Page 49 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

My aunt’s flip-flop prints are right there, in the dew-damp sand. She’s walking toward the beach. Unhurried. In two spots, she seems to stop, the prints scuffed as if she’d stood there and peered around before continuing on.

Like me the night before. Seeing lights on the water and drawing closer until—

Until I saw that head pop up, seal-sleek.

I shake it off. Of all the things I saw, that was the one I definitely imagined. Dreamed in my sleepwalking state. But I’d spotted the lights several times, so Gail could have seen those.

She wasn’t lying to lure me out of my room. She actually saw something.

Her footprints get closer and closer to the water’s edge. Then they stop and—

My breath catches. I’m staring down at my aunt’s prints, multiple sets, as if she’d paced and then headed to the west. She got about ten steps and—

And I don’t know what I’m seeing. It’s a mess of marks in the sand. My aunt’s prints veer left, as if she’d been heading back to the cottage. They’re deeper, farther apart, only the balls of her feet sinking in.

Like my own footprints from the night before. When I’d been running.

Her prints only go a few feet, though, before they’re ground into a mess of disturbed sand. Two more of her prints to the west, running leaps in that direction and then—

And then the ground is chewed up, a roiling mass of sand, dirt, and ripped-out grasses. I stand there, staring down. Then I see more marks, heading toward the water.

Drag marks.

I recoil fast. No, this is not what it looks like. My paranoia is interpreting them in the most disturbing way. Yes, they’re my aunt’s footprints as she investigated the lights. Then she heard the door banging, realized she hadn’t shut it and ran back. Her footprints seem to end, but that’s only because the ground is harder here.

As for that scuffle, it had nothing to do with Gail. Just some animals fighting in the same spot. Maybe an eagle swooping down on some small critter. What did Ben say? That if an eagle attacked, we’d only see blood and fur, if that much. On sand, we’d see signs of a struggle. The drag marks are an eagle landing. Or maybe an osprey.

I justify. I justifymadly.And yet I cannot look at these marks without seeing my aunt being hauled out into the lake by—

By what?

The drowned body of Austin Vandergriff?

I did not see Austin. I am not seeing my aunt’s final moments, dragged into the water by a dead boy.

So where is she?

I head inside and look for her phone. She keeps it in a wallet case and carries it shoved into a pocket, like I do. She has a laptop bag, and that’s still in her room, along with her laptop. There’s no sign of her phone.

I try calling it again and still get voicemail. That had panicked me earlier, but now that I’m thinking it through, I remember seeing her scrolling through her phone late last night. She probably didn’t charge it. She goes out, pocketing it, but not realizing it’s almost dead.

A thought hits, and I lift my own phone, hitting buttons as I check her last known location. It’s from a few hours ago, and it’s nearby. I zoom in and walk in the direction of the dot. That takes me out the door and down toward the beach and—

I stand on the water’s edge, looking at the dot out somewhere in front of me.

In the lake.

I swallow and back up fast, shaking my head.

The GPS isn’t precise, especially not out here. Still, I wade into the water, phone lifted, trying to gauge where it’s showing me.

I’m in to my knees, and on the screen, my blue dot has barely moved. Her last-known indicator is far out in the lake. Which means it’s wrong.

Unless—

No, it’s wrong. Like the time I was fourteen, and Mom and I had a big fight, and I’d stormed off. When she checked my location, it apparently showed me walking in the middle of a highway, and she’d suspected the worst.

Of course I hadn’t been walking down the highway. I’d been a half mile away on a hiking trail.