And him.
Which means Tom is right about Eli’s campfire tale being true. Even though it’s utterly preposterous, it’s literally the only explanation for what I’m experiencing right now. Len’s soul or spirit or whatever the fuck was left of him after life fled his body remained in Lake Greene, waiting in the dark water, biding its time until it could take the place of the next person to die there.
Who happened to be Katherine.
She was dead the afternoon I went out to rescue her. I’m certain of that now. I hadn’t reached her in time, a fact the state she was in—that lifeless body, those dead eyes, her blue lips and ice-cold flesh—made clear.
And I’d believed she was dead.
Until, suddenly, she wasn’t.
When Katherine sprang back to life, jolting and coughing and spitting up water, it was like some kind of miracle had occurred.
A dark one.
One that only the people Eli talked about seemed to believe.
Somehow, Len had entered Katherine, bringing her back to life. In the process, he’d resurrected himself, albeit in a different body. Where Katherine—the real Katherine and everything that makes her her—is now, I have no idea.
“Len—”
I stop, surprised by how easy it is to use his name when it’s not him I’m seeing.
It’s Katherine. Her body. Her face. Everything is hers except for the voice, which sounds more like Len’s with each passing word, and her attitude.
That’s all Len. So much so that my brain flips like a switch, making me think of her as him.
“Now you get it,” he says. “I bet you thought you’d never see me again.”
I don’t know which one of them he’s referring to. Maybe both. It’s true on either count.
“I didn’t,” I say.
“You don’t look happy.”
“I’m not.”
Because this is the stuff of night terrors. My worst fear made real. My guilt manifested into physical form. It takes all the strength I have not to faint. Even then, specks of blue buzz like flies across my vision.
I literally can’t believe this is happening.
It shouldn’t be happening.
How the fuck is this happening?
A hundred possibilities run through my shock-addled brain, trying to land on something remotely logical. That it happened because Len’s ashes had been scattered in Lake Greene. That there was a combination of minerals in the water that kept his soul alive. That because he died before his time, he was forced to roam the depths. That the lake, quite simply, is as cursed and haunted as Eli and Marnie say it is.
But none of those are possible.
It can’t be real.
Which means it isn’t. There’s no way it could be.
Relief starts to seep into both my body and brain as I realize that this is all a dream. Nothing but a bourbon-induced nightmare. There’s a very real possibility that I’m still on the porch, passed out in a rocking chair, at the mercy of my subconscious.
I run a hand along my cheek, wondering if I should slap myself awake. I fear it will only lead to disappointment. Because this doesn’t feel like a nightmare. Everything is too vivid, too real, from the mismatched antiques crowding the corners of the room like bystanders to the creak of the bed to the twin smells of body odor rising off Len and piss wafting from the nearby bucket.
A different thought occurs to me.
That instead of dreaming, maybe I’m actually dead and am only now realizing it. God knows how it happened. Alcohol poisoning. A heart attack. Maybe I drowned in the lake and that’s why I’m seeing Len in Katherine’s body. It’s my personal limbo, where my good and bad deeds are now colliding.
But it doesn’t explain Tom’s presence. Or why my heart is still beating. Or why sweat pops from my skin in the stifling basement. Or how the storm continues to rage outside.
“After what you did to me, of course you wouldn’t be happy,” Len says. “But don’t worry. I didn’t tell Tom about that.”
I’ve said exactly five words to my long-dead husband, which is five too many. Yet I can’t resist adding two more to the tally.
“Why not?”
“Because our secrets are as wedded together as we are. I did a bad thing, which caused you to do a bad thing.”
“Yours was far worse than mine, Len.”
“Murder is still murder,” he says.
“I didn’t murder you. You drowned.”
“Semantics,” Len says. “You’re the reason I’m dead.”
That part is true, but it’s only half the story. The rest—memories I never want to think about but am always thinking about—crashes over me like a thousand waves. All those details I’d try to chase away with whatever liquor I could get my hands on. They’re back.