What Waits in the Water Read online

  Jacob hugged Katie, too. Hannah felt a pang as she watched the embrace last a few moments longer than was strictly necessary. For the millionth time, Hannah wished that Katie and Jacob had never met. But the only reason they’d met was because Hannah’s dad had married Katie’s mom and Jacob and his family had, of course, come to the wedding. So wishing they’d never met would be like wishing her dad and Mylin had never gotten married. And being married to Mylin made her dad really happy, even though living with Katie made Hannah fairly miserable. It was really complicated and extremely difficult to balance the positives against the negatives. But at the moment, the negatives were tipping the scales big-time.

  “It’s really good to see you,” Jacob said as he pulled back. He looked Katie up and down, and Hannah seethed. She walked past them, purposely bumping Jacob to divert his attention, and opened the back of the car to get their bags.

  “Here. Let me help,” Jacob said.

  “I’m fine,” she said, hoisting her Oak View Swimming duffel onto her shoulder. The straps were decorated with pins from all the meets she had swum in over the years, and they clinked together in a familiar way as she adjusted its position.

  Katie made no move to pick up her own bag—a red rolling suitcase with heart stickers all over it—and Jacob popped up the handle to pull it across the parking lot.

  “Um, guys?” Katie said, looking up from her phone. She seemed to notice where she was for the first time, and was clearly confused. Her phone beeped with an incoming text and she didn’t even glance at it. “Where’re we going?”

  “To the boat.”

  Jacob paused at the end of the dock and Katie stopped short. “The what?”

  “The boat,” Hannah repeated. “The house is on the west side of the lake.”

  Hannah took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air and relished the tinge of the water’s crispness around the edges. It really was beautiful here, and she couldn’t wait to see the Fabers’ cottage. Four days hanging with Jacob and his family on the lake in the sun? Not even Katie could spoil that. Maybe Hannah could chill with Frida all weekend and ignore Katie’s existence. It was a thin plan, but it was something.

  “So let’s drive there,” Katie said.

  “Can’t,” Jacob replied, squinting one eye against the sun. Behind him, on the lake, a water-skier whooped and there was a huge splash. “The house is only accessible by boat.”

  “Yeah, right.” Katie gave a disbelieving laugh, like they were messing with her. When neither Hannah nor Jacob joined in, her jaw dropped. “You’re joking. I have to get in a boat? Like, right now?”

  Hannah bit her tongue so hard that this time she tasted blood. But really, Katie couldn’t be serious. Hannah had just asked Katie if Jacob was waiting for them at the dock. Jacob had told her he was gassed up and ready to go. She’d turned on Lone Dock Road and into the parking lot for the Dreardon Lake docks. How dense could the girl be?

  “Is there a problem?” Jacob asked.

  “Uh, yeah! Hannah didn’t tell you?”

  Jacob was starting to look miffed. “Tell me what?”

  Hannah sighed. This was the reason she should have given her father when he’d insisted that Katie should come along. But she hadn’t even thought of it at the time. She’d been too fixated on the fact that she was losing out on her chance for alone time with Jacob. Too lovesick to see the perfect argument right in front of her.

  “Katie can’t swim,” she said finally, when it seemed that Katie was never going to get up the guts to do it herself. “She’s afraid of the water.”

  Beside her, Katie shivered, and Hannah got the sense that Katie was more than afraid of water. She was terrified.

  The lake was oddly quiet. Aside from a few fishing boats in the shallows, there was no one else in sight. The singsong conversations of the birds in the trees played like a peaceful soundtrack in the background as Jacob steered his small motorboat across the flat water. But it wasn’t just the serenity of nature that made everything feel so still, Hannah realized. It was that Katie had finally stopped complaining.

  “Are you okay?” Jacob asked.

  They both looked over at Katie, who sat on the front bench seat with her back toward the bow of the boat so that she was facing them. Her knees were locked together, both arms splayed out to grip the sides of the boat. She wore a bulky orange life jacket over her dainty clothes. The vest was inflated so tightly it was pressing against her chin. Their bags were next to her on the bench, propped on either side to balance the weight, and she sat with the stiffest posture imaginable. She looked like some wealthy nineteenth-century heiress unused to primitive modes of travel.

