Chapter Thirty-Three

chapter thirty-three

June 22, 2019

Dad?” I called, using my key to open the locked front door to Sparrow Crest. “Diane?”

No answer.

“You here?” I called.

Diane’s car wasn’t in the driveway; the house was empty. The kitchen smelled amazing—I found a pot of sauce on the stove, still hot. The sink was full of dirty dishes: knives, grater, a cutting board. There were vegetable scraps on the counter.

My headache was firing up again. I opened the fridge, found a bottle of beer, cracked it open, and swallowed another one of Diane’s pain pills from my purse. I sipped the beer as I walked from room to room, not sure what to do with myself. Upstairs, the bathroom door was open, the shower turned off. I wandered into my room, said hi to the Lexie painting.

Hi yourself, Jax.

I took my dead phone out of my purse and plugged it into the charger. Then I got my suitcase and started packing.

By the time I finished, my head was pounding, and Diane and Ted weren’t back yet. Where were they? I thought of calling them, sending texts, but knew they’d be angry with me for sneaking off. I decided to put off that confrontation for a while longer. I looked over at the boxes, wondered if I should try to bring any of my sister’s papers back home with me. I opened the boxes, started rummaging through, sorting. Another pile of photographs, another stack of journal entries. I pulled out the last one, read it.

June 14

Weeks of research and still so much I don’t know, don’t understand. But maybe I’m not meant to. Maybe none of us are.

One thing I’m sure of: the power of the pool. The pool gives miracles. Grants wishes, just like Gram always said it did. You just have to be prepared to pay a price.

I went out tonight and made a wish. I wished for the thing I want most in this world.

I wished to have Jax back.

Back here at Sparrow Crest.

The X girls, always and forever.

The room got strangely dark, and I saw little lights in the corners of my vision. I worried I might pass out. I closed my eyes, held tight to my sister’s journal page, to her words, to her wish.

“You got your wish,” I said, my words a low whisper, my mouth tasting coppery and acrid, like the pool.

How cruel wishes can be.

I laid down on my bed, closed my tear-filled eyes, still clinging to my sister’s journal entry.

I wished to have Jax back.

It wasn’t even plugged in anymore.

The house phone was ringing. I sat up, listened, wondering if my father and aunt had come back, waiting for one of them to pick up the phone. It stopped ringing. The house was silent. “Ted?” I called out. “Diane?”

I heard tapping on the other side of the wall.

I tapped back.

Then, realizing that the noise wasn’t part of my dream, I bolted upright, raced down the hall to the room next door, Lexie’s old room, where my father had been staying. The room was empty of course. Well, not quite empty. Pig was there, curled up in the center of the bed, purring.

“Did you do that, Pig?” A ridiculous question. He stared at me knowingly, eyes glowing in the dim light.

I sat down on the bed and scratched the cat behind his ears. There was the tapping on the wall again, this time from my room. I put my ear against the wall. Heard Lexie’s voice come through it, muffled, but still clear.

“Ready or not, here I come.”

I went back into my bedroom and I swore I could feel her there. Her image gazed back at me from the painting, taunting: Catch me if you can.

I walked out into the hall, listening for more taps, footsteps, anything.

And there was something, downstairs.

Someone was at the front door. I heard the knob rattle. The whole house was quiet, seemed to be holding its breath just as I was, waiting, listening. Suddenly, the door clicked open, and I heard footsteps in the entryway.

I shouted, “Lex?” down the stairs.

“Hello?” Aunt Diane called up. “You here, Jackie?”

Light-headed but relieved, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Up here,” I called, making my way down the hallway to the stairs. “Where were you guys?”

“Looking everywhere for you! We were worried sick,” Diane said. “You snuck off without saying anything!”

My father added, “We’ve been all over town!”

“You weren’t answering your phone. We were looking for a wrecked yellow car in all the ditches! We heard you went to see Shirley?”

I nodded. “I saw Shirley, then came right back here. My phone battery’s been dead. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

Diane stared at me. “Well, we’re all here now, and I, for one, am starving. Let’s go get that pasta on.” She was already heading for the kitchen.

My father mumbled, “Good idea,” and followed Diane. I joined them, my eyes bleary and my head aching. The codeine made the world seem dull, fuzzy. My father got down a big pot and brought it to the sink to fill with water. Diane flipped the light switch on the kitchen wall. Nothing happened. She tried it again, irritated. Click, click, click. “I thought you replaced all the light bulbs,” she said, her tone accusatory.

“I did,” I told her, checking the fixture over the sink.

The bulbs were gone.

I got on a kitchen chair and checked the ceiling fixture and discovered the same thing. A very bad feeling wormed its way from my head down my spine, settling in my guts.

“They’re gone,” I said. “All the light bulbs have been taken out.”

