Nokken Chapter One
I’ve always believed in mythological creatures; faeries, pixies, angels, nixies, mermaids, etc. One of my favorite books says that all the stories are true. I believe that. I guess that’s why I like this forest so much; because it’s beautiful, and because, secretly, I hope I’ll see something spectacular. I come here almost everyday. My mom thinks I go to the library and read, but really I just stop there to get a book or two and come here. I whistle to the birds or read, sometimes I take pictures. Some of the animals have even come to recognize me, and they are the only creatures in this town who do. That’s the downside to moving in the summer; there’s no school, so there’s no friends. Even if it wasn’t summer, though, I wouldn’t have many friends.
I’m the antisocial, shy girl who spends her free time in the library reading books or drawing anime. Of course, I did have friends before I moved, but they were all like me; shy and special. I always fit into the ‘island of misfit toys,’ and none of us really fit in anywhere else. Some of my friends keep in touch, but most of them are too busy with…well, life. I’m not just antisocial, though. I’d just rather have a few good, true friends instead of a whole bunch of two-faced preps. I guess that’s why I’m better with animals, because they can never hurt you emotionally. They seem to like me too, maybe the forest animals can tell I’m a vegetarian and they know I mean them no harm.
Today, though, I came to the forest to read in the willow by the little dock. It’s not a boating dock, I think it was built purely for the purpose of getting a better view of the beautiful lake. I like the because it hangs slanted over the river, so if I fell (which I won’t) I would land among the lily pads in the shallow, three foot deep water. I can sit in the lowest branch with my shoes off and put my feet in the water. Also, I like it because it has a nice name, willow; my name.
It’s a little bit of a hike, but I don’t mind because it’s by far the best place to read, and the walk gives me time to think. I’m reading a book of mythology from around the world, which is what I came here to read. Some of the myths are a little mixed up and some contradict each other, but I know they must be at least true, because these myths don’t come from nowhere. The only thing I don’t believe is that there are gods other than Christ.
Maybe I’m just a gullible teenager who has held on to her childhood fantasies for far too long, but I hope not. I want them to be true, because I spend a lot of time thinking about them and writing about them. I was raised as a christian girl, but my parents never put down my other beliefs either. I am allowed to believe what I choose to believe. When I was younger I would take food outside for the fairies and build them little houses, and our parents don’t seem to mind. I don’t believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy anymore, though, so I must not be completely naive.
I make good time, only tripping once or twice over tree roots or fallen logs. That’s impressive for a not-so-graceful klutz like me. I reach the dock in about half an hour. It’s an old, falling apart dock that nobody seems to use anymore. It might be on private property, but I don’t think so since there’s no houses around for miles and nobody but me ever comes here.
My history teacher from last year said there used to be a village of Swedish and German immigrants here back when America was first settled, but they left because the land was no good. I think the land’s fine; the forest sure seems to like it. That’s probably why it was no good, because of the forest. Well, I think that the forest has every right to the land, it was here first after all. Maybe the fairies didn’t like the settlers, so they killed their crops. Wouldn’t surprise me, faires are known for their mischief.
I walk onto the dock, trusting the nixies in the water to save me if I fall in. Hopefully, they won’t try to drown me. I do bring them things most days, shiny trinkets or bits of steel or money. I didn’t bring anything today, though. Most people would think I was nuts, but I’m not, I swear. Just because I’ve never actually seen something “fictional” doesn’t mean it’s only a story. After all, the legends had to come from somewhere.
I climb the rotting wood railing of the dock and stand on the top rail to grip the willow’s lowest branch tightly with both hands. Then I swing my legs up to my chest and throw one leg over the branch, pulling myself upright. I lift my other leg over, carefully, so I don’t lose my balance and then sit down on the branch. I pull out my book and get lost in the pages, cashing in my own life for a while to borrow someone else’s more exciting one. I read for hours, not noticing the time passing at all. The mythology is fascinating. Soon, it grows dark. I notice it, but I’m not really thinking consciously about it. It’s a minor background detail in a life that’s not currently my own.
I only return to my own body when it begins to rain. The droplets land on the page and cover the lenses of my glasses, making it impossible to read. I close the book and stick it inside my shirt. It’s uncomfortable, but this way I know the book won’t fall into the lake and get ruined. Then I look down at the rail. It’s covered it water, making it slick and wet.
