I’m standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes, when I hear her scream.
My knees lock and I go suddenly upright, drawing in a sharp breath. I glance swiftly up from the hot, soapy water in the sink, losing my grip on a plate that slips from my wet hands and into the basin. Water splashes.
I stand there, rooted to the earth, listening in vain for the anguished sound to come again, or for there to be something else, something that explains it, like tires skidding, the squeal of car brakes, the resident German shepherd (the one that Cass and Mae are both afraid of) barking, or Emily’s voice calling out to see if Mae is okay. But there’s nothing, only silence, which worries me as much as the scream.
Just moments ago, my niece Mae was here, at our little rental cottage. She and Cass had a sleepover last night, sleeping on the double bed under the slanted eaves of the loft, staying up too late watching Disney movies on DVD and gabbing about whatever ten-year-olds gab about. I fell asleep before they did, waking around three in the morning to check on them and finding them both asleep with the TV still on.
Before Mae left to go back to her own cottage, they stood at the front door, giggling and saying goodbye with their sticky, syrupy faces and hands. I stood in the adjoining kitchen, staring out at them, admiring their friendship. Cass and Mae are much more than cousins; they’re best friends, like sisters even. After Mae was gone, I got busy cleaning the small kitchen, asking Cass to go straighten up from their sleepover, and she had, disappearing to the upstairs loft, where the sound of Mae’s scream doesn’t reach.
I’m the only one in the cottage to hear it, and I thank God, because the sound is tortured, carrying across the property, coming in through the open windows, leaving me feeling shaken and eviscerated though I don’t know why, except I’ve never heard Mae scream like that before.
I reach for the faucet handle and turn the water off, drying my hands on a towel as I hurry toward the front door. I see Mae through the open window first, and my heart catches because she’s dashing down the hill and through the trees, back toward us, faster than her small legs can go. Her arms windmill, her hair in her eyes because the wind is pushing from behind. Halfway to me, she trips over something, her feet lifting up from the ground, sending her momentarily airborne before she falls, crashing hard onto the earth. It’s not a soft fall. The ground isn’t grass, but a bed of pine needles and dirt. It looks painful, though Mae doesn’t lie there crying as I would expect her to do, as Cass might do. Instead, she gets back up just as quickly as she went down, glancing over a shoulder in the direction of her own cottage before turning again and running to me.
I step outside, letting the screen door fall closed. Mae comes crashing into me, her arms locking around my waist. “What is it, Mae? What’s wrong?” I ask as she buries her face into my abdomen, sobbing, her hands around my back, holding tight as if wanting to disappear inside of me. My eyes sweep the property, searching for signs of something off—a car (a child predator?) pulling away or the mean German shepherd running loose again—but there’s nothing that I can see. The cottage where we’re vacationing is in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, over five hours north of home. It’s on a lake and is one of eight little cottages situated in hundreds of acres of woods. The lake is peaceful this morning; the only people awake besides the girls and me are fishermen in canoes, like Elliott, my husband, who woke up early this morning and left before any of us were awake, hoping to catch something to put on the grill for dinner.