He descended the gangway to the teak deck. The port side of the Duffy was snugged against the built-in fenders on the slip, so that he could not see under the vessel. The boathouse offered two berths within the single U-shaped slip. He walked around the bow of the Duffy, to the farther finger of teak, beyond the empty berth.
From there he could see under the starboard flank of the Duffy, where something floated in the murk, ghostly pale. It appeared to be about ten feet long, but he couldn’t see anything significant of it, perhaps because the water here was deeper than he had thought. The dorsal surface of the creature had been pale when he’d seen the thing glide in from the lake, under the door, though all of the fish that he’d ever seen were pale on the ventral plane, not the dorsal—on their bellies, not their backs.
If this was a fish, surely it couldn’t remain still beneath the boat. It would need to move continuously in order to siphon oxygen from the water streaming through its gills. Yet there it floated like some immense seaweed bladder.
The light from the high windows did not fall directly on the water, which darkled into its depths. To get a better angle of view on the creature under the Duffy, Wyatt dropped onto one knee and craned his head forward, squinting with the hope of glimpsing some detail that would begin to define the beast.
The thing appeared to spasm, to dim and then brighten as if it might be vaguely phosphorescent, as were some creatures of the sea, and then it rolled in place.
This movement, seemingly timed to his attempt to gain a closer look at the thing, suggested its visit to the boathouse simultaneous with his inspection of the place was no coincidence. It was here because of him, for a reason he could not at once comprehend.
Abruptly, the thing breached under the Duffy, slamming it hard against the slip finger and boosting it more than a foot. The hull squealed against the rubber fenders. The taut belaying line thrummed a bass note, and the boat fell back into place, wallowing violently.
A wave washed across the empty berth and slopped onto the teak where Wyatt knelt. He quickly got to his feet and warily backed away, as the water clouded with bestirred silt.
The creature breached again, with greater power than before, still hidden by the boat that it heaved on its back. The Duffy rattled, twanged, thudded against the fenders.
The floating slip rolled under Wyatt. He staggered, regained his balance, and realized that the thing’s intention might be to pitch him into the water.
He hurried along the wet planking. He would have to get past the Duffy and around its port side to reach the gangway that led up to the main floor of the boathouse.
As Wyatt was approaching the bow of the vessel, the mysterious intruder breached a third time with tremendous force. The belaying line snapped. The boat tipped on its stern, its bow lifting out of the water, and it surged forward, crashing onto the teak slip, which rocked with such violence that Wyatt lost his footing. He fell, but not into the water.
The damaged Duffy slid backward again, into its berth. The ghastly presence, now a phantom of fluid form in the cloudy water, swept out from under the craft. The dimly luminescent creature arced through the sloshing murk and out of the boathouse, rattling the big roll-up door as it exited under it.
Lest the mysterious intruder should return in an even greater state of agitation, Wyatt hurried around the slip and climbed the gangway to the main floor. At the top, he turned and looked down, half expecting to see the boat taking on water. The vessel hadn’t sprung a leak, though it drifted, unmoored, in the middle of the two-berth slip.
From below rose the odors of wet wood and rich lake-bottom silt. A fainter scent, not as natural as the others, was familiar, but he couldn’t quite identify it: vaguely reminiscent of the smell of ammonia, though with much less hydroxide pungency.
The experiences, first enchanting and then frightening, that caused Liam and his family to flee Rustling Willows had included neither a manifestation like the one that recently departed the boathouse nor the pyrotechnics of swarming fireflies, nor a voice issuing threats from a TV. Wyatt had yet to encounter anything like what spooked the O’Haras. This ranch was rich with strangeness, as if it might have become a way station between realities, its every shadow seeming to cloak a threat.
Whatever its nature and its ultimate purpose, the reason for the lake dweller’s invasion of the boathouse couldn’t have been clearer. It meant to say, You’re known, you’re watched, and you’re not wanted here.
28
In the long-abandoned church with its cache of corpses denied burial, Ophelia Poole had not slept well on the pew. Eventually she had sat up, alert and observant, waiting for dawn to thrust a shaft of light through a gap in the ceiling.