The Bay at Midnight

Julie. I’d looked in the direction of the bed at the end of the long porch, but it had been too dark to see if anyone was there.

“Julie?” I’d called.

There’d been no answer and the darkness had felt suffocating to me. I could hear the water lapping against the bulkhead, and the croaking of a frog joined the nighttime music of the crickets. I was aware of the woods outside the screens to my right, but I couldn’t see the trees for the darkness, and the thought of what might be lurking out there made me turn and run back into the living room and then down the hall.

That’s when I stood outside my parents’ door, listening to my mother’s breathing. I’d thought of pulling the cushions from the sofa, setting them on the floor outside her room to sleep there, as close as I could get to her. But before I could act on that idea, I realized I needed to use the bathroom. I walked quietly down the short hallway, comforted by the sound of my grandfather’s snoring from the front bedroom he shared with Grandma. The screen door leading to the front yard was in front of me, the main door held open by a heavy iron doorstop shaped like a Scottie dog. It was as dark on the other side of that door as it was in the hallway. I hated that we never locked the doors at night. Oh, the screen door was secured by one of those flimsy hook-and-eye locks, but that had offered me little peace of mind once I realized how easily it could be foiled.

I turned on the light in the small bathroom, glad to finally be able to see everything. I urinated, not bothering to flush because I didn’t want to awaken anyone and have to explain what I was doing downstairs at that hour. I turned off the light and quietly left the room. To my right, the hallway leading back to the living room looked dark and foreboding, so I stood by the screen door as I waited for my eyes to adjust again to the darkness.

Outside, I saw a flicker of light through the woods, somewhere near the road. I thought at first it was a firefly, but the tiny light burned bright orange and I quickly realized it was a cigarette. I watched the light arc and sway as the shadowy person carrying the cigarette walked along the dirt road in the direction of our house. I smiled in relief. Isabel. She was probably walking home from Pam’s or Mitzi’s, enjoying one last smoke before she had to come in. But how did she expect to get in with the lock on the door? I thought it was her good fortune that I happened to be there.

I lifted the lock with my finger and was about to push the door open when the shadowy image and its cigarette continued down the road, past our sidewalk, past our driveway. I slipped the lock back into the eye. It was not Isabel after all. I lost sight of the person, but the light of the cigarette continued to burn, making a sharp angle in the air as the smoker turned to walk up the Chapmans’ driveway.

CHAPTER 44

Julie

“It’s too dark to read it out here,” I said, carefully unfolding the small sheet of paper I’d removed from the front half of the giraffe. “I’m not even certain there’s any writing on it.”

Jim moved the lantern closer to my hands, but Ethan touched my shoulder.

“Let’s take it back to my house,” he said. “We’ve taken up enough of the Kleins’ time.”

I sensed his concern. He knew that a note written by my dead sister or his dead brother was sure to elicit emotions he didn’t want to share with his neighbors.

“Oh, but this is fun,” Ruth said, obviously curious about what we’d found.

“Probably just a love note from my brother to Julie’s sister,” Ethan said. “Not fit for the PG-13 crowd.” He got to his feet.

I tucked the paper back into the giraffe, holding the red and purple halves of the toy together as Ethan helped me up. Jim and Ruth stood, as well, but Carter remained seated next to the buried bread box, still peering inside it, although without the lantern light I was certain he could see little. I guessed he was thinking about the wonderful treasures he could bury there himself.

The screen door squeaked open as Lucy left the porch and rejoined us in the yard.

“Thank you so much for the tour,” I said to the Kleins. “And Carter, the treasure box is all yours now.”

“Awesome!” he said, getting to his feet.

“Thank Julie,” Ruth instructed him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re very welcome.” I looked at Ruth and Jim. “And thanks for letting us dig up your yard.”

“Sure.” Jim grinned, his face ghostly in the lantern light.

“Please feel free to come over anytime,” Ruth said.

We walked between the two houses to get to Ethan’s front yard. I held on to Lucy’s arm.

“We found this old plastic giraffe in the Nancy Drew box,” I told her. “There’s a piece of paper in it. Ned and Isabel used to use it to send notes to each other. But the weird thing is, I am ninety-nine point nine-percent sure I never put it in the box.”

Lucy was quiet. As Ethan pushed open his front door, she whispered in my ear, “I remembered something about the night Isabel was killed,” she said.

“What?” I whispered back, uncertain why we were being stealthy.

She didn’t answer me.

“What?” I asked again, and she shook her head quickly.

“Later,” she whispered, and I knew better than to push her; she must have had her reasons for keeping her memory from Ethan.

We followed Ethan out to his porch, where he turned on the floor lamp, flooding the table with light.

“Let’s take a look at that paper,” he said, as the three of us sat down.

I opened the giraffe and the folded piece of paper fell out. Carefully I flattened it on the tabletop. It was a note, written on what looked to be half a sheet of pale pink stationery, its one edge ragged, torn on an angle. The writing had faded to a bleached bluish purple, but I recognized it instantly.

“It’s Izzy’s writing,” I said. Isabel had had a distinctive, rounded handwriting that had gotten her into trouble