I haven’t been caught in the rain yet this summer, and it’s coming down hard and fast, beating against my arms and my back. There’s a good chance that I’ll slip and fall if I get down the way I climbed up, but it’s the only way down besides trying to jump onto the dock and it’s the obviously safer choice. So I crouch on the branch facing away from the dock and let one leg down, dangling it above the water. Then I force the other leg down, leaning my pelvis forward onto the branch for balance. The pressure hurts, but it’s a familiar pain and a pleasant one. I look down under the branch and see my legs, the water and the dock.
Everything looks gray and pale in the rainy evening light. I grope around with my feet for the rail until my foot touches it and then I use what little strength I have in my arms to let myself down from the branch onto the rail. I nearly slip and fall into the water below, but I wave my arms to steady myself.
As I do, my little stainless steel keychain of the eiffel tower drops and I hear the little splash. I turn around and hop down from the railing onto the dock. Then I get down on my hands and knees and lean over the edge of the dock to look for it, but the droplets hitting the water blurr the surface, making it hopeless to find it.
Oh well, I think, I’ll come back tomorrow to look for it… If Mom ever lets me leave the house again after this.
Hopefully she didn’t go to the library to look for me, because that would be really bad. There’s still a possibility that she doesn’t know I wasn’t even there. The rain is getting harder and harder, and I can hear the distant crackle of thunder.
I take another minute to look for it and as I look something in the corner of my vision catches my attention. Something out on the lake glowing green. I stand up and go to the end of the dock, holding the railing as I peer into the rain and look for it. The reflection of the moon on the lake makes it easier to see things, but the rain is misting over my glasses again. I take them off, and out on the lake I see it. Not one, but two specks of iridescent pine green, almost like headlights, are hovering over the water.
They reflect on the lake, the ripples of the rain distorting the reflection and making their image waver. They grow bigger, drifting slowly closer to me. Something about them seems powerful and I take a step back. As they come even closer, only a few yards away, they begin to have a pale circle surrounding them. Lightning flashes, and the shape makes itself out as a face, and then as a person.
He wades closer and closer, until I can see his features clearly and he’s only feet away from the little dock I stand on. He has the face of any normal teenage boy, except with glowing green irises around his pupils and long pitch-black hair. You’d think the long hair would make it hard to tell his gender, but it doesn’t. His clothes look old, not like a raggedy old, but old in style. He wears an off white shirt, almost a tunic, with billowing sleeves and cuff links. The soaked fabric clings to his slender body translucently. Over the shirt he wears a green suede jerkin with brass buttons. The suede is missing patches of the soft felt-like fur, as if it’s been left in the water for far too long. His eyes illuminate the water around him, so that I can see his legs and feet. For pants he wears old-fashioned, hand-sewn leather trousers. He doesn’t wear any shoes at all, and his feet squish the lake-floor mud into the shape of his feet as he walks.
He’s sort of… handsome, if not for the incandescent eyes that radiate power. His shoulders and chest surface as he wades toward me, until he stands right next to the dock. Then he bends over, plunging his head and shoulders into the water. His eyes illuminate the murky shallows to the point where I can see the bottom of the lake, about three three feet deep.
There, sticking out of the mud, is my little keychain. It drifts methodically from left to right with the sloshing waves, only to be interrupted by a fair hand with long, graceful fingers that curve around it; retrieving it. The boy’s long black hair writhes in tendrils through the water like a drowning snake. The boy resurfaces with my keychain in his hand. He rubs the water out of his luminous eyes and brushes his hair out of his face with his fingers. I’m too stunned to do anything but watch as he takes my keychain and wades back out into the water, vanishing from sight.
I stand there for a while after he’s out of sight. Then I come to my senses and jog back out of the forest the way I came, half awestruck and half in a daze. I run until I find myself on the front porch of a little green house that I’m supposed to call home, but it’s so new and alien to me that I don’t even bother trying to think of it that way. My real homes are the forest, my church, and the library; the places where I spend almost every minute that I’m not asleep.
I wring out my hair and try to shake off some of the water so I don’t look as wet as I really am, and then I get rid of all evidence that I was in the woods. I pull leaves out of my hair and kick the dirt off my boots, and then just when I’m reaching for the door knob my mother bursts out of the front door. Then she practically drags me into the house for interrogation.
I’m going to die, I think frantically. Then I scour my mind for an excuse for being out way too late.
