Let It Be

Chapter 12

(It's about to go down, ya'll!)

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When we got back from trick-or-treating there was half an hour left before the sun was all the way set. As the boys sorted through their treats with Birdie, I went back to my room to catch up with more homework to keep myself busy until I had to be at the haunted house.

I was scooting all of my school junk off the futon when I noticed Sam's wallet wedged between the metal bars. Dang it. He must have dropped it.

Sam didn't answer when I called his cell phone. I left a message, but just decided to drop it off on my way to the haunted house gig.

I wiped the whiskers off my face, because if I ran into Emile, I didn't want his first impression of me to involve eyeliner drawn all over my face, and hopped in my car and headed to the outskirts of town.

From the school directory, I found that Sam and his cousin lived out in a secluded area, not in the more suburban neighborhood the Scott's did. I knew the general area Sam lived in, but I had never seen the house. As I pulled up to the long driveway, I was pleased to see that it was perched on a small, ancient grove of weeping willows. It was charming and homey and inviting.

My car hiccupped loudly when I stopped it in front of the house. I walked up the porch and knocked on the front door a few times, ringing the doorbell after a couple of minutes, but no answer. Sam said that he was having that movie night at home with Emile. So where could they be?

I noticed that set back from the front yard, there was a small apartment disconnected from the house. Hm. Maybe they were there? Maybe it was an entertainment room and they were huddled in the dark, watching Psycho or It or one of the millions of Saw movies. I walked over to it and knocked. No answer.

I looked around cautiously, trying to choose a spot to leave the wallet for Sam to find when he came home. Instead, I decided to peak around to the backyard to see if anyone was there. I walked around the edge of the wraparound porch to the grove that made up the backyard. "Sam?" I called hesitantly.

When no one responded, I walked into the yard. Dark shadows of twilight were gathering in the trees, making it hard to see if anyone was back there. As I was contemplating my options, I noticed that there was an ancient storage shed hiding behind a stray weeping willow. The door was open, so I assumed Sam was in there.

I knocked on the open threshold before stepping inside, calling Sam's name again. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I realized that it looked like some of the antique boutiques I had seen in home decorating TV shows. It was littered with old furniture and boxes of yellowing papers and out of date knick-knacks that looked like they hadn't been touched for years. Spider webs and dust covered the cloths that were draped over some of the pieces of furniture. Man, there was a lot of stuff.

But no Sam.

I took a minute to admire the antiques scattered around. Where had he and his cousin gotten all of it? Why would two young men have all of this? I stumbled and stubbed my toe on a freestanding copper bathtub that almost prevented me from entering the shed. It was double the size of the one in Birdie's master bathroom, and while I contemplated the fact that I could practically swim in it, I realized that it was filled with water.

Despite my assumptions, the water was completely clean and pure, unlike its surroundings. It seemed to be moving, faint rings moving across the surface like a leaf had fallen into a pond. But there was no breeze inside the shed, nothing dripping from above. I reached out my hand to feel it. It was pretty.

"ABBY, DON'T!" Sam screamed when he spotted me, having just come down the path back from the grove. I jumped in surprise and whipped around to face him to explain myself, but my foot got caught in a cloth on the ground, causing me to lose my balance.

I fell back into the bathtub.

The bathtub was just as deep as I assumed. The water was surprisingly thick and cool, but then it started swirling around me, getting faster and harsher by the second. It was like a Jacuzzi on hurricane mode, but it wasn't a Jacuzzi: it was only an old fashioned bathtub. It was like the water was doing it on its own. As it rushed around me, it seemed to be whispering to me, almost singing softly as if it were alive.

It suddenly started hearting itself up at an incredible rate and started to burn my skin, and I stumbled about in the water, trying to get out. The water churned and continued to get hotter and hotter until I thought I couldn't stand it anymore, then suddenly dropped back to its original temperature, soothing my skin and making it tingle.

Before I even had the chance to pull my head out of the churning water, Sam had grabbed me and pulled me out of the tub with intense strength. He dumped me on the ground with a wild, urgent gait as I coughed, feeling so very confused.

"Abby, what are you doing?" he cried. "I told you never to come here!"

I looked down at my hands in displeasure and pain. "Ow..."

Looking back up at Sam, brushing my damp locks of hair out of my face, I was surprised to see that he was kind of shining with a gold glow around him. I rubbed my eyes, but it didn't go away. "Why are you all shiny?" I asked innocently.

I flinched when Sam started to yell at me again as a man I assumed was Emile, who also had the shininess about him, ran up from behind. "What happened, Sam?"

"She fell in!" he shouted.

Emile's face fell in an instant. "What?"

"She was only in a few seconds; I pulled her out as fast as I could."

"Did she go all the way under?" Emile demanded.

"I'm not sure, I think so."

Confused and still quite shocked, I stood up and interrupted the arguing cousins. "Um, I sort of have to go now. Sam, here's your wallet." The leather was sopping, cards probably ruined. Oh well. Wasn't my fault.

"Abby, wait."

I tried to turn around anyways, but my feet stood where they were. I tugged at them, but they stayed perfectly rooted to the ground. That's weird, I thought, but figured that my body was being weird because of the shock of the strangeness of what had happened. "Really, Sam, I need to leave." My legs relaxed again, letting me move, and I started for my car.

"Hold on a second, Abby." My body froze for a moment again, but then relaxed. It was like my bones had turned to stone for a second, just like he'd asked. I wasn't going to stick around to let Sam do that again. I'd had enough of men commanding me to last a lifetime.

My legs free again, I hesitated for a minute, and then slowly began to slip back toward my car as Sam and Emile argued in anxious tones. They didn't even notice I had left until the door whined on its hinges when I slammed it shut and started the ignition. They both bolted toward the car, which I immediately threw into gear and raced down the driveway.

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What do you think that was all about? What do you think is going on? Let me know, I'd love to hear your theories!