  Jacob’s skiff really was pretty flimsy—just a low, metal fishing boat with no frills. Hannah could reach one hand out and skim the water with her fingers, no problem. When it came down to it, this wasn’t the sort of vessel that made a person who was scared of the water comfortable. Hannah felt a small swell of guilt.

  “M’fine,” Katie lied.

  Hannah took a deep breath and tasted the metallic scent of the boat at the back of her throat. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s a short ride. Five minutes?” she asked Jacob hopefully.

  “More like ten,” he said, and Katie moaned.

  Hannah shot him a look like, really? And Jacob shrugged, then grinned. Hannah couldn’t help it—she smiled back. Was it wrong that she was glad Jacob was amused by Katie’s misery? Jacob, in general, was a fan of practical jokes and had a thing for throwing people off their game—making them feel ever so slightly uncomfortable for his own amusement. He wasn’t cruel, exactly, he just liked to test people. And he never did it to Hannah, so she found this quality endearing rather than obnoxious—which was what his mother had once called it. He did like to rib her, but she had a talent for ribbing him right back. The banter was just part of their relationship.

  “So what’ve you been up to since the season ended, Champ?” Jacob asked her then.

  Hannah blushed and curled her toes against the well-worn pads of her flip-flops. Her summer swim team had taken first place at their regional meet two weeks ago, with Hannah winning both her sprints and acting as anchor on the victorious 400-meter medley team as well. Jacob had come back to Ohio for the weekend to swim with his own team, which had taken third place.

  When they were all home during the year, her family and Jacob’s lived only three small towns apart, and their high school teams competed against each other. Their summer teams, however, were invitational, and she had snagged a spot on the much-coveted Sharks, while Jacob—who was a fantastic long-distance swimmer—had made the Hurricanes, which was still a good team … just not as good as the Sharks.

  “Oh, you know, it’s tough being the queen,” Hannah joked, lifting her chin. “It’s been all autographs and photo ops …”

  Jacob reached across to shove her shoulder, which tipped the boat slightly, and Katie yelped.

  “Sorry! Sorry,” Jacob said, momentarily raising his hands.

  He pulled the corners of his mouth back in a private grimace for Hannah, and Hannah shook her head. Why would Katie insist on coming to a weekend on a lake when she didn’t even know how to swim? What did she expect to do for the next four days? She should have just stayed home and finished her all-important back-to-school shopping with her friends. Getting their outfits perfectly Snapchat worthy was of huge importance to Felicity, Katie, and their crew, after all. But instead, here Katie was, clearly miserable.

  Then Hannah caught Katie looking over at Jacob, and he looked back at her. Hannah had a sinking feeling. Katie had come along so she could see Jacob, of course. Hannah knew that the two of them had hit it off at the wedding. Hannah wondered, swallowing hard, if something was going on between them. And the idea made her want to shove Katie right over the side of the boat.

  Not that she’d ever do that.

  She cleared her throat. “Actually, I’ve been volunteering at the Y,” Hannah told Jacob, reclaiming his attention as the boat
rounded a small, eerie island at the center of the lake. Hannah paused, momentarily distracted by the strangeness of the trees. The island was covered by them, but the trees on the south side were all black and charred and jagged, their gnarled, bare branches jutting out at odd angles. Some of the trees had fallen or were tipped sideways at such an extreme angle they looked as if one stiff breeze could crack their will and send them tumbling into the water. Dotting the rocky shoreline were several black-and-orange NO TRESPASSING signs, some of which were splashed with mud, while others had been marked by black spray paint, haphazardly covering the NO. On the north side of the island, though, the trees were fine—lush and green and majestic. The whole thing put together gave the impression of a bizarre yin and yang symbol. Life and death coexisting on the same hunk of rock.

  “What happened there?” Hannah asked, interrupting her own story.

  Jacob glanced over his shoulder. “That’s Mystery Island,” he said. “Or that’s what the local kids call it anyway. People used to camp out and party over there, but there was a fire one summer and it’s been off-limits ever since.” He smirked. “Not that the signs actually stop anyone from going out there.”

