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Dead In The Water (Serial)


Crossroads Demon
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Dead In The Water is  Serial Novel I have been working on for a while where I release piece by piece as I go. I figured I would do the same here. Adding new chapters when they're ready.

 

I killed her, I know I did. Everyone said it was an accident, but the look in their eyes says something else. Every look of suspicion, every whisper behind me, reminds me that it couldn't have been an accident. Not if I felt so guilty. Or maybe it had been an accident. Except, even I wasn't so sure of that and supposedly, I'd been there.


I don't remember what happened. She was there and then she was gone; seconds had determined life and death. I don't know how we'd got there in the first place. I didn't remember taking the boat out that morning, or why I would have with the fog so dense. The first and only memory I had of that day, had been a resonating splash as her body hit the water. By the time I'd turned around, she was gone.


I'd jumped in after her, but there was nothing to find. They say it was impossible, that far out in the lake for her to just disappear beneath the water. But I had no other explanation. That was how it started, the rumors. I can't even go out on the water now. Not without thinking about her. Which is a problem when you live a lake town, even more of a problem when you live on an Island in the centre of that lake.


I don't get out much these days. If the looks weren't enough; the fear of the water makes sure of it. I wait until the winter, when the lake freezes over and it's safe enough for us to drive across. Even then, I don't go unless I have to. Aunt Lo says it's no life for a young man, but my options are pretty limited. I can't even bring myself to operate a boat anymore. Luckily, we get mostly tourists on the Island and running the lodge is a year-round job.


It was just Aunt Lo and I now. Even though I had never planned to stay here. My Dad always said I was a restless spirit, like my Mamma in that way. I used to think that was a compliment until I was old enough to understand what it meant to be like my Mamma. She'd just left. One night, she tucked me into bed and was gone the next day.


Just like Raven, I'd been the last to see her alive. It was different Aunt Lo said, because Mamma hadn't died, she had just left me behind. She didn't seem to get how that was almost worse. When Dad had died, he had been taken from us, against his own will. Mamma had chosen to leave.


Maybe Raven too had chosen to leave, by throwing herself into the water. Unless that is, I'd pushed her. I don't think I could have done it, but she did have a way of getting under my skin. She was the first woman I'd come to love, and the first one I'd also grown to hate. It was pretty sick, the way she could play with your head, or maybe it had just been my head.


I'd never raised a hand to her before. I didn't think myself capable of raising a hand to anyone, especially not someone I loved. God, I don't even know anymore, the more months pass the less certain I am of what happened that day. The harder I try to remember, the less I can. I guess, like any story, the best place to start is the beginning.

 

 

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I first set my eyes on Raven Ouellette in the sixth grade. She walked into the classroom like she owned the place. Her long dark hair hung straight down her back and her smooth caramel skin was tanned from the summer sun. She looked like an exotic Princess among us common folk.


She wasn't a Princess though. It was soon revealed that much like the rest of us, she was just another kid whose parents didn't want her. Rumors had a way of finding quick ground in this town. They only needed one well-planted seed before they spread like wildfire.


Abandoned kids were nothing new here. We had a bad track record on the Island. Where the kids who had both parents around were considered the abnormal ones. Townies say it was cursed out here, but that never stopped them from storming our beaches in the dead heat of summer.


They call us the Lost Children, the ones who were left behind. I'm always left behind it seems. Something's have a way of repeating themselves and this was one cycle I had been hoping to break. There weren't many homes on the Island to begin with. But many of us were among the Lost Children.


I lived with Aunt Lo at the Lodge. Charlie Drummer lived with his Grandparents behind the beach arcade, 'cause his own Mamma had had him too young to care. The other cluster of kids on the Island were Foster kids that lived at the McLennan house. Four or five kids that came and went as their circumstances changed. Then, there was Raven.


Raven Ouellette had come to live with her Grandmother. A quiet woman who, it soon became clear to me, I'd never actually seen much of before. When I'd been young, whispers had wound around the Island that her dark cottage in the trees was the home of a Witch.

Maybe she was a witch. She certainly never damn smiled that was for sure. Or maybe she was just like the rest of us, lonely. If she ever left her place for food or the like, I certainly never seen her do it. There was one grocery store on the Island that the McLennan's ran. If you wanted anything special you had to order it for the next shipment or take a boat into town.


I used to boat into town whenever I had the chance. Out on the water was the one place we were untouchable. There was no one to judge you, to give you those looks. The time between casting off from the lodge and docking in town, used to be the only time I could ever think clearly. Now, I can't even do that no more.


Raven was never an open person. For every ten secrets I shared, I could maybe drag one out of her. I did know she'd never known much of her Daddy. Her Mamma, like mine, had grown tired of looking after her. She'd figured life on the Island would be the safest alternative. She'd obviously been wrong.


I knew even then, that Raven was trouble.

FIND ME AT 

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