Secret at Mystic Lake (5 page)

Bess glanced at Zoe and bit her lip. “They'll just
be stuck out there getting soaked. Should we invite them in?”

Zoe widened her eyes. “Are you kidding? I didn't bring an extra tent to try to fit everyone in. Where would we sleep?”

Bess shrugged, looking frustrated. “We wouldn't all fit in here to sleep. But maybe they could at least get out of the rain.”

Zoe shook her head forcefully, and George sighed.

“Never mind,” she said, moving toward the entrance. “I'll check on them.”

Before any of us could stop her, George was outside the tent, running through the rain. “Caitlin? Henry?” I heard her calling. “Dagger?”

Silence fell in the tent, and I looked awkwardly from Bess to Zoe. “I hope they're okay,” I said.

“I'm sure they are,” Zoe said quietly, the annoyed edge fading from her voice. “They're the gung-ho nature people, remember? And it's just rain, after all. They'll dry.”

Bess and I were quiet for another minute, neither of
us sure what to say, when George pushed her way back into the tent.

“They say they're fine,” she said. “Caitlin and Henry are trying to rig up a tarp she brought to block the rain. And Dagger says he likes it—it makes him feel ‘closer to nature' or something.” She shrugged, sitting back down on Bess's sleeping bag and running a hand through her soaking-wet hair.

Bess squealed. “Hey, watch it!” she said. “I invited you guys in here to keep you dry, not to make me wet.”

“See?” Zoe asked, turning to Bess and me with a satisfied smile. “All the people left out there are the dedicated nature people. It won't hurt them to get a little wet.”

George looked at her and frowned. “I think you can enjoy nature and still not want to get wet.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “I guess,” she said, and sighed. “Listen, your sleeping bags are soaking wet. Can you throw them outside to make more room?”

George's frown deepened. “And where will Nancy and I sleep?”

Zoe shrugged, as though the answer didn't matter very much to her, but Bess spoke up before she could reply. “Maybe Zoe and I could climb out of our sleeping bags and unzip them,” she suggested. “We could sleep on top of one and share the other like a blanket.”

Zoe looked distinctly unexcited about this idea, but George spoke before she could say anything. “Great. Let's do it.”

Bess jumped into action, and Zoe hesitated only a moment before wriggling out of her sleeping bag too. It took some maneuvering, but soon we had Bess's sleeping bag unzipped and spread out on the tent floor. We all got on it, trying to negotiate a way for all four of us to sleep in the small space without being on top of one another. In the end, we ended up sleeping side by side, all lined up like railroad tracks.

We were so close that when I tried to snuggle into the sleeping bag beneath me, Zoe yelped in alarm.

“Ouch! You just kneed me in the butt.”

“Sorry,” I murmured, trying to get comfortable in the position I was in. It was tough—I felt all stretched
out and unnatural. For a second, I thought longingly of that moment just before the rain had fallen when I'd been about to fall asleep out in the cool, misty air.

That would have been nice.

Bess groaned. “Cuz, stop shaking your leg, please.”

George stopped abruptly. We were close enough that we could all feel it. “Sorry,” she said. “I'm a little uncomfortable.”

Zoe snorted. “You're uncomfortable?” she asked. “Because I was a lot more comfortable before you guys showed up. No offense.”

George sat up, and even in the darkness I could see her eyes shooting daggers at Zoe. “No offense?” she asked. “Gee, Zoe, I was a lot more comfortable before we came in here too. No offense.”

Uh-oh. “Guys,” I began, trying to use my most diplomatic tone. “We're in kind of tight quarters here, so . . .”

Now Zoe sat up too. “Why don't you go back out there?” she asked, pointing to the closed door of the tent, outside which the rain poured down with a
constant
rat-a-tat-a-tat
. “After all, you voted to keep going even knowing we had no tents, right? I mean, it must have occurred to you that it might rain?”

George set her jaw. “It did,” she said, “but I thought the risk was worth it to enjoy the trip I'd been dreaming about for months.”

Zoe groaned. “You outdoorsy people,” she said with a sigh. “All about experiencing nature, until it gets a little uncomfortable, and then you're just like us.”

“Us who?” George asked.

Zoe smirked. “Us, like me and Bess,” she said, looking back at Bess, who was on my other side. “The reasonable people, who like shelter and good sheets and bring extra tents to save your butts.”

Even in the dark, I could tell George was more than miffed at that, but Bess just giggled. “Can we just go to sleep, guys?” she asked. “The sooner we go to sleep, the sooner we wake up in the morning, and the sooner this whole experience is over.”

“Amen to that,” Zoe agreed, and settled back down on her pillow.

Everything was silent for a moment. I hoped, desperately, that the conversation was over and we could all go to sleep. I closed my eyes.

But George wasn't finished yet.

“Gee, cuz,” she said after a moment, a chill creeping into her voice. “I'm so sorry that my dream trip has been such a nightmare for you.”

Bess was silent for a moment, then let out an awkward laugh. “Come on,” she said. “You don't agree that this trip has been kind of a bust so far?”

“I've seen some amazing scenery and met some really cool people,” George said. “I've seen more wildlife in one day than I've ever seen before!”

Zoe snorted. “And I've noticed that someone stole our tents two hours in, and things have just gone downhill from there!” she cried. “Come on, George. You haven't noticed that our leaders don't seem to agree on anything? And that Dagger is a total weirdo? And that we got a total downpour tonight and we're all packed in here like sardines?”