“Well?!” Mom demands, “Don’t you have some excuse for being out so late? It had better be good.”
Exactly what I was thinking…
“I’m sorry Mom, I just got lost in a good book and didn’t check the time. I wasn’t near a window, so I didn’t see when it got dark. I totally spaced it, and I’ll be more responsible next time,” I say promisingly. She just rolls her eyes and walks into the kitchen. I follow her, just because I’m pretty sure that’s what she wants.
“Sit down,” she says, “Your curfew is being cut early by an hour. It’s three hours past when you were supposed to be home! I said six o'clock, and you came home at nine! Do you know how worried I was?”
“I’m sorry Mom--” I start, but she cuts me off.
“So then, I called the library and do you know what they said?!”
This gets my attention and I’m filled with dread. “Umm….no.”
“They said you weren’t there! You can’t just go to Ivy’s house without telling me! You had me worried sick! Do you understand, Willow?”
Actually, I don’t understand. I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. Ivy’s my only friend in town. I met her at church, we talk on the phone but I don’t know her all that well and I’ve never been to her house before. In fact, I don’t even know where she lives, but I don’t let that slip. This is saving my butt from grounding.
“I understand,” I say, and hang my head in guilt.”
“Now go take a warm bath and change into your pajamas,” she orders. Her motherly instincts are taking over her lecture.
I run the bath and sit in it for a while, just singing and thinking about life and such, until Dad bangs on the door and demands that I get out so he can use the toilet. He accuses me of wasting time, when he’s the one who sits on the toilet for an hour at a time playing cut the rope on his tablet. Gross, right? I hop out and turn on the drain, and then I wrap myself in my towel and run upstairs to put on pajamas I pull on my pajama bottoms and have just got on my shirt when the phone rings downstairs. I run down and pick it up.
“Hello?” I say.
“Hey, is this Willow?” Asks Ivy.
“Yeah,” I reply, taking the phone back upstairs to my room where I climb up the bunk ladder and plop down on my bed. It doesn’t have a bottom bunk. Hopefully I’ll get some sort of answer about how my butt was saved.
“I was just sort of wondering… Umm, what were you doing while I was covering for you?”
“Oh, thank you!” I praise, “So it wasn’t just my mom being insane. I was… well, it’s a long story.”
“I deserve to know where you were. I told your mom that I picked you up from the library,” she insists.
“Where’d did you see my mom?” I ask her.
“I didn’t.” She replies, confused. “Oh, she called to see if you were here. She figured since I’m one of the only people in town who knows you that you might have been here. So I told her that I picked you up from the library, and that I had no idea that she hadn’t said it was okay. Then she asked if she could talk to you.”
“What did you say?!”
“I said you were in the bathroom and that you’d be out in a minute and she said ‘Oh that’s fine, just have her call me later.’ So I told her you said you were gonna walk home. She asked if she should pick you up, but I said you wanted to walk. Then when it started raining she called again and said she was going to come get you, so I told her you already left. It’s a good thing you got home when you did or she would’ve known I was lying!”
“I’m sorry, Ivy. Thanks for covering for me. I owe you one, big time,” I say sincerely.
“Are you gonna tell me what the hell you were up to?!”
“I was… hiking. In the woods by our house, I just walked to the lake and sat there for a while. I must have lost track of time is all.”
“Well you owe me one for covering for you, and I might need it soon… I’ll tell you on Sunday. But seriously, hiking?”
Wait what day is it today? I ask myself. Oh, right, friday. Duh.
“Yeah, I was reading a book. I do it almost every day while my mom thinks I’m at the library. I do stop at the library for books, so it’s not a total lie,” I say defensively.
“Right… Willow, you’re gonna be in so much trouble when she catches you,” says Ivy disapprovingly.
“Well, she’s not gonna catch me.”
“You don’t know that. Honestly, Willow, is hiking really worth telling lie after lie to your parents? I mean, it’s not as bad as what I thought I was covering for so that’s good… but still.”
“What? What did you think you were covering for?”
“Umm, well…”
“Oh!” I realize.
I crack up, giggling hysterically until it hurts my lungs. Ivy laughs too and then Dad yells up the stairs that he’s trying to sleep and that I need to go to bed. So I say goodbye to Ivy and thank her again for the back up. I promise I’ll do whatever it is she wants me to on Sunday. Then I lay down and pull the covers over me. I have to find out who (or what) I saw at the lake today. I slide my laptop out from under my pillow and sign in, but when I try to open my internet browser, it’s disconnected. Dad probably turned it off as a punishment for my being out so late.
