The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb Read Free Book Online

had pushed sleep away. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, trying to coax slumber back from wherever it had gone, but my thoughts ran wild, from my mother to William Archer’s letter to Mira’s suspicious eyes. The numbers on the clock glowed 4:15. I finally gave in; there would be no more sleep tonight. I slipped on my robe andpadded over to the window seat, covering my legs with an afghan as I leaned back against the pillows.
    There wasn’t the whisper of a wave; the lake was so calm it seemed as though a thin sheet of ice were covering its surface. Moonlight sparkled on the inky water in a long column that stretched as far as I could see. There were a few lights still blinking on the mainland at this hour; most everyone else, apparently, was sensible enough to be in bed.
    Curled up in the window seat, I used the water to calm my racing thoughts, breathing in and out, trying to become as still as its glassy surface. Then, not far off shore, a splash.
    I squinted and saw, plain as day, an arm slowly coming up out of the water. A human arm. Then another. More splashing. Then a head, a face gasping for air. A person was in trouble out there! I jumped to my feet. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? I had been sitting in the window seat for several minutes—maybe longer than that—and I hadn’t seen a boat or a swimmer or . . . anything. That lake had been as still as the grave.
    It didn’t matter. Impossible or not, I knew what I had seen. I fumbled with the bolt on my door, flew out of my room, and pounded down the stairs. “Mira! Call nine-one-one!” I shouted, as I flung open the front door and ran outside to get a better look at what was happening. I hurried down the steps and ran to the edge of the cliff, the chill from the ground stinging my bare feet.
    Mira was beside me almost instantly, portable phone in hand. “Hallie! What the hell—”
    My eyes were frozen on the lake. Instead of the glassy,serene surface I had seen from my window just minutes earlier, the water was now rough and angry. Whitecaps were being whipped up by the stiff wind; the huge waves crashed violently onto the rocky shore below.
How could that be?
    “Hallie!” Mira shook me by the arm, as if to wake me from a dream. “What are you doing out here?”
    I didn’t respond.
    “Let’s get you back inside. You’ll catch your death.” She led me back to the house, closing the front door behind her.
    “I saw—”
    “What, Hallie?”
    I walked over to the window. “I saw a person out there. In the lake.”
    “In a boat?”
    “No, in the water. About a hundred yards off shore. Maybe more.”
    She looked at me, questioning, shaking her head. “That’s impossible. You must’ve been dreaming.”
    “No, really,” I insisted. “I was wide awake. I couldn’t sleep, so I was sitting on the window seat in my room. And all of a sudden I saw a person out there, in the water, trying to come up for air. He seemed to be drowning, Mira. I feel like we should call the police or the Coast Guard or somebody. Only . . .” My words trailed off. I was beginning to doubt what I had seen with my own eyes.
    “Only, what?”
    “When I was looking at the lake from my room, the surface of the water was like glass. It was completely still. And then I went outside . . .” I looked into Mira’s eyes, wantingsome sort of explanation for what had just occurred, some confirmation that winds blow up here in an instant. But she just shook her head.
    “The gales have been blowing all night long. Haven’t you heard it? The whole house has been shaking. I was worried it would keep you up.”
    I didn’t know what to think. “But that person—”
    “Hallie.” She took my hand gently. “There’s no way somebody could have been swimming. Even in summer you can’t swim out there. The water temperature is too cold. People fall off their sailboats and get hypothermia
in August
. At this time of year? Nobody could survive for long in water that