I spun, as if expecting my mother to be right behind me. The cabin gazed back, a lonesome ghost. Its door hung open, like I had caught it mid-laugh, like it had read my mind and thought the idea of my mother being here was funny. Maybe Phillip hadn't shut the door all the way, but I'd smelled my mother's perfume. White Gardenia.
Margaret had her hand on Phillip's arm by the time I'd convinced myself that my mother couldn't have been with us. Of course Margaret would have gotten to him first. She'd been closer to him. She shook him. Beneath the thinness of his skin, his eyes roved, almost in circles. The veins in his fist engorged. Veins couldn't burst. I told myself that. The way they swelled told me otherwise.
"Open your eyes," Margaret said. Her hand slipped down the length of his arm to his hand where it rested. I envied her and the blood pumping through his veins. I wanted to be that close. "Open your eyes, Phillip," she said.
Manderley nipped his ear. Phillip's shoulder twitched, an indication that it had hurt him, but he kept his eyes closed. As if someone had turned a dial to dim the sun, the sky darkened, then flashed again with lightning. A breeze curled its way through the trees into my lungs. My own star dimmed. I couldn't let it go out.
"Phillip," I said, as thunder struck. It made it more dramatic, which hadn't been my intention, but it worked.
His eyes flew open, in the same motion that reminded me of curtains being drawn apart. He blinked at us. His expression asked, "How long had I been gone?" But when he spoke, he said, "We should get going." He didn't wait for us to respond. He took off in front with Manderley bouncing on his shoulder.
Margaret lifted her shoulders and followed him. My star sprung back to life as the sun appeared from behind the clouds, both flooding me with warmth. The weightiness of the air faded to nothing, along with all thought of my mother's ghost. It must have been a trick of my mind. Nothing more. I brushed it all away so easily. A trick of my mind and nothing more. One thing did not fade from me.
Phillip's eyes had opened at the sound of my voice. Not Margaret's.
"Hurry up," she called to me.
I ran to meet them.
***
I wish he would have told us how beautiful the lake would be. He whistled as he spread our blanket and food beneath the shade of a tree, a long note which said, "Would you look at that?" From her perch on the tree, Manderley cawed, which in crow speak I imagined meant, "How could we not?"
I stood back to take it all in, unlike Margaret who teetered to the edge. She'd kicked off her shoes as soon as she saw it. The water lapped against her feet, kissing the chipped blue polish on her toenails, like a wet, hungry tongue.
"It's warm," she said, with a smile that mirrored her age, youthful and bright, as crystalline as the lake. She reached down, gliding her fingers over the water in a back and forth motion, which disturbed the lake's natural current. The water swiveled beneath her touch. "I can't believe it," she said.
I couldn't believe it either. It's not like I hadn't seen a lake before. My father took me with him to Graystone Lake all the time where he owned a small motorboat. At the rear, I'd watch the water ripple and surge beneath us. Maybe I'd reach over the edge, close enough to touch but not quite. "Want to lose a finger?" my father would ask, and I'd bring my hand back to my side.
I didn't have the urge to be in the water like I did then. I didn't want to disturb its being, not like Margaret who waded farther in. The water darkened the ends of her rolled up jeans. She plunged her hand down beneath the surface, reaching for something, which must have reached back because she squealed.
Phillip came up behind my shoulder. "What is it?"
"Something tickled me," she said.
He laughed. "Good for you, Margaret. A kiss from a fish is good luck." He dropped his hand onto my shoulder, leaned in and whispered, "Not really, but don't tell her that."
I laughed. It sounded strange to me, like hearing my voice for the first time on an answering machine. I guess it was because he'd made me laugh. Margaret laughed, too, even though she hadn't heard him. She lifted her hands and shouted, "This is amazing."
Phillip's hand lingered on my shoulder. He used it to balance himself as he took of his boots. "You coming?" he asked.
"I'd rather listen," I said, without considering how strange it must have sounded, but Phillip, hand still braced on my shoulder, nodded like he'd understood either way.
"What's its name?" I asked. A lake like this one would have an extravagant name, like Superior or Erie or Winder.
He held out his arm, in a way that said, "Here it is."
"The Great Whispering Expanse," he said.
I laughed for the second time.
"You can swim though, right?" He dropped his left boot next to his right one and tore off his socks. The veins on his feet were as spindly and purple as the ones on his hands.
"I learned to swim before I could walk," I said, which wasn't the truth but close enough. I'd even thought about joining the swim team once.
His eyebrows shot up. He took his hand from my shoulder. I rolled the leftover sensation of where it had been away.
"Ivy, are you a water sprite?" he asked.
"What's a sprite?"
Rubbing his chin, he tilted his head back as if the answer were up there somewhere. I did the same, searching for it. I still watched the clouds when I realized he'd lowered his gaze and watched me instead. While before I'd had the sensation of being pulled beneath the inky pools of his eyes, now I saw something different, a glint of mischievousness. It disappeared before I could make sense of it.
"It's a water faerie," he said.
I searched his face to see if he'd meant it as a joke. He hadn't because he went on to say, "They breathe water like air. They're magical."
I breathed in the lake's dampness and held it for a second. Letting it out, I said, "Then I must be one."
He squinted, now scrutinizing me. "You're something."
He said it as if I could have been more than human, like something magical, something other. Margaret waved to us, averting Phillip's gaze from where it had lingered for too long on my collarbone.
"Are you guys coming or what?" she asked.
"Excuse me," he said, "but there's a lake with my name written all over it." He took off into the water, yelling, "Those fishes better pucker up."
***
Our stomachs were full, but our hearts were light as we lay sprawled out beneath the shade of the tree. Above the chorus of the lake, the pull of the tide to and fro, my heart sung. I asked myself, why would anyone want to leave this place?
Sunlight poured through the leaves and bathed my eyes in so much light a rainbow of colors danced behind my closed lids. I would never leave this place. I would never leave Margaret or Phillip. I didn't want the song in my heart to end.
"Sprite," Phillip said to me. He shifted. His arm pressed against mine. The scent of the lake clung to his skin and made me lightheaded. He smelled better than most boys.
"Yes," I said, in the same breathy way Margaret would have. I opened my eyes, rubbing the colors from my vision.
"There's a bug in your hair." He grabbed my wrist before I could move. "Hold on," he said. "Let me get it."
Margaret giggled.
"What is it?" I asked. I was prone to losing things in my coiled hair, hairpins most days. Sometimes they'd stay lost for days. I was more afraid for the bug than my hair.
His fingers worked through my tangles, brushing against my scalp, until he pulled something out. He held it to my eyes. "An ant," he said. As soon as he did, Manderley swept down out of the tree and nipped it from his fingers.
"They're her favorite." Phillip beamed. He rolled onto his back, tucking his hands beneath his head.
"Manderley," Margaret said. "What a name for a crow."
Manderley hopped into Phillip's lap, which must have been more comfortable for her than the tree because she stayed there. Closing his eyes, Phillip stoked her wing. Unlike last time where his eyes had roved beneath his skin, this time they were still.
"Nora," he said.
"Who's Nora?" Margaret asked. She sat up on her elbows, lips pressed against her bare shoulder blade. The imprint of her black bra showed beneath her white camisole. After coming from the lake, she'd peeled off her sweater to let dry. It hung above her on a branch, dripping steadily. Our backpacks, resting below the branch, caught most of the drips.
"Nora," Phillip repeated as if he hadn't heard her. He said Nora the same way he'd said magic, as if by saying her name she would emerge from the lake, dripping as steadily as Margaret's sweater, a true water sprite.
"She is not here," he said.
It was a proclamation not an answer.