There’s no point in trying to turn it back on, because if I get caught it’ll just be trouble for me, so I turn out the lights, open the window, and climb back into bed. I drift off slowly into a deep, nightmarish slumber.
I’m the antisocial, shy girl who spends her free time in the library reading books or drawing anime. Of course, I did have friends before I moved, but they were all like me; shy and special. I always fit into the ‘island of misfit toys,’ and none of us really fit in anywhere else. Some of my friends keep in touch, but most of them are too busy with…well, life. I’m not just antisocial, though. I’d just rather have a few good, true friends instead of a whole bunch of two-faced preps. I guess that’s why I’m better with animals, because they can never hurt you emotionally. They seem to like me too, maybe the forest animals can tell I’m a vegetarian and they know I mean them no harm.
Today, though, I came to the forest to read in the willow by the little dock. It’s not a boating dock, I think it was built purely for the purpose of getting a better view of the beautiful lake. I like the because it hangs slanted over the river, so if I fell (which I won’t) I would land among the lily pads in the shallow, three foot deep water. I can sit in the lowest branch with my shoes off and put my feet in the water. Also, I like it because it has a nice name, willow; my name.
It’s a little bit of a hike, but I don’t mind because it’s by far the best place to read, and the walk gives me time to think. I’m reading a book of mythology from around the world, which is what I came here to read. Some of the myths are a little mixed up and some contradict each other, but I know they must be at least true, because these myths don’t come from nowhere. The only thing I don’t believe is that there are gods other than Christ.
Maybe I’m just a gullible teenager who has held on to her childhood fantasies for far too long, but I hope not. I want them to be true, because I spend a lot of time thinking about them and writing about them. I was raised as a christian girl, but my parents never put down my other beliefs either. I am allowed to believe what I choose to believe. When I was younger I would take food outside for the fairies and build them little houses, and our parents don’t seem to mind. I don’t believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy anymore, though, so I must not be completely naive.
I make good time, only tripping once or twice over tree roots or fallen logs. That’s impressive for a not-so-graceful klutz like me. I reach the dock in about half an hour. It’s an old, falling apart dock that nobody seems to use anymore. It might be on private property, but I don’t think so since there’s no houses around for miles and nobody but me ever comes here.
My history teacher from last year said there used to be a village of Swedish and German immigrants here back when America was first settled, but they left because the land was no good. I think the land’s fine; the forest sure seems to like it. That’s probably why it was no good, because of the forest. Well, I think that the forest has every right to the land, it was here first after all. Maybe the fairies didn’t like the settlers, so they killed their crops. Wouldn’t surprise me, faires are known for their mischief.
I walk onto the dock, trusting the nixies in the water to save me if I fall in. Hopefully, they won’t try to drown me. I do bring them things most days, shiny trinkets or bits of steel or money. I didn’t bring anything today, though. Most people would think I was nuts, but I’m not, I swear. Just because I’ve never actually seen something “fictional” doesn’t mean it’s only a story. After all, the legends had to come from somewhere.
I climb the rotting wood railing of the dock and stand on the top rail to grip the willow’s lowest branch tightly with both hands. Then I swing my legs up to my chest and throw one leg over the branch, pulling myself upright. I lift my other leg over, carefully, so I don’t lose my balance and then sit down on the branch. I pull out my book and get lost in the pages, cashing in my own life for a while to borrow someone else’s more exciting one. I read for hours, not noticing the time passing at all. The mythology is fascinating. Soon, it grows dark. I notice it, but I’m not really thinking consciously about it. It’s a minor background detail in a life that’s not currently my own.
I only return to my own body when it begins to rain. The droplets land on the page and cover the lenses of my glasses, making it impossible to read. I close the book and stick it inside my shirt. It’s uncomfortable, but this way I know the book won’t fall into the lake and get ruined. Then I look down at the rail. It’s covered it water, making it slick and wet.
I haven’t been caught in the rain yet this summer, and it’s coming down hard and fast, beating against my arms and my back. There’s a good chance that I’ll slip and fall if I get down the way I climbed up, but it’s the only way down besides trying to jump onto the dock and it’s the obviously safer choice. So I crouch on the branch facing away from the dock and let one leg down, dangling it above the water. Then I force the other leg down, leaning my pelvis forward onto the branch for balance. The pressure hurts, but it’s a familiar pain and a pleasant one. I look down under the branch and see my legs, the water and the dock.
