Nina, do you remember that summer we spent up north at Loon Lake Resort? You were so little then, all tangled hair and hand-me-down dresses with straps that slid down your shoulders. The trip north was Mom’s idea. It was the summer after Grandma died, and Mom wanted to spread her ashes at the lake. So she packed us up in her old maroon Honda—you asleep in the back and me in the front with Grandma in a cardboard box at my feet. We drove with all the windows down because some animal, a mouse maybe, had crawled up inside the air-conditioning system and died.

You were only five when Grandma died. I was thirteen. I don’t know if Mom ever told you, but I was the one who found Grandma lying dead at the bottom of our bathtub, her open mouth full of green-gray bathwater. Everyone assumed she’d had a heart attack and slid beneath the surface. But, Nina, I don’t think that’s what happened, and you’re old enough for me to say so. I envy you that you can’t remember Grandma. Because all my memories with her are tied up with the way she looked that day, how her jaw hung open underwater like an unhinged door.

Loon Lake Resort sounds bourgeoise and all, but it was just a smattering of old pine cabins built along a dying lake. Did you know that lakes could die? Maybe you’ve learned that in school by now. What happens is that years’ worth of decay settles at the bottom and sucks up the lake’s oxygen. Did you know, Nina, that even lakes need oxygen to survive?

You were happy to be there. You and Mom sat on the thin strip of beach and dug holes, collected rocks, filled plastic buckets with murky water. I can’t say I was happy that summer, but I was relieved to be out of town, thankful that I wouldn’t have to run into the groups of girls in my class who never liked me. I was no good at making friends—not like you. You’re thirteen now, so you already know that you must be pretty, funny, or exceptional at something to make friends. Lucky for you to be all three.

One morning that summer, I woke up before dawn, and all I could think about was Grandma, still a pile of ashes in her cardboard box, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. I went outside to walk along the beach. The lake looked different so early in the morning: inky black and still as glass, the sand cold underfoot. A boy stood on the shoreline with his pants rolled up, skipping rocks. As I walked closer, I could see that he was about my age and tall, with long thin limbs and hair so blond that it looked nearly white against the silvering dawn sky. I didn’t expect him to see me. To most boys, I was a ghost. That is, most boys looked through me or past me or around me—never at me. So I was jarred when this boy saw me, when he stopped throwing rocks to watch me as I passed behind him on the beach.

Hey, he said.

Hey, I said back.

The boy told me I looked familiar—and here is where I need you to pay attention, Nina. I know I haven’t been a good sister to you, that I’ve kept my distance, that I haven’t earned the right to your listening ear. But this is important.

The boy told me his name was James and that he lived at the resort year-round, that his father owned the place. And, Nina, I sort of fell in love with him. I’m sure Mom has told you, too, that thirteen is too young to fall in love, but we both know that isn’t true.  

In the early mornings or late in the evenings, while you and Mom slept, I snuck out of our cabin to meet James. He was kind and funny, and he treated me like an equal. He wasn’t full of bravado or crude jokes like other boys my age. He showed me his favorite haunts around the resort: the best trees to climb, places to find arrowheads and agates, how to swipe cookies from the dining hall at midnight.

One night, James had the idea to break into the old resort lodge, a building that had long been abandoned because the few families who still came to the resort preferred to book the cabins. I waited for you and Mom to fall asleep, and then I snuck out like I had almost every night that summer. James had swiped an old set of keys from his father, and he used them to open the rusty lock on the front door of the lodge. Inside the main room of the lodge were three dusty billiard tables and a wide stone fireplace. The moon’s silver arms reached through gaping windows on one side of the room, casting warped shadows across the four massive moose heads that hung along the far wall. We sat cross-legged atop one of the billiard tables, our knees touching, moonlight kissing our shoulders.

And that’s when James told me that Loon Lake was haunted. In the darkness, his eyes were cavernous.

Bullshit, I said.

James said he wasn’t messing around. He pulled his knees away from mine and swung them over the edge of the billiard table. Then he lay down on his back and looked up at the lodge’s old boney chandeliers. My knees tingled at the points where his knees had touched. And then he began to tell a story, and it went like this:

Years and years ago, when the cabins along the lake were brand new, and when the water was still clear enough you could see straight to the bottom, some families from the resort went sailing. A sudden storm swept through and sunk their boats. Nearly everyone drowned, said James. And the ghosts of those people still wander the lake at night, drowning swimmers.

Bullshit, I said again—because it felt good to say that word, a word with some teeth.

Fine, he said, don’t believe me. Then he said, truth or dare?