  “It’s freaky,” Katie said with a shudder.

  “No arguments from me,” Jacob said, then turned to Hannah. “So you were saying? About the Y?”

  Hannah glanced away from a family of turtles that was slipping from a rock into the water near the green side of the island. When she looked at Jacob, she managed to put the burnt trees in her peripheral. “I’ve been teaching a Little Swimmers class.”

  “That’s cool,” Jacob said. “I bet the kids love you.”

  “They are fairly worshipful,” Hannah conceded. “But I think that’s just because I give them Hershey’s Kisses at the end of each swim.”

  “Ha! I knew there was an evil mind lurking beneath that innocent act of yours,” he exclaimed, his green eyes dancing.

  Hannah laughed and tipped her face toward the sun, ignoring the cloud that crept across and doused the light. “You know me well,” she said. “But honestly, it’s been really cool. It’s fun to watch them progress from barely being able to float to swimming across the whole pool.”

  “You should teach Katie to swim,” Jacob offered. “I mean, since you’re clearly such an excellent instructor.”

  “What?” Hannah said, at the same moment that Katie protested, “No way!”

  “Wow.” Jacob let out a low whistle. “So I see the ice hasn’t melted at all.”

  Hannah clenched her teeth, irritated by Jacob’s non-filter. She had told him about the coldness between her and Katie in confidence. He didn’t have to blurt it out as if it were common knowledge.

  Unless … had Katie told him about it, too? What had she said to Jacob about her? She glared at Katie, who turned her head and stared pointedly over her shoulder toward Jacob’s house, which was just now coming into view.

  “Yep,” Jacob said. “This is going to be one interesting weekend.”

  * * *

  “Finally,” Katie mumbled as Jacob slowed the boat to a putt-putt-putt and let it drift toward the long, low, wood-plank dock in front of his house. Hannah’s skull hurt from the effort it took not to roll her eyes.

  “I can’t believe I’m really here,” Hannah said, gazing up at the cottage. “It looks bigger than it does in pictures.”

  “That’s home sweet home,” Jacob said. “So, listen, the boat’s gonna rock a bit when we get out,” he warned Katie, turning the engine off entirely, “but I promise it’ll be fine. The water’s only a couple of feet deep here anyway.”

  Katie made a sound somewhere near a whimper. When she saw Hannah looking at her, she cleared her throat and shook her ponytail back off her shoulder. “Okay.”

  Jacob tossed the tie-off rope over one of the metal cleats—a fixture screwed into the dock for securing boats. He stood up and jumped off his skiff, which did rock back and forth drastically enough for water to splash over the side. Katie squealed and her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip.

  Hannah stood up next and got her balance—more rocking, more whimpering from Katie—then passed their bags to Jacob one by one. He offered his hand, which she took, and she hopped out next to him. His palm was warm against hers. She reluctantly let go and unclasped the three latches on her life jacket. Then she tossed the vest onto the dock at her feet, looking around.

  It seemed like something was missing, and she realized it was because Jacob’s skiff was the only boat here. She knew the Fabers had a larger speedboat they used for fishing, water-skiing, and tubing. She’d been looking forward to trying out water-skiing for herself if Jacob’s dad, Jim, would teach her. But the boat wasn’t docked. She was just about to ask where it was when Jacob faced Katie.

  “Your turn.”

  “Uh-uh. No way. Not moving,” Katie said. Her skin looked rather green.

  “Okay, that’s fine by me. But you should know that if you don’t get off the boat, then you have to stay on the water all night long,” Jacob teased. He looked at Hannah. “We could serve her dinner out here, right? I mean, burgers under the stars …”

  “Sure. That’d be nice. But I think it does get pretty cold in the mountains overnight, even in summer,” Hannah added, bringing a fingertip to her chin. “Would you happen to have a Snuggie on hand?”

  “LOL,” Katie said. She lifted her butt off her seat half an inch, then dropped right back down again when the skiff shimmied beneath her. She blew out an annoyed sigh and looked up at Hannah. “A little advice here?”

  Hannah was actually surprised. Katie had never asked her for help before. Not once. Not ever.

