Latham's Landing Read Free

how she
wanted to be closer to the water.”
    “ Well, doesn’t the lake flood that
place when the snow melts in spring? It seems like it would be
underwater, not just close to it. The bridge can’t be more than
five feet above the water.”
    “ This is a man-made lake, made by
Latham. And he made sure it wasn’t going to flood, not unless he
wanted it to.”
    Before I could ask her what she meant by
that, she got to her feet. “Come on, let’s go. It’s way past
lunch.” Her tone turned teasing. “And we wouldn’t want to worry
Fred!”
    I laughed with her, following her back
through the door.
    That’s where the trouble began.
    When we went back inside, we were faced with
a hallway with one door. When we followed it and went through the
door, we came out on another balcony, instead of back to the main
bedroom and central staircase. This balcony had a view of the left
side of the lake. I was surprised to see a few trees near the base
of the house, but otherwise only water, gently lapping a foot below
the house’s base
    We both laughed, and went back the way we’d
come, saying we’d been idiots to pick the wrong way. This time we
climbed a flight of stairs, then descended one, and ended up on the
northern end of the house, on a very small balcony. This one showed
us a slightly closer version of the sheep we’d been admiring. What
it did not do was lead us back the way we’d come.
    I was starting to panic again, but Sandra
retraced our steps until finally we were standing on the original
balcony.
    “ My fault,” she said apologetically. “I
went in the wrong door. There are doors on either end of this main
balcony. It should’ve been the left one, not the right
one.”
    We went through the left door, on the left
side of the balcony, and sure enough, we came out where we were
supposed to be. Whew.
    We went downstairs to the main floor. Again,
something was different.
    “ I don’t remember there being a door
over there,” Sandy said curiously.
    Before I could stop her, she was through it.
I bolted after her, and then smacked into her, stopped only a step
inside.
    “ This is the kitchen,” she whispered.
“This is where it happened!”
    I looked around, seeing a large table in the
center, an old cast iron stove, and a ton of cabinets. On the table
was a small pile of plates, all mismatched.
    The table was covered with a heavy layer of
dust, as was the floor. The plates were not covered with any dust
at all.
    I looked at her, she looked at me, and we ran
for the exit. We both slipped in the dust, tripping over our own
feet, and made it out the front door, shrieking to each other to
move faster.
    “ We should lock the front door!” I
yelled as we ran across the lawn.
    “ Fuck it, we’ll be back tomorrow!” she
yelled, not looking back. “I want to get out of here before it gets
dark!”
    I slowed to a walk and cracked a smile, about
to tell her that it was only six at most. When I glanced down at my
watch, my mouth fell open. It was eight-thirty. In addition, by the
gloom falling over everything, darkness was almost on us.
    We made it to the raft, and waded into the
water, forgetting to take our shoes off. The water was ice cold.
Sandra and I jumped in quickly. She started the engine, and we
roared out of the harbor breathing sighs of relief.
    The journey back seemed to take forever. We
had the boat motor at full throttle, but it seemed as if no matter
how far we went, we weren’t getting any closer to land. The sun
dipped lower and lower on the horizon. We gave each other panicked
looks in the deepening darkness, wondering if we’d be able to see
the dock or if we’d run aground on the rocks. I remembered Fred’s
spotlight and brought it out, though it wasn’t full dark yet. We
made it to the dock just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Fred
was there to greet us.
    “ Damn fool women! Didn’t I tell you to
start for home before dark?”
    “ We did,” Sandy replied grumpily. “It
took us