“Yeah,” Bess added quietly, before George could
respond. “This hasn't exactly been my dream vacation, cuz.”

George was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke, her voice was full of barely restrained anger. “I'm so sorry I inconvenienced you by wanting to share my trip with you,” she said sarcastically. “I thought it wouldn't be a big deal for you to go outside your comfort zone for three days, to celebrate my birthday.”

Bess didn't move, but when she spoke, her voice was angry too. “I came for you, cuz,” she said. “But this isn't my thing. You can't make me like it.”

“I only came for my friend too—for Gemma,” Zoe said with a sigh. “Stupid mono.”

George lay back down on her pillow. Again, I hoped the conversation was over, but George fired one parting shot:

“Bess, for your thirteenth birthday, I went to a ‘makeover slumber party' for you. You decided I would look better blond, and we snuck out to the drugstore, and I let you bleach my hair—remember? It was orange for a week.”

Bess hesitated a second before responding. “I remember.”

“But I never complained,” George went on. “That party was, like, the best night of your life. And that made me happy. Because cousins make sacrifices to make each other happy.”

With that, George flopped onto her side.

Bess didn't say anything else, and for several minutes there was silence in the tent. The rain
pat-pat-pat
ting on the roof was the only sound.

I stretched my legs again, struggling to get comfortable, wishing I could recapture the cozy warmth I'd felt before the rain began. But that didn't seem terribly likely. The tension in the tent was thick enough to cut with a knife, and I wondered if I'd ever get to sleep now.

But in the end my exhaustion won out. Maybe twenty minutes after George said her last words, I finally drifted off to sleep.

I awoke hours later, still in the dark, to a scream.

I SHOT UPRIGHT. IT WAS
dark still, but there was an edge of pale light creeping in, like dawn wasn't far off. The rain had stopped, and there was total silence outside our tent. It was just light enough to make out Bess, George, and Zoe next to me, all still sleeping peacefully.

Had I dreamed it? I bit my lip, wondering if I'd really heard what I'd thought. Maybe it was just the tail end of a nightmare? Maybe . . .

But then I heard something scuffling past our tent. Someone was awake out there.

I scooted from beneath Bess's sleeping-bag blanket and crept out of the tent. I stood up in the little
meadow, looking around. It seemed darker outside than it had inside the tent, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust. I looked to the right, down over the lake, then straight ahead, then to my left. . . .

“Auugh!”

Panic seized at my lungs. Dagger was standing there, no more than five feet in front of me, silently watching.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he said after a moment in his calm, unruffled voice. “What are you doing up?”

I swallowed. Should I tell him? Let's face it: Either Dagger would be nice and help me figure out where the scream came from, or he had caused the scream, and letting him know I'd heard it would end badly for me.

“I . . . what are you doing up?” I said finally.

Dagger smiled. “I was just about to start my predawn meditation,” he said, gesturing behind him, where I could now make out a bright-blue blanket and a little dish of incense. “Sunrise isn't far off, and it promises to be breathtaking. Would you like to join me?”

“Ah . . . no, thanks,” I said, scanning the clearing as I remembered my real purpose in coming out here. Had someone really screamed? Was a member of our group in trouble? “Um, the truth is, Dagger, I woke up because I could have sworn I heard somebody scream.”

Dagger frowned. “Ah. Yes, I heard something too, a minute or so before you came out. I thought it was just a large bird. Nature can be a bit noisy before dawn.”

I kept looking around the clearing. There was no sign of Caitlin or Henry, but hadn't they relocated after the rain began? Maybe they were in the woods, safe under their tarp, fast asleep. A prickle of guilt entered my thoughts at the memory that we'd slept safe and dry in a tent, while they'd had to struggle in the harsh weather.

“I think I'm going to check on Caitlin and Henry,” I said finally, turning to Dagger with a little shrug. “Just to be sure they're okay. Do you know where they moved when the rain started?”

Dagger pushed his lips to the side. Was he thinking, or was he uncomfortable with what I'd said? “I
wouldn't check on them,” he said after a few seconds. “The truth is, I wanted to preserve their privacy, but I heard them having a fairly serious argument not long before the birdcall. That's what woke me up—though it was nicely timed to prepare me for my sunrise meditation.” He smiled briefly, then turned serious. “It sounded . . . unpleasant. You know how fraught sibling relationships can be.”

Huh. I didn't know, actually, because I didn't have brothers or sisters. Even so, Dagger's information made me want to check on Caitlin and Henry more, not less.

“What were they arguing about?” I asked.

“I couldn't make everything out, but it seemed to center on a text message, of all things,” Dagger said. “Henry got a text message that seemed to cause Caitlin some concern. I heard something along the lines of ‘I can't believe you're involved in this,' followed by ‘It's none of your business.' It was very heated for a few minutes. Then there was silence.”

I can't believe you're involved in this.
Those words made me nervous. But even so, something seemed
weird about Dagger's story, and it took me a minute to figure out what it was.

A text message, of all things.
That was it! As the website had warned us, the Mystic Lake area seemed to offer no cell service whatsoever. George's, Bess's, and my phones hadn't worked at all since that morning. It gave me kind of a creepy feeling, honestly—just realizing how cut off we were, and how much I normally depended on my smartphone.