Chapter 7

That night, Luke's sleep was restless, filled with wild dreams. When he woke in the morning, he was exhausted.

Luke dragged himself downstairs to breakfast and slumped into a chair.

"Rough night?" Fisher laughed reaching over to tossle Luke's chestnut brown bedhead. Luke yawned and nodded.

"There you are, lazy bones. I was wondering if you were going to sleep all day," Aunt Sassy said, coming in from the kitchen. She set a plate of steaming blueberry pancakes and crispy thick cut bacon in front of him.

"There's a big pile of rope in the barn. You think you could untangle it for me?" Uncle Ed asked Fisher. Fisher nodded with a mouthful of breakfast.

Luke tagged along with Fisher to the barn. Fisher the open the big door and a cloud of dust and straw wafted into the rafters. Sunlight poured in through the little windows, illuminating the particles that floated through the air. The rope pile sat in a corner like a pile of coiled sleeping snakes. Fisher scratched his head, trying to figure out where to start untangling it. He grabbed a handful of rope and inched it through his hands until he came to the end then handed the frayed rope to Luke.

"Remember when I fell in the lake?" He asked. Fisher continued to pull out the length of rope from the heap, and Luke wound it into a neat circle on the ground.

"Yeah, scary day. It was so weird. You were just sitting at the table and then you disappeared. We had the whole family out looking for you. You're lucky my dad saw your boots on the pier and the bubbles in the water or you'd have been a goner." Luke stood up and rested his fist on his hip. "Why did you even go down there? It was like forty degrees that day."

"I remembered yesterday. I saw a girl outside and went out to play with her."

"What girl? There weren't any girls. We only have boy cousins, except for Lily, but she's older than me."

Luke shook his head. "I didn't know her. She had a ball and like, an old fashioned looking dress."

Fisher raised an eyebrow.

"We were playing catch, and the ball rolled into the lake so we went down to get it, but when I got to the end of the pier they were both gone," Luke said.

"Why didn't you come back to the house?"

"Everyone was crying and trying to hug me. It was nice just sitting down there in the peace and quiet."

"Then you just fell in?"

"Not exactly," Luke cleared his throat, searching for words that wouldn't sound crazy. He couldn't think of any. "Something pulled me."

"Probably weeds. They probably wrapped around your ankles."

"Maybe, but I thought I saw something. I reached in to pull it out and something got my arm. It felt like... a hand..."

Fisher tossed his head back in laughter. "Kid, you have a wild imagination."

"But what about the stories? Uncle Al pushed a girl into the pond to take her ball, right? Maybe it... maybe it was her."

Fisher gripped Luke's shoulder and gave him a little shake.

"Listen," he said. "Those are just stories. There aren't any ghosts. I didn't mean to scare you and put crazy ideas in your head."

"But I remembered the girl with the ball before you told us the story."

Fisher sat down on a hay bale and rubbed his face. Luke sat next to him, and waited for him to speak.

"I saw her once. The girl with the ball. I saw her when I was about 6 or 7," Fisher said quietly. "I was out on the deck. But I got scared when I saw her and ran inside." He looked into Luke's eyes. "All these years I thought I imagined it."