Free The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron Page B

years. Especially around the lake."
        "Really? Like who?"
        "All kinds. There was the married couple who bought a washing machine in Sequim and were last seen a mile or so from where we are right now. Those two vanished in 1955 and it's still a mystery where they went. Back in 2005, an amateur detective supposedly found the lid to the washer in two hundred feet of water near a swimming hole called The Devil's Punch Bowl. The kid got pretty excited about his find; he planned to come back with more equipment and volunteers, but he hasn't, and I doubt he will. It wouldn't matter anyway. Then there's Ambulance Point. An ambulance racing for the hospital crashed through a guardrail and went into the drink. The paramedics swam away from the wreck, but a logger strapped to a gurney in the back of the ambulance sure as hell didn't. Every year some diver uncovers the door handle to a Model A, the bumper from a Packard, the rims to something else. Bones? Undoubtedly, a reef of them exists somewhere in the deep. We won't find them, though. Like the old timers say: the mistress keeps those close to her heart. Some say the souls of those taken are imprisoned in the forms of animals-coyotes and loons. When a coyote howls or a loon screams, they're crying to their old selves, the loved ones they've lost."
        Lourdes's eyes were wide and gleaming. "You actually wrote an essay about this?"
        "Yep."
        "You must email it to me when I get home!"
        "You got it kiddo."
        Bernice was getting ready to turn in for the night when Dixie laughed with Lourdes and said, "That's a great idea. Bernie, you in?"
        "On what?"
        "A seance."
        "I've studied the occult," Lourdes said with a self-conscious flush. "I know how to do this."
        "Black magic an elective across the pond, is it?"
        "No, me and some friends just play around with it for fun."
        "She looks so normal, too," Bernice said to Karla and Li-Hua.
        Li-Hua shook her head. "Forget about it. No way."
        "I'm game," Karla said. "I attended a couple of seances in college. It's harmless. What night could be better?"
        "Think of the memories," Dixie said. "When's the last time we've done anything wild?"
        "Yeah, but you go to El Salvador while we effete gentry glut ourselves and sail around on yachts during summer vacation," Karla said. "Don't the locals believe in ghosts and such? Surely you see funky goings on?"
        "From a distance. I'm not exactly brave."
        "Pshaw. No way I could stomach the dozen inoculations you've gotta get to enter those countries. Nope, I'm white bread to the core."
        "Well, I'm with Li-Hua. I'm tired and it's silly anyway." Bernice stood and went out to the porch. The wind ripped across the water and roared through the trees. She shielded her eyes from a blast of leaves and pine needles. Her hair came free of its barrette and she wondered how crazy that made her appear. Getting in a nightcap smoke was out of the question. She gave up, all but consumed with irritability. Her mood didn't improve when she slammed the door and threw the bolt and discovered Dixie, Karla, and Lourdes cross legged in a semicircle on the floor.
        Li-Hua had crawled into her bunk and sat in shadow, her arms folded. She patted the covers. "Quick, over here. Don't bother with them."
        Bernice joined her friend. The two shared a blanket as the fire had diminished to fading coals and the room was colder by the moment. "This is simply…" she struggled for words. On one hand, the whole seance idea was unutterably juvenile-yet juxtaposed with her recent bout of nerves, the ominous locale, and the sudden storm, it gained weight, a sinister gravity. Finally, she said, "This is foolish," and was immediately struck by the double meaning of the word.
        Ultimately, the ritual proved anticlimactic. Lourdes invoked the spirits of Aunt Dolly and others who'd drowned