Everything looks gray and pale in the rainy evening light. I grope around with my feet for the rail until my foot touches it and then I use what little strength I have in my arms to let myself down from the branch onto the rail. I nearly slip and fall into the water below, but I wave my arms to steady myself.
As I do, my little stainless steel keychain of the eiffel tower drops and I hear the little splash. I turn around and hop down from the railing onto the dock. Then I get down on my hands and knees and lean over the edge of the dock to look for it, but the droplets hitting the water blurr the surface, making it hopeless to find it.
Oh well, I think, I’ll come back tomorrow to look for it… If Mom ever lets me leave the house again after this.
Hopefully she didn’t go to the library to look for me, because that would be really bad. There’s still a possibility that she doesn’t know I wasn’t even there. The rain is getting harder and harder, and I can hear the distant crackle of thunder.
I take another minute to look for it and as I look something in the corner of my vision catches my attention. Something out on the lake glowing green. I stand up and go to the end of the dock, holding the railing as I peer into the rain and look for it. The reflection of the moon on the lake makes it easier to see things, but the rain is misting over my glasses again. I take them off, and out on the lake I see it. Not one, but two specks of iridescent pine green, almost like headlights, are hovering over the water.
They reflect on the lake, the ripples of the rain distorting the reflection and making their image waver. They grow bigger, drifting slowly closer to me. Something about them seems powerful and I take a step back. As they come even closer, only a few yards away, they begin to have a pale circle surrounding them. Lightning flashes, and the shape makes itself out as a face, and then as a person.
He wades closer and closer, until I can see his features clearly and he’s only feet away from the little dock I stand on. He has the face of any normal teenage boy, except with glowing green irises around his pupils and long pitch-black hair. You’d think the long hair would make it hard to tell his gender, but it doesn’t. His clothes look old, not like a raggedy old, but old in style. He wears an off white shirt, almost a tunic, with billowing sleeves and cuff links. The soaked fabric clings to his slender body translucently. Over the shirt he wears a green suede jerkin with brass buttons. The suede is missing patches of the soft felt-like fur, as if it’s been left in the water for far too long. His eyes illuminate the water around him, so that I can see his legs and feet. For pants he wears old-fashioned, hand-sewn leather trousers. He doesn’t wear any shoes at all, and his feet squish the lake-floor mud into the shape of his feet as he walks.
He’s sort of… handsome, if not for the incandescent eyes that radiate power. His shoulders and chest surface as he wades toward me, until he stands right next to the dock. Then he bends over, plunging his head and shoulders into the water. His eyes illuminate the murky shallows to the point where I can see the bottom of the lake, about three three feet deep.
There, sticking out of the mud, is my little keychain. It drifts methodically from left to right with the sloshing waves, only to be interrupted by a fair hand with long, graceful fingers that curve around it; retrieving it. The boy’s long black hair writhes in tendrils through the water like a drowning snake. The boy resurfaces with my keychain in his hand. He rubs the water out of his luminous eyes and brushes his hair out of his face with his fingers. I’m too stunned to do anything but watch as he takes my keychain and wades back out into the water, vanishing from sight.
I stand there for a while after he’s out of sight. Then I come to my senses and jog back out of the forest the way I came, half awestruck and half in a daze. I run until I find myself on the front porch of a little green house that I’m supposed to call home, but it’s so new and alien to me that I don’t even bother trying to think of it that way. My real homes are the forest, my church, and the library; the places where I spend almost every minute that I’m not asleep.
I wring out my hair and try to shake off some of the water so I don’t look as wet as I really am, and then I get rid of all evidence that I was in the woods. I pull leaves out of my hair and kick the dirt off my boots, and then just when I’m reaching for the door knob my mother bursts out of the front door. Then she practically drags me into the house for interrogation.
I’m going to die, I think frantically. Then I scour my mind for an excuse for being out way too late.
“Well?!” Mom demands, “Don’t you have some excuse for being out so late? It had better be good.”
Exactly what I was thinking…
“I’m sorry Mom, I just got lost in a good book and didn’t check the time. I wasn’t near a window, so I didn’t see when it got dark. I totally spaced it, and I’ll be more responsible next time,” I say promisingly. She just rolls her eyes and walks into the kitchen. I follow her, just because I’m pretty sure that’s what she wants.
