The Summer I Turned 12

I don’t know why I keep coming back.

The water had always terrified me. Oceans were out, rivers were a full stop, and even suspiciously large puddles when it rained were on my “do not enter” list. But lakes were the worst.

It didn’t matter if they were man-made or natural. It didn’t even matter when it came to size or depth. All I knew was that when I looked out across the glassy water and watched the reflecting of a cloudy day floating across its surface, threatening to pull me under, I knew something was wrong. Lakes held a threat so deep that it curdled in my stomach and settled into my bones like a cancer.

Unfortunately for me, my family owned a lake house. Part of me always wondered if they did it just to spite me; I was an accident, born far later than my parents wanted to continue having kids. My siblings were all older and much bossier, teasing their little sister who shrieked when they tossed her near the water’s edge. My older brother would drag me into the lapping waves caused by pontoons and jet skies, his large hand wrapped around my tiny arms, shoving me down until all I knew was lake water in my lungs. My mother would halfheartedly yell from the lawn chairs on the deck until he finally stopped.

We went back every summer for two weeks at a time. I would try to schedule a sleepaway camp for those weeks, or a conveniently strange flu-like illness that had me bed ridden. But on those unlucky, sticky hot summers that I couldn’t find an out, I was cursed with 14 days of listening to the lake moving outside my bedroom window.

It sang to me in my sleep. I’ll always remember the horror and fear that ripped up my spine when I would sit up in bed, insomnia biting at my heels, watching the water gleam in the moonlight. It watched me back. I know it did. Little did I know that something else was watching me, too.

The summer of my 12th year came on swift winds, carrying my family in our oversized minivan stuffed full with luggage and annoyed teenagers. The cabin was the same as we had left it: old and smelling constantly of pine sol. My nose wrinkled when I walked in, and I ignored the pit in my stomach as I made my way to the room I shared with my two sisters. The day bed shoved against the far wall called my name, and I promptly fell asleep until dinner.

With the meal over and done, my siblings and parents separated off into groups, playing board games or smacking playing cards on a table, the buzz of the overhead fan lifting their tempers and body odors from the long drive. It all made me nauseous, so I stepped outside into the dark evening.

And there she was. The lake shone in the night, all encompassing and consuming, gobbling up my line of sight until she was all I could see. The wind picked up as I perched on a chair, trees slamming against one another as though engaged in a fist fight. I shivered against the breeze as I watched the water creep up towards me, then retreat once more, testing my fear.

Movement in the water beckoned my gaze.

I leaned forward, ignoring the hairs rising on the back of my neck. It wasn’t unusual for canoers to traipse through the waters at night. But this movement had come up from below the water rather than gliding on top. A late night swimmer, maybe?

As I tried to decipher it, a hand shot out of the water, pale and slim, rising up almost to the elbow before disappearing beneath the surface. I didn’t realize I had yelped in surprise until my father stood behind me on the deck, alarm on his face.

“Sammy, are you okay? What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, eyes still trained on the water. “I thought I saw a hand come out of the lake.”

I felt my dad’s confused gaze on my shoulder. My brother pushed his way through the sliding glass door. “She’s making it up, dad. She doesn’t wanna be here so she thinks a creepy story will get us all to go home.”

My sister called out from her card game. “Why not send her home now? She’s so grumpy she’ll spoil the trip for the rest of us.” The answering laughs from my siblings made the heat rush to my face.

My dad shot a disapproving look into the house. “Sammy, you’re probably just seeing things. We’ve all had a long day.”

“I mean, maybe, but what if I’m not wrong and I really did see something?” I felt my eyebrows furrow. They never believed me.

“Maybe it’s Jenna Barnes,” my brother smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. “We always knew she’d come for you one day, Sam.”

“Mason, do not bring up that horrible story again. I’m sick and tired of you making a tragic thing into a method to tease your sister,” my mother said, folding her cards across the table while she pinned my brother with a stare. “That family still mourns her, and you need to be more respectful.”

“That family” was the Barnes family down the road. Their daughter Jenna, only 11 at the time, had drowned tragically in the lake about 10 years ago. Search and Rescue was never able to recover her body, and in that time the rumors had run wild in the community. Everyone was calling in sightings of the girl, causing a panic in the local police force as they didn’t have a big enough team to respond to every call. The girl became a local legend, claiming that she haunted the lake now, waiting for unsuspecting victims to swim over her decaying corpse so she could pull them under. Mason had teased me with it ever since.

Personally, I didn’t know how any of them got near that water knowing there was a dead body in it somewhere. But her story flashed into my mind at the sight of that arm breaking the surface of the lake. Maybe I was just tired, like my dad said, and the story was coming back to me, as it did every year.

“It was probably nothing,” I murmured, scanning the lake one more time before turning back into the house. My dad and brother followed me in, shutting the glass sliding door behind them. “I’m going back to bed.”

No one said goodnight as I made my way back to my room. That night, I dreamt about deep shadows and smooth, water-bloated skin. Still the lake called to me from outside my window.

The trip moved on in its usual fashion; my family spent their entire days outside, lounging in lawn chairs or splashing in the water off the edge of the dock. I stayed inside with a good book, or suntanned out on the porch, as far from the water as I could get. The arm, or any other limbs for that matter, didn’t make another appearance, though Mason didn’t let me forget my earlier claim. He would sneak up behind me when I had headphones in and snag at my ankle, yelling “Jenna’s got you!” as I screamed. It got old fast, but he continued to find it hilarious.