Truth, I said. James rolled his eyes, and that gutted me, Nina, so I said: Okay, dare.

I dare you to jump into the lake, he said.

I told him, no way in hell.

You have to, he said. If you turn down a dare, he told me, the rule is you’ll die in your sleep in two days’ time. Then he said he’d jump with me.

The dock creaked beneath our bare feet as we neared the edge. The lake was blacker even than the night sky, like a sheet of nothing stretched to the horizon. We held hands. James counted backwards from three, and we leapt together, me squawking like a loon.

But when I resurfaced, James had vanished. I spun around, treading water. The lake was still, only the ripples from my own splashing broke the surface.

I called for James. You’re not funny! I said. The water was so dark, I couldn’t see my own body beneath me. I called out his name again, could feel myself beginning to panic.

That’s when I felt a cold hand grab hold of my leg. And, Nina, I know how all this sounds, but you know me to be a rational person, don’t you? The hand held tight just below my knee, tried to pull me under. Although, looking back, I do sometimes wonder whether the hand meant to pull me down with it, or if it was trying to use me to climb out—to save itself. I kicked hard against the pressure, thrashed my body the way Mom taught us to do if we were ever attacked. I screamed, inhaled water. The lake boiled around me.

I heard thudding footsteps. Someone pulled me from the water and up onto the dock, where I lay heaving and coughing. The woman who pulled me out was a resort staff member, broad shouldered and solid. What are you doing out here, sweetheart? She said. I let her walk me back to our cabin. I tiptoed past Mom’s bed and into our bunk room. I tried not to wake you as I changed into dry pajamas and crawled into the bottom bunk. Eventually, I fell asleep.

I awoke some minutes or hours later from a nightmare—Grandma crying out to me, her mouth a hole deep and dark as Loon Lake. When I opened my eyes, James was there in the room with us, hunched over my bed.

I wanted to shout, but you were sleeping right above me, Nina, so I swallowed it down. I whispered to him: Where were you? You left me to drown.

I’m sorry, okay? he said. He paused. Then, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him, he asked, can I lay with you for a little while? I don’t want to be alone, he said.

I told him Mom would kill us if she found him there, but he promised to leave before morning. And I didn’t want to be alone either, Nina. So I made room, and he lay next to me on top of the covers, his body cold and his hair smelling like the inside of a seashell.

When I woke in the morning, James was gone like he’d promised, and Mom was sitting on the edge of my bed, the cardboard box with Grandma’s ashes on her lap. I’m ready now, she said.

You, me, and Mom stood out on the dock in our pajamas, the sun blooming reddish-pink and setting the lake on fire. Mom opened the box and poured Grandma’s ashes into the water, and we watched her powdered body swirl and disappear below the surface.

I’m guessing you don’t remember this, but, after that, Mom said, I want to show you girls something. We followed her to the resort’s dining hall, where she led us to a wall of peeling paint and old photographs. She pointed to a faded image of a girl and a boy sitting cross-legged on top of a billiard table.

Do you recognize her? Mom asked, pointing to the girl in the photo.

We shook our heads.

It’s your grandma, said Mom. She and her parents came up to Loon Lake almost every summer when she was a kid. She loved it here.

Nina, do you remember what you said, then? You pointed to the boy in the photograph, and you said, That’s Lydia’s friend. He slept in our room last night.

So, Nina, I know you’ve seen him before—that maybe you could still recognize him.

After we put Grandma’s ashes in the lake, I didn’t see James again. I snuck out that night and walked the beach, looked through the windows of the old lodge, walked the edge of the woods around the resort. He was gone. I wondered then if we’d done the right thing when we put Grandma’s ashes in the lake. I’d hoped we had.

But I’m telling you all this now, Nina, because I saw James again just yesterday. Ten years later, and there he was—a spectator in the bleachers at your swim meet. He was watching you, Nina. And I know Mom tells you all the time how much you look like Grandma. Certainly more than Mom or I ever did.

I feel helpless, Nina, because I can’t protect you. I am only your sister, and all I have is my story, my words. But I hope you hear them. And when the time comes, I hope you’ll kick hard, that you’ll thrash your body, that you’ll fight to find the surface.  

Jo Saleska is a writer and editor based in St. Louis, Missouri. Her fiction has been published in Peatsmoke, Fauxmoir, and a speculative anthology from Alternating Current Press. She has an MA in literature from the University of Missouri, Columbia and recently completed her MFA at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where she was awarded the Mary Troy Prize for Fiction. She is currently working on a collection of fabulist short stories. You can read more of her writing at josaleska.com.