The Reflection in Grovefell Lake

Ally slammed the car door harder than she meant to, and the ground crunched beneath her feet as she stepped out.

She’d only meant to shut it just hard enough that Caleb knew she was angry, but not so hard that the handle would almost fall off. She could hear his muted voice through the glass: “What the hell, Al!” She ignored him, crossed her arms over her chest, and rubbed her gloved hands up and down her body for warmth. She let out a deep sigh and her breath clouded around her.

It was chillier up North in Muskoka than it was back in the city. She’d hoped she might be able to get one last autumn swim down at the lake, though it would have been freezing regardless, but now, she was unsure she’d get to at all. The cottage had been in their family since Ally was a kid, but she hadn’t been back in years, not since her mom had passed.

Caleb got out of the car, and gently closed his side of the door, making his way to the trunk.

“There’s a lot to unpack,” he said. Meaning, get a move on, Al.

“I’m just taking it all in,” she said.

Ally loved the fall up North. There were trees stretching for miles, a tapestry of brown and orange hues. The dirt road was the only one for about five kilometers, and the nearest town was about five more. Her dad had renovated the cottage right after her mom’s death, two years ago. Now, it had big glass windows overlooking the lake, a bar and pool table in the basement, four bedrooms with double bunk beds in each. Ally had preferred when the cottage was simpler, more rustic, but she knew her dad needed the change; he didn’t want to see the memory of his wife in every room every time they came to get away.

Ally grabbed the cooler from the trunk and followed Caleb up the steps to the front door. She liked the way he looked from behind: a grey North Face sweater stretched across his back, and jeans that were too tight, but he’d been “working legs” recently and wanted to show off his body; his short, dark hair covered with a grey toque. They’d been together for four years. He was there for her through it all: the car crash, sitting by her bedside in the hospital, holding her hand when she found out her mom didn’t make it. But in the last year, something had shifted. Maybe he had given her all he could in her grief, and now he had nothing left to give.

“Keys?” he asked.

“I’m getting them.” Ally pulled the keys out of her jacket pocket, balancing the cooler on her left knee. The lock was always jammed. They would joke that her dad could get a new seven-inch TV, but he couldn’t manage to fix the front door. She gave it a shove, swung it open, and felt a chill rush through her.

“There is heating, right?” Caleb asked, pushing past her into the front room and dumping his bags on the floor.

“I thought you were going to make us a fire since you’re so strong and manly now,” Ally joked.

“Are we back to not fighting?”

She put the cooler down. “I just wish you’d come to me about the job before you took it.”

“I know.” He grabbed her hands and put her arms around his neck, pulling her face close to his. “We still have a month together before I have to move.”

Ally looked past him, into the open living room, and out the glass window at the lush of trees, the lake peeking out between the cracks.

“Let’s just forget about it for this weekend. We’ll talk logistics on Monday, okay?” He tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Okay,” Ally said.

“Besides, Dave and Lianne are going to be here tonight.”

“Right. Why did we have to invite them again?”

“Because Dave is my best friend, and you said you wanted to get to know Lianne better.” He nestled his face into her neck and pressed his lips against her skin. “It’s going to be a great weekend,” he said and kissed his way up to her forehead. “I promise.”

~

The sun was already low in the sky, and it was only half-past four. Ally dipped her feet in the lake as she sat on the edge of the dock. She had been right: it was freezing. As she kicked her feet, she watched the ripples in the water grow until they dissipated with the waves. The last time Ally was here had been with her mom. She could see her now, sitting beside her on the dock, looking off into the sunset. They’d been talking about something serious—what now, Ally couldn’t remember. She blocked out so many memories from before the crash. It was too painful to go back to those times.

“Sweetheart,” her mom was saying. “You know I love your father. It’s complicated. I didn’t mean for you to…” she trailed off.

“What’s Al done now?” her dad came up behind them, wrapped his arms around her mom’s neck as he handed her a glass of white and kissed the top of her head.

Ally rolled her eyes and looked away. “Why do you always think I’ve done something?” she said.

“Why are you always so grumpy?”

