Echo Lake: A Novel (8 page)

We shouldn’t underestimate the power of the occult, he said. The witch of Endor was able to conjure ghosts. God didn’t give her that power, but the power existed, and she conjured something real, even if it was a demon, a creature summoned up from the lower places.

Emily shifted in her seat. She owned a pack of Tarot cards, round cards from the 70s with pictures of goddesses and earth mothers and rotund women dancing naked in rainshowers. The deck soothed her. It made her think of her mother, a thought that didn’t usually make her feel anything but anxiety. But Connie had been her most loving with her cards. When she was in a good mood, after a string of clients, a good day at work, or on the first warm day of spring, she’d take out the cards and lay them out for Emily, telling her the future. The future was always good. No disasters waiting for her, no unhappiness. Just pictures of women dancing or gardening or giving birth.

The crowd made sounds of clicking and humming. Apparently, they knew the Witch of Endor. It didn’t sound like a real name to Emily. It sounded like a Tolkien villain.

Next, he said, sliding the pointer across the surface of the wall, we got the herbal store, Levi said, the place that sells all those teas. But they don’t just sell tea—they sell books about herbal medicine. Nothing wrong with that by itself, but I looked around, and it isn’t just medicine. Potions to make you feel better, potions to make your anxiety go away—

Jesus is the only cure for anxiety, an old woman called out, one almost as old as Colleen, wrapped in a fleece blanket. The people around her said Amen.

Amen to that, sister Florence, Levi said, picking up his rhythm again. This place sells potions to make you more beautiful, potions for almost anything. I even saw “herbal abortion” potions in these books—mixes of herbs that would make the child die inside a woman’s body.

Now, let me say this again—I’m not saying these establishments have anything to do with the murders. I’m just saying we need to understand what has happened to our town, what has happened to this beautiful place that we all love. We need to see the snake in the garden. God doesn’t like it when we stop trusting him, when we rely on potions and the occult to understand our lives. And when we choose those things over him, he withdraws his favor.

He tapped the wall with the pointer. Two new places of business, both built around non-Christian principles, both just months before the murders began. He turned. It’s something to think about, he said.

He turned the projector off, and the room was momentarily dark. Emily heard the faint, raspy breathing of the older women, the scuffing of a teenager’s shoes.

Turn on the lights, Levi said, and the room was lit with greenish florescents. Emily blinked.

We’ve been looking for answers, he said. Some of you have come to me asking me to pray, to use my spiritual discernment, to find out what the Lord wants us to know about these murders, what we need to learn.

He closed his eyes and clasped his hands behind his back, as Emily had done as a child while reciting the pledge of allegiance.

Truthfully, I don’t know what to tell you, church family. I’ve had no word from the Lord, no small still voice. All I know is that we need to protect ourselves from anything that might lead us astray. And so, I’d say stay away from these places. Stay away from what might lead you astray. And be careful.

The room again filled with Amens.

Pastor Richardson, do we know if any of the victims had any interest in the occult? A woman asked this, a woman approaching middle-age with a child in her lap. Her hair was white-blonde and cut into a perfect cap of curls.

Well, Levi said, we have no way of knowing. But I suggest you keep an eye out. Watch your children. And the wonderful teens in our youth group, you need to be leaders. You have to be examples to your friends and protect the younger ones.

The group of teenagers, who sat together, all nodded.

Report to me if you see any occult behavior, any increase in interest. Let your peers know that they need to put on the armor of God in every aspect of their lives.

The teenagers nodded grimly, armed with purpose.

7

Billy woke in the dark, the television the only light in the room. Everyone who’d slept over after the party lay on the floor, snoring. Claire lay next to him, curled up with her knees against her chest.

His head throbbed. It was going to split. He imagined it cracking, a seam of blood running from forehead, down his nose, down his lips. He shook his head to get the image out and the pain grew with the movement.

Fuck, he said into the dark, and tried to stand up. He had to piss. It was almost worse than the pain.

Fuck, he said again, and made his way to the door, which was opened. Only the screen door kept out the bugs that whipped against the mesh, trying to get to blue television light.

On TV, a black and white movie about war played, the sound turned all the way down. Two men huddled in the mud behind a barrier, their faces too clean, their hands wrapped around their guns.

Billy stepped outside and went around the back of the trailer where nobody else would stumble out and find him. It wasn’t his place. It was John’s trailer, a rental place his folks had left for him when they’d retired and left town for Florida. John lived in Keno but kept this place for parties—you could do whatever you wanted out here in Heartshorne. No cops. Even if they came, you could get out of things easy. All John would have to do was flash his smile and say his father’s name, and they’d be golden. Unless they killed somebody or something like that, they were untouchable.

Billy lived in Keno now, but he had come out here as a kid for camping. Now that he was an adult, he only came out for John’s parties. These woods gave him the creeps, though he, too, nodded when people said
such pretty country, nowhere like it in Oklahoma
. That, at least, was true.

He zipped up his pants and leaned against the wall.

Just through the woods, down a trail, was Echo Lake. Billy wasn’t a big fan of lakes, particularly not lakes the way they were out here—no lifeguards, no buoys to tell you where the water got too deep. He was not a fool, not like the others. Sometimes, after a few beers and some weed, they all went out into the lake to swim, but Billy stayed onshore. He’d seen water snakes one night at dusk, their pale heads held above the surface of the water, and now he couldn’t step into the water without thinking of them slinking just below the surface. Plus, he still remembered when he’d cut his lip open as a child on an underwater branch here at Echo Lake—it had snagged him like a hook in a fish’s mouth. His mouth and nose had filled with water as he pulled and pulled and felt his skin tearing before his mother splashed out into the water and extricated him from the branches.

