One Black Rose - August Part 5

I texted Carley as I walked home. She and Nick had gone to the beach, and I wondered if it was the same one where Mary and her sister had been swimming. Carley didn't respond right away, but when she did she said that she and Nick had decided to leave the beach and go shopping a inside a but that they'd be home soon. Good, I thought. I knew that Carley would be really upset, and I thought it would be better for her to find out what had happened when she was at home, so she could cry in peace.

I waited for Carley and Nick on the porch. The only reason I could stand being outside was that it was almost dark, and the heat had lessened. I curled up in the hammock, watching the road, and tried to keep from thinking about Mary, and from crying. I was too upset to read anything, and I was glad that Mrs. Hightower wasn't at home. I texted Susan but got no response. A while later Mrs. Fritter sent me a message that said, "I saw you leave. Wanted to let you know there's still no sign."

I took a deep breath. A little part of me had been hoping that they'd run down to the sh.o.r.e and simply find Mary's sister sunning herself on a different part of the beach. But that happy ending didn't seem likely at this point.

Something was going on and the Fairies knew what it was.

Fortunately I didn't have to wait long.

Soon the headlights of a car turned up the driveway, and there was the briefest hope in my mind that it was Holt coming back, just like he had at the beginning of the summer. But then the hope was dashed, and I recognized Nick's familiar beat up car.

Once they were parked, Carley got out and said, "What's the big mystery? Why did you care where we were swimming?"

"That doesn't sound very friendly," Nick said to her. "Autumn, if we had still been at the beach we would have told you where we were so you could join us. No matter what Samuel said." He grinned, but it faltered when he saw my face.

"Of course she could have joined us," Carley muttered. She hadn't yet noticed how upset I was.

"Autumn, what's wrong?" Nick asked, racing up the stairs to me.

"Oh my G.o.d, Autumn, what is it?" Carley snapped to attention.

I didn't want to worry them more than they already were, so I told them briefly what had happened. I would have complained about Susan just ditching me, but that seemed too trivial to notice at the moment.

Carley instantly sat down on the top step and started sobbing. She knew Mary better than I did, since Mary was a local and Carley was there every summer. Nick sat down to comfort her and after barely a moment of thought said, "So, I guess what happened to Katie wasn't an accident?"

I shrugged. Of course I had no idea. All of the signs with Katie had pointed to a complete accident, but a second drowning so soon afterward seemed to call everything into question.

"I don't know. I just saw her sister. I didn't see anything official. For all I know they've found her by now," I said. I hoped I was right.

Carley looked at me with pleading. "Can you text Mrs. Fritter and see if she's heard anything?"

She must have seen in my face that I'd already heard from Mrs. Fritter, because she dropped her head back in her hands and started to sob again.

At that point Mrs. Hightower came out of the house. "I just heard on the news," she said, rus.h.i.+ng down the steps. Nick's arm dropped from around Carley and he stood up awkwardly.

"Let's everyone come into the house," said Mrs. Hightower. She pulled her daughter up and with a comforting arm ushered us inside.

We all went into the living room, which seemed too cheerfully lit for what had just happened. Nick, Carley, and I sat on the couch while Mrs. Hightower resumed her rocking chair.

The TV was on. A Special News Report was blaring. An unidentified girl had gone missing in the ocean. She had yet to be found. It asked that people remain vigilant when they were in the water, but stressed that there was no evidence of foul play.

When the Special Report had ended, having told us basically a whole lot of nothing, we all sat in silence. Finally Mrs. Hightower said, "Darling, don't be upset; you might not even know her."

I decided to tell her what I'd seen earlier. While I was talking, Mrs. Hightower gasped. "Oh, that poor girl. Both of them. Mary Camden. How awful."

We all stayed up for a long time, just talking. Now that Mrs. Hightower had a face to put with the nameless missing girl, she was upset too. Apparently she knew Mary's mother and had known her for years.

"We have to do something," said Mrs. Hightower. She stood up and grabbed her phone. "Let's go." She headed for the door.

"Wait, Mom, where are we going?" Carley asked, standing up.

"We have to help," said her mother.

"Mom, there's nothing we can do. They aren't going to let us anywhere near the water," said Carley. "And the family's probably panicked enough as it is."

"It's their daughter," said her mom, still at the door. "You three should stay here. You're right, you'll only be in the way. But I'm going."

And with that she rushed out of the house. A moment later we heard her car start up and saw the headlights s.h.i.+ne through the windows. Then she was gone.

