In the Dead of the Night 🏚️ Chapter Five
In which a ghost story is told...
You are reading In the Dead of the Night, a serialized YA novel by Erin Bowman. If you are new to the story, visit the Table of Contents and start at the beginning.
Copyright © 2024 by Erin Bowman.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted without written permission.
The campers arrive sporadically throughout the afternoon. Parents show up in everything from shiny Lexus’s to chrome-rimmed Escapades to drop off their kids. A few even arrive by hired chauffeur. I can’t decide what’s worst: how much money the parents dropped to hire a private driver, or the fact that they’re not even here at drop-off to say goodbye to their own offspring.
The kids are small and eager-looking, all limbs and wide, gleaming eyes. One particularly anxious-looking girl hangs back, hesitant. The returning campers always run off to find their girlfriends, but this girl’s new, I’d bet my paycheck on it. Her mother tells her to buck up and keep smiling, then leaves in a hurry.
“Sometimes it’s hard to keep smiling,” I tell the girl as she struggles to gather all her bags. “Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to just give up. But it will get better, I promise.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy, then stalks toward the cabins. I think she could tell I was lying.
I hope she doesn’t say anything to the staff. The last thing I need is Goodwin on my case, lecturing me about how I’m supposed to be hiding in the kitchen, out of sight, not interacting with the campers.
While Viv (and all the counselors) are off meeting their campers and running team building exercises, I drift down to the beach.
The morning’s fog is long gone, the sun high overhead. A late afternoon stillness has spread across the lake, rendering the water a flawless mirror. If I stare at the opposite bank long enough, it’s hard to see where the world ends and the reflection of shoreline begins.
I slink to the end of the longest dock and sit cross-legged, staring across the lake. On the opposite side, set into a small inlet, is the boys camp, which from this distance looks like little more than a pale stretch of beach. The docks extending extending into the water look like tiny pieces of driftwood. To the right of the beach, there is nothing but pines. To the left, more pines, but also Windsor Camp, an estate set back high among the trees. Overlooking Corwin from its perch on the rocky outcropping, the house appears shrouded in shadows, dark and dreary, but not entirely uninhabitable, even though it’s been deserted as long as I can remember. Campers used to dare each other to sneak into it every year, but no one ever did. I’ve poked around in it only once, just last summer, when my boredom reached epic levels. I’d told Mom I was going kayaking and that was true, but I’d made a pit stop at the estate, traversed up the rocky hillside, and seen what all the fuss was about.
The place is creepy in a way I don’t know how to explain. Empty, but full of something—a feeling, a lingering sense of dread.
Something pinches in my ribs. I shouldn’t be here on the dock. I should be…
I’m not sure where.
Just not here.
The lake’s reflection ripples, and a mallard lands in the swimming area to my right. I shiver despite the heat of the sun, pull my knees to my chest.
I check my watch. Dinner is in an hour. I head back to the kitchen.
After another long stretch of scrubbing, during which I ignore Arlo’s cheerful humming and snarky remarks about my delicate hands, I head to the bonfire. It takes place on the commons, a stretch of open field near Goodwin’s office that offers an impressive view of the lake—and Windsor Camp. From here, in the fading sunlight, you almost feel level with the estate, whereas down on the beach, you have to look up at it.
The campers are gathered together, chattering and giggling. There’s an obvious divide between them and the staff on the other side of the fire pit.
I spot Viv from a distance, talking with Jocelyn and Gretta and a few other counselors I don’t know. She’s got her hair pulled back into a stubby tail, the pink ends standing out form the timid shades of blonde, brunette, and black surrounding her. I know joining everyone could result in unpleasant stares and uncomfortable questions. An evening breeze nudges at my back and I take it as a sign that it’s worth the risk. I let myself be carried along the path and up to the bonfire like a skittish leaf.
“It’s haunted, didn’t you know?” Jocelyn’s saying. She’s twirling a section of her glossy black hair around her forefinger, her eyes locked on the house across the lake.
“Haunted,” Viv says doubtfully.
“Tell her, Joce,” Gretta nudges.
Jocelyn stands a bit straighter. “It burned down,” she says dramatically, firelight playing over her features.
“And was rebuilt?” Viv’s eyes drift back to the estate. In the fading daylight, it’s only barely visible.
“Half of it burned,” Jocelyn corrects. “You can’t see it from here, but the front of the house…the bit that faces the road? It’s charred black. Kids sneak in and have campfires in the ruined ballroom, and sometimes squatters live there too. We snuck in last summer on a dare from the boys’ camp. The county came and boarded the place up a couple years ago, but you can still get in if you’re determined.”
