Sixteen

Kit and I head to the main boathouse.

"How are you feeling?" he asks. "Is anything numb?"

"No numbness. No dead spots. No dizziness. No disorientation." I smile over at him. "I know the hypothermia and frostbite symptom list, and I'm fine. I suspect I'll have a few drowning nightmares in my future, but physically I'm okay. You?"

"Definitely nightmares in my future. Like those ones where you're trying to punch in a phone number and can't get it right? Except it'll be standing on the shore watching you drown while I wave my arms and shout, like that'll help." He makes a face. "And that is not the lighthearted answer I meant to give."

I reach to squeeze his arm. "You didn't just stand on the shore. You came in after me and nearly died of hypothermia yourself. That is so much worse."

He chokes on a sudden laugh.

"But you also saved my life," I say. "I don't think I was going to make it to shore."

"You would have."

"And this is definitely not the lighthearted conversation either of us needs." I swing open the boathouse door, and we step into the gloom within. "Or maybe ‘lighthearted' isn't the word we're looking for, considering why we're out here. Let's just avoid topics that will make us feel even worse."

"Works for me. No discussing the stock market."

Now I'm sputtering a laugh. "Exactly."

I flip on the light before we let the door close. Then I lock it. "Hear that?" I call out. "It was the door locking, Sadie. If you're in here, you're not sneaking off."

"You really think she's in here?"

My expression answers for me, and Kit nods as we start our search. We stick together, as if by silent agreement that—however much Garrett seems to think there's no threat on the island—we disagree enough that we won't even split up to search a four-hundred-square-foot boathouse.

Without the boat in here, there are only a few obvious places to check. First, we open the storage locker, where all the life vests and paddles are kept. Inside are… life vests and paddles.

Next we shine a flashlight into the gap under the floor, where the water laps against the wood. Without the boat in place, the water level is lower, but having both experienced how cold that water is today, we don't spend long checking to see whether Sadie has ducked under, submerged to her neck. A quick sweep before we proceed to the most likely hiding spot: the rafters.

When Kit and I designed the boathouse, there was plenty of room in the rafters. After all, we expected this to be our summer home. When school ended, we'd retreat here, and I'd write and Kit would practice his music, having convinced himself he could just pop back to shore every few days for a meeting. Yes, that was ridiculously naive for both of us, but it was the dream. As such, we'd want to host friends and family, and we'd need a place to store extra kayaks, paddleboards, and deck chairs. Kit was a corporate CEO—providing high-end kayaks and luxury lounge chairs to our guests would be like normal people providing extra towels and new toothbrushes.

Hemlock House was finished late in the summer of 2019. We had a month here, and we were far too greedy to invite others up. That would come next year… and then the pandemic scuttled plans for guests and those extra "amenities."

When I took over the island post-split, the boathouse had a beautiful loft area, completely empty. No problem, right? That's where I'd "hide" my watercraft from renters. Yeah, that didn't last long. When I realized they'd been using my kayak and paddleboard, I moved them to the private shed only to discover that the now-empty loft proved too great a temptation, and not just for children.

After cleaning up far too many condoms, I decided the loft needed major changes… and not only because the evidence of carousing couples reminded me of how Kit and I used that empty loft space.

"Where are the floorboards?" he says when we climb up.

"I had to remove them. Safety hazard."

"Hiding the ladder wasn't enough?"

"Nope, that only made it a bigger hazard. I got a middle-of-the-night call from a renter threatening to sue after their son fell. He'd shimmied up, got a splinter, fell into the water, and hit his head."

"Oof. Yeah, when we were kids, we'd have totally tried that."

"He was thirty-six."

We climb up and balance on a rafter.

"The boards can be replaced," I say. "I did leave a few." I point to the shadows. "They're over there, where I hide some of the outdoor stuff." I raise my voice. "Hear that, Sadie? If you found my cubbyhole, we're coming to pull you out."

When I start to crawl over, Kit lays a hand on my ankle.

"May I?" he says, with a look that adds a "please."

I hesitate. Like Jayla said, my default response is "I've got it."

I'm fine. I can handle this. Nope, I got it. Thanks, though.

If Sadie has blown up my boats, then I'm not dealing with the teenage girl who'd badmouthed me behind my back and cost me every friend except Jayla… and, apparently, eventually Jayla, too. No, as shitty as that was, it pales compared to this, and I can't be the fool who throws herself into the line of fire when she's the primary target.

I nod and move onto a side beam to let Kit pass. When I fall in behind him, he stops so suddenly that I death-grip the beam before I fall.

"You smell that?" he says.

I don't, not until he continues on and I move into the spot he vacated. Then the smell hits and a memory flashes. A memory from last night, picking up this same smell and dismissing it as a dead animal, only to discover—

I detour around Kit, taking another beam, even as he says, "Hey!"

I reach the storage spot. Not only have I made it hard to access, but I've blocked it in with plastic bins bearing labels like CANNED BEANS and OLD TOWELS to further throw renters off the scent of hidden treasure. I yank out the "towel" box, which is empty. The stink of decomposition fills my mouth and nose, and I double over, gagging.

Coming from another angle, Kit gently picks up a box, only to realize it's empty and shove it aside. Our flashlight beams converge on a spot where someone has pushed away the expensive deck chairs that I store up here. In the middle of that space, there's a heap of what looks like hair.

