Eddie!
The single thought of him jack-knifed me up. The urgency of the movement caused everything around me to sway and rock. My stomach rolled, and I reached out to steady myself. My hand closed around rough, hard wood. Even after blinking, my surroundings continued to bob and sway.
Looking around, my wobbly gaze finally settled on the widow. “What are you doing?” I demanded, sitting up to take better stock of my surroundings.
Oh my God, we were in a boat in the middle of the lake. Frantically, I looked around for the shoreline, for Eddie’s little cabin. All I saw was darkness.
“Help!” I screamed. “Eddie!”
The oar slammed down on the top of my hand where I gripped the side of the boat. I cried out in pain and cradled my fist against my chest.
“Shut up!” the widow ordered in a harsh voice. She was sitting on the other side of the boat, which could be considered little more than a canoe. The oar she used to bust open Eddie’s head and smack me in the face was the same one she used to row us across the lake.
I didn’t have to ask where we were going. It was obvious. There was only one place we could go. Rumor Island. I shook my head, confused. That didn’t make sense. That was the first place people would look. The second Eddie woke up, he would come to the island because it was Widow West who bashed him in the head.
If he woke up at all.
The horrible thought caused my body to quake violently.
“Hold still!” the woman snapped. “You’re rocking the boat.”
I tossed my weight around, and the boat reacted instantly. Maybe I’d get lucky and she’d fall out and drown. It wasn’t a very nice thought, but there had been much worse in the history of thoughts.
The woman screeched and lifted the oar. “I’ll knock you out again!” she threatened.
Shielding my head and face with my arms, I shrank away. “No, please,” I begged. I couldn’t let her knock me out again. I needed to stay alert. I needed to get away and get back home.
Home. That one thought proved to me it didn’t matter where I’d come from. That place wasn’t home. Not anymore. My home was in Lake Loch, with Eddie and Maggie.
“You have no idea the trouble you’ve caused,” she retorted, going back to rowing us across the water.
I gazed out, noting how black everything was out here. How low fog clung to the surface of the water, giving everything an ominous look. The moon was low in the sky. From out here in the boat, it almost looked as if it were floating in the distance, a part of the lake, of the mystery of this place.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured.
“How convenient for you.” The woman groaned. “Memory loss. It’s the only thing that’s kept you alive, you know. If you’d woken up and started talking, you’d be dead.”
“You know who I am,” I said, desperation in my tone. “Why haven’t you said anything? Why didn’t you come to the hospital?”
She cackled. “Oh, I did. I came and watched you quite often. No one ever pays attention to the hermit widow from across the lake. I can slip around practically unseen because no one ever expects me to be around.”
I stared at her, shocked.
She laughed as if my confusion gave her joy. “You don’t remember my visits?”
I gasped, sitting upright. “It was you! You’re the one who’s been stalking me. Trying to kill me!” I stared at her hard, trying to decide if she was the figure beneath the dark clothes, cloak, and oversized hood. She could be. That last time, I noticed the stalker wasn’t much taller than I was… The figure could most definitely have been a woman.
“Make no mistake; I wish you were dead. But if I’d been there to kill you, I would have.” Her voice was ominous and promising. It was also void of the emotion I expected. It was almost as if she were numb, as if she didn’t even know what she was doing.
“What happened to your face?” I asked, observing the mottled bruises and cuts on her face. I wondered if her clothes concealed even more injuries.
“You happened!” She raged. “You and that stupid boyfriend of yours. If you hadn’t screamed your head off in the hospital and tried to fight me off, I wouldn’t look like this right now!”
“What?” I wondered. She looked half crazed, wet and dry, her hair flying out around her face as she furiously paddled.
She was crazy. Purely insane.
“Every time I came back without you, he got angrier and angrier, until this last time. He beat me so much I was in bed for days.” The oar started slapping against the water, not really rowing the boat forward, but creating a lot of splashing and sharp cracking sounds every time it hit. “He told me if I didn’t come back with you this time, he’d kill me.”
“Who?” I pleaded, desperately trying to remember something. Anything. The man from your memories.
I didn’t want to know, but not knowing might end my life. It seemed as though it were quickly coming down to dying in the dark or living with the knowledge and likely being changed forever.
“He’s going to be livid about your hair.” She went on. “I didn’t tell him, but he’ll see and you’ll pay.”
I shivered. Her words were proof the memory I had was the truth and not some distortion of my mind.
“You’ve been trying to kidnap me,” I said, thinking of the last time at the hospital.
She nodded. “He wants you back. You’re his.”
A sick feeling washed over me. I glanced around again, looking for something I could use as a weapon. Or some way to escape. I thought about jumping into the water, letting the dark depths conceal me from view.
My limbs locked up at the idea, and memories of the night I almost drowned filled my head. The last time I was in this lake, I nearly died. Someone tried to drown me. But it wasn’t her… The looming figure had been bigger, stronger.
My voice was shaky when I spoke. “If he wants me back so bad, why did he try and kill me in the first place?”
“Kill you?” She scoffed, incredulous. “He didn’t try to kill you.”
“Yes, he did!” I cried, lurching toward her. She waved the oar near me, clipping me on the shoulder. I grunted and fell back. “I remember! I’d been drowning in the lake, and he was looming above the surface, waiting for me…” I swallowed, pushing the fear that arose in me back down. “The second I came up for air, he hit me with something hard, and I blacked out, nearly drowned.”
“Is that what you think?” she mused, once again calmly rowing like this was some Sunday afternoon activity.
“I know,” I spat, unnerved by her erratic mood swings.
She chuckled. “You have it all wrong. He never tried to kill you that night. We haven’t tried to kill you since.”
“But I remember,” I argued, starting to doubt myself. An uncomfortable, dark feeling arose within me. I stared at the widow as she rowed.
“Someone did try to kill you that night.” She went on, adding fuel to the sick fire within me.
“Who?” I commanded.