The Lake

SIXTY-FIVE

Sheena stared at her reflection in the dresser mirror.

She looked pale, shaken; felt chilled to the bone.

She’d been stroking her hair with an ebony-backed brush. Now it lay where it had fallen, in her lap.

Slowly, she set the brush on the crystal tray in front of her. The tray held combs, bobby pins, and a couple of hair bands.

Her eyes went to a small wooden doll, hand-carved, dark with years of handling. The doll stood propped against the mirror.

She was seeing a brightly painted wagon. A woman, passing the doll to a small girl perched up front. The child was maybe two, three years of age. A man and woman sat either side of her. The shackled horse stamped and snorted, anxious to be gone.

Sheena sniffed. She smelled the horse’s breath, grassy, steamy, hot. Felt the child’s wonder, excitement at sitting up so high, at the horse shifting around. All the time wary of those strange people wrapped in furs by her side…

The thin-faced woman in the long gray dress wore an apron tied at the waist. She was saying, “Here, child. Don’t you forget this, now. It’ll keep ya company in the long nights ahead…”

Sheena began to shake. Her breath hissed out low and shallow… Sweat beaded her forehead, her upper lip. She felt its flush warm her armpits, then spread hot and slick down her body.

She went over the scene again. Recalling each detail. Figuring out its purpose, its meaning.

Knowing full well…

She was that child.

The doll was hers.

The thin-faced woman, her ma.

Edith Payne.

Her mind was picking up on something else.

A different scene this time.

The cold, dark place where Deana was.

Familiar territory…

Wild. Isolated. High in the mountains.

Along a rough dirt path.

One of many such paths.

Water thrashed and rumbled below.

She reached out, touching the girl on a mattress…

In that cold, dark place…

She was the girl on the mattress.

Feeling confused, in pain, desperate, knowing she couldn’t hold out much longer…

I’m gonna die and nobody’ll ever know…

Sheena leapt up.

Raced into the living room.

“Hey, bro!” she called out. “Make it snappy. We’d best take the Chevy.”

Warren looked up, his face pale.

“You’ve ‘seen’ Deana? Where is she, sis?”

“I know the area, Warren. She’s a few miles from here. Somewhere in the mountains. In Santa Cruz country…”