The air was thick, foggy. The day had been unseasonably cool, but the night was humid. His head felt worse after he had pissed. Now, the pain had room to make itself known.

He looked behind him: he heard branches snapping, the sound of something coming toward him. He saw a faint flicker of flashlight.

Hello? He called out.

Maybe one of the girls had stumbled out of the trailer and was confused, he thought. Too drunk or high to remember where she was.

Hello. It was a woman. She shone her light on Billy’s face and aimed it downward again when he held his hands up to guard his face.

Come here, she said, motioning towards herself with the flashlight. He couldn’t make out her face behind the light. Could you help me? She asked. I don’t feel so well.

Me neither, Billy said, and wondered if he were dreaming. Maybe he’d smoked too much—years ago, when he’d taken a big hit of hash laced with something much more potent, he’d felt time slowing, dripping from events like honey from a spoon, and he’d spent the night in the fetal position in some kid’s bedroom, starting at the Hannah Montana posters as they gyrated on the wall. But he’d never thought a dream was real before. That was a new one.

Come here, she said. The light shone at his feet and he followed it until he reached the woman. Up close, he could finally see her. She was older than thirty, thin, her hair blonde. She wore a nightgown that reached just below her knees. She took his hand. Come on, she said.

She took him down the trail to Echo Lake. He wasn’t afraid and thought it strange that he was not afraid. Surely their heavy steps would scare the snakes away, he thought. She wore no shoes.

When they reached the beach, she shone her light on
the water.

Look, she said.

Across the surface of the lake, a yellow fog rose. It billowed from the water as though the water were breathing. It was thick, darker than the air around it.

Shit, he said, watching it pulse and movie its almost physical bulk. That’s fucked up.

She nodded. It’s making me dizzy. She stood on her tiptoes and breathed in heavy and hard, as though trying to catch a smell high in the air. Then she laughed. The more you breathe it in, the funnier you feel, she said.

Billy nodded. He could feel it entering his nose and mouth. It tasted faintly like oil and metal. His stomach hurt and his headache widened. He was all pain from ear to ear. He imagined the smoke invading his lungs, hooking his blood vessels (he wasn’t quite sure how oxygen got to the blood—that part of high school had flown right past him), making his whole body feel heavy and fogged. He looked across the water, where power lines were strung along the roads with lights at the top of the posts, dotting the bridge. The trees below it made a jagged mass of black.

Come on back to my house, she said. She was quick and light, happier now than she had been when she first met him. He wondered how she could be so cheerful in such thick, suffocating air. He could almost feel the fog rising from the lake, the mass of it carrying a physical force. He had the quick, paranoid thought that if it wanted, it could knock him off of his feet. He took her hand to steady himself and found his feet following her along the edge of the river and down another path. He followed her light, not sure now where he was—he hadn’t gone by foot much farther than the path from John’s to the river and then up the road to the gas station that sold Bud Light and Kool-Aid colored bottles of wine coolers.

I should go back, he called, but she didn’t turn or acknowledge him. Without her light, he wouldn’t be able to find his way back. He followed behind her, though his head pounded with each step, with each swing of his arms through the air.

It’s right up here. She turned and the light shone in his face.

She lived in a trailer much like John’s—flimsy, but neat, the skirting in a design of white hatching. She sat on the front steps and motioned for him to sit beside her.

His head throbbed. I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to die right here in front of this woman I don’t even know. My skin is going to split and my tongue will tear from my mouth and then my heart will stop.

Please, he said, kneeling on the ground. Can I use your light to get back? I’m sick. I’m sick with something.

The woman stood over him. You’re just not used to the fog, she said. Or you’re hungover. Why don’t you come inside?

He shook his head, on his hands and knees. His right knee leaned against something sharp—a baseball-sized rock with a tip like an arrowhead. He pushed the rock out of the way and let his knees sink down in the mud. He couldn’t think through the pain.

She knelt down close to his face. She smelled of sweat and shampoo and of the fog rising from the lake, vaguely salty and poisoned.

Hey, she said so loudly the sound echoed in his head, in the hollows of his face, and the pain crowded in behind it.

Please don’t shou—

What? She leaned close to his ear. I can’t hear what you’re saying. Can you hear—

The sound of the rock against the back of her head was sharp and quick and satisfying. She made small sounds, her mouth against the ground, and when he hit her again, her head collapsed slightly beneath the rock, she made tiny, jerking movements, one arm reaching up to slap the ground and then go limp. Her hair blackened in the light. The white dress was mud streaked, the collar splattered with blood.

He waited on his hands and knees until the headache faded enough for him to stand. He took the flashlight and the rock and went back down the path, back down the edge of the lake, where he stopped to throw the rock out into the water and wash his hands. The rock made a heavy, fleshy sound against the water and he imagined the lake swallowing it up and letting it rest down at the bottom, where the yellow fog came from.

He walked back up the path to John’s without any trouble. Inside, the room was just as he’d left it. How long had he been gone? He didn’t know how far it had been to the woman’s house, how long he’d stayed. Already, his memory was fading. The headache was like a buzzing television, a sound that drowned out his memory of the events or images. He remembered the rock, sharp against his knee, and how the smooth side fit perfectly in his hand.

The television was still on, but now it showed an infomercial for a bottle of pills. A number flashed across the screen and a man with teeth as bright as the concentrated light of a flashlight (how did he get the one in his hands? Billy thought) smiled and his mouth moved. Billy lay back down in his spot, curled his body into a ball, and fell asleep.