  “Okay, slide over to the middle bench. You’ll feel safer there,” Hannah said. “Then just stand up quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid, and we’ll lift you out.”

  Katie shot her a skeptical look, but did as Hannah instructed. She raised herself up slightly, turned, and sat down on the next bench, which Hannah had recently vacated. Jacob leaned over and offered Katie both hands. Katie looked around, clearly trying to find a way to get out without actually standing up, but she didn’t find it. Tentatively, she lifted herself to a sort of bent crouch, and grasped Jacob’s hands so tightly she basically started to pull him toward her. The boat dipped and Katie let out another screech as Jacob started to teeter. Hannah stepped forward at the last second, grabbed Katie around the waist, and awkwardly dragged her up out of the boat and onto the dock. Katie careened into Jacob, and clung to him. Conveniently.

  Somehow, all of this resulted in Hannah tripping and falling on her butt.

  “Ow,” she said, checking her palms for splinters.

  “I am never getting on a boat again,” Katie said, yanking open the latches on her life jacket. “You’re just gonna have to figure out another way to get me home.”

  Now Hannah did roll her eyes. She shoved herself up and grabbed her duffel bag off the dock.

  “Where’s your mom and dad?” she asked Jacob, turning toward the house. It was a small but beautiful cottage with blue shingles, white trim, and a wide, raw-oak front porch. There were two rocking chairs and a porch swing and a triangular pile of fire wood stacked near the wall, as well as a stone fire pit surrounded by three flat benches close to the shoreline. It was all so familiar to Hannah from Jacob’s descriptions and pictures, it almost felt like home.

  Jacob didn’t answer; he was busy helping Katie with her giant suitcase. Hannah sighed and strode up the dirt path to the front porch. When they were halfway up the hill, the screen door creaked open and two people stepped out. But they weren’t Frida and Jim; they were two kids Hannah’s age—one guy and one girl. Hannah stopped, uncertain.

  “You made it!” the girl said, as if she knew Hannah and Katie. She was tall and broad-shouldered with curly black hair, brown skin, and a gap-toothed smile. She wore short shorts and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt that read BOOK NERD.

  The boy smirked and leaned sideways against one of the
porch pillars. His dark blond hair was tousled over his forehead, and he had freckled skin and light brown eyes. He wore a weathered gray T-shirt with frayed jeans and sandals. He looked directly at Hannah in a way she wasn’t at all used to, and it made her both nervous and a tiny bit intrigued.

  “Meet my friends Alessandra Ellison and Colin Barnes,” Jacob said, coming up behind Hannah with Katie’s bag. Colin lifted one hand in silent greeting. “They’re here for the weekend, too.”

  “Nice!” Katie said, clearly recovered from her boat trauma. “The more the merrier.”

  Hannah’s throat tightened. Were these friends of Jacob’s from his school back home or something? Strangers made her feel uneasy in her own skin. It took her at least a half dozen times hanging out with someone before she felt comfortable around them. Which meant that this weekend was shot. Right around the time she was set to go home, she’d probably start to relax.

  “You invited other people up from Ohio?” Hannah asked Jacob under her breath.

  “No,” Jacob replied, just as quietly. “They have places in town. They just like to crash here because of the direct lake access.”

  “Oh.”

  “Guys, this is my best friend, Hannah,” Jacob called out, reaching an arm around Hannah to give her a squeeze. She was still inwardly preening over being singled out when he announced, “And this is Katie.” Like he was presenting some sort of fantastic door prize. Or like he was showing off a person he’d told his friends all about and was excited for them to finally meet her.

  Hannah almost gagged.

  “Come on in,” Alessandra said, with an expansive wave of her arm, as if she owned the place. “Lunch is ready and we’re starving. Jacob made us wait for you because of his twisted need to be in charge of everything.”

  Colin and Jacob both laughed, and Katie jogged up the steps to chat up Alessandra. Of course. Katie was great with strangers, probably because she lived in a world in which popular people flocked to her like she had her own YouTube channel. She loved parties and unfamiliar situations. She thrived in them. This had just become Katie’s perfect weekend.