The three of us looked at each other. "I'm going to stay here tonight," said Nick. Carley looked like she was about to protest, but Nick said, "On the couch. I don't think after that your mom will mind."

Carley swallowed hard, but nodded. "I need to go to sleep." There were dark circles under her eyes and her lips trembled. "Poor Mary."

I wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't sure what to do. In the fog of my mind it vaguely occurred to me to be grateful to Samuel for caring about me enough that he wanted me to stay out of the water, but how could he know that two girls would drown in the span of only a few days? It was almost too much to even think about.

Carley went and got Nick a blanket and pillow while I went to get ready for bed. When I came back into my room from the bathroom Carley was there, sitting on my bed.

"Autumn," she said quietly as I sat down next to her, "do you think it was an accident?"

It was scary how similar our thoughts were. "I have no idea."

"Because it's two girls and I know Mary wasn't a swimmer, but she wasn't stupid either. She wouldn't do anything dumb like swim out too far. And it was early in the day and she was with her sister; there's no way she was drinking."

"Maybe it's some sea creature," I offered hesitantly. "Maybe the Loch Ness monster is real." No one had mentioned a vicious sea creature as a way to explain what had happened to Katie, but I guess there was always a chance.

"They did both disappear in the ocean," said Carley thoughtfully.

"Yeah," I said. "Look, they haven't even found her yet. Let's wait and see what happens. I'm sure the police are doing everything they can and stuff."

Carley only nodded. She was in an almost trance-like state, probably from shock, where what I said didn't really matter.

She looked at me. "Samuel was right to tell you to stay out of the water."

"I guess so," I said. "Maybe he cares about me more than I thought."

"Yeah," said Carley. "But if it was another accident how will we ever know? How will people ever feel safe to go back in the water again?"

"Look, Carley, right now there's no reason to think it was anything other than an accident," I said. "I'm sure the water is safe. The police would have said something if it wasn't."

"They may not know yet," Carley muttered. She twisted her hands together, worrying. She sat quietly for a few moments, while I sat next to her. Finally she said, "Did you see Susan?"

"Yeah," I said. I couldn't tell her that Susan had disappeared when she heard the news about Katie, but I didn't want to lie. I just decided to leave it out completely. My dad said lies of omission were just as bad as other lies, but he wasn't there right then. "She was fine. Said she didn't know where Holt was."

"And you believe her?" asked Carley, frowning.

"I don't know," I said. "Yeah, I guess I do. I have no reason not to."

"I wish you wouldn't be sad about him, Autumn," said Carley. "Summer's so short."

"Yeah," I said. I wanted to scream that I couldn't help it. That I just wanted to talk to him, to know that he was all right, but that I didn't even have the chance to do that. I couldn't say any of that to Carley.

"I should go to sleep," she said. She was swaying with tiredness right where she sat. "Hopefully my mom will come home with good news."

Even as she said it we both knew that the chances of that happening were very low.

After Carley had left, I lay in bed for a long time. When I finally fell asleep I dreamed of swimming in dark water, with slimy hands reaching up to grab me.

Chapter Five.

I couldn't sleep. Finally, at a ridiculously early hour in the morning I got up and padded quietly downstairs. It turned out I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. Nick and Carley were asleep on the couch, sort of leaning into each other. The blanket was discarded on the floor, probably because it was too hot to use one anyway.

I peeked out the window and saw no sign of Mrs. Hightower's car, which meant that she hadn't come home last night. She would probably call when she thought we would all be awake, but no matter what, it couldn't be a good sign that she hadn't come back. I had hoped that I would wake up that morning and someone would yell SURPRISE or APRIL FOOLS, maybe even say that Mary had gotten fall-down-drunk after all and hit her head, but had been found safe and sound. That would have been nice.

In the living room the TV was on, but no sound was coming out. Even on mute I could tell that the news guy wasn't talking about Mary, because the picture behind him was of a beach and some sort of drink with an umbrella in it.

I sat down in the chair that Mrs. Hightower had been in the night before and tried to stay awake, watching the news, but it was too early; I couldn't do it.

I woke up who knows how much later to someone shaking me. It was Nick.

"They're talking about it," he said. He'd turned the volume up, and we all sat listening, Carley bleary-eyed on the couch and looking as if she had been crying. As she had.

This doesn't happen in small towns, I told myself. This is a sleepy town and here two girls my age have probably died. This doesn't happen.