No, it's fur. Lumps of fur and decomposing flesh and bloodied bone with whip-like tails.

"Are those rats?" Kit says.

Holding my breath, I move closer as Kit does the same. It takes me a moment to figure out what I'm seeing. There's so much fur and bone and gore that my brain decides this is clearly not a rat. And it isn't. It's six rats, their decomposing bodies arranged in a circular pattern. In the middle of that circle? Their tails, knotted together.

"What the hell?" he whispers.

"Rat king," I say before backing up fast and twisting to get fresher air.

I take a moment to breathe with my hands over my nose and mouth, inhaling the smell of s'mores and hot cocoa instead.

When I turn back to Kit, I say, "The story goes that rat tails can get knotted together. The result—all these conjoined rats—form a ‘rat king.'"

"It's not true then. Just a story?"

"Depends on who's telling it. There are lots of supposed cases from medieval times, especially in Germany, but they might be hoaxes. It's never been observed in the wild. At least, not in a way that proves the knotting came naturally."

"Well, this one didn't," he says. "Unless this ‘rat king' happened to die in a ritualistic circle."

I look over to see a circle scorched into the wood.

"Have you even seen rats on the island?" he asks.

I shake my head.

"Then we've found another piece of staging."

I look at the grotesque spectacle. With a shudder, I start to turn away when—

"Kit?" I say carefully.

He's already moving off and looks back. "Hmm?"

I don't speak. I just stare. As I do, one of the bodies twitches.

"You didn't see that?" I say.

"See what?" He moves back over and follows my gaze. The same body twitches again, and he jerks back with a curse.

Relief washes through me… followed by the realization that actually seeing the dead move is not a cause for relief.

"It twitched, right?" I say.

"Um, yes." He takes a deep breath and then gags as the smell fills his lungs.

"Don't inhale," I say.

"No kidding." His voice is shaky. "Tell me there's a logical explanation."

"Hey, I'm the horror buff, remember? My answer to moving corpses will always be zombies."

I say it lightly—still riding that high from realizing I'm not hallucinating—but when another rat twitches, I nearly fall off the ceiling beam. Then I spot something.

I look around and find a piece of wood, left over from the deconstruction. Using the end of it, I flip over the rat that moved first.

"I could have done that," Kit says. "Note that I said that after you did it."

"Oh, I noted it."

The rat twitches again, but this time, the cause is clear. Pale maggots crawl through the decomposing flesh.

"Logical explanation supplied," I say, shuddering as I inch away. "Which means I'm not hallucinating, and we don't have zombie rats."

"Just Sadie, the missing frenemy."

"Your childhood called. It wants its vocabulary back."

He sticks out his tongue, only to catch a taste of the stench, judging by his horrified expression. I laugh and motion for us to retreat.

"No Sadie," he says. "She'd never hide up here with this smell."

We make our way back down to the ground level.

"You don't think she's on the island, do you?" he says as our flashlight beams skim the interior.

"No."

"You think she was on board the boat. That she's… dead."

I consider telling him what I saw, but I don't see how that helps, especially when I no longer think I could have seen what I thought I did. I also have a better explanation for what happened to Sadie, one that is going to let us set this aside and move on, at least for now.

"No," I say. "I just don't think she was on the boat when it blew up. If she's the one who set the bomb, does it make any sense to trap herself on the island with us?"

"Get to shore and then set the bomb… after sending the boat on a general course back to the island so we find the pieces."

"That's overly complicated, isn't it?"

He says nothing, and we head outside.

"Yes, then," I say. "It's overly complicated. You just don't want to say that."

"Actually, no. This morning I'd have said Sadie couldn't have done any of this. Now…" He scratches his beard and looks around. "I've been seeing the side of Sadie she wants me to see. I think she's done things to drive people away from you."

"Jayla told you."

"Told me what?"

I head for the forest beyond the boathouse, which is the other part of our search area. "It's okay. Jayla talked to me about the dating profile."

"Profile?"

I glance over. "That isn't what you were talking about?"

"Uh, no. Jayla hasn't said anything to me. I'm guessing she thinks Sadie was responsible for whatever made you guys go your separate ways after college, something to do with a dating profile?"

"I don't think any one person—or event—could be blamed for that. There was a lot going on. Law-school and teachers-college application stress. Jayla coming out. Us ending up on opposite sides of the country for years."

"But Sadie did something to drive the wedge in further. To hurt you both."

"Sadie thinks… What happened with Garrett… She thinks I destroyed her family and Jayla helped."

Kit's voice hardens. "You didn't destroy anything. That was all Garrett."

"But if you're Sadie, and you're convinced that I lied and that Jayla supported my lie, then I destroyed Sadie's family with Jayla's help."

"Sadie can feel like that at sixteen. Not at thirty-two."

I stand on the edge of the forest and look in. With the dark clouds looming overhead, even this sparse bit of woods looks like a sylvan portal to some dark world, one stray patch of light turning a dead tree branch into a gnarled finger, beckoning us in.

I push off the feeling. I love this bit of woods, those dead trees, the stories those twisted branches tell of times long past.

I find the path and stride in.