Page 61 of Such a Quiet Place
At the Seaver brothers’ home, I saw flashes of the television screen through the blinds. I turned at the path across from Margo and Paul Wellman’s house, remembering the camera that had caught Ruby running. I walked slowly down the dirt path, careful not to make much noise. But I turned my face to the pool as I passed by, imagining someone standing there once before, watching me. Now the pool appeared vacant.
To my left, the noise in the underbrush, down at the water’s edge, grew louder. A cacophony of insects and animals that drowned out my footsteps. Trying to keep myself hidden, I used the light from my phone only once to judge the way.
I had just reached that sign, my fingers brushing over the warped metal edges, the nail protruding from the trunk, reminding us to keep away, when I heard footsteps echoing over the plywood on the path in the distance.
I ducked down, stared back, and saw the outline of long hair and long legs in fragmented glimpses through the trees. I thought it was either Whitney or Molly, and I remained perfectly still, hoping she hadn’t seen me—and wouldn’t ask what I was doing down here, in the woods, in the dark.
She moved closer, her steps resounding on the plywood, not trying to remain hidden at all. She seemed to stare directly at me. “Whitney,” she said. “Whitney!” A little louder this time. She took out her phone and used the flashlight to illuminate the area to my right, down by the water.
I held my breath, and she took another step—off the plywood path, into the rougher terrain. This was Charlotte, then, thinking her daughter was out here in the woods.
A sharp peal of laughter echoed off the water—high-pitched and fast—before being smothered by the other noises. The crickets and frogs, a low buzzing that seemed too loud for an insect.
“Shit,” Charlotte mumbled. I could see her clearly now, illuminated by the screen of her phone. She held the phone to her ear, but no one must’ve picked up on the other end. “I see you out there,” she said before hanging up.
She stood there, hands on hips, staring into the darkness over the water, before turning back for home.
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see the shadow of a boat out there in the moonlight. Whitney and her friends, then. What Javier must’ve heard, his night on watch. If only Charlotte would’ve told him as much—that it was probably Whitney out there—we wouldn’t have thought it was someone keeping an eye on Ruby.
The pool gate at midnight, footsteps trailing away, the car driving off: They could all be traced to a group of teenagers, bored in the summer.
There was truly no one else to blame out here. There was only us.
I was tracing my hands over the roots of the tree, making my way to the base of the trunk, when I heard someone cough. Closer than the kids on the lake.
I stood slowly, staring out at the water, looking for movement. Another one of their friends, maybe, planning to meet them out there.
At the other side of the inlet, I thought I saw the shape of a man. But I couldn’t be sure. He did not call out to them, but the shadow moved slowly and deliberately, as if trying to remain undetected.
None of us was alone out here.
So much for this quiet little neighborhood. All of us were alive, at night, in the dark. All the things we needed to keep hidden during the day, set loose at night, when we revealed ourselves.
From the distance, I couldn’t tell if the person at the edge of the lake had seen me, too. If they were turned my way even now. A prickle on the back of my neck, and I ducked down quickly, with the sudden feeling that he was looking straight at me, too.
I held my breath and scratched my nails at the surface, tearing away chunks of compacted dirt. Then I reached my hand down into the cooler earth, deeper, deeper, panicked that I was wrong, that I’d forgotten, that time or animals or someone else had been here first. That rainwater had washed it away. But my index finger brushed something cold and curved.
I hooked my fingers into the ring and pulled.
