“Sometimes. I’m doing the overnight on Saturday—eleven p.m. to seven a.m.”
“Okay. This Saturday. Get the key to Gran’s office and meet me at the back door, west side, at midnight. That’s all you have to do. Just let me in.”
“I don’t know,” Patty said.
Miss Ev was in the window again. “Patty! You’re needed inside. It seems they’ve lost Tom again.”
Patty blew out a breath. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”
“Thanks,” Vi said. “For agreeing to help with the garden. Gran will be really happy to hear how excited you are about it.”
Patty nodded and walked away.
Lizzy
August 20, 2019
I PACKED UP THE recording equipment （throwing it into my day bag, just in case） and hopped into my van to do some exploring. As I drove around Chickering Island, I was struck by its tiny size. It was small and crowded: full of tourists, people who’d come for just the day, a weekend, or maybe even the whole summer; people who sat sipping lattes outside the coffee shop, fishing off the pier, riding rented bikes around town.
As I drove, I went over everything Skink had told me. I was used to hearing strange, unbelievable stories. My job was to listen to them, ask the right questions, sift through the stories for the bits of truth that shone and glittered.
The monster stories I’d heard over the years had much in common. There were no specific names. It was often “this guy” or “my uncle had a friend.” Details were usually sketchy, as they were with Skink’s story. I’d pressed him for details about the people who had supposedly disappeared, been taken down into the lake by Rattling Jane. He couldn’t give me a single name or date, could only say that it was for-sure real and it had been going on for a long, long time.
People loved a good creepy story. The need was almost primal: to hear them, have them chill you, then pass them along, embellished with your own details. Fear was a drug, and these stories were a delivery method.
“Some people say Rattling Jane is the vengeful spirit of a woman who was murdered a long time ago, her body dumped at the bottom of the lake,” Skink had told me. “Some say she, like… is the lake.”
As vague as parts of the conversation had been, I’d gotten some good leads. I’d learned which house Lauren Schumacher and her family rented—one of the little cabins out past the winery, in a group of rentals all named for flowers; they stayed in Bluebell. Skink told me that her family had packed up and gone home to Worcester, Massachusetts, sure that that’s where Lauren had headed when she ran off.
And then there was the piece of information I’d found the most interesting: that Lauren had told people she’d met Rattling Jane; she’d been given a wishing stone.
What did Lauren Schumacher wish for? I wondered.
* * *
I PARKED MY van in one of the free public lots, then crossed the street to the clean, wide, brick sidewalk and headed right for the bookstore. It was an old habit: the first stop in any new town was always either the bookstore or the library.
As I walked through the door, I was greeted by a large black standard poodle.
“That’s Penny,” called the man behind the counter as I scratched the dog behind the ears.
“She’s a beauty,” I said.
“And she knows it too.” The man smiled. “Can I help you find anything in particular?”
“Actually, yes. Do you have any books about the area? About the island and its history? And maybe a map?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “We’ve got a whole local section right here.” He came out from behind the counter and led me over to a set of shelves labeled LOCAL.