Read Wild Fell for Free Online

panties were somewhere nearby but she couldn’t find them, and didn’t care if she ever did, or if anyone else ever did either. She briefly flirted with feelings of concern for Sean’s well-being, but they dissipated as she remembered that this whole stupid idea had been his from the beginning. And if he
was
playing some sort of trick on her, then he deserved whatever he got for getting her in trouble with her folks. All she wanted was to be dressed, to find the keys for Sean’s truck, and to be away from Devil’s Lake.
    She remembered that she couldn’t drive the truck, but discarded that realization as quickly as it came to her. She could
try
to drive it, at least. She’d watched her father drive.
Insert the key in the ignition. Turn the key. Press the gas pedal. Reverse. Drive
. How difficult could it be? Or she could sit in the cab and blow the horn until someone heard her. She could lock the door,
both
the doors, and make so much noise with that horn that they’d hear her all the way back to Alvina and send someone to rescue her. She would blow the horn till
God
heard her.
    But Brenda knew she was a long way from Alvina, and it was late at night now. No one was coming for her. No one knew where she was. She’d told her parents she was going for a drive with Sean to the town beach with a group of their friends to watch the moon rise. That’s where they would look for her, not here. Not wherever
here
was. She remembered her delight in her disorientation as they’d driven to Devil’s Lake, her triumphant pleasure at feeling lost, at the absurd notion of travelling without leaving her town.
    Weeping, Brenda stumbled, feeling for branches. The branches would mean the edge of the path leading
up
, away from the shoreline, back to the truck, back to safety. Blindly, she flailed her arms, meeting nothing but the empty fog.
    And then she distinctly heard a muffled splash behind her. She pivoted on her heel.
    “Sean, is that you? Sean?”
It must be him! Who else could it be?
The relief that washed over her nearly brought her to her knees. Another splash came, louder this time. “Sean? Sean! Answer me! I can’t see!”
    Brenda took a few halting steps towards the sound, then stopped. Her feet were wet. She had been nearer the edge of the shore than she’d realized. Cold water engulfed her toes across the tops of her sandals. She squinted across the water, willing herself with every fibre of her being to be able to see. The ciliary muscles of her eyes tightened and strained, and her temples throbbed with the effort of focussing.
    And then, as if the omnipresent fog had abruptly thinned or parted in the gloom, Brenda
could
see. Not clearly, but at least she could see outlines: the bulk of Blackmore Island, darker than the water surrounding it, the edges looking like smaller pine scrub islands of smooth, rounded granite layering in the lake, grey on grey on black.
    A sudden subtle shift of shadows on the surface of the lake drew her eye to a place maybe fifteen yards offshore where a figure stood pale and unmoving in the murky starlight. Brenda drew a sharp intake of breath, covering her mouth with her hands to keep from screaming. As she watched, the figure moved deeper into the lake. This time there was no splash, just a susurrating displacement of water. Brenda saw that the figure was male, and nude. Of course it was Sean. Who else would it be? Before tonight, she might not have been able to recognize his body in the dark, but at that moment she still felt its ghost-imprint on her own and she knew it was him.
    Again, the impression of
cancellation
came to her. While she could see Sean through the fog, in the water, she could not
feel
Sean. Whatever he was doing in the lake at night, he wasn’t swimming. Or if he was swimming, he didn’t know it. She could see the tips of his elbows rising whitely out of the surface.
    The thought came to her, as clearly as if a voice had spoken in her brain:
Sean is drowning