Элизабет Чандлер - Don't Tell

At least my eyes were adjusting. I saw the outline of the ladder to the loft just a few feet ahead of me and started toward it.

“Don’t close the door, Nora,” I called to her. “I need all the light I can get. Did you hear? I said don’t—” The door shut.

“Nora? Nora!” I shouted. “No-ra!”

It was pitch black inside. I kept my hands on the wall and took a step toward the door. “All right, Nora,” I called, struggling to keep my voice calm, “what are you doing?”

Metal scraped against metal. She was fastening the padlock.

“Nora!”

I rushed toward the door. My toe caught on the uneven boards and I pitched headlong in the dark. My fingers touched the ledge of a window frame but slipped off. I teetered on the edge of the walkway, my ankle wobbling. I couldn’t stand the thought of falling into the foul water, the water where Nora said my mother slept.

I caught my balance again and sank down on my knees. I didn’t care whether Nora was playing a prank or truly afraid, I was angry. I banged my fists against the wall. “Nora! Let me out!”

Her voice was faint. “Lauren?”

“This isn’t funny,” I said. “Unlock the door.”

“She’s awake!” Nora cried out.

“What?”

“She’s awake!” Nora sounded out of breath, as if she were running away.

“Come back here.”

There was no reply. I rested my head against the wall, thinking about what to do. Then, in the oppressive darkness and silence, I heard it: the movement of water, its restless shift from side to side in the boat-house. I couldn’t see the water, but I could hear it, slapping the walls, tumbling back on itself. Something was stirring it up.

I listened as it grew more turbulent. Was it some animal?

Had one gotten through the tangle of nets abandoned at the entrance? Something was in the water, something Nora must have heard or seen before.

She’s looking for her little girl, Nora had said. I shivered.

My mother was always looking for me, panicking as soon as I’d disappear from sight. I cowered against the boathouse wall and flinched with each slap of the water, feeling — or imagining — water droplets on my arms.

Then the lapping grew softer. The water became eerily quiet again.

I took a deep breath. Something ordinary is going on here, I told myself. Figure it out, Lauren; two people out of touch with reality is one too many.

A boat wake — that would explain the sudden movement of water. I hadn’t heard a powerboat pass, but I was focused on other things; perhaps I didn’t notice it. I rose to my feet.

What was Nora thinking? I wondered. That she had gotten rid of me, locking me with my mother in the boathouse?

I called out several times and received no response. I needed something heavy to bang against the door. The padlock wouldn’t give way, but the old hinges might I glanced around. Small cracks of light between the boards allowed me to orient myself. I remembered that tools had been kept in the loft and made my way slowly down the walkway. Grasping the ladder, I began to climb it, hoping none of the rungs were rotted through.

When I got to the top, I reached out gingerly. My fingers touched something metallic and small — a chain, a piece of jewelry. I tucked it in my pocket and continued to search. At last I found an object with a long handle and a cold steel end. Perfect! An ax.

I carefully backed down the ladder and felt my way to the door. Perhaps it would be smart to shout a few more times, I thought, before swinging away like Paul Bunyan.

“Hey! Let me out! Let me out!

I waited for two minutes and screamed again. Giving up, I raised the ax, then froze when I heard someone fumbling with the lock. The door opened and I blinked at the sudden brightness.

“Well, hello,” a deep voice greeted me.

“I told you to be careful,” said another voice — Nick’s.

“There could be an ax murderer inside.”

I lowered the ax and stepped into the fresh air.

Nick looked amused. “What were you doing in there?”

“Building a boat.”

He laughed and turned to the man next to him.

“Recognize her, Frank?”

“Barely,” his uncle replied. “You’ve grown up, girl. You’ve grown up real nice. Welcome home, Lauren.”

“Hey, Mr. Frank. It’s good to see you again.”

“Please, just Frank,” he told me. “Don’t make me feel any older than I am.”

I grinned. His face was lined from all the sun he got and his hairline receding, but his eyes were just as bright and observant, and his smile was the same.

“How did you get locked in there?” he asked. “You couldn’t have done it yourself.”

“Nora helped.”

Frank looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“She asked me to get some fishing line so she could tie up her plants.”

“You mean she set you up? She trapped you?”

“Oh, come on, Frank,” Nick said.

“It’s hard to tell with her,” I replied.

Frank shook his head. “Jule has got to get that girl some help.”

“Let’s not get on that subject again,” Nick told his uncle.

“But it’s true, Nick,” I said. “Nora has become really strange.”

“She’s crazy,” Frank declared. “One of these days she’s going to do some real damage.”

“She’s harmless,” Nick insisted.

“Sorry, kid, but she’s out of touch with reality, and that’s dangerous.”

“Well, if she asks me to get this ax,” I said, “I think I’ll say no.”

Frank laughed. I set the tool inside, beneath the light chain, then closed the door. Frank put the padlock on and returned the key to its hook.

“Seriously, Lauren,” he went on, “you need to convince Jule to get Nora to a shrink. Jule’s got to stop acting so irresponsible.”

I winced; I didn’t want to think the godmother I had adored for so long was anything worse than lax. But in relying on Holly to figure out how to pay the bills and denying Nora’s need for help, she was letting them carry burdens that shouldn’t have been theirs.

“Maybe they can’t afford a doctor,” Nick pointed out.

Frank’s cell phone rang.

“If Jule sold that land of hers, she could afford a lot of things” he replied and plucked the phone from his pocket.

“Hello. You got me. Who’s this?. . Well, is it now? How much riverfront?” He gave Nick and me a salute and headed back to his house, talking real estate and prices.

“Still making those deals,” I observed.

“Seven days a week,” Nick replied, walking with me along the edge of the river toward Aunt Jule’s dock. “I’ve been painting his living room — you know Frank, he likes cheap help — and he’s been using every opportunity to talk me into a double major in business and pre-law. According to him, a law degree is better than a million lottery tickets, if you know how to use it.”

“Meaning it’s the road to riches?”

“If you know how to use it. He’s probably afraid I’ll turn out like my parents.”

I laughed. Nick’s father was an artist, his mother, a poet and professor at Chase, the local college. I remembered their house as a cozy shore cottage stuffed with books and smelling of linseed oil and turpentine. Nick’s father and Frank had grown up in that home, the sons of a waterman with very little money. But Frank had gone on to marry a wealthy woman who owned the house and land where he now lived. She had died several years after he’d completed law school. They didn’t have any children and he never remarried. Having become a prosperous lawyer and real estate developer, I guessed the only thing he had in common with Nick’s parents was their love for Nick.

“So are you turning out like them? Do you still write and draw?”