Present Day
GOODEVILLE, ILLINOIS—SALEM COUNTY
One
Goode Lake was postcard perfect with its tree-lined banks and sandy shores that gradually sloped into the crystal blue water. The lake always looked good, but somehow today it looked better. Maybe it was because today was Hunter Goode’s sixteenth birthday. Or maybe it was because Hunter was looking for a reason to procrastinate. Either way, she had charged down to the edge of the water, towel in hand, shimmied out of her T-shirt and shorts, and now waded into the calm blue.
Goose bumps crested against her skin and she stared down at her feet as the gentle waves consumed more of her. The water reached the high neck of her swimsuit top and she could still see her toes, blurry pale orbs against the camel-colored sand. Another few steps and they were gone, swallowed by the rich navy of the deep water, and Hunter was floating.
She lifted her legs, stretched out her arms, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes against the piercing sunlight. Her ears plunged beneath the surface as she drifted on her back. The dull whoosh of water was an active kind of quiet. The sort of roaring silence that made drifting off to sleep more of a command than a choice. And, for Hunter, this forceful silence was always welcome. It kept her from her thoughts. Better yet, it kept her from her memories.
A boat motor stirred the water and roared through Hunter’s reverie. She shielded her eyes and let her legs sink back into the water. The red-and-black boat circled the far side of the lake before it returned to the center. Its belly smacked the water as it jumped its own white-capped wake. A chorus of whoops and cheers erupted as the boat slowed and bobbed on top of the surging water.
A wave slapped Hunter in the face, and she wiped her eyes before squinting at the boat and its passengers. Its five passengers. Hunter blinked more water from her eyes. Five male passengers. And one of them was waving at—
“Hey!” The only shirtless member stood on the row of seats flapping his arms like a goose. “You go to Goode High, right? You’re a Mustang.”
The boat drifted closer to Hunter. She stared back at the five young men who looked at her expectantly. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her heart was lodged inside her throat and her pulse hammered against her eardrums. She dove under the water and swam back to the safety of the sand and her towel and the clothes she’d stripped off when she knew no one was watching. Her chest ached for oxygen, but she kept swimming. She could hear them laughing. It rang louder than her pulse and the roaring silence. In middle school, she’d been everyone’s favorite joke. Two years later, she still expected to be.
Hunter’s lungs forced her above water. She gasped for air and crawled from the lake, nearly collapsing onto her neatly folded towel and pile of clothes. She didn’t want to look back at the boat, at the boys, and see them pointing and staring, but she had to. The joke wasn’t complete until she did.
Hunter’s eyes burned. She shook away the tears. Crying only made things worse. She plucked her thin rope cord from the pile and squeezed the T-shaped opalescent pendant in her fist as she swept her gaze over the settling waves and back to the boat. The guys were dancing. Another had removed his shirt and was twirling it over his head. They turned up the volume and a fast, staccato beat reached Hunter as the motor roared and they took off.
Hunter’s pent-up breath came out in staggered wheezes, and she dropped to her knees. They hadn’t been laughing. Not at her, at least. The tears came then, and she let them. They splattered against the shore, painting the sand a deeper shade of tan. Maybe this next phase of her life would be different.
She dried her eyes, wrapped her hair in her towel, and tugged her shorts on over her swimsuit bottoms. Her necklace dangled from her fingertips as she threw her T-shirt over her shoulder and headed toward the dock. She was alone again, and it was perfect.
The weathered boards of the dock creaked as she shuffled to the row of three chaise lounge chairs and the faux leather–bound journal she’d abandoned for the blue waters of Goode Lake. Hunter shook out her towel-dried hair and pulled it back into the high ponytail she always wore before tugging on her T-shirt and collapsing into her chair. She opened her journal and fastened her necklace around her neck. She smoothed her fingers over the pendant and stared down at the blank unlined pages, unnervingly white under the bright April sun. She slid her pen from its holder and clicked and unclicked the retractable top. In the three weeks she’d owned the faux leather–bound book, all she’d managed to write was one sentence underneath her name, which she’d erased, written again, erased again and finally written it, HUNTER GOODE, in black marker on the worn page. She hadn’t written her name incorrectly, it just wasn’t … right.
That’s what held Hunter back now, the not rightness of everything she wanted to say. She was supposed to author the next great American novel and, until she’d purchased the journal from the cute paper and craft store on Main Street, she’d thought she’d be at least halfway finished doing exactly that. She had already chosen a title and character names. Weren’t those the most difficult parts?
Hunter rubbed the opalescent jewel hanging from the thin rope cord around her neck. The dip in Goode Lake was supposed to clear her head, but it’d only managed to stir up feelings she so desperately tried to keep tamped down. The deep purplish-pink core of the pendant spun like a top. It always did when she was this perplexed, like her confusion was a blender, her body the power source, and her budding magic a milky purple-pink smoothie.
She pressed the swirling gem against her palm and gazed up at the sky. Puffy white clouds floated above the lake. There were too many for her to see the moon’s ghostly imprint against the pale blue. Without the moon, her moon, daytime often felt like Hunter’s nemesis. She never should have left her tarot cards at home.
Hunter sighed and let her necklace drop against her chest. It stopped churning as soon as it left her fingers. It was weird how it couldn’t sense her magic through a simple layer of cotton. Perhaps there wasn’t enough of it. She smoothed down a few frayed strands of rope. After tonight, she’d be practically overflowing with enough magic no T-shirt would be able to get in its way.
A sharp, chittering meow lifted the hairs on the back of Hunter’s neck. Seconds later, a brown, black, and white Maine coon pounced on the end of Hunter’s chaise. She curled up next to Hunter’s feet and yawned, the points of her sharp teeth glistening in the sunlight as she stretched her large paws and kneaded Hunter’s shin. Xena was always popping up around town to check on Hunter. It was as comforting as it was stalkerish.
“Thanks for getting me back on track, Xena.” Hunter set the point of her pen against the white page. After all these weeks she was finally doing it. She wrote the word title in loopy cursive and dotted the i with a perfectly drawn star.
Copyright © 2021 by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
