A small wave rocked against her, and she swayed forward, then back. It was probably Tally. She was probably stepping closer, making sure she could still spot Ava.
Ava made an okay sign with her left thumb and forefinger and lifted her hand high over her shoulder.
Her lungs weren’t bursting yet, but they were getting there. Come on, come on, she thought. Happen!
She closed her eyes. She tried as best she could to access any magic that might be waiting for her, but she felt nothing take hold of her. No whirlpool sucked her into another dimension. No gust of air formed a bubble around her and transported her to the “when” she hoped to arrive in.
Maybe the magic had happened without her feeling it? Maybe, when she opened her eyes, the lake water would be shot through with . . . rainbows, or points of shimmering light. Maybe there’d be a magical current, visible just to her. Or a wormhole! A wormhole in the water would totally fit her needs.
Please? she begged as she opened her eyes. Please???
Nothing.
Just Ava and the lake. The sweet, dear, boring lake she’d dived into.
A wave of disappointment crashed down on her—and then it was all over, because she couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She let go of the root, pushed hard off the bottom of the lake, and emerged from the water.
Ava gasped in air. Oh, oxygen was good. She pressed her fingertips against her eyes, then swept one hand over her nose and pinched off any accidental snot. She sluiced water from her face and wrung out her ponytail. She regulated her breathing. She didn’t turn around, because she didn’t want to face Tally.
To Tally’s credit, she didn’t even clear her throat in an I told you so way. Tally didn’t say a word—and yet Ava felt enormously ashamed that Tally had witnessed her failure.
“Fine,” she said. Her sodden T-shirt clung to her body. She’d have to walk home sopping wet, which was great. Tally would be wet, too. They’d return to their respective houses, both dripping, and every so often Tally would shoot her accusatory looks.
“Seriously, go on and laugh,” Ava said. She turned around. “You win. I lose.” She furrowed her brow. “Tally?” She looked to the right. She looked to the left. “Tally? Omigosh, did you leave me?!”
Ava sloshed toward the shore. When the water was waist high, she pulled her shirt away from her body so that it didn’t cling to her like a second skin. She flapped it a bit and squeezed what water she could from it.
“Tally!” she called. The water now reached her shins. She felt sticky, slimy, and dispirited. When she reached the pebble-dusted shore, she found that her shoes and socks were gone. Tally had stolen her socks and shoes, on top of everything else!
Really, Tally? she thought. Really?!
She picked her way toward the path encircling the lake, mocked by every rock she stepped on. Just past the thicket of trees and bushes that separated the lake from the trail, she stopped. Someone was there. Two someones. Two girls around Ava’s age, sitting a couple of yards away on one of the rustic wooden swings.
Ava blushed so hard it hurt. How long had they been there? What had they seen?
She waited for the girls to do something, smirk at her or whatever, but the girls did nothing. They didn’t seem to even see her, but please. No one could sit on a swing in front of a lake and not notice when someone emerged from said lake like the creature from the black lagoon, gasping and making pfff noises and shucking water from her hair.
She studied them, worried that any minute they’d lift their heads and laugh at her. They didn’t. They were just really involved in whatever they were talking about. Really really involved, their heads bowed and their shoulders touching.
Ava shivered, a full-body twitchy shiver that came out of nowhere. The weather had changed, she realized. The sky was still blue and the sun shone cheerfully, but the temperature had dropped. An hour ago, Ava had been sweating as she tried to keep up with Tally. Now the air was cool on her skin. She needed to move.
She wiped each muddy foot across the opposing shin to clean them off. She stepped out from the trees and gave up, saying, “I’m weird, I know. It’s a long story.”
The girls kept murmuring in low voices about whatever it was that was oh-so-important. As mortified as Ava was, their nonreaction felt like a slap.
“Seriously?” she said. She walked all the way to them and she waved her arms like a roadside traveler beckoning for help.
“Hello-ooo!” she called. When they did nothing, Ava got right up in their faces, her humiliation bubbling over into near tears. “What you’re doing is mean,” she said, looking from one girl to the other. “It’s called ghosting. You’re ghosting me out.”
She snapped her fingers in front of the girl on her left, who wore a Dr Pepper shirt. Mama used to like Dr Pepper. These days, she said it hurt her stomach.
Dr Pepper girl blinked and glanced Ava’s way with a puzzled expression, but almost immediately turned back to her friend. Ava huffed and clapped her hands directly in front of the other girl, who had light brown hair and looked familiar, though Ava couldn’t think from where.
“I know I’m being silly,” said the familiar-looking girl. She looked down at her lap and not at Ava at all. “But it’ll be over soon one way or the other, right?”
“Don’t think of it as being over, Emily,” Dr Pepper girl said. Ava’s heart stopped. Emily? “Think of it as a new beginning!”
The