“Screw the teetotaling,” Diane said. “I’m making a drink.”

She opened a cabinet, grabbed the cocktail shaker, tequila, and triple sec. “Well, if they’re gone, then let’s put some new ones in.” She was talking to me like I was a child.

My father set the pan on the stove, turned on the burner. The gas came on with a hiss and whoosh of flame.

I went to the closet where we’d stashed the three boxes of extra bulbs. They weren’t there. My fingers searched, spider crawling all the way to the very back, but no light bulbs.

“Margarita, Jackie?” Diane asked.

I shook my head, stared dumbly at the empty shelves. “No thanks.”

“Come on, Jax,” my father said, getting a box of spaghetti down from the cupboard. “Let’s all have a drink together.”

“Three margaritas coming up,” Diane said. “Now if I could just see what I was doing. Have you found the bulbs yet, Jackie?”

“No,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice level and calm. “They’re not here.”

My father was humming a tune I vaguely recognized but couldn’t name. I went out into the hall, tried the lights there. Nothing. The same was true in the living room. I went upstairs, discovered that all the light bulbs were missing there, too. The sun was down, and the house was grower darker by the minute.

When it’s dark, they can come out of the pool.

I went back down to the kitchen; my aunt was lighting candles and setting them on the table. She’d poured three margaritas. My father was sitting in a chair looking at his; he seemed agitated. Keyed up. He was still humming, drumming his fingers nervously on the table, casting furtive glances around the room. What was going on with him?

“All the light bulbs in the house are gone,” I announced. “Someone must have come in and taken them.”

“Who steals light bulbs?” Diane asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. The thing in the pool. That’s who. My heart was pounding. Shirley’s stories were getting to me.

“Well I know I sure as hell didn’t take them,” Diane said. “Ted, did you take the light bulbs?”

“Wasn’t me,” he said.

Diane looked at me. “You were here in the house alone.”

“You think I took the light bulbs?” My voice came out angrier than I intended. My aunt stared at me, then shook her head. “I have no idea who took the goddamn light bulbs.”

“What I do know,” Diane said, settling in at the table and taking a sip of her drink, “is that we’re all here, we’re all in one piece, and dinner smells amazing. Come join us, Jackie. It’s our last night together. It’s a wonder we’re not all locked up in the loony bin.” She took a sip of her drink, then shook her head, muttered, “This fucking house.”

I sat down at the table.

“Do you remember,” my father asked, “when your mother and I would pick you up at the end of each summer, and we’d all take a walk, go on one last trip down to the store? The four of us?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Lex, she was always way ahead of us, she couldn’t wait to get there. Most times,” he went on, “it was like we were chasing her. We could hardly keep up. The best we could do was to try to keep her in our sights.”

He started to hum and drum his fingers on the table again. He was looking out the window above the sink, then at the door that was still bolted closed with metal plates.

Diane finished her drink and poured what was left in the shaker into her glass.

“She’d be off in this whole other realm, and we’d be two steps behind, doing our best to keep up. But we never could, could we?” my father said. “Not any of us.”

I was crying, and when I looked at my father, I saw that he was, too. His eyes looked dark, the pupils seeming nearly as black as the irises. They shone in the flickering candlelight like two black pools. He was humming again, and this time I recognized the song. I hear you knocking.

The phone rang, impossibly loud. Diane looked at me, expectant. “Are you going to get that?”

I walked on jelly legs over to the big black phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” a small voice said. It sounded like my own, only much younger, and I had the strangest idea that my childhood self was calling. Me at ten, having just wished that Lexie wasn’t always the special one.

Maybe my wish had come true after all. Maybe I’d put everything in motion that night: Lexie’s illness, the way we’d grown apart, even her death.

“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” the little-me voice on the phone said.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

But really, it wasn’t. I wanted to tell my childhood self to hold on to her love for her sister, to not let anything petty screw up the bond they had.

I choked back a sob, felt tears prick my eyes, trickle down my cheeks.

“Who is it?” Diane asked, staring at me. “What’s happened?”

I opened my mouth, not sure what I would say. Me?

“But I killed the fish,” the voice at the other end said.

The fish.

Declan! I was talking to Declan.

“Declan, I’m so glad you called. How did you get this number?”

“You left it on our voice mail. I’ve been calling you.”

The phone calls had been Declan. Of course. It wasn’t messages from the spirit world or from some time-traveling version of my young self.

“I wanted to tell you about the fish. I tried telling the other lady, Karen, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me about the fish.” I could feel my mode switch. I was the professional. I was in control here.

“They weren’t who they said they were. They wouldn’t stop talking to me. Telling me things. Showing me things.”

“What kinds of things?”

I listened to the sound of his breathing, the static of the phone. But there was something else there: the sound of crinkling paper, of furious scribbling.

