David Nickle - The 'Geisters

They didn’t take the Bounty II out every day. But it quickly began to feel as if that were the schedule. Their dad was an enthusiastic sailor, and was also pretty good at it, or so it seemed to Ann. He could find wind on a still July morning and he knew about sailors’ knots and he could read a nautical chart.

They crossed the lake and back again, explored what little there was to see, waved at cottagers, and spent two nights on board, crammed into a space even smaller than the boathouse. Their mom knew how to play guitar, and the second night out their dad persuaded her to bring it along. They all sang old songs: “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and “Let It Be,” and most of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (until they cracked up laughing and had to stop).

They didn’t go out every day. But they got in quite a lot with the boat in the time they had with her.

It was July 19 th, and a Tuesday. The sky that morning was a clear blue bowl, and even on the lake, it was hot. Ashore, the contractors were putting up drywall between the master bedroom and the second-floor hall. The LeSages were out, on the Bounty II .

Philip and their parents were up top in the cockpit, and that was fine with Ann. Their dad was intent on teaching him how to run the boat, so Philip was stuck behind the wheel while his dad swung the boom around and hollered for anyone topside to duck.

Ann wasn’t topside. She was below, just out of sight of the companionway, making her own fun. She didn’t have a lot to work with—most of her toys were shut up in storage. But her mom had bought her a Barbie doll in town. And she’d finally had a look at that Len Deighton novel.

So she did what she could.

At 11:22 a.m. (by the clock over the stove), Barbie awoke: trapped in the hold of a big steamer bound to Egypt with a shipment of bomb parts that the master-spy Mr. Champion was sending to terrorists. Barbie was wearing her tennis outfit, because the last thing she was doing before the bad men had stuck her with a needle was getting ready to meet her spy handler Ken for a double set of tennis and a briefing. She wobbled back and forth unsteadily, coming to herself by degrees.

“Don’t panic, girl, just figure this out—before they come.”

“Panic and you’re through,” said Ann aloud.

Outside, the weather was getting choppy, but Ann was okay with that. The steamer was going through a storm, crawling up huge waves and crashing down… lightning flashed between clouds blacker than… than, um, night. The darkest night! The men who’d captured Barbie were distracted, trying to keep the ship on course.

It all gave Barbie precious seconds, as she worked out where she was—explored the space around the spare gas tank, clambered over the wooden keel and looked for ways out.

“You’ll never escape, foolish girl.”

Ann tried not to giggle. Philip was doing voices, she figured; she could feel the coolness as his shadow blocked the sun on her.

And it was a great voice. She played along: “You can’t keep me here. My family will come get me!”

“Your family? What makes you think your family is in any position to get you?”

“My family has a helicopter,” said Ann (as Barbie). “It’s got a big machine gun on the bottom of it. And when it flies? It goes so fast!”

“Never faster,” said the voice, “than when it’s falling.”

“They have parachutes! Let me go or they’ll machine-gun you!” Ann made machine gun noises with her mouth: “CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH!”

“They can’t machine-gun me.”

“They can!”

“No.”

“Let me go!” shouted Ann, delighted.

“You don’t want to go.”

A blast of water hit Ann in the back of the head, and at that, she turned around, to give Philip hell. But he wasn’t there. The companionway was empty but for a dark, rolling sky.

Ann put Barbie down and climbed the steps.

Her dad, at the wheel, told her to stay down and make sure her life jacket was tight. The boat was rocking and rain was coming down hard, flying in all directions. They’d taken the sails down. The motor was on, chugging desperately. Philip and their mom were at the back of the boat, bailing, and looking away—

—to a huge spinning ribbon of water, climbing higher than the trees.

It was moving from side to side, twisting prettily under the fat, black clouds, like a towel spun tight between hands. It made a sound like a big waterfall, like Niagara Falls.

Her dad shouted something at her, and he met her eyes, and Ann froze. She had seen many things in her dad before, some of which she couldn’t put a name to. This was the first time she’d seen such naked fear. She had no trouble naming it.

The boat wheeled around and another big wave rocked them as she ducked back into the cabin. Water rushed in after her.

Ann grabbed onto the side of the steps as the water ran down the deck toward the bow and then came back again, a tea-coloured mix of lake water and the sand she’d trekked in with her flip-flops. It dragged Barbie along with it. She was facedown in the water. The storm had not been a lucky break for her after all.

The boat pitched and the water deposited Barbie at Ann’s feet. Still holding onto the ladder with one hand, Ann reached down with the other and grabbed Barbie by the hair. She pushed the doll into the crook of her arm and held it there as another sluice of water came through. It was freezing cold down her back, and she squealed.

“Hang on, honey.” Mom was on her knees. Hands gripping the hatch. Everyone was on their knees, because the boom was swinging wildly as the boat turned in the water.

“Close the hatch!” Ann shouted. Her mom shook her head: “No honey! I don’t want you trapped. Just stay there,” and Ann screamed, so that her breath steamed in the cooling air:

“Close it!”

And at that, the boat pitched, and her mother slipped back, and then Ann couldn’t tell anything, because the hatch was shut, and she was back in the hold of the steamer.

“Where is the girl?”

“She was knocked right out when we left.”

“Well she isn’t now, dumkopf . She has escaped. We must search the ship.”

“Who’s there?” The cabin—the hold—was dark as night. Ann held Barbie tight, and felt the deck pitch underneath her. A lash of rain and water hit one of the portholes and drew back. A latch clicked, and she heard one of the drawers sliding open. Then came a clattering—a sound of cutlery dumping onto the deck.

“Not here.”

“Philip?” The voice didn’t sound like Philip—it seemed deeper than he could manage, and… somehow foreign, and… it seemed to be everywhere.

Maybe at her shoulder.

“The little bitch is crafty,” it said.

“Only so many places to be crafty,” it said, “on this ship.”

Something covered the porthole then, for just an instant—and Ann felt a plastic bowl bounce off her ankle. When the porthole reappeared, Ann could see a rime of frost forming around its edges.

“Not there.”

Ann felt her stomach turn then, and the light shifted and shifted; the wooden hull moaned and the water that had gotten in sloshed frantically. Ann swallowed—tears of panic crawled from her eyelids. She held the Barbie tighter, and thought: We’re in the waterspout!

“Here?” Something snapped, and dishes clattered and Ann felt herself being pressed against the ladder now as the spinning grew quicker.

“Where is that little bitch?”

The boat was going to break apart!

“Give yourself up!”