Page 5 of The Sister's Curse

Someone was laughing…but no sound could carry like that down here. Hypoxia must be causing me to dissociate.

Suddenly, the child’s body was released, tumbling back on me. I reached for the dimness above and launched myself skyward.

My head broke the water’s surface. I gasped, sucking in lungfuls of air, lifting the child with me. His body was limp and his eyes were closed, mouth slack. I shoved him into the crook of my arm, face up, and swam to the nearest shore.

Gibby barked frantically. He plunged into the pond and grabbed the sleeve of my shirt in his jaws, trying to drag me to safety.

I hauled the boy’s heavy body through cattails to the bank. In the background, Leah screamed. I placed him face up on the grass and pressed my ear to his mouth, his chest. Nothing. He was cold and slack and unmoving.

But I did what I was trained to do. I laced my hands over his chest and pressed. Water poured from his mouth. I did it until the water stopped. I listened again. Nothing.

I continued chest compressions, knowing I could break ribs. Chest compressions, done correctly on an adult, let alone a child, could cause fractures, but I forced myself not to be squeamish. I counted, getting as close to a hundred beats per minute as I could. My CPR instructor had told me to compress to the beat of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” and I hummed as I exhaled.

The boy lay there. Algae dripped from his lip, and his eyes were closed and his fingers slack. Nothing. Nothing.

I don’t know how long I did chest compressions. I worked until paramedics arrived to take over. I sat back on my ass in the grass, blinking stupidly.

Monica sat down beside me. “What happened?”

“I saw him…in the pond…His name is Mason.” I looked back to where deputies were questioning Leah on the hill. She sat with her head on her knees.

The paramedics fitted a mask and bag over Mason’s mouth to start breathing for him, then scooped him onto a stretcher. Mason looked incredibly tiny on the adult-sized stretcher as they ran him up the hill toward a parked ambulance.

I gazed at the pond, now still as a mirror. My skin crawled, and I shivered violently.

That child was in a bad way, and I needed to know why.

2

Warsaw Creek

Waterlogged and stunned, I trudged up to the house as a black SUV pulled into the driveway, blocking the ambulance.

Car doors slammed, and a man shouted. These must be the parents. The father was wearing a sport coat and the woman was in a dress, but their clothes read more “business” than “date night.” Leah must have called them.

“Where’s my son?” The woman’s fists were clenched, and I could see terror on her face.

I made my way past the flagstone walkway, past uplights casting shadows of Japanese maple branches on white-painted brick.

“You need to let the ambulance pass,” I told the man.

The man turned his glare on me. His breath reeked of alcohol, but I wasn’t about to try to pop him for a DUI tonight. “Do you have any idea who I am? I’m Jeff Sumner!”

The name didn’t ring any bells. “There was an accident, in the pond—” I began.

The mother shouted at Sumner. “That stupid fucking pond! I told you that we didn’t need that stupid fucking pond to impress your idiot fishing buddies!”

The husband wheeled on me. “Where’s Leah? How in the hell did she let this happen? She was supposed to watch him!”

“Where’s Mason?” the wife roared. Her terror was palpable. It took me aback. Maybe because my own mother never reacted that way when I got hurt as a child. Mom would’ve lit a cigarette and patted me vaguely before turning on the television.

A paramedic at the back of the ambulance shouted: “In here! One person can ride with us. Now, get that car out of the way!”

Sumner didn’t budge. “What are you doing to him?”

“He needs a hospital!” the paramedic barked. “He’s going to die if he doesn’t get help.”

Sumner shook his head. “We can’t—”