The lake never forgets.
How much trouble could Kayla and I even get into over something that happened ten years ago? I don’t want anything to go wrong for us…but maybe it should. Karma could finally be coming for us.
“Esme?”
I jolt. “Sorry. I’ll go get Andy.”
What if Lillian was hurt worse than we thought?
What if she didn’t get up in time and was burned?
Or worse.
Shut up, Esme!
I run around the cabin and jog into the food hall. Rebekah almost bumps into me. “Sorry,” she says, laughing and stepping back.
“Me too.” I scan the hall. “Have you seen Andy?”
“He left a minute ago. Is everythin’ okay? You look…pale.”
I’m so not okay.
I pull on her hand. “Come with me, we need to find Andy.”
“Huh?” Rebekah dashes after me. “This sounds a little ominous.”
“It’s more than a little.”
“Officially intrigued.”
“Andy!” I call. He’s standing by one of the boys’ cabins, digging his foot into a floorboard. A creaky one, maybe. He’s very big on keeping the camp in top condition despite its age.
He looks up. “Everything okay?”
“Could you come with us for a minute, please?”
“Of course.”
“Where are we goin’?” Rebekah asks.
They follow me around the food hall to the back of the staff cabin. “Cora found something.”
Andy’s eyes tighten in alarm.
“What the…?” he says, and his jaw hits the ground.
“I saw this about five minutes ago,” Cora says. She already has a bucket of soapy water and three sponges. Will that even work? There’s a tin of brown wood paint and a brush, so I guess we’ll be painting over the graffiti if it doesn’t wash off.
“Who would do this?”
“One of the kids thinks they’re funny,” Rebekah says, shaking her head.
Yeah, only problem with that theory is the writing is at my height. A kid could have reached up to do it, but the natural way to graffiti is at your own height.
Could this have been done by one of the counselors or CITs? But who, and why?
The person in the forest watching us hike and removing flags?
Or maybe…Nope, not going there.
Andy takes his phone out. “I’ll get a photo and then we’ll clean it off.”
He snaps a picture and slides his phone back into his pocket.
“The campers will be outside soon; I need to get the canoes ready. Esme and Rebekah, do you think you could take care of this? Cora and I will need to be on the lake with the campers.”
I nod and Rebekah says, “Sure.”
As soon as Andy and Cora leave, muttering about what’s happened and who could have done it, I dunk a sponge into the water.
“This is insane,” I say, dragging the soggy sponge across the first letter. The metallic taste in my mouth makes me gag. I drop my head so Rebekah can’t see my reaction. I’ll look like a crazy person if I panic over a little graffiti. Or a guilty one.
“Yeah. I know we’re all in for the pranks now, but I don’t know, maybe this is too far. Do ya think?” she says.
“I really do. Why do you think that it would be written here?” I ask. “It’s not like it’s out in the open for all to see.” I want someone else’s thoughts on this, someone who will give me all the reasonable explanations for why a camper had done this.
Rebekah shrugs, scrubbing with all her force at the letter R at the other end. It doesn’t come off. “Maybe they don’t need it on display. They’re pranking us and we’re pranking them. No reason for them to need all the other campers to see.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” It actually does. Campers are pranking us, not each other. “Why say ‘the lake never forgets’? What does that even mean?”
Her pale eyes cut sideways at me. “Why do you think it means somethin’, Esme?”
Um…
I scrub harder, the sponge almost shredding against some of the rougher parts of wood. “I don’t know, it just seems like an odd thing to say.”
“We’re at a lake.”
“Right,” I reply. I haven’t forgotten about the massive oval of water I walk around every day.
Rebekah glances at me and then back at the writing. Then back at me again.
“What?” I ask, my stomach lurching.
“Huh?”
“I can tell you want to say something.”
She sighs. “Are you okay? Your reaction…Esme, are you worried about this? Do ya think it’s more than a prank?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
There are a lot of dots here and I’m not sure whether I’m trying to force them to connect.
I dunk the useless sponge. “What do you think about this?”
“I think one of the campers likes horror.”
“What about the fact that this is written at adult height?” I ask.
Rebekah stills. “What?”
“The writing is at our height. The campers are shorter, so wouldn’t this be a little lower down if it was one of them?”
“Hey, maybe that’s how we find out who did it. Maybe it’s one of the taller ones?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Could be.”
“What’s your theory?”
“I don’t have one,” I lie.
“I know we’re not really close yet, but I would like to change that. You can talk to me, Esme.”
Rebekah said that she doesn’t have friends. No one to talk to and here I am closing up on her. That can’t feel good after years of being bullied.
“Totally. I’d like that. Hey, I think it was someone else who wrote this,” I tell her.
“Someone else?”
“Yeah, like someone from town. It just doesn’t add up. Why would someone working for the camp want to remove flags and get us lost? Ava thought she saw someone in the woods when we were hiking.”
“Really?”