Her dad leaned over and shook her by the shoulders and her mom said, “Hey, Ethan, watch my wine!” He nudged Ally too hard, and then her mom again: “Ally, sweetheart, watch out!” as Ally nearly lost balance.

They were no longer at the lake. They were in the car, and her mom was screaming, “ALLY, WATCH OUT,” and Ally’s eyes locked with her mom’s panicked face, but there was something else she could see in her mother’s eyes—she was afraid, but not of the fact that the car was about to flip over, of something else, something she saw in Ally’s eyes. And then there was a reflection in the lake, a woman, a girl. A pale hand reaching out from below the surface of the water…

“Mom?” she whispered.

“Ally!”

Ally whipped her head around to see Lianne walking down the dock with wine in hand, wearing a vest, hoodie, and converse shoes that were much too white for cottage country. She had long, nearly black hair she pinned half up with a clip, and was wearing cherry-red lipstick, also not cottage-appropriate. Ally had only met Lianne a handful of times, but she was struggling to connect with her. She always seemed to take digs at Ally. Like she knew something Ally didn’t.

Ally looked back to the water, but the reflection in the lake was gone. She pushed to her feet. “Hey, Lianne. How was the drive?”

“Oh yeah, not too bad. It’s kind of spooky up here, isn’t it? So remote.” Lianne made a fake shuddering sound and then put an arm around Ally. “You looked like you were about to fall into the lake, you okay?”

“Yeah, I just thought I saw something in the water,” Ally said.

~

The two couples sat around the fire that Caleb had indeed made while Ally had been by the water. They’d moved on from wine and were now having whiskey sours, Ally’s favourite. Dave was Caleb’s college roommate. He and Dave worked together at a start-up that travelled to different campuses around the country, selling their tech to professors. Now, they were expanding to the States, which is why Caleb was relocating. Ally couldn’t help but feel like Dave had talked Caleb into it, and it made her bitter.

“I remember why I found this place so spooky,” Lianne said. “This is Grovefell Lake, right?”

Ally nodded.

“We used to rent a cottage up here when I was a kid, and my grandparents told me this crazy story of a girl who drowned one summer. Her name was Lacy. She was nerdy, a loner, everyone made fun of her, but their high school grad was up here at someone’s lake, and she came along. As a prank, some of the jocks drove out to the middle of the lake and abandoned her in one of the canoes without any paddles. Lacy tried to swim back to shore, but she’d had a few drinks and wasn’t a great swimmer, so she drowned. Now, she haunts Grovefell Lake, pulling in anyone she can so she’s not alone anymore.”

“Oooooh,” Dave teased, grabbing Lianne by the shoulders, and making her jump. She swatted him away.

Ally thought back to the reflection she’d seen earlier in the water. She must have just been imagining things.

“I don’t believe in ghost stories,” Caleb said and took a swig of his drink. “Let’s play a game.”

“'Never have I ever?” Lianne suggested, and everyone agreed.

They played “never have I ever,” which involved saying a thing you have never done, and if you have done it, you have to drink and put down a finger. Ally had all but one finger down, Caleb and Dave had three left, and Lianne had five fingers of one hand still up. The room was heating up from the warmth of the fire and the alcohol. Caleb got up to get everyone another round of drinks, and Lianne leaned closer to Ally as if she was about to tell her a secret.

“Never have I ever taken a job just to get away from my girlfriend,” she said.

“What the fuck, Lianne,” Dave said. “You’ve had enough,” he pulled her drink out of her hands.

“What, Davie? Mad that you can’t abandon us in the water like poor Lacy?”

“What are you talking about?” Ally said.

“Don’t you ever wonder what happens on their little boys’ getaways for ‘work’?” Lianne glared at both Dave and Caleb.

“Lianne, stop talking.”

“What is she talking about, Caleb?”

Caleb had returned, balancing four drinks in his hand. “She’s just drunk, Al. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“I may be drunk, but I know what I’m talking about. I’m getting some fresh air,” Lianne said as she got up and stumbled out the front door.

Dave groaned, grabbed a glass from Caleb’s hand, gave him a look, and followed Lianne outside.