“Things I didn’t want to see,” he said.

I closed my eyes, trying to imagine what hideous scene he might be drawing: more nightmare fish? Me drowning, being pulled under?

“Who is on the phone, Jackie?” Diane asked, moving closer to me.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. “One of my clients,” I told her.

She looked at me in disbelief. “How would they get this number?”

“Have you ever seen things you didn’t want to see?” Declan asked.

Just then, out the window, I was sure I saw Lexie’s face.

Lexie looking in at all of us, smiling.

“I—”

Diane snatched the receiver, put it to her ear. “Who’s there?” she demanded. She shook her head. “There’s no one there, Jackie. Just a dial tone.” Her look said she thought I was crazy.

Maybe I was.

I checked the window again. There was no one there.

Maybe it had just been my own reflection.

I started walking backward. My heart was pounding. Every part of my body was telling me to run. To get out of there.

“Where are you going, Jax?” my father asked, standing up.

“To the Quick Stop. To get more light bulbs,” I said. “It’s so dark in here.”

“It’s nice and cozy with the candles.” He reached out, wrapped his fingers around my wrist. They were cool, damp, tight as a vise. “Stay with us, Jax.” His eyes flashed me a desperate look. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Please. Not now.

“Okay.” I lowered myself back down into my seat. My father released my wrist but stayed standing. “To Lexie,” he said, raising his glass. “May we all one day catch up with her again.”

Pig had come into the kitchen and was crouched about a foot away from the closed-off door, staring at it, yellow eyes glinting in the candlelight. His ears were back, and he was growling.

Diane put some cheese and crackers on a plate and brought it over to the table. My father walked over to the sink and looked out the window, toward the pool. I could see the reflection of the candlelit room, of my father’s frown turning into a wide smile. “She’s out there,” he said. “I see her.”

I knew I should stand, should go and look, but I felt too afraid to move. It’s Ryan, my logical mind told me. Ryan or maybe Terri. They’re just fucking with us. Trying to scare us.

But then I pictured what I’d just seen: Lexie’s face in the widow, smiling in at us.

Why don’t you all come out and join me for a swim?

My father turned to us and said, “It’s her! She’s here! She said she’d come. She promised.” He turned, looked right at me. “She came back for you!”

She was my wish.

And I was hers.

I shook my head. It wasn’t possible.

He started walking, practically running, out of the kitchen.

“Ted, wait!” Diane jumped up, started following him out of the kitchen at a steady clip. Their footsteps echoed down the hall.

“No,” I yelped, getting up to follow them.

“Ted!” Diane called. “Be reasonable.”

I heard the dead bolt on the front door click as he opened it. “You’ll see,” my father said again. “It’s her. She’s here. She’s here!”

He flung open the door and stepped out. Diane and I followed him into the cool night. The air was still, the sky scattered with clouds that filtered the light from the stars and moon.

The gate gave a loud rusty screech as my father pushed it open, called her name. “Lexie!”

I followed.

The pool smelled dank, rotten.

“There’s no one here,” Diane said. “Let’s go back inside, Ted. Please.”

In the dim blue light, I could make out the flat surface of the water, the rough shapes of chairs on the patio like hunched-over figures lying in wait. I looked back into the house, saw the candles flickering through the kitchen windows, casting strange, dancing shadows.

“She’s in the water,” my father said, looking down longingly. “It’s Lexie. Don’t you see her? I told you!” He grinned so wide his teeth glowed.

Then he jumped into the water. I saw only ripples as the pool took him.

“Ted!” I screamed, running forward like it was still somehow possible to stop him.

Then he surfaced, gasping, “She’s down there. In the water!”

“Get out of there,” I said, reaching a hand out. He swam away from me. “You’ve gotta see this!” he said. “Come into the water, Jax! She wants you to come into the water!”

Then he took a deep breath and dove back under.

“Ted!” I yelled. Only bubbles surfaced.

“We’ve got to help him,” Diane said, moving to the edge, ready to jump in. “He’s out of his mind! He’ll drown!”

I kicked off my shoes. “I’ll get him. You wait here.”

I dove in.

The water was as painfully cold as ever. Stung every inch of my skin and made my muscles feel frozen and slow. Moving was difficult.

Open your eyes, Jax.

What had Lexie seen her last time in the water? Who had brought her out to the pool?

Eliza?

Rita?

Martha?

Or was it simply the promise that maybe she’d get her wish? That I’d return to her, return to this place.

I’m here, I thought, water numbing me, washing everything else away. Lexie, I’m here.

I struggled to see anything in the dark water.

Just like that I was ten years old again. My fingers grew numb. My heart pounded.

I swam deeper down, reaching, and touched something, an arm or leg—Ted, please God, let it be Ted. I grabbed hold and struggled to get back up to the surface. Please let this not be little Rita, face pale and bloated.

