Dark Waters (Small Spaces Quartet)

The lights flickered.

Brian’s head jerked up from the book. Ollie and Coco looked around too, warily. The lights flickered again.

“Must be the storm—­” Coco began.

And then the lights went out.

Right at that same moment, someone knocked—­boom, boom, boom—­on the door.

The three of them froze. They knew better than to scream. They stared at the door. The only light came from the fire. It threw their shadows big and strange on the walls.

Boom. This time the knock shot them to their feet and close together. Coco tripped over her pile of books; Ollie caught her, and they stood in the middle of the room, hands gripping tight.

“I didn’t see anyone outside!” Brian breathed. “I didn’t see a car . . .”

“There wasn’t a car,” whispered Ollie. “We’d have seen the lights.”

“Maybe it drove up with the lights off?” whispered Coco.

Ollie glanced down at her wrist. She was wearing a watch. But it wasn’t an ordinary watch. It had belonged to her mother, who was dead. Its screen was cracked; it didn’t tell time. But sometimes it gave Ollie advice.

Like now.

It was glowing faintly blue, and a single word jumped on the screen in faint, flickering letters.

Hush, it said.

All three of them went still. Brian felt sweat start on his forehead. His heart was thumping away, like a pheasant in spring. Why were heartbeats so loud? He tried not to breathe. He could feel the girls’ hands sweating in his. Run away? Stay still?

Hush.

The knocking had stopped. Now he heard the soft sound of footsteps. Circling the house. Going toward the big front window. Scratch. Scritch. Someone was scraping at the pane of glass. Brian’s heartbeat seemed to rattle his rib cage. None of them moved.

The footsteps went back toward the door. Now they saw the door handle quiver. Very slowly, the handle turned downward. Down and down it went. Brian couldn’t see the dead bolt in the dimness. He’d locked it, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?

He could hear Coco breathing quick and shallow beside him.

The door handle was down at its very lowest point.

“Run,” whispered Ollie, her hand clutching his.

But before any of them could move, a brilliant light cut through the curtains, like a car—­a car coming across the parking lot. The handle stopped moving. They all stood, holding their breath.

The lights flickered. Came back on.

The door was still shut. There was no one there but them.

“I locked the door,” Brian whispered. “I did. I swear.”

“I believe you,” said Ollie. She glanced down at her watch again. Brian looked over her shoulder. So did Coco. The watch was blank now. Just an old digital wristwatch, too big for Ollie’s wrist, with a spiderwebbing crack on the screen. They were all trembling.

The headlights in the parking lot cut out. Next moment, Brian heard his parents’ voices, arguing cheerfully, as his mom and dad got out of the car. He breathed again. They might have imagined the whole thing.

But he was pretty sure they hadn’t.

“What was that?” whispered Coco.

“I—­don’t know,” said Ollie.

“Saved by your parents, Brian,” said Coco. “I guess that is your parents?”

“Yes,” said Brian. They were still clutching hands.

“You don’t think anything’s still out there?” said Ollie. “Anything dangerous?”

“The lights came back on,” Brian pointed out shakily.

Neither girl replied. He heard his mother’s footsteps on the front walk. Heard them pause on the front porch. Then she came clattering in, pausing at the threshold to say something, laughing, to Brian’s dad. Just like normal.

Brian’s mom seemed surprised to see them all standing in the middle of the great room. “You look like baby raccoons on walkabout,” she said, smiling. “I guess you got hungry?”

Brian licked his lips and found his voice. “Yeah, Mom,” he said. “Super hungry.”

Brian’s mom had light brown skin and her eyes were just like Brian’s. Like a pond in summer, Brian’s dad would say. When the light shines through.

When the inn was in season, they ate whatever the restaurant was serving. When it wasn’t, they ate a lot of takeout. His mom, who ran the restaurant during the season, got tired of cooking. “A break, please. I beg,” she’d say, and call the Thai place or the burger spot. Everyone in town knew his mom.

Now Brian smelled something yummy. The next second, his dad came in, holding four flat boxes.

His dad said, “We met Roger and Zelda in town.” Roger and Zelda were Ollie’s dad and Coco’s mom. “They’re coming up for dinner. Brian, wash your hands, wash your ears. It’s time to make dinner!”

Coco said, “Mr. Battersby—­are we not eating pizza?”

Brian’s dad looked at the boxes in his hands and jumped, like he was surprised. “Oh,” he said. “Where did these come from?”

His dad liked to joke. So did Ollie’s dad. They got along amazingly. “Ha,” said Brian. “Come on,” he added to the girls. “Let’s wash up.”

As they were heading out, he heard his mom calling. “Brian—­Brian,” she said. “Did you leave anything on the front porch?”

Brian stopped. Beside him, he felt the girls go still.

Brian turned around. “Um, no,” he said. His tongue felt sticky. “Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, really,” said his mom. “Just found this on the ground in front of the door. Thought I’d check before I chuck it in the bin.” She held it up. It was a round black piece of paper about the size of Brian’s palm.

Brian hesitated. Then Ollie said clearly, “That’s mine, Ms. Battersby. I dropped it. School project.”

“Well, great,” said his mom. “Glad I could find it before it got wet.”

She held it out. Ollie glanced at her watch, as though for guidance. But her watch didn’t do anything, and Ollie marched over and took the black piece of paper from his mother’s hand.

“Hm,” said his mom, frowning at all three of them. Brian supposed they still looked a little freaked, from the darkness and the scratching footsteps. “Are you okay? Probably hungry, huh? Go get washed up. I’ll set the table.”

They went into the washroom. The second the door closed, Coco said, “Ollie, what’s that?”

Ollie was eyeing the thing in her hand with puzzlement. “A piece of paper. Look, someone charcoaled this side. That’s why it’s black.” She held up a black-­smudged hand to demonstrate.

“What about the other side?” said Coco.

Slowly, Ollie turned it over. The back of the paper wasn’t charcoaled. There were a few words written instead, in delicate, old-­fashioned cursive.

Bell, it said. Then, dog saturn day flower moon.

And then, Consider yourselves warned.—­S.

One shiver chased another up Brian’s spine.

“Who is it from?” whispered Coco. They looked at each other. “Is it—­is it him?” Her voice went shrill. When they first met him, the smiling man had called himself Seth, and he had seemed nice. He wasn’t, though. Not at all. Coco’s finger traced the spidery cursive S.

Another knock broke the silence of the bathroom. All three of them stiffened, glancing instinctively at the bathroom mirror. But nothing moved in the mirror but them. The knock had come from the front door. Again? But the lights were on.

Brian felt the hair rise on his arms.

The front door creaked. They all held their breath. And then a chorus of adult voices—­“So glad you could make it, come in, come in . . .”