“My cousin broke in last fall,” one of the girls I don’t know offers up. “He said he heard voices. And all the crosses are turned upside down on the walls.”
“It burned but there’s still crosses on the wall?” Viv asks.
“Half of it burned,” Jocelyn snaps. “Gosh, why is this so hard for you to grasp? Go spend a night there and see for yourself. The place is creepy as fuck. And the cross thing makes sense. The place burned during an exorcism.”
Viv’s brows peak, finally intrigued.
“The Windsor’s had one daughter, Avery Jane,” Jocelyn continues, a smile creeping over her face as Viv leans nearer. “Avery was a child pageant star down south. Her family came up here every summer from Georgia and one year, when Avery was like eleven or twelve, she refused to visit the lake. She spent every second in the ballroom, dancing the waltz with an invisible partner and muttering things in some made-up language. When her parents tried to drag her out of the ballroom, her eyes rolled back and she started screaming for them to let her go, only it wasn’t her voice coming out, it was a someone else’s.”
Viv bristles. The other girls nod seriously.
“A bunch of doctors made house calls, only to be chased out by mysterious blasts of wind and threatening voices. Finally the only person who agreed to see her was the local priest. He said Avery was possessed and the only option was to banish the demon living inside her. But I guess the demon had other plans, ‘cus in the middle of the exorcism, Avery threw herself on the ground and started writhing and screaming that she was hot—burning up inside. Next thing the Windsors knew, the whole ballroom was engulfed in flames. By the time the fire department got there, half the house was gone. Everyone inside was killed. Later, during the police investigation, they found that the ballroom doors had all been locked.”
I can’t take it anymore; the lies and exaggerations, the way that poor family’s tragedy has been turned into entertainment. It all feels a little too close to home.
“I’ve been in that place before,” I cut in. “It’s not haunted, just creepy. The Windsors were super religious and I bet teens breaking in flipped the crosses. And I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that the fire was an accident. The Windsors left some candles burning or something. There wasn’t an exorcism.”
Everyone’s head swivels around to face me.
“Hey, Nell, when’d you get here?” Viv asks.
Jocelyn doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. “That place is seriously disturbing,” she insists, staring at Viv. “You really don’t believe me?”
“No, not really,” Viv says with a shrug.
Rage flickers over Jocelyn’s face—there and gone so quickly I wonder if perhaps it was a trick of the firelight. Because now she’s smiling and laughing and asking who wants to make s’mores. She grabs sticks and marshmallows and passes them out. When she reaches me, she happens to be one short. “Oh, sorry. Guess I didn’t grab enough,” she says in her sweetest voice.
“That’s okay. I’ll go steal one for myself.”
“I bet you will. You’re family’s good at that.”
I force a smile like it doesn’t bother me, like it’s only words. But when I get to the s’mores table, I’m practically shaking.
“Hey, Manhattan.” Arlo offers me a marshmallow and a roasting stick. The mallow puff sits there on his extended palm, his black nail-polished fingers encircling it like a tiny cage.
“I have a name, you know,” I snap.
“Do you? You never introduced yourself.”
“You called me by my name when we first met. I know you know who I am, but instead I’m just Manhattan. Because apparently this is all a big joke. Apparently my life being a giant dumpster fire is a joke to anyone who isn’t living it.”
He cocks a brow up. Moves the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Easy there, Nell. I’m just trying to be nice.” He holds the marshmallow out a bit farther. “You want this or not?”
I snatch it off his palm and chuck it directly into the fire. It goes up in flames, engorging then melting then charring black.
“Where you going?” he calls as I sulk off.
“To bed. I don’t need this.”
And I don’t.
I head back to Cabin #8 and climb into my bunk. Face the wall. Shiver and pull the blankets high above my chin. Outside, branches scratch at the cabin’s siding. The wooden structure groans and creaks. There’s a dampness to the evening air that permeates, sneaking through the cracks in the cabin and soaking into my bones.
The girls come back in a bit later, laughing and tripping as they kick off their shoes.
“Nell, you still up?” Viv asks.
I pretend to be asleep.
They go about washing up for the night, the soft light leaking from the bathroom, and then the cabin is swallowed in darkness.
Soon it’s quiet, the three of them dreaming like mummies in coffins, me the only soul unable to sleep despite being so damn tired. I stare at the ceiling and pray for it to come.
Finally, finally, it pulls me under.
Chapters 6-10 are now published. Poll results for the trail/hike which offers stunning views of Corwin Lake are below.
When are the next chapters dropping?
Really enjoying this story, Erin!!