“Sit down,” she says, “Your curfew is being cut early by an hour. It’s three hours past when you were supposed to be home! I said six o'clock, and you came home at nine! Do you know how worried I was?”
“I’m sorry Mom--” I start, but she cuts me off.
“So then, I called the library and do you know what they said?!”
This gets my attention and I’m filled with dread. “Umm….no.”
“They said you weren’t there! You can’t just go to Ivy’s house without telling me! You had me worried sick! Do you understand, Willow?”
Actually, I don’t understand. I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. Ivy’s my only friend in town. I met her at church, we talk on the phone but I don’t know her all that well and I’ve never been to her house before. In fact, I don’t even know where she lives, but I don’t let that slip. This is saving my butt from grounding.
“I understand,” I say, and hang my head in guilt.”
“Now go take a warm bath and change into your pajamas,” she orders. Her motherly instincts are taking over her lecture.
I run the bath and sit in it for a while, just singing and thinking about life and such, until Dad bangs on the door and demands that I get out so he can use the toilet. He accuses me of wasting time, when he’s the one who sits on the toilet for an hour at a time playing cut the rope on his tablet. Gross, right? I hop out and turn on the drain, and then I wrap myself in my towel and run upstairs to put on pajamas I pull on my pajama bottoms and have just got on my shirt when the phone rings downstairs. I run down and pick it up.
“Hello?” I say.
“Hey, is this Willow?” Asks Ivy.
“Yeah,” I reply, taking the phone back upstairs to my room where I climb up the bunk ladder and plop down on my bed. It doesn’t have a bottom bunk. Hopefully I’ll get some sort of answer about how my butt was saved.
“I was just sort of wondering… Umm, what were you doing while I was covering for you?”
“Oh, thank you!” I praise, “So it wasn’t just my mom being insane. I was… well, it’s a long story.”
“I deserve to know where you were. I told your mom that I picked you up from the library,” she insists.
“Where’d did you see my mom?” I ask her.
“I didn’t.” She replies, confused. “Oh, she called to see if you were here. She figured since I’m one of the only people in town who knows you that you might have been here. So I told her that I picked you up from the library, and that I had no idea that she hadn’t said it was okay. Then she asked if she could talk to you.”
“What did you say?!”
“I said you were in the bathroom and that you’d be out in a minute and she said ‘Oh that’s fine, just have her call me later.’ So I told her you said you were gonna walk home. She asked if she should pick you up, but I said you wanted to walk. Then when it started raining she called again and said she was going to come get you, so I told her you already left. It’s a good thing you got home when you did or she would’ve known I was lying!”
“I’m sorry, Ivy. Thanks for covering for me. I owe you one, big time,” I say sincerely.
“Are you gonna tell me what the hell you were up to?!”
“I was… hiking. In the woods by our house, I just walked to the lake and sat there for a while. I must have lost track of time is all.”
“Well you owe me one for covering for you, and I might need it soon… I’ll tell you on Sunday. But seriously, hiking?”
Wait what day is it today? I ask myself. Oh, right, friday. Duh.
“Yeah, I was reading a book. I do it almost every day while my mom thinks I’m at the library. I do stop at the library for books, so it’s not a total lie,” I say defensively.
“Right… Willow, you’re gonna be in so much trouble when she catches you,” says Ivy disapprovingly.
“Well, she’s not gonna catch me.”
“You don’t know that. Honestly, Willow, is hiking really worth telling lie after lie to your parents? I mean, it’s not as bad as what I thought I was covering for so that’s good… but still.”
“What? What did you think you were covering for?”
“Umm, well…”
“Oh!” I realize.
I crack up, giggling hysterically until it hurts my lungs. Ivy laughs too and then Dad yells up the stairs that he’s trying to sleep and that I need to go to bed. So I say goodbye to Ivy and thank her again for the back up. I promise I’ll do whatever it is she wants me to on Sunday. Then I lay down and pull the covers over me. I have to find out who (or what) I saw at the lake today. I slide my laptop out from under my pillow and sign in, but when I try to open my internet browser, it’s disconnected. Dad probably turned it off as a punishment for my being out so late.
There’s no point in trying to turn it back on, because if I get caught it’ll just be trouble for me, so I turn out the lights, open the window, and climb back into bed. I drift off slowly into a deep, nightmarish slumber.