“Your sister’s down there,” Ted said once our heads were above the water. “I saw her!”

There’s nothing in that water but what we bring with us.

I dragged Ted to the edge; he was choking.

“Out of the pool,” I ordered. He scrambled at the slippery edge. I pushed him as I treaded water. Diane took his hand and, together, we hoisted my father out of the pool. Once out, he crouched along the edge, shivering and coughing.

“It was her,” he said. “I saw her face!”

I put my hands on the edge, but it was so slick, I couldn’t get a good grip.

Something brushed against my leg and I screamed.

Frantic, heart pounding, I got my forearms over the edge, planted my hands, and began to push myself up. Then I felt fingers wrap around my legs like tentacles. I thought of Declan’s drawing, had this absurd sense that I’d slipped inside it.

“Ted!” I called, reaching for him, but it was too late. I slid backward into the water, sucking in a deep breath of air before going under.

I was being pulled down to the other side of the world.

My sister looked back at me. Not some imaginary version. Not a re-creation born of denial. My sister.

Somehow, despite the darkness of the water, I could see her clearly and perfectly. I knew my sister’s body better than my own. There was her appendectomy scar. Her muscular swimmer’s torso. Her long eyelashes, looking longer still when wet. She let go of my leg, reached for my hand. I felt her fingers entwine through my own and suddenly, we were kids again, floating, playing the Dead Game. Gram was in the house watching her programs, and Lex and I were holding our breaths as long as we could.

Open your eyes. The dead have nothing to fear.

Behind us, back on land, I felt the shadow of Sparrow Crest looming, our favorite place on earth, the house we were going to live in together when we grew up.

Jax and Lex. The X girls. Forever.

I’m sorry, I thought, wishing I could say the words out loud, but feeling she heard them anyway. So, so sorry.

And I was sorry. Sorry I’d made that stupid wish all those years ago. Sorry I’d never been able to really help her, to fix her or save her. Sorry I’d moved across the country to get away from her. Sorry I’d shut her out after Gram died. Sorry I hadn’t picked up the phone that last night.

Lexie’s fingers wrapped tightly around mine. She was as cold as the water, a girl made of ice.

She pulled me down, deeper, deeper, the water as black as the night sky.

And I made out pinpricks of light—some bright, some dim. They looked like the day Lexie took me to outer space in her cardboard rocket and held the flashlight, created her very own galaxy, making the stars spin across the ceiling, just as the stars were dancing now.

Only these weren’t stars—I saw that now as I got closer. The lights were people.

Each person emitted a greenish white glow like they had night-lights inside them, something to keep the darkness away.

Lexie kept her hand clamped around mine and was taking me deeper, toward them.

Isn’t this wonderful, Jax?she said. No one could speak underwater. But still, I heard her. It was my sister’s voice. We’re actually going to do it! Get to the other side of the world.

My lungs were screaming for air. I fought the urge to open my mouth, take a desperate gulp of water. My vision narrowed.

It was cold. So cold.

I fought against her, tried to pull away, but it was useless.

Lexie held tight to my hand. Kept pulling me down.

Down, down, down.

Who are all these people?I asked her in my mind, looking at the faces we passed.

But I knew the answer. I recognized some of them. There was little Rita, seven years old, our dead little aunt whose books we read, whose games we played.

Nelson DeWitt, who bottled water from the springs. Eliza Harding, Ryan’s great-grandmother. Martha Woodcock, the little girl who drowned at the hotel and made friends with Rita. And others I didn’t recognize but who must have drowned in the springs. So many people, swirling around us, dancing lights in the darkness. And I knew, as I floated down with them, that what Shirley had said was true, they were the source of the water’s strength.

Stay, they seemed to say. Stay down here with us Make us stronger.

I thought of my father, of Diane, of my life in Tacoma, my friends. I thought of Lexie’s cat, Pig. I thought of Declan, of all the kids I’d helped and needed to go on helping.

I can’t stay. I don’t belong here.

I fought harder against Lexie, tried to swim back up, up to the land of the living, but my movements were so slow, so weak. And Lexie was so strong.

I didn’t feel cold anymore.

On the contrary, I felt a new warmth radiating from my chest out to my arms and legs. I looked down and saw that I, too, had begun to glow.

Don’t you see?Lexie said. Both of our wishes can come true.

That’s when I felt it. Hands on the back of my shirt, tugging, jerking, trying to pull me up, away from the lights. Away from Lexie.

Lexie held out her hand, pointer finger up. I crossed it with my own.

Me and you, Jax. Jax and Lex. The X girls, always and forever.

I closed my eyes, felt myself being pulled away from her, up out of the water.

I was sorry to go.

“I’ve got her!” my father shouted as we reached the surface, as he pulled me from the water.