“What does she mean, Caleb?” Ally asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Did you take the job to get away from me?”

“Of course not.”

“Ever since my mom died, things have been different.”

“I was there for you through everything—”

“You can’t use being there for me in my grief as an excuse to mess around behind my back.”

Ally could see it now: that weekend she came home from college to surprise her mom who she knew was at home alone while her dad was away. Walking in through the front door to find the house empty. And then, looking for her mom upstairs when she heard sounds coming from her parent’s bedroom. Seeing a man who wasn’t her father in the bed. Her father, who was never anything but good to her mom. They didn’t talk about it again until the next weekend when they were here, at the cottage.

Then, Ally and her mom were driving home alone together because her dad had to leave a day early for work. How could you, Ally had said in the car. She had been so angry at her mom, so, so angry.

There was a sudden scream from outside and a splash. Ally and Caleb jolted up from the couch.

“What was that?” Caleb said.

They peered out the big glass window into the darkness. The shapes of the trees began to slowly take form the longer they looked, but they couldn’t see all the way down to the dock through the thicket.

“Should we go down and make sure they’re alright?” Ally said.

“Maybe it was just an animal?”

The cottage was eerily silent. They didn’t know whether to move and run down to the water or wait and see if it really was nothing. Then: bang. The front door shook, and the doorknob rattled. Ally and Caleb jumped again. The knob was shaking and the banging was getting louder—the lock her dad never fixed was jammed—then the door flew open and Dave stumbled into the front room, dripping head to toe in water.

“Lianne,” he gasped. “She...fell...or something grabbed her, or I don’t know, but she’s in the water. She’s in the water.”

“Dave, calm down. What do you mean something grabbed her?”

“I don’t know if I’m just drunk or seeing things, but we were fighting by the dock and she stepped close to the edge, and then she was just gone. I jumped in after her, and I swear I felt something trying to pull me down, and I managed to get myself back up onto the dock, but then I couldn’t see her.”

“She probably just fell and is swimming there and it’s so dark she can’t see. Al, are there flashlights? Let’s get the rowboat.”

Ally grabbed Caleb’s forearm, “What if what Lianne said was true, that story she told about that girl Lacy?”

“Don’t be stupid, Ally. That was just a story,” Caleb said. “Come on.”

Ally grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and followed the boys out the door. They raced down the steps to the dock. The water was so dark it looked like it had been stained black. The only light was from the moon shining overhead and the stars that were always more visible away from the pollution of the city. Dave and Caleb hopped into the rowboat, and Ally untied the knots holding it to the dock.

“Wait here,” Caleb said. “Call for help if we don’t come back in half an hour.”

Ally nodded. “Be careful.”

As they rowed off, Caleb flashed her one last glance, and there was fear in his eyes. Ally wanted him to be afraid. She stood at the edge of the dock, watching. Far off in the distance, she could see the shadow of a girl, standing—no, floating—on the surface of the water, hair dark and dripping wet. The boat disappeared into the blackness.

~

Caleb and Dave never came back. The police turned up an hour after Ally finally called; it took them so long because of the remoteness of the cottage. They sent out a search team but hadn’t found any bodies yet. Ally’s dad had come to meet her at the police station and help with the search, and he seemed more shaken up than Ally herself. One question the chief detective couldn’t understand was how come it took Ally so long to call for help. There had been a fresh pot of tea sitting on the kitchen counter when they arrived, and they described her as seeming “calm.”

Ally explained she just thought they were stuck out on the water, and she didn’t want to unnecessarily call the police. She was traumatized from the death of her mother, and she wasn’t thinking clearly, her dad had said.

On the drive home, he kept saying how sorry he was.

“First your mom, now…” He shook his head.

Ally looked out the window. The curtain of trees blurred as they drove along the cottage country road. I guess Caleb won’t be taking that job now, she thought. She thought about the story of Lacy, the girl in the water, and how if Ally had died like that, she would haunt Grovefell Lake, too.

“They weren’t good people,” she whispered, and then to herself: and neither was mom.