are.”

Teresa gave him a sour look. “They’ll think we’re all crazy, is what they’ll think—they won’t believe us for a minute, you know. They’ll think we’re making it all up to cover up something else. And they’ll definitely punish us. And I don’t know about you, dear twin, but I don’t enjoy being punished.”

“Albert
is
trying to tell us something, that’s the reality,” Carson mused before popping a piece of bacon in his mouth. “There’s something he needs us to know. That’s why he can’t rest, and he has a connection to Scotty. Once we figure out what it is that he’s trying to tell us, then he can rest and we don’t have to worry about any of this—”

“I don’t think Robert Shelby killed him.” I glanced over at the adults’ table just to reassure myself they couldn’t hear anything we were saying. I took a deep breath. “That’s what I think he’s trying to tell me—that’s why I’m seeing these things, his memories, whatever the hell it is. And I’m not convinced it’s Albert that’s trying to communicate with me. I mean, Albert would hardly be calling himself, would he?” I took a deep breath. It was time to come clean. “And I haven’t been totally honest.” I could feel my face starting to redden. “The guy I’ve been seeing? It’s been Albert. And Albert looks like the guy I’m seeing back home.”

I looked down at my plate to avoid the four pairs of eyes staring at me.

Teresa cleared her throat. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

I didn’t look up. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I guess I thought—I thought you guys might think I was making everything up or would make fun of me or think I was, I don’t know, doing it for attention.”

Rachel put her hand on top of mine. “Did you really think we’d stop caring about you because you’re gay? Because that’s crazy, Scotty. You’re still Scotty.”