the spray soaks us and we both cower in the bottom of the rocking boat. I feel, rather than see, something pass overhead very close to us, causing Suzy to squawk with alarm.
‘What is it?’ I shout.
Iggy makes no attempt to answer.
I raise my head to see the sixth splash on the other side of the canoe. The seventh is much smaller. Whatever is causing it is becoming less forceful. There’s an eighth splash, then a swoosh of water that washes over the jetty then … just nothing. Nothing but the darkening sky, the purple lake, the black-green of the surrounding forest …
… And silence, broken only by the slapping of rippling waves on the side of the canoe.
Eventually, Iggy straightens up and says ‘Good Lord! Did you see that?’, but I don’t know what we saw so I just end up moving my mouth without making any sound.
There’s nothing to see now, anyway: whatever caused the splashes must have sunk, but only about ten metres from the shore, where the water is shallower and fairly clear. Together, we paddle towards the spot: perhaps, despite the gathering darkness of the afternoon, we’ll be able to shine a light into the water and see something?
As we get closer, I hear a humming noise, and we stop, allowing the canoe to drift as I turn my head to hear better.
‘Listen,’ I hiss. ‘That’s it! The noise I heard on the night that Tammy disappeared.’
There it is again. A low hommmmm like a bee trapped behind a window, but almost inaudible.
Staring again in the direction of the sound, the surface of the water appears disturbed, and sort of indented, as though a huge glass plate is resting on the lake near the jetty, but it’s hard to make out in the half moonlight.
Then, as we drift closer to the shape in the water, the nose of the canoe bumps into something. Probably another floating log, I think, but when I look there’s nothing. Nor is there a rock. I take hold of the paddle again and stroke it through the water, but we are stopped again with a bump, by some kind of object we can’t see. From the sound the canoe makes, it’s as if this object is in front of us, sticking out of the water, but that’s impossible because we can’t see anything but air.
‘What is that? What’s stopping us, Tait? What are we hitting?’
When the canoe bumps into nothing for the third time, I decide to change the route and paddle around the triangle of smooth water. I stop before the canoe reaches the shore, then I turn back to look.
‘Pass me the spinner, Tait,’ says Iggy.
He takes the large fishing lure from me carefully, avoiding the vicious hooks, and pushes a tiny button on it, activating the laser light that is supposed to attract fish. He points it in front of us, towards whatever it is that we’re not seeing.
‘Oh my word. Would you look at that?’
I’m looking. The green beam of light heads straight out across the lake, takes a sharp left turn, then curves around to go straight again. Iggy moves the light and it does the same – deflected by something we cannot see.
I find a pebble on the floor of the canoe and toss it towards where Iggy is pointing the light. There’s a dull ping and it bounces back towards me, landing in the water with a plop.
It is exactly as though it had hit a pane of glass, only there’s no glass there. I throw another pebble and it does the same. Opening Iggy’s fishing tackle bag, I take out a big lead weight and throw that, hard. Same result.
We’re both freaked out by now. Then the humming lowers in tone, the water before us seems to churn up slightly, and the shape on the water heads towards our canoe.
‘Move! It’s coming for us!’ yells Iggy.
We both reach down for the same paddle, causing the canoe to lurch sharply to one side. In one smooth movement, Iggy and I are tipped into the dark water and we don’t even have time to shout out.
The cold doesn’t hit me immediately, but as I plunge beneath the surface I suck in half a lungful of water, and come up spluttering and weighed down by my heavy jacket and sweater. I’m just able to keep my face above the surface and that’s when I gasp at the freezing cold.
Between gasps, I call out, ‘Ig … Iggy!’ I think about us not wearing life jackets, and I’m consumed with fear.
A ball of red hair bobs up next to me, followed by Iggy’s terrified face.
‘Ah … ah … I’m here.’ He grabs on to me. ‘We go … gotta go. That thing’s ge … ge … getting closer.’ He can hardly speak with the cold. He starts to swim for the shore, then stops. ‘Wh … where’s Suzy?’ As he says the name, there’s a thumping from inside the upturned canoe.
‘Suzy!’ cries an anguished Iggy, and before I can say anything, he’s bobbed under the surface.
Seconds go by while I feel my clothes getting heavier and I am properly scared.
‘Iggy!’ I shout, and I turn a circle in the water. ‘Iiiiiggyyyy!’
I’m ready to scream again, when there comes a splash from beside the canoe. Iggy’s head reappears and next to it are the sodden red feathers of Suzy, who looks very startled.
I have ended up closer to the jetty than Iggy, and I’m finding it easier to swim than he is because he’s carrying Suzy. I heave myself up the slippery iron ladder, weighed down by my soaking clothes. I look back and that is when I notice the strange, half-visible shape on the surface of the water moving and getting closer to Iggy.
Iggy is only about fifteen metres away and I can see the look of sheer terror on his face as he realises what’s going on.
‘Swim, Iggy. Swim! D-don’t look back. Just swim!’
But he does look back and I think he’s frozen in terror for a second. Holding Suzy’s head up, he starts thrashing with his other arm and kicking with his legs.
‘Come on, Iggy! Come on – you can make it!’
Ten metres. Five. I can hear the humming noise now as whatever is making it cuts across the surface, getting closer with every stroke Iggy makes. I stretch out my hand.
‘You can make it – come on!’
Then he screams and, with a gurgle, lets go of Suzy and disappears below the black surface of the water.
Iggy reappears above the surface a few seconds later, making terrified noises. ‘It … it … got … got …’ He seems to struggle with something below the surface as if his legs are tangled.
Amazingly, his glasses have stayed on. He manages to get hold of Suzy and, one-armed, flaps the last two metres to the jetty, where I haul him up by his arm.
‘My
