“Yes—the principal,” I tell her. “I have the message in my cottage. It’s probably still in my shorts. I’ll go get it—”
Caroline shakes her head. “It’s fine. She just emailed me. But I could have used the message yesterday.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“If we miss a single deadline, Teddy will lose his spot. The kindergarten class has a waitlist with thirty names on it.”
“I know, I know—”
She cuts me off. “Stop saying ‘I know.’ If you really knew, you would have given me the message. Next time be more careful.”
She turns and walks back to the house, and I’m shocked. It’s the first time she’s really yelled at me. Ted hurries out of the pool and rests a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry, Ted, I feel awful.”
“She’s mad at the school, not you. They’re drowning us in paperwork. Vaccines, allergies, behavioral profiles—this stupid kindergarten application has more pages than my tax return.”
“It was an honest mistake,” I tell him. “I wrote down the phone number, but I was distracted by something Teddy gave me.” I’m so desperate to make things right, I start describing the drawing to him, but Ted just talks over me. He seems anxious to get back to the house. I can see Caroline’s silhouette in the sliding glass door, watching us.
“She’ll cool off, don’t worry,” he says. “Tomorrow she won’t even remember.”
His voice is relaxed but he walks away in a hurry. As he crosses the yard, his form flattens into a silhouette—and when he reaches Caroline, he puts his arms around her. She reaches for the light switch, and after that I can’t see anything else.
A little breeze kicks up and I start to shiver. I wrap my towel around my waist and walk back to my cottage. I lock the door and I’m changing into my pajamas when I hear the footfalls again, light steps treading on soft grass—only this time, they’re right outside my window. I pull back the curtains and try to peek outside but all I see through the screen are the slimy wriggling moths.
A deer, I tell myself. It’s just a deer.
I close the curtains and turn off the lights and get into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin. Outside, the thing moves right behind my bed—I can hear it moving on the other side of the wall, inspecting the cottage, circling the perimeter, like it’s searching for a way inside. I curl my fingers into a fist and bang on the wall, hoping a good loud noise will spook it away.
Instead, it ducks under the cottage, scratching at the dirt, squeezing itself beneath the floorboards. I don’t know how anything can fit down there. The building can’t be more than eighteen inches off the ground. There’s no way it’s a deer but it sounds big, like it’s the size of a deer. I sit up in bed and stomp on the floor to no avail.
The thing just burrows deeper and deeper, wriggling itself into the center of the room. I stand up and turn on the lights. Then I climb down on all fours and listen, trying to follow the noise. I pull back the rug and discover a square outline cut into the floorboards—an access panel large enough for a person to crawl through. There are no hinges or handles, just two oval-shaped slots allowing someone to grab hold of the panel and lift.
I guess if it were earlier in the evening—and if Caroline wasn’t already mad at me—I might call the Maxwells and ask for help. But I’m determined to fix the problem on my own. I go to the kitchen and fill a plastic pitcher with water. This thing, whatever it is, can’t be as big as it sounds. I know noises can be deceiving, especially in the dark, especially late at night. I kneel on the floor and try to lift the panel, but it won’t budge. All the summer humidity has expanded the wood, locking it into place. So I apply all my force to one side, pulling with both hands, ignoring the pain in my fingers, the sharp dry wood cutting into tender skin. Finally, with a loud pop and a cloud of gray dust, the panel springs out of the floor, like a cork exploding from a champagne bottle. I grab it and hold it close to my chest, using the panel like a shield. Then I lean forward and peer down into the hole.
It’s too dark to see anything. The earth below is arid and lifeless, like ash left after a campfire. The cottage is silent. The creature, whatever it is, has vanished. There’s nothing to see down there, just mounds of gray dust speckled with black spots. I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I exhale with relief. All the noise from yanking open the hatch must have frightened the thing away.