I had made it almost to the end of the two weeks, a few shades tanner and a whole lot grumpier, but the silver lining of Friday shimmered on the horizon and I clung to it like a promise. It was only two days away and I knew I could make it. The lake hadn’t swallowed me whole yet, and my friend had already called me with details of a camp for next summer as I groused to her about the humidity.

Wednesday brought a heat wave so intense that even my family stayed indoors. I was sure had never been more miserable in my life. The hot weather nipped at all of our attitudes until we were yelling at one another and slamming doors to keep others out. My sisters barricaded themselves in our room, locking me out to deal with whoever was in the living room. I entertained myself with a book on the couch, enjoying the silence of my family holing themselves up in separate rooms for a change. That was, until Mason emerged as the sun went down.

He sneered at the cover on my book. “It’s embarrassing how many romance novels you read. As if any guy will ever be interested in you like that.”

I gulped down a deep breath, determined to ignore him this time. And he was determined to annoy me.

He plucked the book from my hands and tossed it across the room, making a satisfying thunk across the far wall.

“Hey!” I yelled, darting up from the couch only to have him push me over again. “Mason, you are so annoying! Go bother someone else!”

“Why would I do that when I have you?” He twisted my arm around until it cried in the socket. I let out a yelp and slammed my head back, connecting with his nose with a resounding crunch.

“OW!” He staggered back, clutching his face as blood dripped between his fingers. I darted from the room, seizing the opportunity to run as I made my way outside and down the stairs of the back porch. The heat slammed into me like a freight truck and I was instantly sweating as I ran through the backyard. Night had fallen quickly that evening, crickets harmonizing with cicadas as I made my way to the water’s edge. My fear of my brother outweighed my fear of the water as I skidded to a halt at the first sign of the waves.

Yelling was coming from the house, loud and angry, and I could only imagine the things my brother was reporting to my family. I turned my back on the water and peered back into the lit windows, the family room now packed with people ministering to Mason. My mother was tilting his head back and dabbing at his face, her own twisted into a mix of rage and concern.

I took a step back, only to collide with something solid. Something wet.

I spun around and came face to face with a girl, her blonde, sopping wet hair clinging to her swollen face as she smiled at me. Her ice cold fingers had wrapped around my arm as I turned, and her grip felt squishy against my skin. The world froze around me as I recognized Jenna Barnes, here in the flesh all these years later. A horrific, shrill sound surrounded us, echoing against the surface of the water, growing in volume until I realized it was me, screaming. The sound came to me like I was already underwater.

Jenna paid no heed to me as she pulled me back towards the lake. I yelled even louder, sure my parents would come running to find me grappling with a dead girl, her grip impossibly strong as I thrashed with all my weight against her pull. Her bathing suit was too tight against her skin as her body had swollen with water over the years, but still she walked, knees bent outwards, as she dragged me with her, those dead, blue eyes trained on my face.

Later, I would recall she never stopped smiling, even as she pushed my head under the water.

As soon as the water filled my mouth, her grip was gone. I kicked off the bottom of the lake, gasping for air as I reached the surface. Panic overtook my body and I swam wildly back to shore, crawling onto the mud and curling in on myself as I shook with violent tremors. I don’t know how long I laid there, or why my family hadn’t grabbed me as soon as they saw me. They must have still been preoccupied with Mason in the living room.

I staggered to my feet, my legs weak from the swim, and slid up the slope to the house. The stairs creaked as I crept up them and readied myself for the tongue lashing I was about to receive. I found I didn’t care, seeing how I almost died at the hands of a girl who had been dead almost my entire life. They would never believe this one.

As I made my way to the top of the deck, I realized the lights in the house were off. Had they all gone back to sleep? That would be just like them, ignoring me for so long that I nearly drowned without them realizing it. I huffed as I pulled at the sliding door. It was locked. They had locked me out?

My nerves spiked. Maybe they were angrier than I had thought. I did break Mason’s nose. Was that a just punishment for it? They had to have known it was an accident. I shivered as I made my way back down the stairs, my wet clothes sticking to my skin in the cold air. The heat from the day had winked out as quickly as the sun had, it seemed.

I pushed my way through tall grass- my dad really needed to mow the lawn- and walked around the side of the house to get to the front. A veritable jungle of weeds and overgrown bushes met me, the walkway up to the front of the house littered with cigarettes and crushed beer cans. A “For Sale” sign hung limply in front of the house at a 45 degree angle.

“What?” My breath fogged in the cold air in front of me as I spoke. This had to be some elaborate prank by Mason. How had he convinced the entire family to get in on it?

But no, the weeds wouldn’t have grown so fast. And where would they have found a sign to put up? Fear, dark and oily, grew in the pit of my stomach as movement caught in the corner of my eye. A piece of paper, stuck to the front door and fluttering in the wind. I made my way over to the door, careful to avoid the mess, and read the poster.

It was for a missing child. A sweet-faced girl smiled up at me from the paper, her description posted below her. She had been missing for five years, and the dilapidated page looked weathered and sun-damaged. The girl’s name was in bold letters at the top: Samantha Lawrence.

Me.

The water still calls to me, but this time I hear it in whispers, echoing throughout the surrounding trees. I play in her waters, no longer afraid. I have friends now who keep me company, other girls who no one remembers, either. Jenna keeps me company, too.

I sit on my family’s old dock. Sometimes I swim in its shadows. I have been here for years, and no one ever finds me.

I don’t know why I keep coming back.