"And twelve hours into the search there is no sign of the missing girl. She has been positively identified as Mary Camden. She went missing while swimming with her sister in shallow waters. Search teams, along with the Coast Guard, have looked for her through the night. The girl's sister, who was with her, said that no one else had been around, and that Mary was not impaired in any way. It is also believed that she was a good swimmer."

The news guy kept talking. He was going to call in some expert on drowning, but Nick shut it off. "I think we've heard enough. It's not like they are going to tell us anything that we don't know."

"They could tell us if they think it was foul play," I pointed out.

"They already did," said Nick. "No one else was even near her. What do you think happened? The Loch Ness monster jumped out of the water and ate her?" Somehow Nick saying what I'd been thinking the night before made my hopes sink.

"Shut up," cried Carley. "They could still find her!"

Nick's face was tight.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess they could."

Carley got up and stormed into the kitchen. A second later we could hear pots banging and dishes clattering.

"I didn't mean to upset her," said Nick.

"I know," I said. "Have you heard from her mom?"

Nick nodded glumly. "Yeah, she got a text from her a little while ago. Apparently she's staying with Mary's mom until they hear something. She's distraught."

I felt tired and sad. I rubbed my eyes, but I was sure that only made me look worse.

"What should we do?" I asked.

Nick shrugged. "What can we do? We can't look for her. We didn't even really know her. They don't seem to think that it was something in the water, just that it was a freak tide or something like that. The news people haven't made drawn any connection between what happened to Katie and what happened to Mary. They didn't hang out with the same people, they weren't swimming at the same place along the coast, they disappeared at different times of the day. The only thing we can do ourselves is to stay out of the water until they know more."

"But they might never know more," I said, thinking that it would be a long time before I ever went swimming again.

"Right," said Nick, biting his lip. "We'll see what Carley wants to do. Do you have plans for the rest of the day?"

I shook my head. It was still early, despite the fact that I'd managed to fall back to sleep. I had nothing going on until work that night. I would have liked to talk to Samuel about why he'd told me to stay out of the water, because he must know something. There were too many coincidences. First a girl disappears in the water, then I see Lydia, Leslie, Logan, and Susan at the beach, then Samuel tells me to stay away from the water. After that I see Susan and Samuel together like they are actually friends. And Susan comes close to hinting that she knows I have to stay away from water. It almost makes me angry. If they know what happened to Katie and now Mary they should have done something about it. How many more girls would have to go missing before they came forward?

"I kind of wanted to see Samuel," I said. "I might text him."

"Oh, he's coming over," said Nick, running fingers through his own sleep-tousled hair.

"When?" I asked, jumping to my feet.

"Not for a few hours," said Nick, laughing. "I didn't know you cared."

I glared at him. "I don't. I just don't want to entertain company in my bath robe."

"Yeah, sure," said Nick, still grinning.

Carley came back into the living room. She carried a tray with milk, two kinds of cereal, and three bowls and spoons.

"Everyone eat," she ordered, brandis.h.i.+ng a spoon.

"You really like your food when you're upset, huh?" Nick asked.

He got a ferocious glare for his curiosity.

"Look," she said. "I realize I didn't even know her very well and I'm really upset anyway, but... I don't know...I just feel so close to them somehow." She frowned, trying to think of the right words. "I just want to know what happened to her," she finally said.

We all ate in silence. I wasn't really hungry, but I knew that if I didn't eat breakfast I'd be crabby for the rest of the day, and Mrs. Fritter thought that people who weren't friendly got less in tips than the cheerful sort. So I always tried my best to be in an upbeat mood when it was time to go to work.

After I finished my cereal, I went up to my room to shower. Since the day looked overcast and I had felt chilled ever since I'd gotten up, I put on a hoodie with my jean shorts.

When I made it back downstairs, Carley had also gotten dressed. She wore a white tank top, a blue cardigan, and shorts. Nick sat there, still looking frumpy. I was yet again reminded that guys could look good without even pretending to try.

"There hasn't been any news," said Carley. She was reading a book, while Nick, as usual, was playing some game on his phone.

Just as I sat down the doorbell rang. Carley got up to answer it and Samuel followed her back into the living room.

He looked tired and worn. I wondered briefly if he had been a friend of Mary's, because he looked upset. But I knew that was silly. He didn't talk to anyone but other Ches.h.i.+res and apparently the Roths.