Late Summer, 1985
By the time school started up again, the nightmare had mostly faded.
Ilmo stopped telling people about the boy in the diner. Jaakko avoided the camera like he owed it money. They went back to fishing off the dock, wasting quarters at the arcade, and riding out to the overlook just to dare each other to pee off the cliff.
It was all normal again. Almost.
Because even if you tell yourself it was just a dream, you don't forget the feeling. That pressure in the air, that low hum at the base of your skull when you got too close to certain parts of Cauldron Lake.
Watery had always been a quiet place. A little weird, sure—everybody knew about the lady who lived in the trailer with twenty-seven birds and claimed to be in contact with Elvis. But lately it was getting... nicer. The local paper ran a front-page photo of the lake one morning: golden sunrise, kayakers in bright vests, a pair of loons drifting like props. The headline read: Bright Falls: The Hidden Gem of the Northwest.
More tourists were showing up. Couples with sunglasses and disposable cameras. Hikers looking for peace and quiet. Someone even opened a gift shop on Main Street that sold scented candles named after landmarks. Mosslight Cove. Pine Breath. Midnight Water.
Ilmo hated the candles. They smelled like someone trying too hard to make the woods smell polite.
"Don't you think it's weird?" he said one afternoon, watching a family take pictures by the lake. "They think this place is peaceful."
Jaakko shrugged, chewing on a Slurpee straw. "It looks peaceful."
Ilmo stared out over the water. "But it isn't."
A moment passed in silence. Then Jaakko nudged him with an elbow. "Hey. It was a dream, remember? Just a freaky, bad-sausage kind of dream."
"Yeah," Ilmo said, but didn't believe it. Not really.
Because every now and then, late at night, he'd wake up and think he heard someone whispering outside his window. Or he'd look toward the lake and swear he saw someone standing on the shore. Just a silhouette. Just for a second.
And he'd remember that wet footprint in the diner.
He never brought it up again. But when he passed the lake, he never looked directly into it anymore. He stared at the trees. The clouds. The mountains. Anything but the water. Because if you stared too long, you might see something stare back.