Do you see?
He saw. It was the fate of a bullet fired ten years ago that traveled still, never stopping, no matter who or what it struck.
Michael and Jonathan stepped into the water and pulled the raft behind them into the shallows. The water rose quickly up to their thighs and shocked the breath from them. They pulled the raft and together set Conner adrift with the box and then walked back to shore. Conner took out a small paddle and began to row toward the center of the lake. The raft sagged with the weight. Jonathan took up the other end of the nylon rope. His legs felt frozen and stripped to the bone. The rope spooled out, and they watched as Conner floated silently away from them. The lake reflected a glassy gray from the skies; snowflakes kissed the surface. The rope went taut, and the raft stopped and turned slightly as if looking back at them.
Jonathan watched the ghostly scene – Conner alone on an overburdened raft with the body of Thomas Terrywile, drifting with unseen forces. Above there was only a gray expanse of nothingness and below a terrible cold. A deep nausea and dread overtook him.
Do you see?
He didn’t want to see, to accept it – few did. He searched himself for some remnant of faith, but found nothing. Why would God be here? They had left the holy far behind.
Conner steadied himself and attempted to get purchase of the sides of the case. His first attempt to lift it nearly sunk him. Water poured in from both sides.
“It’s too heavy,” Jonathan said.
“He’ll get it,” Michael said. “He’s good at this kind of stuff.” Jonathan remembered Conner deftly flipping those plastic cups at the East Side Tavern the night they shared this plan with him – the precision, the concentration, the soft touch. But this was not a parlor trick or a game. He gripped the rope tighter in his hand.
Conner tried again. He lifted one end of the case and attempted to tip it over the side into the water. The raft seemed to hold as he stood the case upright on its side at the bloated edge and began to push it over. With a final shove, the case splashed down into the lake. The side of the raft collapsed, and the water seemed to leap up and grab Conner by the shoulders. The opposite side of the raft kicked into the air and flipped over. Conner let out a small cry and fell beneath the surface.
The case floated for a brief moment and then sunk like a stone. In its place a dark bilge flowed upward. Bubbles coated in grime shook to the surface. Conner splashed around in the middle of it, his coveralls soaking through with water, overwhelming him. His hands scrambled for the overturned raft, but he was being pulled below the surface, unable to fight against the weight of his clothes, unable to strip them off.
Then Michael was in the water, shedding his clothes till he was bare-skinned. “Pull it back!” he screamed. “Pull it back now!”
The blackness flowed up from the bottom of the lake and spread. It was more than what should have been contained in the case, more than just the decomposed body of Thomas Terrywile. It spread like an oil slick across the surface so the whole lake turned from sky gray to the same deep blackness Jonathan had seen in his unconscious delirium.
“Pull him back!” Michael screamed again.
Jonathan pulled the raft, but Conner couldn’t reach it to grab hold. His head dipped below the surface again. He reappeared sputtering and splashing like a child who has fallen in the deep end of a pool, seconds from drowning. The black water poured into his mouth.
Michael dove into the lake and swam hard and fast. Jonathan followed, but the bottom fell off quickly and he was up to his waist in the shocking cold, his coveralls soaked through. He stopped. Michael was halfway to where Conner struggled and gasped, Michael’s pale white skin pulled tight and prickled with cold as he cut through the black slick. Jonathan could only stand and watch, the useless nylon rope in his hand.
Conner disappeared beneath the surface and was gone.
Michael dove and followed his brother down.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael could barely walk when Jonathan pulled him shaking and gasping from the shallows. His lips were blue and his jaw trembled and shook; his skin was white as the falling snow. Jonathan slipped and stumbled trying to support him as his legs gave out. Michael’s breath was short and rapid; his muscles convulsed as his body tried to warm itself. Jonathan dragged him from the rocky shore into the trees, and Michael fell to the ground in the fetal position, still shaking and wet. Jonathan stripped a sleeping bag from his backpack, unzipped it and covered Michael, enfolding him completely.
Michael tried to speak. “I had him,” he said, “but I let go. I had him but I let go.”
Jonathan waited until Michael stopped chattering and could take a full breath. He walked back out to the lake. The snow fell harder now, silent and mortal into the pitch-black water. The overturned raft had beached itself on the rocks. Jonathan stared out at the scene for a moment. The lake was still, but somehow he expected to see Conner burst through the surface one last time, gasping for air, for life. But Conner was gone, drowned and dead, and there was no escaping that truth. He waited for something to appear and give purpose to it all – from the bullet to Conner’s death. He stared at the mountains and lake, spread out before him like a grand canvas.
Michael groaned and wormed inside his cocoon.
It was nearly dark; the woods grew deep with shadow. There was
