Page 38 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“But why?” Wren forgot about Patty’s condition, and that the woman was in the process of dying. She returned Patty’s hand squeeze. “I’ve no excuse to feel so ... lost. Life has been—you know,life. I mean, outside of Mom passing away years ago, I’ve lived a decent life. Dad and Pippin are—well, Dad and Pippin. But I’ve not experienced abuse or trauma or ... other life-altering events that should incite dramatic dreams, and this feeling of something being lost, taken, or haunting me ... I don’t know,” she finished lamely.
“Have you ever asked your father?”
“Dad? No. Why?”
Patty offered a small shrug. “Maybe he could help explain or understand. Surely he knows about your nightmares.”
Wren nodded. “Maybe I am like Gollum,” she mumbled.
Patty’s laugh was weak but musical. “Gollum? ‘Precious, my precious’?” She grew serious. “If I were to ask you what you feel you’ve lost, what would you say?”
“My mom,” Wren said without hesitation.
Patty nodded. While they both knew this was true, they also knew it wasn’t the answer. Wren had reconciled with her mother’s death—at least she thought she had—and this seemed associated with something different. Darker even.
Wren drew in an unsatisfied breath. “If I knew what I’d lost, then I’d know what to look for. I think that’s why I have these dreams. And I cannot get Jasmine off my mind! Did she really just get lost? A little girl, wandering in the wilderness?Thousandsof acres! Or what if she was taken, or led away, or—or misplaced?” It didn’t make sense, but Wren suggested it anyway.
“Is that how you feel?”
Wren gave Patty a sharp look. “I can’t compare my emotional cavity to a child’s physical reality.”
Patty smiled. “Now you sound like your father.”
Wren opted for a change in subject. “Meghan, Jasmine’s mother, is convinced Jasmine saw Ava Coons in the woods the day Jasmine disappeared.”
“Ava Coons,” Patty nodded, remembering. “They say she’s seen now and then.”
It was Wren’s turn to smile. “It makes the campfire story better.”
“True, but...” Patty shifted in the bed. The sweater she wore slipped off one of her bony shoulders. Wren reached out to help adjust it. “I thought I saw her once actually.”
This snagged Wren’s attention. Patty was by far not a believer in lore, superstition, or ghosts. Patty met Wren’s stare. She blinked. Wren noted her eyelashes had filled out since the chemo ended.
“I was in town. You know the market at the far edge of town, near the park?”
“Spider Link Park? The one that butts up against state land?”
“Mm-hmm. They had a summer farmers’ market set up. I was getting produce when I caught sight of a woman on the edge of the forest right where they stop mowing the grass. She was standing there in overalls, messy long hair, just like they always described Ava Coons. I swear it was like looking back into a time capsule, what with how she was dressed. I was with a friend, and I mentioned for her to look, but when we turned back, the woman was gone. Vanished. As though she’d never been there.”
“Probably just a tourist? Shopping the market?” Wren supplied, but not failing to tense at the similarities between Patty’s story and Meghan’s.
“Maybe.” Patty rubbed her eyes, stifling a yawn. “You know, after Eddie’s dad and his buddies found Lost Lake back in the eighties, a few men from camp went diving in it to see if they could find the Coons family’s bodies.”
“Did they find them?” Wren knew the answer but asked anyway.
“No.” Patty shook her head. “It’s been decades since Ava Coons supposedly murdered her family.” She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the pillow. Wren could hear weariness and pain in her voice. “I will say, life is definitely odd sometimes.”
Wren studied Patty for a long moment. The woman faded, falling asleep under the influence of her pain medication. Wren hatedthat death wasn’t a possibleif, but instead was awhen. Her mother, Ava Coons, Patty, maybe even little Jasmine... Wren squirmed, uneasy, trying to avoid the nagging feeling that she was next. That somehow it was more than Ava Coons that haunted the woods around Lost Lake, but death itself. And everyone knew you couldn’t escape death, no matter how hard you tried.
16
“Not. Funny.” Wren stared at the creepy doll, who was perched on the kitchen bar, its back leaning against a napkin holder, one eye still rolled back into her head, and her real human hair sticking out all straw-like.
Eddie shot a glance over his bowl of ice cream while his dad, Gary, chuckled from the kitchen sink. “Told you she wouldn’t like it.”
Wren had just left Patty and made her way to the kitchen thinking of popcorn or chips or something else that was salty.
“Redneck Harriet was lonely.” Eddie’s banter was meant to be funny, but Wren kept staring at the doll. Any direction she moved, the doll’s eye followed—or so it seemed—and Wren’s name stood out starkly on the bottom of the doll’s foot.
