“First stop is the lake. It’s the heart and soul of our little town, so it makes sense we introduce you first thing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to be on my best behavior,” she said, pleased to have a new boy to flirt with.
“That’d be wise,” he responded tonelessly, and her smile vanished.
THE LAKE WAS larger than she’d expected, larger than it looked in the pictures her father had shown when he was selling her on the move. Staring at it through the sun-glazed windshield made it seem somehow unreal, a projection from a different world made entirely of contrasting blues, a canvas of sea and sky.
Jimmy had pulled the car off the paved road a half-mile back, cut onto a broad dirt road leading into a dense cluster of trees. Ellie was on the cusp of being nervous – being trapped with a strange boy in the ever-darkening woods and all – when the dark green canopy abruptly vanished and the tall tunnel of trees gave way to expansive yawn of open air. The dirt road terminated into a gravel-covered parking lot at the edge of the calm surface of Sabbath Lake, after which the surrounding town was named. Jimmy pulled straight to the edge of the gravel so they could stare at the water from the car, the warm apple-skin red leather sticking lightly to the backs of her bare legs.
“You want to get out? Walk around?” he said, fingers dancing on the steering wheel.
“Sure,” she said, opening the door to a light breeze, the air warm but not as dense as it had been in the car.
They walked down a slight grass slope to a skinny stretch of coarse beach. She saw a few folks seated along the edge of the lake, small dots of dark color smudged against the rough sand.
It came then what had been nagging at her since their arrival. It was the calm of the place. There were no boats on the water, despite the docks dotted every few hundred yards. There were no swimmers in the shallows, no laughing kids on the beach. No sunbathers. The people here just seemed to be... watching.
“So, where is everyone?”
Jimmy strolled along the lake’s edge, inches from where the still water lay dormant. She followed, hurried to his side as they walked. “What do you mean?” he said.
“It’s Saturday afternoon. It must be eighty degrees. A perfect day for a swim, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” he agreed, watching his feet.
“So... why isn’t anyone swimming?”
He stopped, his head tilted, as if thinking, then those blue eyes fell on hers. A small smile played on his lips, but he seemed to fight it off. It was a look you had when trying not to laugh at someone. To spare their feelings, perhaps. “Ah,” was all he said, then turned to face the lake.
“Are there no fishermen in Sabbath?” she teased.
When he didn’t answer, she turned to the lake as well. Across the water she saw miniature houses with toy cars in their driveways; tiny people watering lawns or seated on back porches. The lake itself, she noticed, was free of waves, almost solid-looking. As if frozen. The water, although blue, looked black as sodden soot toward the middle, gradually darkening as the bottom fell away beneath.
“It’s not the biggest lake in the world,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what. It’s deep.”
He put a hand on her elbow, and she nearly flinched at his touch. His fingers, long and firm, pressed into her skin; not painfully, but forcefully, as if he were about to guide her to the water’s edge and shove her down into the shallows. She wondered, almost hysterically, if she should pull away, rebuke him. In the end, surprise and logic eclipsed anger and fear, and she stayed perfectly still, almost curious to see what would happen next.
“Anyway,” he said, dropping his hand, his voice cheerful once more, “you’ll find out all about the lake once you live here for a while. You’ll come to love it, just like we all do.” He turned and walked abruptly away, up the weathered grass and toward the parking lot. “Come on, Ellie,” he said loudly, not turning back, “afternoon’s a wastin’!”
She nodded, but found herself transfixed by the water. Yes, she could sense it now. How very deep it was.
As she stared, a moving cloud must have sprung free and drifted across the sky to blot the sun, for an enormous shadow passed along the water’s surface. She looked up but saw nothing that might have created such an effect. When she dropped her gaze once more to the lake, the shadow was gone.
She turned to go and noticed a small cluster of people seated a few hundred yards away at the top edge of the beach. She could have sworn they were all staring straight at her, their faces placid as the water, pale as foam.
Gooseflesh broke out on her arms and legs. She put her head down and walked quickly after Jimmy, doing her best not to run.
THE AFTERNOON SUN was waning, there were hints of red at the horizon, and Ellie was getting hungry. She’d never admit this, of course, not unless she wanted Jimmy to think her a cow.
The Chrysler cruised smoothly along the lakefront. Ellie caught blinks of blue where the trees thinned, then vanished altogether, the lake flashing into full view, exposing its naked splendor to all comers. She turned away, saw the road to downtown slip by on their left, but Jimmy never lifted his foot.
“Where now?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant but growing tired and irritated, which was unlike her. Something about the way the people at the lake had looked at her, something about the stillness of that massive body of water...
She sighed heavily, then caught herself, embarrassed for her own rudeness, even if it was only in her head.
But Jimmy just turned and smiled at her with those brilliant teeth and sparkling eyes. “We’re heading out of town a ways, then we’ll come back, hit main street and grab a bite to eat. Sound good?”
“Sure,” she said, watching the white dashes of the road slip beneath them like Morse code, snatched up by the powerful engine. S – O – S, she thought, for no good reason at all.
SHE SAW IT from the distance. Drab heaps of metal columned against the horizon, an expanse as disproportionate to her reality as the lake was. A large, surprisingly clean metal sign was strung up by heavy chain between two wooden posts the size of telephone poles. Jimmy slowed the car and turned to go beneath, stopped in the shadow of the creaking sign overhead.
“Riley’s?” she said, looking up to read the name printed in large yellow letters against a rust-red metal backdrop.
“Yup, this is one of our star attractions here at Sabbath,” Jimmy said, humor in his voice. “Folks come from miles around to visit old man Riley’s, check out the soaring vistas, explore the rugged terrain, search for buried treasures.”
She looked at him, gawping. His face stayed rigid for a moment, then he burst out laughing, and she with him. Ellie fought to compose herself, but Jimmy was busting more than one gut at her reaction.
